The Fab Five- Pentagonix

Chapter 12- Alyssa

Alyssa’s P.O.V.

I felt them coming ever since I found out. I knew they would come out sometime. Thankfully, I held it in until I got home. Nobody at school would understand. They would all look at me and think Oh, She is just crazy. She probably has like daddy issues or something, and she is so pathetic! Who cries at school? In public? But all they care about is image. What will I look like if I do this? What will people think of me if I do that? But when you see your life start to fall apart in front of you, you don’t care about your reputation. All you feel is this overwhelming sense of pain, misery, and fear of what could possibly come next.

So that’s why I stumbled through the door this afternoon. That’s why the moment I set foot in the door I had to rely on memory to get me to my room because my eyes immediately became blurry with tears. I slammed the door of my bedroom and I let them fall. I sat on the floor leaning against the wall and didn’t hold back a thing, because it’s even more exhausting holding back emotion then it is expressing it. I sat there for a minute? Two minutes? Maybe an hour? I don’t know, but it felt like a lifetime. And when I finally exhausted the last of the salty fluid from my body, I just sat there not moving and tried to think rationally about the situation for the first time.

Claire. She got called to the office. They found a stash of weed. They have video of her vandalizing. Claire isn’t like this. She would never! I know she has been acting weird, and I definitely blamed Travis for the sudden change in her that only I seemed to notice, but she would feel so guilty. I know she would, I have only known her all my life! But now she is in jail, and there is nothing any of us can do. We aren’t old enough to bail her out. Hell! We aren’t even old enough to drive down to the station! God I hate Travis! Everything about him screamed trouble, and I didn’t listen to the voice inside my head yelling Trouble! Get out now, and take all your friends with you!

When she was called to the office we were in practice. We were right down the hall. Why didn’t I go with her? Why didn’t I realize that look of pure terror that she had on her face when they called for her over the intercom? Why didn’t anyone hear her screams? I heard them now that I think about it. I heard her yelling something…Alyssa! Vivian! Travis! Now! I didn’t think much of it. I wasn’t even sure I heard anything. Nobody else did, so I just shrugged it off. She didn’t come back after a while and I went to the office to see what was holding her up, but she wasn’t there. I turned to the lady at the front desk with a confused expression and asked her where she went, but confidentiality agreements restricted her from telling me anything. Fuck confidentiality! My best friend just got arrested and it wasn’t even her fault! I do admit she did vandalize, but she was under a bad influence. That counts for something. Right? But it doesn’t. Nobody looks at her side of the story. Nobody ever looks at anyone’s side but theirs. Ignorant bitches!

After I realized something bad had happened, I didn’t go back to practice. I walked down the hall and straight past the door and I made sure they all saw me deliberately walk past. Then I ran. I ran as far away from the school as I could. I finally stopped in the middle of the parking lot and just stood there. I slowly tilted my head back and looked up at the sky and thought. I seriously thought about it. They weren’t rational thoughts in the least, but at least I was thinking and not just reacting. So the longer I thought, the more my thoughts returned to how much she changed since she met Travis. At this point I had no idea what happened to Claire. I had no idea who Travis really was. I had no idea about anything, but I was damn sure that Travis had something to do with whatever is going on. So I pulled out my phone and scrolled quickly through my contacts until I saw his name written there in neat black letters. Without thinking about what I was going to say if he picked up, I clicked the call button and pressed the phone hard up against my ear.