My Knights in Shining Armor

Chicago is a Stinky Onion

A/N if you're tired of school already and you know it clap your hands

thunderous applause from everybody

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This time, Olly lets me enter the room first. After he closes the door behind him quietly, he hands me the shirt from Evan's room.

I take it, raising an eyebrow at him.

"Go ahead," he whispers, smirking at me as he nods towards Dakota's sleeping frame.

"No way!" I adamantly shake my head, shoving the shirt back towards Olly's hard chest.

Olly doesn't take the t-shirt; instead, he grabs my arm and pulls me away from Dakota's bed.

"Why not, Cherry?" He whispers, his words quietly treading their way to my ears. "You're going to have to do this eventually, might as well start now."

"I barely know him! I barely even know you, or anyone else in this family! It was one thing when you did it, but to ask me to whip a boy I've talked to once with a t-shirt belonging to another boy I've talked to twice to wake him up is pushing it a little far, don't you think?"

Olly takes a step back. "Those were a lot of words arranged not so nicely, Cher," he starts, gently taking the shirt from me. "I won't make you do it if you don't want, just please don't freak out."

Oh, if only you knew, my friend. If only you knew how close I am to freaking out, how close I've been to freaking out over the past few weeks or so. But instead of saying something, I just shake my head softly and leave the room, leaving behind a confused Olly and a still sleeping Dakota.

My stomach rumbles, and I ruefully remember my half-eaten plate of breakfast sitting in between Blair and Calais, whichever one they may be. At the moment, however, going back downstairs is the last thing I feel like doing.

I hear a doorknob turn from down the hall, and I quickly scamper into my room, shutting the door quickly behind me to avoid a confrontation with Olly and possibly Dakota.

Two sets of footsteps head down the hall, and I catch a few snippets of their owners' conversation.

"...waking Felix and Evan up..."

"... freaked out a tiny bit..."

"... poor girl..."

The voices fade as Dakota and Olly head downstairs, and I collapse on my bed, wrestling between emotions.

Anger at Olly for suggesting that I wake Dakota up.

Disgust at myself for reacting so strongly.

Fear that the Knights will never accept me.

My mind fixates on the last point, and it suddenly becomes all I think about. All I can think about.

Fear. That terrible, terrible sinking feeling in your gut when you just know something bad is going to happen, and it's going to happen to you. When you're so wrapped up in yourself that nothing outside of your little bubble makes a difference, because you're scared it won't be a good difference. When change is almost always a bad thing, because what good can come of losing the most important person in your life?

When you're scared, the answer to that question is nothing. No good.

And that is why, for the umpteenth time in two weeks, I start to cry.

/\

"I don't know, Mom, she just left Dakota's room without a word and I haven't seen her since."