A Girl's Burden

Chapter Eighteen: Another Nightmare & More Invites

Chapter Eighteen|

        I've never felt fear for someone in my life since my best friend, Emily, passed away two years ago. On my way to the main office to print copies of our Physics quiz, I heard someone falling down the stairs with a loud scream before a huge thud. Curiousity came and I immediately went about to see if he or she was okay. A girl at the bottom of the stairs, laying flat on her side helplessly. Blood started to drip out of her nose. Then it hit me. Raquel was in trouble.

        "Oh my god." I murmured to myself and dropped the papers on the floor and came to Raquel's aid. I lightly tapped on her cheeks.

        "Raquel."

        She didn't respond, but she still had a pulse in her wrists.

        "Raquel!" Still no answer.

        "Help! I need help!" I yelled above the staircase, hoping my screams would echo enough for anyone in the classrooms or hallways to hear me. Isaac peeked his head out the railing and quickly sped his way down when he saw us.

        "What happened?" He asked me as kneeled down before us.

        "I don't know. I just came to print out papers and I heard her fall down the stairs."

        "Did she hit her head?"

        I shrugged. By the time I got to the staircase she was already on the floor.

        "Raina, answer me. This is serious."

        "I don't know," I said. "I hope not."

        His expressed in anxiety while his hands started jittering, as if he already knew what that could mean. He pulled out his phone from his pocket and handed it to me, "Call 911. I'm gonna go to the office to let them now."

        Despite the principal dismissing Regina and Otto early to run to the hospital with Raquel, the rest of the student body was forced to stay inside the classrooms until the ambulance had left the school premises. It was a protocol that the school had to follow, which was absolutely absurd to me.

        Regina asked me to not come visit with the rest of the guys since her mom said so. But she promised to tell us any good or bad news.

        Tuesday morning was a dark day. At the parking lot, I saw Isaac hugging Regina tightly as she appeared to sob on his shoulder. He walked her to her car before she drove off.

        "Why did she just leave? It's early in the-"

        "Rain, listen to me." He pulled me to the side and stroke my chin when he saw I was beginning to get nervous. Every second he took to say what he needed to say made my heart race faster and faster, as if I was preparing myself to hear one of the worst news ever.

        It turned out that Raquel had a tumor growing inside of her brain, which caused her to faint and fall down the stairs-which could explain all of the frequent seizures she was having ever since the house party. No one was sure if it was cancerous or not.

        But all we knew was that I hoped Regina didn't end up losing another sister. She had an older sister named Rachael that died of a terrible car accident when Reggie was about ten or eleven years old. She wouldn't tell me that much about Rachael except that she just started loving her a few months before she died.

        I knew how it felt to lose someone close. Emily was shot during a shooting in my old school, Lincoln High School, two years ago when I was still living in New York. What made it worse was that she was shot infront of me. Coldblooded.