Taken .:Chapter 5:.

It had been a few weeks from my episode…though it feels like it was only hours ago. I can still hear their taunting voices repeating like a broken record in my head. I've spent these couple of weeks pretending to be sick. I've been eating food I know will make me throw up, overheating myself, everything I can think of to keep myself from having to go back there. My mother arranged with Brenan's dad for him to come over after school and bring me my homework, and in the morning swing by to pick up the things I completed. My mother said that "even though you're sick, you have to do your school work instead of just lazing around doing nothing." It burned my skin a bit that she was making me do the work even though I was only pretending. I couldn't help but think that her reputation was more important than me, which was probably true. It's about 3:35pm and Bren will be here any minute with today's wonderful assignments for me to complete by tonight. There was a, 'knock-knock-knock' on my door, so I got comfortable in my bed, and then it was show time. "Yes?" I answered in a dry, groggy tone and slightly squinting my eyes as if I was just waking up. "How are you feeling?" My mother asked in a blank, emotionless tone. "Same as yesterday," I said sitting back against my headrest slightly, pushing my bangs effortlessly out of my eyes. "Okay, well, you're going to school tomorrow," NO! "And I don't wanna hear any back talk about it." "B-b-but I still don't feel well!" I said feeling my stomach tighten; twist, and turn, making me feel like I needed to throw up from even the thought of going back. "I frankly don't care. You've been out of school long enough. You're going and that's that!" She practically yelled then walked out of my room slightly slamming the door on her way out. I could feel my heart sink inside of my chest, and my lungs tighten. Tears pricked my eyes as I looked up blinking to keep them from coming, though they disobeyed me and went flowing gently down my cheeks to my chin then dripping off one by one. I wiped them off with the back of my sleeve then sat on my bed feeling helpless and on the verge of breaking down. Then I heard the muffled, familiar, friendly, male voice I really needed right now. I couldn't make out what he was saying, but I could hear his voice getting louder telling me he was getting closer to my room. Bren knew it was all an act, but he played along for my sake. Then there was a soft tap from the other side of the door and I heard him say, "Get decent because I'm coming in and I brought Des because we're working on a project together." "Wow so polite. What if I was butt naked?" I said sitting up more and wiping any remainder tears from my face. The door opened and in came Brenan going to sit on my bed. Des just hung around the door frame, he looked a bit uncomfortable, with his hands in his pockets looking down my stairwell as if I was naked and he was trying to be polite by not looking. "You can enter too silly, you don't have to hang around my door. It's not like I'm in my underwear or anything." I said with a slight giggle in my voice. He looked over at me and I lifted up my arms to show I was wearing a red hoodie then pulled the covers down so he could see I was wearing sweats. "Oh, okay," he said shyly as he turned to start walking in my room. "Oh and can you close the door behind you? Thanks," I said with a smile.
"So what did you guys do today, and what do I have to do?" I said to Brenan with annoyance in my voice, starting to bite and chip away my black nails. "Well we had to take notes, listen to boring lectures and stuff the usual. Lucky you don't have to go to school," "I do tomorrow," I said interrupting him mid-sentence while looking down at my nails on my left hand, and chipping them more with my right thumbnail. "What? Did she find out?" He said in a whisper, but I don't know entirely why. "No, she just doesn't want me to miss school 'because it's too important to miss so much of'," I said quoting my mother. "That sucks," Des and Bren said in unison. "Yeah, so what's this project you were talking about earlier?" I said getting the topic off of the previous conversation. "Oh, so um, in English we have to write a story, or poem, or something and the minimum line count is like 8 sentences or something like that…" Brenan said unsure of his words, as he looked around my room trying to remember the assignment. "You weren't paying any attention were you?" I said looking at him with a bit of annoyance in my face. He just looked down and said, "Noo…" I sighed and rolled my eyes. He could remember when Allen stood on his desk singing "REFURAAALLLL!" or when Derek wore skinny jeans, or even how much time he would have to cram all his homework in one lunch period and which ones to start on so he had more time to goof off. But when it came to something important…he couldn't remember. Good job Bren, nice one. "Wait…you said you and Des were working on this together…how does that work exactly?" I said really confused. "Well, um, the story has to go along with a poster and stuff…I don't know. But lucky you, you get to work with us! The teacher made an exception! Just for you," Brenan said with a sarcastic cheerful voice as if it was the best news in the universe. Des was trying not to smile or laugh. The two of them knew they were trouble and a complete pain when they were supposed to be doing work they weren't going do. So guess who had to do basically the entire project, me. I only know this because whenever they have a project together they never get full credit because it's not complete. It's amazing the teachers still let them work together.