Why Me?

Chapter 7

When we arrived, Calum, Ashton, and Strike were sitting there already.

“They called you guys too,” Calum stated.

“I wonder why we are here,” Ashton said. He had bruises all over his face. I walked over to him and examined his face.

“Are you okay?” I asked him.

“Not really, but I’ll manage,” he answered.

“Did you put ice on this when you got home?” I asked, pointing to his black eye.

“No.”

“Why not?”

“My mom got mad at me when I got home and told me I could never hang out with you guys again.”

“But we didn’t do anything bad.”

"I tried to tell her that, but she wouldn’t listen to me.”

“Maybe I’ll try and talk to her later.”

“Please don’t.”

“Too late.”

I went over and sat down in between Luke and Strike.

“So, pretty exciting first party, right?” Strike asked me. He chuckled a bit.

“A little too exciting, if you ask me,” I answered. We laughed a bit. I grabbed Luke’s hand.

“Ashton Irwin?” A woman said coming out of a room. Ashton got up and followed her down the hall. A little while later she came back. “Sara Hickory?”

I kissed Luke on the cheek before I got up and followed her.

“Why are we here?” I asked her.

“We wanted to ask you guys some questions to try and clear up what happened last night,” she answered. “We heard a few different stories and only two of them matched up.” Michael’s and Jesy’s I bet, I thought. “So we are trying to see who’s telling the truth and who’s not.” She opened a door and gestured me to enter. “Mr. Duns will be with you in a minute.” She closed the door.

I sat down in the chair closest to the door and waited for Mr. Duns. I looked around the room. It was very plain with nothing on the walls. It was dark except for a light sitting on the table. There were two chairs around the table. They were made of metal and were not comfortable at all. The table was bare. A few minutes passed and finally someone walked into the room. He had a pile of papers in his hand and he sat down in the chair opposite me. He carefully set up all the papers and looked at me.

“Hello, Sara,” he started. “My name is Mr. Duns and I will be asking you a few questions about last night. Let’s begin. So tell me, what do you remember from last night?”

“Well,” I began. “My friend, Luke, asked me to go to this party with him so I said yes and we went. Nothing really happened until I walked out to the woods and my other friend, Jesy, followed me. We talked for a bit and then a few minutes later, Luke came out to us and asked if we could go. He didn’t answer ‘why’ because we then heard ‘fight’ being chanted over and over. We ran inside to see another friend of ours, Ashton, in a fist fight with Will. We broke them apart and-“

“Why was Ashton in a fist fight?” he interrupted.

“Because Will called him a pussy and threw the first punch so Ashton was merely protecting himself.” I remembered what Ashton had said in the text message I read this morning about his fight. “Anyways, we pulled them apart and then Maggy came in to check and see if Will was okay. She called us all losers so I stood up to her by saying, - actually, I don’t really remember what I said. I just know that I was sticking up for myself and my friends in that situation. Anyways, she didn’t like what I said so she punched me in the face. Then she was pulled away from me but not before she got another punch into my gut. I fell to the ground, wheezing, and I started to see little lights in my vision. Then she came over and kicked me in the face and I was out. So I wasn’t technically there when the big fight happened. Sorry I can’t give you information on that.”

“No that’s perfectly fine,” he said writing a few things down. “Your story matches up almost perfectly with Jesy’s and Michael’s.” I knew it! “But not with Maggy’s.” He looked up at me. “She told me that you were the one that threw the first punch.”

“I’m not a very violent person. I don’t really hit or drink or go to parties like these. Ever,” I replied.

“Okay. Those were going to be some of my next questions.” He wrote a few more things down and stood up. “Thank you for taking time out of your day to do this. I promise you that if more stories match up with the one you just told me, your friends will be out as soon as possible.” He held out his hand. I stood up and shook it.

“Thank you,” I replied.

“You are free to go.” He opened the door and led me to the waiting room. “Looks like you’re the first one done.” He smiled at me as I went to go sit down in one of the chairs. Then he disappeared into a room.

I waited in the lobby. I got bored so I took out my phone. I started playing some games, looking at twitter, and listening to some of my voicemails from my parents. Most of them consisted of how they were leaving the house and wouldn’t be back until tomorrow night. Some of them were things that I needed to do around the house before then. Huh, so they really don’t know what happened last night. I heard footsteps and looked up to see Ashton walked down the hall.

“How did you get done before me?” he asked, sitting down next to me.

“Because I got knocked out before the big brawl happened, remember?” I said.

“Oh yea. That’s right.” He stared at his hands in his lap. “I wish I had gotten knocked out.”

“Why?” I asked. He shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

“There’s just some things you can’t handle seeing, don’t want to see, and don’t want to be a part of,” he answered. “Last night covered all three of them.” I looked over at him. I felt really bad for him. I decided to grab his hand in mine. He smiled. “Don’t you have a boyfriend?” he asked.

“Yea, but I’ll explain why I did this when he comes out,” I answered.

“Why did you do that?” he asked, looking into my eyes.

“Because I feel bad for you. I mean, first you got beat up by Will-“

“I threw some good punches in there,” he said chuckling.

“But you still got bruises all over your face,” I said laughing. “Then you saw one of your good friends get arrested, but first you saw a pretty good chunk of that brawl. Then you get home and your mom says that you can’t hang out with the fabulous six anymore.” He laughed.

“Let’s just say, the fabulous six is not dropping down to the fabulous five,” he laughed. “Why haven’t we become friends before?”

“Because my parents don’t let me hang out with people like you,” I answered looking at the ground. “And that’s probably a good thing because look where you guys made me end up.” I laughed.

“This is not and ‘every time you go to a party’ thing, though, and you know that, right?”

“Yea,” I answered. “I get that it’s like a one-time thing, but did it really have to be my first party?” He laughed.

“I guess you were just lucky,” he answered, looking at me sideways.

“Tough luck, then.”