The Where

He snuck out of my house with my father's clothes and went to get his things for school. He didn't make it there that day. Later I learned the police had finally got a hold of him. At the time I was worrying my mind away brushing off the lectures in class and trying to dismiss the horrific slideshows of what could be happening that kept playing. I didn't have any time to myself that day. Everyone knew. Everyone heard those sirens. Every time someone opened their mouth Theo came out of it. They were all asking me. It was doing nothing to help those incessant slideshows of his bloodied body get out of my head. They asked me and I feigned ignorance so I wouldn't have to relive his eyes staring at me from under my window, from the ground under a bloody scar, from the side of my bed.

Derek wouldn't let up.

"You gotta know something you're not telling Dana."

"Please Derek, just leave it alone. For once? I already told you I heard the sirens at his house last night and didn't think anything of it. There's always sirens. I don't want to talk about it."

"Bullshit," he said closing my locker on me.

"Derek!" I shouted at him and shoved him roughly.

"He went to you last night when it happened. There's no one else he would go to."

"Well he didn't," I said and proceeded to reopen my locker. "You can read about it in tomorrow's paper if you're so inclined, but I don't know anything! Now leave me alone before I get really pissed off with you."

"That'll be nothing new." I silenced him with a cutting glare. "Alright, fine. I'm sorry."

"Ok then." I concluded our conversation.

"We cool?"

"Yeah Derek, we're cool," I said. Derek could be a real, well Derek, if he wanted, but knowing him for so long allowed me to remember the good things. I had to remind myself, this was the kid who pedaled me all the way back to my house and patched up my knee when I fell off my bike. Then went back and got my bike where we left it. I think we were eleven.

"You think he'll be there tonight?" He asked.

"I don't know. If he is don't bug him,"

"I won't. I promise," Derek assured me as we began to walk to class. "What do you think happened?"

"I try not to think about it." I hugged my books close to my chest and took a deep breath.

Another class that whispered his name all period.