Five Foot Four ((Zach Abels Fanfic))

Chapter Eleven

    Rainey had said that we 'had to have walked over a mile' but neither of us really cared because our conversations had made it less tiring. It was as if all her stories filled all the empty parts in my body and kept me moving forward. As corny as that was.

    The rain had poured down for almost an hour and the sky was getting darker and even though I didn't want to admit it, I had to go back soon.

    Rainey reached in her bag and pulled out two sheets of paper. Printed on them were tickets. Two of them.

    "You didn't have to, I said I'd get you in." I said, reaching for them.

    "I wasn't going to let you do that." She said, trying to grab them out of my hand. 

    I pulled my hand back and put my arm behind my head, letting her struggle on her toes to get them back.

    "Hey, c'mon!" She continued stretching.

    "Why weren't you going to let me?" I said, with my arm still back.

    She stopped trying and stood upright.

    "I just didn't want to do that." She shrugged.

    "You're standing though." I spoke.

    "Yes?" She questioned and then quickly moved and got the tickets out of my hand.

    She tucked them away back into her bag and secured it on her shoulder. 

    A loud crash hit the sky and we both looked up at the storm that was so violent and angry. The sky had never looked so disapproving. 

    "I'm going to be in so much shit tomorrow." She spoke, under her breath.

    "Huh?" I turned to her.

    She grabbed my arm and ran towards a building to take shelter, which was across a road and a little bit further down.

    We ran together and somehow her grasp had lowered from my arm to my hand. I barely had a second to look down, before she was tugging me over the road. 

    Her fingers curled around my hand and the rain hit it as if it there were hundreds of tiny needles trying to thread us together. Her touch had made every muscle in my body weak and every hair on the back of my neck stand up. My stomach filled up and I felt all light. It felt like I was on an never-ending roller coaster and I was going down at a fast speed... The high was insane and as dizzy as it made me feel, I didn't want it to stop. 

    Rainey stopped as soon as we were covered and I did too. She looked down and stared at our hands but didn't look back up. She just stared.

    "Hey," I said and she lifted her head. "What's going to happen tomorrow?"

    She shook her face, looking alarmed and sort of worried. 

    "What is it?" I asked.

    She shrugged her shoulders and her lip quivered. She was going to cry. 

    "What's up?" I removed my hand from hers and put both hands on the side of her head, just over her hat.

    She stared straight at me as her eyes filled up and she tried her hardest to swallow the cries but it didn't stop her from eventually losing it. She lost grip of her calmness and just cried. She wiped the tears before they had even fully left her eyes, but it didn't stop them, she had so much more to cry about. 

    "I'm sorry, I'm so stupid." She sniffed.

    I shook my head at her and used my thumb to get rid of the tear that had escaped her and was half way down her cheek.

    "What's going to happen tomorrow?" I repeated.

    "Have you ever felt like you didn't fit it?" She whispered, so she could try to avoid the cracks in her voice.

    "Yeah, I have."

    "When?" She still looked so empty.

    "At high school, I guess." Her eyes were watching me closely. "What about you?"

    "What happened?" She ignored my last question.

    "School just wasn't the place for me. I hated it so much and I remember thinking every single day that I would rather be doing anything than this. I remember counting down until I was able to leave and then when I did, it felt like everything was better. It felt like I trapped there and I would never go back there, not for anything."

    "Yeah..." 

    "What about you?" I asked, again.

    She gently moved her head up and down.

    "Talk to me about it." I said.

    "My whole life." She struggled to speak, but I understood every word.

    "You don't have to feel like that." 

    She rested her hands on top of mine and held them tightly on her head. She then moved her face to the right so the palms of my left hand touched her cheek.

    "My mother walked out when I was younger." She paused. "I live with my dad and occasionally my sister, when she's not at university. My sister and my dad are like the same person. The way they act and the way that they speak."

    I didn't know what to say. All my words had left my brain and I was left with nothing but the control over my eyes and my hands.

    "I'm like my mother and so I do get a lot of trouble with them." The crack found its way back to her voice. "They don't believe that I can do things. They think that I'm nothing. And it's so hard, Zach. I don't want to be around them anymore. I want them to let me be my own person and let me do whatever I want to."

    I used my thumb to wipe away the tears, again. 

    "Zach, I'm scared." She whimpered and everything inside me shattered. 

    She took my hands off her head and pushed her body into mine. Her arms were wedged between my body and hers and I wrapped mine around her, tightly.

    Her body moved as she cried into me and I wanted to be the one who could take her away.