Do you still know why you're here?

Chapter 2

Noel wakes up Monday morning to the ever so familiar sound of rain hitting against her windows and the light vibrating hum of her cell phone. Her eye lids hang heavy with the overwhelming lack of sleep and her throat is dry from her late night drinking. She turns off her cell phone alarm and fervently searches for her bottled water that should’ve been waiting patiently on the night stand. She’s had one too many mornings like this. The palm of her hand scopes the messy surface of her bedside table, then opens the drawer and searches through random papers, pens and old birthday cards. Her water isn't there.

“I threw it out.” Noel’s mom stands stone-like in the doorway with her arms crossed over her anorexicly flat chest.

“Why…would you do that?” Noel sighs squinting into the hallway light. Suddenly, a new water bottle lands on the pillow next to her.

“Your old water bottle was disgusting. It’s bad for you to reuse a plastic water bottle. It gets covered in germs and bacteria.” She then starts trotting about the room turning on every single light fixture; Noel’s headache worsens with every click of a light switch and every crank of a lamp.

“Stop mom. What the hell is your problem?” Noel squeals.

“Oh honey! What’s wrong?!” Fake concern entangles itself within her loud piercing words.

Noel’s eyes begin to swell up with angry tears. “You know I’m hung over.” The tight knot in her throat makes it difficult for Noel to take normal breaths.

“Seriously? You’re crying? You’re the one who decided to get drunk on a school night. No one made you do it Noel.”

“I had to!” Noel chokes on her own words, trying not to let the tears fall uncontrollably from her eyes.

“Why did you have to?” Her mom sighs.

Noel hesitates. “They told me to…” she finally whispers.

“You’re not schizophrenic. You do not hear voices, Noel.”

Noel is silent and stares at her mom. “They told me too.” She repeates again in a slightly provoking tone.

Her mom now goes around the room and turns off the harsh lights, cursing violently under her breath. She stomps out of the bedroom for a brief moment.

Noel wipes away the stream of tears lining the bottom of her eyes and lay in her bed, staring blankly at her ceiling fan. She knows she doesn’t hear audible voices that order her around, but she does hear a voice. Her conscience, after all, does talk to her frequently. She suddenly feels a bottle of prescription pills hit her forehead with a brusque, “Take your pills.”

Noel holds the bottle of prescription drugs in her hand staring at the small text: “…Take normal dosage prescribed by a physician daily. Do NOT take with alcohol. If more than the normal dose is taken, contact your doctor or poison center immediately.”

Poison. Noel wonders if she were to take more than one pill, would it hurt? Would she start foaming at the mouth and convulsing into awkward, painful positions? Or would she just kill over?

She takes the orangey caplet and holds it up to her face. She pops it into her mouth and sucks on the bitter tasting pill like hard candy as she thinks about what Westin said the other day. Maybe he was right about prescription drugs. Maybe they are used to trick sane people into believing they’re crazy. Noel spits it out and throws the pills out the window.

)(

Noel unwraps her blueberry poptart as she gets out of her old white pickup truck. “Up for another dreadful Monday, Doris?” Noel speaks to the sad, beat-up truck patting one of its many rust spots. “Maybe I’ll come back early and we can go for a little ride around the town, okay?” Doris’s bumper smiles back at her in delight. Noel is convinced she imagined that.

“Be good.” She warns as she walks towards the school.

Noel takes a bite of the frozen poptart and scans the scene of teenagers sprawled out all over the school grounds waiting for the bell. The horrible bell that shrills every Monday morning. The horrible bell that marks the beginning of another hellish school week. Noel rolls her eyes at seeing Westin Banks in his usual place: surrounded by girls of all shapes, sizes and races, smoking and impressing them with stories of his rebellion. Noel is sure those stories aren’t true. There was a time she believed them. She had once been one of those girls, enthralled by Westin’s 'bad boy' image, but that was in ninth grade. That was before everything.

Someone approaches Noel from behind. He stands there allowing his tall frame to tower over her. “Hey Ronny.” Noel monotonously greets the boy standing behind her.

She turns around and gives Ronny a hug. Her arms can hardly fit around his burly frame, but she is trying. Ronny, in turn encases her in his arms that could easily snap her small body in half.

Ronny is a giant and he looks a lot older than seventeen. In fact he is sometimes mistaken for a football or wrestling coach by the students and teachers who don’t know him. With broad shoulders and a hefty, muscular build, Ronny stands six feet-five inches tall and hovers over half the student body—especially Noel.

Although they are best friends, he is also Noel’s body guard. Just his presence has the ability to protect Noel from the harsh high school ridicule. She hasn’t noticed though. The only thing she notices about her friendship with Ronny was how ironic it is.

