Behind the Cherry Tree, A Not-So-Short Story

2. Spiraling Down Down Down

Dedicated to EyesOnFire because she helped me edit this chapter. So, this is for my proofreader. Thank you hun! :)

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Recap:

Lucky for me, she dumped Mike. Unlucky for me, he didn't even see me as a girl, much less a possible girlfriend candidate. I suppose it was fortunate that I cottoned on quick enough to be able to divert disaster, I managed to convince myself that being friends was so much better and that the whole crush thing was a phase. By the time Mike and I were chilling reguarly again on the weekends and all other alotted times, I believed it.

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Although everything seemed normal, Mike and I were tight again, and I finally managed to stop thinking about him as more than a brother, things were... different. His parents hadn't taken the break up too well (sheesh- they were 15 for crying out loud!!), the way they saw it, Mike had failed them. She'd come from a well to do family and although Fiona had done the dumping- the whole relationship thing might impact somehow on Mike's mother's company merging with Fiona's father's.

Pretty shitty move on the parent's part. Like it's really Mike's fault?! He had been so upset afterwards, not that you'd have known because he covers it up pretty well, but he told me about it. Thanks to his asshole parents he thought that he was failing himself, failing them, and failing at life. I'm doing everything I can think of to keep his head above water, sometimes I chip in and do some of his homework for him so that he can chill for a minute. I know what you're thinking, he's 15! What the hell could be that stressful. It's true that we probably exaggerated things a little, but hey, we might as well while we still could!

He wasn't at the cherry tree today. Of all the most memorable things that had ever happened there, most of them consisted of the days that he hadn't shown up, because in my world that's all that seemed to matter. Mike not meeting me at the cherry tree was a big deal. Even if one of us were grounded we would still find a way to meet. If either of us were ever absent it was usually something bad. This time it would be worse than I would ever dare imagine.

I'd shown up by the tree as normal, ready to be all angsty about some coursework my parents had set me, and he was not there. I decided to wait it out. So I did. After half an hour something deep down niggled at my brain, something was wrong. I pushed the thought away, this wasn't the first time he'd not shown up and all those times he'd been fine. But the dread on my part, that was new.  After a few hours it began to get dark, I had brought a few snacks from home for us to share. I'd finished them all by then. It really sucked. I know I should've gone home, but I didn't want to go anywhere until I knew that Mike was ok.

Being friends I knew where he lived, even though I had never actually been over. So I decided to go. I got up and shook myself off and began walking.  Eventually I made it to his house, a cozy two story place with a small front garden complete with a gnome. By then it was about 9pm, I had waited 4 hours in the park for him. My parents won't be too worried, they trusted me and coming home late wasn't very out of the ordinary. Most of the houses were quiet and dark, maybe the soft glow of the T.V. coming from their living room window, or the golden light of the bedside lamp as people read their books or studied.

But the house that Mike lives in wasn't dark, nor was it quiet. There was shouting, slamming doors, silhouettes that moved quickly behind their veil curtains. Then there was Mike, he was yelling angrily at his mother- I had always known that he had problems at home, we all did, this wasn't hollywood, but this was different. This angry was the ugly angry, the angry that lashes out when you are defenseless. This angry painted his face and stained his voice.