The repeat button on the CD player is a God-send. I know listening to that
song probably didn't help the situation but I couldn't help myself. I dozed
off a few time but I only woke up to feel crappier than before. Stupid
Josie. Stupid Fulton. Stupid yelling. Stupid me with my big stupid mouth.
Before I got to list anymore stupid stuff a knock came from behind the door. Oh no; I'm either psychic and Josie is here to yell at me for the first time and I have to relive it, she's come back to yell at me some more, Fulton is ready to kick my ass , or she's going to yell at me while Fulton is kicking my ass.
"Adam! Open up! I forgot my key!" I heard Averman yell from behind the door, trying to make it over to music.
I turned off the music and unlocked the door, opening it for him and walking back to my bed to hide under the covers.
"Whoa dude, you look like a preppy Night of the Living Dead or something." Averman commented as I bunched my covers around me.
I groaned. "Well I feel like road-kill."
Averman nodded. "You look like road-kill. You stay here and I'll get Charlie, and some of the guys. We'll sit around, watch a movie, do guy stuff. . ."
I covered my head with the pillow. "I kind of want to be alone right now. I'll listen to music and sleep and tomorrow will be a new day."
"As much as well all love Puddle of Mud, I don't think the song 'She hates me' is going to help your situation Banksie."
"And what do you know about my situation?" I snapped at him grabbing something off of the headboard and throwing it in his general direction hearing a shattering noise, made me guess two things, what I threw was breakable and Averman wasn't in the mood to be playing catch.
I heard him sigh. "Banksie, Banksie, Banksie, Banksie. Do you have any idea how many times I have been snubbed by the girls at this school? And after plenty of depressing states, much like yours, I realized that being around friends help." He began to tug at the blanket that surrounded me. "Get up; comb your hair in the Cake-eater fashion, and I'll go get the guys."
I sat up and looked him in the eyes. "She says I'm dead to her. You said she loved me."
Averman lowered his eyes from me and nodded. "Charlie said he was there the entire time. He said she said that she wouldn't let herself like you. Banks, I think you scare her."
I nodded. That's the conclusion I came to, too.
He got up and smiled. "Come on, it'll be fun."
~*~
I sat down on the couch surrounded by the team, minus a few. A few being, the girls and Fulton and Portman.
Charlie grinned and stood up on the couch beside me. "Seeing one of us is having a crappy terrible day, I award control of the TV to Banksie!"
I scoff as I take the remote control as Charlie sits down still wearing the same goofy grin. Movie channels, let's start there. I begin flipping after heard bored tones say, "Seen it!" "Crap!" or "chick flick!" I finally come to a movie channel where supposedly a 'premiere' was being shown. Everyone grinned as the opening credits began to show, when suddenly. . .
"Josie and the Pussycats!"
I flicked it quickly. I glared at the TV. It was possessed by her. Charlie shrugged, with his eyes wide. "No problem. How about a TV show instead?"
Everyone nodded in agreement as I began to flip channels again. I began to announce what it was to everyone what the show was. "Friends, Friends, That 70's show. . ."
Everyone quickly yelled stop. I'm not sure why this show is so appealing but it is. I leaned back as it faded out to the Theme song. Then it came to an end.
"Hello Wisconsin!"
I got up immediately and handed the remote to Charlie. Wisconsin. Out of all the states in the USA That 70's show was set in Wisconsin. Everyone looked on as I left the TV room. Everything was reminding me of her. What it just so happened, a movie with HER name in it was starting as I began to flip channels? I brushed my hair out of my eyes, just in time to see Fulton leave his dorm room.
I saw Fulton's eyes flash as they met mine. I swallowed. Ok, so I dragged his good name through the dirt when I said he was doing things with Josie when he really wasn't. Fulton wasn't the type to hold grudges right? For some reason, I remembered the time I was with my friends when I was still a Hawk. He threw us in trash. He was a big bad teenager now and there weren't any dumpsters in this hallway.
