Fucking Gravity

Chapter 3

I wake up to a cup of coffee being shoved under my nose. I groan reaching out, and then gasp as the skin around my stomach pulls.

Instead, I roll onto my side and then push myself up into a sitting position with my arms. The cuts on my hands sting much less than trying to move my torso. Once I'm upright, I reach out for the heavenly scent that called me into waking hell.

"What happened to your hands?" Kim asks after laughing at my struggle to sit up, and she notices my bandages.

"Knocked over the bowl by the door last night and fell in it," I admit, omitting the detail of being pushed.

Kim clicks her tongue admonishingly. "Serves you right for going out drinking alone; take me with you next time. I thought you hated drinking?"

"I hate when other people drink," I refute, taking a long pull of overly sugared coffee. My step-father is always worse when he drinks. Angrier. It wasn't always like that. Not until mom died.

My eyes unerringly dart toward the open door. I'm not allowed to lock it.

"Then why were you at a party where everyone drinks? Was your dad super mad that you came home wasted?"

"Not really," I take another pull. "Scolded me for a few minutes then sent me to bed. And I wasn't wasted."

"You were wasted enough to get hungover and be unable to sit up this morning," she points out, and I decide not to correct her assumptions. Her assumptions have saved me from her learning the truth for years. "Anyway, I already told your dad that I'm kidnapping you for the rest of the weekend, so let's go."

"Really?" I perk up immediately. It's been weeks since she spent the whole weekend with me.

"Yup, come on."

I drain the rest of the cup, before climbing to my feet and gathering some clothes, all without twisting my torso any. Kim rolls her eyes as I shove her out of my room so that I can struggle through getting dressed in private. Deep slow breaths are required between each article of clothing, and I take a moment to examine the black and purple bruising swelling my forearms and spreading like a sun across my stomach.

It's very fortunate that long sleeves are pretty much always acceptable clothing choices on the res, even in summer.

"You girls have fun," my dad waves from the kitchen over a bagel as we make our way out the door. Saturdays are late starts at the garage, and early closings. It used to be easy avoiding home, because weekends were for Kim. Now I go camping.

….

"What happened to your hands?"

I glance down at the scabbed over cuts, no longer needing to be wrapped, and then over at the girl beside me.

Leah Clearwater is still being weird, sitting next to me in Chemistry and trying to start conversations that just don't go anywhere.

"I fell."

It's mostly my fault they don't go anywhere.

"Oh. Well… are you okay?" she tries again, eyes still lingering on the scabs, so I tug my sleeves farther down over my hands and bunch the fabric in my palm. It soaks up my nervous sweat fairly well.

"Fine."

"I'm glad."

There's more painfully awkward silence until the teacher starts lecturing. Leah doesn't pull out any writing utensils. I remember that she used to care a lot about school. Now she doesn't even try, and half the time she doesn't even show up.

It's strange she was here all of last week and today.

When the bell rings, I make my escape. Only, Leah doesn't just let me go this time. She reaches out and catches my wrist.

The words on her lips die as I yelp and yank my arm away harshly to cradle against my chest. Hot pain burns along where her grip was, and I have to force my racing heart to calm down as I look up into her wide eyes, and a few people look over to snicker.

"I'm sorry," she stammers, and I relax further as my brain processes that she hadn't meant the grab as a threat.

"It's fine," I say shortly, jaw feeling tight from the pain still lancing from my bruises. "What is it?"

"I… nevermind," she sighs, her entire body seeming to slump and looking for all the world like she did in seventh grade and got a bad score on her math test. I helped tutor her for the next one, and she was so funny and nice- and I learned that school was important to her because she wanted to one day escape the reservation just as badly as I did (that was when my crush on her started).

I shake the memory from my head and turn back towards the door (she doesn't even remember it anyway).

"Right then," I mutter making a successful exit this time.

I thought I was done dealing with her for the day, until it's actually after school and Kim kisses my cheek goodbye. She's spending the day with Jared, unfortunately, and I regretfully watch her join the group of Specials that always seem to hover and circle around each other like a pack of wolves.

I have just accidentally met Leah's eyes when I'm shoved from behind, face-first into the lockers.

I gasp at the unexpected pain lancing from old bruises to new ones, and I turn to face the laughing boy who pushed me.

"Hey, you're a cold one," he says conversationally, eyes sparkling as he glances back towards his group of friends, who are watching expectantly. "That means you suck blood, right? I've got something you can suck."

His friends burst into uproarious laughter, and even a few people who stopped to watch, snicker.

I roll my eyes, ready to just walk away when the boy in front of me is suddenly tackled off his feet with a furious, inhuman, snarl.

He hits the ground so hard you can hear the thunk of bone on tile, and then Leah is raining down punches on the boy as he screams. The only thing he can do is try to protect his face while Leah throws wild punches at the boy.

I scramble back from the tussle, heart in my throat as I watch the girl I used to like beat a boy bloody for no reason what-so-ever.

The fight (if you can call it that) only lasts seconds, because then the rest of the Specials are on her, dragging her off as she still spits and hisses obscenities at the crying senior. The wet spot growing on the front of his jeans shows that he just pissed himself, and my sympathies go out to him.

I've never lost my bladder when my father went off on me, but, then, I always expect the beatings coming to me.

