Fallen

I let my backpack drop to the floor and I sighed loudly.
"Hard day at school?" Drew, my older brother asked. Today he wore a white t-shirt and light jeans. His green eyes twinkled in the light.
"Yes." i replied. Today was our last day of winter finals, my best friend Cocoa still wasn't talking to me, and I had to deal with a very uncomfortable bra! I aced all of my exams, but I certainly didn't feel as happy as I should. My hands ached from all the writing and my legs felt like jelly from sitting in one position practically all day.
"How'd you do?" He said lifting his hand to scratch his head.
"All A's." A squeak of joy escaped my mouth and I somehow gained back my energy. My brother flashed a smile back and held a thumbs up. "I'm gonna head to the library... I should have some books for the break."
I fished around in my dark pink coat for my keys. I unlocked my white Volks Wagon and hopped in. It took only five minutes to arrive at the library... thankfully. I slowly drove away from our small blue house. As I pulled into the library parking lot I realized the parking lot seemed really empty.
I began to walk up the long steps and heard a honk. I whirled around and saw just another casual car race along the also empty road.
I felt a strong force push hard on my back. I turned around just before I lost my balance and was caught by a boy that looked around my age. His arms were muscular feeling...
"I'm sorry." He said barely above a whisper.
"It's okay." My eyes found their way to a book on the ground. It was probably his. I grabbed the book and handed it to him, he smiled it and took it.
"Alex."
"I'm Falon."
"I was reading my book and didn't see you."
"I get it. It's alright." We stared at each other in silence for a couple minutes. He had dark brown hair that covered his eyes in a dark way. From the little gaps in between his hair I saw he had light blue eyes. He wore a black T-shirt and dark Levi jeans with black shoes.
He looked at me slowly from head to toe, looking at all my flaws and imperfections.
"Well, I better get going..." He said. I nodded and continued walking up the long white steps. I checked out a couple books but no matter what u couldn't stop thinking about Alex. I'd seen him in my history and French class, but he never talked to me.
I rushed outside and stopped to see Alex sitting in his car reading. I wondered why he was still here.
"Falon, when will Mom be home?"
"Drew, I told you this morning she's going out to dinner with her sister. And don't ask about Dad, I'll tell you that too. Dad is working late tonight."
"Thanks." My older brother Drew was 18 years old, only 1 year older than me. He was a senior.
I opened the fridge, reached my hand in, and grabbed the cold pizza on a paper plate. I took a minute to heat it up and walked it to my bedroom. The pizza tasted fresh, so I grabbed a couple more pieces and turned in early so I could wake up earlier. I usually saw Alex at the coffee shop downtown in the morning on my way to Cocoa's house. I switched off my lamp and noticed my wrist looked bare. My charm bracelet fell off! I began to look around but became tired and quickly fell asleep.
I opened the door to the coffee shop and sat down at a table far away from Alex. After I ordered a mocha coffee and muffin Alex came over and sat down.
He took my arm and dragged me out of the shop. We stopped walking in front of an apartment building. He grabbed his keys from his pocket and unlocked the door. We stepped inside and he slammed my back against the wall. One hand was by my head and the other trapped my arm to the wall.
"What's wrong with you!?" I shouted.
"Shh. They might here you Falon." The way he said my name sent chills up my neck. He pushed his lips to mine and placed his hand gently on my neck. His touch was gentle but his mouth was not. I began to lift my head from the wall, but Alex pushed it back with his hand.
"Don't fight me Falon. If you do... your entering a battle you know you cant win."
"Please, just don't touch me!"
"No promises." He whispered roughly. He put his hands on my waist and I pulled free from his grasp. I darted across the room and hid in a closet that was left open. I shut the door quietly and heard Alex's footsteps pass the closet. Then I heard them come closer again. A shadowy figure stopped in front of the closet.
"Falon. I found you."
I woke up in a sweat and let my eyes wander around my room for a moment. In the corner of my room by the door a dark shadow stepped out into the light of the moon. It was Alex. I screamed loudly, and he rushed to my side, looking worried.
"What's wrong? I came by to give you back your charm bracelet... no one is home but the door was unlocked so I came in because I saw your car in the driveway. I heard a scream come from upstairs and I rushed up to your room."
"Just a nightmare." Alex nodded his head like he understood perfectly. "You found my bracelet?" He handed me the golden chain with all 5 charms on it! "Thank you!" I sat up straight and unsuccessfully tried to put the bracelet on. Alex chuckled.
"Need some help there?" I nodded my head quickly. "Here." He put the bracelet on and held my wrist far from my face to admire it.
"Thanks." Alex shrugged as if it meant nothing and slapped me with a hard question.
"What was it about?"
"What? The dream?"
"Yes."
"Um... It was about..." My face grew hot. What was I supposed to say? It was him. The dream was about him. "A fire." I lied.
"You're a terrible liar." He mumbled just clearly enough for me to hear.
"You." He looked up at me, eye brows raised. "The nightmare was about you." He stood up from my bed and took off his shoes. "What do you think your doing?"
"Your mom isn't home. Your dad isn't home. Your brother left a note saying he went to a friend's for the night. I think you need some company for now."
"Well your wrong. I was just going to go back to sleep."
"I don't think you were." I realized I was still in my regular clothes and he probably thought I was going to go somewhere.
"I'm not going anywhere. I just fell asleep so fast I forgot to take these off." He nodded his head to think about it. I stood from my bed and walked to my mirror with my brush. I started to brush my tangly straight dark brown hair.
"You're brushing your hair at 12:00 in the morning?" He chuckled.
"If you're gonna stay then I should look at least a little presentable."
"You look fine." He assured me. But I continued to brush my hair anyway. Once I was done I pulled my hair into a pony tail and sat back down on the bed, right next to Alex, our legs and arms touching slightly.
"Thank you. For the charm bracelet."
"No problem."
"Why haven't you ever talked to me... before today I mean." Alex just shrugged his shoulders and kept fiddling with a piece of string attached to my bed.
I stood up and walked out of the room, hoping Alex would follow. Of course, he did. He grabbed his keys from his pocket and opened the front door. He held it open for a minute before I realized he wanted to take me somewhere.
I jumped into the car and listened carefully to the radio that was on low volume.
"Don't you want to know where I'm taking you?" He asked me. I shrugged.
"I'm paying attention to this song."
"The killers. They're a good band."
"I really like this song. What's it called?"
"White Demon Love Song. I have the album... here, take it." He grabbed the CD from the glove compartment and slid it into a nice little CD envelope. Alex then took a sharpie from the glove compartment and wrote the band name and what track the song was on.
"Thanks. I owe you two now."
"You owe me nothing... it's fine."
"So where are we going?"
"Arcade slash bowling alley."
"Never been there. How is it?"
"Weird people there. Games are fun. Food is great. All together its pretty nice."
"'Kay."
The drive was pretty silent but when we got there I could here the noise of games and people shouting. An older man who looked upset held the door open for us.
"Probably lost a game of poker or something. Wanna play? I'm feeling lucky."
"No... I'm not very good at gambling or cards."
"That would be what I'm for." He bought a couple game tokens and shoved them deep into his pocket. We first walked over to a little miniature bowling thing.
"First person to get three strikes wins." Alex said.
"You are so gonna lose! I used to be on a bowling team when I was twelve." Alex looked at me like he was expecting me to say "Just kidding." but I didn't... because it was true.
"Well that was when you were twelve. Your what? 17 now?"
"17 yep. But I still got skill. You just wait."
On my first turn I got a strike. His ball got the gutter. My second ball got a spare and so did his.
I walked to the back of the bowling alley full of shame. I had lost the game. I turned in the bowling shoes and walked to the arcade with Alex right by my side.

