Fall for me

Chapter five

After I got out of the bath last night Stiles had laid out a tshirt and boxer shorts for me to wear. Neither of us said anything, just laid and held each other. It was the best night of sleep I've had in years.
I wake up with sweat coating my body, I'm out of breath and my throat is on fire. It feels like I have shards of blazing glass in my throat every time I take a breath. "Here, I got you a glass of ice water." Stiles says walking back into his room. I let out a breath that sends shooting pain all the way through my toes. I take the glass from him and down the entire thing without taking a breath. "Thank you, I feel a lot better now." I rush out. I can't believe I undressed in front of him last night. He really must not like me like that. All these years, I almost let myself believe what the girls continued to say. That he was in love with me. When in reality...it was the other way around.
But what's really bothering me is the fact that no one believes us. I know what I saw was real. I just know it. "So... I don't know what you're thinking. But I know what I saw last night was real. There's no way it was a hallucination." I say without looking at him. "Yeah, I don't know. It definitely felt real, but even you said last night that thinking back on it everything seemed fuzzy, like a dream." He replies. "But you said you saw Joey.. how could we possibly both see Joey? Okay, I can maybe wrap my head around all of us thinking we heard arguing and someone falling. But before either of us said anything to each other we both saw him. How do you explain that?" I responded.
"Okay, you're right. That is the thing I keep getting stuck on." He says. "Look, I think I saw the girl earlier last night. I didn't see her face but when we came back inside and I went to the bathroom? I think I saw her coming out of the bathroom crying. She walked toward Raken and Chase's room. Her head was down so I didn't see her face, but I just know that was her." He doesn't look at me, but looks out his window. Thinking I presume.
"Okay, Okay. So let's go over everything we know." He says after a few minutes. He pulls out a notepad and a pen, and sits on his bed across from me. "What we know. Okay, um... I saw a girl earlier at the party who had been crying, she went toward Raken and Chase's room." I say the very first thing that I remember about the entire situation. "Yeah okay, so earlier before you guys got there; while I was sitting there waiting for you, I saw a girl pull up driving crazy. She was wearing leggings and a sweatshirt, and I couldn't make out the model of the car but it was the same color as yours. Silver. She had a baseball hat on, and tilted her head down so I couldn't see who it was." He says while writing everything down. I think back to the party and I remember seeing a car parked out in the middle of the driveway, it was tilted sideways and all the windows were down.
"Okay, you have extra paper and a pen? I'll write things that happened after we went to the plunge pool and you write everything from before. Everything that happened at the party." I say. He nods and gets me a notebook and a pen that's shaped like a cactus, that has a little pink flower at the top. I handed him the notebook he just gave me and began.
"Alright so I didn't see anything before the arguing started. We were talking about... that summer and then I just heard it. I heard her pleading with him, trying to get him to tell her why he did something. I heard her say that the last time he hurt her...and then he slapped her. She was so scared, I could hear it in her voice. It was like I was hearing my own fear, in her voice. She said something about going to the police, and then I stepped forward and saw him tugging her side to side..."
I remember every bone in my body snap into place. It was like a lightning rod was shot through my spine and I couldn't move. My vision went blurry as if trying to protect me from watching her plummet down to the earth. Only to come out of it seconds later so I could fall asleep listening to her screams. I daze toward the window, how could everything have gone so wrong, so fast?
"Hey, it's going to be okay. I mean...it's fucked up. What happened, I don't even know what to say. We should have done something. I should have done something." Stiles says, he reaches over and places his hand on my thigh, rubbing it gently. "Do you um- did you see anything different? Or hear anything?" I say, still looking out the window.
Just being around Stiles is comforting, I don't know what I would do if I were by myself. I haven't checked my phone yet this morning, and I know I have to go home soon. "Um no not really, I didn't hear half as much as you did." He says while finishing writing what I had said.
