AJR- Little Sister

Chapter 2-

Thursday-February 25 (evening)

After dinner, Mom suggests that the kids should go over to the park for a bit while Mom + Dad clean up dinner and start washing all the clothes from tour for the boys, so they have something to wear on stage tomorrow. All the kids agree and get their shoes and coats on to go out to the park. (It was the end of February, so it was still pretty cold, especially at night.). They all walk down to the park, where they see a street performer. The three brothers stop to watch, but Lilly goes over to the water fountain and sits down to write something in her notebook. Just then, Stella and her friends come out of nowhere and say to Lilly,

"Whatcha doing sitting all alone, got no friends? Or did your brothers forget about you like everyone else?" Lilly stutters and says,

"N-No." the bullies then continue, poking at her notebook and saying,

"Whatcha writing in there? 'Dear Diary, I have no friends, and everyone else hates me, even my brothers.' Stella says with a high-pitched annoying voice.

"G-Go aw-way." Lilly stutters again, starting to shake, mostly because of her anxiety.

"What was that?" Stella says, even though she clearly heard what Lilly said.

"Leave m-me al-lone." She stutters again.

"Leave you alone? Ha-ha! Are you scared? Scaredy-cat! Scaredy-cat! If you say so then princess. Bye loser." And Stella and her friends push Lilly backwards into the fountain and run away laughing.

"Lilly! What happened!" As Ryan ran over to her and helped her get out of the fountain, Adam and Jack following close behind, after they heard the splash of water.

"I-I don't wanna t-talk about it." Lilly says shivering.

"Let's get you home then." Ryan says. Adam, who was holding his jacket, put it over Lilly as they started walking home in silence. Ryan and Lilly we're walking ahead of Jack and Adam, because Jack found the notebook in the fountain, and was sneakily looking at it and showing it to Adam. Adam then jogs up to Ryan and Lilly, and grabbed Lilly's hand, as Ryan's arm was already wrapped around her. Lilly tries to pull away from Adam, but he was holding her tight so she couldn't pull it away. Jack jogged to keep up with them while putting the notebook in his coat pocket. They got home and Lilly ran to her and Jack's room and locked the door. They could hear crying from the room immediately after. Adam, Jack and Ryan knew it was more than crying, as Ryan felt her shaking when they were walking home, not just because she fell into a cold fountain. Dad was sitting on the couch in the living room, half asleep when they all walked in, and asked what happened. Ryan said,

"Don't really know, but Lilly ended up in a fountain." Mom came in with a basket of laundry, and asks where Lilly is, and Jack pointed at their room. Mom asks what happened and Dad explains it.

"Oh, let her be, she'll be fine." Mom says, having no clue what's actually wrong, as the brothers are the only ones that know she has anxiety and panic attacks all the time, as the first few times it happened after a nightmare, only Jack was home. Jack and Ryan go to Adam and Ryan's room, while Adam was on the phone outside. (Mom and Dad went to watch a movie in their bedroom.) Jack shows Ryan the notebook. He took a quick peek at the notebook and gave it back to Jack. Ryan and Jack go over to Lilly and Jack's room, ignoring the "advice" from Mom, and knock on the door.

"Lilly? Can we come in?" Jack asks. They just hear crying from the other side of the door. No movement, no speaking, just crying. Jack remembers that he has a spare key to his room and runs back to Adam and Ryan's room and grabs it out of his coat pocket. Jack unlocks the door, and sees Lilly crying on the edge of Jack's bed, hugging her knees, hiding her face, still in Adam's jacket. Ryan closes the door behind them, and they go over to her and sit on either side of her, both giving her a hug.