"What do you want to talk to me about?" Is his greeting to me. No "hello", no "I missed you", no kiss, no hug. Just a very prominent, "Let's get down to business" greeting. I'm not sure if that pisses me off any more than it annoys me. Channeling every ounce of frustration I have towards him in my body, I swing the screen door open quickly to let him in. I'm really trying not to blow up on him right now but I'm actually struggling with it. He steps inside the house, kicking his shoes off and I slam the door behind him. "Are you seriously just going to keep slamming things instead of just telling me what I did so I can fix it?" He barrels his neck around the soft corner and waves at both Shane and Leah who are sitting on the couch. "Hey Ross… Murphy." I slap his hand down from the waving position it was in and widen my eyes to let him know that I'm severely irritated with him. I'll start with the lesser things. I'll start with the things that I'm just a little bit bothered by before I lay on the real reason I called him over.
"What time did I text you and tell you to come over, Alex?" I cross my arms over my chest and shift my weight onto my back foot. I pucker my lips into a kissing motion and shift them off to the side. He looks at me with an innocent look in his piercing brown/green eyes and a slight grimace on his face. My irritation rises up a level due to his silence. "Well?! What time did I text you and tell you that I wanted you to come over ASAP? What time was that?!"
He harmlessly shrugs his shoulders and looks down at the ground, pretending to be real interested in the fat golden retriever dog that's lying at my feet. "…I dunno… 2:00? Somewhere around there…" He shoves his hand into his pocket and mumbles, "Hold on." I slap at his hand rather hard and get him to leave it alone.
"Don't look at your phone, look at me." I demand. I cross my arms again and bite the inside of my cheek to bear with the fact that I'm so irritated that I might just reach out and punch him in his jaw. "I texted you at 2:00 and told you to bring your ass over here… WHY DID IT TAKE YOU UNTIL..." I vehemently snatch his phone from the pocket he was just digging into and check the time on it since my phone's in the living room. "WHY DID IT TAKE YOU UNTIL 3:15 TO GET HERE?" I squeeze his phone so hard that I hear the sounds of the glass beginning to crack before I just let it go. "You don't live an hour away. There's NO WAY IN HELL that Leah should've gotten here before you did. Shane called Leah AT 3:00 to come over, and she was here by 3:10. It's 3:15 and YOU'RE JUST NOW GETTING HERE."
"I wanted to eat something, take a shower and put on some clean clothes before I came…" He doesn't even pay attention to the fact that I just put a crack in his phone with my bare hands. He just looks at me with soft, childlike eyes. I'm not calming down by any means, though.
"DID I SAY TO EAT, TAKE A SHOWER AND PUT ON CLEAN CLOTHES BEFORE YOU CAME OVER HERE?! NO I DID NOT. I TOLD YOU TO GET YOUR ASS OVER HERE BECAUSE I NEEDED TO TALK TO YOU… DIDN'T I?"
"Look Jo… can we take this out—"
I push him hard so that his back falls into a corner beside the door. "SHUT UP! I'M TALKING, YOU'RE NOT." I raise up on my tiptoes so that I'm eye to eye with him. "…You… TOLD people? AFTER I JUMPED ON YOU FOR TELLING THEM THAT I WAS SCARED…. YOU TOLD THEM WHAT WE DID?!"
"I really don't think that Ross and Murphy need to hear this. We should take this outside…"
"I DON'T GIVE A CRAP… ABOUT SHANE AND LEAH." I stand in front of him so that he surely can't go anywhere without going through me. "WHAT I CARE ABOUT IS THE FACT THAT YOU CAN'T KEEP YOUR MOUTH SHUT ABOUT ANYTHING. IT'S LIKE… ALL YOU WANT TO DO IS BLAB ABOUT WHAT WE DO IN THE BED….EVEN IF IT'S NOTHING." I push my index finger into the bulk of his chest. "You don't get to tell people about me. You don't get to run your mouth about the things I let you do to me. I don't know… WHY you feel so entitled to tell your little groupies about the things that we do, but I DON'T LIKE IT. So STOP."
