How to cope with the OPD

Chapter 11

A/N; Here we are! Another chapter! I’ve spoken to a few of you, but I’m afraid they don’t go to the basement in this chapter. Couldn’t have it going too fast, could I? There is a bit of a cliffy at the end though, and it pained me to write it. Still, please enjoy!

For the next week, I was kept under constant surveillance. Which wasn’t much, as I was grounded, and only allowed out to school. Tony drove Tracey and I there and back, no pit stops. He was angry with me, I could tell. He’d been avoiding me all week.

“Hello?” he asked gruffly when he picked up. I’d been debating wither or not to call him for over an hour now, before I decided what the hell.

“Tony?” I say into the receiver, playing with a loose thread on my blanket.

“Jody? Are you ok?” he asked, sounding alarmed.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” I assure him quickly, “I... are you annoyed at me?”

I hear him sigh, “No,” he tells me, and my heart sinks.

“I know you’re lying,” I say, “Please tell me why,”

Again, he sighs, “Do you know how much danger you put yourself in there?”

I frown, though he can’t see me, “I know it’s a bad area, but you have a baseball bat in your car,”

He mutters something that sounds like not what I meant.

But he doesn’t develop, and goes with what I had said, “What if there had been a gang? I could lose both you and Tracey like that. Hell, I couldn’t lose you guys at all,”

I sniff, “I’m sorry, I didn’t think about it like that,”

“I know you didn’t. You wouldn’t intentionally put Tracey or yourself in danger, I know that, Jody. But I wish you’d thought about it,”

I feel tears in my eyes. I always seemed to run into action without a plan.

“I have to go, Axel says bed by ten,” I mumble, “I’m sorry,”

“It’s cool,” he says, “Night,”

He hangs up, and I sit, motionless, on my bed. Eventually, I change into my PJs, and go down the stairs.

“You ok?” Axel asks.

He’s sitting watching the Ten O’clock News. I sit next to him and nod. He’s leaving tomorrow, and even though I know things will be less stressful, I’m going to miss him.

“Do you have to go?” I ask in a small voice. Yeah, ok, he makes my life more complicated than a rubix cube, but he’s my brother, and whatever his reasons, I know he does it for me.

“I’m sorry, Jody, but I do,” he says, sounding pained. I hate making him feel bad, it makes me feel like a horrible person, so I put on a brave face, and smile.

“Bet you’re missing the new apartment, ain’t you?” I ask, and he rolls his eyes.

“It’s ok, you know, to admit you’ll miss me,” he says, grinning, “Where would itty bitty Jody be without big, strong Axel there to protect her?”

This time, I roll my eyes, “Let’s not joke, Axel, we both know it’s me who protects you,”

He laughs at the, “Of course, let’s not forget Michelle,”

I giggle. Michele was this awful girl he started going out with in his senior year. Though I was young at the time, I knew straight away she was bad news. I’d been eleven or twelve, and my mind was anything but naive. The event went something like this;