🅈🄴🄻🄻🄾🅆 🄲🄰🄽🄰🅁🅈 🄱🄸🅁🄳 •Stanley Barber•

The In-Between Chapter

Stan's POV
Eight and a half hours before the last chapter

Kara had just... Kara had just fallen into the water. She stumbled, or tripped, or something. Whatever happened didn't matter now. She wasn't getting out, and I needed to help her.

I ran down to the river, but I was beat by someone else. Long, dainty hands went up to her red lips as she just stood and stared. Veronica. Veronica Ono. I had a class or two with her last year.
I tried to shove past her, but she pulled me back.

"Hey! You can't go in there!" she shouted.

"No. No, you don't understand. My friend fell in, and I need to save her," I said, trying to get out of her grip. "She can't swim!"

I didn't know if it was true, but it made Veronica let go. She just let go and stepped back, fishing her phone out of her pocket.

"Take your jacket off, at least," she said, still staring at her phone. A flashlight popped on, and she pointed it at the water. "We can't have you swimming around with extra weight."

I shrugged off my jacket, and threw it to the ground before jumping into the river. The cold water sent a shock through my system, but I couldn't lose any more time. With the help of Veronica's light, I searched through the dark lake.

Veronica's flashlight hit something downstream. Red shirt, yellow hair, hard to miss now. My shoes, heavy from the water, just barely hit the ground as I swam, giving me very little leverage to work with.

I grabbed Kara's wrist, and pulled her towards me. She had passed out, her bruised lips parted and purple. Why did I let her wander off? She didn't even want to come. Why did I make her come?

Because she felt she owed me something. Even with that shower cap over her head when we were dying her hair, she still looked beautiful. Very forward, very sharp. I just wanted to impress her so badly, and all I've done was mess things up.

"Get her out of the water!" Veronica shouted. "Jesus, do you want hypothermia, too?"

I pulled Kara with me out of the river, being as careful as I could with her body. I set her down on the ground, and slid my dry coat over her. Veronica stood towering above us, hands sitting on her hips. Even standing next to her on a normal day was intimidating, since she stood just an inch above six feet, but she looked much taller from down here on the ground. Her front teeth were stained red from constantly biting her lips.

Veronica crouched down to meet me, and she checked Kara's pulse. "She should be fine," Veronica said, "although we should get her someplace she can recuperate."

"Yeah, okay." I picked Kara up, which proved to be a bit harder than holding her in the lake. She had to be at least my weight, but I managed to stand up with her in my arms.

"Hey, where are you going?" Veronica asked as I began to walk back towards Bradley's house.

"To my car."

"No. No no no no no."

She jogged just to keep up with me, although to be fair, I wasn't walking very quickly. Veronica matched my pace, but I did nothing to invite her to speak.

"There is no way I'm letting you take her home," she said. "Not morally, I mean. You're obviously drunk, or high, or.... or both, and you are almost certainly not capable of taking care of.... of-"

"Kara," I finished for her. "And I'm fine."

"Please. If you don't do it for yourself, do it for Kara."

I had to stop there. She was right; as much as I wanted to help, I had no clue what I was doing. Veronica, still dressed like she was going to sell cookies in her plaid skirt and white blouse, was probably my best bet at helping Kara.