The rest of the week pretty much continued on as normal. I went to school, went to work, avoided the idiot and did my homework. I worked my customary double-shift on Saturday, except this time I handled the dish cart. It felt like my arms were going to come out of their sockets as I hauled that thing back to the sink, but there was no way on this earth I was letting him anywhere near it ever again. He just held the door sheepishly for me as I struggled past. Needless to say he was then subjected to a death glare.
The following Wednesday saw Everett and I leisurely strolling towards the schools cafeteria. He insisted on draping his arm over my shoulder, even though it felt more like a dead weight than anything else. His constant movement didn’t really help either. Every time he twisted his body to shout something at a person he apparently knew, I would end up getting elbowed in the face.
Not exactly my ideal situation.
“Why are you frowning now?” he asked, lifting his free hand to trace my down-turned mouth with his thumb.
“It might have a little something to do with the fact I just got your bony excuse for an elbow shoved into my cheek. For the fourth time,” I huffed.
“Bony?” he scoffed “Babe, I think pretty much everyone will agree that there’s nothing bony about this.” he flexed the muscles of his right arm, and I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. Two freshmen visibly swooned when they saw him, one leaning against her locker for support.
“Put it away.” I smacked his side “before you kill someone. I’m pretty sure that freshman’s’ stopped breathing.”
He shot me his trademark smirk, before removing his arm from around me to stretch both above his head. The corners of his shirt hiked up, displaying his self-titled ‘washboard abs’.
“Will you stop it?” I half-laughed, equally annoyed as I was amused. “They’re two seconds away from hyperventilating.”
“Can’t help it.” he shrugged “I’m just too hot to handle.”
“Attention-seeker,” I muttered, and he shot me yet another smirk. “How has your neck not snapped yet?”
His eyebrows furrowed together in confusion. “What?”
“From the sheer size of your over inflated head.” I rolled onto my tiptoes so I could mess his hair, a grin breaking out onto my face when he squawked in protest.
“Not the hair babe, not the hair,” he whined, reaching up to pat his hair self-consciously.
“Awh, did the mean lady mess up wickle Everett’s hair?” I grinned mischievously.
“Where’s the lady?” he pretended to search the hallway, before I smacked his side once again.
“Remind me why I’m still with you?”
“Well that’s simple,” he said “who could possibly resist this face?” he waved his hand in front of his face quickly.
“It is a nice face,” I agreed, reaching up to trace his jaw line lightly. He flung his arm back over my shoulder and made a show of planting a sloppy kiss on my cheek as we passed the two freshmen.
“Ew, gross Everett,” I whined. I shimmied the sleeve of my knit jumper over my hand and used it to wipe his spit from my cheek. Everett pulled and overly-offended face.
“Most girls would kill to be on the receiving end of one of my kisses.”
“Hannah Fredrickson would anyway,” I said dryly “Leah told me the most interesting story about that party on Saturday.”
“What Leah needs to do is to mind her own damn business.” a dark shadow passed over Everett’s face “Did she tell you about how I kept pushing Hannah off of me, huh? Or did she just tell you a bunch of lies?” his arm flexed around my shoulder, and I felt his grip tighten.
“Calm down Everett.” I rolled my eyes “What Leah told me was that you made it nice and clear to Hannah you weren’t interested.”
“Oh,” he huffed sharply, his arm instantly relaxing. He turned his face away from my gaze to inspect the row of lockers instead.
“Yeah, ‘oh’.” I shook my head “though the way you reacted just there has me worried”
“It shouldn’t.” he gritted his teeth “if you had been there, you would have seen it for yourself. But you weren’t there, as per usual.”
His words, though perfectly true, still stung. There wasn’t really an adequate response to your boyfriend telling you that you were indeed as bad a girlfriend as you had feared, so I stayed quiet.
“Speaking of you not showing up to things.” Everett continued on, venom in his voice “When’s the last time you showed up to a football game, huh?”
