Is A High School Story

Chapter 9

Authors Note: Let us see how things will turn on with poor Richard. From Matthew's point of view. :3

                                                                    Word Count: 1492

Matthew's POV

I was reading a book in bed when I got a message from Rich. He asked if it was okay for him to come over. I said sure and he said thank god. Something must of happened. I'm not sure what but hopefully it was nothing bad. Alarms started going off in my head, but I quickly silenced them. I can't always assume things will be bad. How wrong I was.

Richard came about 10-15 minutes later. He was sweating and his clothes were a mess. He looked in a panic. I was highly concerned. He rushed in and sat on the couch in the living room. I sat next to him and tried to comfort him but nothing was working. In the end I just settled for a hug and he held onto me tighter than usual. 

"Richie dear, what's troubling you?"

He looked at me shaking, tears in his eyes. That's when it came to me. Rich was scared. I had never seen him scared before. I held him tightly.

"M-My house...it burned down..."

...His. It...But how? I..I didn't know what to say. It all makes sense now but that's besides the point. This is more serious than I imagined it would be. I knew it was bad but imagined something...slightly less bad? I don't know.

"A-Are you serious..? T-That's insane.. Do you know how the fire started?"

He shook his head. How did he not know how the fire started? Weird..

"Well Rich, you can stay with us okay? Well, if your parents are fine with it. Now that I mention it, I haven't heard you talk about your parents at all really. Are they....dead or something..?"

Rich shook his head again slower this time. Seems I touched a touchy topic.

"There not dead..just they work far away and aren't really involved in my life that much...not like yours."

Ah...it makes more sense now. I feel bad for Rich. No wonder he lives on his own and puts his time and effort into his socials. I gave him a kiss on the cheek.

"I'm so sorry to hear that..it must be really tough by yourself..well you won't be anymore! You have me and mom as company now!"

He smiled. I feel happy I made him smile.

"Thanks...I look forward to it. I just hope my parents aren't too mad about it..."

"When my mom gets back we can go and find out all the details on what happened okay?"

He nodded. I got up and took his hand and brought him to my room. We played some games for a bit but it wasn't having it's intended effect. I wanted to help him take his mind off what happened but it clearly wasn't working. After a bit I turned of the game and just held him close. He held onto me and buried his head in my chest. I petted him.

"Everything will be okay sweetie...just keep believing that.."

"I-I don't know...Why did this have to happen? Why did it have to happen to me?"

"That I don't know. Things happen to people everyday. Life is life. It's the people in life that help us through those things that make it better. Understand?"

He looked up at me and nodded. I gave him a soft kiss and ruffled his hair. He chuckled. I'm glad to of helped him.

We quietly held onto each other until my mom came about an hour or so later. We told her what happened and asked if Rich could stay with us. She agreed and we drove to where Rich's house was. There were a lot of officers still there even this late into the night. We parked and got out. Rich took us to the police officer he talked to.  He looked super tired. I can imagine how stressful being a police officer can be. My mom shook his hand and stuff.

"Hello my name is Shannon. I am friends with the Richard, who is the boy that had his house burn down correct?"

The officer nodded his head.

"We would like to ask him a few questions as well as figure what to do with him. He is only in high school and shouldn't be living alone, but I understand the situation since we talked to his parents, which would like to talk to you Richard. So come with me and we can go to the station and talk things over."

"Alright that sounds good. Ready to go boys?"

I nodded my head and Rich did the same after a few seconds. As we were walking back to the car I held his hand and squeezed it, kind of to let him know things will be okay. He squeezed it back, but I couldn't pick up the message. The cop got his car in front of ours and we followed him to the police station. It was smaller than I expected. He took us to a typical police questioning room and we sat at a table across from him. 

"So first things first, how did the fire start?"

Rich looked at him with a blank expression. I guess he still didn't know. Maybe something happened while he was at school..?

"I honestly don't know. Everything was fine when I left for school. I didn't do anything different today. At least I think so. I kind of overslept so I rushed a little."

"Hmmm." The officer said. I felt like he wasn't buying it, but I don't think Rich would purposely do something to start a fire. No one in their right mind would. That's when I remembered something. Recently, a commercial on TV started playing frequently. It was warning people of common fire hazard that was affecting a different part of out city. Could it be...?

"Rich! Have you been putting your phone or any electronics under your pillows while they're charging or while your sleeping or both or something??"

Rich looked up confused for a second, but after a bit of thought looked down at the table. It seems he figured it out. He put his head down on the desk shaking. I went over to him and gave him a tight hug. We all sat in silence for a few minutes before Rich put his head up. He had been crying.

"Okay so...this morning. I got up and left my laptop and tablet on top of each other charging under my pillow this morning....is that how..?"

The officer nodded his head. Was that really how this all happened...? It seemed so..simple.

"It's the most reasonable explanation. Okay. Now that we know what happened, we need to figure out what to do from here. Do you want to take in Richard to live with you Ma'am?"

"Yes I would like to, if that's alright with his parents. Do they know about what happened?"

The officer nodded again, but had a troubling look on his face. That could not be good. He tipped the hat on his head.

"Well yes, they know what happened, but they were not happy about it. Obviously no parent would be, but they were outright screaming on the home."

Screaming on the phone? You have to kidding. Considering how awesome and kind and sweet Richard is, I expected his parents to be the same. I could be wrong I guess. My mom had her hands over her mouth in shock. My mom was very kind and nice person, but I knew one thing she absolutely despised was people yelling and being unreasonable in situations were it wasn't needed. 

The officer continued: "They want to speak to Richard as soon as possible as well so.."

He looked at Rich and kind of smiled.

"Are you ready to talk to them? Or do you want to wait awhile?"

Rich took a deep breath and nodded. They both got up and they went to another room. I stayed next to my mom in silence. I didn't know what to say and neither did she. I just held onto her and she hugged me back. I hoped for the best and that's all I could really do. 

Seconds felt like hours and minutes felt like days. But eventually Rich can back out, with the police officer following behind him slowly. I gave him a smile but instead in return he ran to my arms crying. I blushed and nervously hugged and patted him. That caught me off guard. The officer walked up to us with a sad face. This isn't good.

"I'm sorry to inform you, but his parents denied the request."

Authors Note: I started this on one day and finished like 4-5 days later. I'm sorry this took so long and will have a post later regarding my chapter post schedule. Until next time. ^^