"Whoa, I don't know… what you heard, but I didn't tell them anything…"
"And now you're lying." I roll my eyes and throw my hands up in the air. "I ALREADY KNOW THAT YOU TOLD SO DON'T LIE TO ME." I take a couple steps away from him because I really feel like I might hit him and I don't want to. "…I get it, okay? I get that… I get that you boys feel the need to brag about every little thing that you do to your girlfriends. I get that it's just in your guy genes or whatever. But… You could've at least WAITED, Alex. The next day?! Really?! Is that how much you respect me?"
"I didn't tell the whole damn bus, though. Just Ross and Avery." He reaches out to touch my shoulder but I shrug him away. "They're my friends. You have friends that you tell about things and so do I. I did NOT tell the whole bus. I wouldn't do that. I really wouldn't do anything like that, and if I knew that telling anybody was going to piss you off, I wouldn't have done it. I didn't think you'd care if I told Shane and Jackson, so I did. But if I knew that it would bug you, I wouldn't have. I would never tell the whole entire freaking bus about that. Not after what you've been through."
Maybe he has a little bit of a point. You told Steph, Leah and Heather about it the day after it happened. He was just telling his friends. "So you didn't tell the whole team? You guys didn't have a discussion about it on the bus?"
"We did, but it wasn't the whole team. It was just the three of us." He still has a smug, guilty look on his face. "…I'll tell you everything that we talked about. Can we go somewhere more private, though? I'll tell you everything…"
"…No, you don't have to do that." I feel like such a raging bitch. I didn't even let him explain himself before I went off on a tirade. That was the most hypocritical thing I've ever done. How did I flip out on him like that when he was just doing the same thing I was doing? I told my friends and he told his… I think I need to get a grip. "…I'm sorry. I just… I didn't like to think about the fact that my body was the topic of discussion. I thought that you told the whole team. You're right; I don't care that you told Shane and Jackson. I'm sorry… I'm really sorry… about your phone… and about snapping out, but mostly about your phone…"
"It's fine." He reaches out to touch me again and I let him this time. "You don't trust me." I pull myself away from his touch again to look at him and object to what he just said. He quickly silences me by putting his finger over my lips. "You don't trust me, and that's okay. It's okay that you don't trust me. I don't expect you to. But you really need to learn how to trust me. I'm not going to hurt you, Jo. I'll never hurt you…ever. I won't do anything to hurt you. You don't trust me yet but you're gonna learn. I won't hurt you. You mean way too much to me."
"I do trust you." I whisper.
"No you don't. And that's okay. You don't have to. After everything you've been through, you don't have to trust me." He slides my hair away from my forehead and gives me a tender kiss on it. "Why don't you start by trusting that I won't let anything happen to you? Trust that. Trust that the safest place for you to be is with me. Do you trust that?" Hesitantly, I wrap my arms around his waist and squeeze. I nod my head. He's right. You don't trust him. And you have no reason not to. He is not Jason. He won't hurt you. He never gave you a reason not to trust him. You have to start trusting Alex. "Do you have somewhere that we can be alone? I do want to tell you the things that were said on that bus… and I'd feel better if we had some privacy."
"Um… yeah." I reluctantly let him go and look up towards the steps. "I don't have a room yet. The insurance agent won't let us into my old house to get my furniture out of my old room until Tuesday, so I still don't have a room. Shane's little brothers are going to room together so I can have my own room, but that hasn't happened yet. So we have to go up to Shane's room." I grab his hand and start eagerly running up the steps. I lead him up the steps, down the hallway to the room that Shane and I currently share. Behind us, I shut the door but I don't lock it. I don't want Shane to think we're doing anything major in his room.
