Youngblood

Chapter 10

Dianne's POV

I walk up to Joe's with the girls and knock on his door, crossing my fingers in my other hand. Tracey answers it.

"Ah, Dianne, Anna, and who are the others?" Tracey says.

"Lauren, Katya, Amy and Chloe," I say, indicating each one and also still crossing my fingers.

"Oh right ok. I'm Tracey, Joe's Mum. The boys have messaged me saying that they're on their way, so they should be back any minute now. Come in, make yourself at home."

"Thank you," I reply, stepping inside and heading into their living room. I then hear footsteps running down the stairs and Zoe bursts into the room, wearing a 1920s flapper girl dress.

"Have you seen Mum?" Zoe asks. "Also, what do you think?"

It looks amazing. When I was younger, I loved looking at the flapper girls, especially their outfits. They just look so elegant

"It's so nice," I say. "I've always loved flapper girl outfits. And your Mum was literally just here letting me in a second ago."

"Thank you," Zoe says. "I'm going to a 1920s themed party, so I instantly thought of this. I'll go look for Mum now. Where's Joe?"

"He's coming back from hospital."

"Hospital?"

Zoe looks alarmed.

"Yeah. Not him in hospital though. We got a message this morning from Josh's Mum saying that he was in hospital as they found him unconscious but don't know what happened to him. They should be coming back soon, so that's why we're all waiting," I explain. Zoe's expression relaxes a little.

"Oh, ok," is all she manages to say.

"Whose party are you going to?" Anna asks, changing the subject.

"Mark's," Zoe says. "And if you don't mind me asking, who are the other four girls? I've never known Joe to have so many girl friends."

"These are Amy, Chloe, Lauren and Katya," I say again.

"Oh, hi, I'm Zoe. I probably should've said that earlier. Right, I really need to go and find Mum. Nice meeting you all, and let me know what happens to Josh."

Zoe disappears again, leaving the rest of us waiting.

"I hope Josh's ok," Lauren says. "I'd hate if anything bad had happened."

"He's unconscious," Katya adds. "Course something bad has happened."

"I know, but it could be really serious, or it could easily be fixed," Lauren says.

"Let's just hope it'll be ok," Chloe says.

At that moment, we hear the door open and a bunch of footsteps storming through.

"How's Josh?" Amy asks.

"He was in ICU when we arrived," Caspar says.

"ICU?" Katya asks.

"Intensive Care Unit," Caspar clarifies. "We couldn't go in at first, which is why we were late. He woke up. They don't really know what happened, but he had a bump to the head that knocked him unconscious, and he broken his right leg too."

"That's terrible," Anna says. "How long will he have to be in hospital for?"

"I'm not sure," Mikey says. "Could be a couple of days. Depends how his head injury is. The doctor said that his leg is easily fixable."

Joe sits down next to me and puts an arm around me, rubbing circles onto my back.

"Do you think someone attacked him?" I whisper. The brief excitement of seeing Zoe's outfit has died off.

"It's a possibility," Joe says.

"That would be awful," Lauren says.

"I just hope that he'll be ok," I sniff.

"Hey, it'll be ok," Joe soothes, bringing me closer. "I promise it'll be ok."

"You don't know that," I say.

"It wasn't too serious," Oli adds.

"Dianne seriously, it will all be ok," Byron says. "We just need to find out who did this, if it was a person."

"How else? He just dropped unconscious?" Katya asks.

"It could just be that someone rode past on a bike or something," Byron says.

"And they didn't stop to check if he was ok?" Katya protests. "It was definitely a person."

"We don't know for a fact," Jack says.

"We kind of do," Katya says.

"Right let's stop arguing over this," Caspar says. "Why don't we just try and enjoy ourselves this evening and try and forget about it? And we could plan something nice for when Josh returns."

"We could throw a party? Just us lot," Conor suggests.

"Yeah, that sounds like a good idea," Jack says.

"Right, if we're going to spend the next I don't know how long talking, then I'm gonna go and get some snacks," Joe says. "Di, come with me?"

I love it when he calls me Di.

"Oo," Oli teases as we walk off into the kitchen.

Joe's POV

I lead Dianne off into the kitchen and raise her chin so that she's looking at me.

"Is everything alright?" I ask. "You seemed so taken aback with what happened to Josh."

Dianne nods.

"Yeah, yeah, it's nothing," Dianne replies, but I'm not convinced.

"Seriously Di, what's happened?" I ask. "You can talk to me."

"It was something that happened years ago," Dianne starts. I lead her over to the table and sit her down. "My brother, Brendan, got attacked once when he was walking. He was in hospital for weeks, as he had so many fractures. The people who attacked him never got caught. When he came back from hospital, he would get really anxious about leaving the house. It lasted for around a year. I just don't want the same to happen to Josh."

I pick Dianne up and hug her tightly, allowing her to sob quietly into my shoulder.

"This time will be different," I tell her. Then something comes to me. Dianne's never mentioned any brothers before. She's only told me that she lives with her Mum. "Is Brendan in the UK?"

Dianne shakes her head. "He lives in Australia with my Dad and other brother, Andrew. Andrew had this opportunity to go to this professional dance school in Canberra, at the same time my Mum was offered a job over here. They decided that Dad would take Andrew to Canberra, and Mum would come over here."

"But you love dancing," I say. "Why didn't you go with your Dad? And why did Brendan?"

"Brendan refused to come to the UK so Dad allowed him to go with them. But when I refused they forced me to come here."

I hug Dianne again. I'm sure she would've loved the chance to live in Canberra, and maybe get into the dance school too. How could her parents refuse her that chance? And to take Brendan instead of her...

"I'm so sorry," I say.

"It's not your fault," Dianne says. "Anyway, why don't we get these snacks?"

"You ok?" I check. Dianne nods.

We grab a handful of packets of biscuits and the like and we return back to the lounge. You can tell that Dianne has been crying, but no one questions her, which is a good thing.

I wonder if that's the only thing her parents were unfair about?

A/N: Sorry it's been a while since the last upload. Let me know your thoughts on this chapter and whether you liked it! Xx