Stepping out of the school and onto the street Mike felt as if he could breathe again. School dances were suffocating to him. There were too many people crammed into the gymnasium and it was always too hot. Even after he had taken his jacket off. The music and the chatter always made it too loud for him too even think. But the street outside was silent and crisp with mid September air. He looked over at his friend Lucas who was still wearing an ear to ear grin. A girl named Leta had asked him to dance halfway through the night and he had been beaming ever since. As he watched the pair walk onto the dance floor all Mike could think about was Jane sitting back at his house, unable to leave as always.
"It's still pretty early." Will commented once they were all outside. "Are you guys still coming over?"
Mike looked down at the watch on his wrist. If he was to follow through with what he had planned for when he got home he couldn't stay out too late. Jane coming down before he left had been a good sign but he doubted he'd gotten back to her good graces enough to wake her up if she'd fallen asleep and get away without her getting cross with him.
On the other hand, he had been somewhat neglecting his friends lately. He was constantly terrified of mentioning Jane in front of them. She had become such an important part of his life and it was getting more and more difficult to pretend like she didn't exist. Especially when she was constantly on his mind. About an hour before they left his friends had caught Emelia Fischer smiling at him. They tried their best to convince him to ask her to dance for the better part of a half hour. Mike wanted to scream at them that he didn't give a single shit about Emilia Fischer.
He wanted to see Jane. But he already knew the rest of his friends would be going and he felt obliged to go too.
They walked about three feet before Mike recognized the sound of an airplane overhead. He barely had time to recognize the sound before, just down the street, the street exploded right before his eyes. The impact shook the ground harder than any earthquake he could imagine. His breath left his body as his back collided with the stone sidewalk. It felt like forever that he just laid there motionless. His eyes had been blinded by the light and his ears were ringing. All of his senses had momentarily failed him.
The first to come back to him was his hearing. Screaming and the sound of rubble collapsing danced together in a haunting melody. Mike groaned softly as he pushed himself upright on his elbows and blinked until his vision returned. Down the street it looked like the world was ending. Fire reached higher than fifteen feet in the air and burned so bright it was like looking directly at the sun. Cars that had been parked close to the impact had either been knocked over or smashed by flying remains of the building that had been hit. From where he sat he could see Lucas' car laying on its side with the front windshield shattered.
People from inside the school were rushing out into the street. He felt someone grab onto his arm and start to pull onto his feet. His head started to spin as he was lifted off the ground and he had to cling onto their arm in order to keep himself upright. To make matters even worse he looked over to find Emilia Fischer standing next to him and keeping him steady. He wanted to pull away immediately but he needed her support while he stabled himself again. It was like the ground beneath him had turned into some sort of carnival ride that wouldn't stop spinning.
On the ground next to him Will was just starting to sit up and Dustin was on his knees looking over Lucas. Mike's eyes fell onto a dark maroon patch on his previously white dress shirt just on the top of his left shoulder. He wracked his brain for the memory of his friend spilling punch on himself but came up with nothing. The look on Dustin's face was enough to convince him that his first thought had been right. He had never been good with handling the sight of blood and he had to clench his jaw to keep his dinner from coming up.
Mike stumbled over to his friend and stared down at the wound on his shoulder and a broken brick laying less than a foot away from him. He leaned down and picked it up. His pointer finger landed directly on a spot with some sort of moisture. He immediately dropped it back on the ground only to find blood on his skin. It took everything in him to not start gagging.
A pained expression was etched into Lucas' face and when he spoke Mike could just make out what he said over all the other noise. "What the hell happened?"
"A bomb went off down the road by the corner store." Dustin told him. "You got hit by something."
A small smirk appeared on Lucas' face that didn't at all match the agonized expression he had otherwise. "Too bad it wasn't you."
Mike was glad no one mentioned his car.
He had no clue how long it took the soldiers to show up. Mike hadn't bothered to check his watch. Five trucks pulled up the street with a firetruck quickly following behind. Men in uniforms hopped out of trucks and hurried over to the people scattered out in the street. Mike watched a short but buff blonde soldier heading directly over to them. He could feel his stomach falling down to his feet. He'd yet to have any interaction with a solider since Jane moved in. It was something he was thankful for every day. He looked down at Lucas once the soldier was only a few feet away so he could avoid looking at him.
"What's happened here?" he asked. His voice was authoritative and gruff. The swastika on his uniform Mike could see out of the corner of his eye made him feel even more sick. People like him were ruining lives. Couldn't they see that? If his impulsivity had been any worse than it already was he might have hit him.
Dustin was the first to speak up. "He got hit with some sort of shrapnel." He told him. "We were out here when the bomb went off."
"It was a brick." Mike muttered and nodded down at the fragment at his feet. His eyes were fixed on the ground since he didn't dare look up.