"Do you plan on going to school today? If not, I think tomorrow we should go and try to see if anyone remembers anything." He says while getting up and putting his notepad in the drawer of his nightstand. "Um, after that bowl of pills that... Ra- uh.. That Raken was giving out, I'm sure nobody remembers much. Have you ever done that before?" I ask. He looks at me confused, and then it hits him.
He sinks back down onto the bed. "Yeah, when I was uh- fourteen. It was the first party he allowed Chase and I to come downstairs and hangout at. We were so excited, he gave us a beer. We thought we were finally old enough to hang with his crowd... About an hour after we came down they brought the bowl out. I was so scared." He nervously chuckles and looks around the room, but continues.
"I took something, I still don't know what it was. I still don't remember everything from that night. I get flashbacks sometimes... like at one point in the night one of Raken 's older friends... Ricky I think his name was. He was sitting right next to me, and I was leaning on him, and his arm was around me. The room was full of people, Chase was even there. Sitting across from me, but he looked fine...I just remember my eyes being so heavy... my entire body was really. I couldn't even lift my arms. The next flashback I got my pants were off, and it was only Ricky and I in a room." He stops talking and clears his throat. He hasn't made eye contact with me the entire time.
"Stiles... I'm so sorry. I wish I would have been there. I would have stopped anything from happening to you, I would have stopped you from taking anything." I say, my heart aching with guilt. "I don't even know what happened." He says sternly. "No one ever says no to Raken anyway, if you were there things would have been worse for you. I'm glad you weren't there." He says while looking directly into my eyes.
His brown eyes are so soft, and gentle... They mock the look of honey. I've never noticed before how truly melting his eyes can make me. I love him. I loved him when we were nine and raced our bikes down the big hill leading to my house. I loved him when we were thirteen and he stayed inside with me all week when I was sick, instead of going to the waterpark with the rest of our friends. He didn't even complain, and I love him now. I love the way he always waits for me before going into the lunch line, he waits for me if he gets to school before me, he always stands on the outside of the sidewalk, and no one has thought of being a jerk to me since the end of seventh grade.
The last week of seventh grade, I wore my hair in pigtails. It had always been my favorite but when I was in second grade someone made fun of me saying that pigtails were for babies. I never wore them like that again. That is until the last week of seventh grade. The night before, Stiles' family came to our house for dinner. They were all looking at an old photo album and Stiles said he liked my hair in pigtails. So, the next day at school, that's how I wore my hair. Stetson Lewis had chased me around at recess pulling on them, and calling me a baby. That year Stiles had a different lunch period than me so he didn't hear about it until after school, when we were getting on the buses.
Stiles punched Stetson in the stomach so hard he fell to the ground, he didn't have to say anything for him to know why he punched him. Stetson never messed with me nor even talked to me since that day. Everyone else just took the hint and left me alone. That's why I've always had the same friend group, no one else ever wants to take chances on us.
"I -" I almost let those three little words slip out, I've told Stiles I've loved him before... but never in that way. It was always when leaving him just a quick love you would slip out. He always answered the same way... "you too" every single time. I start again. " I should get home, I don't think I'll be going to school today. We will ask around tomorrow, okay?"
He nods his head, "Oh shit, I just threw your clothes into the dryer. They aren't going to be dry yet." "It's cool, I was going to wear this home anyway." I respond. I gather my things and head for the door. "Oh shit, my car. Can you drive me, please?" I ask. He nods his head, "Yeah of course I will." We make our way home and I let my eyes close for the entire ride there. I feel us going down the big hill indicating that we're two minutes from my house.
I open my eyes and they drift to him. It's like there's an invisible magnet. His eyes flutter to me and back onto the road, as he pulls into my driveway. "Thank you again, I don't know what I would've done without you last night." I say, and I mean it. "Actually I'm going to come inside with you, I want to talk to your parents and make sure you aren't in too much trouble." He says with a small grin creeping onto his face. I nod, grab my stuff and head toward my house.