^ Bria, and there's a video you can watch tooo ^
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H o l l o w s I n
T I M E
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My first lesson in five months. Biology. Great. Jameson stood at the back. Like he always would.
The lesson began and I sat in a row with Avery and some nobody's. Avery and I were on opposite ends.
Something landed on my desk. A scrunched up piece of paper. Classy. I swivelled around in my chair. Nick Gordon, next to Toby Espan, was snorting. So I threw it at him. And bullseye. I hit him straight in his eyeball.
"What's going on at the back?" The teacher hollered from the front of the class and I turned back around. The teacher strode past me and crossed her arms in front of Toby and Nick—the latter was currently clutching his eye whilst holding the scrunched up piece of paper.
"Passing notes, are we?" The teacher asked them and I turned my whole body around again to see her pluck the ball of paper out of Nick's hand.
"'Do you want to hang out later?'" She read aloud to the class and most of us snickered. "'Wink face'." She finished, quirking an eyebrow up at the two boys. I cackled behind her, earning a sharp glare from Toby, who was flushing profusely. I smiled sweetly at him, wiggling my fingers in a small wave. And that's all it took for me to realise. The whole atmosphere of the classroom resembled that of the daydream that was my old life. I broke out of it and turned away.
Soon, first class ended. As I was heading to second lesson, someone stepped in front of me. Toby.
"Hey, you." He began, seemingly out of breath. Jameson lingered by my side.
"Bye, you." I replied, trying to get past him.
"Look, I'm sorry about the note thing." He apologised. I tried to move past him but he grabbed my shoulders. Jameson edged closer to us.
"Do you want to skip class? Let's skip class." Toby proposed and I frowned.
"No." Jameson inputted. "She isn't skipping class." He wrapped his fingers around my upper arm. Seeing me flinch, Toby yanked my arm out of Jameson's cold grasp.
Then the two began sizing each other up. Great, all I needed on my return was two boys to fight over me. Again.
I joined Toby's side. "I want to talk to him." I told Jameson, who's eyes went from firing shots at Toby to flashing hurt at me.
Why did he wear his emotions like an outfit these days? If he had done this last year, we would've made more progress. Would anything have changed? No. The attacks would all be the same. Eden was behind them all. And Eden was jealous of our relationship. Maybe our relationship was an abomination. How had I been too stupid not to see that?
Now that I look at it, if I hadn't dragged Jameson's sorry arse to hospital after the explosion in the courtroom, he would be dead. Meaning, he wouldn't have shot Carter. Meaning, my best friend would still be alive.
I refocused onto the present to see Jameson still staring at me.
"Bye, Jameson." I bid him farewell before shifting away from him, moving towards the door.
"Sky–" Jameson tried to block me, but I beat him to the door, grabbing Toby's wrist and pulling him towards me.
"Sky, stop." His tone was deadly. No one else but me knows that his actions are even more deadly.
"Jameson!" I screamed when he lunged for Toby.
He froze at the sound of my shrill. "Leave me the hell alone!" I shrieked, tugging Toby over to me.
Pain flashed in his eyes. But he managed to shake it off. "Not if you're going outside."
I scoffed. "I'll be fine." I told him before pushing open the door, walking along a short corridor before I reached the lunch seating area. Footsteps pounded after Toby and I.
"I'm not leaving you." Jameson stood his ground as he reached us. But I stared on ahead, my nails digging into Toby's skin.
"Then stay a metre away from me." I told him. He stopped walking. I didn't know if it was out of shock or if he was finally listening to me.
When Jameson was a few metres away from us, Toby's hand flinched in my grip. "Your nails are deadly." He said and I dropped his hand in response, suddenly well aware of the jagged edges on my nails.
"I'm sorry about your brother." Was the only thing I said, the whistling wind making my words swirl into a bluster of dead leaves.
I stopped at an old oak tree, leaning against the fragile frame as I waited for Toby, who had stopped solid at the mention of his brother. Why did I feel like my definition of 'a helping hand' was everyone else's definition of 'a crawling claw' these days?
When he finally caught up, he marched on up to me, so close, and too close.
"What did you just say?" He demanded, stress lines becoming stress tunnels into the depths of his suffering soul.
"Your brother. When I left he was missing, now that I'm back he's–"
"Sky." His voice pierced through mine. I jumped. A warning sign. It was a warning sign.
"I thought I told you to stay a metre away from me." I pressed my back against the tree trunk, as if it would all add up and I'd be exactly a metre away from him.
"I don't think that talking about this is a very good idea." He was getting closer.
"Why?" I challenged him. Then he lunged. I screamed as he grasped onto my arm.
"I'm not going to hurt you," His voice sounded as desperate as I felt. "But we can't talk about this." He continued to try to pull me away but I slapped his chest repeatedly, trying to escape.
"Let me go!" I screamed. Toby stood frozen in the place we left him in.
"Sky!" He yelled. "What were you saying about my brother?" He shouted over at me. I struggled against Jameson's hold as he pressed a hand against my mouth.
"Sky!" He raised his voice, trying to reach me. But Jameson was too fast. Soon, he had dragged my weak body away and round many corners. In moments, we were shrouded by skinless trees, and a flock of crows escaped from the treetops, howling as they went flying up into the clouds.
I wrapped my arms around my chest as if Jameson had plunged his fist through my tissue and ripped out my heart.
"I wasn't trying to hurt you," Jameson ran his hand through his knotted hair and fell down onto an abandoned park bench, the white paint chipped, showing the black underneath.
"Toby doesn't know the truth about his brother yet, he–"
"–deserves to know." I interrupted and Jameson stared up at me. I looked away, spotting a magpie, watching as it hopped onto the table of the bench.
"He does," Jameson replied. "But not from you, from someone who knows exactly what happened, who knows–"
"I do know exactly what happened." My eyes pieced into his as another magpie joined the first in my peripheral vision.
Jameson's eyes tried to search mine. But they failed when I turned away. "We need a specialist who knows how to comfort someone in a situation like this." He continued nonetheless.
I chuckled heartlessly, "And what? My 'big heart' just couldn't do that?" I turned around to throw him a swift glare, before continuing onwards, remembering that the path ahead led to a lake I once met when I was fifteen. How clear, clean and bright it had been when we met. How clear, clean and bright I had been when we met.
A third magpie landed on a rock about two metres ahead of me as I trudged through the muddy marsh. Another joined it. Then they flew away, out in front of me. The three were perched on a branch when Jameson caught up with me, and I saw as he watched a fourth join them.
How weird? He must've thought. For there to be four magpies, all upon one branch? How weird? I thought. That the weirdest thing you can see are the magpies, when the result of your abandonment stands beside you?
We continued onwards. Nothing but silent words were passed between us. Surely, he should've noticed, that silence isn't silence if it's supposed to be a scream. A scream for help.
We reached the main building, with fresh mud on the bottom of our shoes and fresh scars on the bottom of our hearts—that is, if he even owns one. And just as I walked back into the Academy, I spotted yet another magpie. And when it saw Jameson, it flew away.
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THERE WERE SO MANY BURNS IN THIS CHAPTER THAT EVEN I NEED ALOE
Ello Vera (always a good joke)
WHY IS SKY SUCH A SAVAGE
WHO RAISED THIS HOE
-Satan
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Next update: Wednesday
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CHAPTER TWENTY SPOILER [a new era!]:
Remember that new character?
She's back.
And her feature in chapter twenty will ask more questions than answer.
Also, if you recollect, I'm sure there's a meeting with a nutritionist that Sky should be having.
But that's not all, as always, we deal with the most simple of depression.
A broken heart.
But whose?