Dreaming of Cheers (Standing Up to Life Book 3)

Chapter 32:

SATURDAY MORNING BEGAN and time seemed to shift into a blur. I hurt so bad still it seemed to slow down time while I thought about it, and sped it up in every other way.

That morning I saw 'Student Attacked!' was the headline on the newspaper.

'Thursday morning at Holden Junior High, a twelve-year-old girl was attacked by five other students...' The newspaper had every detail right, but chose to omit the names of students. 'Our sources report that the student had been receiving threats for some time, and the school had made no progress toward preventing the girl from being attacked. Questions are being raised by this newspaper and other news organizations about whether more should have been done to protect the student...' The newspaper asked questions that I had asked myself a million times, but still had no answers for. 'Meanwhile we have learned that the student is resting at home and expected to make a full recovery. Our thoughts and prayers go out to her and her family.'

What I didn't know is that apparently Ashley's dad's TV station had aired the story last night. He had asked my parents whether or not they wanted the story pulled, but they told him that they were fine with the station running it. I think they were hoping that maybe the community might be able to punish them more as a whole when they found out who the students were. Already I was sure anyone who was at school that day knew everyone involved – that in turn meant that everyone would know soon enough...

Later that morning Mom came and got me to take me home – Amy and I made her bring her too. She wanted me in her sight and told me that my grandparents were supposed to stop by. I didn't want them to see me like that so I tried to get her to put them off but it didn't work. Grandma actually brought my favorite dessert with her to try and cheer me up. The two of them stayed till six and got to see one of the more amazing things that have happened to me in my life.

Beginning at noon, every fifteen minutes – or less, someone stopped by to give me cards, balloons, flowers, and other get-well gifts. Every friend from school stopped by it seemed like, all of my teachers including Coach Holt, Mrs. Remar, and Ms. Beecher, my gymnastics and dance class instructors I'd studied with... I was like a constant hose of tears when they showed up with something. Coach Holt delivered a card signed by the squad, and Mrs. Remar and Ms. Beecher came in with gigantic poster boards signed by the band and choir.

By the time my grandparents left I hoped that everyone had it out of their system, there was nowhere else to put stuff in the living room where I was sitting. It wasn't though, because my parents' friends had figured it out by then and were stopping by too. I finally 'went to bed' at nine so that I could get away from it all.

"Tiffany you have a lot of people that care about you," Amy told me as we lay there with the lights off hoping to scare people away.

"I know... and sometimes I don't know why," I added honestly to her.

"Well, I do." She replied as if it was obvious. "Goodnight, Tiff." She added.

Sunday, she stayed over at our house as well, but her mom made her go back to school on Monday. Monday in a way was nice. My mom decided I was okay enough for her and Dad to go to work, so I was left alone at home for the whole morning and most of the afternoon. Mom did come home at lunch to check on me, and Melanie stopped by later at one point too. She brought Amy over after school. She looked at my stitches and told me, "I'll take them out tomorrow morning at the hospital, okay?"

"Yay!" I said demurely, "They're itching, I really want them gone," I told her. Amy stayed over at my house that night and we made plans for me to stay the night at Amy's house the next couple nights.

The next day Melanie told me, "I don't think you're going to scar too badly from this Tiffany," as she pulled the stitches out. It was an odd sensation as she did it. Sometimes the stitches got stuck and it hurt for her to pull on them. All the time that she worked on that, I had Amy holding my left hand and Mom holding my right. Dad stood cowering in the corner as it really bothered him. I had noticed she had said 'too badly,' meaning I was going to scar at least a little. When she was done, she showed me a mirror in the examination room we were using. My face wasn't nearly as swollen now that it had five days to heal. Losing the stitches took away a lot of the Frankenstein factor.