she's mine.

21

Eli re entered the room with a glass of water in his hand. He walked past the others without acknowledging their existence. Until Kameron grabbed his sleeve, "we need to do something," he whispered urgently. His eyes fluttered to me then back to Eli. I couldn't tell if he was talking about me, in my silent trance, or about Dillon. Either way, i didn't like it. Eli's jaw clenched as he gave Kam a threatening glare. He shook his hand off his sleeve and looked to the rest of the group with a challenging look. Daring one of them to say something else. No one accepted the challenge. D looked down nervously, Levi gave him a small nod, and Kam stared at him with a pleading in his eyes.

Eli took the lack of response as an answer and walked over to me. He set the glass of water down on the coffee table in front of me. When I didn't move toward it he asked, "do you want something to eat, or anything?" His voice sounded small. I still couldn't find it in me to make my lips move. I glanced at the others watching me intently, then back to the ground. It was embarrassing really, this frozen shocked state I was in. I wanted to curl up into a ball and hide. I wanted to find the comfort of my bed, crawl under the sheets, and never come out. I was embarrassed by all of it for some reason, as if it were my fault that I was used as bait. I knew it wasn't, but I couldn't shake the feeling.

Eli, as if he read my mind, looked to the group, to me, then back to the group with anger growing in his eyes. "Why are you still here?" he asked his friends rudely as he walked to them. Even though I knew he was doing it for me, I felt bad. I didn't want to drive a wedge between them, but I couldn't stand the way they were looking at me.

"We need to do something," Kam repeated in a half whisper, more urgently this time.

"What would you like to do Kameron!??! Tell me since you are SO full of knowledge and know how to solve every bloody situation!" Eli yelled at his friend. I watched D shrink into her boyfriend while Levi pulled her closer to him protectively. He was not about to let her be in the middle of a fight if one broke out.

"I don't know! SOMETHING! Anything!!" he yelled back. His face was becoming flushed with anger. "Look at her," he hissed in a low voice, as if I weren't sitting a few feet away. I would have stood and shouted at him, told him not to talk about me as if i weren't here, told him i could defend myself- if my body would decide to move. "We can't just let them get away with this, with hurting her!" Kameron went on. "No matter what you did," he added under his breathe.

Now why did he have to go and do that? I knew immediately when I heard Kam's words that Eli was about to explode. I was right. The two boys were down each other's throats instantaneously. Eli's deep voice was heard over everything, of course. His mouth was that of a sailor who had never even seen a girl in his life before. I don't think I could recall more than five words coming out of his mouth that hadn't been vulgar in one way or another as he threatened Kam.

His words brought an image of my father to my mind's eye. My father smiling at me at the dinner table when I was ten, "if a boy is ever mean to you or uses vulgar language in front of you, send him to me and I will set him straight, baby." Of course no one was mean to me. They were all too scared of my father, and my brother, and going to a private school meant no one in elementary would be using vulgar language.

My father, Mr. Everett, was a well known man. He had made a name for himself really. Had worked his way to the top of a financial cooperation without even finishing high school. He had taught himself everything he knew, and by that he held himself and his family to a high standard. He would never be told he couldn't do something, or let either of his children think we couldn't do whatever we set our minds to. He prided himself in the fact that by the way he talked, dressed, and held himself, you would never guess he had come the crappiest part of Colorado with no education past the 8th grade.