23. The Storm - Part I(2)

Cristina was no fool, she had excellent grades in school. It was evident to him that she noticed his animosity, but he wasn't in the mood to be apologizing. He grabbed his cellphone from his pocket to pretend that he was busy by reading messages and checking his sisters' social media. Lori had been complaining a few days ago —days that now felt like ages— about being a few likes short of catching her eternal rival. Maybe he could be the little grain of sand that she needed to finally be the winner of her online competition.

"Hey, Lincoln?" She whispered, taking advantage of Jordan, Zach and Liam arguing about the rules and the maximum number of houses a player was allowed to have before upgrading to an hotel.

He let out a sigh and lowered his phone. Cristina, it seemed, wasn't willing to let him be.

"What?"

"About what happened the other day at the mall," she began, her cheeks getting red and her fingers going up to play with some of her curls, "I'm really sorry. I didn't know you were going to be there with Ronnie Anne. She's not angry at you any more, right?"

He was going to answer right away and say no, but an evil idea occurred to him, and even though he thought it wasn't really a great idea, he couldn't help himself right then. He wanted to see her reaction. After all the awful moments that he had passed because of her, a little, despicable part of him wanted to see what she would say. What was she going to do? Argue with him? Get mad? No one could get mad at him.

After all, he was just a little child that everyone felt pity for because he was dying. He had absolute impunity to do and say as he pleased.

"We're going steady now," he revealed.

She blinked a couple of times and leaned back, like the words had physically hit her. Her fingers left her hair alone and her hand dropped until it was touching the carpet.

"O-Oh. I see. I'm, uh, I'm glad for you."

She said she was happy, but the sentiment wasn't reflected in neither her voice or her anguished look.

"Yeah, I'm quite happy," he said, his face experimenting the same problems to convey the emotions that his words described. "It feels good to love someone and have them be honest with what they feel, without ridiculing you or making you feel awful for months."

Lincoln was convinced that even if he had stood up and kicked her in the face he wouldn't have been able to cause Cristina as much pain as his cold words just did, while he kept staring at him so there would be no doubt about what he was referring to. His "friend" gave him an almost horrified look. Her lips began to tremble, and even though she tried to reply, she couldn't.

With both fists closed on her skirt, Cristina lowered her head and stared at the board, trying to escape from Lincoln's accusing eyes. He kept glaring at her, feeling nothing but a small hint of guilt when he saw the girl's shoulders shaking and some treachery tears falling down her face, barely visible except for the light that gleamed on them.

He would have preferred that the game could continue with anyone else noticing anything, but Jordan, from the other side of the board, crushed his hopes.

"Cris? What is it?" She asked.

Cristina didn't answer. She stood up and dashed out into the hall that led to Rusty's bathroom. Everyone remained in silence, and one by one, their eyes fell on Lincoln, who kept pretending he was busy with his phone, aware that his face was doing no effort in hiding just how mad he was feeling. The first one to understand what was probably going on was, of course, his best friend.

"Did anything happen?"

Lincoln looked at Clyde. He held his gaze for a few second before turning to look at the rest of his friends. They were all looking concerned. They loved him, they worried about him. They were there for him, but no one understood him. No one did. No one knew all the pain he was going through, how terrified he was feeling or the effort he had to make to keep a positive attitude every single moment. Faking smiles, pretending that everything was okay, that he was dealing with this better than everyone just so they wouldn't worry.

No more. He couldn't just sit there while everyone else was letting him win a stupid game, sitting right next to a girl that had made his life miserable for several weeks. He was exhausted, tired of the lies, the hypocrisy, the fake worrying.

"I called her out," he announced, daring everyone to reply back to him as he dropped his phone on the carpet.

"What do you mean?" Jordan asked.

"I recalled her when she sent you to tell me that she didn't want me to ever talk with her again. When she switched classes so she wouldn't look at my face. I liked her, I really did, and she did everything that she could to make me feel bad. And now she comes to see me and I'm supposed to be okay with everything that she did?"

They all exchanged nervous looks. Jordan, being a good friend of Cristina, seemed to take it on herself to defend the girl.

"You gotta understand, everyone in class was starting to make jokes and teasing her about being your girlfriend, she was feeling uncomfortable," she softly tried to explain.

"Oh, right, what a terrible thing for them to pair her up with me, isn't it? Such offense. She wouldn't have complained if they said the same about her and Artie."

"It's not like that! Listen, she—"

"I don't care what she said, she made me feel bad and I there's no reason why I should pretend that it doesn't bother me. I didn't even invite her to be here in the first place!" He told them, waving his arms.