Noel sees the beads of sweat dripping down Ronny’s face. “Did you run in the rain again?” She smiles still secure in Ronny's embrace.

Ronny smiles back and reluctantly releases her.

“You know, Ronny, when I said running in the rain would make you feel free, I didn’t mean you should do it every day. You’ll get sick…speaking of being sick, I need some Advil.”

“Are you hung over again Noel?” Ronny asks pulling out a container of Advil and a bottled water out of his small red back pack.

“Yah…” she pours about five pills into her hand and takes them in one swig of water.

"Thanks."

"You're welcome."

Ronny takes her dainty hand in his and walks with her towards the school. “Oh and one more thing,” Noel adds as they walk through the Plexiglas doors. “I know you’re still a little nervous about cars and stuff, but you can get a ride from me instead of taking the metro then running to school from the bus stop everyday. It’s a lot easier.”

Ronny lets go of her hand and starts walking towards his locker. “I’ll think about it, Noel. Bye-bye.”

Noel sighs and walks over to her locker. Now, she is searching for her history book amongst all her papers and binders and random junk that has accumulated over the months.

“He is such a big guy.” Westin whistles in amazement as he fiddles with the combination on the locker next to hers.

“I know.”

“He’s in my art class...His name’s Robby right?”

“Ronny.” Noel corrects.

“That's right. Ol’ Ronald Steer…he’s never been the sharpest tool in the shed, huh.” Westin laughs at his joke and continues. "Now he's just plain dumb. It's no wonder he's still a sophomore." It is obvious Westin is just trying to make conversation, and he probably doesn’t mean any harm. That doesn’t matter to Noel.

She slams her locker shut and glares at Westin. “You don’t know shit about Ronny.”

“Are you kidding me? I’ve known him since second grade.”

“You don’t know him.” Noel shouts. A couple of kids shoot curious looks their way.

“Okay, okay. Chill out.” Westin laughs. "I'm sorry..."

“It’s judgmental douche bags like you who make guys like Ronny who are actually worth shit to hate themselves. You don’t know half what he’s been through.”

“That accident was years ago, Noel, and you’ve known him…what? A couple months. How well could you know possibly him? The guy doesn’t even talk.”

“He does talk and he’s the smartest guy I know.” Noel’s voice shakes from the ever growing knot in her throat. She’s trying not to cry.

“Sure.” Westin scoffs. He stops messing with the combination and kicks the locker door. “This isn’t even my damn locker.”

Noel takes a deep breath and goes off to find Ronny.

She finds him. Ronny is trapped within a circle of taunting football players. This happens often; in fact it was how Noel and Ronny first became friends. They defended each other during their hardest times and neither of them ever forgets it.

“Ronny, I had fun with your crazy little girlfriend last night.” The star quarterback, Tyler Wigg has a cunning voice that always seems to confuse Ronny into believing whatever he says. "Oh yah, she's damn good. Has she given you any yet?"

“What the hell’s going on?” Noel asks trying to push her way into the circle surrounding Ronny. She knows what Tyler is talking about. She isn't proud.

Tyler blocks her view of a silent Ronny obviously confused and scared.

“Leave him alone!” Noel shouts.

“Back off.” One of the guys says blocking her view once more.

“And here she is now! Coming to your rescue! How precious.”

Ronny’s eyes meet Noel’s. “Leave us alone.” Ronny says.

“What’s that?” Tyler gets in his face challengingly.

“Leave us alone.”

“Or what?”

Ronny just stares Tyler down. The tension between them raises and Noel can tell Tyler is becoming more and more intimidated by the second. Obviously, Tyler knows a guy like Ronny can easily break every bone in his body.

"Whatever." Tyler finally gives up. He lightly pushes Ronny, and then winks at Noel. "What's up?"

Ronny turns back to Noel and looks down at her worried face. "Did you kiss him?" He asks her.

"I was drunk Ronny...I'm sorry."

"You're always drunk." Ronny's voice starts to shake as Noel's heart shatters into a million pieces. She’s hurting him.

"I know..."

Ronny sighed. "Did you have sex with him?"

"No...No Ronny. I just made out with him.” She did a little bit more than that.

Ronny sighs again and runs his fingers through his thick brown hair. He looks away and stares out into the sea of high schoolers. Noel follows his gaze only to see Tyler and his friends staring menacingly at the two of them. “They used to be my friends…” Ronny says sadly.

“I know.”

"You used to be my friend..."

"I still am Ronny. Please believe me. I'm so sorry."

Ronny's desperate eyes look deep into Noel's. She knows what he’s thinking, but she tries desperately to ignore his disappointment and move on. Ronny's child like demeanor usually makes it easy for their arguments to end quickly. In the past, their friendship would go back to normal in a minute or two. However, Noel is feeling that is not the case this time as Ronny punches his locker so hard it dents and walks away.