"You and Ross share the same bed?" His eyes narrow once he sees that there's only one bed in the room. I think he got the picture, since Shane's black pillow is at the top of the bed and my pink pillow is at the bottom. "Is that even comfortable?"
"No, not really. But it's a place to sleep." I kick my red duffel bag to the side to make room for us to sit down on the floor. I slowly sit myself down on the floor and rest my back up against the base of Shane's bed. Alex sits down beside me. "Sorry about the mess in here." I move a pile of clothes over. "We're supposed to be washing clothes today but you see how far we've gotten…"
"Yes… I do see how far we've gotten…" With a playful smirk on his face, he discreetly reaches over in the pile of clothes on the other side of him and holds up a skimpy pair of my black lace underwear. He dangles them in front of my face by one of his fingers and laughs out loud. "Can I keep these?"
"No, what the hell?!" I snatch them off him and toss them into a dirty clothes pile. "They're dirty and… ew. No, you can't have them. Why would you even want them?" I playfully punch him in his arm. "Seriously though, let me see your phone. I think I cracked it…" I reach into his pocket and grab it. I run my thumb over the tiny crack I put in the corner from squeezing it. "Damn… I'm sorry."
"It's alright. My phone's a piece of shit anyway." He nervously starts wringing his hands. "So um… what was said on the bus…"
"You don't have to tell me. I'm doing this new thing called 'trusting you', and I trust that you didn't say anything to make me look like a whore. I have friends that I told and you were just telling your friends. It's okay. I'm trying to trust you."
"Okay." He agrees to drop the subject and we both just sit there, side by side in silence for the next few moments. He starts twisting his phone in his hands, looking down at the carpet between us. Because I don't know what to say to break the silence just as much as he doesn't know what to say, I run my fingers along the carpet and tap them against the floor. Softly, he clears his throat and turns his head so he's facing forward. "So uh… do you want to talk about it? We kinda haven't talked about it…"
"Talked about what?" I wrinkle my brow and pretend to be intently concentrated on a crack in Shane's wall that I put there by throwing his iPod at it, a couple years back. I really hope he's not asking me to talk about the Jason thing. I told him that I'd tell him what happened when I'm ready, and I will. I'll tell Alex how everything happened whenever I'm ready. I'll tell him what's going on in the case against him…when I'm ready. I'm not ready yet. I'm not ready.
"It." Very slyly, he walks his fingers over to the hand that I was just drumming against the carpet and interlocks our fingers.
"…What's it?" I'm not talking about getting raped today. For ONE DAY, I don't want to talk about it. I don't want to even think about it for one freaking day. Just one day. How do I tell him that I'm not talking about it today, without sounding bitchy?
He looks over at me, but I keep my head facing forward. "Jo." I don't budge. From the corner of my eye, I see his lips turn up into that goofy smile that I love so much. He scoots over towards me just a little bit and sticks his neck way out. "Do you want to talk about it?" His lips push against my cheek, softly. "Or would you rather just relive it?"
My jaw drops, my eyes squint, my eyebrows raise and my head whips to face him so quickly that I probably gave myself whiplash. I think you're talking about two totally different things here. What the hell is he talking about? "What are you talking about?"
Again, he scoots closer to me, closing the remaining gap we had between ourselves and tilts his head. "You know what I'm talking about." His voice comes out in a soft mumble before his lips collide with the skin on my neck, sending chills up my spine. Yep, you were totally on two different pages just a minute ago. Glad you caught up. And reassuring my thoughts, making sure that I know exactly what he's talking about, his hand slowly creeps up my leg. Past my knee, inching towards the inside of my thigh, stopping at my core. My legs are closed pretty tight, so I part them just a little. "You never did tell me what you really thought about it…" His breath tickles my neck and my eyes drift shut.