 

We played some games for awhile before Alex drove me home right on my normal curfew. We stood on my porch in the freezing weather and Alex held my hand out palm up. He placed a small paper that looked like what might be his cell phone number in my hand.
"Thank you. I had fun."
"So did I." He admitted. I remembered Alex had been in my class since 4th grade. I then remembered he did used to talk to me. I rushed our good byes and hurried inside to my old yearbooks and photo albums.
He came to some of my birthday parties and he used to be one of my friends. I opened one of my old diaries and skimmed through it to find stuff about Alex Mitchell. Apparently we got in a huge fight that left us less friendly with each other.
And as the time went on we stopped speaking. But that was in 6th grade. This is junior year in high school. Things should be better between us. But what made him come back to me? Did he feel as drawn to me as I felt to him right now?
I shoved all my old crap off my bed and snuggled up in my blankets and fell asleep.
I woke to the sound of my phone buzzing. Cocoa.
"Hello." I said, my voice still groggy.
"Hey, Falon?"
"Yea?"
"I'm sorry. I acted like a bitch. I'm sorry. I thought that if I was better friends with Allison then... maybe I'd have a better chance of getting a boyfriend on the football team."
"So you tried out for cheerleading and kept ditching me for her little clique."
"I know. I'm really sorry. Can you forgive me?" Cocoa said. I could hear the sincerity in her voice.
"I guess."
"Best friends?"
"Definitely." "
"Want me to swing by today? We can catch up... I've missed what? About a month of my friend since 1st grade's life!"
"Sure. 2 O'clock?"
"Perfect. Talk later! Bye!"
"Bye!" I hung up and began to get ready for the day. I pulled on some black skinny jeans and a dark red long sleeve shirt. Over the shirt I wore my fitted leather jacket. For shoes I picked out my long black boots.
I pulled my long brown hair into a ponytail and applied my contacts to my deep brown eyes. I was near-sighted. So I couldn't see far away. I glanced back at my room and noticed the slim piece of paper with Alex's number on it. I turned to grab the paper and grabbed my IPhone as well. I added him as one of my contacts and rushed out of my room to the kitchen.

 

My brother was sitting at the counter with his head down. He looked sad.
"Drew, what's wrong?"
"After you left... Mom and Dad came home and went to dinner. There was a fire at the restaurant. A lot of people escaped, but something fell on Dad. He didn't get out. He told Mom to go, but she wanted to stay with him. So she tried to get him out. 'The firemen kept begging her to get out' is what the police told me.
"The walls collapsed and she died with Dad. The police told me that we could get some money from the government since we don't have any family left." I took a step back. I almost tripped as tears began to stream down my face. I ran up the stairs, grabbed my back pack, and rushed out to my car. I was going for a long drive.
"Falon! Where are you going!"