"Emma, talk to me, please," he pleaded, now catching up to her and stepping in front of her. "I messed up, okay?"

"Yeah, you did," she replied cooly, trying to walk around him. He grabbed her wrist and pulled her back roughly, clearly getting angry.

"Okay, now listen to me!" he growled, staring straight into her eyes, which were rapidly filling with tears. Suddenly, Peter was thrown against the lockers, and Emma found herself now looking into Jay's eyes, which were filled with worry and anger. He looked at her briefly, before turning to Peter and pulling him up by his shirt collar.

"And why should she? Huh?" he said, slamming Peter against the lockers again. "So you can get her drunk and videotape her this time?"

"It's got nothing to do with that," he tried to say toughly, while still smashed into the lockers.

"I don't care," Jay snarled. "Stay away from her, pal, or deal with me. Got it?" Peter nodded his head in silent agreement, and Jay let him down, none too gently, and began to walk off.

"Jay!" she yelled after him, chasing him down. "Why did you do that?"

He turned around and looked straight into her eyes again, not saying a word.

"Why did you help me?"

"No reason," he finally replied quietly, turning away. "Later, Greenpeace." And with that, he was gone.

Emma stood in silence, staring at the spot where he had been standing seconds ago, defending her. Manny walked up next to her, mouth agape.

"What was that all about?" she whispered, looking from Peter, who was farther down the hall trying to act as though nothing had happened, to Emma, who was standing in front of the doors in the foyer, through which Jay had just disappeared. "I saw it through the window. Em, what happened?"

"I...don't really know," she said truthfully, walking to their next class. "One minute, Peter is trying to talk to me, the next, he's on the ground and Jay is his place, with this look in his eyes. Like he was---" she stopped herself, thinking back to his eyes when he had looked at her. She knew that those amazingly beautiful eyes had, for the smallest amount of time, been filled with worry. For her.

"What? Like he was gonna kill Peter?" Manny asked, clearly trying to lighten the mood as they took their seats. When she got a look from Emma, she gave up and instead, asked, "What did he say to him, anyway?"

Emma shook the image of those aquamarine orbs from her mind finally, and tried to recall what he had said.

"Um, he asked Peter why I should have to listen to him, and slammed him against the lockers. And then, he told Peter to stay away from me, or he would have to deal with him," she managed, purposefully leaving the part about the videotape out, to save Manny some painful memories.

"Oh," she said quietly, as the teacher passed a stack of first-day-of-school papers around the room. "What did he say to you after that? I saw you run after him."

But Emma just shook her head as the teacher silenced the class. "Later," she mouthed to her questioning friend, and then turned her attention back to the front of the room, though her mind was someplace completely different. Why was he worried about me? she thought, bringing the picture of his eyes back and thinking hard. Why did he protect me...and why wouldn't he tell me? It was like he actually cared about her, like it mattered to him what happened to her. She wasn't quite sure how to handle this, should she try and talk to him, or should she be happy with his first reply? She knew there was a reason for this, even though he denied it, and she wanted to find out what it was.

He sat in the alley alone during lunch, thinking about what had happened this morning. He wanted to go back and talk to her. Tell her that he cared about her, and he wanted to make sure that she was safe. He had heard about what happened between them, and hasn't wanted anything more than to 'talk' to Peter about it ever since, even though it was really none of his business. And now that he had finally gotten the chance, he couldn't tell her why he did it. Why he had felt the need to protect her ever since that huge mess with the ravine. He knew he'd hurt her and wouldn't blame her a bit if she never talked to him again, which, in fact, she hadn't until today. Yet he couldn't bring himself to tell her how he felt, hell, he couldn't even begin to apologize for what he had done, no matter how much he wanted to. He sat there through lunch, finally bringing himself to go back to class, which was a new thing he was trying out, but only because he knew that she would be in his next class. He couldn't wait to see her, even if he didin't plan to say anything to her, so he got up and made his was slowly back into the building, thinking the whole time about the girl he could never have.

Halfway through Mr. Simpson's dull, first day droning, Jay got a message. He didn't bother to check whether or not Simpson was around, besides, hew was way too wrapped up in his little lecture to notice. He read the message with an expressionless face, looking at the sender when he finished. He tried his best to act like it was nothing, while he could barely hold in the enormous smile that was begging to overtake his face.

When the bell finally rang, both went their separate ways and finished the day as though nothing had happened. Emma and Manny went home and talked for a while about the day's events, while Jay drove pointlessly around town, not wanting to go home, if you could even call it that. After a few hours, he finally pulled up to the park and sat there, waiting. Jay didn't hear Emma walk up beside him, not that he could hear much of anything over the sound of his music blaring, so she just stood there, watching him.

She stood beside his car for a while, trying to decide whether of not to go through with it. As she turned to leave, he noticed her. She looked gorgeous as ever, and he sat there admiring her in the mirror for a while, before finally calling her name.

"Hey! Greenpeace!" he yelled over the music, before turning it down, opening the door and stepping out of the car. "Where ya going?"

"Oh, um, I was just about to leave," she stammered. "You, uh, you looked busy."

"Well, I'm not, obviously. Why else would I be sitting in the park alone?" he said, walking over to a bench and sitting down. When Emma didn't moved, he added, "You just gonna stand there? You said you wanted to talk, didn't you?"

"Umm...yeah," she said at last, walking over to the bench, but not sitting down.

Jay kept looking at her, expecting her to say more. When she didn't, he said, "Okay. So, talk. Conversation's gotta go both ways, you know." As he said this, he smiled, enjoying seeing her so nervous and uncomfortable.

"I know. I just..." she paused, trying to think of how to word what she wanted to say. "I just...I wanted to know why you stood up for me today. Why did you protect me?" She asked, finally sitting down and looking at him intently.

"I told you already. No reason. I just don't like it when guys treat girls like that, okay?" he said, looking away to keep from betraying himself, but it was useless. Emma was silent for a while and he could feel her eyes on him while he stared at the grass. She got up at last and started to leave and he finally brought himself to look at her. The second he did, however, he regretted it. He now saw that she was crying and he immediately felt sick. Why do I always hurt her? he thought, getting up and walking over to her. She looked at him for a moment wiht a gaze so full of pain that he wanted to drop dead on the spot.

Finally she spoke, not to him, but more to herself, "I can't believe I even thought about coming here tonight."

She now turned and spoke to Jay, her voice shaking noticably, "I'm sorry. I don't know why I'm acting like this. It's pretty much what I expected."

Emma turned around and started to walk home, leaving Jay standing there, watching her. When she was almost out of sight, he got into his car and drove up silently behind her.