His friends had never been good at keeping calm in stressful situations. He could see Liam, Zach and Rusty starting to sweat, rubbing their hands together, scratching their heads, looking away. Even Jordan looked uncomfortable, her fingers now grabbing her braid and twisting it in her hands.

The only one that looked to be keeping a cool head and who had enough confidence to step up to Lincoln was, nothing more and nothing less, than the most puny, insecure, and hesitant of them all.

"Lincoln, Cristina's sorry," Clyde calmly said. "She genuinely regrets what she did, and she wanted to come here to be with you so she could apologize one more time and try to fix things with you. And I think you should forgive her."

"Yeah, right, she regrets it. Why didn't she apologized a month ago? Or a week ago. Why now? Huh? You know why? Because I'm dying, and she, just like all of you, is just treating me as if I was already dead."

"Wow, what?"

"Lincoln, we don't—"

"Wait, wait—"

"That's not—!"

"Buddy—"

They all started to talk at the same time, trying to tell him that it wasn't like that, that he was wrong, that it wasn't their intention, but Lincoln didn't want to listen to them. He was more worried about his panting breathing, his constricted chest, his closing throat. He stood up and started to walk in circles to calm himself down.

"Lincoln, I swear to you, we just wanted to spend a good time with you, like we always do," Rusty said, standing up as well, trying to get closer to him.

"That's a lie and you know it!" He sassed, shaking his head and raising a hand to fix the collar of his orange polo, which was suddenly feeling very, very tight around his neck. "You're all letting me win because you pity me! You're not playing fair!"

"It's just a game!" Zach rushed to say. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have offered you my card, I was just trying to help you because you're my friend!"

"Yeah, right, now I'm your friend, everybody loves me now! Do you have any idea how many messages I've gotten from the rest of our class? The same people that would laugh at me and show everyone those pictures where I'm dressed like a baby, or the ones that uploaded that embarrassing video of us at Jordan's pool party! Everyone's pretending that they always liked me, but they wouldn't be talking to me right now if I wasn't dying!"

His mouth was dry, he needed to drink a gallon of water, and he definitely needed something to control his shaking hands. He didn't know if his friends could actually see his state, if they could see what was going on with his body. He even questioned how many of these symptoms were real and how many were just in his head. Was he overreacting? He didn't understand what was going on. Everything around him was starting to spin and the walls and roof seemed to be nearing closer to him, preparing to trap him. The closest he had ever experienced to this was whenever he had to work with wood for school. In those opportunities, though, he would always faint almost immediately, before the vertigo and these awful sensations could escalate to an unbearable point. Lincoln was almost wishing that he could faint so he wouldn't feel so dizzy, cornered. Terrified.

"We were always there for you, we're your friends," Liam told him.

"Always? Always?" He repeated, and when he focused on Liam and the sad, scared faces of his friends, everything around him seemed to focus. Desperate for relief, he held onto that like a shipwreck sailor to the lifeguard rope. "You also shared those videos that almost left me with no friends! You avoided me during lunch to sit with Danny, Artie and Steve!"

Liam looked away from him, not even trying to defend himself. Lincoln would've preferred it if he had talked back to him, trying to convince him that it wasn't like that, to face him so he could keep venting off in an effort to distract himself.

When it was clear that Liam wouldn't say anything back at him, Lincoln decided to focus on another one of his friends. He walked towards him until he was close enough to roughly poke a finger oh his chest.

"And you, Rusty, remember why you became my friend?"

He poked the redhead's chest again, and Rusty took a step back.

"I-I, uh—"

"You had a crush on my sister Lynn, didn't you? She was so much better than all of us in her bike and you started to like her after that tournament she won," he accused him, finally revealing long-buried feelings that he had concealed in the bottom of his soul, demons that he had sworn to forgot and that the old Lincoln would've never brought into light again. "You used to treat me like I was so lame and dumb, but you would always ask me to come to my house to be close to her, up until the day you asked her out and she laughed in your face. And even then I was there to cheer you up!"

"B-But Lincoln, y-you and I… we're friends," he said, his face showing how hurt his friend's words had made him.

"You've been trying to hang out with all the more popular girls and boys in school, and you're just with us because we were your last options and the only ones to give you a chance."

He stopped for a second to take his hands up to his face to rub his eyes and ruffle his hair. The dizziness wasn't stopping, it was only getting worse. He felt a knot on his stomach, like he was about to throw up. His hands kept shaking but now his legs were, too. And he began to feel cold sweat forming on his forehead.

