It's Friday! This is based off of suggestions from so many of you lovely reviewers so thank you.
Disclaimer: I do not own Kickin' It
I went downstairs to open the door, extremely distracted by Kim and how I had found her. I was so distracted that when I opened the door I didn't care to notice who it was. Next thing I knew, my check was stinging. I looked at who was there, hand held against the place where the person had slapped me.
"You," she pointed at me angrily, "you did this to her!" Ms. Crawford yelled at me with teary eyes and shaky hands.
"Did what to her?" I asked her confused, not affected at all by the previous slap.
"You turned her against me! You made her hate me!" I should have seen that one coming. Then again, she was stupid enough to somehow come and see Kim. Must be why she's currently crying upstairs…
"Me? You did that yourself!" She pulled one of those 'how dare you' faces and put her hand to her chest in what I assumed to be shock.
"She won't even talk to me!" Ms. Crawford exclaimed, throwing her hands up in the air, "She won't let me apologize, she won't apologize herself!"
"Have you ever thought that she doesn't want to hear your apology? Or how 'bout this, maybe she doesn't think you deserve an apology! I sure as hell don't!" I was fuming. Why doesn't she get that therapist boyfriend or whatever of hers to tell her how to handle this?
"I am her mother," she was scolding me like a child; "I raised her. She owes me an apology."
My reaction to this? I laughed; I laughed at her and her stupidity. "What does she have to apologize for? Trying to commit suicide? Telling you how she really feels? Why don't you tell me what she should apologize for, how 'bout that?"
"Well, uh, she should, uh," I once again found myself laughing lightly at her loss for words, "I got it!" Ms. Crawford cried, almost happily, "Breaking Derek's arm, telling him she hates him, telling him she will never be her father."
I was dumbfounded. She was a whole lot stupider than I thought she was. She had taken stupid, thrown it out the window, run over it with a car, picked up the shards, and threw them into the depths of the ocean. I was laughing directly at her and her face went from triumphant to confused. "Again, maybe she doesn't want to apologize. She doesn't like Derek. Get that through your head," I poked her head rather forcefully and she swatted my hand away, "and he's not you so you don't deserve an apology. You deserve everything she is doing to you, whatever that is."
"Why wouldn't she like Derek? He's a good man!" She yelled at me.
"Put your sorry-ass self in her shoes! If you were seventeen, your dad just died, your mom is drunk out of her mind and is always saying nasty things to you and hitting on younger guys so you stay at a friends' house for two-ish months. When you go back your house, you find our mom with another man, telling you she's pregnant. What would you do?" I asked her and she stood there frozen, looking like a complete idiot.
After an extremely long pause she finally gathered the right words to formulate them into a sentence, "I would accept the change and go with it!" She answered and I raised an eyebrow.
"Bullshit!" I yelled at her, "You're stuck in this perfect little world of yours where everything has to be the way you want it. WAKE UP. Face reality! The world isn't and is never going to be the way you want it!" That earned me another slap, hurting more than the first since she struck me on the same side.
I pulled everything together and went downstairs to see who was at the door since Jack was taking so long, even though I had a pretty good idea of who it was. I was on the last step, which was out of the sight from the door, and I heard Jack yelling, "Bullshit! You're stuck in this perfect little world of yours where everything has to be the way you want it. WAKE UP. Face reality! The world isn't and is never going to be the way you want it!" That was followed by a loud slap.
"I am not you obnoxious boy!" That was defiantly my mother, "I highly doubt that you know how she feels! Why don't you let her talk to me so she can apologize?" Apologize? She wants an apology? For what?
"We've been through this! You don't deserve one and she doesn't want to give you one!" Jack yelled back at her. I really appreciate how he was standing up for me, I know I should be doing this myself but I'm not currently in the best shape.
"You don't know that!" She yelled back. I snickered quietly. Jack does know that, he's smart enough to know that.
"And you do?" Jack asked her almost sarcastically. Another slap. I want to do something, I need to but I can't find the courage to move from my current position and go to see her face to face.
"Yes I do! She wants to apologize because she feels bad for what she did! She loves me and will learn to love Derek like I do! You are a terrible influence on her and I want you to never see her again!" Now I have the motivation to move. It's to run away, away from here. I pushed myself up and ran to the door, pushing past the two of them and sprinted back to my not so safe place. As I ran I heard Jack and my mother yelling but no one was going to stop me. Not this time.
Kim ran out the door and down the street, both her mom and I yelled after her but she never turned around and started sprinting. I knew exactly where she was going. I didn't care about being angry with her mother anymore, right now, I needed her help.
"Where is she going?" Her mom questioned confused.
I noticed she was wearing sneakers, which was good, we had to go about a mile and Kim had a good head start, "You have a phone?"
"Yes why?" She asked me, still in a confused manner.
"I tell you when we get there. Follow me and run as fast as you can. No matter what, don't stop." I told her sternly and she looked suspicious but nodded. I had been pulling on shoes this whole time and we both set off down the street to the docks and that one long pier that stretched six hundred feet out into the water.
