Chapter 6

It was strange. Sitting in the middle of the living room of a person whose name was wavering in my head and drinking my homemade strawberry milkshake. My eyes were heavy and the people who had been talking to me before were passed out. My condition would become like theirs in a few minute, or if I'm resilient to drugs then maybe an hour at best. The cold of the milkshake was enough to numb my brain so I could stop fumbling with strange and stupid ideas of what I should be doing with hair on Nathan's head. Seriously, the Afro look was killing me.

Thankfully the numbness from my drink didn't freeze my legs, so I stood up and wobbled my way towards the front door. Just then I heard someone giggling and I looked up to see that Sam was kissing Gregor. A jolt of anger made me clench my fist. How dare he! But just as I saw the look on Sam's face, I understood that she liked him and if she was happy with him then who cares what I have to say.

They walked inside a room and closed the door behind them. I turned away and opened the front door and went out to see that the entire front yard was covered with snow. I needed my mind off of what I had witnessed and I saw a bench on the pavement. I walked over and sat down on it as I watched the snow-covered road and remembered what it felt like to forget.

The front door opened and Mom walked in with a woman behind her. Both of them stood on the last stair and Mom called Jazz to come down. She came waltzing in the room and I stood poking my nose out of my room and saw Jazz hugging the woman. I was going to go back in my room and close the door but that woman spotted me and her eyes held mine in a trance. She was very pretty but she looked tired. Mom called me to come down and I slowly made my way out.

I made shy steps and stood behind Mom as I held her leg to cover myself from the stranger. My Mom patted my head and gestured towards the woman, "Danny! Sweetie, this is your Aunt Alicia. She's going to stay with us from now on!" I looked at Mom with wide eyes and looked down as I said 'Hi' to the woman.

The woman had brown hair and blue eyes. She looked sweet and I thought that I had made a new friend today as she smiled at me.

The front door opened and someone walked outside. It didn't take long for that person to sit beside me and I felt the familiar warmth engulf me as Sam held my hand. She looked at the snow-covered road then back at me as she asked, "You Okay, Danny?"

I whipped my head towards her and looked at her with wide eyes to see clearly because my head was swimming, "Yeah! I saw a duck and said 'Hi' to him. But it just huffed and ran away from me." I looked towards Sam, "Why do everyone run away from me?" I had never felt so lonely before and seeing her, knowing that she belonged to someone else just made the ache grow.

She wrapped her arms around me and placed her head on my shoulder. Trying to console me that everything will be alright or something. But nothing was alright, she was here but she wasn't here with me.

"Your not alone, Danny. You have me!" she whispered and I tried to believe every word she said. But why was it so hard to believe! I needed to clear my head so I stood up and backed away from her. I started walking on the road and heard Sam calling behind me, "Where are you going!" her voice was cracking, probably because of the cold, but when I turned around I saw that her face was adorned with tears. It took everything inside me to not wipe her tears but I shrugged and walked forward.

She didn't call me and I walked in the woods on the other side of the road and dragged my feet in the thick snow and suddenly I felt a wave of drowsiness fall on me and I collapsed on the snow and turned on my back as I saw the stars in the sky twinkling at me. I hoped Aunt Alicia was somewhere in them and I felt tears prickle in my eyes and I waved my arms and legs and tried to make a snow angel. I wanted my mind to become numb again.

The encounter with Sam and the voices in my head made it hurt and it was like someone was hammering my head and I couldn't find the source. What hurt the most? The fact that Sam could never be mine? Or the fact that I lost everyone that was ever close to me?

Slowly my eyelids felt heavy and I drowned myself in the land of nightmares because my dreams were always like that.

I woke up wrapped in white sheets in a comfortable bed. I took in my surroundings and it vaguely looked familiar. Someone was rubbing my hands and I looked to my right and saw Mom and Jazz. When they saw me awake they engulfed me in a bone crushing hug, the ones I expected from Dad.

That was when I realized that I was in a hospital and I groaned as the doctor walked in and smiled at me. He waved a clipboard at me and walked to the left side of my bed and checked for my pulse. Then he asked me the question I was dreading. But the question didn't come from the doctor, but from Jazz who snapped at me, "Your on drugs, Danny?!" it was more of a statement and I remembered that I had passed out on the snow and they had somehow found me.

Disbelief was etched in her tone. I coughed lightly in case my voice gave anything away, "No! I would never do drugs!" I tried to sound as reasonable as possible. The doctor asked me, "That was why you were found covered in snow and unconscious!" his voice held sarcasm and I laughed it off that I wouldn't do drugs.

Mom raised her eyebrow, compelling me to tell the truth so I told part of it, "I was just hearing things and I was exhausted. I didn't even remember where I was and I fell asleep." I saw the color on Mom's face wash off and she stared at me with wide eyes, "Your hearing things again!" And now I couldn't retrace back. I couldn't tell her that I was drunk, nor could I tell her that I was hearing things again. I couldn't go back to the way things had been before so I lied again.

"Not like before. I was just delirious from sleep!" and they somehow believed it. I had a severe case of hypothermia for passing out on the snow. My Mom convinced me to take the Monday and Tuesday off and Sam and Tucked came to visit after school. Sometimes I started to write but my hands were always shaking so I passed my time watching t.v.

When Wednesday rolled, I was back in school with a common cold. Something I could handle and I asked Mr. Lancer for more books to read since I was going to be spending the winter vacations home because Mom wasn't going to let me go anywhere.

At least, I had been allowed visitors and Sam and Tucker visited often.

