Chapt. 13

Tuesday morning came and Tori's body already started to cave in from the extra training and all those times she'd fallen onto that log.

She was so sore that, even though she made her way to class early, she was still late as she could only walk at a slow pace. Even worse for Tori, her first class was physical education and the class were playing volleyball. It was the first time in Tori's life where she didn't want to play sport.

Tori asked the teacher, Mr Johnson, if she could sit on the sidelines for today. "Do you have a note from the nurse?" Johnson asked.

Tori shook her head. "No, but…"

"I can't excuse you unless you have a note." Johnson said. "Sorry, school's rules, not mine." He said unsympathetic.

Tori walked to the girls changing rooms to get changed. She saw Christina, who had only just gotten changed.

"Are you all right Tori?" Christina asked noticing Tori's limp.

"Yeah," Tori lied. "I'll be fine. Just a bit tired." She said before closing the door of the changing cubicle.

The physical education uniform was just a white polo shirt and blue gym shorts.

When Tori got out of the changing rooms into the main hall she saw that people had already been grouped into teams. As she saw that there were no mix gender teams, Tori guessed that the game was going to be girls verse boys.

"Tori!" Lyndall called over to Tori. When Tori saw her waving her hand she walked over towards the group of girls, which included Christina and Melanie, who didn't look too impressed that Lyndall was talking to Tori.

Johnson blew his whistle loudly to get everyone quiet. "Everyone get into positions on the court." He ordered.

Tori kept to the back, hoping that way the ball would hardly go her way. Before she had time to think, Johnson blew the whistle and the ball was smacked high into the air and sank down to the girl in the middle of the front row.

Tori could hardly concentrate on the game as her tiredness caught up with her from the night before. She kept daydreaming until she heard someone yell out her name.

By the time she was taken out of her daze, Tori saw the ball flying towards her. She hastily put out her hands to hit the ball just as it smacked into her head.

Tori didn't get knocked down but her dignity got toned down a few notches as she heard everyone failing to hold in their laughter.

She looked to the opposite side of the neck to see Alex, Deak and, even, Fox all not bothering to hold in their laughter like the rest of the class were.

'It's not that funny,' Tori wanted to yell out as she rubbed the top of her head.

"You can serve Lockhart." Johnson said sounding as though he just wanted her to hurry up and get the game started again.

Tori looked at the group of cadets again and saw that they weren't paying attention. Before they realized what was going on, Tori closed her right hand as she held the ball in her left and smacked it as hard as she could over the fence.

As soon as the smack echoed through the hall the Alex realized the ball was making its way, quickly, towards him. His eyes widening, Alex ducked just in time as the ball flew into where his head would've been. The ball continued to go until it hit the person behind Alex. Jeremy.

Jeremy collapsed straight to the ground just as Tori gasped and closed her hands over her mouth in shock.

Everyone else became shocked and walked over to Jeremy to see if he was okay. Ignoring the fact that no one came over to see if she was all right when she got hit, Tori followed the crowd towards Jeremy.

"I'm sorry Jeremy," was all Tori could think to say when she squeezed through the crowd. She gasped again when she saw his nose was bleeding.

"I'm fine," Tori could tell Jeremy was lying.

"That's enough." Johnson intervened as the group of people kept asking Jeremy questions. "Go grab some tissues and an icepack from the nurse Mr Walken."

Jeremy stood up slowly as he held his hand over his nose and exited the hall.

"Nice one green boy." Melanie whispered to Tori as she walked back to where she was standing before she moved.

'What the hell is her problem?' Tori thought as she stepped back into her own position. She now wished she hit Melanie instead of Jeremy. She giggled at the thought of Melanie's nose bleeding and turning purple. 'Alicia would've liked that.'

*

"How's your boyfriend's nose?" Alex asked Tori the moment their nighttime training started.

"I haven't asked him yet." Tori snapped. She left out the part about not having the courage to ask Jeremy how his nose was. "That would've been you if you didn't duck."

"I know." Alex nodded happily. "I have to admit though, you have a good arm." He snickered.

"You just keep on going with the jokes don't you." Tori expressed fake amusement. "Anyway, what fun task are you going to make me do today?"

"I want you to run a couple of laps first and then you can try the monkey bars." Alex replied obviously enjoying his reign of power over Tori.

"I knew this was going to be exciting." Tori said sarcastically before starting her first lap around the course.

When she had gotten up to about three laps Alex stopped her and called her back.

"Do you have water?" Tori's throat felt dry as she tried to catch a breath.

Alex looked in the bag, probably a first aid kit, which Payne had given him and pulled out a bottle of water.

Though the water was a bit warm, Tori took a couple of large gulps before giving the bottle back.

"Monkey bars now." Alex nodded his head towards the rusted monkey bars.

Tori rolled her eyes as she turned towards the bars. She thought this would probably be the hardest part of the course. Tori was never very good at swinging across monkey bars, especially as a child.

When she got to the monkey bars, Tori realized that she was too short to reach the first bar. She stepped onto the log just before the bars and stretched out to grab the bar.

Tori held onto the first bar for a while until she took up the courage to let go with one hand and reach out for the second one.

When she took hold of the second bar with her left hand and released the grip of her right hand around the first only to have her left hand slip and cause her to fall to the ground.

Instead of feeling embarrassed Tori burst into laughter as she kept her back to the ground.

Alex got worried slightly when he saw that Tori wasn't getting up so he walked towards her to check if she was all right. He got to her only to realize that she was in hysterics. Alex couldn't help but laugh with her.

"You all right?" He inquired.

"Yeah," Tori breathed as she picked herself up off of the ground. She didn't know if she was laughing out of shock or because she pictured herself falling from an outside point-of-view.

Alex felt at a loss of words for a moment as he glanced at Tori's smile. He cleared his throat and looked away.

"Start over again," he said trying to stay serious.

Tori wiped her eyes and went back to the beginning.

*

As soon as the school bell rung the next morning Tori tried to find Jeremy.

She caught up to him just before class when she saw him standing by his locker.

She staggered gradually towards him and spoke softly. "Jeremy," She spoke from behind his locker door.

Jeremy closed the door to reveal his nose was still considerably red and painful looking.

"I'm sorry Jeremy." Tori apologized. "I wasn't aiming the ball at you."

"It's fine." Jeremy smiled. "You got me out of history class." He said.

Tori smiled faintly.

Jeremy grabbed her face under her faded green hair and pressed his lips softly against hers. Tori thought the kiss was a lot better this time so she went with the flow and sunk into it.

When the bell rang for everyone to get to class Jeremy let go with a big grin on his face. He winked before turning and making his way towards his first class.