Jay and Abi iPod Shuffle: Chapter 4.

Song: Wild Things – Alessia Cara.

"And we will leave the empty chairs to those who say we can't sit there."

Jay had stuck up for Abi a lot in the time they knew each other. It became a common occurrence when they were dating. Abi was hardly the most popular girl in the whole of Walford and she was usually a prime target for bullies. Abi specifically remembers a time when she had been looking for a seat in the Vic so she could do some revision in peace. Her parents had been fighting again and Abi was sick of having to read over the same thing twenty time in order to remember it. Maybe a pub wasn't the best place to try and do school work, but it had to be better than home.

The Vic had been packed, what with most people getting off of work at the time she walked in, and there wasn't a spare seat in sight. Abi was contemplating whether or not to leave and just give up with revising for the evening. That was until she spotted a group of girls in her year sat around a round table, drinking Coke and laughing. Maybe if she could just sit on the table with them, she'd be able to block them out and get at least a bit of work done.

Taking a deep breath, she took quick steps towards their table. As she approached, she saw all the girl's faces change from happy smiles to bitchy glares, the laughter and meaningless chatter coming to an immediate stop. She smiled at one of them, the one that seemed to be the group leader, and adjusted her grip on her books. She could feel some of the girls raking their eyes up and down her body, looking for the slightest imperfection that they could laugh at behind her back. Or to her face. These girls didn't really care.

"Hi," Abi had started, maybe a bit too enthusiastically. Realising she wasn't going to get a greeting in response; she cleared her throat and continued through her embarrassment. "Do you think I could sit with you guys?"

"Are you serious?" One of the girls laughed, scowling so much her drawn on, caterpillar eyebrows were nearly touching. "Why would we want to be associated with you, Scabi?" The girls laughed at her as Abi tried to ignore the nickname that had haunted her since she was twelve. It didn't even mean anything. There was no shameful time where Abi had been covered in scabs. She wasn't one of those weirdos who used to pick their scabs and eat it. No. She'd been giving that name because some genius had thought that her name sounded like the word 'scab'. For some stupid reason, the name had stuck – and Abi hated it.

"I just wanted somewhere to sit…" Abi had whispered pathetically. Why did this have to happen to her? She was a good person; she was nice to literally everyone. What had she done to deserve this?

"Well, then I guess you'll have to sit on the floor," one of the minions had said snidely, "where you belong."

"Oi," someone had said loudly from behind her, cutting off the groups cackling. "Speak to her like that again and the only person who will be in the floor is you." Abi turned around to see Jay Mitchell sat there on his own, looking absolutely furious.

"And who do you think you are?" Head-bitch had scoffed, rolling her eyes.

"Who I am is none of your business, sweetheart. But, considering your eyebrows look like they're about to fly away, I think you should join them." Abi couldn't help the laugh that fell out of her lips. Jay's eyes had flickered to her and she could see the beginning of a smile etching its way onto his face. The girl had gasped in shock before shutting her mouth and pouting as her friends started making comments about Abi and the boy who was with her.

"Thanks," Abi had said quickly to Jay. She'd only taken one step away from the table when she felt him grab her wrist. She spun back around to see him smiling at her with his lazy lips and stubby teeth.

"If you really want to thank me," he said cheekily, gently pulling the book from her arms and placing them on the table, "you can buy me a drink and then tell me about whatever it is you've got all these books for." Abi had just looked at him with a stunned expression while he slipped back into his seat. "Well, go on then," he'd laughed before she jerkily made her way to the bar. Abi had never been so happy to not fit in.

"The cool kids aren't cool to me; they're not cooler than we are."

Another time he had stuck up for her was just after their first date. She'd walked into the café and saw Jay sat at a table with all of his work friends. She'd been meaning to ask him all day if he'd go over to her house that evening to help her re-arrange her room so she could fit the old TV from the loft in there. They'd discussed it when they had been on their date, but she'd never been specific for when she wanted him to help her.

She bought herself a hot chocolate and got him a tea before making her way over to the table he was sat at. He'd smiled widely at her as she approached while his friends had wolf-whistled and made whipping noises. She was starting to regret going over. He'd get embarrassed and be mean to her so he would look cool and Abi would have to pretend that it wasn't hurting her feelings. She knew Jay wasn't the type of guy to express his feelings openly, but he didn't need to be such a prat when it came to hers.

"Hi," Abi had started, trying to sound confident. "I bought you a tea."

