When Lies Become Reality (On Hold)

Chapter 4

I'm in cheer-leading with Amanda and Jess – I'm head cheerleader- it's nice because it reminds me off my old life. Nick has a lot more friends and doesn't hang around with my friends as much. Except for Josh, who has started thinking off each other as brothers, which was great cause now they both had somebody.

Josh's dad walked out when Josh was two months old. Josh blames himself. Why? No one knows. Josh is also an only child and he lives with just his mother. Who also blames herself for his dad leaving. She became an alcoholic and she's barely ever home, and when she is it's late and Josh has to put her to bed because she's passed out drunk in the living room some where. She only talks to Josh to yell at him or tell him to buy more food. Josh had to get a job because his mom spends all the money she makes on booze. He pays all the bills and takes some of her money for food.

Jen and John said Josh was welcome to stay in the spare room anytime he wants, which he does. Josh, Nick and I would all stay up and watch horror movies until almost three a.m. on school nights, and on weekends we never slept in the night, just in the day. I think I was closer to Josh than I was to Amanda and Jess. Which was weird for me because I had never really had any guy friends, who were just that – friends.

I'm sitting in my room typing my essay for English. I hear a loud boom! And I take my headphones out to see if I can hear anything else. When nothing else happens I ignored it instead of going to see what it is. My room door swings open and I look up to see a handgun pointed at my head. I screamed a blood curdling scream as the scrawny version of Nick jumps on my dad and grabs the gun. I see Nick shoot our father in the chest just after being shot in the shoulder. I scream as I call 911 and try to stop the bleeding in my brothers shoulder and try to ignore the dead bodies of my mother and father.

I scream again but this time it wasn’t in the dream my room door flies open and there was a dark figure in the door way. I scream some more.

“Don't shoot! Don't shoot!” The dark figure walks towards my bed and flicks on the lamp. It's Josh but, I still scream when I can see him. Jen and John didn’t come in they were use to the screaming and knew I wasn’t in any danger. Josh picked me up in his strong, muscular arms, as much as I hate to admit it Josh is really fit, he sat on my bed holding me until I stopped sobbing.

 “What's wrong?” Josh asked. “Stop crying! I'm not good with tears!” He pleaded.

I started laughing and then so did Josh. We ended up falling asleep like that. Me hugging in to him who was just in his boxers because he had been sleeping when I started screaming. And he was cradling me in his tight hold. I loved the warmth that came off his body.

We wake up about 10:30 Saturday morning when Nick comes in my room.

“Well, what happened in here?” Nick asks wiggling his eyebrows, I laugh as I wipe the remaining tears off of my cheeks.

“Nothing you idiot!” I yell back throwing a pillow in his direction. Josh sat up and chuckled.

“What?” Nick and I both ask in unison.

“Nothing.” Josh says with a shrug of his shoulder. I punched him playfully in the arm.

“What?” I say now slightly angry thinking he was laughing at me for crying in the middle of the night.

“Well,” he starts. “it's just that you've been up for about ten minutes now and your still sitting on me and... I'm half naked. So I see why Nick asked what was going on.”

I jump up. “You guys are such... such...” I struggle to find the right word as I fix my shirt which has gone slightly sideways. “ Ugh! You’re gross!” I finally settle with.