Chapter 5: Long, Slow Days

The bike came charging at me with viciousness like I'd never seen. Its wheels were rolling and rolling like tires on an SUV and it seemed almost like a car was coming at me. The rider clearly had great control as the bike never veered outside of the straight line path it had created. Of course I could marvel for only a few seconds as I could tell that it was coming right at me! As it vroomed closer and closer, I fell down and began to plead.

"Slow down!" I yelled. "Please don't hit me!"

It was no use though, it just kept coming, maybe even faster after my pleas. Then suddenly as it was inches away from me, it just stopped. The rider pulled back hard on his brakes, creating significant tread marks in the dirt. Then the rider stepped off, revealing who I had feared it to be all along.

"Kevin!" I yelled, although it was hard to act surprised. After all who else in the neighborhood had a bike that they flaunted so much.

"Hey Double Dweb." He said, his voice sounding emotionless as he said it.

"I thought it was dork you always called me and the oth-" I started saying, but then he slapped me hard against my right cheek. It really wasn't that hard, but I was shocked that he would hurt me. Sure, he didn't really like me that much, but I always felt that was by association with Eddy and Ed (well, mostly Eddy) Now I was beginning to feel otherwise.

"Shut up." He began, sounding genuinely angry for the first time. "They mean the same thing don't they?"

I was beginning to become scared. It didn't seem like he was thinking rationally, more like a jealous girlfriend or the shady villain in the corner finally revealing his overpowering strength. I didn't really know where all this was coming from, but then he suddenly leapt on top of me, pushing down on my arms with his sheer strength. I had no ability to fight back, I was cornered.

"WELL, AREN'T THEY THE SAME THING!?" He yelled right into my face.

"Y-y-"I tried to say yes, but I was too terrified. My mouth and my mind just weren't cooperating to get it out. Whatever confidence and composure I'd gained in the past few days was completely gone right now. Kevin then stuck his right index finger into his mouth, getting it all soaked up with his wet, sticky saliva. He then swiftly took it out of his mouth and stuck deep into the canal of my right eardrum.

"Wet willie! Or maybe a wet Eddward? What do you think?" He said, laughing heinously at me. I was squirming around in agony as I couldn't get the wetness out of my ear. "N-N-Neither!" I yelled back at him, wiggling around as I tried to escape.

"Now, now relax for just a little longer." He said with a snarky smile across his face. "I only have a single message for you and I'll only say it once: stay away from Nazz. Forever."

I was actually a little taken aback. "That's what all this is about? Your crush on her? I assure you me and Nazz are friends and just that."

"It's not a crush. She's my best friend and…" He began before stumbling off. I must have hit a nerve. But he quickly recovered to finish.

"Well, hopefully you get my drift and leave her be. Or there will be a lot more trouble." He said. "And remember: this never happened."

He then finally loosened his grip on me, and stood up in front of me. I breathed a sigh of relief, having escaped with only wet Willie and some dirt marks on my clothes. I was relieved in a way to have gotten out with such little damage to my person. But then I felt a tug from behind my shirt, pulling tightly as if it were a chain. This clearly wasn't over yet.

"You know, that would have been enough in most cases with you Double Dork, but then I remembered the last time. You actually had the guts to stand up to me. In a way I madly respect that, but in another way I have to reign that in. Words aren't enough anymore it seems to make sure the point." He said, his tone becoming more sinister the more he talked.

Before I could even have a split second decision on how to approach my situation next, it hit me. Kevin's fist hit me square in the right eye, and it was a thousand times stronger than the slap. If the slap had been like a wet noodle at the pool getting you in eye when you weren't paying attention, the punch was like getting hit by a boulder. It was truly a knockout blow. I gradually lost my balance and eventually slipped into unconsciousness. The last thing I heard before passing out was another warning by Kevin, but I heard it in spurts, so it sounded really broken. "That shiner…remind…warning…mirror…"

And then I was gone

XXX

Meanwhile…

Waking up was a drag lately. I would wake up, eat, and usually just go right back to sleep. Every now and then I would maybe watch a movie, but I always did it alone. I didn't want to be with anyone right now, and I figured no one really wanted to be with me. At least that was what I thought. Anyhow it had been about five days since the accident, and this was the first day I was up more than two hours at any one time during the day. I was mostly fighting the urge to go back to sleep and hide away because I knew that most people didn't do this and I couldn't keep it up much longer. It was about 3:30 or so when the doorbell rang. I was still eating some chunky puffs from breakfast from at least three hours ago. I still wasn't ready to interact with people, so I ignored the ringing that occurred roughly every thirty seconds for about five minutes before I could take it no more. I put on a sweatshirt to hide my lack of clothing as I only had a bra on. I'm probably too young for a bra still honestly, but as mom always said "it's never too early!"

