This one starts out angsty, but ends up with Jonah having some fun with friends. So, check it out!

Chapter 7: Hanging Out for a Day

The next day, Jojo was walking towards the park when he sees Cody, Marcus and Mike there on the trees. Cody looks at Jojo passing by and said, "Hey, J-dude!"

Jojo froze, turned around and saw them sitting there. He chuckled and said, "Hey, guys. What are you doing?"

"Just kicking back, taking it easy, you know."

He sees their backpacks on the shade as well and asked, "Can I join you?"

"Dude, we always have room for you."

Jojo walks towards the tree, puts his backpacks down and sits down towards them. He told them, "Can you guys imagine how crazy it was back at Who-Biology?"

"You mean that video about how our food gets inside our body? Talk about weirdness."

"One of those scenes with the stomach actually made me want to puke." Mike said.

Marcus groaned in disgust and said, "Please do not talk about that anymore. I'm still recovering from seeing how little pieces of food can actually go down to the stomach."

"And then they wanted us to write a review about it."

"How's this for a review? 'The video made me want to throw up and actually burned my eyes. It was a wasted 25 minutes of a science film reel for the class to actually learn something.'" Mike said.

"What about this one; 'I give this learning reel 2 thumbs down'." Marcus said.

"Or...'They say the film reel involves something about how the food gets sucked in your esophagous. I say the film just plain sucked.'" Cody said.

Jojo chuckled and said, "To be honest, I actually got bored in the first 10 minutes of it."

"You were drowsy?" asked Mike.

"Sorta."

"Dude, I'd be tired too if I had to see another film like that."

"And how many pages were we supposed to write?" asked Cody.

"Something about 2 pages of a review."

"Only two pages? I could write a song in two pages." Jojo said.

Everyone started laughing and talking about the subject matter and Marcus asked, "Have you seen Jonah?"

"Last time I saw him was Group Therapy period."

"How's he doing?"

"He's okay. I actually went over to his house and it was actually a nice house."

"A nice house? After Jonah told us about how his stepfather beat the crap out of him and his bros, I thought it might involve a broken house." Mike said.

"It's weird. But as soon as I went into his room, it was kinda similar to mine. I thought it was kinda normal, but then I looked at his songbook and some of the songs he wrote have blown me away. It had so much angst, hurt, pain, sorrow and you can tell it was about his stepfather in the song. It's like I can relate to him easily, only my dad doesn't abuse me. When I read them, I immediately thought that he's great at pouring out his emotions on paper."

"He's kinda like you when you write songs, right?" asked Cody.

"Sorta, but I don't know. It just feels...real. It's a good feeling to write something about how you feel and just let out all your emotions that you've been bottling in for so long and just let it release when you write."

"I wish you could see my songbook." Marcus said.

Cody, Mike and Jojo turned around and Cody asked, "You write songs, too?"

"Yeah, I do. I've been writing songs in my notebook since I was 11 or 12. So, I think I can relate."

"Amazing!"

All of a sudden, Jonah walks past them with his head hanging down. Jojo turned around and saw him walking, saying nothing. He said, "Hey, Jonah!"

Jonah didn't hear him and just kept on walking. Jojo could already suspect something is wrong and Mike asked, "How come he's not speaking to us?"

"Something's happening."

"How do you know?"

"I don't know. I think I got a sense for this."

Jojo stood up, follows Jonah and tries to get his attention. Cody, Marcus and Mike wanted to know what was up, so they grabbed their backpacks and followed Jojo to see if Jonah's okay. As soon as Jonah sat down on the edge of the tree, he immediately broke down crying. Jojo went over to the tree and saw Jonah crying his eyes out. He quietly went towards him and whispered, "Jonah, are you okay?"

Jonah sobs twice andslowly raised his head up and the result was one black eye on the right. Jojo gasped in horror and asked, "Did your stepfather do that?"

"Yeah, he did it." Jonah replied, tearfully.