He took my silence as an invitation for him to continue.
“You want to know what it’s like to be the damn quarterback on the team and to have a girlfriend who doesn’t care enough to come to the games?” Everett pressed his mouth against my ear “It sucks,” he hissed.
“You know why I can’t,” I mumbled, cringing away ever so slightly when I felt his hot breath on my neck.
“You can’t use work as an excuse for everything,” he said “why don’t you just tell the truth? That you don’t want to come see me play.”
“That’s not true,” I said quickly, jerking my head from side to side.
“Prove it.” he shrugged coldly “Come to the game next Friday.”
“I-” I faltered, taking in his expression. His jaw was set, eyes challenging me to say no. “I’ll try,” I said eventually “Is that good enough for you? I’ll try.”
He stopped walking suddenly, pulling at the sleeve of my sweatshirt. I jerked to a stop beside him. He stood looking at me for a second, his face blank, before he wrapped his arms around me in a crushing hug.
“You know I hate being mad at you,” he murmured “I’m sorry, I just really want to see you in the stands wearing my jersey, cheering my name.” he nuzzled the top of my head with his nose, and I resisted the urge to squirm. Now was not a good time to tell him to stop creating the mother of all knots.
“I’ll try,” I promised once again, pushing away from him gently and shooting him a small smile.
“You’ll be there.” he nodded confidently, a smirk making its way onto his face.
“What if I can’t?”
“You will,” he said finally, the tone of his voice telling me the topic was closed for discussion. He had a habit of doing that, closing off conversations when he felt happy with the conclusion. Knowing what battles to fight and which ones to let him win was a skill that had taken me quite a while to learn.
He linked our fingers together and began towing me towards the cafeteria once again. The noise level slowly began to rise the closer we got to the orange double doors, before erupting once we stepped from one linoleum floor to the other.
It was written in the laws of the universe somewhere that teenagers could not eat like civilised human beings around their friends. Honestly, I could see about three people attempting to eat a whole sandwich in one go and I hadn’t even walked past the first table.
“I’ve to go talk to the guys about something for a second.” Everett gently dropped our hands and jerked his head in the direction of the large table our schools football team was currently occupying.
“No problem, I’ll go find Leah and Greg.” I smiled.
He returned my grin, before jogging lightly away from me. I spun on the heel of my sneaker, before taking a step forward.
Of course, that certain step forward also managed to propel me into another person.
I stumbled slightly, my shoulder stinging from the sharp and sudden contact. “Sorry about that” I said quickly, “I wasn’t watching where I was-” my voice died in my throat when I took in the black hoodie and white ear buds. “You’re a clumsy one, aren’t you?” I said, my tone changing from apologetic to annoyed in a nanosecond.
There was only one person I knew who would wear their hood up indoors in the middle of the afternoon. They also happened to be the only person I knew who could break fifty plates in a single step.
“You walked into me,” he murmured, his low voice almost lost in the general chaos of the cafeteria. His eyes flitted from corner to corner, never once landing on me. He had his hands shoved deep in the pockets of his hoodie and his shoulders were hunched over.
“You’re clearly delusional,” I scoffed.
“You clearly don’t like sharing the blame for things.”
“Excuse me jerk?” my eyes widened. His passive expression just served to make me all the more angrier. My mouth floundered like a fish, but before I could pull myself together a voice rang out from behind us.
“Is there a problem here?”
I glanced to my right to see Everett standing directly beside me, his gaze locked firmly on the idiot. He slung a lazy arm over my shoulder, not taking his eyes off him for a second.
“Well?” he demanded.
“This idiot just walked into me.” I rolled my eyes, wrapping my arm around Everett’s waist. “No big deal.”
“Has he apologised yet?” Everett looked down at me, before setting his sights back on him. His eyebrows rose higher for every second of silence that passed between the three of us.
“No.” the idiot admitted finally, his jaw locked. He was still avoiding eye contact, staring down at an invisible point on the floor.
