Fall for me

Chapter four

It feels like an eternity before anyone moves, but really it has to only be at most forty five seconds. Everyone was in shock for those forty five seconds. Stiles was the first to move, he ran straight into the pool of water. Landon, Chase, and Auggie following behind him. My ears are ringing, that's all I hear as I watch them search the water, it seems like everything is going in slow motion. Tristan is running to me, but it seems like it takes her forever before she gets to me. Once she does, I'm snapped back into reality, I now hear Charli screaming bloody murder. Court is holding Charli's hands trying to get her to calm down but it's not working. She raises her hand and slaps her across the face and Charli finally stops screaming just to say, "bitch that hurt." Once I make it to the water Lindsey is already searching around the shallow parts. Court, Charli, and Tristan all run toward the underside of the waterfall looking for her.
Out of nowhere flashing white lights are going crazy, and coming toward us. "Police! Party is over, get out of the water!" Someone says from behind us. "Help! Help us!" I say running out of the water. I run right into the first person I see. Out of breath I continue, " Help, someone was just pushed. A girl was pushed off the cliff." I try to continue, still not able to see who it is that I'm talking to.
"Dad, she's serious. We all just watched a girl get pushed off the cliff. We're trying to find her. Please dad, help us." Stiles says, tears streaming down his cheeks. "It was-" I try to say but am pushed to the side. "Get them all out of here and get people and equipment out here to scan the water." Mr. Sanders says. I'm grabbed by the closest officer and pushed along the woods. "No wait, please." I scream. My arms are flailing and gripping the officers arms. "Get off of her." Stiles says, and my arms are ripped away.
Stiles arms are around me in seconds and all I feel is safe. That's probably the most fucked up thing I could say right now but it's true. I wrap my arms around his torso and he wraps his around my neck. "Stiles did you see who pushed-" I try to say but he stops me, "Shhh, I know. I saw." He says. " Stiles, get her out of here. Go to the police station, and don't drive. I can smell you guys from here." Mr. Sanders says, disappointment clear in his voice.
" Whatever I was before, I am definitely sober now." Stiles says to his dad. We walk through the remainder of the words side by side, with one of his arms wrapped around my shoulders and the other holding one of my hands. " Are you okay? They're going to find her. It'll be okay. She'll be okay." he says softly. All I can do is nod. Will they find her? Will she be okay? Why didn't we do anything to stop him before this happened? So many questions are running through my mind I can't take it. We finally make it back to Stiles' car and he opens his passenger door for me, I climb in and he reaches across me and grabs the seat belt and buckles me in and shuts the door. He quickly walks in front of his jeep to get to the driver's side. " I'll send someone to get your car tomorrow, don't worry about it." I nod again, no words would make sense, even if I tried. I couldn't make out who the girl was, but in my gut... I know it was the girl I saw leaving the bathroom. I didn't see her face, so I don't know who it was. My heart is aching for her, maybe if I had said something to her earlier. Followed her and been there for her, this wouldn't have happened to her. While we're driving I can't focus on a single thing, I can't tell where we're driving my eyes can't focus on anything. Everything is a blur of bright lights and foggy buildings. Before I know it we pull up to the police station, I reach my hand toward my face but Stiles beats me to it wiping my tears away.
"It's okay Erin, we are going to figure all of this out. I promise." I nod again but that's not enough, I lean across the empty space and hug him. "Thank you" I say, my voice hoarse from the smoking, yelling, and tears. I pull my head away from him but keep our arms intertwined. I look down at his soft gentle lips, then back up to his golden eyes. "Maybe... fuck. We should probably go in." He says pulling away from me. He either absolutely doesn't see me in that way, or this is one hundred percent the wrong time and I'm an absolute dick for trying to kiss him right now.
I mean I know I am, this is not the right time to try to kiss him. But I wanted to. I wanted to tell him that I've been in love with him my whole life. That I don't want to go anymore days pretending like I don't. But now is not the time, right now we have to do everything we can to help that poor girl, because if we don't... then who will. As we're walking up the front steps Tristan, Landon, and Lindsey are walking up the parking lot.
Tristan yells my name and I run to her. We fall into each other's arms and cry. "Why didn't we try to stop it before someone got hurt?" She cries. "We didn't know that was going to happen Tris, we should have stepped in regardless... but we didn't. Now we just have to do everything in our power to help her. If you saw or heard something, tell the cops." I say to her, putting on my brave face.