He walked my way, his huge steel toed boots thumping down the hall echoing in the dim of the hall. I bet getting kicked with those would be mighty painful. I'm trying to rate it. It's probably in between getting slammed into the goal posts and having a hockey stick broken over my wrist. Actually probably worse, seeing he wouldn't kick me once; it would be probably repeatedly so I'm preparing myself for the worse pain of my life. I squeeze my eyelids closed. I don't want to see him come at me.
"Banks we need to talk."
I open one of my eyes. He looks angry but he isn't doing anything. Maybe he's just penning up his anger so he can beat me up worse than he can now. I swallow nervously.
Fulton rolls his eyes. "If order for us to talk, you need to say something."
I manage out a squeak that sounds suspiciously like an "Oh."
"My dorm." Fulton says eying the hallway over my shoulder. I honestly have no idea what he's so nervous about. If he wanted to, he could kick my skinny ass, but maybe that's just my nerves talking.
He puts a hand on my back and guides me into the belly of the beast, the layer of my enemy, the. . .
I never realized that when I'm nervous I begin to ramble. I had no clue. . .
He opened the door to his dorm and gave me a little push into the room, which was roughly the same size as mine and slightly neater, but that's only because after Josie left and after I slept for the first hour or so I woke up and began throwing some of my own stuff around the room. Averman doesn't have anything that shatters or makes a big crash so there was really no point to ruining his stuff. Fulton quickly sat me down in a desk chair and sat on the other from the other side of the room and rolled to over me so that our knees are almost touching.
He licked his lips and frowned. It looked like he was thinking about what he was going to say to me. He eyes shot up at me and blinked again. "I'm completely ignoring everything you said while you were arguing with Josie." He finally came out with. I must have looked shocked because he continued. "You were angry at her and you probably said some shit that you didn't mean, am I right?"
"Yeah." I nodded letting out the breath I was holding. His brown eyes stare into mine trying to read them, as if he's making sure I was being truthful about it. I'm not sure if I meant it. I haven't really been thinking about it. I have been thinking of ways to win back Josie, which F.Y.I. hasn't been going so well.
Fulton finally drops his eyes and smirk tugs at the corners of his mouth. "Banksie, you don't have to worry. I wouldn't steal Josie. Not only would that be completely cruel, but I'm not interested in her."
"But she's your type." I blurt out, without thinking.
Fulton's eyes snap up to meet mine and laughs. "You have been talking to Luis too much."
I snort. "Yeah, I have." I admit.
Fulton swallows and bites his lip. "After you were in your room, she came back."
My eyes flicked to meet his in surprise. "Pardon?"
"She was leaning against your door crying. Portman picked her up off the floor and carried her back here." Fulton admitted sighing. "I told her I wouldn't tell anyone what she told me, but I think I should tell you anyways."
I blinked rapidly as if I was making sure I wasn't dreaming.
"She likes you, a lot. You're basically all she talks about, but then again, I seem to be only around when she's crying over you so. . ." Fulton ran and hair through his hair. "I'm wasn't sure who this Peter guy she was talking about, I honestly thought she was talking about Peter Mark from District 5 for a while, but I know he isn't dead, or looks anything like you for that matter." Fulton shakes his head. I guess we share a fault in rambling when nervous. "She said that she was scared that she liked you because you look like him and not because you were you. And she didn't want to use you for that reason and hurt you, but she felt that you could never understand that."
I leaned back in the chair and looked up at the dingy ceiling of Fulton and Portman's dorm room. Ugh me and my stupid DNA. I curse my parents for making me look this way. Damn them!
I heard Fulton clear this throat. "What are you thinking about?"
"I'm thinking about how I have been trying to convince Josie that I'm not this Peter guy and that she likes me for me."
Fulton nodded. "Oh! I forgot something."
I blinked. "What?"
He got up and began to rummage through the drawers of his dresser and pulled out a little black box with silver etching. It looked like the boxes from before. What? Did she have stock in those boxes or something?
"She wanted you to have this."
