Chapter I
I've always suffered from being clumsy. It's not that I have bad luck. I just naturally trip over things, bump into people, and break a lot of things. OK, I'll admit, I have a bit of bad luck. Sometimes I think that when I was born someone painted a sign on my head that said: Accident Waiting To Happen, so it's not really my fault that I'm in a hospital being interrogated because of my newest accident.
"Ms., Ms. Jessica? Should I call the doctor?" The nurse questions nervously, seeing as I failed to respond to her previous question.
"Sorry, I dozed off. Can y-"
"Would you like me to bring you some pills?" She interrupts.
"No, I'm fine, really. If I could just have my phone back I'd tell my mom to pick me up and I would be on my way." I try convincing for what feels like the billionth time, feeling slightly irritated.
"Ms., you've suffered a minor concussion to your head and have multiple bruises, I think it would be wise to stay here for a while. The doctor will soon come to examine your head and will be the judge of the severity of your injuries. As for you mother, she's already on her way and will be here soon." She explains. Hearing her name being called on the external speakers, she rushes out of the room.
I groan and silently curse myself for my unawareness on the road. My head hurt- not from the accident but from all the pestering questions and worries- and my phone was probably blowing up with messages. To top it all off, I had missed my best friend's little sister's birthday. Great, just great.
A young doctor suddenly comes in. Her hair is short, ash-blonde, and neatly combed which falls in with her rosy, oval face and almond-shaped blue eyes. She is of average height and has a warm smile on her face.
"Good morning." She greets. I reply politely as she smiles and opens my portfolio.
"Jessica Lynn Fox," she reads off, "You're fourteen- nearly fifteen."
I nod. "Yes Doctor," I reply.
Raising her eyebrows, she asks rhetorically, "It's not the first time you've visited us?"
I laugh and answer, "I'm extremely clumsy."
At this she laughs and says, "I see. So you entered high school a few months ago. Do you like it?"
I nod and internally groan.
"And you're here today because you were riding your bike to a friends house- which was far from your home, I might add- and at an intersection, you didn't see the car in front of you and crashed into it?" She laughs and says, "I've never heard that one before."
I laugh. When she put it that way, it does sound ridiculous.
"Come with me, I need to get you checked up."
^^^
Two hours later, I am in in the car, hearing my mother give me a huge speech about safety and another huge one about lying. I lied about where I was going since my mom would never give me permission to cross the city. So you can imagine my surprise when I hear my mom utter the words: "You're not grounded."
"Wait..., what?" I stumble over my words.
"Oh, I don't need to." She replies with a smug.
Ugh oh. I did not like where this was going. "What do you mean?" I slowly asked, trying to figure out what this meant.
"No electronics for you as in no using your computer, phone, iPad etc. Oh and no texting." She bluntly clarifies.
"What! You - I - but - no texting?" I manage to stutter. As my mom just laughs I say, "But - no - my phone! Mom! How is that not grounded?"
"That's what the doctor said, just in case," she double taps her head indicating my apparent concussion, "It's called karma, sweetheart."
I groan and ask, "For how long?"
"Just a few days days and then you'll come back for another exam"
"But Mom! What am I supposed to do in the meantime?"
"I don't know, but you're staying at home for the rest of the day, just in case. Here's the paper on why you can and can't do."
I grumbled incoherently as I read the paper and then exclaim, "I can't do anything!"
"Look, sweetie, I gotta go to work. You'll figure something out, ok?"
"Yeah yeah," I say angrily, getting down from the car and walking towards the door.
"No physics activity, no thinking activity..., what the hell is that supposed to mean?" I mutter to myself as I keep reading off, "No doing any activity that might strain your eyes. No looking at screens on computers, cell phones, or any other other devices... Avoid schoolwork- finally a good thing-, reading, bright lights, and activities that require quick reactions like driving. No alcohol, cigarettes or drugs. Great, just great," I finish off.
I've never smoked or taken drugs in my life and only take alcohol at parties so that wouldn't pose much of a problem. I scoff again. The only thing that wouldn't.
As I enter the house, I throw the paper on the table, plop down on the couch, and wonder what the hell I am gonna do for the rest of the day.
^^^
Three hours later, after going through the whole house and experimenting on my face with multiple makeup pallets, I hear the doorbell ring. Not sure whether to feel relieved or annoyed, I start to head out when I remember half of my face contains makeup while the other does not. Shit, I think to myself. I take out a wipe and start wiping my face as quickly as I take. The doorbell rings again and I double my scrubbing pace. Without a second glance in the mirror, I rush out and yell, "I'm coming!"