We walk inside and my mom is sitting at the desk right in front of the doors, "Erin, thank god Erin!" She cries. She runs up to me and pulls me into a tight hug. "What were you thinking? Why were you even there? Your dad said you were going to be at Tristans!" I nod. "Yeah mom I know. I-" I'm interrupted by a deputy. "You all have to come with me. You'll all be put into separate rooms and asked questions. You can wait for your parents to get here to sit in with you, or you can go ahead and give us your statement. Before any of you ask, yes. All of your parents have been informed, and are on their way. You can get started with the questions before they get here or wait. Either way your parents are coming." He said and motions for us to follow him. They show Stiles his room first and he's told to wait for his dad. My mom comes with me and we are sat in a cold room with nothing but four chairs and a table.
"Whatever you do, do not lie to them. Tell them everything you know." My mom says. Right as I nod to her the door opens and an officer enters the room. "Hello Erin, I'm officer Robertson but you can call me Haley." She says with a smile. She sits down and pulls out a notepad. She turns around and looks at the camera in the corner of the room. "This is being recorded so anything I miss on here" She points to her notepad. "Will be on there so I can go back and listen to it. It is also for your safety, so we have documentation that you did tell your side of the story." She finishes with a smile.
"Okay, now start from the beginning of the party. Don't leave anything out, no detail is too small." She says while adjusting herself in her seat. I go over everything, the drinking, the girl coming out of the bathroom, the pill bowl, the walk to the waterfall, the weed, and go into as much detail as I can about the argument. I tell her who I saw push her, and everything I can remember after the incident. My mom held my hand the entire time I was telling my story, never once interrupting to scold me.
"Thank you Erin, that was really good. Listen, you did everything you could to help her. Yes you could have said something before he pushed her, but you don't know what the outcome would have been if you did. It could have led to a lot of others being hurt. Don't go home and beat yourself up about anything, you just gave this girl a fighting chance." She says with urgency in her voice. I look over at my mom and she wraps her arms around me, the first time I've felt warm since Stiles' arms left me.
"Okay if you will follow me please." Officer Robertson says. I stand up and follow her out the door, we walk down a long hallway and into the last room on the right side. She opens the door, "Okay. I'll need you to stay in here until we get everything sorted out." She says while holding the door open. "Wait, they are looking for her right?" I say desperately needing to know they're doing something to help her. " I'm really not supposed to say, but we have medics on scene and they're scanning the plunge pool as we speak." She says with a soft smile. I walk into the room and Stiles is the only one in there. His head is laying across his arms that are sitting on the table.
The door shuts behind me and he sits up. As soon as he sees it's me he stands up and is to me in two wide strides. He wraps his arms around my neck, "Are you okay? Did you tell them everything?" He said backing away so I could see him. "Ye–'' My voice is so hoarse after everything I can barely hear myself. He looks back at the table and grabs his water bottle and hands it to me. I chug the entire thing and start again, "Yeah, i told them everything. Everything I could remember. Thinking back on it now, everything looks fuzzy. Like it wasn't real, like it was a dream." I say, letting out a breath I didn't know I was holding in. He nods, but is silent for a few minutes. "So... did you see-" he pauses. "Raken. I saw Raken push her." I say finishing his sentence. He nods while holding his chin.
"So did I, I don't think anyone else did. If Chase doesn't know yet... don't tell him. We shouldn't be the ones to tell him." He says. I nod my head confused. We've been friends with Chase almost our whole life, if he shouldn't hear it from us... who should he hear it from. As if he could hear my thoughts he replies, "I don't want you to have to be the one to tell him. I don't want him to be angry with you." I nod. There's a couch in the far right corner of the room. "Will you sit with me?" I ask him nodding toward the couch. "Of course, yeah of course." He says. He sits down by the arm of the couch and I sit next to him. He puts his arm around me and I lean on him so much I'm practically in his lap. He mumbles something but I didn't quite hear what he said. But it sounded like, "Always."
About twenty minutes pass and neither of us have moved. The door opens swiftly and Tristan and Landon appear. I sit up and go to Tristan and hug her tightly. "It'll be okay. We all told them the truth, they're going to do everything they can to help her." I say. Landon nods his head in response but Tristan doesn't say anything. Ten more minutes go by and now everyone is in the room. I've been in this room for about forty five minutes and haven't heard anything besides what Officer Robertson told me when I came in. The Plunge pool isn't that big, maybe ten feet wide and twenty feet long.
They should have found her by now, if they haven't found her yet... my thoughts are interrupted by the door swung open. Mr. Sanders comes in, and he's angry? "Do you guys think this is a joke? None of this is funny, I should arrest all of you for falsifying a police report. You wasted time, and equipment on this "joke". This is ridiculous, you all should be ashamed of yourselves. You had about three dozen cops from our town and the next town combined looking for this girl." He says with sweat running down every inch of him.
