Together Forever (on hiatus)

Chapter 17

A/N:

I listened to Ed Sheeran's album while writing this.

Chapter 17:

The first thing I did when I woke up in the morning was jolt up from my bed and dance around in my room like a maniac. A full happy grin was permanently placed on my face as last night's events raced across my mind. Raiden was absolutely wonderful and perfect and... sigh.

"I have some bad news."

A great way to start off a Monday, dad. My happy mood quickly faded away and I slowed down my walk into the kitchen. His grim expression told me that it was very important.

"What kind of bad news?"

He sighed and rubbed his face with his hands, stretching out his features into funny expressions. I would've laughed if my stomach didn't feel like a ball being lifted into the air right before it got dropped.

"There has been a fire in your school. It's going to be shut down."

As a teenager, I should've been ecstatic about the fact that I didn't have to go to school anymore. But what was going to happen to the students? The ones that needed to graduate or the ones that never got the chance to even finish their first year at high school? Alistair High was the only high school in this small inhabited town and now for those of us that wanted to leave this hellhole, we would never get to. What would we do without education? I stood there while my head began pounding and as a sob slowly started creeping up in my throat. This isn't happening.

"I'm sorry sweetie, I knew how much you wanted to leave this town," my parents had always supported my dreams, even though it meant that we would be away from each other.

"A... a fire?"

"They believed it was an arson attack."

Why would someone want to attack a high school? The only high school in this town? I sighed and leant against the kitchen wall as a headache rushed through me.

"Did they find out who the arsonist was?" I hoped they did.

Dad shook his head, "not yet, but they're set on finding whoever it was. The town is enraged and I'm sure they wouldn't let a case like this go past."

"What are the students going to do then?"

"There was an option," I picked up the fact that he used 'was'.

Does this mean I'm going to be stuck? Stuck in this tiny town with the same idiotic and ignorant people for the rest of my lives?

"... Raiden," that snapped me out of my thoughts and I glanced at dad. The corner of his lip tugged a little but became serious again. I frowned. If this wasn't a serious situation, he probably would've teased me for letting a guy have this kind of hold on me. It was Raiden though, so it was excusable.

"I'll call him."

"No!" I shrieked and placed a pale hand on top of dad's, "that won't be necessary."

"I just thought you would want his company," he smirked, "anyways, as I was saying, there's a community group that a few teachers had volunteered to run. Mr Thames and Mr Drake could only accept a number of students and by the time I heard about the fire, parents had already signed their kids up. I'm sorry London."

Dad's face then became guilt-ridden and my heart clenched painfully. I sent him a reassuring smile, "it wasn't your fault."

He heaved a shaky sigh and stood up, "I'll see what else I could do."

I watched dad as he exited the kitchen while a guilty aura trailed behind him. When he felt like that, it was usually best to leave him alone. Sometimes you could just let a person be when they need some time alone. It wasn't his fault and I hoped he'd realise that soon.