Fall for me

Chapter three

"Everyone shut the fuck up" I turn and look in the direction the voice is coming from. It's Kolt Phillips, Raken's best friend. Raken is standing next to him with a wide mischievous grin smeared across his face. He looks at me and a chill shrivels up my spine. My entire body runs cold, and as if she can feel it Tristan wraps her arms around my shoulders from behind me. "Okay, now that I have everyone's attention. This is the community bowl." He holds up a giant clear glass bowl for everyone to see. I can't tell exactly what's in it, all I see are a bunch of small oval and circle shaped objects.
"What are those?" I say as much under my breath as I can. "They're a bunch of mixed pills." Stiles says into my ear. It wasn't Tristan who put her arms around my shoulders, it was Stiles. My heart starts racing so fast I feel like it could pump right out of my chest. My hands start uncontrollably shaking, I hold onto the hem of my sweatshirt to force them to stop. Or at least dull them down.
"Oh- What is he going to uh- do with them?" I stutter out. Then it hits me, and I guess it hits Tristan too. "Wait, community bowl?" Tristan steals the words right out of my mouth, I look around my friend group and see a bunch of panicked faces. "Right yeah, if we don't want to do this...we need to go. Like now." Chase says to no one in particular. I move quickly to grab my purse but it's gone. "Don't worry, I already got it." Stiles says while turning and leading everyone out the side door, off the kitchen.
Everyone follows Stiles swiftly and without question. Once we're all safely outside Landon speaks first, "That was fucking wild. What're we going to do now?" I look around at everyone but someone is missing. "Wait, where's Chase?" Chari says. That's the first thing I've heard her say since we got here over an hour ago. An hour, shit I haven't texted my dad yet. I look around until I see Stiles, "Can I have my purse please?" I say with a little nervousness in my voice. For the first time in all my life I'm nervous to talk to Stiles.
I sent him a quick text and put my phone back. "I can take it back if you want. My hoodie pocket is huge." Stiles says while holding out his hand. I hand it over and watch as Chase makes his way out the door. "Oh my god Chase! Where were you?" Charli says louder than anyone was expecting. When Charli drinks she gets loud, and doesn't hold anything back. Everyone's eyes dart to the door as Lindsey walks out fixing her skirt. "Oh, I get it now. It's like THAT." Charli screams. Everyone is looking around trying to figure out what's going on. "What're you talking about? I literally just went to the bathroom on the way out. I don't want your man. He's not even my type, I don't know why you keep getting so bent." Lindsey says completely calm while taking out her phone.
"Babe, you need to chill out. Actually I think I got the perfect thing for that." Chase says with a smirk on his face. Chase really isn't Lindsey's type. Chase has light black hair, pale, and skinny. He's like one element away from being goth. He looks a lot like Landon actually. Landon's hair dyed jet black is parted down the middle and goes to about the middle of his ears. He's pale, skinny, has his nails painted black, and plays guitar. Lindsey's type is blonde, tan, has one brain cell, and a workout buff.
"Come on, we can walk to the waterfall from here. It's only like ten minutes away." Chase says while pulling Charli along. You can tell by the look on her face that she's extremely embarrassed. "Woah dude, we've all been drinking. It's not a good idea to go to the top of a cliff." Stiles said. Stiles, always the level headed one. That's one of the things I love most about him. No matter how upset he is, or what the situation is honestly. He never freaks out, or gets mad. He is the calmest person I know. I think we are a lot alike in that aspect.
"Yeah okay, I get that. But about five minutes down the path there's a fork, one way takes you up...and the other takes you down." Chase says while laughing. He looks around and starts again, " Come on there are nine of us here, nobody is going to let someone drown. We just have to stay together, which we do anyway so it shouldn't be a problem." Stiles looks directly at me, and then nods. Chase raises his arms with victory, and leads us into the woods.
Chase and Charli are leading the way, too far ahead for me to hear what they're talking about. Lindsey, Court, and Auggie are walking together talking about god knows what with Lindsey in the conversation. Tristan and Landon are a few feet in front of Stiles and I, neither of us are really talking. As I'm looking around the woods, something gives me the courage to speak. "So earlier" "I'm so-" Stiles and I speak at the same time. "Sorry, you go first." Stiles says. I let out a giggle and start again. "Sorry, I was just going to finish our conversation from earlier..." I pause but he doesn't make any move to speak.
"Uh- If you didn't want to come to the party... wh- why did you?" I say as my voice betrays me and trembles at the last word. He lets out a gust of air, and I notice that I can't hear the voices or music from the party anymore. He slides his hands down his face as my heart is doing flips in my stomach. "I... I came because you were coming." He says while looking straight at me. "Oh." Is all I can say. We walk a few minutes in silence as I'm trying to figure out what he meant. He probably only came because he felt like he had to protect me or something. That has to be it.
