Hold Me Close [Oliver Sykes]

Chapter 5 -- My Heart Will Never Feel... (PART 1)

Chapter 5  

My heart will never feel, will never see, will never know. Oh, heart, and then it falls, and then I fall... I'm the one in love. (PART 1)

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I cut through the crowd inside the arcade, my eyes sweeping across the room, passing the concession counter and restrooms in a hurry. There was no sign of Beth nor Jackson. What if they actually left me? They wouldn't do that, would they? I tried to gather my thoughts and walked towards the last place that I had seen them - near the air hockey machine, but to my utter disappointment, they weren't there. 

"Looks like they left." Oliver said. His brown eyes held a silver of amusement that I glared out of him. "Looks like you need a ride sweat pea." He said with his signature smirk. I stared at him for a few seconds, worried that my friends left me with him!  

Why me? Why did this always happen to me?

Few hours before...

It was Saturday and my mother Cora had just cooked breakfast for once which was once again a huge surprise. My eyes widened at the fact that there was food actually ready for me to eat and that I didn't have to wake up extra early to cook it. I was he expecting Ashton Kutcher to jump out from a corner and shout 'you've been punk'd' but nothing happened. 

I sat on the stool, eating a buttered bagel. From the corner of my eyes I watched Cora scrub Ajax into our kitchen sink vigorously. "A letter from your school came today." She flicked her chin at the stack of mail on the counter. "Do you know why?" 

I looked over my shoulder and turned back to Cora to give her my best innocent smile and said, "No clue." I tucked my hair behind my ear before I started to pick apart the bagel in my hand. I had a pretty good idea what this was about. Apparently I wasn't on track on all of my courses, and was on thin ice as last year I did skip school quite a bit because I couldn't juggle everything along with the inevitable stress. The principle sent me an early warning that he would be setting up sessions every Monday afternoon with Dr. Harriet, the school psychologist. The letter was probably notifying me of this, along with my goddamn schedule. 

My mother let it slide with a deep exhale. "Do you have any plans for tonight? Maybe a movie here at the house with Beth or Jackson?" Her brown bun was coming undone as she scrubbed harder. My eyebrows furrowed together in confusion as I watched her clean the near-to-spotless sink.  

"Well, I actually was going to hang with Beth right after breakfast." I licked my fingers, stalling for a suitable response for my 'ready to amend things' mother. "I guess I'll just go out with her tonight too and stay over at hers." 

"If something comes up-" she began but I cut her off. "I'll let you know." I said, getting up from my seat to take a cup out if the cupboard and poured coffee. I finished my bagel in less than a minute later to the sounds of Cora's monotone chatter, interjecting a few nods and "uh-huh's" when she waited for my responses. I was preoccupied with debating whether or not I really wanted to meet Jackson tonight at the reopening of The Arcane (a club/amusement park all put together).  

The Arcane was at least a half-hour drive. More to the point, on weekends The Arcane had a reputation for being wild. 

My phone rang and Beth's number showed on the caller ID. 

"Are we doing anything tonight?" Beth asked. 

I opened my mouth, before closing it to rethink my answer. I wanted to weigh my answer carefully, knowing Beth had the most unpredicted and sometimes the scariest reactions ever. I told her about meeting Jackson at the reopening, resulting into a 'no turning back' situation.