The soldier looked from Mike, to the brick, down to Lucas. "It looked like a bomb?" he was hardly any older than they were which was a little off putting.
Will, who hadn't said a word since the bomb went off, seemed to get his voice back. "It looked like the street exploded." He said. The tone in his voice made Mike's stomach churn. Though they didn't talk about the war much they'd said enough that Mike knew Will had a distaste for the Nazi's. That distaste had been clear as day when he spoke. Mike wanted to tell him to shut up and remind him that he could get shot. "Is that what a bomb looks like?"
The blonde soldier ignored Will's obvious attitude. "Ambulances will be coming soon." He told them shortly. "I'll direct one over to you." He turned and walked down the street and Mike felt like he could once again breathe.
As they all waited silently for the ambulance Mike thought about the night he and his family had to hide out in the shed during an air raid. He remembered how scared he had been when they realized Holly wasn't there and how the feeing only got worse when Jane bolted out the doors. She had been gone way too long for his liking. His mind cursed him with images of a bomb dropping on the house with Jane and Holly inside. He remembered how he ran out of the shed after her before he could really think about what he was doing. He also remembered how angry she had looked when they made it back to the shed. Hours later she was snoring with her head on his shoulder and she didn't look so angry anymore.
He hated that something was happening again and that he couldn't be with his family. Would there be a second attack? Would it be closer to his house?
"Do you think the news has heard about all this yet?" Will asked while they waited.
Mike shrugged his shoulders. "I don't know." He admitted. His eyes did a quick survey of the street. "I don't see any reporters." There were soldiers, firemen, and civilians wearing expressions of pure horror. But no reporter.
"Good." Will said. "I don't think my mom will ever let me out of the house again if she hears about this."
It felt like they waited for the ambulances forever, but it was probably only about ten minutes. Paramedics wielding stretchers scattered throughout the streets to find people who needed help. As promised Mike spotted the solider they'd spoken to point some in their direction. A pair of paramedics came right over to them and lay a stretcher down on the floor next to Lucas. As they lifted him off the ground and onto the cloth they asked what had happened. The three of them followed closely behind and recapped everything from the bomb going off to Lucas' injury. They stood behind the ambulance and watched helplessly as the doors closed and their friend was driven away.
Mike had never felt more helpless in his life. He couldn't help his friend, he couldn't help his family, and he couldn't help Jane. The feeling of uselessness was even more suffocating than the dance had been. He reached up and practically ripped the knot out of his tie in hopes of breathing better. When he looked over at his friends standing next to him he could see almost everything he felt reflected in their faces.
"What do we do now?" Dustin asked as he watched the ambulance disappear around the corner at the end of the road.
No one knew the answer. With the ambulance gone the only thing there was left to look at was the building down the street. It had started to collapse and was still being eaten by flames that danced as tall as the remaining buildings next door. Some people were crying. Others simply stared, numb, like he and his friends did. He had no clue how long they all stood and looked. It was like they were all hypnotized. They couldn't look away.
The sound of car engines snapped him out of his trance. Mike turned and spotted more military trucks driving up the street towards them. His stomach felt sour as he stared at the people who were responsible for turning Jane's life into a living hell. They were the reason why she couldn't leave the house and why her father and friends were all taken from her. They were the reason she couldn't go to the dance with him. But without them he never would have met her.
Will's eyes narrowed slightly at the sight of the newly arrived soldiers. He then took the words right out of his mouth. "Let's get out of here."
They all hurried back to Mike's car and avoided looking at the men in uniforms who passed by them. It wasn't until he got into the driver's seat and closed the door that he felt like he could really breathe. It probably helped that the air inside his car wasn't polluted with ashes. His fingers shook a bit as he put the keys in the ignition. The one thing Mike was glad about was that the car hadn't been damaged. Otherwise he might have had yet another near death experience. He swerved through the cars that packed the street and made it difficult to get out. Mike drove towards Dustin's house since he lived the closest to the school out of them all.
"You guys look like shit." His curly haired friend commented.
Both Mike and Will laughed shortly. Leave it to Dustin to try and break the tension. He looked over at his friends faces, both covered in black soot with small scrapes scattered across their skin, and figured he probably looked just about as crappy as they both did.
The farther they drove from the school the more he was able to relax. He had once thought that the night of the air raid had been the scariest night of his life. That was nothing compared to what he had just experienced. But he focused on his driving and got away as fast as he could without risking being pulled over. When they reached Dustin's house Mike put the car into park and waited until he was inside before starting it up again. As he pulled out of the driveway he could feel Will watching him closely, but he pretended not to notice. A few blocks away his friend finally spoke up. "You okay?" he asked
Mike shrugged. "Yeah, I guess." He said. He felt like a total wreck and that any minute his body would fail him and completely shut down. But he knew that Lucas probably felt a hell of a lot worse than he did so he figured it wasn't worth mentioning. "What about you?"