"Thanks, Abs," Jay said, taking the cup from her. Meanwhile, the guys Jay was sat with had started making jokes that Abi decided to block out. Abi was not going to be made to feel inferior to a bunch of brain-dead, arseholes whose penises where probably as small as their IQ.

"I was wondering," Abi said, taking the plunge, "if you wanted to come over to mine later? My parents aren't home and my sister's out so-"

"Sorry, love. Jay's coming out with us tonight. He's gonna pull a fit bird," a muscular, hairy man had cut her off, smirking at her when he talked about Jay pulling 'a fit bird'. Abi didn't care that he was insinuating that Abi didn't fall under the category of being 'a fit bird', but as she felt Jay's hand tighten around her wrist, she could tell he obviously did.

"Yeah, of course I'll come over," Jay said, not even looking at his friends as they groaned about his decision. Abi's eyebrows furrowed in confusing, but Jay had just kissed her palm and stood up from the table. "Come on," he said, wrapping his arm around her waist. "I'll walk you home."

Once they were outside, Abi couldn't help questioning Jay's choice. Abi wouldn't have even been mad if Jay had decided to go out with those guys instead of spending the night with her. She knew he was going to get the mick taken out of him for choosing her, so she couldn't understand why he had.

"You didn't have to do that, you know," Abi insisted, leaning into him while they walked. Jay had just laughed.

"Come on, Abs. Would you want to spend a night with those guys?" Jay asked, smiling at her. When Abi thought about it like that, she could definitely see why Jay would want to do anything other than go out with them.

"Yeah, but don't you have some kind of reputation you have to keep by being with the 'cool' people?" Abi asked, scoffing herself at how stupid it all sounded.

"If I ever get a reputation with that lot, feel free to shoot me," Jay said, rolling his eyes. "And," he added, "they are nowhere near as cool as you."

"Find your grace, don't hide your face and let it shine."

He'd also stuck up for just after their one year anniversary. Abi had, had the worst day at school ever. For starters, in her English class, someone had put her book in the shredder so she didn't have any notes for her end of year exam, which was in a month's time, and her teacher has lost a vital piece of her coursework that had taken her six hours to complete, meaning she was going to have to do it all over again. Then, after PE, Abi found that someone had put her jumper down the toilet and stolen the keys to her house, which she had to report to the teacher and everyone called her a snitch. After that, the boy sat behind her in maths stole her new school bag without her knowing and wrote vulgar things all over it in permanent marker. And, to top it all off, on her way home from school, a group of three boys from year eleven surrounded her and threw water balloons at her so she looked like a drowned rat.

As she was walking through the market on her quest to find Lauren, her shoes squelching with every step, she made eye contact with Lola, her best friend. Lola was looking at a pair of jeans at one of the clothes stalls, her daughter in the pram next to her, and she nearly dropped them when she saw Abi. Abi winced at the expression on Lola's face. She had been hoping she hadn't looked that bad, but obviously she was wrong.

"Abi, oh my God!" Lola exclaimed, quickly putting the jeans back and speed walking over to her. Abi wrapped her arms around herself and tried not to shiver as the cold, London wind brushed past her like barbed wire.

"Have you seen my sister?" Abi ground out through clenched teeth, trying desperately to stop them from chattering. Lola grabbed her hoddie from the bottom of Lexi's pram and wrapped it around Abi's shoulders.

"Yeah, I think she went into the Vic. Come on, I'll take you to her," Lola rushed out, herding Abi through the crowd of people who looked at Abi strangely. Abi just bowed her head in shame and tried not to make eye contact.

As Abi and Lola walked into the Vic, all conversation stopped. All eyes turned to Abi and she hated it. Lauren, who was sat at the bar with her cousin/boyfriend, Joey, rushed over with him following shortly after.

"Who the hell did this to you?!" Lauren yelled, taking all of Abi's appearance in. Abi really didn't want to have this conversation here; not while everyone was watching.

"It doesn't matter," Abi said quietly, keeping her eyes glued to the floor.

"Of course it matters, Abi," Joey said angrily while Lola laughed humourlessly. "I'm gonna kill them," he said, charging towards the door. Abi jumped in his way, eyes wide with alarm.

"No, Joey, please. Please don't, okay? It was just stupid kids. It's not a big deal. I don't want you to get in trouble," Abi pleaded, trying to make him calm down. He tightened his jaw and clenched his fists, but thankfully didn't move any further towards the doors.