I open to door and look into brown chocolate eyes that are staring into mine. I have to admit I loose myself every time I see him.
"Hey Lad. What's up?" I ask nonchalantly.
He blinks twice as if he just woke up and says in an incredulous tone, "What do u mean: what's up? We've been calling your cell like crazy for the whole damn morning and blasting your phone with messages. You haven't answered at all and Mackenzie's worried like hell!"
"Um, yeah sorry. About that..." I sigh. I was never going to hear the end of this.
"Yeah...?" Lad urged. I open my mouth and close it again, trying to find a way to not make myself seem like a complete idiot when he starts laughing uncontrollably, his broad shoulders shaking with laughter. I find myself start to laugh too and say between laughs, "Remind me why we're laughing again..."
He keeps laughing and I lightly punch him in his shoulder and say, "Lad! What's so funny?"
He stops laughing, looks down at me, starts laughing again and says, "What's wrong with your face?"
My hands fly up to my face and I groan, remembering about the makeup. "Ugh! Lad...," I mutter angrily.
"Jess, you're adorable," he says in between laughs.
"Lad! It's not funny," I whine, internally laughing .
"It really is." He answers, grinning.
I roll my eyes and bring myself to say, cringing at his answer, "How bad is it?"
He chuckles and says, "Go see for yourself."
I start to leave for the bathroom when I hear, "Wait up! I want to see this."
I roll my eyes and mutter, "So immature."
"I heard that you know."
"Oh trust me, you were meant to." I see him catch up and shake his head.
I see myself in the mirror and break into uncontrollable laughter, burying my face into Lad's chest. My mascara was on half of one eye, my lipstick was smeared across my cheek, and my blush was, well saying it was messy was the understatement of the year.
He grins. "See my point?"
"You're an ass." I say, my lips pursued to stop myself from grinning.
"You know, I would call you a bi-" I slap him across the chest, glaring at him, and giving him a you-know-better look.
"But I'm slightly afraid you're gonna karate-kick my ass so..." Lad answers, ignoring my last action.
At this, I let out a laugh and raise an eyebrow, "Wow. I'm impressed of myself. The great and oh so powerful Lad Rivas- captain and champion of the basketball team- is afraid of me, a sweet and innocent freshman girl."
He rolls his eyes and fires back smugly, "Nice to see what you're opinion of me is."
"Careful, or I'll karate-kick your ass." I say back, grinning.
Suddenly, all trace of humor leaves from his face and he stares into my eyes. "This conversation never happened," he empathizes.
"Oh it so did." I smile. "It's your word against mine anyway and face it, we both know who the people will believe," I fire back, knowing it's not true. I mean, I'm not considered a nerd or anything but I am definitely far from being popular, unlike Lad.
He rolls his eyes and mutters under his breath, "Yeah totally angel-like and innocent."
"Idiot," I mutter back.
His eyes fall into mine and we stare at each other intently. An emotion swirled in his chocolate eyes that I couldn't quite decipher. I squirm, feeling uncomfortable, but don't drop his gaze. If I didn't know any better, I would say he's about to kiss me, but I do know better so I know my imagination is messing with me. A few seconds later, I look down at the floor, tucking a strand of my long mocha-brown hair behind my ear.
"Right..." he says awkwardly. "I'll go, um. I'll let you..., you know, wash your face."
He starts to head for the door when I say with a light laugh, already starting to wash off my face, "Lad. I'm not getting naked or anything. I'm just gonna get some wipes and wash my face. You can stay." I grin, anticipating his reaction.
Lad gives me a full eye roll and says with sarcasm rolling off his tongue, "Well as much as I would love to see you striping and dancing around the house-." He stops, reading my face. I feel a blush makes its way up to my cheeks but I challenge him with a fiery gaze. He grins, clearly seeing through my charade and continues, "-but I think I'll stay outside and call Mackenzie, who's worried sick by the way. Oh and also you better have a heck of an excuse coming up. I can't wait to hear it." With this, he leaves the bathroom and closed the door.
Shit. Now what? I am not going to tell him about my accident considering he'll freak out and start acting like an overprotective dad but..., as good as I am with lying, he would see right through me. He knows me so well. He's been my best friend ever since fourth grade.
I start rinsing my face and take out my wipes, scrubbing at the makeup. Two minutes later, I hear him call out, "Hey Jess! You done?"
"Yeah. Gimme a sec!" I yell back.
I come back out and head towards the living room, hearing him follow me. I plop down on the couch and sit cross-legged with my elbows resting on my knees.
"So?" He asks.
