Disclaimer- Well, lets see, if I were SM I'd be rich. If I were rich I'd be shopping right now instead of writing fan fiction. So I guess that means I'm not SM. Darn.
Chapter 6- Be careful whose toes you step on today because they might be connected to the foot that kicks your ass tomorrow.
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"Well, it was nice going to an asshole-free school while it lasted." Tiffany said from her spot, spread out on the hood of her car in the school parking lot.
I snorted, "Let's not get ahead of ourselves. Only Jared was gone, and while he's certainly an asshole he's hardly the only one here."
"At least Paul's still absent," Sara said cheerfully, from where she was sitting half in half out of the passengers seat.
Tiffany made a little moue of regret that we all decided to ignore, because we're wonderful friends.
"You all rely entirely too much on gossip," Ally cut in while tearing open our usual Monday morning box of donuts, "Have any of you actually seen him yet? How do you even know he's back?"
Tiffany scoffed and held her hand out for a donut (the chocolate one's are her obsession), "Of course he's back. Stacy Miller, who works in the office, overheard Mrs. Reed on the phone with Jared's mother. She said that if he missed any more school he'd fail this term."
Sara nodded in agreement as she waved away the donut Ally was trying to hand her, "This is his senior year, he won't want to be failing that. Besides according to Stacy he didn't even turn in a doctors note, so he's not even sick. He'll definitely come back today."
I reached for a powdered donut, looking away from Tiffany in disgust when she tore the plastic lid off of the coke she got from the gas station, where we bought the donuts and coffee, and started to dip the rest of her chocolate donut in the soda.
It was true that so far we were operating on pure conjecture. This alone gave me hope that Jared might not show up to school after all. Besides, you know what they say. Hope springs eternal!
Especially for the stupid and incredibly desperate.
"Stacy Miller shouldn't be using her position as student aid for spreading around rumors. What goes on in the office is supposed to be private." Ally looked disapproving as she forced a plain donut into a reluctant Sara's hand.
Tiff laughed while she reached for a second donut, "Oh, please! This is Jared we're talking about. Nothing in his life is private. He's like our own little Indian Brad Pitt."
"Besides," Sara added around a mouthful of dough, "You can't really be concerned about Jared's privacy."
'I couldn't care less about Jared. I just don't think that Stacy should abuse her power as student aid, that's all." Ally defended with out looking up from the history textbook that she had opened in her lap.
"Whatever," Tiffany hoped off the hood of the car and came to stand in front of us, "I'm off," she turned to me with her usual teasing smile, "And you, little missy, try not to kill Jared if he does come back. While I certainly wouldn't miss him, you're too pretty to go to jail. Toodles!"
We all murmured our goodbyes while we watched her walk away until Sara sighed and uncurled herself from the front seat, "Well, I better be going too if I want to make it back from my locker in time. I'll see you at lunch." It's true we have first period together but she more or less sits a mile and a half away so we don't really get to chat unless we have group work.
Ally and I sat together in silence for a minute before her voice reached my ears, "Are you going to be Ok?"
I slapped a look of pretend confusion onto my face and turned to look at her, "Yeah. Why wouldn't I be?"
Ally just rolled her eyes at what was probably horrible acting on my part, "Because Jared is coming back," She cut me off before I could protest, "Don't deny that you're worried about that. I know you. You weren't involved in that conversation at all and you're the loudest out of all of us, second only to Tiffany."
"I'll be fine. I've gone to school with him forever. So he's been gone for a while. That doesn't change anything."
Of course, Ally wasn't buying it. She never did.
"You know, if he hasn't remembered what he did to you in the last two and a half years he's probably not going to ever remember."
I sighed and laid back across the back seat with my legs dangling out of the car. Whereas Tiffany and Sara thought I was completely over the homecoming dance disaster, which I was for the most part, Ally knew that I was still terrified of them remembering.