"Oh, Abi… Your bag…" Lauren whispered sadly, noticing 'fat', 'ugly', 'frigid', and many other horrible things written all over it in black ink. You can call them what you want, but at least they're observant, Abi thought to herself, not daring enough to say it out loud as she knew her sister would go mental.

"Can we please just go home? Someone stole my keys," Abi sighed, rubbing her hand over her face in distress. Her sister agreed to take her home and the four of them made their way to the outside of the Vic.

"I'll meet you there in a bit," Joey had said as Lauren wrapped her arm around Abi while Lola pushed Lexi and walked towards her house.

"Joey…" Abi had said warningly, to which he rolled his eyes and took a step away from them.

"I'm not going to do anything, Abs. I've just got to do something," he replied, before taking off running down the market strip.

After an hour of sitting in her living room with Lauren, who was pacing the room in fury, and Lola, who was desperately trying to rub the profanities off of Abi's bag, there was a knock at the door. Lauren practically sprinted out of the room to answer the door and made a noise as multiple sets of footsteps scattered around the hallway. Not even a second later, Jay, Joey, and Dexter came charging in, each holding one of the boys from the water balloon incident that happened earlier. Each boy had a bloody nose. Two of them were starting to get black eyes while the other one had a split lip. The boys Abi cared about were fine except for the fact that they were seething with anger. Jay was the worst. Jay looked like he was about to rip this boy's throat out with his bare hands and then use his lifeless body to beat the other two to death.

"You see that girl there?" Jay said menacingly, twisting the arm of the boy he was holding even further round the wrong way. It made Abi feel a bit sick. "Do you recognise her?" He spat. When none of the boys answered, he somehow got even angrier. "Do you?!" He bellowed, his voice echoing around house. The boys nodded jerkily, fear practically dripping from their eyes. "That girl is my girlfriend and these two's cousin. I swear to God if you ever look at her again and I will hunt you down and kill you, got it?!" The boys nodded again and Jay through the one he was holding on the floor, Joey an Dexter doing the same shortly after.

"Now get out of my house," Lauren spat, watching the boys scramble to their feet and sprint for the door. Once Abi heard the door slam, she was on her feet.

"Joey, I told you not to do anything!" She exclaimed, taking her turn at pacing. Joey just smirked to himself, happy with the outcome of this situation.

"Technically, I didn't do anything. You have your lovely boyfriend and your other cousin to thank for that," Joey said, excepting the high-five Dexter was offering. Now Abi was fuming.

"Don't congratulate each other, Dexter! If your mum knew what you'd just down she'd kill you! You're already in enough trouble as it is!"

"I think my mum would be proud of me for sticking up for my family," Dexter retorted, rolling his eyes. "And it's not like you were going to tell us anyway."

"No, of course I wouldn't have because I knew you would do something stupid like this!" Abi yelled, feeling the blood boil under skin.

"Who did that to your bag?" Jay asked in an eerily quiet tone. Abi wanted to hit herself for not getting Lola to hide it when they came in. "Was it them?"

"No, i-it wasn't them-"

"Then who was it, Abi! Because they obviously need their head kicked in 'n all!"

"What has gotten into you?!"

"Stop shouting, please," Lola groaned, trying to keep Lexi calm. "Maybe we should just leave you two to it," she said, standing up and giving Abi a hug. "Call me if you need me, yeah?" Abi nodded before Lola left, Dexter following shortly after, giving Abi a quick kiss on the cheek before leaving. Lauren and Joey decided they would go to Lauren's room to give them some space, but to just shout them if they wanted them. Then, it was just the two of them.

"I can't believe you would do this," Abi said, busying herself by tidying up the cushions on the sofa. Jay just tutted.

"What? You can't believe I would sort things while you hid away in your house?" He replied, his voice just above normal level. Abi spun around to face him, taking a few steps towards him.

"That is not sorting it, Jay. That is making things worse."

"At least they won't be bothering you again," Jay scowled, narrowing his eyes at Abi.

"You do realise you could go to prison for what you just did. Then what would happen, huh? Then you'd never be around to 'protect' me, would you?" Abi said bitterly, her hands shaking with anger.

"They're not going to go to the police," he sighed, turning away from her.

"You don't know that!" Abi exclaimed.

"What are you really worried about, Abi?" Jay asked, gripping her shoulders and shaking her slightly. "I thought you would be grateful."