I tuck a strand of my hair behind my ear, feeling nervous. "Why were you with Mackenzie?" I dodge.
"Jessica," he growls.
"What?" I ask, innocently. He gives me a I'm-not-stupid-look and proceeds to say, "First of all you're nervous and you're dodging the question. Second of all, I'm not stupid. So come on, just tell me.
"Why do you think I'm nervous?"
He raises an eyebrow and points to my drumming fingers. I immediately stop, unaware that I was doing it. "And when you sat down, you tucked your hair back. You only do that when you're nervous or uncomfortable."
"You're observant," I clarify, uncomfortable he picks up on those things. I stay silent for a few seconds and ask seriously, "Do you stalk me?"
The edges of his moth curl up and he asks, "Would it bother you if I did?"
I let out a short laugh and mutter, "Creepy stalker."
"Jessica!" He groans, referring to the change of topic.
"Geez sorry, I was just joking," I play along, uncrossing my legs.
He rolls his eyes. "When you didn't show, Mackenzie called me and I helped her set up."
"Oh," I say, feeling guilty. "Lad, can you please just drop it," I beg. "You're gonna start worrying and there's no point to it."
"Jess. Don't you trust me? Just tell me!"
"Lad, of course I do. It's not that." I say, staring back at him with emotions swirling in my eyes. I sigh, "I had an accident."
I see him become tense and alert. He opens his mouth to say something but I cut him off. "Jess ar-"
"No wait. Let me finish," I interrupt. "It wasn't bad. I just fell off my bike on my way to Mackenzie's and got a few bruises on my arm and one or two on my left rib age. Someone saw me and called an ambulance- which was totally unnecessary. My mom came, picked me up, grounded me, took my phone away and that's it. I'm fine. Really. It doesn't even hurt."
He holds my gaze like prisoner, and he seems to believe me. "Ok. Let me see them."
"Lad. I'm fine," I emphasize.
"Let me see them," he growls. I shake my head no. They look way worse than they are. "I swear to god, Jessica. Show me," he insists.
"Look, I'm allowed to have privacy. If I don't want to show someone, I don't have to show someone."
"You do if it's me," he fires back.
"I really don't." I answer, my anger kicking in.
He looks taken aback for a second and stands up, an unknown emotion in his face.
"Lad, you might get everything you want from every single girl in the school, but I'm not like that and you know it." I bite back.
Anger swirls in his eyes and I say, softly "Look, I don't want to fight. Can we please just forget about this."
He nods reluctantly and sits back down.
"Do you wanna watch a movie?" I ask, not caring about my concussion. Honestly who cares about what a stupid piece of paper says? I didn't even hit my head that hard.
He nods simply and I internally groan. Great, now he's mad at me.
"I have a new movie at my house. It's called The Time Machine." He tells me.
I raise an eyebrow, "Isn't that like old or something?"
"Do you consider the early 2000's old?" He asks, grinning.
"Well movie-wise yes." I answer, not being able to stop from laughing. His laugh is contagious just like his smile. It isn't too deep or too high; it's at the prefect pitch, always inviting you to join in.
He smirks and says, "Should I go get it?"
"Yeah go ahead," I tell him.
"You know what? We should do something else."
"For God's sake Lad, I can take care of myself. I don't need a babysitter every two minutes." I lash out.
He turns his head so I can't see his face, sighs, and mutters, "OK," walking out the door.
I love Lad to death but sometimes, he pisses me off. He acts like I'm like this defenseless little girl incapable of doing anything. We usually never have arguments like this one, but it's been happening more and more often. I hate it.
A few minutes later, I hear him come in. He lives a few houses down so it doesn't take very long to go to his. He's silent as he enters the house. As he enters the living room, he takes the DVD and inserts it inside the DVD player.
"I'm gonna go get some blankets," I state, breaking the uncomfortable silence.
"I'll go." He says, getting up. To prove a point, I stand up before him and walk towards the cabinet. The bruises really don't hurt. I take the biggest blanket I find and walk towards the kitchen to make some popcorn.
When it's ready, I pour it into a bowl and bring both things to the couch. I feel cold so I grab the blanket and wrap it around myself.
"Do you want some popcorn?" I ask Lad. He nods so I pass him the bowl. Taking note of how I have the whole blanket, I say, "Do you want a blanket cuz I can go get another one."
"No," he quickly answers. "We can share."
I register what he said and try to hide the surprise off my face. We're close friends but we've never been very touchy. Luckily, he's looking at the TV screen, pressing play, so he doesn't notice my face expression. I flatten the blanket and scoot closer to him so that it covers both of us.
