189 Partout Lane

5

           

5  

Ashley was still running down the rainy road. She ran into her house and slammed the door. I was losing my breath but I knew Carson and Michael were worried about us. We'd had been gone for at least twenty minutes. I almost slid on the wet green grass in front of John's house.  I burst through the door to find Carson and Mike pacing around the room. "Where did you go?" Although Carson was furious, John's sobs were still audible, still from the upstairs. "Why are you guys down here and not helping John?" I managed to muster out. "His parents thought it would be best if we left them alone with him. But where did you guys go? Where's Ashley?" "Look, we -" "Ahhhhhhh!" John was still crying. Michael was covering his ears as much as he could. "What's going on? Where's Ashley?" Carson yelled. "She!" "Ahhh!" John was still crying. "Just come with me!" "What?"  "Ugh!" I opened the door revealing the pouring wet atmosphere, creating only more chaos. "Ahhhhhhh! Ahhhhhh!" John's outburst was just as loud as that damn rain. "Come!" I shouted over all the confusion. "Ahhh!" We all headed out the door and sprinted through their glossy marble titles to the road. "Drew, what's going on? Please tell us!" "She flipped out! And-and is panicking! She just took off running into her house." "I don't know if she's ok." "Should we check on her?" Carson asked. "I mean you saw what John was just about to do! We probably should!" Mike pitched.

We ran down the black soaking wet road to Ashley's misty grey house out in the distance and we sprinted up the old porch and then started banging on the door. "Ashley! Ashley!" The creaky wooden door jolted open. "What?" "Are you okay?" She tried slamming the door but Carson stopped it with his hand. "Ashley can we please come inside?" She walked away leaving the door open. I'm guessing that was a yes. We all piled in, one after the other, soaking wet, dripping with confusion. "What is it? What do you want?" "What do you mean what do you want? You saw how John just tried to kill himself! We're worried about you!" Mike was so angry. I shut the door and the only noise letting was Carson's fury. "Honestly Ashley we were so fricking scared about you too! You guys just took off down the road! How the hell were we supposed to know if you're okay?" Carson was furious. "Look, we just want to know if you're not going to do what John just almost did, ok?" I spoke up. "I'm not. We've been over this Drew!" "I know ok! I just don't want you to do the same thing!" "I don't blame John for trying. Olivia's gone and someone in this ratty as town killed her!" 

We were just staring at each other, each of us, all spread out around the living room, terrified because we all knew it was true. She was dead and the person who killed her was still out there. We were horrified about it but, I think what was so petrifying was that none of us even bothered to take off our coats or our shoes to try and get dry. The yellow and brown lights of the room only helped us see the whites of our blood shot teary terrified eyes, strengthening the reality of what it really was. No one knew what to say, to make this better, we were all so scared out of our minds.  "I know." Michael finally spoke up. "We know." "God I miss her so much." Carson broke. "How the hell did this even happen?" Mike stated. "I have no idea guys I'm just as confused as you all are. I'm honestly so scared about today." "What's today?" Ashley finally said something. "I have my first police questioning." "When is it?" "3:30, are you having one?" "Yeah of course I am, tomorrow night at 7:00." "That's-that's weird. Mines in a couple days." Mike said. "Yeah, mine's next week." Carson's was even further away. "That is weird why are you guys' so much farther away? I mean we all live on the same street so shouldn't we all have ours around the same time?" "Well, you two were on the soccer team with Olivia so maybe it has something to do with that." Michael bought that up. "Yeah maybe." I still wasn't so sure that's what it was though. It just didn't seem right. "What do you think they're gonna ask me, I mean us. Detective Rivers already came by my house and asked me everything I knew about that night and how I knew Olivia. What more could they possibly want to know because I can't think of anything." "I don't know, Drew." Carson stated. "Yeah same here. Look, I'm glad that we stopped John and everything but, I need to get back to school. My dad will kill me if he finds out I skipped." Michael added.