Tuesday morning.
Jess felt the early sunlight hit her eyes; her head throbbed from what was left of the alcohol, and she didn't even know where she'd ended up.
Her stomach flipped itself so many times as she found herself curled up on the ground, but it wasn't as though she'd been ditched in the middle of nowhere.
"Jess…Jess, are you ok?" A familiar voice spoke out above her.
She mumbled incoherently when she felt a few fingers gently sweep her slightly tangled red hair from her eyes. "W-where am I?"
"I don't think I need to ask you what you've been up to." The owner of the voice bent down beside her, softly combing her bangs back to where they should've been. "But you can't come to school like this."
Her eyelids weakly lifted themselves open some more, and she realised that Chris was knelt down, right next to her. "I-I'm so sorry…"
He smiled slightly. "Why are you sorry?"
"F-for you having to find me like this."
He placed a hand on her shoulder. "How does your stomach feel?"
"It feels like it's doing a hundred somersaults right now."
He laughed a little at her comment. "Well, I can't exactly leave you like this and I've got plenty of time to get to the school. So why don't you come to mine for a bit so I can sort you out?"
"I-I don't want to cause any problems for you…" After what had happened between them before…
"It's not a problem. Now come on." He wrapped his arms around her, pulling her up into a standing position.
She almost felt like touching him as he helped her up. The contact was just…too close. "I don't mind if you only take me home…" At least that way, the coast would've been clear for her to go into the house the way she was, get herself sorted out and then head into school straight after that. Job done.
"Not when you can't even walk in a straight line." Chris took her into his flat and helped her to sit on the edge of the bath. "Your eyes look a mess."
Jess almost jumped a foot in the air as he placed an ice-cold, wet tissue against the area under her eye.
"And there was me thinking you weren't getting enough sleep again." He noted, softly wiping the heavily smudged eyeliner fused with fallen mascara from under her eye before moving onto the other one. "These late nights have got to stop, you know."
"I guess now my mum's worried about my performance."
"Well, she's definitely concerned, Jess, I'll give her that." He disposed of the tissue, as he looked her over again. "She thinks it's just a phase, but I can't help thinking there's something else going on."
She nervously looked away.
"Whatever you say, I will not think any less of you or tell your mum. This is between us, ok?"
She closed her eyes, shaking her head. "You'd think I'm dirty…"
"No, I wouldn't." His bright blue eyes carefully fixed themselves onto her. "I wanna help you. I don't think you're going to get help any other way."
She peered down at the floor.
"It's something your mum can't help you with…isn't it?"
Jess nodded slowly. "I take it you now think I'm crazy."
"No, far from it, Jess. You just need to talk." Chris took in her crumpled appearance; her clothes were quite badly creased, and they wouldn't have passed as school clothes if he took her straight there. "I really haven't got anything for you to wear for now, so I'll have to run you back to your mum's. Are you sure you're going to be ok getting in and doing that?"
She nodded steadily. "Mum would've already left with Bex and Harry by now, so I should be ok."
"Ok." He got his car keys out and thought for a few seconds. "I haven't got a set after lunch, if you wanna come and see me then…that's if you haven't got one either, as I don't want you missing anything else."
She smiled a little. "I haven't got one then either…"
"Then that's decided." He playfully smirked. "You come and see me then, so we can talk some more. Try and work out what's going on."
...
Chris ran her back to her place.
"Thanks for taking me back."
"No problem." His bright blue eyes shimmered in the sunlight. "I'm just glad that I found you when I did."
Jess almost felt her breath get taken away as he swept her bangs back. "So you don't think I'm crazy?"
"No, of course not." His voice came out thick.
She nodded slowly. She trusted him.
"Try not to worry."
"O-ok." She was especially glad that he wasn't thinking of taking her away.
"I'm here now."
...
Quarter to two that day.
Jess loitered around outside by Chris's door, debating with herself to go in and see him. Why did she suddenly feel so awkward?
"There you are." He'd obviously given up waiting and was going to see if he could've found her. "Did you not wanna come in and see me?"
She nodded faintly. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't feel like that, I know. But I've been having second thoughts about it."
"Well, you're kinda here now." He smiled playfully, as he closed the door behind them. "And don't feel like you can't come and see me or have second thoughts about it. You've got absolutely nothing to be embarrassed about."
Jess shakily sat down at the nearest desk by the door, prompting him to perch in front of her. "I thought it best to try and show you what I've been doing."
"O-ok…" Chris had no idea what she was going to show him, but his eyes widened a little as he watched her pull her laptop out of her bag. "You know you shouldn't really take that into…"
"I know." She nodded. "But I felt it was the only way to show you."
"If you think it'd help." He had to agree with her there. "But I would hate for that to get stolen."
She powered it up, going through her web history. "I don't see how you can really help me with this, but I've been using a few dating sites."
He shrugged. "I don't see a problem there. As long as you're careful about using sites like that, I guess…" Not that he had any experience about using anything like that. "You mean you've actually set up accounts on places like this?"
Jess nodded slowly. "That's not all."
He swallowed hard at the realisation that the sites were actually more adult than what she was allowed to be on. Not only that, but she'd submitted several adult pictures of herself – mostly with nothing on. "J-Jess…you're not even old enough to be on sites like this."
"I know I'm not."
"Then why do this?" Chris's bright blue eyes dimmed in confusion. "If you know you shouldn't be doing it, why are you?" He flitted his gaze to the screen and then back to her. "If this is one of your ways of drawing attention to yourself, you're doing so in the worst possible way."
She gazed at him dimly.
"If I were you, I would stop using those sites and take those pictures off – before you end up in trouble."
"Please don't tell my mum."
"I won't tell your mum, don't worry about that." He assured her. "But I want you to do what I just told you."
She nodded slowly.
"Ok, good." He didn't quite believe that she would have. "Do you remember much about what happened last night?"
"I didn't think you would talk about that…" Jess suddenly felt her head hurt from the leftover hangover.
"Well, you weren't exactly in the most ideal condition." He teasingly noted, although went back to being more sombre. "And you made it very clear you didn't want your mum to find out where you'd gone."
She swallowed hard, as she folded her laptop down and put it away.
"I mean is it at all related to…all of this going on?"
She gazed into his soft blue eyes. "In part."
Chris tilted his head attentively. "You don't sound very sure."
"I don't understand why I ended up where I did."
"Well, that's the benefit of getting completely wasted, isn't it?" He quipped. "When you don't remember what happened or where you went the night before."
She nodded weakly. "I just felt really…I don't know. Bad about myself."
"But why? I don't understand."
She shrugged. "Because I know that I leave here, I'll leave with nothing."
"Don't feel bad about yourself." His hands moved to hers. "And don't ever think that you'll leave here with nothing."
Jess jumped at the contact.
"I don't really get your mindset right now." He admitted honestly. "You're capable of doing really well, but this behaviour…has got to stop."
She got up slowly. She knew that Chris was right about that, but for some reason, signing up to several adult dating sites gave her a small buzz.
"Promise me you won't do anything else like that again, Jess."
She nodded dimly. "I promise." And she left the room, leaving him slightly doubtful about whether she'd actually do what he asked of her.