The Paper Crown

~*Chapter Twelve*~

I froze a bit even though I knew exactly what I was going to say. It will be the same story that I told the police however many years ago.

I played with my fingers in my lap and stared at them for a little bit. I picked at my nails.

"Raven," Lukas said this time a bit more stern, "What happened."

I took a deep intake of breath before I cleared my throat and started to talk. "My cousin came over for the day because his his parents are way too overprotective. Him and I always end up wrestling because, even though he is younger than me, he thinks that he is stronger. He is but that isn't the point.

"Anyways, we were messing around upstairs and we got a little bit too laid to the stairs. I ended up falling down all of them but decided to be a tough guy and keep wrestling. That was probably when my ribs broke. Continui-"

"Wait, wait, wait," Seth said confusingly, "You broke your ribs too?"

"Yeah, now shut up so I can keep explaining."

Both males were silent. "Okay, continuing. When we ended up downstairs I tried to run away from him and ended up running into a wall, hence my token nose. Then after that, it was getting kind of hazy. Like things were blurry now and I was having a hard time breathing.

"My cousin said that he was going to go get a tissue for my bloody nose and I walked outside for some reason. I don't really remember what happened then because I was too light headed. Actually wait- no I do remember. I went out onto the front porch and my parents just got out of the car. I tried to walk towards them to tell them what happened but then I fell down the steps into the lawn.

"I broke my arm then and a bunch of people surrounded our lawn. I'm pretty sure I passed out then and I woke up a few minutes ago."

They were silent when I finished telling them the lies. As far as I know, I don't even have a cousin. My mother is an only child and my father's sister hates him and our family.

I hoped it was believable. I learned to be a pretty good actress when talking about this kind of stuff.

Eventually I raised my eyes to meet theirs and I saw that they were looking at someone in the doorway. I couldn't see who it was from this angle, so I asked them to come in.

"You can come in."

After a few moments, I heard the door click shut again and a few quiet footsteps.

When did the door open?

I felt my face go pale. His hair was disheveled and he had large bags under his eyes.

Oh no, I thought, he came back because I was in the hospital. What if he was hit in the area. He shouldn't have come back, what if Mother and Father find out?

I stopped my thinking process as the male stepped closer the the foot of my bed. Then I mustered out the only thing I could at the moment.

"A-Averett?"