She calms fairly quickly as the other Specials growl things at her, and then she's turning her glowering eyes from the boy to me. I stumble back from her attention, almost tripping over the boy's bag that fell from his shoulder when he was tackled.

I don't wait for a teacher to show up, or for Leah to decide to come after me next, I push my way through the growing crowd and out the school doors breathing heavily.

That was insane. She's insane.

Kim pushes out the door a moment later, and I can't help flinching when she reaches for my shoulder. My nerves feel frayed.

"Hey, are you okay," she asks, concerned, following my quick pace away from school. Good. She shouldn't go anywhere near those sociopaths.

"You should be asking that boy that," I retort, almost tripping over the cracks in the concrete with how fast I'm trying to put distance between me and those violent people.

"I don't care about the boy, I care about you," she says bluntly. "Are you okay?"

"Leah Clearwater is insane. The whole lot of them are- they need to be committed or something. The teachers too, and the council, and this whole fucking place needs to be committed for letting those criminals just have free reign of the place."

Kim winces, and I don't care that I'm talking about her boyfriend. Maybe she should be committed, too, for dating one of them. Jared hasn't beaten anyone up yet, but he has the temper- it's only a matter of time. Drugs. Drugs make you violent, don't they? Kim is dating a druggy, and he's going to murder her one day, and I'll be all alone.

"Fay, wait," Kim tries, but I don't slow my pace any. "Wait, wait, wait," she reaches out to grab my arm, trying to manually stop me, but I yank myself from her weak grip.

"Don't touch me," I snap, hugging my arms close to my body. My skin is crawling.

"Okay, okay," she lifts her hand placatingly. "Just…stop for a second. Breathe."

It's only then that I realize I'm hyperventilating. Damn it. My hands rise shakily and find themselves tangling in my hair.

I suck in deeper breaths- so deep that my bruised stomach stretches painfully.

Kim looks only more and more concerned the longer I stand in front of her struggling to get enough air.

"Are you okay?" she asks a third time, slowly, and I still can't answer her.

"Break up with him. Please. Please just get as far away from them as you can before you get hurt. Tempers like that… they're dangerous."

Kim's face crumbles in regret, and I know her answer. I still remember that one weekend, about a months after Jared asked her out, when she crawled through my window after hanging out with him, spooked. She hid out in my bedroom for three days before finally calming down enough to go home. She was back together with him the day after that, and I never found out why she climbed through my window so terrified.

"They're not… Fay, I really wish you'd just get to know them. They really aren't what you think. And they'd never hurt me. They'd never hurt you."

I shake my head in disbelief at how naive she is.

"Then…" I flounder for what to say, angry that she won't see reason, won't see the danger. Won't choose me. "Then why don't you leave and go hang out with those junior wife beaters. Go back to your boyfriend who didn't know you even existed until eight months ago."

Kim's shoulders slump sadly, watching my stiff, defensive, stance, before sighing.

"Don't be silly. I'm spending the rest of the day with you. I can see him tomorrow."

Something tight and coiling in my chest loosens. She chose me. Today, she chose me. I sink against my friend as she loops her arm through mine.

Leah isn't at school the rest of the week, and Kim spends her afternoons with her boyfriend, promising another weekend (the full weekend starting Friday) to just the two of us.

By the following Monday, the worst of my bruises turn from purple and black to blue and green. Lunch also reveals that Leah only got four days of suspension because she's back at her table, staring at me from across the chaotic room.

My entire body goes ridged when she makes her way over to my desk in Chemistry. For some reason, I figured she'd go back to her self-imposed isolation. I ignore her sitting next to me, even as I feel her eyes boring into the side of my head.

"Hi," she says so very softly, and it's strange hearing that tone from her. I can't think of her as soft anymore.

"Hi." Politeness requires that I respond.

"I…" she sighs, and it sounds tired. I glance over to see bags under her eyes as she stares down at her clenching fists on the table. She looks up as I shift away a little further, wishing she'd sat anywhere else. "I wanted to apologize for last Monday."

"Shouldn't you be apologizing to the boy you beat bloody?" I wince after the retort escapes, expecting her exploding wrath, but all she does is grimace.

"But I'm not really sorry about him," she admits, and I can't help staring at the brutal (and socially unacceptable) honesty. "I saw that he shoved you, and heard what he was saying to you, and I kind of lost it. I am sorry that I scared you, though."

She really is a sociopath.

"Why?" I ask bluntly, and Leah blinks blankly at me, so I elaborate. "What's it to you that he shoved me and was saying those things? I've heard people say and do things ten times worse to other people- to me actually- and it never got under your skin before. So why is it suddenly so horrific to you that you lost it like that?"

Leah scowls again and drops her gaze back to her hands. After a moment, she shrugs. "Cause I've never really noticed you, never paid attention, until now."

Great. A stalking sociopath with a crush. On me.

Fuck. The universe thinks it's funny, doesn't it?

I fucking love this girl for years, never to be noticed, and when I finally get over it (because she goes crazy), she suddenly likes me?

Fuck.


A/N: Poor Leah.

Alkeniw Andilite: Kim doesn't tell Fay what they are because it's the responsibility of the Imprinter to decide when that happens. They don't want to just come out and say what they are without forming any sort of relationship with them so I imagine they usually wait until they are closer to the imprintee. They are the reason the imprintee is being let into the fold, to it's up to them to decide when and how.

Thanks for reading; please review!

~Silver~