Stand Up Tall

I'm Not Okay (I Promise) Chapter 3

Chapter 3.

Averielle.

Autumn grabbed me and pulled me into her arms. Usually, I hate crying in front of people. But I just couldn't help it. The tears just kept coming.

"It's okay Ave. Don't worry. We won't let it happen again. I promise." Autumn said, hugging me tight. My tears poured onto her leather jacket and ran down the back of it. I sobbed quietly, hoping that I wasn't drawing attention.

No one cared anyways.

I kept my eyes shut, not wanting to see how Eli was reacting to my breakdown.

"Averielle," Autumn said, pulling away from me. "You need to go home. You can't go through school like this. I won't let you."

I nodded, looking down.

"Do you want me to walk you to the office?" she asked.

I nodded again. She grabbed my hand, helping me up, and led me out of the cafeteria and into the hallway.

"Autumn?" I asked. She turned and looked at me, stopping in the hallway. "Are you my friend?"

She looked confused for a minute, then smiled a little bit. "Of course, Ave."

"It's just, I haven't had a real friend in so long...I don't know when people are and when people aren't."

She put a hand on each side of my shoulders and made me look up. "Averielle. I am your friend. I am here for you. You can rely on me. You can tell me anything. You can sit there and cry onto my shoulder for hours and vent and I will listen."

I smiled. "Thank you Autumn. Thank you so much."

She smiled back. "No problem." she pulled a pen out of her jacket pocket and grabbed my hand, writing numbers down. "This is my phone number. Please, call me if you need to talk. I'll always be here." she turned and started walking down the hallway, and I followed beside her. "Now you're gonna tell them that you feel sick and you need to go home."

She looked over to me, and I nodded.

We walked the rest of the way to the office in silence. We stopped in front of the door.

"Thank you again." I said.

"Your very welcome." she said. She stood there for a minute, smiled at me, and walked down the hallway. I watched her walk away, then turned and opened the door to the office.

"What's up?" the lady behind the desk asked me when she heard the door shut.

"I need to go home." I said quietly.

"Why?" she said snotty.

"I feel sick." I replied.

"Call your parents." she said, pointing to the phone on the counter, not looking up.

"They're both out of town at work." I said. "I'll just walk."

"Your loss." she said. I waited for a minute, then turned and walked out of the office and down the hallway.

I didn't like the feeling of walking down a school hallway by myself. It made me feel even more lonely.

I slowly walked out the front doors. The campus looked so...empty. It was empty.

Just like me.

Autumn.

"Poor Averielle." I said, kicking the soccer ball to Eli.

"I know. I feel so bad that I couldn't help." he replied.

"Don't worry about it. We did all we could do."