I took the cool box in my hands and opened the lid. I swallowed nervously. They were pictures of us. Black and white pictures of me and Josie everywhere we went and none were of me looking. I had no clue she had been taking pictures of us, well me to be exact.
My mind suddenly flashes back to her room, and going through the boxes. I had pulled out a camera and negatives and all that stuff. She never told me she was really into it.
It looks like she developed them herself and for some reason they look really artsy; like they weren't taken by a student.
I begin to flip through them and hand each to Fulton. He looks over at me and shakes his head. "Banksie take a look at this." He hands back the picture I gave him. It was at the rink. She must have taken them when she said she needed to tighten her skates or something. I was right in the middle of shooting a puck I had brought onto the ice into the net. The next was me skating around the net with my arms in the air, acting as if I had scored the winning goal or something.
"What about it?" I ask quietly as I look as the next which is of me again skating around aimlessly and in the corner she's taken a picture of herself pointing at me.
Fulton frowns. "No not that one." He flips the picture to the next and smiles. "That one."
The smile on my face falls. There I am, still skating around aimlessly, and there she is, blowing a kiss to me. Me. She took a picture of her blowing a kiss to me.
"If that isn't proof of her liking you I don't know what is." Fulton whispers. I can't keep my eyes off the picture. It's by far my favorite picture ever of me. EVER.
~*~
I walk into English the next day early as usual, excited to see her. I wanted to tell her I knew. I wanted to tell her I got the box. I wanted to tell her everything about me.
But she wasn't there. I sat there and waited for her, but she didn't come until the bell rang.
"Mr. Winder?" I heard her ask as she walked up to his desk. He sat there fumbling with our essays we had handed in weeks ago.
Mr. Winder looked up, as did I. She was different. Her hair, it wasn't black. It was a chestnut brown again, like when I first saw her. She was still beautiful. "Yes, Josie?" He asked in a good surprised tone.
"Could I be moved? I'm not comfortable where I'm sitting."
My stomach dropped. She couldn't even stand to be sitting near me. I was like the shunned kid in kindergarten who had chicken pox or something and everyone said I had cooties.
Mr. Winder looked confused. "This wouldn't have anything to do with the argument you and Mr. Banks had last night; would it?"
I saw Josie open her mouth to say something but was quickly cut off by Mr. Winder.
"Because if it is, I have been informed by. . . certain people to not move you so you and Mr. Banks could work this out, in case of group assignments."
Josie blinked and stood tall. "Mr. Winder, I think the relationship I had with Mr. Banks is beyond repair and I think it would be better for both of us, and the rest of the class to separate us in order that we don't disrupt the class."
I saw Mr. Winder lean over his cluttered desk and whisper something in her ear causing her to spin around and make her way over to her original desk and sit down, completely ignoring me.
As Mr. Winder continued to prepare for our class I leaned over to Josie to speak to her. "Josie. . ."
She quickly pulled a white sheet of paper from her desk and folded it into 3 equal strips, much like a triangular prism and wrote something on each flap and grabbed a tiny piece of tape and put it where the two edges met and sat it on her desk. In bold writing I read:
"I WANT TO BE ALONE."
I sighed. The power of the pen. "Josie; please talk to me. . ."
She flipped the sign once and tapped it with her pen.
"NO!"
I frowned. "But. . ."
She angrily flipped the sign again with an aggravated sigh.
"THAT MEANS YOU BANKS!"
I groaned. Fine then. She wanted to use visuals, she would get visuals. I tore through my bag, quickly coming up with the thing I needed and slid it onto her desk.
She picked it up and her eyes widened. Her breathing became heavy and her eyes darted from it to me and back. She quickly handed it back to me along with a note. 'You want to talk without yelling? Meet me at the arena, bring your skates.'
Maybe there is hope for me yet.
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A/N: Yay! Another chapter and it's basically a filler until next chapter. I'm waiting with GREAT anticipation for your reviews! I'm REALLY excited! Or . . . maybe it was the chocolate I had . . . and the gummy bears . . . and . . . . ok maybe I'm hyper. So!! Please review! *pouts* please?