Before I know it my heart is racing and I can feel the blood in my veins pulsing. I feel like there's a boulder sitting on my chest. Then I hear it. The crashing sounds of water. My ears are ringing, and my vision starts to blur, and it feels like my throat is closing.I don't know if I'm just panicking because I'm drunk or if I'm having an anxiety attack. I've never had an anxiety attack before but based on how other people have described them...
"Here we are, the plunge pool." Chase screams when we can finally see the waterfall. The only thing lighting it up so we can see; are the moon and the stars. So that's what I focus on. After a few minutes everything settles and I'm almost back to brand new. I look around and the waterfall is breathtaking. No pun intended. Everyone is kind of doing their own thing. That is until Chase speaks, and god do I wish he would stop. "So who wants to take this night a little further?" He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a clear ziplock bag with what appears to be sticks in it.
"It's weed." Stiles whispers from next to me. I step back a little, startled by his presence. "Jesus! How long have you been standing there?" I say while holding my chest in an attempt to keep my heart in it. "The whole time, are you okay? This is the second time I've seen this happen tonight." I open my mouth to speak but nothing comes out. "Fuck it I'm in." Tristan says with a smile smeared across her face. "Me too." Lindsey says while looking down at her phone, I swear most of the time she doesn't even know what she's agreeing to, but she never cares. Court and Charli look at each other and Charli nods her head.
"Okay, so everyone is in. Cool" Chase says while taking it out of the bag. I can't do drugs, I just can't. I already drank tonight and I don't want to be too messed up. Especially in the woods, and everyone else drinking and smoking. It's just not a good idea. "Nope, not me." I speak up, my voice quivering.
"Come on Erin, I feel like you only ever disagree just so you can get attention. It's starting to get really annoying." Charli says while hooking herself to Chase's arm. "Yeah? You think so? Well, you're an insecure bitch, and I wouldn't be surprised if Chase wanted to cheat on you." I respond back with as much attitude as I can. Charli has been acting like a psychotic person since her and Chase got back together. Don't get me wrong, she's always been super insecure and has never wanted Chase to even talk to us and we've all been friends for years. The last time Chase broke up with her she turned into someone different, more psychotic than before.
"Excuse me? I-" Charli starts but is interrupted. "You seriously can't have a comeback for that." Stiles says while letting out a laugh. I look towards the ground but I can't help myself and look up to his soft honey eyes. My breath hitches when I see that he's already looking at me. I think the first time I realized I loved Stiles was when I was about five. It was the night the iconic picture was taken.
" Come on Erin, I promise we'll keep you safe. You'll never be this young again." Landon says while he has his arms wrapped around Tristan's neck from behind her. Landon has always been a sweet caring soul. Since we were kids. I think that's why Tristan never gets jealous, because she knows he's not trying to come on to any of us, he just loves and cares for us all. It's the same with Chase. Charli just had one too many bad boyfriends before she finally got with Chase. It sucks though, because she always takes it out on him.
I feel bad for what I said to Charli, tomorrow I might even apologize. Not tonight, she has to sit with herself and reflect on the words that she says. She can no longer get a free pass on hurting people because of her own insecurities. I won't allow it. "Fine," I whisper. "Fine, I'll do it." I say louder so everyone can hear me. Stiles eyebrows lift to the ends of his hair when he hears me. This will be very out of character for me, but if I don't like it...I'll never do it again.
Chase lights one up and passes it to Landon and Tristan, he then lights the second one and hands it to me. I watch Tristan to see how I should do it, and then take all of my strength to force the blunt in between my lips. When I pull it away from my lips I taste grapes, and then I taste whatever it is that I smell. I inhale it and let it out through my nose, not meaning to. That causes a whole coughing fit, which is embarrassing to say the least. I hand it over to Stiles, he takes it and hits it with ease. He's definitely done this before. Really, I'm not shocked. He hangs out with Chase all the time, who hangs out with his older brother Joey... who is known for doing drugs, drinking, and getting into trouble. It's always surprised me that Stiles can hangout with people like Joey, he is such an amazing, truly sweet person.
By the time I put out the fire in my lungs Stiles hands me a blunt. I just pass it to Chase without hitting it, I can't put my body through that again. I look back over to Stiles and he has another one in his hand. I look at Chase, who I just handed a blunt to, confused. There has to be more than two going around. I look around and everyone else has kind of ventured off, not far. I can still see everyone but they're all far enough away that I can't hear their conversations.