…Well actually she said that on Christmas morning when Ed wasn't ready to get up, but that's beside the point!

Anyhow, I put on the sweatshirt and opened the door and saw exactly who I thought it would be.

"Hello Jimmy." I said, sounding rather out of it still.

"Sarah!" Jimmy began shrieking as he saw me. "I'm going to need to help you get cleaned up and looking comfortable. You look really rough right now."

"That's because I am really rough right now. I can't stand the things happening around me, and I don't want to come out." I sounded really hoarse and sad as I said this as I could hear myself talking.

Jimmy then puffed up his chest a little and took a deep breath. "Sarah, I am worried about this. I understand you're upset about the things that have happened recently, but you cannot just shut out the world because the training wheels are off right now." Jimmy said this with much more confidence than he usually showed. Still I couldn't let him me tell me when I would be happy and when I would be sad.

"Jimmy, this is j-just a phase. It's part of being sad, I'll eventually get out of it." I said, but with very little of the dominating tone and confidence I normally had. "I just need some time to take this all in."

"I understand that you need time to fix this, but this isn't the normal sort of fix it yourself problem. This is what friends are for. This where that shoulder to cry on is so helpful or that person with the listening ear is so helpful. Sarah, you're only going to get by with a little help from your friends, and I'm one of them."

His words had touched much so much so quickly that I lost it. I began to cry, but quickly motion him in so no one else could see me cry. I was just balling hard, and once inside I essentially made Jimmy my handkerchief as I just cried all over him. He merely just patted me on the back and kept me close.

"Let it all out, let it all out. You're always going to feel much better once you empty yourself all out of the sadness." Jimmy knew this well, having had several good cries himself over the years, many around me. I guess in many ways this was a repayment for all those times. Eventually after about 10 more minutes, I finally stopped crying. It wasn't a choice, I just finally ran out of tears I guess.

"So do you want to talk about it now or is the crying enough for one day?" He asked me. I thought deeply for a moment about talking about it, about how I felt about my brother and what happened was changing my thoughts entirely. But I was also running out of steam right now, and what had happened was a hugely important step.

"You know what Jimmy? I don't think I'm ready to talk about it yet" My voice was shaking hugely just getting right here. "But how about we try and go outside for a little bit?"

For the first time all day, Jimmy really smiled. "How about we take a walk through the forested area and go get some jawbreakers at the store? We can see some great sights and get some candy. You up for that?"

"That sounds great Jimmy! I'll go get my extra allowance change and go get some jawbreakers!" I said back. I got it and then got fully dressed and we went out for the first real time in five days.

XXX

Stepping out, it was extremely refreshing. The sun was beating down on my head, but it was much more energizing then the artificial air that ran through the A/C of our house. Also we didn't see anyone on our way to the alleyways so I was just sort of easing my way back in. I know Nazz was at dance practice and Rolf usually was stuck in his farm pen a lot as farm animals in a cul-de-sac presented a unique challenge, and Johnny was only just getting over a cold. This made it easier to start adjusting back to a regular routine of getting outside. When we got to the alleyways, I finally broke the silence between me and Jimmy.

"Hey Jimmy?" I asked him.

"Yes Sarah?" He replied.

"Why is it that you're always there for me? Why are we so close to one another?" I asked. All I hoped was that it wasn't the romantic answer. I always was taught to try to ignore romance until high school, although at 11 years old it was getting tougher each time.

"Because you're like my sister." He said.

Well… that was something. Lovers certainly don't say that their like siblings, but it sounded a little awkward. "What do you mean?" I asked.

"Well, I mean we're like siblings really. We spend a lot of our time together, we bring happiness to each other and we wouldn't have it any other way. Am I right, sister?" He said, with a little bit of a pep at the end. It sounded awkward when I first heard it, but admittedly it sounded a lot more sensible with that explanation.

"How'd you come up with that one, Jimmy?" I asked.

He kind of lost some of that enthusiasm as I asked. "Well to be fair I didn't come up with that one. Double D did."

I fell into silence as I heard his name. I hadn't even realized that I hadn't seen him or Eddy in those days. Well, I had seen Double D at the hospital, but he'd kind of avoided me I think. Either he didn't want to deal with me sad or he was too scarred from the moment too. But regardless I was surprised to learn that Double D was thinking of me even now.