REVIEW!
~Toodles!
Before I got to list anymore stupid stuff a knock came from behind the door. Oh no; I'm either psychic and Josie is here to yell at me for the first time and I have to relive it, she's come back to yell at me some more, Fulton is ready to kick my ass , or she's going to yell at me while Fulton is kicking my ass.
"Adam! Open up! I forgot my key!" I heard Averman yell from behind the door, trying to make it over to music.
I turned off the music and unlocked the door, opening it for him and walking back to my bed to hide under the covers.
"Whoa dude, you look like a preppy Night of the Living Dead or something." Averman commented as I bunched my covers around me.
I groaned. "Well I feel like road-kill."
Averman nodded. "You look like road-kill. You stay here and I'll get Charlie, and some of the guys. We'll sit around, watch a movie, do guy stuff. . ."
I covered my head with the pillow. "I kind of want to be alone right now. I'll listen to music and sleep and tomorrow will be a new day."
"As much as well all love Puddle of Mud, I don't think the song 'She hates me' is going to help your situation Banksie."
"And what do you know about my situation?" I snapped at him grabbing something off of the headboard and throwing it in his general direction hearing a shattering noise, made me guess two things, what I threw was breakable and Averman wasn't in the mood to be playing catch.
I heard him sigh. "Banksie, Banksie, Banksie, Banksie. Do you have any idea how many times I have been snubbed by the girls at this school? And after plenty of depressing states, much like yours, I realized that being around friends help." He began to tug at the blanket that surrounded me. "Get up; comb your hair in the Cake-eater fashion, and I'll go get the guys."
I sat up and looked him in the eyes. "She says I'm dead to her. You said she loved me."
Averman lowered his eyes from me and nodded. "Charlie said he was there the entire time. He said she said that she wouldn't let herself like you. Banks, I think you scare her."
I nodded. That's the conclusion I came to, too.
He got up and smiled. "Come on, it'll be fun."
~*~
I sat down on the couch surrounded by the team, minus a few. A few being, the girls and Fulton and Portman.
Charlie grinned and stood up on the couch beside me. "Seeing one of us is having a crappy terrible day, I award control of the TV to Banksie!"
I scoff as I take the remote control as Charlie sits down still wearing the same goofy grin. Movie channels, let's start there. I begin flipping after heard bored tones say, "Seen it!" "Crap!" or "chick flick!" I finally come to a movie channel where supposedly a 'premiere' was being shown. Everyone grinned as the opening credits began to show, when suddenly. . .
"Josie and the Pussycats!"
I flicked it quickly. I glared at the TV. It was possessed by her. Charlie shrugged, with his eyes wide. "No problem. How about a TV show instead?"
Everyone nodded in agreement as I began to flip channels again. I began to announce what it was to everyone what the show was. "Friends, Friends, That 70's show. . ."
Everyone quickly yelled stop. I'm not sure why this show is so appealing but it is. I leaned back as it faded out to the Theme song. Then it came to an end.
"Hello Wisconsin!"
I got up immediately and handed the remote to Charlie. Wisconsin. Out of all the states in the USA That 70's show was set in Wisconsin. Everyone looked on as I left the TV room. Everything was reminding me of her. What it just so happened, a movie with HER name in it was starting as I began to flip channels? I brushed my hair out of my eyes, just in time to see Fulton leave his dorm room.
I saw Fulton's eyes flash as they met mine. I swallowed. Ok, so I dragged his good name through the dirt when I said he was doing things with Josie when he really wasn't. Fulton wasn't the type to hold grudges right? For some reason, I remembered the time I was with my friends when I was still a Hawk. He threw us in trash. He was a big bad teenager now and there weren't any dumpsters in this hallway.
