Frigid Flora

six - the brick

Chapter Six

Seven hours.

It took a grand total of seven hours for everything to get sorted out and cool down. We had first arrived at the station around midnight and it was now almost seven in the morning, an hour until school started. It was safe to say that I was skipping school that Monday.

Axel got a fine for driving whilst having consumed too much alcohol and points on his license (which I highly doubted he'd pay any attention to). Though Parker was guilty of theft (Twinkies), destruction of property (swing set) and assault (an officer's bloody nose), the police didn't know about the first two. It was a miracle he was let out with only a strong warning to control his temper. The reason he was let off so lightly was because the officers were genuinely nice people and they'd realised what a terrible mistake they'd made. I reckoned they took pity on him, forgetting about his rash reaction and instead feeling guilty about blatantly accusing him of abuse without checking beforehand.

I'd shielded the majority of the truth from the police to protect Parker seeing as he had gotten himself into some serious trouble. I'd blamed myself for the supermarket scene, kept the swing set and Twinkies fiasco on the down low and then roughly (and very hurriedly) explained how I despised people touching me, that it could have been an easy mistake for a passer by to assume the worst.

So four hundred and twenty minutes was all it took for the officers to let all of us go, my mother to freak out completely and dissolve into a puddle of worried tears during the car ride home, to be strictly forbidden to ever see Parker Heywood or Axel Cambridge again, to be grounded for an eternity, to have my mother arrange more therapist sessions instead of going just once a week and to receive a call when she and I returned home, explaining how I had been fired from my Sunday job because my boss couldn't deal with "all of this fuss"  in his store.

To say my mother was livid would be an understatement.

I dedicated all of my Monday to sleep and staying snuggled in a cocoon of blankets. When Tuesday came around I was ready to go and had just grabbed my keys when I received an excited call from Skylar.

"Is it true?" She had all but squealed.

"What?"

"Are you and Parker partners in crime or an item?" She had then went on to explain how numerous rumours had gone around school the Monday I was off. Someone had seen me getting into Axel's car with Parker and another had caught sight of me leaving a police car during the early hours of Monday morning. One story that had circulated around the student body said how Parker and I were doing drugs, another described how Parker and I were secretly a part of the mafia and were only posing as students. The last rumour Skylar had told me before I hung up on her was told in graphic detail about how Axel, Parker and I apparently had a threesome in the school's janitorial closet.

What relevance that had to a car or the police, I didn't know, but I didn't go in on Tuesday either. Mum put it down to stress and I was forced to spend half of my day with my therapist who continued insisting on exposure therapy. I sat in silence.

When Wednesday came around, I knew I had to make an appearance or the rumours would no doubt get worse. However, I was feeling sick and though I wasn't superstitious, I took it as an omen that I shouldn't attend that day either. Mum called in to say I was unwell before going off to work.

I was sitting on my sofa watching a cheesy romantic comedy to uplift my spirits when it happened.

The sound of a crash interrupted me mid-laugh which caused the hot chocolate in the mug I held to slosh over the rim in my surprise, scalding my hand. For a reason unknown to me, the first person that sprang to mind was Parker - most probably because he was about as subtle as a gun and it wouldn't be the first time he'd broken into my house. However, when I was showered with glass not even a second after the thought had crossed my mind, I quickly reconsidered. Yes, he'd break into my house. Break a window? That might have been pushing it.