I didn’t want it to end up like this.
I begged him to stop, to get out and to go with me but he just wouldn’t budge.
At twenty-one years old he should have known better. All it took was for him to pull that trigger and we were done. I told him day in and day out that this was a horrible place for him to be. That he needed to get out of the gang, that this was all a stupid idea and he was foolish for going through with initiation in the first place when he was only eighteen.
“Stop! Stop, please!” I cry out in a harsh tone. It was too late. They had him cuffed and pressed against the hood of his Range Rover within seconds.
“Jacqueline!” His call of my name is muffled against the black hood and I look at him. He has no worry in his eyes, he’s completely fearless. “Jackie, baby, everything’s going to be fine. Luke will take-.”
“I don’t want Luke to take care of me!” I scream as the officers attempt to force his head down and into the back of the police car. “I want you, Harry!”
~~
It was cold out. My nerves tingled and my hands shook but I refused to go back in there. I refused to be a part of that.
The memory of Candice handing me the joint flooded through my mind. Why would she do that? She’s knows I’m not into that stuff. I’ve never been heavily into partying, drugs, or even drinking. I’ve smoked a few cigarettes, gotten wasted once or twice, and I barely even attended one party every couple of months.
I could hear my breath wavering but I still continued to sit out there in the twenty degree weather, smoking a cigarette in hopes that the nicotine would keep me warm while I basked in my unimportant and rather boring thoughts. The door behind me flew open, but I stay relaxed and continued to take a drag. A few kids around my age came stumbling out of out of my sister's ridiculously small house. They made note of me, one of them tumbling on top of me and almost squashing me right then and there. I muttered a string of profanities under my breath as he or she tried to regain his or her posture. “Sorry!” The deep voice chimed, hinting that it was a male. I couldn’t help but wonder how many drinks and how many joints the three each had.
As they continued on with their journey to a future car accident, I rose to my feet and decided to go back inside. The aroma in the secluded room told me they were still lighting and passing joints but I shrugged my jacket off anyway and took a seat next to Mel. Her soft, strawberry blonde locks cascaded over her shoulder in loose curls and her eyelids slowly fluttered shut as she took a long drag of the addictive drug in her hand. “You’re nose is all red,” she commented, giggling a bit and poking my chilled skin. I heaved a sigh and looked around the room. This is exactly why I never attended ridiculous house parties.
My eyes scanned the worn, wooden walls and I tugged my flannel around me tighter. Candice told me she and Nathan planned on keeping the heat down low, but I didn’t think they’d have it turned off on such a cold night. Suddenly, I caught sight of a tall man arguing with Candice. His long, brown hair is pulled up into a messy bun and his fists are clenched at his sides. He’s clearly aggravated with what she has to say. They were both upset, Candice nearly to tears while the tall man smacked his hand against the wall, surely leaving a crack. I wanted to get up and help her, to see what on Earth was going on, but I knew if I showed up with a mark anywhere on me, my parents would shit themselves and bribe the cops into finding out who on Earth did it.
