Stability (by D&N)

Ch.14-Angelina

Brandon had been one of the few who hadn't joined in the group hug. He isn't a hugging type of guy; in fact, the only friends I knew he would hug were Josie, Joe, and me. Heaviness tugs at my heart like a weight when I remember how we would say that we were bros for life, amigos forever. And now we were broken; our trio down to two. I shake the painful feeling away and stride over to where Brandon is sitting on the roof, alone.

"Hey." I sit myself next to him.

"Hey." Is all he says.

"How are you doing?" I look up and see his blank eyes staring straight ahead.

"Okay I guess." His short answers were a signal that he didn't want to talk. I scoot closer to him and place my arm around him in a sideways hug.

"I understand if you don't want to talk right now, but I'm here if you need me."

"Yeah."

I give him one last squeeze before I stand. My eyes automatically scan the roof, then focus on Juan and a couple others handing out sandwich halves. Juan's eyes meet mine and with a smile he walks over.

"Hi. Might I offer you this fine cuisine made by the best chefs in all of Tracy?" he says in such a silly and sarcastic way I can't help but laugh.

"Why thank you, Juan! Such a sweetheart you are." I take the sandwich that he offered, my stomach grumbling as if on cue.

"Could you offer some of this fine art of food to Brandon as well, that would be greatly appreciated." I ask, mimicking the silly tone he used.

"But of course!" he smiles, causing his already crooked glasses to become even more lopsided, "You should also thank Jada, she's the one who arranged the food portions for us." With that, he turns on his heel, heading to Brandon to give him his share of food.

Juan was such a genuine sweetie. He always could manage a laugh out of the saddest soul with his silly antics and gentleman charisma. The wonderful smile fills me with hope. If Juan can keep smiling through this all, then diddly darn, who says I can't do the same? Fresh grin set on my face, I scan the throng of children until I see a wonderful, beautiful face; the exact definition of loveliness, complete with a poof of black curls sitting atop her head. I make my way over to my best friend, who is leaning back against a large metal pipe. She opens her eyes as I sit next to her criss cross applesauce. Jada sits upright, arms secured around her legs.

"Hey boo," I say casually as I bite into the corner of my sandwich, "Thanks for the food arrangements. I probably would've started getting all grumpy if I ate any later."

"No problem, boo." She says in that sweet voice of hers then places a small kiss on my cheek, "Anything I can do to help."

"Well, you're helping a lot. We wouldn't even have gotten through a day without you."

"But you, Shamar, Robert, and Joe are the ones who got the food in the first place. All I did was ration out the food." Jada's tone lowered as she looked out to the basketball court that was littered with shuffling figures wandering aimlessly.

"But dude, you're the one who thought of rationing the food, and the one who took action to do it. You stepped up; that's a really responsible thing to do. In fact, I think you'd be the best person to handle the food that we take in."

"Thanks for thinking that." Jada gave a small smile.

"No prob." I beamed, "Where's your sandwich; did you eat already?" I eyed her suspiciously.

"N-no, there wasn't enough for everyone." She explained, meekly.

"You have to eat something, Jada. You need to keep your energy up. We need to be able to count on you—I need to be able to count on you. Here," I tore the half of my sandwich into another half, "eat this. You need to keep your health up, dude."

She took her half of the sandwich hesitantly and just stared at it; I could see her brain crunching the options she had. Maybe what she could say to give me back the sandwich, or maybe how she wasn't hungry. I guess she gave up because eventually, she took a bite into it, chewing slowly. Suddenly, her expression lit up.

"Oh yeah, I wanted to tell you that we only have about a week max left of food. But we most likely won't last that long. You guys will need to go on another food run. I told Shamar already, he said you guys could go maybe later this week." Jada's expression dropped, as did mine; but my frown was quickly replaced with a smile.

"That's fine. We're gonna need more experience going out and stuff anyways; might as well go through it as soon as possible." Jada whipped her head around, her eyes wide.

"You guys aren't going tomorrow, right?" she asked in a panicked voice, the images of her dead friends no doubt flashing across her mind.

"Oh no, we won't go tomorrow. But we'll probably have to go the day after. We need to get as much as possible before other people get the same idea to raid Savemart."

"Wait, you guys are going to Savemart?" Jada turned her head and focused her eyes on the on the ugly building past the school's fences, only a sliver of a street away.

"Well, not for sure. It was an idea I was gonna tell Shamar. I guess I should do that now." I stood and brushed the bread crumbs off my shirt.

"And hey," my knees bent so I could kiss the top of Jada's widow's peak, "Don't worry. I can't promise everything will be okay, mostly because I don't believe in the word okay, but I can promise you that no matter what happens, I'll love you through it all."

This seems to sooth her enough to give me a small smile, "I love you too."

I walk over to Shamar, who is chatting with his best friend, Carlos.

Both Shamar and Carlos turn when they see me.

"Heeeeeey." Carlos says in his signature greeting.

"Hi." Shamar says simply, "What's up?"

I get straight to business, "Jada told me that she let you know that we have less than a week worth of food."

"Yeah, we'll have to go out again."

"I was thinking we should go to Savemart. But we'll have to go soon because other people may get the same idea."

"I was thinking the same thing. We'll need to get ready for it though, like find more things to defend ourselves with." I can practically see all the possibilities racing through his mind, "We'll need to look through the classrooms for any makeshift weapons then."

"True. Good thing I believe almost anything can be made into a weapon with some modifications. I also have some ideas for 'armor' type things. I'll show you them later." He seemed to pause when I said "armor" but shook his head, waving it off from his mind.

"Yeah, sounds cool. I guess we'll go a day after tomorrow then?"

"Sounds good to me," I nod my head. A sudden question pops into my mind, "Who should go?"

"We'll probably need everyone on the kill squad," a corner of his mouth tugs up, "but I think Juan should stay here to keep an eye with everything, also to help Jada." His eyes flick to the side as he says bitterly, "Everyone kinda overwhelmed her earlier."

"Okie. I'll let Michael F and Brandon know. I'll also tell Juan about him staying. Could you tell Logan and Robert?"

"Aight." He replies, already turned and heading toward Logan, who is sitting with Josie and Anthony.

"Cool." I spot Michael F on the other side of the rooftop, tending to Danika. A warm smile shoots onto my face; my heart flutters in that stupid way only he manages to make it do. I start walking their way, fighting the idiotic grin forming on my lips.

Woot. Taking a break from all the drama bombs. Hope yall had/have a nice day--D