Chapter 9

"Are you okay?" Max asked as I try to stand up, stumbling on my feet.

"Yeah. I am okay." I say balancing myself on the tree trunk. I think that I am okay but I am not. I do not even know what I am doing here. "How did I get here?" I ask looking around. I am in the middle of the park under a large tree. Only a few people are around, mostly preteens.

"We were here for detention, remember?" He says looking at me worry clouding his eyes.

Detention. I got detention today? I can't recall.

"Oh yeah. Right." I said nodding slightly.

I have to get back to my mother.

I look around slightly, trying to remember some kind of direction. There is a skating area near the first entrance and on the other side there is a rose garden.

I recognize the skating area. That's where I will be heading.

I pick up my bag and sling it over my shoulders. Starting my walk home. As I reach the skating area a voice calls out from behind me.

"Where are you going!?"

"Home!" I responded without looking behind.

"Jennifer?"

I turned around to look at him standing a few feet away from me. He stays silent for a few seconds and then looks behind him towards the other entrance. "David is your neighbor right?" He asks as if talking to a little girl.

"Chris?" I ask.

"No, David." He said slowly.

"Kate refers to him as Chris, why is that? It's so confusing because the teachers refer to him as David. And there is also you too of course." I say shrugging.

"Him and Kate are cousins and his family addresses him as Christopher." He said, taking my hand and leading me to the other side of the park.

"Oh." Was my only response to everything.

We silently walk and before I know it, we have already walked out of the park and down two streets. I should be paying attention to where we are going so I do not get lost the next time I come here. Or if ever I come. I think I will not, but the air there is different... it is fresher I guess. It must be from all those trees there.

I should stop being this ridiculous.

"We are here." Max said looking at the building infront of us. And indeed we were standing on the sidewalk infront of David's house.

"Thank you." I say nodding in gratitude and he just stands for a while, just looking at me. He nodded his head in response and I took that as my sign to head in to my house.

It was happening again, I am forgetting.

Argh!

This is so frustrating, I must have looked very stupid back there. I can not believe that happened again.

I just need some rest and then everything will be alright.

I open the door to my room and walk straight to my bed and collapse on top of it.

My shoes are still on and my backpack too... but I do not care whatsoever. All I want to do right now is to sleep.

Or at least that was what I wanted until I heard a crashing sound coming from outside my window. That made me jolt off the bed and alerted for any kind of danger.

Through my lace coverd window I could slightly see someone picking up something, it looked like a tennis racket... if I am not wrong.

I can faintly hear sounds from outside but they are not audible enough due to the distance between us. Why can I not at least have a 10 minute nap?

Quickly I walk towards the window to see what is going on out there, but from where I am standing I can barely see anything. The voices have become louder though, but not clear enough for me to understand.

Okay there is only one option left. Go outside and see it through the fence.

I shrug off my bag and jog to the front door like the curious cat I am. I hope it is something important though, or interesting.

I like interesting things.

But who does not?

When I reached the door I fling it open and step out into the darkening sky. It is warm here. Warmer than it was inside the house.

I walk to the direction where I think I heard the voices before.

And when I turn the corner, I see four figures lingering around. I can not clearly see what they are looking at on the ground but I am thinking it is the broken thing. The windows seem fine, nothing is wrong with them. So what was broken?

"To think I have spent 5 weeks working on this!" A boy yelled.

"It was a flipping accident. Calm yourself. " Another one said.

I heard a few mumbles... I have to hear what they are saying.

I step closer to the them to hear properly but to my luck I slip on something and end up falling to the ground in the neighbour's yard. As I make impact with the hard ground, something sharp makes it's way into my ankle.

"Bloody hell!" I yelled feeling my leg oozing out blood.

This is what you get for being snoopy. I should have just stayed at home and took my nap.

"What was that?" One of the guys asked.

"I think it was a... girl?" Another one said as I hear their footsteps coming closer to where I have fallen.

I have to get out of here before they catch me. And I do the logical thing, as I hurriedly put my hand on the ground so that I can have some support standing up. But that was yet again a mistake, another sharp material went shooting in the palm of my hand.

"Shit!" I curse again and their steps picked up.

Oh no. I have to get moving quickly. Using my other hand for balance I put my hand on the ground again and thankfully this time nothing stabs me. Unfortunately though they end up finding me and boy am I nervous right now.

"Poor thing." One of them said as they all look down on me."I think she got pricked by the glass guys. "

"You think?... Can you not see she is bleeding?" The guy standing next to him asked.

"Jennifer?" I know that voice... I turn slightly to look at the person. And even though it is dark I can make out the slight details of his face. It is David. Why am I even surprised, it is his yard after all. I still did not think he would be here though. Surprisingly.

"Yeah...can you help me up maybe?" I asked my voice lower than I thought it would be.

They silently pull me up. And my leg did not like it one bit. The bleeding is not rapid or life threatening, but it's slowly staining the grass. I do not say anything though I pretend like everything is okay and once I am on both my two feet I turn towards my house and try to limp my way home.

"Where are you going?" David asking.

"Home." I said not even turning around for a second.

I did not even manage to take 5 steps away when one of the guys flung me on his shoulder, carrying me towards David's house.

"What the hell man!" I yelled at the guy who has been quite throughout this entire situation.

"Just shut up. " The guy said grunting slightly.

How rude.

However I do not voice out any options. I stay quiet until we reach the door to David's house.

"This is not my house. " I said sarcasm dripping in my voice.

He does not say anything though. He just flings the door open like it is his house. Maybe it is, I don't know.

He walked in and he keeps on walking until we reach another door. Once it was open, he puts me down on a soft chair beside a bed.

He turns around and walks to I do not know where. He returns shortly after though and he was holding a first aid kit.

Great.

"I can do that at home you know." I said eying his movements as he crotches down in front of me.

"Shut up." He said grunting.

Again, rude.

He places all the materials on the lid of the kit.

I do not know the names of half of the things in there but I know what they are used for and he starts off by disinfecting my leg then my hand.

It hurt like hell to say the least.

He proceeded on by talking some tweezers to pull out the glass with.

"I do not think that is a good idea you know. I should go to the hospital and get it..."

"Shut up." He said annoyed. He did not even let me finish what I was going to say.

"Is that the only words you know?" I shot back.

Pathetic, I know.

"Just shut up already. "

Would you look at that, he does know other words.