Sorry for the delay.Chemistry's being a bitch. Please enjoy the chapter!!!
(T.K.'s POV)
Matt looked down at the phone and blinked.
"What'd she say?" I asked him.
"Not much. She said she had to go and she hung up in a hurry." said Matt.
"Huh, you scare off more girls than I thought." I joked. He smirked at me.
"Shut up. At least I have a girl." He said and we laughed.
So where are your crutches?" he asked, noticing my crutches were missing from the table.
"Over there." I said, pointing across the room.
"Why are they there?" he said, getting up to get them.
"I can walk you know." I said to him.
"No you can't your hip's broken." He muttered.
I stood and limped over to him.
"I'm fine." I told him, taking the crutches from him. He gaped at me as I limped back to the chair.
"But, aren't you in pain?" he asked me.
"Nope. I barely feel it, except for the cast." I answered.
"But, How? It's only been a few days." He questioned.
I blinked.
"I don't know, but I'm not complaining. I'm walking." I said, feeling rather happy.
"We should get you to the doctor and have that checked out. That's really not normal." Said Matt, sitting down.
"Yeah, Yeah." I
mumbled and sat in the other chair.
He stared at me for a moment,
then at my leg.
"What did you do?" he asked me as though I had done something wrong.
"I hobbled my way across the room, then I walked my way back." I said, gesturing widely with my arms.
"Just, suddenly?" he asked me, raising an eyebrow.
"I guess." I answered, feeling uninterested in the ongoing topic.
"Hmm."
"Dude, what's so interesting about it? I'm just healing fast is all. Nothing to freak out over." I said.
"Maybe you're right." He said shaking his head and smiling.
I put my head back and leaned backward in my chair with a sigh.
"Ya know, life is pretty good." I said.
"What makes you say that? After everything that happened to you?" he asked me.
"I dunno. Perspective maybe?" I said.
"Well, that's a pretty weird perspective I should let you know." He laughed.
I laughed with him, feeling content with scene. I felt happy now that I was away from the house, away from my mother, and away from my old life.
All of the sudden I felt a severe sense of distress. I stayed in place for a moment, leaning back and staring up at the ceiling. I heard Matt saying something to me, but I couldn't register it. All I could feel was fear and distress and all I could hear was the pleading of a girl.
"T.K? You all right?"
I blinked and looked back at him.
"Huh? Yeah."
"Well, you were just zoning out for a minute and you didn't answer me. Are you sure you're all right?" he asked.
"Yeah. I'm fine" I said.
"Uh, I'm just going to go lay down." I said finally and got up.
Matt got up to help me, but I waved him off and went to my room.
I barely registered leaving my crutches in the kitchen and Mat staring after me as I walked away.
---
Sonya held Boots tightly.
Patrick had tripped over the little collie once again and was shouting profanities at him.
"Sonya! You need to keep this dog on a chain! Or in a cage! It'd be better to just shoot the damn thing." Grumbled Patrick
"No! Dad, please don't!" said Sonya in a panic.
"Well what do you plan to do with it, huh? He's blind, Sonya! Haven't you seen his eyes? He's running into the house, and he doesn't hear me shout at him so I assume he's deaf, too!"
Sonya looked at Boots sadly. She had noticed his blindness, and she had realized that he doesn't respond as quickly as he used to. She sniffed.
"Give me the dog, Sonya. I'll put him down." said Patrick.
"No! Please? Can't we just have him a little longer?" she asked.
"He's old. He's no good to you or himself. He can't herd anymore." Sonya sniffed again, trying to hold back her tears.
"He's been with us for so long. Please don't do anything to him." said Sonya quietly.
"Damn it Girl! You're seventeen years old! You're grown up enough to live without the stupid dog!"
"I love him, dad. Please. Not yet." Sonya begged quietly.
"Patrick. Let it go." said Mairéad from the door frame.
Patrick growled and curled his hands into fists. He turned and stormed off across the field.
Mairéad walked down the steps to Sonya, who was still holding the old collie around the neck tightly.
"Sonya. As much as I hate to say this, your father brings a point. Boots is old. He cannot herd the sheep anymore, and he can't see or hear. It would be better if we had him put down." She said.