I throw my head back and let it rest against the soft part of the mattress we're sitting against. My pesky hair falls over my face and creates a curtain so that he can't see me. I don't think I'm going to bother moving it. I know my hair and I know that it's just going to keep falling where I don't want it, so moving it is pointless. If you don't want to do this, you'd better say it now. You will NOT cry again. I reach down and pull his hand from between my legs. I pick my head up, tilt it and lean in to kiss him. He slowly but surely slides his tongue in my mouth, and out of instinct, I softly drag my teeth across it every time it darts in and out of the kiss. I think the whole teeth-on-tongue thing drives him wild, because all of a sudden, he's all aggressive with me.
He pushes me down flat against the floor and climbs on top of my body. The look on his face is a cross between flat-out hunger and desperation. I put my hand on the back of his head and pull his face back down to mine. Since he seems to have liked it so much, I start dragging my teeth across his tongue some more, which makes him even more forceful. His hands make their way to the waistband of my shorts and his fingers shake and wiggle as he frantically tries to untie the drawstrings on them. I guess I must've found one of his turn-ons. It makes sense that I know what drives him crazy. He knows that kissing me on my neck makes me insane and now I know that dragging my teeth across his tongue drives him wild. He pulls out of the kiss quickly and aggressively puts his mouth to the exact spot on my neck that makes me want him. "I need you so bad…" He growls and picks his face up from the spot on my neck. He looks down between my legs to see what he's doing. As soon as he stops trying to do it blindly, the drawstrings of my shorts come undone.
His face buries itself back in my neck and I hold it there, curling all ten of my fingers inside his long, dark brown, shaggy locks. As his tongue works the spot below my ear, his hands are yanking my shorts off. I lift my bottom half up just slightly so he can take them off with ease. "Oh god… I need you too…" I huff in a soft, low, pleasure-induced murmur. One of his hands comes up and files itself through the wavy lengths of my hair while his other hand teases me through my underwear. Mechanically, my back arches just slightly and my mouth drops open. He pulls away from my body a little so he can watch my reactions. Through my hooded eyes, I can see a smirk come across his face. When he seems satisfied, he presses his lips to the mole beside my mouth and goes back to kissing my neck. I don't think I'm going to go off the deep end this time around. The more I've been thinking about it, the more I realize that I think the reason I became so unsteady the first time we did this was because of his words. I remember what he said the first time I took my shirt off for him. He said "God, you're sexy." …Jason said the same thing to me…
He untangles his free hand from the lengths of my hair and reaches down to move my long, baggy, oversized sweater out of his way. With the hand that was already occupying me, he slides himself wrist-deep inside my underwear and between my legs. I would totally take off my shirt for him, but the lights are on. If they were off, I'd take it off. I just don't want to risk him seeing my secret. Just like the first time, my chest bucks upwards off the floor and a mollified gasp slips out from the back of my throat when I suddenly feel him inside. Aside from my inaudible moan, the only sound interrupting us is the sound of the doorbell. He stops his hand movements between my legs and looks up at me.
I could kill him right now. Is he serious right now? SO WHAT THAT THE DOORBELL RANG. "No….No, don't stop…" I mumble, letting the annoyance seep into the tone of my voice just a little. He kisses me on my lips once more and I bite down on his bottom lip, not enough to hurt him though. Like I told him not to, he stops again. With one final kiss, he trails his lips down my body. A kiss on my collarbone, a kiss on my sweater-covered chest, a kiss on the only part of my stomach that's exposed, a kiss with his tongue playing with my belly ring. He stops before the next spot for him to kiss is between my legs. He slides both his arms up, hooks them around my thighs and pulls my legs further apart and further into his face. He's gonna… I wad up my long sleeve and bite down on it just as he kisses the inside part of my thigh. His tongue traces shapes on the inside part, right before my folds. Why is he teasing me like this?