“Don’t you think it might be a good idea if you did?”
Another minute of silence, before Everett’s voice broke the tension once again.
“That wasn’t a suggestion, dork,” he said, taking a menacing step forward. His arm slipped from around me, and I saw his hands ball into two fists by his side. The idiot instantly stumbled back and looked up from the floor for the first time. The obvious fear in his eyes softened my resolve. I grabbed a handful of Everett’s t-shirt and pulled him back slightly.
“Just let it go Everett,” I sighed “he’s not worth it.”
“Not until he apologises for almost injuring my girlfriend.”
The way Everett said it did not make me feel like he was in any way worried for my personal safety. I felt like a possession.
“Alright, alright!” he snapped finally, his eyes jerking back to the ground “I’m sorry, okay?”
“For?” Everett pushed, but I tugged on his t-shirt once again.
“I’m serious, let’s just let it go. He apologised, great. Can we go eat lunch now?” I pleaded, eager to escape from the spectacle. Everett’s loud, strong voice had carried over the noise and we had attracted an audience. Everett grunted, shooting him another furious look, before finally succumbing to my pull and walking away from him. He instantly shot out through the doors of the cafeteria and disappeared down the dimly-light hallway.
I weaved in and out through the various tables, my cheeks burning slightly from the curious looks people were shooting us. We eventually got to where Leah and Greg were sitting at a table by the window, completely oblivious to the showdown that had just occurred. Greg was the only jock that had followed Everett to our table when he made the football team. I didn’t know him all that well, but Everett had guilted me into allowing him stay. Something about balancing out the testosterone deficiencies.
“What took you guys so long, we’ve been here forever,” Leah moaned, stabbing her salad with her fork. “You left me with nothing but this moron for company.”
“Why don’t you tell us how you really feel there Leah.” Greg said sarcastically. Leah pointedly ignored him.
“Boys.” she rolled her eyes, before popping a cherry tomato into her mouth.
“Tell me about it,” I laughed back, sitting down across from her. Everett sat heavily into the seat beside me.
“So really, what were you two up to?” Leah asked, her eyes alight with blatant interest.
“Keep in mind I’m trying to eat over here, so if it’s anything that will make me want to barf…” Greg trailed off lightly. He was promptly silence by a frosty glare from me, and a dig in the ribs courtesy of Leah.
“Mind out of the gutter Greg.” I pointed my sandwich at him, before opening the cellophane wrapping and taking a bite “Nothing, just some idiot walked into me and Everett decided to turn all Neanderthal.”
Leah and Greg laughed along with me, but Everett just stayed silent. He had his hands clenched in under the table, and a muscle was working in his jaw.
“You okay?” I asked, placing a cautious hand on his shoulder.
“Someone needs to teach that, that dork a lesson,” Everett stuttered over his words, his eyes far away.
“Forget him.” I shrugged, but it garnered no response. Sighing, I dropped my sandwich back on the leftover wrapped, before placing my hands either side of Everett’s face and forcing him to look at him. “I’m serious Everett, just let it go.”
I kissed his lips softly and quickly, before scooting back over into my seat and picking up my sandwich once again. Greg made a highly attractive gagging noise, earning himself a cherry tomato in the face.
Leah didn’t stop smirking or the rest of lunch.
~
There was something both eerily, and oddly thrilling about being in school after the final bell had gone. I hadn’t been in a rush, meaning I could swap the books from my locker almost obnoxiously slowly. By the time I was making my way out of the school, everyone else had long gone.
Everett was tied up with football practise, meaning I’d had to beg a ride to work from Jake. So for once I didn’t find myself walking the familiar path to the main door. Jake had agreed to pick me up on the nearest street corner to him, which was also parallel to the west side of the school. It would mean I would have to walk across the grass lawn where the seniors all ate lunch during the summer, no doubt soaking my shoes in the process, but it was either that or walk around the perimeter of the school.