"I know, mom. But, he's been with us for so long. I couldn't think of it." said Sonya, letting her tears escape her eyes and fall into Boots's fur. The dog turned his head to her and nuzzled into her neck. Sonya hugged him again.
"Sonya. You know that the dog has to go." said her mother, standing up. Sonya didn't look at her. Mairéad walked back to the house and shut the door. Sonya suddenly felt like a child being taken away from her favorite toy. She wiped the tears away.
Boots was just a dog. They could easily replace him. She looked down at the old dog once more and broke out crying. She loved Boots more than anything. She didn't want to replace him. He wasn't just a dog. He was Her dog, her Boots.
She looked over where her dad had stormed off and, in a fit of defiance, took boots and brought him inside through the back door.
She led the dog up the stairs to her room.
"If he wants to put you down, you could at least be spoiled a little." She said to him. She patted the bed and he jumped up. The dog lay down and sighed contently.
Sonya smiled at him.
That was when she realized that things would probably get much worse once her dad came home.
She shook her head and sighed.
Things were going to get worse anyway. But they wouldn't get worse unless there was light toward the end, right?
---
I opened my eyes to the dim light outside. I looked over at the alarm clock on the nightstand.
'3:00. Better get up.' I thought.
I groggily swung my legs over the edge of the bed and stood up. I felt a little dizzy and stopped to let my blood run even in my head.
I yawned and stretched and scratched my neck as I walked out of the room. I felt the warm metal chain around my neck and I stopped. I looked down at the pendant that was still around my neck. It was warm against my skin and glinted in the sunlight from the window.
I blinked at it.
'If Karakin wasn't real, how did I get this?' I asked myself I walked over to the kitchen to get something to eat when I heard something in the living room.
"You're up?" came Tai's voice from the couch.
"Yeah. I feel much better." I said.
"That's good. Let me check your temperature." He said and got up from the couch.
He came over and put his hand against my forehead. A small crease appeared on his brow.
"You still feel pretty hot. Maybe we should take you to see a doctor."
"Or I could let it pass and eat something cooler." I answered. I smiled at him.
"Don't look so worried Tai. I'm Fine." I reassured him. He put a hand on his hip and rubbed the back of his head with the other.
"Alright. But take it easy, like I said." He told me.
I nodded and opened the fridge.
"Hey, where's mom? I haven't seen her." I asked while rummaging through the fridge.
"Didn't she tell you? She went to see Grandma last night. She got sick and landed in the hospital." He answered. I looked up over the door of the fridge.
"What?"
"Yeah. She didn't tell you?" he asked.
I shook my head.
"Is Grandma okay?" I asked.
"Yeah. She should get better soon." Said Tai with a smile.
"Mom's gonna stay for a day or two to make sure though."
I nodded and returned to the cold recesses of the fridge.
Dad said he should be back by tonight." Said Tai, changing the subject.
My head came up again.
"You talked to dad?" I asked.
"Yeah. Didn't I tell you? He called a few days ago."
"No. You didn't tell me." I said, feeling offended.
"Oh, well, he'll be back by tonight." He said. He backed off a little as if I were a lion.
I returned once again to the fridge. Once deciding that there wasn't anything I wanted, I shut the door and went to the couch.
"Uh, you okay?" he asked me.
"Yeah, I'm fine." I said.
"Well, I'm going out. I have my cell phone, so call me if you need anything. Kay?" said Tai.
I smiled and nodded.
"Have fun." I said as he left the apartment.
I lay on the couch and turned on the T.V. I flicked through the channels, finding nothing to my interest.
After a while I got up and walked around a bit. I looked at the calendar. It was July 2.
'Wait. What?!' I ran over and looked at it.
It was July already? I hadn't thought it was so late in June when everything started happening. I scratched my head curiously.
I was really beginning to lose it.
I glanced at the numbers and read the circled number.
July 13, School Starts
I sighed. Our terms were either too long or too short.
'Although, it would be more interesting to go back to school rather than just hang around here.' I thought.
However, a little part of me dreaded going back to school.
I should probably explain.
