Coffee with Mr. Casey

18 - A Band-Aid Won't Fix Everything

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Lola

I woke up long before sunrise in Johnny’s big bed. He was sound asleep with his cheek lying against the pillow. His glasses lay at the bedside table next to an unused coaster. The lamp was still on, but dim enough not to keep someone awake.

Slowly and silently, I slid out from under the covers and snuck over to my bag. Without taking a look inside, I pulled a t-shirt and a pair of jeans and threw them over my shoulder. As I stood back up, Johnny made a soft whisper in his sleep, rolling from one side to the other. My lips curled into a smile at how innocent he looked.

Even though I saw it with my own eyes, it was still hard to believe what he’d done. He wasn’t naturally an angry person—I was well aware of that—but I never expected that he would do a crazy thing like punching a woman in the face. Granted I was not happy to find that he had a history with her.

The one question hung in my mind, as I got dressed for school. Had he done it to her before? Surely he hadn’t. The woman wouldn’t keep coming after him if he hurt her like that…even once. But that’s the irony of it, isn’t it? I let my dad do it to me, and I kept coming back. Believing Johnny’s word was a risk I was willing to take.

The digital clock struck 6:25 A.M. meaning Johnny was going to wake in five minutes. I quickly gathered my things together and headed out of the door, ready to take my early morning walk to school. I was mostly relieved to be alone to think y myself for a little while. Since the route was a little different, it didn’t take long to make it to the school grounds.

The parking lot was almost completely empty, no parents were dropping off their kids yet, and the school buses hadn’t finished their routes. I went inside the silent school and sat in the cafeteria where the early people waited. The lunch ladies were serving breakfast up hot, but I wasn’t hungry at all. The smell was enough to kick an appetite.

To keep myself occupied, I pulled out my English book and took a stab at the rest of my homework. It was only a short story to read and a few questions to answer. Just as soon as I finished, students started piling through the front double doors. I tried to avoid looking up just in case Johnny walked in. I was bound to slip up and awkwardly stare at him, just as he would me.

Once the bell finally rang, I dashed from the cafeteria to the senior hall, and was in the classroom exactly two minutes before the second bell. Scornful Julia sat in the desk next to mine, like always. We made eye contact for a split second, but I so wished we hadn’t. It made it all that much harder to sit so close to her. Honestly, I couldn’t wait until the teacher arrived so the both of us would be distracted by the tension in the room, which the other students had noticed as soon as they walked in.

The fifty-five minutes of first period were so long and agonizing that it felt like it should’ve been three in the afternoon already. And with Julia awkwardly glancing at me from the corner of her eye didn’t help. It was almost as if she wanted to say something. She had a chance to speak up, but her complete silence made me assume she was just looking at me weird.

After class was over, I bolted out of the classroom before anyone else could and walked through the halls, contemplating on whether I should leave or not. It seemed like a good idea…that is until I saw Johnny coming around the corner with a stack of papers in his hands. When he noticed me among the crowd, like always, he stopped to stare, which was what I was afraid of.

“Hi,” I managed to say under my breath. Somehow he heard me over the hum of the filled hallways.

One corner of his lips lifted into a half smile. “Hey,” he shyly greeted. “How’s your day so far?”