"Want to try something?" Stiles whispers to me. I'm not sure why because no one is close enough to hear him, even Chase has wandered off. I shrug my shoulders and nod my head. "Okay, it's a lot less harsh this way." He says and takes a big hit of the blunt. I watch him as he inhales the smoke through his nose. He grabs my arm and pulls me close to him. "Wait wh-" I get out before he grabs the back of my neck and pulls me in. Thinking he's going to kiss me I part my lips, but he blows the smoke from his mouth to mine without touching our lips together. Once he's transferred all the smoke he pulls away. I let out the smoke and he was right, it was less harsh on my lungs and my throat. I feel like I got more high off the way I took that hit than the actual weed itself.
I look around our groups of friends to see if anyone had noticed when I make eye contact with Tristan. She smiles at me, looks over to Stiles and then winks. She definitely saw. That was the most intimate thing Stiles and I had ever done. I mean he was my first kiss as I was his. But that was when we were 8, it's been 9 years since that kiss. We were kids, it didn't mean anything back then.
It was the summer before fourth grade. We had been staying at each other's house almost everyday that summer. Normally we hung out with everyone during the day and after dinner we would play a game with only us two. That day was different, we woke up at around 11am and not really in the mood to hangout with anyone else. We took a walk and ended up right here by the waterfall. We played tag until we ran out of breath and in the summer the entire ground around the waterfall is all grass.
We laid in the grass side by side until I abruptly sat up. Seeing that I had sat up he did as well, and I worked up the courage to ask him the question I had been wanting to ask him for days. "Hey, have you ever kissed a girl before?" I said while picking at the blades of lime grass. "No.. have you? I mean not a girl...but a boy?" He said. I remember giggling but responded anyway. "Nope." I rushed out. I tried not to make eye contact with him because it felt weird talking to him about this kind of stuff.
"Do you want to?" he said while moving his hand between us. I got really nervous and my heart started beating really fast. I could feel a bead of sweat sliding down the back of my neck, but I nodded, not trusting my voice to speak. He leaned into me, so I leaned into him. Our lips touch for three seconds, if even that. He pulled away from me, "that was weird" he said. He got up and picked a flower, handed it to me and we walked home.
I look around at my friends and most of them are laughing or giggling. Looking up at the stars or the waterfall. My eyes slide over to Stiles, who if I'm not mistaken is definitely closer to me than he was a minute ago. As I'm looking at the side of his face, he must notice me staring, because he looks over to me and smiles. Looking at him now he has this aura around him, pale yellow, and he just looks brighter. Just looking at him my whole chest aches. We're standing here looking into each other's eyes, and I decide to ask him about that one summer day.
"Do you remember the last time we were here?" I say looking up to Stiles. He looks around and then as if I can tell when the light bulb clicks he looks over at me. "Oh yeah... our first kiss." he said while his cheeks turned a light shade of pink. "Yeah, that was the last summer we stayed the night with each other. We never came back after that." I said, smiling, remembering that day. "Yeah it was, I think my mom-" He's cut off by shouting. We both look around at our friends to realize they're doing the same thing to us.
Everyone is closer to the waterfall than us, but we're a little in the tree's surrounding the pool of water. The shouting starts again, and nobody moves a muscle. "Please, just please tell me why you did it! That's all I want to know. I loved-" The loud girl voice is cut off by a slap. My jaw drops, but before I can say anything a new voice appears. This one is easier to hear over the crashing water. "I told you to never bring it up again! Actually I told you to never talk to me again." The male voice says. There are a few branches in the way, but I think the voices are coming from the top of the cliff.
I look toward Stiles and he shakes his head indicating for me not to move. "It's not our business. I'm sure they'll realize we're here and walk away soon." He says quietly while squinting his eyes trying to see through the regrowing leafs. The soft spoken girl is talking but I can only make out a few words. I take a big step forward and can now see them at the top. Stiles' hand reaches through mine but I don't move. He doesn't either, I'm guessing he's feeling the same thing I'm feeling. Scared.
She's yelling now, "Look, I'm going to the police. You hurt me, multiple times...and the last time..." He grabs both of her arms and tugs her side to side. They're fighting, she's trying to get away from him. If he pushes her too far left... I squeeze Stiles' hand, "Stiles." I say, fear taking over. "I know, we have to do something." He takes a step forward when everything goes silent. But in half a second the silence is filled with a sharp soul wrenching scream.
Her screams are quiet at first, merely a whisper. I know my eyes are open but everything is fogged over and I can't see anything. I feel Stiles grip tightening on my hand, so hard I can no longer feel my fingers. She has to be closer to us now because her screams are louder, already bouncing off the walls inside my head.
I can't breathe. All the air in my lungs has been sucked out of me along with her voice. Making it the loudest thing I've ever heard. I can't even form thoughts because all I can hear is her screaming. Until I don't. There's a splash in the water and then silence. I look up at the top of the cliff even though I'm afraid of what's up there. My eyes move up the body and into the eyes of the man who just pushed someone off a cliff. I look into the eyes of Raken Blake, and he's staring right back at me.