He moves his head over to the main part of me, and at the same time he does that, Shane's door busts open. I know it's nobody but either Shane or Leah, so I'm not even embarrassed as much as I'm PISSED OFF. Simultaneously, Alex steadies himself and I pop my head up from the side of the bed. Shane's standing dead in the doorway and I could seriously kill him with my bare hands right now. "THE DOOR WAS CLOSED, WHICH MEANS I NEED SOME FUCKING PR—"
"I'm so sorry to interrupt whatever's going on here…" He's not even bothered by the fact that he just walked in on what he just walked in on. "I would be pissed if I got interrupted in the middle, but J… you gotta come downstairs."
I grab my pink pillow off the edge of Shane's bed and chuck it at him. "YOU JUST RUINED THE MOOD, GET OUT!" The pillow dies before it can hit Shane but he got the point that I want him out. I was about to… I was about to… DAMMIT SHANE. And I was really excited about it, too! He was about to go down on me! REALLY?! I could cry right now.
"J, LUCY'S HERE! You need to come downstairs!"
"….Who?!" Did he really just say what I think he said? I stand up very quickly and scurry around in my now-sticky underwear. I'll change them after I deal with who I think he just said. My slightly sweaty hair is flying and bouncing all over the place with my rushed movements. Alex is just sitting there on the floor, dumbfounded and probably embarrassed. He shouldn't be embarrassed though. I'm glad it was just Shane that walked in on it. I caught him and Leah having phone sex the other night so we're pretty much equal now. "What the fuck is she doing here?" I stuff my feet into a pair of dirty sweatpants since I can't find the shorts that Alex took off me. I lean down and kiss him quickly. "Stay right here. I'll be right back, I promise." I step over him and he gives me a quick slap on my ass. "..I know… and I promise we'll finish this. Let me take care of this." I apologize again before I dash out the bedroom door. Pissed off isn't even the word for how I'm feeling right now.
I quickly run down the steps, all the while snatching my hair up into a high ponytail with the holder I had on my wrist. Leah's standing in the doorway with her ear plugged with one finger and the phone pressed to her other. I turn to her and whisper so I don't interrupt her phone convo. "I was in the middle of having… this is bullshit." Leah just nods her head at me and keeps babbling on the phone. She seems panicked.
I grab the doorknob and yank it open. Descending down the steps is a less dumbfounded Alex. I step out onto the porch and yeah… it's really her. She's really here…and she brought a whole crew. This isn't going to take long. It's not going to take long because I said it's not going to take long. I have unfinished business that I want to finish. "…Yeah?" I greet her.
She's dressed in sweatpants, a t-shirt, sneakers and her hair is pulled back. Behind her, some girls are dressed in the same manner. One girl has her cell phone out, though. She puts her hands on her hips and steps back to "look" at me. "What was that shit you were talking on Facebook last night?"
Is she serious? I really don't have time for this. She's referring to the little Facebook argument we had last night. I'm not friends with her on Facebook, but Heather is. Heather showed me one of Lucy's statuses and she said that she missed Alex. So of course, I commented on it and told her to shut up and it was a whole big argument. It was pretty stupid, actually and it only happened because me, Steph, Leah and Heather were all bored and didn't feel like going to sleep. I blocked it out without even trying, that's how irrelevant the whole thing was. "Nothing." I take another step out onto the porch and keep my hands to my side. Leah and Shane both step out onto the porch with me but Alex is still inside the house.
"Leah, this has nothing to do with you. I don't have a problem with you. This is between me and Jo." Lucy rolls her neck and calls Leah out.
"I totally get that." Leah puts her hands up to indicate that she doesn't want anything to do with it. "But just know that you guys aren't jumping her. This has nothing to do with me, but I'm not going to let you guys jump her. Everything's all good. I called Stephanie and Heather both over here, just in case. We don't want problems with you, Lucy. But Jo's not getting jumped and that's that."
"Whatever." She puts her hand up to Leah and turns her attention back to me. "So what was that shit you were talking on Facebook last night? You said you were gonna fuck me up? You said that we could meet up, and then when I tried to schedule it, you chickened out? Talk shit to my face."
