found (clay jensen)

whistling wind

"— then we came here. One of the jocks found her like this. And Tony, I swear, I was this close to punching Bryce right in the mouth too."

"Oh please, Clay. You come right up to his chest. He's also 6" 0' and 200 pounds heavier than you."

"Dude!"

"Fine, I'll back off. So with Isabelle, you didn't notice her fall or anything?"

My eyelids are stuck together as the world slowly comes to around me.

"I didn't," Another silence filled the room. "Some random jock had to help her up, I feel terrible about it. She passed out only four feet away from me, Tony, and I was too busy acting like a douchebag to notice her on the fucking floor."

"Clay, don't blame yourself for this."

Shivering from the freezing concrete underneath me, I flex my pained jaw as I lay wrapped in unknown blankets.

"I am going to blame myself, cause it's my fault!"

The air is cold and wet, and the wind whistles in my ear as it passes through the expansive area around.

"Don't say that, Clay, there's no way you could have known. If you had looked away, Bryce would have knocked the shit out of you!"

An involuntary flinch goes through me at the volume of a boy's voice, echoing through the open space. The movement sends a jolt of pain into my arm, which I now realize is throbbing as I start to come back to my senses.

"I'm supposed to take care of her, and some guy was wrapping his jacket around her and carrying her around instead. That should've been me helping her, but I didn't. I don't see how it wouldn't be my fault."

My body is laying at an awkward angle, but I don't have enough strength to change my position or move to see who was talking.

"Because you don't have to be the hero all the time, Clay, not everything is your fault!"

I question where I am, blinking as my sticky eyelids open to the cold atmosphere.

"Yeah, I get it, but I have to be the hero with her. You know what she's been through, you were there that night when I found her laying there. Someone had drugged her and left her outside, naked in the middle of December. God knows how she ended up that way."

Opening my heavy eyes, I see two boys face each other with their arms crossed, one average height and the other very short.

"She's not a helpless little bunny, she can take care of herself."

Their jaws are locked and tensed, with one boy looking much angrier than the other. His fists are clenched and he paces back and forth, moving his hands from his face to his side anxiously. The other boy is trying to be reassuring, talking in a low voice and reaching out for him, only to be ignored.

"No, Tony, she's going through so much. The anniversary of Jeff's death is coming up soon, and I still don't know so much about her and what she's been through. She needs me, and I wasn't doing shit to help her."

I shift on the ground, gritting my teeth and taking a sharp inhale of breath as an aching stiffness shoots pain up my arms and back.

Trembling as a terrible chill travels down me, I raise my head to see my surroundings better and my vision sharpens on the two boys arguing.

The tiny outline of Tony Padilla stands like a statue in an open enclosure, which appears as somewhere underground with graffiti covering the walls. A draft flows through the open air and I breathe in a sharp burst of air as the other boy turns around.