Disclaimer: I don't own TSL.

"I'll call Kathy and tell her to cancel the appointment," said Carey reaching for the phone. Zack and Cody sat down at the table. Cody knew what was coming. His mom and brother were going to ask him about the day he got shot. He didn't know what to do. The man had said that he would kill him and his family if he ever told, but if he didn't tell, then a bunch of other people were probably going to get killed.

Carey got off the phone and said,"Cody. I know you just started to talking today, but it's really important that we know what happened the day you got shot. Are you ready to talk?"

Cody thought for a minute. Zack and Carey were looking at him so intently. Then Cody nodded his head. He needed to talk about this. He had held it inso long.

Cody swallowed hard. "Okay. I was walking to the bus after school." Cody was already panting. This story was going to take a while. Especially when he was going to need to breath after every sentence. "I was walking by that alley the girl found me in when I heard a noise. I walked into the alley to see what it was. It was just a raccoon. I was on my way out when I felt something go through my stomach. When I looked down I saw the blood. I freaked out and tried to get out of the alley so someone would see me. When I reached the end of the alley I passed out. I don't remember anything else." He knew he was lieing when he told the story but there was just too much to risk. Even if they did put the man with the long hair in jail, he probably had friends that would do anything to kill someone. It was better for everyone this way. No one would die. At least not in the Martin family. Cody knew it was selfish, but he didn't want to be scared all his life.

Zack and Carey listened to Cody's story. They believed it. It made perfect sence, except for the part about getting shot. Why would someone just shoot a gun in a busy city like Boston? After a while, they came to the conclusion that the bullet was really meant for someone else. Probably a drug dealer. Cody went along with it. This was his secret to keep. No one would ever find out.

Epilogue

True to his word on himself, Cody kept his secret. No one found out about about what really happened that day. Joel had never come back to see Cody. He had seen the newspaper article that had what Cody said to his mom and brother. Everything soon went back to normal.

Cody only had to go to two more appointments with Kathy before she pronounced him with a clean bill of mental health. He sometimes had nightmares about what really happened the day of the shooting, but even they were starting to fade. Cody was glad at the decision he made. This way, no one got hurt.

Three months after Cody had told his story, he was sitting at the kitchen table with Zack, eating cereal. There was a newspaper, and with nothing better to do, Zack picked it up. His intention was to search for the cartoons, but what he saw on the front page startled him. "Look at this, Cody. It says that a guy named Joel McDonalds was sentenced to life with no bail in prison when they found a video of him killing a family of eight. The newspaper says that there was really nine in the family, but the oldest daughter was in the garage. She had been at a friend's house earlier and was shooting a documentary so she had a video camera. She knew it was too late to save her family so she taped the killing so she could make sure that the guy got put in jail. Smart girl, but how could she just watch her family get killed? That would be terrible. Can you imagine that? Talk about nightmares." Zack had already started to eat his cereal again. Cody took the paper from the table. What Cody saw, made his jaw drop to the floor. It was the long haired man! Joel was finally paying for all the bad stuff he had done.

The End!

I know all ya'll probably don't like the ending. I'll tell you the truth. I was getting really sick of writing this. It took me a long time to figure out what I wanted the ending to be. I decided that there is not always a happy ending to the story. My original planning of the story was worse though. Joel wasn't even going to get caught. I was thinking that if Cody told the truth he would need to be in the witness protection program or something and I didn't want the Martins to move away so I decided that Cody would lie about everything. When I had written everything I decidedthe chapter was to short so I made an epilogue andmade Joel get life in jail. I was hoping that would make you like the ending better. WellI'm sorry if you are disappointed with the ending of this story. You can still review and tell me you didn't like it though. Or maybe you did like it. I don't know. It's like11:30 at night right now and I'm not thinking to clearly. LOL. I don't even know if this paragraph made sence to you at all. LOL.Review.