I dropped out of cheerleading to keep my grades from slipping. They were holding steady already, but things were getting harder ever since I first came to High school. In my place they put a girl that I wasn't too fond of. Her name was Ashley Chikako. To be quite honest, she was a bitch. I never liked her, even when I first met her. She had the personality of a mad cow and a brain of a rodent. She has lived here her whole life, as have I. We knew each other in kindergarten and started a hate-hate relationship.
Ashley is a very popular girl. Everyone knows her, everyone loves her, and I'm sure she's 'gotten to know' the whole football team by now. She had spread stories about people she wanted to get back at for some reason, or just because she didn't like their face.
She had done this to me since the first grade.
At first I thought everyone was just joking with me. Things got a little better in seventh grade when I joined the cheerleading squad. People, for some reason, acted more respectfully to me. Many of them, however, just wanted to get in my skirt. I was fed up with it and started acting colder to them. After a few months of shooting down the guys' requests for a 'distraction', I noticed it getting harder to maintain my grades. I tried to keep them up and stay on the squad, but it got really difficult. I quit and dedicated myself to my education rather than dancing.
Then again, another reason may be Ashley as well. She too was on the Cheerleading squad and stood next to me in every cheer. We competed with each other at every event and ended up making the squad look bad. Rather than get into a fight, I quit and walked away from the team. They immediately put Ashley up as the captain and, frankly, they all act like a bunch of sluts now. I shouldn't talk about them like that, but Ashley had turned all of them on me. I was friends with them at one time, and then she came in and messed it up. They loved her, and only for her popularity and big front I'm sure.
In my sophomore year of high school, I noticed the other kids snickering at me and calling me things. I didn't think much about it because, of course, they were highschoolers. They were still getting over hormones. Things started getting bad when a group of jocks came and cornered me one day and started hitting on me. I wouldn't have had much of a problem with it and would have walked away if they hadn't actually cornered and pinned me against the wall. They felt me up and talked to me as though I was some whore willing to have sex with them for a dime. T.K saw them and came to my rescue. It freaked me out, and I stopped trusting everyone else. I only opened up to T.K. and the other digidestined since.
Small things happened after that and I caught wind of what Ashley was saying about me. First she would call me bitch and freak, then people started saying that I was a slut walking around the school with my legs spread open. This made me rather angry, and it's usually pretty hard to make me upset. I got sexual letters and pictures in my locker every other day for a few weeks and someone had planted Jack Daniels in it as well. I was called to the office and suspended for several days. I tried to tell them that I didn't drink and that someone else had put it in there, but they didn't want to believe me. My mom grew angry with me and thought that I was turning to the 'Devil's side of life' so she would say. She actually, for some reason unbeknownst to me, believed that I was sneaking alcohol and porn to school and had a relative theory that I was doing drugs as well.
She had a mind to throw me into independent study and bar me from my friends, but, thanks to Tai, that didn't happen and I got to stay in school with them. However, the other kids were no longer looking at me as a joke or a blow job, but as something lower than human.
Was this all because I had quit frikking cheerleading? Probably not, it would have happened eventually.
But anyway, back to the calendar.
I scratched the back of my neck and sighed.
If anything, it would probably get better. This was my last year in High school and I was going to get through one way or another.
I stopped and sat on the counter and pulled my knees to my chest.
"Every year we grow further apart. Will we still be friends this year?" I asked myself.
Of course, I'm talking about the other digidestined. It's true, though. Every year, though we're still friends, we've been drifting further and further apart. T.K. was the only one who hasn't left for a click yet. I felt very grateful for him at that moment.
I felt that he was all that I had left to keep me sane. I wouldn't know what to do if I'd lost him….
'He'll leave you, as will all of the others. They will turn their heads like all of your other 'friends'.' I heard a voice say. I frowned and chose to ignore it.
Things would get better. I would be sure that there was light in the end.
That's when I came across a sudden and random thought.
'Who's Sonya?'I thought dejectedly, thinking of the letter T.K had gotten.
What if the voice was right and he was leaving me?
I buried my head in my arms and thought to myself for a long time.
Okay, uh...I actually cut this chapter in half. Don't throw things at me!!!!! That just means the next chapter should be up sooner! We get to get just a little deeper in the story!!!!! Yays!!!
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