Happy New Year and thanks for reading and reviewing!
The next week, even though the weather was unusually warm, Emma came to school in jeans and a hooded sweatshirt. Over the weekend, she had gotten into another argument with Peter. This time it was about what he was wearing…no, wait, it was about what she was wearing…or maybe it was about what movie they were going to see. Emma really could not remember. What she did remember was the way Peter had grabbed her left arm so tightly that it had left a bruise behind, when all she had tried to do was walk away calmly before the situation became any worse. Obviously, that did not work. Peter instantly apologized and Emma foolishly trusted that it would not happen again. But, now, she was wearing the sweatshirt to cover up the bruise. She, as usual, blamed herself for what happened and did not want to raise any suspicions about Peter, for what she believed was an accident. She was just trying to protect him because he laid the charm on so thick that Emma was truly convinced that what Peter was doing to her was justifiable…
…So, Emma was walking down the hall, hoping that she would go unnoticed behind the seemingly tough exterior that she had patched together with what seemed like glue sticks and scotch tape, when someone accidentally bumped into her.
"Watch where you're going!" Emma spat.
"Aww," came a severely sarcastic voice, "did little Greenpeace wake up on the wrong side of the bed this morning?"
"Just leave me alone, Jay!"
"Dang!" Jay took a step back, defensively. "I'm sorry, okay? It was an accident."
"Whatever!" Emma hissed as she proceeded to walk away.
But, Jay had something else to say. "Hey, wait!"
Jay gently grabbed Emma's left arm to try to pull her back for a moment. She yelped loudly and pulled her arm back quickly.
Now, Jay knew that Emma had a flair for the dramatic, but this still took him by surprise. "Jeez, I barely touched you." He, then, noticed that she was in real pain. "Let me see."
"No," Emma protested, "I'm fine!"
They struggled against each other for a few seconds, but, in the end, Jay succeeded in pushing Emma's sleeve up.
Jay, referring to the large bruise on Emma's arm, asked, "How did you get that?"
Emma pulled her arm back again. "I just bumped it on the arm of a chair in the library, yesterday. No one hurt me, if that's what you were thinking," she lied, weakly.
"I wasn't. But, now that you mention it, it does look like a hand print."
"Well, it's not, so back off!" She yanked her sleeve back down.
Again, Jay was taken aback by her fiercely acidic tone. "Fine!" He threw his hands up in the air, completely forgetting about why he wanted to talk to her in the first place. "I don't even know why I'm still here anyway. It's not like I care what happened to you!
Although she hadn't felt it right then, Jay had just shattered her already fragile being. "Well,…good! Then why did you even ask?!"
Jay paused for a moment, not sure if he even knew the answer to that question. "…Instinct, I guess."
"Do me a favor and spare me the next time then, okay?!" Emma stomped off in a huff of frustration.
Jay thought to himself as he walked on to his next class. 'I'm so stupid! Why can't I just tell her how I feel? Every time I see her, I always mess it up! Ugh, why did I say, I didn't care?!...I wonder if she's really okay.'