^^^
I grumble, uncomfortable in my position. I try moving around a bit. I yawn, and open my lidded eyes waiting for them to adjust to the light in the room. I try moving around when I notice someone's behind me. What the...? I look over my shoulder and see Lad's face peering at me. It takes me less than half a second to understand what happened and I instantly jump up to my corner of the couch, completely awake.
I purposely avoid Lad's gaze and place a cushion behind my back and lay back, trying to act normal. Great job Jessica.
"You scared me half to death," I say in one breath, unknowingly tucking my hair behind an ear.
"I scared you half to death?!" He exclaims. "You jumped off my lap like you had just seen a ghost!"
I once again tuck my hair behind my right ear and as his gaze lingers, I untuck both, making a mental note to myself that I have to stop doing that. "Right. Sorry bout that." I say in the most normal voice I can. It takes a lot to make me uncomfortable and unfortunately, falling asleep in my best guy friend's lap counted as a lot. Just the thought of me laying so vulnerably in his lap made me squirm with discomfort. I don't care if it was on his lap; I would've felt the same if it was any other person.
"Why are you saying sorry for falling asleep on my lap?" He asks, clearly amused.
I laugh and shrug, muttering, "I don't know." I swear, it takes everything I have to refrain from tucking my hair back. "I'm gonna go grab my computer and then if you want we can meet up with the others."
"Yeah great," he answers. "Actually I was texting the group chat and Mackenzie, Diego, Evan, Alexa, and Michael are meeting up at the park. They're gonna grab some dinner after. I think we should go."
"What? Dinner? How long did I stay asleep?"
"Bout two hours and a half." He answers nonchalantly.
"What?! Lad! You should've waken me up!" I say. I can't believe I stayed more than two freaking hours on his lap.
He rolls his eyes and answers, "Jess, it's fine. Go change or whatever. We're meeting up with them in an hour and I wanna stop at my house. You do wanna go, right?"
"Yeah duh. Oh! I almost forget. Shoot. I can come but I can't stay for dinner. I have a track meet and I need to go to bed like super early, which sure as heck won't happen if I stay with you guys." I say, teasing him.
I see his jaw clench and he says angrily, "What?"
Why is he mad? Confused, I answer, "Yeah... Remember? It's my first meet of the season. You said you were gonna come since you've never seen me in a competition before... You are coming right? Cuz you're my ride so..."
"No," he growls. I give him a confused look.
"What do you mean: No?"
"I mean you're not going," He clarifies. It takes me less than a second to understand to what he was referring to. I open my mouth to say something but he cuts me off instantly. "No Jessica! Don't start giving me some crap about how you're fine because you're not! Those bruises there, they aren't some little insignificant ones! There are serious one and you would be putting yourself in danger by going to that damn track meet!
"Yeah well that damn track meet is important to me! And I'm going. That's for sure." I retort, coolly. Fire blazed in his eyes and he's about to say something when I exclaim, horrified, "How do you know what my bruises look like anyway?!"
His face expression answered my question, "Oh so it turns out I can't trust you! You are such an opportunist! You have absolutely no respect for people's privacy, Lad. I can't believe you!"
"How can you actually think I'm actually doing this for myself? Tell me, if I'm such an egoistic person, then why am I looking out for you?"
I stay silent, unsure of what to say. Looking out for me still didn't give him the right to invade my personal rights though.
"The cat's got your tongue huh?" He antagonizes, clearly mad. This time I wasn't going to back down.
"You have absolutely no right to do that without my permission," I saw, trying to keep my calm. "I don't care how many years we've known each other. No one gets to do anything involving me without my permission. As my friend, you should've learned that lesson a long time ago. I'm going and that's that!"
He comes closer to my side of my couch until he's no less than a few inches away from my face. In a menacing tone that was completely unknown to me, he whispers with emphasis, "You're not."
I had never seen him that way before. His eyes have a deadness, a stillness about them. All traces of the Lad I know are gone. I've heard about this Lad, the one that almost never comes out, but this is the first time I've seen him. But I had become immune to threats a long time ago. I get that he's trying to look after me but he needs to see things the way they are. I decide what I do and he has absolutely no control over that.
"Yeah? What are you gonna to do stop me?" I reply, my voice matching his eyes.
"You know what?" I decide, standing up from the couch, "leave my house."
Some of the sternness of his eyes leave, replaced with shock.
"Leave my house," I order, my eyes cold. "We're going to say things that we are going to regret. I don't want that to happen.
As he stays still, I whisper, "Don't make me ask you again. Leave. Please