"I've always been there for you, even when no one else was. But what did you do at the first chance that it was presented to you, huh? You always worried about your own reputations! Never willing to give anyone else a chance!"

"Lincoln, we—"

"Shut up, Zach!" He roared, and his friend jumped back. "Do you forget the time when my sister Lisa joined our class? You didn't let me sit with you at lunch because you didn't want to give her a chance! You made me feel bad for being her brother! And you know what? If I had to choose between her and you, I wouldn't even doubt choosing her!"

"We're sorry, alright?" Girl Jordan said, stepping forward with her palms in the air in a sign of peace. "We're not perfect, we screwed up a lot. I also treated you bad at some point, but I still think of you as my friend. I swear I never tried to make you feel bad on purpose. Please, Lincoln, don't get like this, calm down, we're here for you because we love you."

"I know, but you're not helping me!" He complained, closing his fingers on his hair until it caused him pain. "I was having a good time with my sisters and parents until you called me! And now you're treating me like… like you…! You're treating me different! Just because I'm dying!"

His heart was beating fast, his panting breathing blurred his eyes, there was a buzz in his ear that disorientated him. He didn't understand what was going on, but he didn't want to stay there. He wanted to go back to his house with his mom, or his dad, or any of his sisters that cold help him calm down. He was scared and he needed his family's contention as soon as possible. He should've never left his home, why hadn't he stayed there? He was regretting leaving his home, leaving the people that loved him the most.

Ever since the beginning of the argument, Lincoln felt his heart beating anxiously, fighting a war to not let out all the fears he had stuffed in his deepest core. As the minutes passed by, all his fears increased their intensity until the proverbial Pandora's box was opened, releasing all the evil his heart had been containing into his conscience.

He was far away from his family. His head was spinning around, his heart was beating hard. Wasn't this how he'd felt in the park? No, it wasn't the same, he didn't feel a sharp pain like someone was sticking needles in his temples, his head didn't seem like it was about to explode. It wasn't the same, it wasn't, IT WASN'T.

But it could have been. It could've happened to him half an hour ago, or on his way to Rusty's house. And he would have been away from his family, away from his parents, from his sisters. He had left without saying goodbye. Some of his sisters hadn't been at home and he couldn't talk with them. The last thing the twins had seen of him had been during breakfast, and then he had denied them the chance to play because he was busy with his secret project. He had barely spoken with Leni in the morning. What about Lynn? Would her last memory of him be about how he revealed her secret to the rest of their sisters? How could that be the last memory she would ever have of him?

Why was he there? Why was he hanging out with those fake people that only saw him as a dying child instead of his family?

"I gotta go."

He roughly shoved Liam and Zach aside, not listening to their complains or Clyde, Rusty, Jordan, and the newly reincorporated Cristina's pleas to stay there, and he headed to the door. He ignored everything that reached his ears and simply opened the door and walked outside.

A part of him was aware of how cold the cloudy day was, too cold for him to be wearing just his shirt. Little did he care, though, as he rushed his feet to get away from there as soon as possible. He just wanted to breathe fresh air and clear his mind.

He was abruptly stopped by a hand closing around his wrist and forcing him to turn around. He was now facing Clyde's eyes.

"Lincoln, listen to me, you need to calm down," he said, talking slowly, like he was taming a beast.

"Let me go, I want to get out of here."

"Buddy, you're sweating, I know what's going on with you, I can help you, but you need to let—"

"You don't know what's going on with me!" He shouted, shaking his head. "No one does!"

"I'm your best friend, I can tell something's wrong."

"Let me go."

"Please, don't leave us, we want to be with you."

"Let. Me. Go."

"Don't be selfish, think about—!"

He quickly moved his wrist towards his body, unbalancing Clyde and pulling him closer. Just when his friend let go of his wrist and tried to hand onto his shoulder, Lincoln placed both of his hands on Clyde's chest and pushed with his strength. His friend moved his arms like a windmill but couldn't avoid falling hard on his back against the hard, cold sidewalk.

Lincoln heard the grunt of pain Clyde made and the surprised gasps that the rest of his friends let out from the house, but he didn't care. His eyes met Clyde's, his best friend since childhood, the only one that had always, unconditionally be there for him, and after clenching his fists and leaning over him, he yelled the words he never thought he would tell him.

"LEAVE ME ALONE!"

Ignoring his friend's scared face and everyone else's pleas, Lincoln turned around and ran away from them, without looking back, without looking forward, just running away from everything that hurt him, letting his legs take him to a safer place.

