Chapter Fourteen

I sighed, walking up the stone steps of ZigZag's porch. Since it was already late fall, it was starting to become dark, even at this hour of six thirty. I felt almost as if I'd failed Squid; and I understood why Sarah stopped me from seeing him. And I definitely didn't want to make him suffer at all. Rest was the best thing for him right now; and I knew it.

As if sensing that I had returned, ZigZag's front door swung open, the welcoming sign nearly sailing off its nail. There he stood, looking quite obviously impatient. "Hey," he greeted. "What happened?"

"Sarah's sitting with him," I explained. "He's resting."

"So, did you talk to him?" he pressed.

I paused, and shook my head.

"What? Why not?" ZigZag demanded.

"Ziggy, the poor guy is at risk of a hangover. Give him a break; I wasn't going to go barging into his room, insisting to see him."

ZigZag hesitated, but nodded. "That makes some sense, I guess," he agreed with a small shrug. His eyes seemed beyond distressed, though. "C'mon back in," he offered, opening the door a little wider. I took him up on this offer, stepping into his house. He shut the door behind me.

"What happened?" asked Princess immediately.

I shrugged. "Nothing, really. I didn't even talk to him."

"What? Why?"

"You guys, let's not get into it," Gia covered for me seeing that I didn't want to talk about it. "We'll discuss it later."

The party seemed to agree with this, although hesitantly.

"You never told us where Lewis and Magnet are," X-Ray pointed out.

"Right here."

We all turned and saw the aforementioned boys walking in throught the door, shutting it behind them.

"How'd it go?" ZigZag inquired right away.

"Um…strange," Magnet supplied. "But we succeeded in keeping them there for almost an extra hour. Plus right now they're off somewhere looking for their car."

"Who? What?" TC asked very confused. I shared the feeling.

"Very good, good job," ZigZag congratulated.

"You want to explain why we had to do it in the first place?" Lewis asked him, his tone somewhat irritable.

"Hmmm?" ZigZag pretended to play dumb.

"ZigZag, we just spent an hour holding up Squid's mom and her boyfriend at a Big Boy restaurant. Magnet even dressed up in waiter's clothes, and forced dessert upon them, serenaded Squid's mom, and I had to monitor him from behind a tree, and announce over the PA hat their car was being towed away, and-" Lewis took a deep breath. "It was a long night, it was quite a long night. So why don't you take out a couple seconds of your busy schedule to explain why the heck we did it."

"I'll explain it to you later," I mumbled to my brother, rubbing my temples. Lewis turned to me, studying me carefully.

"You all right?"

"Fine, fine."

Lewis, for the first time since he'd really walked in, looked around the room completely.

"Where are Squid and Sarah?" he asked.

"Occupied," ZigZag offered briefly, rubbing the bridge of his nose in aggravation.

"Occupied? What are you? A secretary?" Magnet asked jokingly.

"It's complicated," ZigZag hissed. "I really would rather not get into it right now." With that, even though we were in his house, ZigZag walked away and up his stairs. The rest of us heard his bedroom door slam from their position there in the living room.

"What happened is hard on him right now," I explained. I didn't want to bring up the Princess had something to do with his attitude, as well. That wasn't my place.

Lewis sighed and turned to Gia. "Here, I'll walk you home."

"All right. C'mon," she agreed. She turned to me. "You might as well come along too, since you do reside with him."

"Later, guys," Lewis said turning towards the door grabbing Gia's hand.

The rest of the group ad-libbed their good-byes, as we walked out the door.

We dropped Gia off at her house, and Lewis and I headed towards our home.

"You going to tell me what happened?" he asked me.

I sighed and rubbed the bridge of my nose with my free hand. "It's complicated."

Lewis stopped walking and turned to face me. "It can't be good, otherwise, it wouldn't be so hard for you to just say."

I looked at him, and looked back down at my feet, mumbling a response.

"What?" Lewis asked.

"Squid got drunk," I saild louder, with more edge in my voice. Again, we sat in silence.

"Squid? Drunk?" Lewis added in shock. Even though my brother didn't know why it was such a big deal, he still knew that it wasn't a mild issue. "Wow," he muttered.

"I know," I whispered. Lewis studied my face for a few moments.

"I'm sorry," he breathed supportively. He pulled me into a loving hug, I pulled away though. I didn't want to break down in front of him, even though he had seen me cry, he'd never seen me have a nervous break down.

"Don't worry about it," I reassured, gesturing to him that I wanted to continue walking. He followed my lead, and again we were silent, until we were at our house.

"Everything going to turn out fine, Emma," Lewis said before I headed up the stairs to go to bed.

"I hope," I said.

xyour momx: thanks for adding my first story to your favorite list.

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Grace Tempest: thanks for adding my first story to your favorite list.

Hey everybody! Well, this isn't exactly my best chapter, but I wrote it in a rush. I have to get ready for homecoming. Which is going to be awesome (I hope). I just watched Because I Said So. It made me laugh so hard. If you haven't seen it, you should. Well, I'll try to update tomorrow too, but no promises. Review please!

Love always,

Dee