It Goes There // Josh Dun + Twenty One Pilots

twenty-six // get a grip on yourself

--Chicago's P.O.V--

No matter how much my mother got on my nerves, she had to be a miracle worker. Nobody else could have gotten my father out of jail in less than two hours stating that the police had no solid evidence against him. However, the comment one of the detectives made was still bouncing around in my brain.

They were going to search my house from top to bottom, every single room whether we protested or not. That meant that they had a seventy-five percent chance of finding that withdraw slip in my room and realizing that I purposely lied to the police about knowing anything. Of course, it wouldn't be hard to remove the slip from my room, but there was a good chance I could be caught by one of my siblings, including Eric and Harper who decided to come home from college for a short time. Besides, I didn't want to make anything worse for myself.

Aiden hadn't spoken to me since the incident in the parking lot and I couldn't blame him. I made a serious mistake and I deserved his silence. However, he was my main link to Garrett. He was the one that kept me updated and now that the connection was broken for the time being, I had to relay on the fact that Mrs. Thomas would call me if anything happened. Hopefully, I didn't receive that call anytime soon.

"Hugo tells me that you have a date tonight."

I turned my head to look away from the full length mirror to Harper leaning against the doorway. "That kid needs to learn to keep his mouth shut."

My older sister chuckled as she made her way over to sit on my bed. "As the only daughters, you and I both know boys cannot stay quiet no matter how important the subject is." Her eyebrows raised up. "Now give me details about this date. The last time I knew, you were dating that Garrett boy."

My face became crestfallen and I quickly turned around to face the mirror once again. "Him and I broke up a few days ago."

"You are already going on a date with another guy? That's not like you, Chicago. Boys have always chased after you, but you never paid them any mind."

"The boy," I explained, "that I'm going on a date with tonight is the reason why Garrett and I broke up in the first place. I kinda developed feelings for him and I thought Garrett and I needed to take a break, so I could figure things out."

Harper shook her head. "Let me guess, you and this other guy fell victim to the sociology project? If so, don't worry, it's been happening ever since Mrs. Martinez first joined the school corporation. It's really nothing new."

I sighed, running a hand through my hair. "Well, it's new to me, Harper, because I cheated on my boyfriend and made myself sick over the guilt because I didn't tell him until a few days later! Now he refuses to talk to me and I'm afraid he's going to hurt himself because of me! I even screwed up and made a terrible comment towards Aiden at the police station!"

Harper opened her mouth to say something, but quickly closed it, aiming to rephrase her words. "Chicago, you've been under a lot of abnormal stress lately with dad and everything else. Stress causes people to do some things they wouldn't normally do. For example, you hurting Aiden's feelings and trust me, I think he just needs time to cool off and think about things."

I watched as my sister's face grew quite serious as her eyes darted to the doorway to much sure nobody was in earshot. "Define "making yourself sick." Do you mean what you used to do all the time around eighth and ninth grade?"

"Let's just say I'm falling into old habits again. I deny any offer of food and if I do accept it, it comes right back up."

I tightened my ponytail before smoothing out my plain back t-shirt and stepping away from the mirror. Tonight was my movie date with Josh and I was honestly afraid of how we were going to act around each other. Josh had countless questions about my dad and the slip I had in my room and I knew he wanted to ask them, but didn't want to upset me. It seemed like nobody wanted to upset lately.