Saving Each Other

Chapter 5

Chapter 5

“We are gathered here today, to mourn a lost life. The life of a mother, a daughter, a friend.” The pastor’s voice was loud over the small group. But it was calming.

I looked to my right as Danny grabbed ahold of my hand, he looked like shit. But, so did I. ever since I told him about his mom, neither of us have stopped crying. And I had to nearly drag him here.

We both hated cemeteries. The last time I had been here was when we buried Danny’s father, and now his mother was right beside him, six feet under.

We decided that Danny would come live with us. His closest realities lived out in Oregon, and he isn’t very close to them. We moved all his things into one of the guest bedrooms in Carla’s home, and tomorrow we would all head back.

James went home the night Melody died. He realized that he didn’t need to be here, and I think he knew Danny would feel uncomfortable with him at his mom’s funeral.

I was pulled out of my thoughts when the reverend asked if anyone had words they wanted to say about Melody. Danny couldn’t stop crying to notice, so I raised my hand,

“Father, I would like to say something.” He nodded at me to continue. I grabbed Danny’s hand in both of mine before I did. “Melody was like a mom to me. She was always there, even before my mom left, I loved her. She never judged, and always accepted people for who they are. She was an amazing mom, and she is missed.” I was steadily crying throughout the service, and so was Danny. My dad was back at the hotel room, he didn’t know Melody that well, and didn’t want to intrude.

“It’ll be okay.” I whispered to Danny as they lowered her coffin into the ground. He had collapsed a few minutes ago, now we were both on the ground, crying.

“No it won’t.” he whispered back, burring his head in my neck and screaming.

*-*-*-*

“Hey.” I opened my eyes to see James staring at me. I was sitting on a tree branch in the park a few blocks from the school. I hadn’t seen James since that night in the hospital.

“Hey.” I said. James was wearing dark jeans and a leather jacket that made him look like the typical bad-boy, it was very attractive.

“How is Danny?” he asked, resting his arms on the branch I was sitting in. it was about four feet up in the air, and it was easy to lean against.

I shrugged. Danny hadn’t come out of the room we gave him since we got back a few days ago. He nodded, understanding.

“Are you going to go to class?” James asked. The last class we had was the Childhood Development and I had yet to give back the crushed robot-baby.

“I guess.” I shrugged, hopping off the tree limb.

“Dressed like that?” James said behind me. I was in my under-armor running pants and a fitted blue razor back tank top.

“Stuff it James.” I flipped him off over my shoulder for the added affect.

“So moody.” He chuckled catching up to me. “Well, I am going to see you later.” He said, turning to leave, but I caught the sleeve of his jacket before he could.

“Oh, no. If I have to be the one to give back the mangled demon baby, you are going to come with me.” I said, sticking my finger on his chest.

“Why would I do that?” he asked, raising any eye brow, and crossing his arms over his chest. I mimicked his movements, but quickly stopped when I saw his eyes travel down to my bust.

“Because I will tell the teacher, it was your car, and you were the one who plowed over the baby.” I smirked when his eyes got wide a bit, before he put on his bad boy smirk.

“Why would I care about that?”  He asked.

“Because, then you will have to pay for damages.” I laughed, turning towards the school.

“You are a piece of work, you know that?” he said, jogging to catch up with me.

“Yeah well, what can I say? I’m one in a million.” I winked.

When we got to the school, we made a detour for my truck. I left for the park last period, and it as still in the parking lot.

“Why are we here?” James said, hopping onto the hood of my truck.

“Because, the baby is in here.” I rolled my eyes at the obvious. I opened the door to my truck, slid the seat up and fished the duffel bag out of the back. Since I discovered the joys of alcohol induced vomiting, I started keeping clothes in the back of my truck. I grabbed a tee shirt from the back and the jeans.

“Turn around.” I said, spinning my finger around. He rolled his eyes, but did as I said, I quickly stripped my pants and slid on the jeans, I didn’t bother taking the tank top off, and I just slid the shirt on over it. Since they were the clothes that I planned on wearing at a party, they were a tad on the slutty side. The jeans hung low on my hips, revealing my hip bones, and the shirt was see through. The shirt was my favorite one I owned though. It said ‘tattoos and whiskey makes me frisky’. It probably wasn’t something that was appropriate for school, but they will have to get over.

When I was done, I climbed on the truck hood with James, and waited for the bell to ring. We waited in comfortable silence, laying down, soaking up the sun.

When the bell rang, we retrieved the broken baby and the added gear.

“Ahh, Miss Tallwood, Mr. Maddox. Thank you for gracing us with your presence.” Mr. Crawford said as we walked into the class room. “I assume you have your child with you.” He said, looking up from his computer, and giving me a nasty look. I didn’t worry too much about it; he gave James a worse one.

“Yeah, uh. Our baby died.” I said, putting the car seat on his desk. James stacked the diaper bag on top of the seat.

“Where is your child, surly it cannot be that bad?” He chuckled. I gave him a grimace, and opened my bag, holding the child up by its mangled foot. “What happened?” he said, coming around to grab the robot like it was the real thing.

“Well, Violet here isn’t exactly mommy material.” James chuckled. I rolled my eyes, and went to explain, but when the class caught on to what was going on, it erupted into laughter,

“I cannot help it that you stuck me with a guy whose I.Q. is in single digits, the damn demonic fucker wouldn’t stop screeching, while I had to drive over state lines, with said dumbass, for a family emergency. I was tired, I was in a truck, and the damn thing wouldn’t shut up. So I climbed out of my truck, put the devil spawn under the wheel, and drove over it until it stopped crying.” I shrieked and threw my hands I the air. James was laughing behind me, and Mr. Crawford’s face was red.

I think that everything would have gone somewhat okay, if the head hadn’t fallen off, and rolled across the floor. I couldn’t stop my laughter, as it landed by my feet. I picked it up, and set it awkwardly on the baby’s neck, as it laid in the teachers arms. I couldn’t keep the smile off my face as the head fell off once again.

“You two…” Mr. Crawford huffed. “Out of my class.” His face was red, and this weird vein on his forehead was pulsating. I shrugged, knowing that I was better out of a class I didn’t want to be placed into to begin with. I grabbed my bag off the floor, where it had fallen in the mess, and I walked out of the class room.

“I don’t think that could have gone worse.” James laughed from behind me. I couldn’t say anything because I doubled over in laughter. It wasn’t as funny as I was making it out to be, but I had been up with Danny for the past three nights, trying to calm him down after what happened with his mother, and the exhaustion was getting to me. The laughter quickly turned to tears as I broke down in the hallway during seventh period.