Stand By Me, Chris

Chapter 11

The next morning I woke up in a good mood, it was finally Friday. I turned on my radio and danced along to the song that was playing as I got ready for school.

"Lauren, breakfast is ready!" Will yelled from the kitchen.

"Coming!" I called back as I ran down the hall. I entered the kitchen to see Chris sitting at the table. "Why are you here?" I asked. He had ignored me all day yesterday, but now he was in my kitchen.

"Lauren, be polite. He was outside waiting for you and I decided to invite him in for breakfast," Mom told me.

I sat down at the table, not bothering to look at him. We both are in silence until Mom rushed us out the door saying we were going to be late.

"What's going on?" I asked once we were outside.

"I'm sorry, I've never really loved anyone before. My parents, they don't care. I don't know, I've just never felt this way about anyone. When I found out that Beth likes me too I just didn't know what to do."

"So you ignored me?" I asked, crossing my arms.

"I shouldn't have, and I'm really sorry," he said grabbing my hand.

"Then why were you with Beth after school?" I pulled my hand away from him.

"I just wanted someone to talk to."

"And you couldn't talk to me?" I asked.

"I don't know. I'm sorry, but there's something more important than that," Chris said.

"What?" I asked. By this time we were about to walk into the school building.

"It's too crowded here, I'll tell you after school. Meet me at the treehouse," Chris said. He left for his locker, and I went the other way to my locker.

I spent the whole day wondering what Chris needed to tell me. The day went by slowly, I could hardly make it through class. During lunch we all asked Chris to tell us what was going on, but he kept his mouth shut.

I walked with Chris to the treehouse after school, but he wouldn't tell me until we arrived.

"Can you tell us now?" I begged Chris. Gordie and Teddy were there, they had no idea what was going on either.

"Not until Vern gets here," Chris said.

We all groaned. We had waited all day to hear this. We heard a knock on the door, but it wasn't the secret knock.

"It's Vern," Gordie said opening the door. Vern climbed in, he seemed like he was out of breath.

"Sorry I took so long. I got some cherry pez though!" Vern said sitting down across from me. We all sat in silence, looking at Chris.

"Tell us!" Teddy and I yelled to Chris.

"Alright, alright," Chris said.

"Wait, what is he telling us?" Vern asked.

"We don't know yet, so shut up!" Teddy rolled his eyes and sighed.

"Okay, so when Daniel got stabbed, Ace ran away. No one, not even Eyeball, has seen him since then. He's chicken, he ran away. We don't have to worry anymore!" Chris exclaimed.

"That's right! I heard Billy talking to him on the phone last night!" Vern said.

"You what?" Chris asked.

"Yeah, he's a couple towns over, maybe even in another state. Apparently he's pretty messed up over what happened," Vern said.

"Vern, what else did he say?" Gordie asked.