I was a lazy being, I think we all know which option I chose.
I walked past the science labs, following the well-worn track to the cafeteria. It felt wrong to be heading in that direction for the second time in a day but I shook the feeling off. The orange doors loomed ever closer, made practically luminous in the dim hallway. The gloomy weather conditions outside did not help with the already poor lighting. My shoes squeaked against the floor as I made a quick turn at the cafeterias door, choosing instead to walk right.
Had it not been for the white earphone lead, I probably wouldn’t have seen them. Whoever they were, they were wearing dark clothing that almost perfectly blended in with the navy lockers they were leaning against. Their legs were splayed out in front of them, and from what I could tell they hadn’t noticed me yet.
“Hey,” I called out, cringing at how loud my voice sounded in the otherwise silent hall. The person didn’t move, their head stayed slumped against their chest. There was something off about the way they were sitting, not to mention where they were sitting.
“Hey…” I said once again, my voice lower. My brow furrowed as I took in the scene before me. Light filtered in from the glass panels on the door at the end of the hallway, showcasing a nasty dint on the door of one of the lockers to the left of the slumped person. It was the perfect shape of the back of someone’s skull.
It really didn’t take a genius to put two and two together.
My bag slid off my back and landed on the floor with a thump. I ran the small distance between us before crashing down to my knees, skidding slightly. With shaky hands I pushed their head back gently, sucking in a sharp breath when the dim light hit one half of their face.
It would have to be him, wouldn’t it? It was life’s ultimate punishment for me being mean. Of course I would have to find him slumped in a hallway after being a slight bitch to him. I was certain that I would spend the next few days arguing with the guilt that had settled in my stomach about how he had deserved every snide comment I had sent his way, but at the very moment all I could concentrate on was the state of his face.
His right eye was almost completely swollen shut, the delicate skin already turning different shades of black, blue and a sickening purple. The bruise extended down from his eye along his pale cheekbone where it then met with the bruise that was forming on the side of his mouth. His top lip was bloody and puffy, a large split clear in the weak light. Hesitantly, I placed my hand on his chin and lightly turned his face to the other side. Another bruise was already forming on the other cheek.
His one open eye was watching my face warily, gauging my reaction. From the way his jaw was working, I was pretty sure it hadn’t been good.
“What in the-” I began, my mouth clumsily forming the words.
“Nothing happened.” he cut me off quickly, his gaze switching from me to a sign over my head.
“Don’t be ridiculous.” I shook my head “What the hell happened you?”
“I…I fell, that’s all,” he said reluctantly before using his hands to push himself back against the locker, his back ramrod straight. I couldn’t help but snort incredulously.
“Repeatedly off of a wall for half an hour?”
“You said it yourself, I’m clumsy.”
“No one is that clumsy,” I said “Stop being ridiculous, tell me who did this to you.”
“I’m fine,” he said, gritting his teeth as he shifted his body again.
“Just-”
“I’m fine,” he insisted, pushing up from the floor with his palms. His groan of pain echoed around the school. I quickly jumped to my feet, taking a step towards him. Almost automatically, he flinched back.
“Please-”
“Just, just drop it, okay?” he shouted, his eyes wide with desperation. The sudden change in the volume of his voice made me jump, my sneakers squeaking once again against the floor. His focus flickered around my face, his mouth open as if he was about to say something else. He stared at me for another moment, before finally shutting his mouth tightly and quickly walking away from me with his hands in his pockets. I watched his back round around the corner before disappearing from view, still frozen where he had left me standing.
He didn’t show up for work that day.
~
I wrote three-quarters of this chapter in one sitting (and if it’s a bit loopy, just blame lack of sleep!) so if it seems a bit weird, then just blame my inability to walk away from my desk XD
Anyway, on to more pressing matters. FINALLY, SOMETHING HAPPENS. It’s all very dramatic and whatnot, so don’t know you I would love to hear your opinions on it.
Comments and votes, as always, are much appreciated.