"You really don't get it, do you? You've never actually been to my school, have you?" Jay was shocked at how angry Abi was. He'd never seen her this angry over something he'd done before. She would normally shout at him, but this time she didn't need to. She could have whispered her argument and it still would have had the same impact. "What? Do you think that because you gave three boys a good beating that it's over? Well, news flash, Jay; the whole school wants me to drop dead. So, if you're going to attack all the people who make my life a misery, I would invest in a gun or something to make the job easier." Jay couldn't believe what he was hearing. Abi was the nicest, kindest girl you could ever meet. Why did everyone hate her? Or, more importantly, why hadn't he known about this sooner?

"Why didn't you tell me?" Jay asked, his tone softening slightly.

"Because I was handling it, Jay. Today was just a bad day. You didn't need to get involved. You've just made everything ten times worse."

"I'm sorry, Abi. If I'd have known then I wouldn't have done it. But, you have to understand, this isn't something that should be happening. It's bullying. We need to fix it before it gets out of hand," Jay said, wrapping his arms around her waist cautiously. When she relaxed, he started to stroke her hair and kiss the top of her head. Jay did this whenever Abi got worked up. He was glad to see his trick was still working.

"I'll speak to one of my teachers tomorrow morning. But, you have to promise me, Jay, that this won't happen ever again, okay?" She said strongly. She didn't want anything happening to Jay because the kids at her school hated her. It wasn't fair for him to have to pay for her problems.

"Okay, I promise."

"Leave us alone, 'cause we don't need your policies. We have no apologies for being…"

Now, stood in the Vic with jay being called something as disgusting as a paedophile, Abi knew it was her time to return the favour. What had happened with Linzi wasn't Jay's fault. She's lied to him and now Jay was getting the blame for it. Even though Abi was dating Ben (mainly to get over Jay, but we won't go into that) Jay was still one of her closest friends and she wasn't going to watch him be exiled from everyone for one stupid mistake.

"You can't kick Jay out of the pub, Mick," Abi started, trying to keep the peace at first. She wasn't going to stand for this, but it was better to start off nicely than to go in all guns blazing.

"He committed a crime, Abi. We don't want people thinking that we're supportive of this. We can't have that sort of thing floating around," Mick had responded, glaring at Abi for even getting involved. Abi had just laughed. This was ridiculous.

"Okay then. Looks like Ben has to be barred as well considering he killed Heather. Oh, and Billy will have go as well seeing as he was involved in scams with Phil… Which means Phil is out, too. You should probably kick out Lee and Buster as well considering they tried to steal fish from a pond- Wait, weren't you involved in that as well? A bit hypocritical, Mick, don't you think? Anyway, Stacie needs to go because she killed Archie and is responsible for the death of Bradley. Also, Ronnie's got to go because she swapped her baby with Cat's… Do I need to go on?" Abi folded her arms over her chest and smiled sarcastically at the Carter. He wasn't going to get away with this.

"What are you even talking about?" Mick said angrily, leaning over the bar.

"It's just that you said Jay has to leave because he committed a crime, by accident – might I add, but there are people in here who committed crimes on purpose and they're allowed to come in? So, let's get rid of them as well shall we?" Abi walked over to the door and pushed it open, holding it for the people she'd mentioned.

"You're off your nut," Mick scoffed, rolling his eyes at her.

"Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't realise that admitting to a crime to make the punishments less severe meant that it completely changes what type of person you are," Abi laughed, looking around at all the ashamed faces of the people who had betrayed Jay.

"Don't speak to me like that," Mick spat.

"Or what? Are you going to bar me as well? You know what? Don't even worry about it. I'd rather rot in hell than be in the company of people who are willing to except the mistakes of people who lied, but not of those who own up and actually try to be better people. Come on, Jay. We can get a drink somewhere else." Abi took Jay by the arm and lead him out of the pub and into the street. As they walked, Jay took hold of Abi's arm and dragged her into an ally, gently pushing her against the wall and kissing her. She was going to protest, tell him that she was with Ben and that it was wrong, but she couldn't. A huge part of her that dominated her brain in that moment knew that she would always love; that, that wouldn't change if she stayed with Ben or got with a hundred different men. It was a cruel, hopeless fact that Jay and Abi where infinite. Nothing was going to change that.

"I knew I could count on you," Jay whispered as he pulled away, resting his forehead on hers. Abi just shook her head, moving her hands to cup his face.

"You don't owe them anything, Jay," she insisted, pecking him on the lips. "But," she continued, a sly smile sliding its way onto her face, "you do owe me a drink."