"I don't have anything to say to you." I take a step away from her and just look elsewhere. Out of nervous habit, I bring my hand up and start biting on my thumbnail. I'm not a confrontational person at all. I hate confrontation and getting called out like this is really… freaking me out a bit. "All this is over Alex and it's bullshit because he's with me and not with you, so I don't have anything else to say to you." I turn to her recording friend. "So you can turn the camera off, and you can all go home. Because I don't have anything to say."
"But you had a whole lot to say on Facebook last night, right?!" She starts getting loud with me and I just roll my eyes up to the ceiling. "And it's not even over Alex. Why would I fight you over something I already had? It's strictly because you have a smart ass mouth and WE DON'T LIKE EACH OTHER."
"…First of all, who said anything about fighting over Alex? I said if I was gonna fight you, it would be because of what you said to me over those text messages. And second of all, I don't have a problem with you. YOU DON'T LIKE ME, and you THINK I give a shit when I really don't. I don't care that you don't like me. So like I said… I'm not fighting with you over Alex. I already have Alex. You want him and I have him, so what's the really the issue?"
"I ALREADY FUCKED HIM OVER TEN TIMES! YOU DIDN'T EVEN FUCK HIM ONCE!"
"Okay, and what's your point?" Even though she's getting loud with me, my voice remains calm. "So you had sex with him… big whoop. I don't care. I'm not arguing with you."
"So now you're all holier-than-thou and you won't argue with me, but you had a lot of shit to say on Facebook last night?" I look past her because I'm more interested in the car that just pulled up. Heather and Stephanie get out of it and the car speeds away. Leah runs off the porch to greet them two. "Fuck you. You're such an immature little freshman."
"Okay." I nod and keep biting my thumbnail.
"Why are you so quiet?! Huh?! Why are you so quiet?!" One of her friends starts screaming at me too. "You were pretty loud over the internet, and now you wanna be quiet?! You're a pussy! You won't say shit to nobody's face!"
"I'm not arguing with any of you." The door to Shane's house opens up again and Alex steps out on the porch finally. I don't even acknowledge him because he's irrelevant to the whole situation. Lucy sure notices him though.
"She won't argue 'cause she's nothing but a bitch." The friend of Lucy's that's recording takes her turn to have a jab at me.
"…No, I just don't argue. Period." Steph, Heather, Leah, Shane and Alex are all standing behind me as if I need them or something. "I'm not an arguer. I'm not gonna argue, you'll never catch me arguing. I don't argue. The energy I waste arguing can be put into throwing a punch. So unless any of you are talking about throwing punches, I'm not arguing." I keep biting my fingernails.
Lucy rolls her eyes at me. "I don't hit first, so… if you don't want to fight then we're not gonna fight. I'm not gonna beat your ass for free. You're sitting here saying that you don't want to fight me, so that's that. You're real tough over Facebook but in person, you're a pussy. No wonder nobody cares about you. No wonder you can't keep a steady home. Nobody wants to be bothered with a big ass pussy."
"Lucy, you don't have to s—" Alex starts talking from behind me but I put my hand up to silence him.
"Truth be told Lucy, you're nothing a pussy either. You were talking about how you're gonna beat Jo up and all that stuff, but all you've done was insult her. I don't think you really want to fight…" Steph starts talking from behind my back too.
"I do want to fight her! But she's not even mad! I'm just trying to get her mad! I don't want to beat her up without her fighting back!" Lucy takes a step towards me and I take one step back.
"You don't have to get me mad. I'm already mad." I state, matter-of-factly. "Don't fucking talk shit on my family. You don't know me."
"AWWW… Orphan girl has feelings!" The friend with the phone that's recording says. I flick her off.