"Yeah." Will answered. "You know, you seem different lately."
He was thankful he had to focus on the road. Even if he could have he didn't think he would be able to look at Will directly. He felt the beginning of an interrogation coming. "What do you mean?"
Will fell silent for a moment as he thought. "I don't know. You're quieter lately. I feel like I haven't seen you in forever."
"I, um…." How the hell was he supposed to explain his sudden change? He hated lying to his friends but he knew he couldn't tell the truth. If he ever did anything to threaten Jane's safety she would probably kick his ass before being dragged out the door. "I'm just tired of this stupid war."
They were both quiet for the remainder of the ride. Will lived only five minutes away from his own house. Every other summer they practically spent every day together. But with Jane in the house he felt like he had a panic attack every minute someone from outside the family came inside. He didn't invite anyone over for the same reason why he was afraid to say much; what if he slipped up and spilled the secret?
Mike pulled into Will's driveway and put the car into park but his friend didn't move. He could feel his eyes on him as he leaned back against the seat. Knowing that his family was five minutes away left him feeling antsy and eager to get home. But he didn't want to push his friend. So he waited silently for him to do something.
"You know," Will said after a few moments had passed. He spoke slowly and kept his eyes fixed on Mike. He didn't dare to look back at him. "I think my cousin is hiding someone."
Mike felt as if all the blood drained from his body. His hands gripped onto the steering wheel so tight that his knuckles had started to turn white but he couldn't let go. It felt like the months he'd been trying to keep Jane a secret had all been for nothing. Even if he didn't tell Will he would still be suspicious. Suspicion had become a deadly thing over the past couple of years. If there was anyone out of his friends that would have figured it out it would have been Will. He had just hoped the war would end before he did.
He couldn't bring himself to respond so Will kept going. "They used to invite us over all the time but now we hardly go over there. And when we do the whole family is on edge. I know that they're trying to hide it so I haven't brought it up." He turned in his seat a bit to face him. "If there's something that you want to, you know, tell me I wouldn't say anything to anyone."
Mike felt his mouth go dry. He knew that he and Will felt the same way about the war and the Nazi's but could he trust him with something like that? He'd been trying for weeks to prove to Jane that she could trust him. But telling someone about her was the least trustworthy thing he could do. His eyes shut tight and he rested the back of his head on the headrest. Everything in his mind screamed at him not to but he could feel the words on the tip of his tongue. "I can't." Was all he could manage to say.
"Yes, you can." Will said. He could feel his eyes burning holes into the side of his face. "I wouldn't say anything. Not to my family or to Dustin and Lucas. But you're kind of a mess lately because you're keeping all this in. If you keep falling apart everyone's going to figure it out." As usual, his friend had a point. It was something he and Jane had in common; their ability to be annoyingly right. They would have gotten along. Mike opened his eyes and looked at his friend in his peripheral vision. "What's their name?"
Trying to convince his friend otherwise was not an option. He knew. It was just a matter of confirming it.
He thought about all the times he wished he could talk about Jane. How he knew that his friends would like her if they ever got the chance to meet her. And how when everything happened with the diary he'd so desperately wanted to ask his friends for advice. She was a remarkable person and pretending like she didn't exist was slowly eating away at him and left him feeling rotten inside. Now that he was presented with the opportunity to talk about her he was terrified. He felt like he was betraying her all over again.
But Mike felt like he was going to explode. Someone needed to know about her. Jane was not someone that deserved to be kept a secret. She was someone that should be celebrated and loved and looked after by everyone that knew her. Mike felt his throat start to burn but did his best to ignore it.
"Her name is Jane." He managed to choke out.
Out of the corner of his eye he could see Will's face break out into a large grin. "I knew it was a girl."
He could feel his lips twitched upwards. The same way Jane did back when she was too stubborn and too taken over by grief to even let herself smile. Mike looked over at him. "How'd you know?"
"Because Emilia Fischer is one of the prettiest girls in school and you wouldn't even look at her. I knew there had to be someone else." Will said. Mike's microscopic smile grew twice its size. Maybe he should have danced with Emilia just so his friends would have gotten on his case. If he had Will might not have figured it out. "You're totally in love with her, aren't you?"
"Yeah, pretty much." Mike admitted. "But I kind of messed everything up."
Will's eyebrows pulled together. "How?"
He went through everything that had happened since he read Jane's diary. Mike told him about how surprised he'd been by what she had written about him and how for the next couple of weeks he struggled to act normal with the knowledge that Jane was beating herself up so badly just for having a crush. When he told him about how angry she had gotten when she found out he felt his throat once again start to get tight and sore feeling.