)(

Do you want them to think you're crazy?

You just want attention. Attention whore.

Just do it...it'll feel so much better.

Noel stares at the razor blade on the bathroom sink. She is late to class already, probably truant but she doesn't care.

Just get it over with

She picks up the razor blade.

She looks in the mirror.

You're sick

The blade looks seductive glistening in the florescent lighting.

Noel wonders if it would be irrational to just slit her arm in school. The door is locked. No one would know. No one would care either.

Noel brings the razor closer and closer to her skin as thoughts raced through her mind. Is she really going to start cutting again? She thought that phase in her life was over. Apparently it isn't.

Bang! Bang! Bang! "Noel! Let me in!"

Noel jumps out of her skin dropping the razor on the floor. Ronny’s at the door. His voice sounds frantic and worried. He knew she was about to cut.

"I'm fine Ronny." She yells back.

"Let me in!" He bangs on the door again.

Noel walks towards the door and opens it. "Ronny..."

Before she knows it Ronny had rushed into the girls' bathroom, picked up the razor and threw it into the trash can.

"You promised me!" He screams.

"Ronny...calm down please!" She runs to him and hugs him, trying to calm him down. "Some one will hear you and we'll get in trouble."

Ronny pushes her off of him and paces the floor. "You lied to me! You lied!" He screams again. "You said you wouldn't do that anymore!"

"I wasn't going to! I swear I wasn't."

"Just because I have brain damage Noel..." he stops suddenly and lowers his voice. “Just because I have brain damage...doesn't mean I'm completely stupid."

"I know you're not...Ronny, don't worry about me please." Noel pleads.

Ronny cries. Noel knows what is coming next…a panic attack. Ronny gets them often when he is upset.

"Worried, worried, worried, worried, worried, worried..." He starts pacing back and forth running his fingers through his hair. His eyes keep looking at Noel as if he is pleading for salvation. One thing Noel has always noticed is the way his eyes always show the feelings hidden by the attacks.

"Do you want me to get the nurse?" Noel asks.

Ronny's eyes say 'no' as he continues pacing the floor, repeating 'worried' over and over again.

"What's going on in here?" Westin hesitantly walks into the girl’s bathroom. "I saw Ronny going into the bathroom and I thought...Noel are you okay?"

"Yah, I'm fine just close the door." Her eyes are glued to Ronny.

"Do you need help?" He asks.

Ronny glances at him as he continues to freak out.

Before Noel can even say, 'No, I can handle it.' Westin lunges forward and tries to get Ronny to stop pacing.

"No!"

Westin is knocked down to the bathroom floor. His mouth is bleeding.

Ronny's eyes widen with a 'sorry' look. He continues on with his panic attack. He is, however, no longer saying 'worried'.

Westin wipes the blood dripping from his mouth. "Ronny..."

"Westin, just go. You're not helping!" Noel yells.

Westin ignores Noel's command and lowers his voice to a whisper "Ronny...Me and Noel are trying to help...shhhh...calm down..." He pulls out his cell phone and starts to play a classical sounding song.

Ronny starts calming down. His fast pacing turns into a placid glide.

Noel stands still in shock as the low whine of the orchestral strings calm into a sweet tranquil trance.

"What the hell is happening?"

"My mom specializes in musical therapy..." Westin explains watching Ronny calm down. His breath starts evening out again.

"It's working..."

"My mom did this study. She was trying to prove that classical music has the most impacting effect on human emotions..."

Noel watches in silence as Ronny finally stops moving and just leans against the bathroom wall.

"I'm sorry for pushing you." He apologizes to Westin.

"That's okay." Even though Westin forgave Ronny, his eyes were glued on Noel.

"Let's get you to the nurse." Noel sys taking hold of Ronny's muscular arm.

As the two leave, Westin calls out, "I'm sorry...I didn't know it was that bad."

"I told you, you don't know shit."

A/N: Thanks to all who reviewed

The Apocalypse is Nigh: Yes Westin is pretty philosophical that's why I like him

Booklover: Thanks so much for the review and I'm glad you said I do the present tense well. I was really worried about that. It still sounds weird to me haha

Anya: Thank you so much! You're a brilliant reviewer! Keep reading please

Loves him: I totally know what you mean about character development. Characters and dialogue are my FAVOURITE parts of stories and movies and so I try extra hard to make it perfect! I'm glad you could tell :) please continue to review!

Choc me: I like your penname...I don't really get it but it's fun to say. Thank you for reviewing.

Lany McCutcheon: shoot, I thought I got rid of all those damn mistakes :( pretend they're not there! haha thank you for reviewing, I really appreciate it

R.J. Warren: I'm so glad you like Westin! He is my most favourite character I've ever written :) please continue reading!