Lucy laughs. "Oh, so you don't like it when I talk about how nobody wants you? Obviously you're not mad enough. Like I said, I don't start fights… I finish them." I bawl my hands up into fists. I really don't want to fight. I don't want to fight her. I have class, and classy girls don't fight over boys. I'm not fighting her. I'm not gonna let her piss me off. The last time I fought a girl, I almost killed her. Lucy turns to her friends and laughs some more. "She thinks that just because she beat up a fat chick I'm supposed to be afraid of her." She takes her hair out of the ponytail she had it in and turns away. "Let's go. This bitch isn't worth it."
"…Well just because she has a smart mouth, and you obviously won't hit her Lus…" The friend that's not recording steps over to me and out of NOWHERE, she punches me square in my face. "Doesn't mean I won't hit her for you. Come on… we can leave now."
I bring my hand up and touch my cheek. She doesn't hit very hard, but I taste a little bit of blood in my mouth. Well again, at least I can say I tried to stay civil. Don't show your ass in front of Alex. Go ahead and get her, but contain yourself. I take three steps forward and that's all it takes. Have you ever had an out-of-body experience? I have. Have you ever had something happen to where you literally just leave your body and you watch it happen… as if it's not happening to you? Well I don't know who Jo is right now, but she's definitely not me. I'm watching her in action.
I grab her hair back with a firm grip and pull her towards me. "DON'T YOU EVER IN YOUR FUCKING LIFE HIT ME WHILE I'M NOT LOOKING! BITCH ARE YOU CRAZY?!" All I do is hit her once in the face and she's down on the ground. I grab her by her hair and punch her in the crown of her head. The girl has her head down so I can't get her face like I want to. Out of the clear blue, I feel my own hair get pulled back and my own face being punched. And that's when I officially leave my body and black out. I don't even think about anything that happens next. I just do it.
Lucy starts punching me in my back, so I take a second off from beating up the bitch that snuck me to get her. When I'm done with the ballsy one that snuck me, Heather, Leah and Steph all stand in front of her and scream at all of Lucy's little posse. "NO JUMPING! THIS IS ALL FAIR FIGHTING! YOU GUYS AREN'T JUMPING HER!"
I don't even pay attention to them. Lucy's trying to fight me back but I won't let her. My anger isn't even directed at her, it's directed at the fact that her friend snuck and hit me in my face when I wasn't looking. But whatever. I already beat that bitch's ass so I might as well beat Lucy's ass while I'm at it. "I'LL FUCKIN' KILL YOU!" I literally punch her into the corner of Shane's porch until she can't go anywhere else besides down. Think about what she said about your mom. She said nobody wants you. That was disrespectful. The only defense Lucy has is pulling my ponytail. Eventually, the holder rips and my mounds and mounds of hair come tumbling down. I'm way too pretty to be doing this. "Get off my fucking hair!" Finally, she's down on the ground and I get down on top of her, straddling her. She's pulling my hair so hard that I can't move my head. "GET OFF MY HAIR!" Because I can't move my head, she's able to kick me in my stomach and switch our positions so now she's on top of me.
"COME ON, JO! GET UP!" Leah screams from across the porch.
Lucy's hovering over me with a death-grip on my hair, punching me in my jaw. "YOU WANNA GET SMART ON FACEBOOK, BITCH?! YOU WANNA GET SMART ON FACEBOOK?!"
"JO, GET UP! GET UP!" Shane's in my ear, clapping at me like I'm a dog.
I'm way too classy to be fighting like this, but I'll be damned if I let this girl beat me up. So I take some strength that's been lying dormant in my body for a while and roll her over so that I'm on top of her. I have way too much hair, because she just grabs it again. "Let my fucking hair go, bitch!" You gotta stand up. You gotta stand up. If you stand up, she won't have your hair. I push her face to the side and pull myself up off the ground. Naked pictures to Alex, texting him telling him she misses him, posting pictures of him on Facebook, TALKING ABOUT YOUR FAMILY. She needs it… she needs it bad. I push her into the corner she's already lying in and start kicking her because if I kneel down to punch her, all she's gonna do is grab my hair. I brace myself on the railing of Shane's porch and stand on top of her with one foot on her abdomen and my free foot stomping down on her face. "IF YOU EVER TALK ABOUT MY FUCKING FAMILY AGAIN… IF YOU EVER FUCKING…" She's covering her face with her arms and I don't like that. So, because I can now that her hands are occupied by covering her face, I throw a couple deep punches to her hands to get her to move them. "MOVE YOUR HANDS, BITCH!" Once I finally get her to move them, I stomp on her face a couple more times.
