The Book Thief 》Hemmings A.U

10.00

      I THINK IT STARTED in middle school; my extensive need for perfection, my obsession or fascination or...borderline unhealthy preparation for college. When I lived in California with my parents, nothing seemed permanent. Granted, I was only twelve years old at the time and I had yet to discover the crippling disappointment that life offers, but still. I didn't feel suffocated by my surroundings, I didn't really have a reason to get out. Everything seemed so simple, so trivial, like I could conquer it all in the blink of an eye. 

       But then we moved to North Carolina, and that's when I began to focus more on my future. I was getting older and with Wilmington being such a small town, there were less resources, less opportunities. Anyone who wanted to make something of themselves worked damn hard for their good grades and surplus of extracurricular activities but the problem was that no matter how good you were, someone was better. And that someone could steal your ticket out of here. I didn't want to be dragged into the world of one too many bottles of vodka and ample nights rolling joints. Hazy night after hazy night where my body and mind were not my own did little to appeal to me. Every so often, when I would overhear those around me making plans for Friday nights, about how hammered they would get every weekend, I couldn't help but think that I was missing out on something. That since I was a teenager and this was supposed to be my prime, I was obligated to do the senseless things that they did.

        Until I remembered that I could be better than them and what's being high in a dingy basement compared to staying up late getting paper's in and having study groups and frat parties and a room mate who is your very best friend, who knows you better than anyone else? The only way that I could get all of that, that I could make something of myself, was if I got a scholarship. So I had to be better and best. If someone had me beat, it would mean that I had less of a chance of getting out of here. Staying stuck in a small town working a job that I hated to make ends meet seemed like my worst nightmare. Which meant that I had no alternative to being the compulsive control freak that I was to this day. 

         But with police sirens wailing and flashlights tearing through the branches Luke and I crouched in, the future didn't seem very bright. Who wanted to give a scholarship to a girl who was arrested for drinking when she wasn't legal and breaking into an old age home? I couldn't get arrested, I absolutely couldn't. My ankle showed no sign of healing anytime soon, so it wasn't as if I could run away. But maybe, if I surrendered now, the punishment wouldn't be so bad. Maybe, just maybe, the law enforcement would pity me and the repercussions would soften.

      I brace myself and lean against the hedge to support my body as I began to stand, ready to give myself up to the police officer. 

         "What the fuck are you doing, Cohen?" Luke hisses, blue eyes widening as he wraps his fingers around my wrist and tugs me back down.

     "He said he knows where we are! If we resist arrest, it'll be worse. Think about it, plea bargains always work-" I try to encourage him, my chest thump, thump, thumping in fear. I had to think of something, I couldn't just stand here and get arrested for crying out loud.

      "We had a few drinks and snuck in through the back door of a nursing home, it's not like we killed someone." He says in exasperation, not at all understanding where I was coming from. "Okay, look, we have to do something." Luke says quickly, running his hands through his hair manically. "Do you think you can get to my car alone? Like if we ran to it right now?" He whispers, a hopeful glint in his eyes.

        "I can't walk," I croak, pressing my lips together to keep them from trembling. 

       "Shit, shit, shit. This is bad, Kendall. This is really fucking bad." He breathes, clasping and unclasping his hands. "I'm going to run to my car alone, he'll follow me, and then I'll loop back around for you after I lose him, okay?"

      "What? No! You are not going to leave me here, Luke-"

     "I'll come back," Luke says, detached as he rises slightly from the ground. He bites on his lip and shoots me a final worried glance and before I can protest, he jumps out of our hiding spot. I press myself deeper into the hedges and squint when the flashlights switch over to our area. Luke curses and in a flash he is sprinting across the lawn, arms swooshing at his sides. He leaps over the fence and luckily, there is only one police officer to follow him. He didn't call for backup, at least not yet. 

        The man calls after Luke, waving a pair of handcuffs at him, hollering incessantly at him to drop to the ground. I strain to hear him but eventually, everything falls into an eerie silence and the pair of them are too far away to recognize.

     Most of my dress was torn away in my desperate attempt to escape, and now, I was left with little warmth to combat the dropping temperatures. I take Luke's sweater from earlier and drape it over my legs before pulling Kate's jeggings over my arms, using them as makeshift gloves. I couldn't be bothered to go through the trouble of actually putting the clothes on, because I was far too weak to move very much.

     My ankle pulsates every second, and the pain has traveled from my ankle to my entire leg. It shoots up in erratic bursts through my skin and I can almost hear the bone snapping again and again if I let my mind run rampid. I try to stay awake, because falling unconscious at a time like this would be one of the worst things I could do. But I can't stop sweating, and I know the pain would subside if I would sleep for just a few more minutes. I just had to wait for Luke to come back. I could hold out on sleep until then.

        But after lying in complete darkness, the night growing colder and colder for what feels like hours, I realize that he isn't coming. Luke had left me here.