What a fluffy chapter that was, huh? Where do we go from there? Well I have ideas, so let's get on with it.

Chapter 12 – Time With Friends

I was so glad it was Saturday, because when I opened my eyes and looked over at the digital clock on the nightstand it was already one o' clock. Ike and I still had our arms wrapped around each other and Ike was still fast asleep. With a small groan, I stretched my arms and tried to get up, but Ike held me so tight and wouldn't let me move. Blinking in surprise, I again attempted to untangle myself, but Ike just made a small noise and squeezed me tighter. With a grunt, I slowly edged us slowly towards the end of the bed so I could reach my phone which was sitting on the nightstand. I had to practically squish Ike to grab it.

I turned it on and saw with guilt that I had forty-five new texts and several missed calls from my friends. I had totally forgotten that I had promised to text them and they had probably worried when I suddenly stopped.

With anticipation, I opened the texts and regretted it immediately. My friends had started panicking when I didn't text them and even though I didn't respond they kept texting me, wondering what could've happened to me. I debated between messaging them to tell them I was ok or calling one of them. But who would I call?

I decided to call Michael, since he would be most likely to have one of the others with him, if not both Henrietta and Pete. I adjusted myself in Ike's arms so I could talk on the phone without bothering him. I dialed and before I could even say "hello" Michael was yelling at me.

"Where have you been!?" he shouted, causing me to pull the phone away from my ear, "Do you know how worried we were about you? Why didn't you text us? We thought you were dead or something! You have a lot of explaining to do, mister!"

"Good morning to you too," I muttered, "I'm sorry I didn't respond to your texts. Something, er, happened last night."

"Is that Firkle?" I heard Pete shout in the background, "Put him on speaker!"

"Ok," Michael replied. There was a muffled sound before Michael said, "Firkle you are now on speaker phone. Pete and Henrietta are also in the room."

"You'd better have a good explanation for not texting us last night," Henrietta growled at me, "Or answering us when we tried to call you!"

Her angry tone made me flinch. "I do," I replied, "But, um, you guys aren't going to like it very much."

"Are you all right, Firkle?" Pete asked, concerned. I sighed.

"I'm fine," I told them, "It's just… something happened last night right as Ike and I were leaving the party." I was reluctant to tell them. I really hated making my friends worry about me when they could be dealing with more important things.

"What happened?" Michael's voice was much calmer than before.

So, with reluctance, I told them all about last night. How Mirabelle whisked me away and drugged me and I probably would have been violated if Ike hadn't saved me. I chose to leave out our late-night discussions, as that was a private conversation between Ike and myself. I concluded by telling them that I was still at Ike's house.

There was silence after I finished talking. Then I heard Pete let out a frustrated sigh.

"I knew it," he growled, "I knew you shouldn't have gone to that party!"

I flinched at the tone of his voice. "You don't have to say it like that, Pete," I murmured, "I'm ok. Nothing bad happened to me."

"'Nothing bad happened to you?'" Pete mocked bitterly, "You were almost raped by a crazy bitch!" I flinched again. I hated hearing that word. It brought up such horrible memories.

"Pete, calm down," Henrietta said, "He's obviously fine. You're fine, right Firkle?"

"Of course I'm fine!" I snapped, "I already told you! Ike saved me before anything could happen!" My friends fell silent. I swallowed nervously. "Guys?"

"You're sure nothing happened to you?" came Pete's quiet voice, "Because if you got hurt we can go over to that house and wreck that bitch."

I let out a small sigh of relief. "I'm sure," I replied, "Ike stayed up late watching over me and when I woke up it was past three. So, we were really tired, which is why it took me so long to call you guys. I was still asleep."

"Are you still at Ike's house?" Michael wondered.

Was I going have to repeat myself with everything for these guys? I'm pretty sure I already told them this. But I wasn't going to say that out loud. "Yeah," I said, "Ike's still asleep, actually." I also wasn't going to tell them I was currently trapped in his arms.

"Are you going home soon?" Henrietta asked, "We really want to see you. After you scared us last night, I think you owe us some face time."

"Well, first I have to wake up Ike," I muttered, making a futile attempt to free one of my arms from his grasp, "I can get him to drive me home."

"I didn't know Ike could drive," Pete mused.

"I didn't either until about a week ago," I admitted. Then I grinned mischievously. "He's a better driver than you, Michael."

"Well that's not surprising," Henrietta scoffed, "Ninety percent of the population is a better driver than Michael."

"I resent that," Michael growled at his girlfriend. I heard Henrietta and Pete snickering.

"Anyway, will you please call us when you get home?" Pete asked, "We'd really like to hang out at your place."

"I don't know why, considering my place is a shit hole, but yeah, I promise I'll call you when I get home," I told them. We said our good-byes and then I hung up. Now that I had taken care of that, I just had one last issue to deal with.

Waking up Ike. The Canadian still had a firm grip around me and his face was buried in my neck. Maybe I shouldn't have agreed to let him hold me last night. I couldn't even get my other arm free to try to wake him. I decided to use my one free arm to try to shake him while shouting at him.

"Ike!" I growled, roughly prodding him, "Ike, wake up!"

I felt him start to stir and I shuddered slightly when he yawned and his breath warmed my neck. When he was done stretching, he sat up and looked down at me. Then he seemed to realize the position he was and quickly untangled himself from me in embarrassment.

"Um, good morning," he greeted, blushing.

