"Can I, help you?" The boy lifts an eyebrow, curious as to what I'm doing in his room. Me, a stranger, in this cancer patients room. What a good question, I would be curious too. "Um," My seconds are up and I'm full of butterflies. "Thought this was the cafeteria." I lie. "Sorry." I disappear back through the door, letting out the breath I've been holding in. 20 seconds of courage; Worth it.

I actually go to the bathroom after that before skittering back to Liam and Louis. If the doctors wouldn't take so long to join their impatient patients, we could be gone and away from anymore possibilities I'm doomed for with embarrassment. Even if the doctor had come while I was gone, and even if (not that it was possible) they were to be done with the check-up in all the time of my absence, I don't think the doctor would be worried about me being in Niall's room with the condition I'm imagining him in. It's like my science teacher in the grade of nine; Mr. Stolberg. We had a test that day, which meant we could do whatever we wanted once we were done with it. That was the last day to turn assignments in and the only thing that was important were the six math assignments that were missing. The six important assignment that were missing sitting on the table of my home and not in the hands of my teacher. Since Science was the last class I had that day, and that day was a Friday, I had one chance to go get the assignments. I used 5 out of my 20 Seconds Of Courage to ask my Mr. Stolberg if I could quickly run home, get the assignments, give them to my teacher and come back. To my surprise, he had said yes.

So I did just that. I drove home, got the folder with the papers in it, poured myself a glass of Coke and took it with me to down on the drive back to the school where I took my sweet time walking to the math class, giving it to her, and walking back to the original class I was suppose to be in. I didn't make a scene coming in, but when he walked around the room once to see if there were anymore more tests out and looked right at me, proof that I kept my word and came back, I know that I had created a spot of trust with him. Instead of taking the opportunity to be a rebel and leave school early, I came back to class even though there was nothing for me to do. And now he trusts me when I ask him to leave class early for a Dentist appointment or to get something from my locker so I'm not late for an activity I have after school.

I've created that same bond with the doctor. He trusts me, though I am in no way allowed to be in Niall's room without authorization. Like Mr. Stolberg, I didn't want to risk breaking that bond of trust we had by leaving class with a friend who asked me if I wanted to. I didn't follow up with that same strategy with Liam's doctor, nor did I even think about it. I just did it.

I didn't even risk it, though, because Dr. Schling never came in until seven minutes after I had returned myself. He said that Liam's stitches were fine and that he just had to clean it more. It's a pretty great feeling knowing that we will be here for an hour just so the doctor can say the stitches need to be good and that Liam needs to clean them more often. It's a waste of fucking time, but then again worth it because my whole 20 Seconds Of Courage a few hours ago, that was some Courage that I need in all the 20 seconds of my life. But if that were the case, there wouldn't be any courage to try and keep for those rare twenty seconds.

So really, I'm pretty happy that I'm an uncourageous bastard.

After the appointment, we dropped Liam off at his so Louis and I could go to his tree house that's in the tree of the backyard at the house he used to live at. The people who live there now don't have kids; they're an old couple. And either don't know we go up there or don't care. Maybe that's why they haven't tore it down yet. We hop the fence and climb up there as stealthily as we think we can be. They have a dog, though. A little Chihuahua named Grunt. His collar has made sure to show that fact off. If you ask me, the name is perfect because he always makes a natural growling sound when he walks around and when he's barking, its high pitched and obnoxious. To me, he's just a hateful soul attempting to make his owners believe he's an innocent angel but in actuality he wants to rip your throat out because he looked at him. And hops your fence almost everyday to read in a tree house you used to play in.

Louis and I, on the days that we are able to, go up in his old tree house with the book we are currently reading. (Which happens to be The Summer I Turned I Pretty --though its a girl book--) We take turns reading to each other. Today is Louis' day, so I rest my head either in his lap or on the dirty pillow and eat biscuits whilst listening to his monotone voice read out the words printed on the tan/white coloured pages. We were just at the part in Chapter 27 when she realized that her and Cam were practically boyfriend/girlfriend when Grunt started barking from the healthy grass below us. He's gonna blow our cover!!

"Bugger off, Grunt!!" I whisper yell from the hole that allows us access into the tree house. He just keeps on jumping and barking at us. The longer he barks, the more skeptical we are about staying here instead of fleeing. Of course, we waited too long and and an old, shaky voice says to Grunt, "What in the name of lord are you barking at?" Louis and I widen our eyes and look at each other, silently standing up and taking a peek down the hole. We jerk back when she looks up at the tree house. "Come on, Grunt, let's go for a walk. We missed yesterday." The lady says to her stupid dog, picking him up and taking him inside. I'm still not sure if she knows about us or not, but, I don't really care. We're safe and still have the excitement and feeling of doing something relatively "bad".