October-"Because"

"Because," explained Nick, "I needed the room."

"...for?" prompted Zach, painfully hauling himself to his feet.

"To move," said Nick wretchedly, "there wouldn't be enough room otherwise!"

"To move WHAT?" asked Mike, feeling around in the dark for the lamp.

"The bed--" said Nick.

"And WHY do you need to move the bed?" sighed Zach, the same time that Mike found the lamp and turned it on.

The room was a mess, to put it mildly, or at least Nick's side of the room was. All his things formed sorts of loose tidal drift around the bed, and the bed was near the middle of the room, angled as if it might decide to charge out of the room at a moment's notice.

And there was a girl in the bed. And she appeared to be unconscious.

Now, it's been observed that teens in general frequently say one thing when they meant another. The specific causes of this remains unknown, however, it is hypothesized that the response is a subconscious way of dealing with things when the said things fall outside of the expected parameters. Of course it's not particularly effective, but better something than nothing at all is the philosophy of the time.

"Um," said Zach, who, propped against the back of chair, was the closest to the bed. Translated, he probably meant something along the lines of "I really don't want to know what had happened, but I'm probaby going to have to know, and I would really like you to tell me what will happen, Nick."

"Meh," said Mike, who was next to the lamp. What he really meant to say was something like "Someone please tell me what the hell is going on and what the hell we're going to do about it."

"Er," said Nick, who really meant "Okay now you guys'd seen this, I need some help, please?"

Mike and Zach looked at each other, then at the girl, then at Nick.

"It really isn't what you think--" began Nick, sounding even more wretchedly desperate. Or was that desperately wretched?

"Oh good," commented Mike sarcastically, "You mean you didn't get her drunk and in trouble?"

"NO!" Nick glared at Mike, evidently insulted that Mike would even consider such a thing, joking or no. "I found her just outside my door," he continued nervously, "unconscious."

"And you carried her inside?" said Zach, who was checking that the pale-faced girl was indeed still breathing. "How very gallant of you, d'Artagnan. Couldn't you have called the ambulance?" He looked worried. "Have you called the ambulence yet?"

"No, and I'm not going to." Said Nick with shaky resolution.

"Why not?" exclaimed Mike, "And why on earth is your room like this?"

"I can't!" said Nick, who was looking very agitated, "Look, there's a problem--"

"Let's hear it," said Mike, with Zach somewhere in the background, taking the girl's pulse.

"When I first carried her in and put her on the bed," said a distressed Nick in a rush, "she fell through the bed and I had to move the bed and everything underneath it to get to her."

Zach's head snapped up. He and Mike stared at Nick, who looked back at them pleadingly.

"She fell," repeated Zach stupidly.

"THROUGH the bed?" said Mike incredulously.