"Good afternoon is more like it," I corrected in a teasing voice, "You lazy bum."

"Hey, I was up really late last night!" Ike argued, "Give me a break!"

I smirked at him before getting out of bed, relieved to be free. Ike got up as well and went over to his drawer to change his shirt. Out of boredom I watched as his back muscles flexed as he pulled his shirt up over his head. He pulled out another shirt that was also blue and from the back looked identical to the one he had just taken off. Probably because I had never seen Ike's back before, but I suddenly realized he had a long, straight, faint scar across his back that I had never noticed before. I didn't get to study it for very long before he slipped his new shirt on. Then he turned around and noticed me staring at him and immediately blushed with embarrassment.

"Um, were you staring at me the whole time I was putting my shirt on?" he asked.

"Yes," I replied nonchalantly. Ike's blush deepened. "So, where'd you get that scar from?" His eyes flashed some emotion and he looked down.

"You saw that, huh?" he muttered, "I got that from, er, a certain family member. They, um, whipped me for causing trouble."

"That's awful," I replied. I had a feeling I knew which family member he was talking about, but I could be wrong. After all, I didn't know his whole family.

"It's ok. It happened… a long time ago," he said in a sad voice, "I wish I had something to cover it up, though. Even if I can't see it, I know it's there, and I just remember what happened."

Reminds me of what the football team did to me, I thought to myself. "You should get a tattoo," I said aloud, "It would cover up your scar, piss off your mom, make you into a bad ass, and make you look great all at the same time!"

At my suggestion, Ike couldn't help but laugh. "Yeah! I should totally get a tattoo!" he agreed sarcastically, "My mom would kill me!"

"But at least you would be cool before you died," I pointed out with a grin.

Ike laughed again, this time nearly falling over. I stared at him in amusement as he walked over and sat down on the bed next to me. It took him several moments to regain his breath. "You can be really funny when you want to be," he finally said a bit breathlessly.

"I have my moments," I confessed, "Maybe you could get a tattoo to match mine. But maybe like a spiritual opposite kind of thing? Like, you know how mine is of black angel wings? Maybe you could get white demon wings. Then next year for Halloween you could wear white devil horns and a tail and grab a pitchfork. Boom. Instant costume."

"But in order for that to work I would have to walk around without a shirt on," Ike pointed out.

"Exactly."

He really did try to keep a straight face, but once he realized I was being serious Ike cracked up again, bursting into a fit of laughter. He leaned on my shoulder in an attempt to keep himself upright. When he was finally done laughing, he rested his head on my shoulder, panting for a few moments to get his breath back.

"You're going to kill me one of these days," he huffed.

"Yup," I agreed, "Hey, before you die could drive me home? I promised my friends I would hang out with them at my place."

"Heh, yeah," Ike replied, "I'll drive you home. We should probably go before my mom becomes suspicious of all this noise and thinks I have a girl in my room."

All this talk about his mother made wonder where his father was. I had been over here a couple of times now and I hadn't seen him at all. But I decided to leave that question for another time as we quickly snuck out of the house and to the car.

We spent the car ride in silence which I preferred. It wasn't very long before we arrived at my house. Before I got out, I wanted to speak to Ike.

"Hey, um, thanks for taking care of me," I said. Ike grinned at me.

"You're welcome," he replied, "Thank you for cheering me up."

I nodded and got out of the car. I watched Ike drive away before going into my house. Thankfully, I managed to make it up to my room without my stupid siblings noticing me. When I got up to my room, I texted my friends and told them I was home before flopping down on my bed. Then I didn't know what to do until my friends got there. My homework was done and I was trying to cut back on smoking. I would write in my notebooks, but they were ruined now.

The emptiness of my life came crushing down on me once again.

I was so thankful when my friends texted me a few minutes later to tell me they had arrived. I quickly ran downstairs to let them in.

"Hey guys," I greeted, about to stand aside to let them in.

"Come outside, Firkle, we have a surprise for you," Michael said. Curious, I followed my friends outside and was surprised by what I saw.

Henrietta had her truck parked in the driveway with the back filled with black furniture. There was a three-person couch and an oval shaped coffee table. I could also see one of those weird round modern chairs, a mini fridge, and a microwave. I went to the back of the truck and stared in astonishment.

"What's all this?" I wondered.

"One of the guys in our dorm was moving out and getting rid of some of his stuff," Pete explained, "We thought about how empty your room is, so we bought all of this off him for only fifty bucks. Pretty neat, huh?"

"Guys, you didn't have to do this," I murmured.

"Yeah, we didn't have to," Henrietta agreed, "But we did it anyway."

"I don't know what to say," I whispered, "Thanks guys. You're the best."

After making sure no one was watching, we shared a group hug and then started getting the stuff out of the back of Henrietta's truck. We started work carrying it to my room, a task made slightly more difficult when Tammy suddenly ran over and latched herself onto Pete's torso and we had to use a crowbar to get her off. It took a while to get all the furniture up to my room (especially when Tammy came back decided to glue herself to Pete's leg and wouldn't let go. We had to tickle her off that time.) But we made it in the end. By the time we were done it was late and I invited my friends to stay the night. I was happy when they obliged.

Really wanted to show how much Firkle's friends care about him this chapter, even if Firkle doesn't realize it himself. Not quite sure what I'm going to do with the next chapter, plus I want to try and focus on my other stories that I haven't updated in a while so this one might take a bit to get updated. But in the meantime, please leave a comment!