He walked my way, his huge steel toed boots thumping down the hall echoing in the dim of the hall. I bet getting kicked with those would be mighty painful. I'm trying to rate it. It's probably in between getting slammed into the goal posts and having a hockey stick broken over my wrist. Actually probably worse, seeing he wouldn't kick me once; it would be probably repeatedly so I'm preparing myself for the worse pain of my life. I squeeze my eyelids closed. I don't want to see him come at me.
"Banks we need to talk."
I open one of my eyes. He looks angry but he isn't doing anything. Maybe he's just penning up his anger so he can beat me up worse than he can now. I swallow nervously.
Fulton rolls his eyes. "If order for us to talk, you need to say something."
I manage out a squeak that sounds suspiciously like an "Oh."
"My dorm." Fulton says eying the hallway over my shoulder. I honestly have no idea what he's so nervous about. If he wanted to, he could kick my skinny ass, but maybe that's just my nerves talking.
He puts a hand on my back and guides me into the belly of the beast, the layer of my enemy, the. . .
I never realized that when I'm nervous I begin to ramble. I had no clue. . .
He opened the door to his dorm and gave me a little push into the room, which was roughly the same size as mine and slightly neater, but that's only because after Josie left and after I slept for the first hour or so I woke up and began throwing some of my own stuff around the room. Averman doesn't have anything that shatters or makes a big crash so there was really no point to ruining his stuff. Fulton quickly sat me down in a desk chair and sat on the other from the other side of the room and rolled to over me so that our knees are almost touching.
He licked his lips and frowned. It looked like he was thinking about what he was going to say to me. He eyes shot up at me and blinked again. "I'm completely ignoring everything you said while you were arguing with Josie." He finally came out with. I must have looked shocked because he continued. "You were angry at her and you probably said some shit that you didn't mean, am I right?"
"Yeah." I nodded letting out the breath I was holding. His brown eyes stare into mine trying to read them, as if he's making sure I was being truthful about it. I'm not sure if I meant it. I haven't really been thinking about it. I have been thinking of ways to win back Josie, which F.Y.I. hasn't been going so well.
Fulton finally drops his eyes and smirk tugs at the corners of his mouth. "Banksie, you don't have to worry. I wouldn't steal Josie. Not only would that be completely cruel, but I'm not interested in her."
"But she's your type." I blurt out, without thinking.
Fulton's eyes snap up to meet mine and laughs. "You have been talking to Luis too much."
I snort. "Yeah, I have." I admit.
Fulton swallows and bites his lip. "After you were in your room, she came back."
My eyes flicked to meet his in surprise. "Pardon?"
"She was leaning against your door crying. Portman picked her up off the floor and carried her back here." Fulton admitted sighing. "I told her I wouldn't tell anyone what she told me, but I think I should tell you anyways."
I blinked rapidly as if I was making sure I wasn't dreaming.
"She likes you, a lot. You're basically all she talks about, but then again, I seem to be only around when she's crying over you so. . ." Fulton ran and hair through his hair. "I'm wasn't sure who this Peter guy she was talking about, I honestly thought she was talking about Peter Mark from District 5 for a while, but I know he isn't dead, or looks anything like you for that matter." Fulton shakes his head. I guess we share a fault in rambling when nervous. "She said that she was scared that she liked you because you look like him and not because you were you. And she didn't want to use you for that reason and hurt you, but she felt that you could never understand that."
I leaned back in the chair and looked up at the dingy ceiling of Fulton and Portman's dorm room. Ugh me and my stupid DNA. I curse my parents for making me look this way. Damn them!
I heard Fulton clear this throat. "What are you thinking about?"
"I'm thinking about how I have been trying to convince Josie that I'm not this Peter guy and that she likes me for me."
Fulton nodded. "Oh! I forgot something."
I blinked. "What?"
He got up and began to rummage through the drawers of his dresser and pulled out a little black box with silver etching. It looked like the boxes from before. What? Did she have stock in those boxes or something?
"She wanted you to have this."
I took the cool box in my hands and opened the lid. I swallowed nervously. They were pictures of us. Black and white pictures of me and Josie everywhere we went and none were of me looking. I had no clue she had been taking pictures of us, well me to be exact.