"Well that Double D sure can see things like that. It's a shame that Eddy bogs him do-" I had begun saying when suddenly I look up to see Kevin on his bike coming right down the alleyway. I tried to wave and didn't even try to move out of the way. Jimmy and I had to jump to the deep right to get out of his way. I landed right on top of a trash bag and got some of the stench on me. Jimmy immediately pulled me up.

"Oh my Sarah! That stench! Sarah do you want to head home and change out of this and shower? It's really-" I cut him off as he began to drone on.

"Jimmy, I'm fine. I'll change when I get home. Let's just go get those jawbreakers!" He was quiet for a second as I sounded a little harsh on him. But he gradually smiled as he recognized that it was more like the real me. "Let's do it girlfriend!" he said. I frowned at that last part, but didn't let him on at the time.

Not too long later, we reached the forested back way to the candy shop. It really was beautiful out there, covered almost entirely by trees and wildlife. We saw a rabbit cross by us along with a few furry squirrels.

Jimmy was definitely right: this was exactly what I needed I thought to myself at that moment. Outside of Kevin almost running us over, this has been very relaxing. As I thought this to myself, we approached the bridge crossing to get over to the other side.

As we were crossing it, we and Jimmy were stopped in our tracks! From afar, it almost looked like there was a body in the middle of the pathway. This had never happened before, not even once, so we were really concerned. As we moved forward, we could tell for sure it was a person.

"Jimmy, what should we do?" I asked, gulping down a huge breath of air within. "What if that person is… dead?"

"Well, it's go up close and check it out. See if their breathing or not. If he's not, we'll go find a telephone and call the police."

Police. Man, we had never had the police come by, and I hoped for this guy's sake they never would. With a deep breath in and out, the two of us moved in close and picked up a stick. Getting close, the person looked not much bigger then us.

"Jimmy, turn him over. I wanna check his heartbeat and see what we can do." I said. And as Jimmy turned him over, horror invoked us both.

"DOUBLE D! OH MY GOD!" I yelled. He looked like he had been beaten up by a crowbar or something, his right eye was purple and swollen shut, his ear dripping wet with spit, and his cheek red from a hard hit to that area too. Jimmy, shaking terribly all over at this sight, still managed to put his head to the unconscious Double D's chest.

"He's breathing!" Jimmy yelled. "We can still help him if we act quickly!"

I ran back as fast as I could and grabbed our little red wagon we used to vary each other in. Now it was the scene of another tragedy, the second in a week.

XXX

Later…

I awoke to a bright light. My immediate thought was that Kevin had come back and kidnapped me for more terror, thinking he was entirely fixated on me and could stop it all by hiding me away from Nazz. However, as I stood up and looked around, my sight hindered by a swollen eye, I realized that I was on the coach of Ed's home. What was I doing in Ed's house? Wasn't I just dying in the forest?

"Hello? Is anyone home?" I said, my voice echoing throughout the house. I felt sore all over from the attack, but I was glad to be alive really so I tried my hardest not to dwell on it. Just then, Sarah walked into the room.

"Sarah? What's going on here?" I asked.

She just grabbed and hugged me right then, her eyes reddened as if she had been crying at some point today.

"You're so lucky Double D! We just happened to be going that way when we found you on the ground!" She had begun to shriek a little bit, she was clearly shaken up about this which couldn't be good as she was already handling her brother's accident very roughly also. "What happened Double D? What happened to get you beaten up so bad?"

I didn't know what to tell her. Kevin was so well respected in the Cul-De-Sac. If nothing else he was the anti-Eddy and that meant something to these kids. I didn't think she'd believe me, so I had to come up with something else at least for now.

"It happened so fast that… I didn't see the person." I said, stumbling through my words. "I just… I didn't even have a chance to fight back." I don't really know how much she believed me right then, but she didn't push it further. She then gave me a bag of ice to help reduce the swelling.

"I can't thank you enough for all this. Who knows where I'd be right now without you two." I said as I rested the ice on my eye, having cool relief hit me almost immediately. "I'd love to stay even longer, but I need to go home, shower and go to sleep, put this difficult day behind me." Sarah looked at me disappointedly, but relenting.

"Actually, I have one more thing to ask you about. When is it possible for me to see Ed?" I asked. She looked back. "You can come with me tomorrow." She said. "It'll be the first time back for since the day, so it'll be good to not go alone."

I nodded back to indicate yes and then ran across the Cul-De-Sac towards my home. I ran to hopefully avoid being noticed with the huge bruise. I did thankfully, and did exactly as I told Sarah I was going to do. Except after showering, I dressed back into day clothes, a black t-shirt I had never worn before and dark grey sweatpants. After checking that the coast was clear I ran across to my only other true friend's house. I tapped mightily on his window.

"Open this window Eddy!"