On Our Own

Chapter 9

After we all ate a lunch of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, I went back upstairs to my room. I didn't really feel like talking to anyone. I just stared out the window and watched as Casey hit baseballs onto Ms. Partinoff's roof. I knew that was going to be a problem.

Casey and Ms. Partinoff had a very contentious relationship which consisted of Casey agitating the old woman by consistently hitting baseballs over the fence and onto her land and Ms. Partinoff angrily yelling at Casey to knock it off and at some times escalating it to threatening to call the police.

I turned my head away from Casey and watched as Molly taught Anna how to water the roses garden properly. I wish my life was back like that again, where my biggest concern was things as little as soccer practice.

I turned to face the inside of my room and found my reflection staring back at me in my mirror. It was so tempting to do what my eyes were telling me to do. I snapped out of it when the doorbell rang.

I was about to go answer it when I heard James yell, "I got it!"

I laid back down, facing away from the mirror. It was peaceful, well up until Jack and Matt came into my room whining.

"James took the playstation from us," Matt complained.

"How sad," I muttered. "We aren't even supposed to be on the consoles, we're grounded remember?" I said picking up a book from the floor that Jack was stepping on.

"Come on Leah, please go talk to him?"  Jack begged, pulling on my arm.

"Why? We'll just fight again," I said, as I flicked through the book absentmindedly.

"You guys never used to fight," Jack pointed out.

"Yeah well he wasn't always a jerk," I said before returning to the book.

Matt and Jack looked between each other.

"So, you're not going to tell him to give it back?" Matt asked.

"No."

"Can we jump off the roof?" Jack asked, referring to our little competition from earlier.

"No."

"Why not?" he whined

"Yeah, it was your idea," Matt chimed in.

"Because I have to watch and make sure no one dies, and I don't want to get up," I explained.

"We won't tell anyone if you go see Carter," Jack tried.

"I'm allowed to see Carter," I replied, since Monica had said it was okay this morning.

"But we can't leave the house," Matt pointed out, referring to Jessica's rule.

I sighed and looked at them. "Fine, you can jump off the roof, I'm going to see Carter."

I went up to the third floor with Jack and Matt following close behind. Thankfully, everyone was there. I noticed Kyle, Ethan, and James were all playing a video game. I guess they were the ones who were at the door earlier. Ethan waved at me and I offered a small smile back.

"I'm leaving for a bit, James is in charge," I said not looking at him.

He ignored me, so I turned to Nina. "You know you're actually in charge, right?"

She nodded but gave me a disapproving look for breaking the rules. I ignored it and then went down to the garage.

I found the spare key to my car that Jess forgot to take and drove towards the hospital and when I arrived, I immediately went to Carter's room. I was shocked when he wasn't there.