It was a stupid fear, of course. For one, if they haven't recalled the incident yet they're probably not going to. Second, so what if they do remember? What can they possibly do about it? Make fun of me? They already do that.
But stupid fear or not it was still a fear of mine.
Ally stared at me, obviously waiting for me to come forward with some sort of heartfelt confession of insecurity or something. When that didn't happen she grabbed her back pack and got out of the car.
"I'm going to go and you need to as well, Ok? Just relax. Everything will be just fine. Nothing changes just because a guy misses two weeks from school." She reached over and patted my knee before turning and heading into the building calling over her shoulder, "I'll see you at lunch!"
She was right. Just because Jared had missed a little bit of school doesn't mean he's changed completely over night. Everything's going to go back to being exactly how it was.
Right?
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Jared Ferdy has gone crazy.
This is going to come as a devastating blow to all girls of La Push High, I just know it.
Now, I say this knowing full well that I myself can also have a tendency to be a few fries short of a happy meal every now and then. Who doesn't? We all have our days where we act a little bit off. It's to be expected out of life and doubly so after having to show up to this hell-hole day in and day out. That being said, there's a fine line between having-an-off-day-crazy and oh-my-god-hide-the-knives-crazy.
And, my kind friends, Jared Ferdy has just crossed that line.
No, scratch that.
He took a fucking long jump over the line and landed half a mile on the other side.
No, that's not even good enough.
He put on tap-shoes and river danced on the line until the poor defenseless line was pulverized to death under the crushing weight of his giant, hulking, muscley, form.
By now I'm sure you all are wondering what has driven me to make such strong accusations towards one of the most popular guy's we have here at La Push High. Believe you me I have my reasons. Allow me to clue you in.
The bell had already rang and Mr. Maddox had just asked us to open our textbooks to page two hundred and four. By now I had already dubbed the day to be blissfully Jared-free and my mood had taken a considerable turn for the better.
As usual I was wrong. *Sigh* That happens entirely too much for my taste.
I had just relaxed into my seat, my pretty little head swimming with relief, when the door slammed back into the wall with just a little bit too much force. Not forcefully enough to indicate anger, more the way someone who underestimates their own strength would open a door.
This made complete sense after seeing who was standing behind the door. If I had grown eight inches and gained what looked to be about eighty pounds of pure muscle more or less over night perhaps I'd underestimate my own strength for awhile too.
Every student looked up briefly with identical looks of mild disinterest on their faces to see who had interrupted class. At any other time I would have found the sight of twenty-two students all doing a simultaneous double-take to be hilarious. However, at this moment, I did the exact same thing so I can't exactly mock them for it.
Jared Ferdy walked into the room, seemingly oblivious to the class behind him staring holes into his back, and handed a light blue tardy slip to an equally dumbfounded Mr. Maddox before making his way to his seat off to my left side. All eyes followed him as he moved swiftly down the aisle and stuffed his overgrown frame into one of the tiny school-regulation desks. If he looked squashed in it before now he definitely did. A vision of a clown car came to mind.
Mr. Maddox was the first to recover, "Mr. Ferdy, welcome back. I trust you'll have no trouble making up any work you may have missed. Just see me after class for the assignments."
Jared just grunted at him and slunk down lower in his seat. I think he's just now noticed the classrooms intense focus on him. I was astonished to see him go slightly pink under his tan skin.
Who would have thought that Jared would be made to feel uncomfortable by a little staring?
You certainly can't blame the class from staring though. While it shames me to say this, somebody has to. Jared looked DELICIOUS! He had always been very good-looking, of course. This probably accounted for about ninety-five percent of his popularity if not all of it. But now, sheesh! The boy looked so damn delectable that I wanted to spread him on a ritz cracker and make him my lunch.
And I don't even like him! I imagine the feeling was even more magnified for those in the room who didn't actively loath him with everything in their being.
By this time everyone had gotten over the initial shock and were all whispering fervently to one another.
