Pain
Chapter 11

"Oh, dear God, no!"

I woke up with a start, my face and neck covered in sweat. I wiped it all hastily away, my hand trembling.

"Cindy!" Jimmy exclaimed, his face appearing concerned yet unsurprised. "What happened?"

I rubbed my arms with my hands, suddenly feeling a chill go through my body. It felt as if I had suddenly plunged into a pool during the winter, or as if I had just jumped into a vat of ice. My hands stopped trembling after a while, but the sweat that I had wiped away kept reappearing, again and again, constantly as I wiped it off.

"Jimmy," I gasped, "Jimmy... It's.. I had a bad... It was a nightmare... Nightmare..."

My voice cracked in certain places and I glanced around Jimmy's living room, where his mom had set out many blankets. Libby sat intently, watching me, and she reached forward and brushed away a chunk of my hair away from my eyes.

"Cindy, don't worry. We're here. No one will get you."

I stared at her, my mind racing, and I pushed her hand away with my ice cold one. Her hand was quite warm, just as her voice had been, but that would hardly help my current situation.

"Nothing will be the same... Never again will I be safe," I whispered, my heart beating wildly, as if I had just ran to the moon and back.

Jimmy held out his arms for me, and I settled into his warm grip, content. He made me feel so safe, so alive. But would he really keep me safe? Would he really keep me alive?

"Cindy, come on, we'll be late for school." I looked up at Libby and smiled timidly, my face feeling hot. I wondered why for a moment, but dismissed the thought a second later when Jimmy walked into the room, his arm in his sling and his hair combed clumsily.

I tugged at the shirt Libby had lent me and smiled at Jimmy.

"Thanks for letting me spend the night, Jimmy."

He smiled back at me and I blushed momentarily, then I grabbed my bag.

"So, you guys ready to go?" asked Jimmy, his voice calm and carefree. I shivered at the thought of going back to school, but instead of shaking my head as an indication of 'I hate the school and Nick is going to kill me the moment he sees me', I nodded, sealing my own fate with only a movement of my head.

The car ride went by quickly, and I barely had time to think before we were in front of our school, its big metal doors looking a whole lot like a monster's mouth. I shouldered my bag slowly and glanced at the people around us, my heart racing as I grazed my sight over a guy who looked a lot like Nick. I almost ran back to the car then, my legs controlling my body and not the other way around.

"Cindy, it'll be okay, it's just one day at school. If everything goes alright today, we know it's going to alright later, okay?"

How wrong Jimmy had been. He was so stupid in terms of life, and sometimes I wondered if he actually knew anything. His voice was soothing, though, and I trusted him for the moment that would decide the rest of my day.

If only I had chosen otherwise. If only I had chosen to stay at Jimmy's house. If only I had chosen to never enter those doors...

Class. It was torture. And it was torture in terms of 'I never thought life could go by this slowly'.

"Miss Vortex, will you please pay attention? I had to ask you this ten times already and it's only first period!"

I looked at Miss Donaldson in distaste and shrugged, showing her I could really care less about anything right now. But of course she would take that as a personal insult, and I was rewarded with a piece of paper that stated, "DETENTION".

I sighed, my heart feeling heavier than anything ever before, and I tucked the piece of paper in my pocket, sighing once more. I looked at the quiz we had just taken and graded that sat before me on the desk, my slanting, looping handwriting covering the whole page. It was some guy's paper, a guy named Jeremiah Woolever. I had never known he was in this class, let alone this town. Was he new to this school? This state?

"Now, everyone, hand back those quizzes to the owner."

A rustle of papers, loud laughing and talking. I stood up slowly and approached the dark haired boy that I had never known existed. He barely looked up before he took the paper from my hand, glancing at it for a second before stuffing it in his backpack.

"Everyone sit down, please," rang out Miss Donaldson's oily voice. How I depised it... I shuffled over to my desk once more and sat down, my hair falling over my face as I looked bleakly out the window.

Her droll mind compared nothing to Jimmy's.. The boy who had saved my life. Sometimes I thought he was crazy for loving me, and I could barely ask myself, 'Who could blame him?'. I wasn't really a sight for sore eyes... I was more of a sore sight for eyes...

Nick flew back into my mind, and I gasped inwardly at the sight of Nick's signature sneer appearing before my mind's eye. He scared me so, but my father could overshadow Nick like a tower. Perhaps I had a plan going in my head... Was it a good idea? Was it really?

Now I was truly going crazy. Conversing with myself in English class? How despicable. No, you're not to blame, Cindy... It is your father and Nick who has shattered your shield. It is your father and Nick who has stomped on you all your life. It is your father and Nick who you should blame...

I think I might be losing my mind, I thought, my hand brushing imaginative hands away from my body. What my father and Nick had done for so long had now become a habit... I could hardly bring myself to imagine myself without them though. Did they belong in my life like Jimmy did? Did anyone belong in my life?

The bell rung and Miss Donaldson tried desperately to tell the students rushing out like a stampeding herd of cows of the homework she was assigning for the weekend. I stayed in my seat and stayed gazing out the window, at least until a shadow fell on me.

"Hey," said the boy whose paper I had graded. What was his name again? Jeremy? John? No. Jeremiah.

"Hi," I replied, gathering up my books and tucking them into my backpack. Apparently he was intent on following me out of the class and I let him, unknowing of the trouble he could cause me. Or was it the safety?

"So.. How are you?" He appeared timid and young, something rarely seen in an AP English class which consisted mainly of seniors. Who was this kid? I had never seen him before, yet he seemed to know me.

"Who are you?" I asked, my voice a tad bit more suspicious than I had planned. But he seemed rather unfazed by all of this and shrugged it off, offering to take my backpack in the meantime.

"I'm just a guy who lives in this town. Who also happens to know you quite a lot."

Know me? How could he say such a thing? He probably didn't know what my favorite ice cream flavor was, if I happened to ever ask him of course.

"How would you know me?" I asked, intrigued. "And I never noticed you here before... Have you been here long?"

Jeremiah stayed silent for a moment and I thought that maybe I had offended him, but he smiled at me almost right after.

"I know you. Trust me. I know you've never noticed me. Except for that one time in second grade during Christmas when you saw me in my costume for the play and you said that you liked it and that it was really nice. Then I told you that my mom made it. And yeah, I've been here long."

I stared at him as we walked slowly toward those double doors, but I simply stood before them, a sense of foreboding covering my body.

"I don't want to leave," I whispered. How ironic, was it not, that I had feared entering this place of misery, but now I feared leaving it, knowing something, anything at all, could spring upon me as I left.

Jeremiah stared back at me and he made a grab for my arm, seeing as I had stumbled back a few steps, my stomach feeling as if bugs had crawled inside, and my head feeling as if someone had just stuck it in a roaring fire.

"Take me... Jimmy," I managed to mutter as I fell into a black abyss.