They Could Care Less

14: The Mystery of the Clothes

The tears prickled behind her eyes as Thea closed them and inhaled and exhaled deeply. Don't cry, do not cry. Thea opened her eyes again, still teary eyed and looked around at the crowd that had gathered around the entrance. The people who talked all seemed like a buzz to Thea, all she could do was stare above the big entrance doors where her clothes were hanging, and the one responsible for this had spray painted 'GO BACK TO TEXAS YOU FREAK!' in a bright candy red color. The vast majority didn't bother her, okay, that was a lie, the vast majority did bother her. How everyone just stood there, took pictures, pointed and talked about it sent her anger boiling. How someone could be so heartless and embarrass her like this made her want to punch that person in the face. But what bothered Thea the most was one special piece of clothing, the cream cardigan that she brought, that one cardigan that was her mother's and it was also the only thing Thea had of her mother that smelled like her mother. That cardigan contained so many memories that Thea felt empty on the inside as she looked up at it, she felt all the upset emotions at once, but yet, she felt numb.

Looking around one last time at the students around her, she managed to get eye contact with a few of them, but they all instantly looked away. Thea clenched her fists and walked inside of the building, she found the closest staircase and took two steps at a time until she got to the top floor. There, she walked quickly down the hall and got to the door that had a sign where it stood 'Entrance to the roof only for personnel', normally, Thea wouldn't even think about opening this door, but today was not a normal day. She took a few steps away from the door before she charged towards it and it was surprisingly easy to open and it definitely didn't need Thea's big shoulder bump. Thea stumbled out onto the roof and walked towards the direction of the buzzing from the crowd down there on the ground. She walked past ventilations and got to the railings. Without hesitation Thea climbed over it and the only thing in her way now was the edge. She walked with small and careful steps to the edge and peeked over the edge. She was at least five stories up, and the first person that noticed her instantly pointed and the rest simply followed the direction of her finger. They instantly pulled out their phones again, but Thea ignored them and tried to come up with a plan to get her clothes back.

After much thinking, Thea took off her backpack and threw it to the side before she laid down on her stomach with her shoulders and head over the edge. A loud gasp was heard from the crowd that never seemed to stop growing as Thea hooked her feet to the railing and stretched her arms out for the cardigan that just so happened to be the furthest away from her. Sweat was trickling down her forehead as she stretched her arm out for the tenth time trying to grasp onto the cardigan. Thea pulled back her arm and stared down at the crowd, she saw a familiar head running into the building in rocket speed. What is he doing? Thea asked herself, but quickly pushed that thought out of her mind as she stretched towards the cardigan again, after a few seconds, Thea felt how one of her feet unhooked from the railings, but she ignored it, she was so close to the cardigan now! If only she could just reach out a bit more.

"Have you lost your mind?!" a loud shout suddenly occured, shortly followed by someone who wrapped their arms around Thea's waist and yanked her back. Thea spun her head around and saw Jackson standing there, pale and completely mad.

"Have you lost your mind?" Thea shouted back.

"I'm not the one hanging over a rooftop edge, trying to get ahold of a cardigan!" Jackson shouted back just as loudly as before.

"Since when did you start to care about me? You hate me just as much as the person that did it, in fact, you or your friends probably did it! Now leave me alone!" Thea shouted with tears in her eyes. She was mad, mad at Jackson, mad at the person that did it, she was mad at everyone.

"Where's your rationality, Thea? I'm telling you this again, we were in the same class as you yesterday and if I really did it, why would I come up here and save you?" Jackson asked with a lower voice, although he was still mad. Thea gloomily bit her lip as she looked up at Jackson with tears covering her vision slightly. Suddenly, she noticed that his arms were still around her waist and she took a quick step back, but before anything else could happen, Jackson quickly grabbed onto Thea's wrist and pulled her back yet again from the edge. "You really do have a death wish..." Jackson muttered under his breath, letting go of her wrist. Thea looked back to the edge and saw a faint shoe print only centimeters from the edge. Thea looked back up at Jackson, but he was already looking at her.