"When?"

"This morning."

Marcus, Cody and Mike walked over to where Jojo and Jonah were and by their surprise, they saw a black eye in Jonah's eye. They walked over to him and Marcus asked, "Who did this?"

"My stepdad."

"What's wrong with this dude?" asked Cody.

"He just gets mad at me and my brothers. This morning, he punched me in the face for oversleeping."

Their faces looked confused and Jojo asked, "You overslept?"

"It was a total accident. I woke up at 7:25 and my brothers were already at school and it took me like 15 or 20 minutes to get ready and when Paul came back in the house, he saw me running down the stairs and realized that I overslept. I told him it was an accident, but does he care? Not really. So, he just gave me a black eye for oversleeping and then, he left. At that point, I was scared to come to school and that anyone can see my eye and I used my sunglasses to avoid anyone seeing my insanely black eye."

"I'm sure it was no big deal." Mike said.

"It was a big deal...to him."

"What happened when someone asked you to take it off?"

"The teachers told me not to wear sunglasses in and when I took it off, they were in total shock that I received a black eye and one of them thought it was one of the students, but I told them the truth-my stepdad did it."

"How did they react to it?"

"They couldn't believe it. They were in a state of shock that my stepdad would do something like that. I wanted to make excuses for it, but they wanted the honest truth, so I told."

"Dude...that's brutal." Cody said.

"You know you have to tell someone about this, right?" asked Jojo.

"If I do, my stepdad will physically slaughter me."

"Okay, I understand you're scared, but what's more important-keeping it a secret or your life?"

Jonah knew it was a hard decision to make about either keep it inside and suffer the abuse forever or let it stop by telling someone about this. He didn't want this anymore than his brothers,so he looked at Jojo in the eye and said, "What do I do?"

"I think it would be a great thing if you just told them the truth about what really happened."

"I don't know if I can do that."

"You have to. You and your brothers are scared of him and you have to tell someone about this."

"I can't do that."

"You're making this happen again. That means that you're avoid help for yourself and your brothers."

"I just don't want to die, okay?"

"You're not going to."

"And you think by telling someone that my stepfather beats me that will make it better? I don't want to be separated from my brothers."

"Dude, just take in what Jojo's saying. Don't wait until it's too late. We're here to help you and if you want to avoid confrontation and violent outbursts from your stepdad, you have to tell someone about it. Don't just bottle it in."

Jonah was completely frustrated about this whole thing and he knows he wanted to tell someone about it and Jojo already knew, because he saw it with his own eyes and Jojo read his eyes that he's really scared about what would happen if they do tell about thier stepfather. He looked at him in the eye and said, "You're right. I kept it inside of me for 5 years and it was too long for me and my brothers."

"So that means..."

Jonah sighed heavily and said, "I don't want to live in fear anymore and I know neither will my brothers. I gotta...tell somebody about this."

Jojo smiled and said, "Are you willing to tell someone about it?"

Jonah nodded his head and figured that it would be the best thing for himself and for his brothers as well. Jojo sees one tear falling from his face and wipes it for him. He hugged Jojo tightly and whispered, "Thank you, Jojo."

"Hey, once a friend, always a friend."

"So, you wanna hang out with us?" asked Cody.

"Sure thing." Jonah said.

"Wanna head to our place? It's really a lot of fun."

"Where do you guys live?"

A few minutes later, Jojo, Marcus and Jonah were behind Cody and Mike as they showed them their place. When they stepped inside of the place, it was huge and wider with millions of space. Jojo immediately dropped his jaw and Marcus gasped deeply when they saw the size of that house. Marcus said, "Dude..."

"Well, what do you guys think?" asked Mike.

"Why didn't you tell us it was this big?"

"I thought it might be a good idea to fill you in on how it looks like if we plan to welcome you in there."

"It's got everything here-an room, music room, game room, basically just a hang out place." Cody said.

"Where do you guys bunk in?" asked Marcus.