My mind suddenly flashes back to her room, and going through the boxes. I had pulled out a camera and negatives and all that stuff. She never told me she was really into it.
It looks like she developed them herself and for some reason they look really artsy; like they weren't taken by a student.
I begin to flip through them and hand each to Fulton. He looks over at me and shakes his head. "Banksie take a look at this." He hands back the picture I gave him. It was at the rink. She must have taken them when she said she needed to tighten her skates or something. I was right in the middle of shooting a puck I had brought onto the ice into the net. The next was me skating around the net with my arms in the air, acting as if I had scored the winning goal or something.
"What about it?" I ask quietly as I look as the next which is of me again skating around aimlessly and in the corner she's taken a picture of herself pointing at me.
Fulton frowns. "No not that one." He flips the picture to the next and smiles. "That one."
The smile on my face falls. There I am, still skating around aimlessly, and there she is, blowing a kiss to me. Me. She took a picture of her blowing a kiss to me.
"If that isn't proof of her liking you I don't know what is." Fulton whispers. I can't keep my eyes off the picture. It's by far my favorite picture ever of me. EVER.
~*~
I walk into English the next day early as usual, excited to see her. I wanted to tell her I knew. I wanted to tell her I got the box. I wanted to tell her everything about me.
But she wasn't there. I sat there and waited for her, but she didn't come until the bell rang.
"Mr. Winder?" I heard her ask as she walked up to his desk. He sat there fumbling with our essays we had handed in weeks ago.
Mr. Winder looked up, as did I. She was different. Her hair, it wasn't black. It was a chestnut brown again, like when I first saw her. She was still beautiful. "Yes, Josie?" He asked in a good surprised tone.
"Could I be moved? I'm not comfortable where I'm sitting."
My stomach dropped. She couldn't even stand to be sitting near me. I was like the shunned kid in kindergarten who had chicken pox or something and everyone said I had cooties.
Mr. Winder looked confused. "This wouldn't have anything to do with the argument you and Mr. Banks had last night; would it?"
I saw Josie open her mouth to say something but was quickly cut off by Mr. Winder.
"Because if it is, I have been informed by. . . certain people to not move you so you and Mr. Banks could work this out, in case of group assignments."
Josie blinked and stood tall. "Mr. Winder, I think the relationship I had with Mr. Banks is beyond repair and I think it would be better for both of us, and the rest of the class to separate us in order that we don't disrupt the class."
I saw Mr. Winder lean over his cluttered desk and whisper something in her ear causing her to spin around and make her way over to her original desk and sit down, completely ignoring me.
As Mr. Winder continued to prepare for our class I leaned over to Josie to speak to her. "Josie. . ."
She quickly pulled a white sheet of paper from her desk and folded it into 3 equal strips, much like a triangular prism and wrote something on each flap and grabbed a tiny piece of tape and put it where the two edges met and sat it on her desk. In bold writing I read:
"I WANT TO BE ALONE."
I sighed. The power of the pen. "Josie; please talk to me. . ."
She flipped the sign once and tapped it with her pen.
"NO!"
I frowned. "But. . ."
She angrily flipped the sign again with an aggravated sigh.
"THAT MEANS YOU BANKS!"
I groaned. Fine then. She wanted to use visuals, she would get visuals. I tore through my bag, quickly coming up with the thing I needed and slid it onto her desk.
She picked it up and her eyes widened. Her breathing became heavy and her eyes darted from it to me and back. She quickly handed it back to me along with a note. 'You want to talk without yelling? Meet me at the arena, bring your skates.'
Maybe there is hope for me yet.
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A/N: Yay! Another chapter and it's basically a filler until next chapter. I'm waiting with GREAT anticipation for your reviews! I'm REALLY excited! Or . . . maybe it was the chocolate I had . . . and the gummy bears . . . and . . . . ok maybe I'm hyper. So!! Please review! *pouts* please?
REVIEW!
~Toodles!