He ran and ran, so distracted that he was lucky to avoid any accident. He was barely looking before crossing the street, and a couple of people had to move so he wouldn't crash into them. Their insults didn't get to him, because the only thing that his mind could process was the need to run away from Rusty's house. He didn't want to be with his friends, he didn't want to think. He wanted to run and get to his house as soon as possible.

Of course, Rusty's house was on the other side of town, and even though Royal Woods was a small city with a twenty thousand population, his legs couldn't go too far before they gave up. He had just reached a bus stop, and he decided to sit there.

It wasn't just the fatigue what made him stop, but also his anxiety that forced him to sit down and close his eyes. He remembered his morning and how he had felt when he began thinking about his sickness. It was the same feeling. Feeling trapped inside his own body, his nerves making him think that he was about to throw up, that the gray clouds in the sky were falling and closing around him, that everything was spinning around like a hurricane of nonsense.

He lifted his feet on the bench and hugged his knees against his chest, hiding his head between them and closing his eyes.

He tried to relaxed himself. He started by breathing slowly. He would take a big breath, kept the air inside his lungs, and then he let it all out in a long shaky blow. He repeated the process, trying to leave his mind blank, focusing on his body, his breathing, his hands holding his legs, trying to regain control of himself.

He didn't know how long it took him, but after a long, long while, he wasn't panting anymore. He felt more in control of himself, with his heart beating normally and his hands no longer shaking. Slowly, he lifted his head and put his feet down, sitting straight and stretching his body. His neck and legs felt numb but he would rather deal with that than those new, sudden anxiety episodes.

He took a hand to his face and carefully rubbed it. He could feel his armpits damp and his shirt glued to his back because of his sweat. He never liked being like that. It made him feel dirty. Even so, not even all the stench in the world would compare with how dirty his conscience felt.

Now that he was more relaxed, he could look back at his actions in a new light, and a big ball of shame and regret formed in his stomach as heavy as a lead balloon. Christ, what had he done? Why did he make Cristina cry? She was just worried about him. She had gone there knowing that he was still mad at her, just because she wanted to have the opportunity to apologize to him once again. And he had said pretty hurtful things that he knew would make her cry. Just remembering the hurt look she had given him as tears fell from her eyes was enough to break his heart. As many issues as he had with her, she was still a girl, and there was nothing in this world that hurt him more than seeing a girl crying.

And then there was the rest of his friends. He couldn't believe that he had lost control of himself so badly. The things he'd said… he had thought about them at some point. He would sometimes find himself thinking about that when he got into a fight with them, or whenever he felt a little depressed, but he would have never said them out loud. He could have never recriminated them anything because they were simply the best friends he could ever wish for. Even if he had some little thorns saved in his heart, the truth is that he probably had caused them more headscratches than the other way around with his crazy ideas and plans, and even so they would always support him.

What hurt the most, though, was the way he had treated Clyde. He had shoved him into the ground. Clyde! His best friend from childhood, the person he trusted the most outside of his family. Clyde was the brother he had never had. He wouldn't be able to ever forget the image of him on the floor, with a pained expression. All because he had lost control of himself, and it scared to him to think that every day it was getting harder for him to keep his emotions under control.

On Monday, he had been mad at the twins. He was supposed to spend a quiet afternoon with them before braking the hard news on them, and yet his behavior had left much to desire in his opinion. He should've been nicer, ease them down before telling them what was wrong with him. The next day he had gotten really mad at Ronnie Anne after they had breakfast at her house. She was just worried about him, and yet he had lost control. And now, for the third day in a row, he had lost it again and he had ruined the morning his best friends had tried to give him.

The most worrying thing was that he had felt utterly insignificant and useless two times in the same day. He felt like he was a hostage in his own body. He'd experienced something similar two days ago, when an anxiety attack had led him to almost cut all his hair off before he could cool down enough to decide to just dye it. These two episodes today, though, they had been much stronger. The world was closing around him and all he was able to do was to sit down and wait for it to end.

He didn't like feeling that way. It scared him. Even now, calmed down and in total control of his body and mind, he wanted to cry. It was an anguish that made him feel empty in his stomach. It gave him goosebumps and he could feel chills going own his spine, and he new it wasn't because of how cold that cloudy noon was. He needed his parents, he needed Lori, any of his sisters, all of them. He moved his hand to his pocket to grab his phone and call—

It was empty. He checked the other one, but he only felt some bills and a couple of coins. He slapped his forehead with his open mouth, groaning out Loud. Where had he left his phone? He remembered to be pretending to check it out before he argued with his friends and then… Yeah, that's right, he'd left it on the carpet. Clearly, he hadn't foreseen leaving his house in such an awkward way.