"What do you mean? We aren't lying dad. We all heard the argument and saw the girl get pushed." Stiles says before anyone else can say anything. I'm completely flabbergasted that he would even accuse us of making this up. "You seriously think we would make this up? You've known me my entire life, does this seem like something I would do for what? Fun? To try and get out of trouble? We aren't lying." I say gritting my teeth.
"Then somebody better come up with a damn good reason for why we scanned the entire water and didn't find any girl. We also checked the cliff and there were no signs of a struggle or even footprints. The only footprints we found were your guys. Nine sets of footprints, that's it." We all look around at each other confused, because we know what we saw. "Maybe she got out, and walked home?" Charli is the first to speak. "No...There's no way. We were in the water looking for at most forty five seconds after she fell in. Then the cops were there about three minutes later. There's no way she could have gotten out without any of us seeing her.
"I don't know, maybe you guys had some bad weed and had some hallucinations or something. I don't approve of your choices tonight. Any of you." Mr. Sanders says while looking at all of us. "That doesn't make any sense dad, all nine of us had the same hallucination? At the same time? Dad, we aren't lying, we weren't hallucinating. I know what I saw and what I heard." Stiles says moving closer to his dad. "Look, I get that you feel like this is real, but we had divers go down, and we scanned the entire plunge pool. There was no girl. There is no girl." Mr. Sanders says while looking around each of us.
"I don't think you guys intentionally lied, to be completely honest with you I have no idea what happened. But one thing I know for sure is no one was harmed tonight. So all of you just go home. Get some rest, and try to forget about all of this." He says. "I'm going to take Erin, I'll see you at home." Stiles says while softly grabbing my hand. We walk out of the room and down the long hallway. I pause at the front desk where my mom is supposed to be. She's not here, I look around her desk and see a bright sticky note with my name in bold letters. "Erin, I don't know what happened tonight. I have a lot of paperwork to do for all of this. I'll be home as soon as I can, we'll talk in the morning."
We get to his car and he repeats the same routine he did from earlier. He shuts his door once he's in and we sit in silence for a few minutes. "Oh can I have my purse please?" I ask. Without any words he hands me my bag. I pull out my phone and it's nearly one in the morning. I pull out my vape and take the longest drag I can off it. I feel the smoke fill up my lungs and I hold it until I feel my lungs start aching for air. "Can I?" He holds his hand out. I nod my head and hand over the vape.
"So do you want me to take you to get your car now...or just take you home?" He says while looking into my eyes. I think to myself, if I go home I'm going to be bombarded by questions from my dad that I really just can't answer. "Actually, can I stay with you tonight? I don't think I can be alone." I say while my eyes fill with tears. "Of course. Of course you can." He starts his jeep, and begins driving. I pull out my phone and call my dad. He answers on the first ring. "Hey dad, I know you must be extremely pissed. I know I lied, and I know a lot of bad stuff happened tonight. I just don't have any answers to the questions I know you're going to be asking. I'm staying with Stiles tonight, but I promise I'll be home tomorrow morning and I will tell you everything, okay?" I say all at once before he can say anything. " Okay, pumpkin. I love you so much, and I am so proud of you. Please be safe, and I'm only allowing you to go because it's Stiles...and because his dad is the sheriff." I thanked him and hung up the phone.
I look over at Stiles and he has a grin smeared across his face. "What're you so smiley about?" I say with a hint of a giggle in my voice. "He really loves me, doesn't he." He says with his head held high. I shake my head but laugh. I spend the rest of the drive looking out the window, watching the trees pass by.
I'm exhausted, mentally and physically. It's hard to think as much as it is to try and move my limbs. We walk straight to his room, and fall to the floor. Nothing is said for at least fifteen minutes. "I'm going to start you a bath, in here. I'll take a shower in the hall bathroom. Just grab whatever you want out of the closet or dresser." He says and disappears into the bathroom. After a few minutes he appears again, he helps me up and into the bathroom. The lights are off, the only form of light coming from a candle he lit. Vanilla, my favorite.
The tub is filled with bubbles, and I can see the steam coming off the water. I look up to his honey filled eyes, and I can't take it anymore. I can't take him not knowing anymore. I kick off my shoes, and pull down my leggings. He stands there, his eyes not moving from mine. I lift my sweater and once it's over my head Stiles is turned around facing the wall. I pull off the remainder of clothing that I have on and step into the water.
My body is fully submerged in water and bubbles when he finally turns around. "I'm going to uh- get in the shower. I'll set out clothes for you." he says without looking at me.