The Disgraced Newsie( Rewritten)

Chapter 6: Crutchie's POV

Ever since that incident in the living room happened, no-one has seen Jack anywhere. Many of us assumed that he could be in his penthouse, licking his wounds while some of the others just assumed that he was hiding just like he usually would, saying that he was just acting like the coward that he was. But I knew that it wasn't like Jack to hide away like that for longer than a couple of days.

It didn't help the situation when Davey started to ask if we have seen Jack, but, of course, we either had to lie to him or just ignored him because all of us knew that he would never have liked how we treated Jack since he was still on good terms with him, which is more than what I could say about the rest of us.

I think that we might have went too far that night. No, we went too far. All we know is that Jack punched Race, but there could have been more than to what happened since Jack would never lash out like that to anyone without any reason.

Why did I even decide to hand Race my crutch and let him beat Jack with it? I don't even know why I did that. In fact, why would Race even do that to him in the first place? No-one deserved that, especially Jack.

Maybe I should head up to the penthouse and apologize to him. He deserves to hear one, especially from me. I walked toward the stairs of the penthouse and, hesitantly, climbed up the stairs.

"Hey, Jack?", I started to say as I climbed the stairs. "I know that I am the last person you would expect to see or hear from, but... about that night, I just wanted to- -". As soon as I reached the penthouse, I didn't see Jack anywhere. He couldn't be selling newspapers. We all would have seen him in Newsies Square if that was the case. And where did all of his stuff go? No-one, besides him, has been up here, so what happened?

I noticed a letter laying on the floor, so I picked it up and read it. Once I finished reading it, I started to shed some tears. Jack... left? Because of us? I have to tell everyone about this.

I ran down the stairs as fast as I could and ran into the dining room, and showed Race the letter. He started to read out to everyone, then after he finished, he just crumbled it up and threw it aside.

"Who cares? It's not like we need a traitor like him around here anyways. We will be better off without him. Good riddances. I hope he never comes back". How could Race say all of that? How could he just abandon Jack like that, after everything we have been through? Of course, I'm just as guilty as everyone else. I don't even care about what Jack had done and said at the rally anymore. All I want is my brother back.

Most of the others agreed to what Race said, but I noticed that some of them stayed quiet and just looked away. Well, at least I am not the only one who feels bad about what happened with Jack, but it doesn't change the fact that he left and he is probably gone forever.

Jack, I'm really sorry. Of course, I wish that I could have said that to your face, then maybe you never would have left if I had told you.