Great. He was alone, scared, distressed, disconnected, and far from home. He was still relatively close to Rusty's house, realistically he could walk back there, make sure to apologize and then go back home with his loved ones. He could do that, but he was feeling too embarrassed. He couldn't even imagine how they would receive him, or what he could possibly say to make it right.

"Hey guys, yeah, haha, sorry about that, I didn't mean those things. I forgot my phone, so let me just call my parents to go to my house, alright? No hard feelings! Chao!"

There were no words to express his profound regret and embarrassment. Lincoln was an expert apologizing, but not even him could think of an honest, significant way to apologize for all that he had done. He didn't know if they could ever forgive him. Actually, yes, they might have, but wouldn't they still be hurt by the things he'd said?

He wasn't ready to face them. Not yet. Not so soon. He couldn't go with their, he needed to—

The far echo of a thunder in the distance made him look up into the sky. The clouds were moving slowly, hovering over the whole city in an unstable blanket with different shades of gray. He was suddenly aware of how much the temperature had dropped.

He raised his wrist and looked into Adrien's watch. It was barely past noon. He should be able to reach home before lunch. He then decided to take a look around himself. The bus stop was right next to the entrance to the Sunnyside Garden, a little park that surrounded part of a stream that originated in the woods that the city was named after and that disembogued into the sea. He knew the place, he used to go there with his family when he was little, before Vanzilla was always on the edge of breaking down and it was easier and more practical to go to the central park, bigger and closer to home. He had a lot of money on, he could buy a bus ticket and go back home.

He sat there waiting, resigned to be nagged for forgetting his phone and for returning home in a bus, and knowing that his relationship with his friends may had been damaged forever. He wanted to go with his family right away, but it was very likely that before the day ended he would at least try to talk with Clyde and apologize.

He wasn't in conditions to miss opportunities to do it.

He shook his head. No. He didn't need to think on that, he needed to focus. Smile. Think on cute things. He needed to be strong for everyone else so he wouldn't blow up like that ever again. He needed something to distract himself.

He looked up and saw, on the other side of the street, the sign of Scoopy-Doo, an old ice cream shop that had been installed there since before Lincoln was even born. It had been YEARS since he had last tasted one of their famous ice creams. Just thinking of that flooded his mouth with drool, and he could have sworn he felt the taste of mint chocolate chip on the tip of his tongue.

He looked back at the sky. He hadn't heard any new thunder, but it was obvious that it could start raining any moment now. It was so, so cold as well, but… was he supposed to wait to be there in a sunny day? He couldn't waste any chance. After counting his money and making sure that the bus wasn't coming yet, he crossed the street and went into the store.

A couple of minutes later, Lincoln was returning with his little ice cream pot and a spoon in his hand. The taste was as legendary as he remembered it, and even though he wasn't supposed to eat dessert before lunch, and that it was so cold that his body was pleading for him to stop, he enjoyed every scoop.

Life was meant to be lived by enjoying all the little pleasures, and as he reached the bus stop surrounded by all those movie billboards, he concluded that mint chocolate chip ice cream was one of them.

He was already at the other side of the street when a drop fell on his hair. He looked up to the sky, and another one hit him in the forehead. If he got home soaking wet, his family was really, really going to be mad at him. They never liked it whenever he was careless, went outside without a coat or disregarded their weather warnings. They would probably repeat the same old speeches they had for those scenarios, and he would have to apologize for it. They would of course forgive him, because his family loved him just as much as he loved them. They were, no doubt about it, the lights that kept shining in the dark whenever he needed them the most.

Gradually, and as he reached the bench of the bus stop, the drizzle finally made it's appearance, the frequency of the drops increasing slowly but steady, covering the sidewalk with small spots wherever the water touched it. He kept walking there, taking a new scoop of his ice cream and fastening his pace, surveying the bus stop and everything that surrounded it. The street, the park, the movie billboards, the tress, the—

Lincoln Loud stopped right where he was. The drizzle kept falling on his shoulders, his head, his hands, his ice cream. With his eyes fixed forward, his pupils narrowed, his mint-glossed lips let out a gasp, a chill went down his spine…

Despite all, he managed to swallow his mouthful of ice cream.

The last one he would ever taste.

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Don't miss the conclusion (Hopefully) on Friday 10th!