I woke up the next morning to my mom's voice.

"I said, I'm leaving now," she repeated. "Will you be oh-kay by yourself all day?"

"Yes," I droned.

"Oh-kay. Have a nice day," she said, heading for the door, and leaving.

I rolled my eyes. I may as well get up, I supposed.

I went downstairs to fix some breakfast. I found some cereal and put some in a bowl. I took my cereal into the living room and turned on the TV.

That was pretty much how I spent the entire day.

It got to be very boring around one o'clock since there was nothing on TV by then, so I dug out my old yearbook from the year before and looked through it. When I got through all the seniors, I went to the very back, in the index and looked under Finny's name. He was in the yearbook sixteen times. I was only in it twice. I looked up some of his pictures. He was usually acting goofy or being silly or getting in trouble. The one picture of him being serious was when I had slipped on an icy patch on the sidewalk and hit my head. He looked really concerned. Up until that point, I had always dismissed it as him being a normal, worried friend. Now, I felt as though it was more, as if he were afraid to lose me, just like I was afraid to lose him. It couldn't be, could it?

I spent the rest of the day in severe boredom, never guessing that others were not having it as easy as I was.

At around three thirty, the phone rang. "It's probably Mom checking up on me," I said to myself.

I jogged over to the portable phone. "Hello?" I said, answering it.

"Gene?" It was Brinker. Why would he be calling? "Is that you?"

"Yeah, it's me," I replied. "What's up?"

"Man!" he exclaimed, sounding rather exhausted. "I think you really should have been at school today!"

"Well, so do I, but what makes you say that?" I inquired. He was acting so strangely.

"Because today during lunch, Finny and Ollie got into it!" Brinker told me.

"What?" I shrieked. "What do mean by that?" I had obviously gotten the wrong idea.

"Well, it was lunchtime, and you know that I have lunch with Finny, right?" he asked. "Well, so does Ollie. And, anyway, I wasn't sitting with Finny, so I didn't notice it right off, but soon I could hear Ollie yelling really loud, so I looked over there, and there was Ollie just like screaming at Finny. Finny was just standing there, looking at him like he was crazy. Well, Ollie wasn't gonna let Finny get away with that, so he punched him, and then he pushed him through a window! After that, Ollie didn't have a chance-"

"Finny beat him up?" I demanded. "No way!" Now I had two reasons to be worried for Finny. One: he could be hurt. Two: he could be dangerous.

"No, no," Brinker assured me. "But, you know how practically everybody at school knows Finny, and just about everybody likes him?"

"Yeah," I replied, knowing where that was going.

"Well, after Ollie pushed him through a window, he got tackled by half of the football team and even some of the cheerleaders! I would've gotten in there, but some vice principals came in and had to bust up the fight," he added.

"Ollie must've been waiting until I was gone so he could get at Finny," I said, mostly to myself, though Brinker overheard.

"Yeah, I guess so," he said. "The principal had to suspend everyone in the fight, except Finny, because Finny didn't actually do anything."

"Did Finny go home?" I asked, wondering how serious the damage was.

"Yeah, you know how his mother is," Brinker answered. "Well, I gotta be going. Take it easy, man."

"See ya," I said, hanging up.

That was the last straw. There was no way I was ever riding home with Ollie ever again.

I hopped up off the couch and hung up the phone. I wrote a short note to my mom, and left.

I ran nearly the whole way to Finny's house. I couldn't believe that I hadn't been there to help him, to protect him. I could have pressed a little bit more to get my mom to let me go to school, but I would have rather stayed home. Finny was my best friend, and maybe even more than that, and I had left him unprotected.

I don't think I have ever raced up a flight of stairs as fast as I did when I got inside. I didn't even bother saying a word to his mom. I knocked once and then flung open the door to Finny's room. My eyes instantly scanned across the room looking for him. He was lying on the bed, holding a bag of ice over his eye.

"Finny!" I exclaimed.

He removed the ice bag, revealing his swollen black eye. "Hi Gene, how's it hangin'?" he asked, giving a small grin.

"What happened? Are you oh-kay?" I asked quickly. "I-I'm so sorry..."

"Take it easy," he said, reassuringly. "You look worse than I do."

I felt like wrapping my arms around his neck and kissing away my sorrow. He looked so wonderful, yet so vulnerable to me now.

I opened my mouth to say something, but no words would come. I examined his body, looking for more injuries, but found none. He would probably have bruises in the morning, but they would pass in time.

He stood up and walked over to me. "You're not going to pass out again, are you?" he questioned. "Because I don't want to spend another five hours in the emergency room."

I smiled at this, though I felt like I wanted to faint if he would hold me in his arms. "No, I'm just fine," I lied.

"Good, because I can't stand being in hospitals anymore than I have to...although that doctor was really hot..." He gave a big smile. "Oh-kay, I changed my mind. Go ahead and faint."

I chuckled, and then grew serious. "What was Ollie so mad about?"

Finny shrugged. "He was yelling something about me stealing his best friend. I'm guessing that would be you?"

I sighed. "Yeah, probably. I can't believe him. He's such a creep! I hope he gets expelled."

"Yeah," Finny added, "but you should have seen his face when those football players tackled him!"

I laughed at this. "It's really degrading to get tackled by the football team and the cheerleaders."

Finny laughed too. "Let's go downstairs. Are you staying for dinner?"

"Yeah, I guess," I replied.