"I think she hates me." He said once he was done.
Will shook his head. "She doesn't hate you." He told him. "But try and see where she's coming from. She's probably pushing you away because she cares about you and doesn't want anything to happen to you. I bet she'd be a worried mess right now if she knew what had just happened."
Mike's smile once again returned. It would be a nice change for her to worry about him instead of him worrying about her 24 hours a day, seven days a week. "It's all just so unfair." He said. "She's probably the most incredible person I know and everything's been taken away from her. Her friends, her family, her house, and even her freedom. I can't think about it too much because it just pisses me off."
Will nodded a few times. "What's your favorite thing about her?"
How was he just supposed to pick one thing? There were a thousand things about Jane that he adored. How she had so easily become part of the family, how she ignored most social expectations for girls and didn't think twice, how he caught her smiling as she read a book she enjoyed when she didn't think anyone was watching. Picking just one thing seemed impossible. He had to take a moment to think.
"She's not the best at expressing her emotions with words." Mike said after a minute or two had passed. "I think she's scared that if she talks about what's going on in her head she'll fall apart. But she doesn't need to say anything. What she does and her body language is clear enough." He looked over at Will. "Remember that air raid a couple months back?"
"Yeah."
"She'd been living with us for almost three weeks when it happened." He said. "We were all in the shed but Holly wasn't there. So Jane ran inside the house to go get her. She'd only known us for three weeks and she was risking her life to save her."
Will's eyebrows climbed up his forehead. "Wow."
Mike nodded in agreement. "I went after her. You know what she did?"
"What?"
"She yelled at me." Mike remembered how angry she had been. Despite how small and short she was she was scary when she got angry. It was just another thing about her he liked. "I don't think she knew what to do with the thought that someone cared about her."
Will smiled a little bit. "You know, even after the war is over there's still going to be people who are prejudice. Not everyone is going to be as nice to her as you are. And people will give you shit for it." Will raised an eyebrow at him. "Is she worth everything you're going to have to go through?"
"Absolutely." Mike said without a second's hesitation.
Will nodded and unbuckled his seat belt. "Good." He grabbed the door handle and pushed it open. Once he got back out of the car he turned back to Mike. "Then go get her."
Will flashed him one last smile before shutting the door and heading up the walkway. This time Mike didn't wait until his friend was inside the house before he backed out of the driveway and onto the street. As he drove back to his house his heart was still pounding. There was absolutely no way he could tell his family what he'd just told Will. As long as he trusted his friend would keep the secret there was no point in worrying them. If it was anyone else he might have been more worried.
As soon as his car was in front of his house he ripped his keys out of the ignition and threw his car door open. He could see the lights in the house still on despite the late hour. Had his family somehow heard about what had happened? Did Dustin's family call his and let them know about the bombing? He hoped they hadn't known for too long so that they didn't have to worry too much.
Mike stumbled in through the front door only to find everyone waiting for him inside. Almost immediately after stepping in the house his mom wrapped him up in a bone crushing hug that threatened to choke the life out of him. Over her shoulder his eyes searched the room for Jane. She stood behind Nancy with her arms wrapped around herself and black flakes of mascara running down her cheeks. The relief he felt every time he came home and saw that she was still there was ten times as strong as it normally was.
Everyone came over and hugged him but Jane didn't move an inch. Her eyes, as wide as saucers, followed him as he walked over to her. Mike wished that he could take away all the pain she had felt over the past few months so that she was the happy girl she deserved to be. Once he stood in front of her his hands were itching to reach out and touch her. Sometimes he didn't think she was real and wondered if his mind had created her in some elaborate dream he would eventually wake up from. She just seemed too good to be true.
Remnants of her and Nancy's girls' night remained only in mascara that had been cried off and lipstick that was smudged. Yet, somehow, she was still the most beautiful person he'd ever seen in his life. "Are you wearing makeup?"
"Yeah." Her voice was strained and quiet. How long had they known about what happened? Had she been waiting there for him the whole time?
Mike's face broke out into a smile. He wished he'd gotten the opportunity to see her before she cried it all off. Jane and makeup were tow ideas that had never gone together in his imagination. "It looks good."
She let out the most heartbreaking laugh Mike had ever heard in his life. He clenched his fists at his sides to keep from reaching out to her. Last time he checked she was still mad at him. "No it doesn't."
In an instant a miracle happened. Jane's arms wrapped around his waist and clung to him for dear life, and he could feel her cheek resting against his chest. Something about hugging Jane was so much better when she reached for him first. The way she held him made him feel like she needed him the way he needed her. There was no better feeling in the world. He wanted to hold onto her forever, but he would settle for a few minutes.