"JO! JO, STOP IT! YOU'RE GONNA KILL HER! THAT'S ENOUGH!" Alex wraps his arms around my waist and pulls but Shane yanks Alex away. "ROSS, LET ME GET HER OFF!"
"DON'T TOUCH HER! TRUST ME, DON'T TOUCH HER!" Shane yells back.
Lucy is literally crying blood right now, but I'm still… seeing red. "DON'T EVER FUCKIN… TEXT…" This corner isn't cutting it for me. I grab her hair and drag her across the porch and down the steps to Shane's front lawn because I need more room. She's crying and I can hear it but I don't care. "MY FUCKING BOYFRIEND'S PHONE!"
"JO, STOP! STOP IT! STOP IT JO!" Alex has my arm in his hand.
"Alex, I'm telling you to get off her! GET OFF HER!"
Shane warned him and he didn't listen. "GET OFF ME!" I swing a fist back at Alex but I don't connect with anything. "I TOLD YOU I DIDN'T WANT TO FIGHT YOU! BUT YOU KEPT…" I get on top of her again and grab her by her shirt. Her hair is sticking to her bloody face. I punch her square in the bridge of her nose. "FUCKING… BITCH…." I slam her head down into the pavement. Two of Lucy's friends try to get me off her now.
"Guys, stop! Stop her! She's killing her!" One of her friends is crying.
"J… J…. J!" Shane grabs my arms.
"ROSS, STOP HER! SHE'S KILLING HER!"
"J, LOOSEN UP! LOOSEN UP!"
"JO, STOP!" Everybody's voices are just mushing together.
"Guys, please get her off her! She's gonna kill her!"
"I THINK SHE'S DEAD!"
"Oh, Lus… Lus… Lus are you okay?"
"JO GET OFF!"
"JOSEPHINE!"
"OKAY, OKAY THAT'S ENOUGH!"
"J…J!"
Alex's arms wrap themselves around me so tight that I can't move, let alone breathe. "CALM DOWN… THAT'S ENOUGH! THAT'S ENOUGH!"
I'm STILL seeing red. I dig my nails into his wrist. "GET OFF ME! LET ME GO!"
"NO! YOU'RE GONNA KILL THE GIRL! LOOK AT HER! YOU'RE GONNA KILL HER!"
Shane helps Lucy up off the ground. She's walking, isn't she? She's moving, isn't she? She's breathing, right? She's not dead. Let me at her. Just one more… one more. "Now get out of here! She's never done anything like this before and I don't know if she can stop! I told you to get out of here before I even went to go get her! Don't come back! It's your fault! You did this!" Shane walks over to me and puts his hands on my cheeks. "J, it's okay… it's okay… it's okay… it's okay…" He turns back to Lucy and her friends. "GET OUT OF HERE! SHE'S NEVER DONE THIS BEFORE AND IT'S HARD FOR HER TO STOP!" My senses are coming back…
My face hurts. My jaw, right where the girl punched me is aching. My scalp is sore from her pulling on my hair. My hands have so much blood on them that they're not even white anymore. I taste blood in my mouth and feel blood coming out of my own nose. My shirt is covered in blood. My pants are covered in blood and grass stains. Lucy is limping away, wailing and sobbing. Her friends have to help her walk. The friend that snuck and hit me while I wasn't looking has a black eye and a bloody mouth. Both the friends are crying right with Lucy. Well on the bright side…
I didn't kill her.