Ms. Crawford managed to keep up with me the whole time we were running and when we got to the pier I noticed the water was fiercely thrashing against the shore and the waves were churning violently.
"Call the coast guard, ambulance, fire department, police, any emergency medical service so we can get Kim." I told her and turned to run off down the pier after Kim but she pulled me back.
"What is she going to do?" She asked me, probably knowing the answer because she looked cared to hear it.
"Jump." One word, Ms. Crawford let me go and pulled out her phone quickly dialing the three numbers and putting the phone to her ear. I turned and sprinted down to the end where I saw the blonde hair in the crappy orange lights that were swarming with files and moths.
I knew nothing was going to stop Kim this time; she was going to jump no matter what, so it was just a matter of stalling her.
I climbed up on the edge looking down at the harsh sea below me. I've been told drowning is a pretty painful way to go but right now it's my only option. I thought about my life. It's not as bad as some kids that you hear about on the news, not nearly as bad as some. I have friends and they all love me. I haven't been beaten by anyone. I know my excuses seem miniscule compared to some but it too much for me. It's too overwhelming and I can't take it.
I'll be doing Derek and my mom a favor. I'll be out of the way and they can live with that new child of theirs. Eventually everyone will forget all about Kimberly Crawford, the girl who jumped off the end of the pier. They would all think I was being selfish, taking my life just because I didn't like it.
I believe in heaven, so doing this, I could be happy, be with my dad, the whole reason I'm in this mess. I can't really blame him, though. You can't stop yourself from dying from lung cancer. The doctors didn't know he had it because he didn't have any problems that lead to it. He didn't smoke and was never around anyone who did. By the time the doctors found it, it was too late and they couldn't do anything thing save him, they could only dull the symptoms, giving him about a month longer than he would have had than if he didn't. But he loves me, that's all that matters to me and I want to be with him right now even though he isn't here. I have to leave one world to enter another. Except the next world will be better, at least I think, and I will be happier in that one than in this one.
I knew Jack would be here any second and I wanted to jump before he came so he couldn't convince me not to. Of course, like always, the universe had to punish me, "Kim." Jack's voice was surprisingly calm and collected.
"I love you Jack. I really do, but you can't stop me." I told him.
"I know. I want to tell you that I love you too." He was overly calm and I didn't know why.
Then I found my answer. I could hear them over the water slamming against the supports holding up the pier.
Sirens. They were blaring loudly as they came closer and closer. I didn't do anything else, no thinking, no talking; I just dove and let the water surround me. It wasn't cold because it was summer, but it was cool since the sun hadn't yet peaked over the horizon.
I plunged down the bottom as far as I could go. I was a good twenty feet deep and it was pitch black. The ringing in my ears was painful and the water pressure was high and compressing my body. I took a breath of water in and it hurt more than you could imagine. I would say it hurt like hell, but that was an understatement. The salt water was burning my throat and my lungs as they slowly filled up with water. My chest was burning for air and I felt dizzy. My body was telling me to swim back up to the surface but I was telling it otherwise. I was up about ten feet under the surface now, forcing myself to stay down, but I was getting thrown around by the waves.
I had only been down for about a minute; I had run out of air, and began the slow and painful process of breathing in water. The world was slowly fading away while the pain was not. I could feel myself drifting farther and farther away from consciousness. I was only holding on by a string when I felt someone grab me and drag me up to the surface.
I watched her jump in and knew Ms. Crawford had done her job of getting the emergency crew. I could hear some of their heavy footsteps running down the long dock towards me so I did the first thing I could think of. I jumped over the fence like thing at the edge and dove in after Kim.
The waves smashed me up against one of the supports and ground my bare back up against the barnacles covering it; I was wearing my pjs and I slept without a shirt. I could feel the salt water sting what I assumed to be a large scrape on my back but I didn't care at the moment, I was focused on finding Kim. Another, more powerful wave smashed me against another piling but somehow, this one had some kind of nail or whatever sticking out and I could feel it trail down the side of my face. It was unbelievably painful, the cold metal driving into my skin and ripping a long, deep crease in it. Again, I ignored it and focused on finding Kim, using my legs to propel me away from the pier and deeper into the water.
I opened my eyes look everywhere, having to breath in two or three breaths of water before I just barely saw her hair; her unmistakable blonde hair. I swam to her, fighting the opposing current, and grabbed her almost lifeless body and pulled her up to the surface.
I could tell she was unconscious when we reached the surface and began swimming, while holding her up, back to the beach. The nasty gash and scrapes were burning and were excruciatingly painful. When we got to where we could stand, the paramedics rushed over to us and hauled the two of us up onto the beach. I could only feel the blood streaming down my face as I found myself drifting away out of consciousness. Everything was blurring together; the flashing lights and people rushing around were all fading as I was loaded into an ambulance and Kim and I were driven to the hospital.
I'm informing you that the next chapter is almost finished so ideas for an ending would be good since I want this to end so I can put up my next story that I already have written. Look for lots of "smart" doctors talk in the next chapter because that's what I do and what I like, smartness.