"Ok, Ok. That's enough. Back to work. You all have fifteen problems to complete by the end of class or you're going to have homework." The teacher tried to restore order to the classroom.
I tore my focus away from the Indian Adonis sitting not two feet from me and concentrated on problem number three. While I was working Mr. Maddox came down the aisle between Jared and I to catch Jared up on what we were doing that period.
"Just look and see if you can do problems one through fifteen on page two hundred and four, Ok? Let me just see if I can get you the notes," the teacher looked around the classroom of working students before his eyes fell on me, "Kim?"
I was too focused on my work to hear him at first so he had to call my name a couple more times to get my attention, "Kim? Kim?"
"Yes, sir?" I said when I finally caught on that he was calling me. I kept one eye on the problem I was working on, trying to remember how you find the square root of something. This always happens to me with math. I learn one new thing and forget two old ones.
"Could you loan Jared your notes so he can catch up? I'm afraid I didn't make any copies."
Now, ordinarily I would much rather drop dead than help out Jared in any way, shape of form but Mr. Maddox is one of those politically incorrect teachers who'll give better grades to the students he likes. Because of this I try my hardest to stay on his good side. If I can't pass this class out of knowledge then I intend to pass it out of bribery.
"Sure thing, Mr. Maddox," I carefully clicked open my three hole punch binder and selected the notes needed to complete this assignment. They weren't helping me anyway.
I look up for the first time during this exchange to hand the small stack of papers to Jared (coughsatanincarnatedcough) and made begrudging eye contact with him.
It was right around this time that somebody hit him in the head with a two by four.
Or at least that's what he looked like.
Mr. Maddox murmured a thanks and took the notes out of my hands and plopped them onto the unresponsive Jared's desk before leaving to go play minesweeper on his computer or something. Whatever it is teachers do when we're working.
Jared didn't watch him go or even say thank you for the notes (the giant self-entitled ass). Instead, apparently, he's decided the best course of action is to stare at me as if I've popped in a Marvin Gay C.D and started to do a strip tease on the desk.
I briefly contemplated asking him what the fuck was wrong with him or just throwing out some random insult to make him look away. But that probably would have gotten me on Mr. Maddox's shit list so instead I just shot him my best glare (Tiffany swears up and down that it can make the bravest of men shit themselves) and turned back to my assignment.
He'll look away eventually.
*5 Minutes Later*
The bastard is still staring!
How the hell can that be?!
He's sat here all fucking year long. Not once did he ever even spare me a glance (Why would he? He was too busy flirting with girls of average height to notice the freakishly tall girl next to him). What is it exactly that has suddenly made him gawk at me like I had just cured aids, cancer, heart disease and brought his grandmother back from the dead all in the same day?
So far I've considered my top being unbuttoned (it wasn't), my pants being ripped, (they were, but they came that way), something on my face (I checked my reflection in the glass of the window. Nothing there that wasn't supposed to be there) toilet paper on my shoe (they were completely toilet paper free), and that maybe he's suddenly fallen in love with me at first site (I dismissed that one for all the obvious reasons.)
All this brings me to where I am now. Sitting in my desk, staring blankly at my textbook, and declaring the end of Jared Ferdy's sanity.
I spare another glance towards him (the second one in the last two minutes, I'm sorry to say) only to find that he's still staring at me with the same old dumbfounded expression. I think a little droplet of drool just fell onto his desk.
Marvelous.
I shift around uncomfortably in my seat and glared unseeingly down at the numbers of my text book.
Maybe this is just a new game he's decided to play. Try and see if he can make Kim go crazy during math class. Well I got news for him, buddy. I've lived with my mother for the past seventeen years. My sanity has already been tested as much as you can humanly test anyone's sanity.
I shot him a glare to let him know that I was on to him. However, when I shot him the glare instead of being put off by it as I had intended for him to be he just grinned dopily at me.