What happen on that weekend I had passed out was a blur but I did remember Valerie Gray with Tuck. He had said that he would tell me but I didn't comply answers from him. One day without me asking him he told me everything and I had been shocked when the reality of the situation dawned on me.

After the holidays I had my own group of friends. It wasn't just me, Tuck and Sam. It had become a group of five. Now Star and Nathan started tagging along with me as well.

I found out that Star used to be a drone of the popular kids but she left them after eighth grade and started hanging out with Tuck and Sam. She was always about the newest trends and I always wondered how she and Sam hung out. While Star was all bright and preppy, Sam was all dark and bleak. Star wore all the new fashion items and Sam was always wearing anything that was decent. Star was a Justin Bieber fan and Sam was about the 19's. But they were friends. Sam even told me that she hated her before and I wasn't shocked in the least.

Nathan on the other hand was a kid that asked every girl in a skirt out to senior prom that is two years away, and Sam said that he had been asking from eighth grade.

The best part about all this was that these guys had been there for Tucker last year when he and Sam had crashed a popular kid's party and ended up drunk. That was the first time Tuck and Valerie had talked and they had ended in bed after a few drinks. When the woke up they tried to act indifferent. When Tuck and Sam threw a party next month, Tuck had invited Valerie and she came, the same thing happened again and Valerie had told Tucker not to tell anyone.

This kept happening and Tuck started liking her a lot but Valerie always shook it off as a drunken mishap. After a party before the ending of the semester she had told Tucker that she loved him and Tucker said that he felt the same way but she had told him that no one could know about any of this because her dad had been strict about dating or anything like that ever since her mother died. So she wanted no one to know, but she kept coming to the parties, although no one knew what was going on between them, except Sam, Star and Nathan. And most recently me.

I was touched by the fact that those three always stayed by Tuck's side when she acted indifferent to him in front of everyone and they had always supported him. Now Tucker trusted me and I wasn't going to make him lose his trust.

O.o.O.o.O.o.O.o.O.o.O.o.O.o.O

We were officially in our 11th grade and Tuck was in his last year. I was happy that I had made such great friends, we spent every waking moment together. Our semester was going to start in the fall and we still had two weeks of summer vacations and we were having a great time. We went to parties and hung out on the beach and always went on a long drive in Tucker's truck. It had been amazing.

I would always sit in the front and Sam would go to the back while we played music on full volume and sang away the night.

It was just another night with Sam sitting in the front with us and the music was playing. Sam was humming along and I was looking out the window, Tuck was yawning and I was afraid that we might crash because of his drowsiness.

Just then Sam started changing the stations on the radio and she suddenly came on a station and backed away. The station was static. Tuck turned and glared at Sam who just shrugged innocently and he started changing the stations himself with full speed while keeping one eye on the road and the other on the radio. Just then a song came that sparked some interest in Sam and she shouted, "Wait!" and Tucker stopped fumbling with the radio and we both stared wide-eyed at Sam who was grinning from ear to ear.

She turned towards Tucker and said, "Go to The Tunnel!" The Tunnel was actually a place where he and Sam used to go very often when Tuck got his license but one day he had crashed the car and their parents had forbidden them to go there.

Tuck stared at Sam with a questioning stare, "Sam! Mom said...!" but she spoke before him, "I don't care! Just go, go, go!" and then she gave him a menacing glare when he hesitated, he drove towards the tunnel quickly. I laughed at his comical expression and Sam turned her glare towards me and I zipped my mouth. It was hard to not shut up with the intensity of her glare. She turned the volume high and that was when I heard the lyrics of the song.

It's time to begin, isn't it?

I get a little bit bigger but then I'll admit

I'm just the same as I was

Now don't you understand

That I'm never changing who I am

It's time to begin, isn't it?

I get a little bit bigger, but then I'll admit

I'm just the same as I was

Now don't you understand

That I'm never changing who I am

It wasn't one of the 19's song that she usually listened to and I had a hard time believing that she liked it. It wasn't that the song wasn't good, it was great but it was a new song. The male singers baritone voice made me enjoy it more.

We came in The Tunnel and Sam opened the slide through glass window behind her head and crawled towards the back. I turned towards Tucker who had a smile on his face, "What is she doing!?" He gave me a side look and said, "Don't worry! She does this all the time!" I looked out the window and saw that she was on her knees and slowly she spread her arms above her head. Like she was ready to fly and I had a hard time looking away.

The tunnel wasn't that well-lit but it had an eerie glow to it and Sam looked like an angel in her black jacket and skirt. She looked towards me and held my gaze as she slowly flapped her arms. The song was playing in the background.

This road never looked so lonely

This house doesn't burn down slowly

To ashes, to ashes

It's time to begin, isn't it?

I get a little bit bigger, but then I'll admit

I'm just the same as I was

Now don't you understand

That I'm never changing who I am

It's time to begin, isn't it?

I get a little bit bigger, but then I'll admit

I'm just the same as I was

Don't you understand

That I'm never changing who I am

I can see it. This one moment when you know you're not a sad story. You are alive, and you stand up and see the lights on the buildings and everything that makes you wonder. And you're listening to that song and that drive with the people you love most in this world. And in this moment I swear, We Are Infinite...

Okay, I liked this chapter and so should you. The song I used was from Imagine Dragons - It's Time. I love the song and the band. So review like you mean it.

Oh and Sonuchu! I was hoping on making another story about Snow White and the Huntsman because the story line and dialogues won't leave me alone!

Review!

Love,

Red