Love, Drugs, and High School

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Seventeen

Annabelle

          Darkness. I hit the ground with a sudden jolt. Everything was rushing by me. I couldn’t see what was going on. A car…it smashed into our car. Ryan…where was he?

          “Ryan?” my words whimpered softly. It was still taking a while for my eyes to adjust. Everything felt like it was all just a blur.

          “Annabelle?” he called back to me, sounding just as shocked and surprised as I felt.

          “Are you ok? What happened?” My voice was quavering and my hands were shaking.

          I felt arms wrap around me and I opened my eyes cautiously. “You’re ok,” she heard Ryan whisper to himself. When I looked up to him expecting an answer, he explained that a car was going to hit us. He threw me out of the car. It was still moving but he protected me.

          “Annabelle?” he asked.

          “What?” I looked up at him startled.  

          “Did you hear me? Are you ok?” I nodded my head, but he didn’t believe me. There was a haunted look in his eyes as he avoided looking at me and unwrapped his arms from me.

          “Look at me, I’m right here. I’m not hurt, Ryan. You saved my life.” He nodded his head, but stood up and walked away from me. He’s so damn guarded, I thought, but I didn’t say anything more as I got up and followed him.

          “You should call the police,” Ryan suggested. Quickly, I dialed my uncle’s phone number and he answered.

          Once I explained to him what was going on, he freaked out like any guardian would, and rushed over to the crime scene. I truly did feel bad to disturb him during his work hours.

          There was an uncomfortable silence between Ryan and me until my uncle showed up. He still said nothing, but once he went over and talked to my uncle, he just faded into the background of everything, leaving the police to take care of it.

          “I knew he would somehow be involved in this,” my uncle muttered more to himself than me.

          “He saved my life, Uncle.” Those five words shut him up.

          My uncle flagged Ryan over, “It looks to me like they are going to clear the scene. They won’t let me in on anything because they see me as more of a guardian and less of a police officer.” He smoothed out his moustache and then continued, talking more directly to Ryan now. “Thank you for saving my niece’s life.” He was short about it, but I knew that Ryan didn’t want the praise.

          “Are you alright Annabelle?” my uncle asked me, but I felt light headed. This is what happened to Emmett…except he didn’t make it out alive.

          “It’s just…Emmett. He didn’t make it out alive. How did I get so lucky?” She knew the answer to her question. It was the person standing next to her.

          “Don’t Annabelle. Not right now.” Her uncle said shortly before going over to the other police officers to find out what was going to happen.

          “Who’s Emmett?” Ryan asked. I wasn’t sure if he just didn’t see how upset I was over the topic or if he just didn’t care, because he asked anyways.

          “I don’t want to talk about it,” I managed, but he pressed on anyways.

          “Who is Emmett?”