Save Me

Chapter 9: How He Lives

Erika

I walked into Psychology class and sat in my assigned seat, putting my head on the desk. I shut my eyes for a few minutes because I had gotten no sleep last night. I was up all night working on my part for the psychology project. And just losing myself in my own head, which is what leads to my constant insomnia.

I know he said we should just make a regular essay, but I, for the first time, had a lot of confidence in this. I'm going to do my idea of the journal entry.

"Someone didn't sleep last night." I picked up my head and Lucas was snickering at me and my dark circles.

"What gave it away? Was it my dark circles or bitchy attitude?"

"The dark circles because you always have a bitchy attitude."

"Wow, thanks."

"Mr. Perry, Ms. Kingsley. I would like to start the class now, if you don't mind," said Mrs. Koval.

I settled back into my seat and tried to keep my head from falling flat onto the desk. Whenever I started to doze off, Lucas would poke my arm with his pen and I would whisper a thank you.

The bell finally rang and I managed to drag myself to my locker. I leaned my head against it and I knew Lucas was standing behind me.

"What do you have now?"

"A free. You?"

"Same. Come on, let's go to the bleachers outside."

"Why? It's windy." I said, head starting to slip further down my locker.

"I got Sour Patch."

"Coming," I said, walking with him. We walked to the bleachers near the athletic field, my mood lifting slightly with the change from the stuffy environment. There was no one practicing, so it was peaceful.

Luke and I sat on the middle of the bleachers, making ourselves small and in our own little world. I started to eat–I mean inhale–the Sour Patch candy for the temporary sugar rush it gave me with the hopes that it might give me some energy.

"I want you to meet my family." I froze.

Mouth full of Sour Patch Kids, I turned to him and said in a slight knee-jerk reaction, "What?"

________________________________________________________________________

"I can't believe you're making me do this!" I said, getting into the driver's side of the car. It was after school now and Lucas finally convinced me to meet his family after he promised to buy me food tomorrow. Food is a great motivator.

"They'll love you,' he said, getting in on the other side. "When have I ever been wrong?"

"Plenty of times. Do I really need to bring up last Tuesday?"

"No.." he grumbled and I chuckled.

"Well, tell me about what I'm getting into," I said.

"Well, first thing my mom will probably do when she meets you will probably pull you into a hug because as she says, 'Any friend of yours is a friend of mine'. The whole 'mi casas es tu casa' thing. Then she'll probably ask you if you speak Spanish."

"Why would she ask that?"

"Well because it's the first language she learned to speak so it's easier for her to talk in Spanish even though she has no trouble with English. Because of that, she made the whole family learn it."

I turned on the next street. "You can speak Spanish?"

"Yup. My mom is from Mexico and lived there until she moved to the United States to be with my dad. And on my dad's side, I also had to learn Italian because of his entire side of the family speaks limited English."

"So you're half-Mexican, half-Italian? And trilingual?"

"Pretty much. So exotic, you don't see that everyday," Lucas bragged.

"Well, what do your parents do?"

"My mom is a school teacher and my dad is an ex-soldier for the Army. Now he works for the coast guard."

"What about your sister?"

"She's seven, and she's really nice, but she's shy. But when you get to know her, she's great. Amy treats everyone like they're her friend."

"Wow, doesn't sound like some seven-year-olds I know."

"Yeah, well she's not like most seven-year-olds."

"Turn here?" Lucas nodded. A few moments later, we pulled up in front of Lucas's family's home. It was a nice size house, big enough for a family of four.

"You can pull into the driveway, no one's home and we only have one car." I parked in the driveway and Lucas unlocked the front door, letting us inside.

"Hey, hey. Take off your shoes," he said.

"Bossy." I took off my ankle boots and light jacket since it was maybe 60 degrees. It was basically winter, or what we call winter.