"I thought you'd never ask."

They followed them upstairs and Cody showed them their room. Jonah, Jojo and Marcus gasped in complete and utter shock when they entered there. The room had dark blue and striped red walls with a black carpet on the ground and in the room, there were rock posters, a computer, TV with a video game, DVD player along with a foosball table. Cody asked, "Are you surprised or what?"

"Totally surprised." Marcus said.

"Me and Mike always come here if we want to beat other for some serious gaming. I always win, because it's my console."

Mike scoffed and said, "So you say. I'm a better competitor than you are."

"Dude, please. I'm way more of the competitve edge than you are."

"So what do you guys do for fun?" asked Jonah.

"What we do for fun is just dancing, playing guitars and watching movies. But mostly video ."

"Sounds awesome."

"But we always play some sports-like basketball and ping pong. And we do it in our secret room."

"Secret room?"

"Follow us."

They walked over to the bookcase and they pulled the door open and they opened the door behind it and it was this amazing orange and green room with a basketball court and a ping-pong table. Jojo, Jonah and Marcus gasped in shock when they saw the entire thing.

"This is how we have fun. We're both awesome at basketball and ping-pong." Cody said.

"Tell ya what, why not show you guys my room first, then we'll meet here for some serious gaming." Mike said.

"Good deal."

A few seconds later, they went into Mike's room and there were guitars, TV with a DVD player, video ystem, rock posters, computers, a Who-pod and everything else in between. Mike said, "Welcome to my palace. It's not as cool as Cody's, though."

Cody scoffed and asked, "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Just an expression."

"Whatever."

"What do you do in here?" asked Jojo.

"Mostly, I do my homework here, play guitar, play video , watch movies, rock out to my favorite songs, write my own songs. Just basically everything here."

"Why didn't you tell us you have an awesome place like this?" asked Marcus.

"We were waiting for the right time that we can actually see our place with you guys, because we're friends."

"Our favorite areas here are the movie theatre, game room and also a music room."

As soon as they went in the areas of the house, Jojo, Marcus and Jonah marveled at the music room, played serious at the room and also see what the chairs feel like in the movie theatre. Soon after, they returned to Cody's room with a secret rom behind the bookcase and played some basketball and ping-pong. Jojo and Cody were playing ping-pong while Jonah, Mike and Marcus were busy playing basketball.

Jonah didn't worry too much about the issues at home, because he was too busy having fun with them and at that moment, he realized that he just needed to get out more and be with his friends and he's hoping his brothers can share that as well.

A few hours later, they were pretty much ready to go home and Jojo, Marcus and Jonah were leaving the place. Jojo said, "Thanks for showing us around here. Your place is cool."

"Yeah, thank you guys for actually coming here." Mike said.

"We still gotta write what we really think of what we saw in Who-Biology class about that stomach going in the body thing. They say it's worth half our grade." Marcus said.

"Half our grade? After seeing that, I would give half my eyes to blur it away." Cody said.

"True. But still..."

"Yeah, we gotta do it. The movie sucked hard, but it's for science."

"At least let's get this over with." Jojo said.

"True. We'll see you guys in school tomorrow."

"See you tomorrow."

"Later, guys."

"Hey, Jonah. Thanks for hanging out with us. You just needed some fun and I think you got it." Mike said.

Jonah smiled and said, "Thanks."

They left the house and Jonah and Jojo said 'bye' to Marcus as he left and Jojo said, "Remember what I said, okay?"

"I'll try my best."

"And remember, if you need someone to talk to, just come to me or my dad. We'll help you out with anything."

"Of course. You're a good friend, Jojo."

"Thanks. See you tomorrow, okay?"

"All right, bye."

Jojo and Jonah walked home in different directions and the sun was starting to set. He knows he has to get home, but after today, it just seems as though he had the best time of his life with his friends. That's all he needed-to have some fun with them.

How cool is this? Stick around for more!