2. | LAST SUMMER [THE SANDLOT]

chapter eight

"I wanted to tell you all my secrets,
but you became one of them instead."

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The next day went kind of different than usual. Actually, a lot different. I had this unbearable pain in my chest. I screamed out loud as I clawed at it. My mom ran in seeing me scream and hitting my chest. She quickly called an ambulance and they came to the house very quickly. They lifted me on a gurney and rolled me outside and into the ambulance.

Before the doors closed, I noticed almost the whole neighborhood crowding around my house. I also noticed Yeah-Yeah, Squints, the Timmons brothers, Bertram, Ham, DeNunez, and Smalls outside of my house. But I didn't see Benny.

Now I'm in the hospital. I don't know how many hours or days I've been out but I wish I was still asleep. My chest began to sting as my eyes opened. There was a tub in my nose that was basically giving me more than half of the oxygen I should be inhaling on my own.

"She's waking up," I heard someone say along with multiple shushes. My eyes fully opened to see all of my friends surrounding my hospital bed. Well, all of my friends besides one and I'm pretty sure you can figure out who that was.

"Hey guys." I smiled softly at them. My voice was very hoarse.

"Hey, how you feeling?" Bertram asked me.

"Yeah, yeah, you look very pale." Yeah-Yeah mentioned.

"Thank you, yeah-yeah." I laughed a little. "I feel fine. Just a little pain in my chest but I'm okay."

"How bad is the pain?" DeNunez asked.

"Like an eight out of ten." I replied back tiredly.

They all cringed, "We can get the nurse in here."

"No. It's okay. The pain comes and goes." I said. The room went completely silent and the boys started to glance at each other nervously.

"What? What happened?" I asked. They jumped seeming like they forgot I was here.

"Alright, I'm gonna just say it." Tommy yelled out. "Benny is cheating on you with Chloe."

"I know." I blankly said.

"And don't get—Wait, you know?!" Ham exclaimed. All the boys stared at me with wide eyes.

"Yes, I know. And I can't do anything about it because, as you can see, I'm always stuck in bed or in the hospital." I explained. The boys face saddened.

"When did you find out?" Smalls asked.

"When he and Chloe walked into the sandlot that day." I responded, my voice cracking a little. "And I heard your guy's conversation with Benny a couple hours ago."

"You did?" Timmy furrowed his eyebrows making us look him in surprise that he said something without having to repeat after Tommy. I nodded.

A knock on the door echoed through Luna's quiet hospital room. All of Luna's friends were there, except Benny, sitting and waiting for Luna to wake up. When the knock was heard, Squints stood up and opened it since he was closed to the door. He opened it up and saw Benny standing outside the door.

Benny pushed his way inside and headed towards Luna but DeNunez and Yeah-Yeah stood in front of him.

"Get out." Squints demanded. Benny looked at him with a 'bitch please' look. He tried moving past DeNunez and Yeah-Yeah they didn't move.

"Move out of the way so I can see my girlfriend." Benny raised his voice.

"She's not your girlfriend anymore. Not after what you did." Ham sassed back.

"I didn't do anything." Benny denied but there was still some type of nervousness in his voice and eyes.

"Smalls told us what you did, Benny! Stop lying!" Squints yelled.

Benny's head whipped towards Smalls' direction. "You told them?!"

"I had too, Benny. Luna's is constantly in and out of the hospital and you—"

"And you probably didn't even know because you were too busy swapping spit with Chloe." Squints sneered.

"Yeah-Yeah, the whole neighborhood watched as Luna was being carried out of her house at one in the morning but where were you?" Yeah-Yeah asked.

Benny looked down. All the boys glared at him. Apparently, DeNunez was fed up with him seeing as he pushed Benny, "Hello? Where were you?"

In that moment, Luna's mom walked through the door. She witnessed DeNunez push Benny into the wall. She stood in between them, "Both of you leave. Luna doesn't need this."

Benny glared at DeNunez. He glanced at Luna sadly before storming out. After waiting a while, Luna's mom let DeNunez leave to meet his mom downstairs.

"Sorry about that." They apologized. I shook my head.

"It's okay. I'm just glad I still have you guys by my side." I smiled through the uncomfortable feeling of the breathing tube in my nose. They all started to surround my bed making happy tears well up in my eyes.

"Of course we're here for you. We're family." Smalls said glancing around at everyone. Silence filled the room. Not an awkward silence but a comfortable one. That's until Yeah-Yeah spoke.

"Yeah, yeah, if you think about it— we kind are like a family. You and Benny are like the parents and we're all the kids..." Yeah-Yeah trailed off. Everyone else caught on.

"...And right now we're going through a family crisis. Our "parents" are splitting apart." They added. Everyone let out a laugh.

"That's kind of true." I agreed as we all continued to chuckle. Our little laughing session was cut short when the door opened. And coming in was my mom and yeah-yeah's dad and sister. They also held three bags of food from our favorite fast food restaurant, Rally's.

Yeah-Yeah's sister, Ariam, set the cups holders that held our drink on the little table beside me before engulfing me into an almost none crushing hug.

"Holy crap, you're okay." She breathed out. I could hear the faint smile that was slowly growing on her lips.

I giggled. "Can't knock me down, remember?"

"Of course I remember." She pulled away from our hug. "No matter how many times I threw the ball at you in dodgeball, you could never get knocked down like everyone else."

We both giggled. Ariam moved out of the way for her dad to say hi. I had to admit, Yeah-Yeah's dad was pretty good looking for someone who's forty-one years old. He had a slightly chiseled jaw. His hair was dark brown, almost jet black. He was also pretty built, you could tell he worked out every once in while. Yeah-Yeah's dad, Mike, wrapped his muscular arms around me. Our hug was for a few seconds before he pulled away.

"You feeling okay there, kid?" He asked me. I nodded.

"Feeling better. A lot better now that everyone is here with me." I replied back with a smile.

"Alright!" He smiled and high fives me. "That's the kind of attitude you need to have to keep going. Always remember that."

"Thank you." I gave him one last hug.

"The sun sees your body..." Mike started looking at me to finish.

"... the moon sees your soul."

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A/N: So srry it took me so long to update. Like I've said before... school ends in a month and teachers have been piling hw and test on students more often, plus i had cheer workshops and now I have cheer tryouts but I promise I'm doing the best that I can. Just hang it there guys! But I hope you like this chapter... sorry it's short but yeah.

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Until next time...