Wonderful. I put my best glare out there and instead of being intimidated by it Jared merely looks like somebody had just announced that Christmas, his birthday and spring break have all come early this year.
"Ok, guys. The bells about to ring so you better pack up. Problems one through fifteen are due tomorrow."
Shit, now I have homework. I was too worried about Jared's little starathon to do any actual work. Maybe that was his plan all along.
The bell rang suddenly, jolting me out of my thoughts. I quickly gathered up my things and got up to leave. Jared can just go ahead and keep the notes for all I care, if getting them back means having to speak with him.
I made to follow the flow of students leaving the half empty classroom when a voice stopped me.
"Wait!" Jared croaked, his voice sounding strange and strained.
I ignored him. Besides he was probably talking to someone else anyway. I continued towards the door when a large, tendony overheated hand closed around my upper arm.
I whipped around to face Jared and was about to tell him to keep his big tendony hands to himself when he dropped his hand off of me like I had suddenly caught fire. I stood there waiting for him to say something but he just stood there frowning at my arm like he was worried he had hurt me or something.
Apparently he's going to need a little help, "What?" I snapped rudely.
I tried not to smirk to hard at the look of shock that crossed his face at my obvious hostile tone of voice and waited for him to speak.
When he just kept staring at me I tried again.
"What do you want?"
He didn't answer. Instead he just made this strangled garbling noise in the back of his throat. It sounded a little like somebody had tried to choke him while he was drinking water or something.
"Well, alright then. If that's all I'll just be going now"
I turned around and walked out of the classroom. I was already half way to my next class when I became aware that he was following me. I considered James Bonding my way through the rest of the hallway in an attempt to loose him but in the end decided to handle this now before it got any more out of hand.
I whipped angrily around to face him. He had been moving so fast that when I stopped he almost bowled right over me but caught himself right before he hit me. This ended with him standing less than two inches away from me. I took a step back, unnerved by the closeness, an action that caused him to look devastated for some unknown reason. Weirdo.
"Why the fuck are you following me?" I growled at him, drawing myself up to my full height and trying to look like the type of girl you don't want to mess with.
He stared at me for a minute while his throat worked like he was gearing himself up to talk, "But….but….you're just going to leave?"
Leave where? What the hell was he talking about? The bell had rang. I was going to my next class, which I was now late for thanks to him. The last of the students had already trickled into their various classrooms and we were the only two people standing in a disserted hallway.
"What the hell are you talking about?"
"But we just met. You…you can't just…leave."
"Why can't I leave? And we didn't just meet either, you asshole! Not that I'd expect you to remember me." Maybe he was on drugs and thought I was somebody else.
He didn't appear to have heard me because he had taken up that whole staring and drooling thing he seemed so fond of again.
Shit, he must really be on drugs. From the looks of it, some wicked hallucinogenics.
I snapped my fingers in his face a few times to get his attention again. It was weird having to reach up to do this, I was used to looking down at people. This must be what petite people feel like.
He eyes seemed to refocus on me so I took my chances with talking again, "Why…Can't…I…Leave?" I spoke slowly and enunciated every word carefully, like you would to a small confused child, so that there'd be a better chance of his understanding me.
He seemed confused by the question and I was about to ask again when he answered, "Because…Well, because you're mine."
I stood staring at him blankly for a moment while I let his words process.
Once they did process I did what any self-respecting girl would do when a guy they barely know (and, really, if you have any balls at all, the ones you do know as well) tries to tell them they belong to him.
I kicked him in the groin.
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A/N- Well, there you go. Imprinting complete! Ah, young love. Don't you just love it?
I'm going to send everyone who reviews a puppy in the mail. Yes, you heard right. A puppy.
Or at the very least I'll e-mail all of you all pictures of puppies. Same thing, really.
Review, Review, Review!
CYBER PUPPIES FOR ALL!!!!!!!!!!!!
