Chapter 04

The day that the fighting started between Jason and I was just a normal school day, the week after Josh and I had our second date to a circus, about two weeks after Jason moved in with me.  My usual day started with Jason and me getting up at four-thirty, running ten miles in an hour, and then going back to our house to get ready for school.  We only did this on weekdays so I didn’t notice anything different after going to the club on a Friday night.  But when Monday came, I woke up at eight ten, almost late to school and hadn’t showered since that Friday night because I was so tired.  I took a ten minute shower and didn’t have time to do my usual double shampooing and conditioning because my hair was so thick.  By the time I was done with my shower, it was already eight twenty and I had to be at school by eight thirty, when first period started.  I quickly changed into a pair of athletic pants, a tank top, and the matching athletic zip up sweatshirt.  I slipped on my pair of slip on UGG slippers and ran out the door, without socks on, if I may add.  My car was sitting in the driveway where I quickly started my five minute drive to school, which quickly changed to a two minute drive to school.  I ran into the school right as the late bell rang for first period.  I ran right to trigonometry where Jason was sitting in his spot, looking more awake and refreshed then every before.  Trig at my school only had two people in it, me and Jason.  Our teacher, who is always late to school, was surprisingly here on time today. 

 

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Odonell, my alarm clock didn’t go off this morning.  I swear it will never, ever happen again,” I said sitting down in my seat next to Jason, who was working on a set of problems that she had put on the Smartboard. 

 

“It’s no problem, Lucy.  Usually it’s in reverse positions, me saying my alarm didn’t go off and you being here ten minutes before the bell rang.  I’ll let it slid this time just don’t let it happen again,” she said smiling.  Mrs. Odonell must be my favorite teacher ever.  She was brand new to teaching and this was the first job she had every gotten.  She was a family friend of my parents so she knew me.  She had gotten married last year and previously had a baby girl named Alexia who kept her up at night which is why she was always late to school. 

 

“Thank you so much,” I said smiling.  I went to turn to the board when I realized I had forgotten to grab my textbook from my locker.  “Excuse me, Mrs. Odenell.”

 

“Yes, Lucy,” she said, looking up from what she was working on.

 

“I forgot my book in my locker, can I go get it really quick?” I asked standing up.

 

“Quickly,” she said, nodding.  I ran to my locker and grabbed my textbook, running back as fast as I could while getting looks from underclassman.  I’m not the kind of girl who wears sweatpants to school.  I always make sure that I am wearing nice clothes, dresses, khakis, dress shirts.  I was rare to ever see me in clothes other than dresses, at least at school.

 

When I got back to the classroom, Mrs. Odonell wasn’t in the room, it was just Jason.

 

“She went to get some coffee,” he said after I sat down.

 

“So thanks for waking me up this morning,” I said, turning in my seat to look at him.

 

“Excuse me?” he asked, giving me a smug look. 

 

“You know what I’m talking about.  Why didn’t you wake me up this morning?  Weren’t we supposed to run?”

 

“I thought it was too cold to run.  It was below twenty degrees,” he said going back to work.

 

“Oh, twenty degrees isn’t that cold.  It’s northern Minnesota, what else do you expect?” I asked.

 

“Whoa, crabby today,” he said.

 

“Yes, of course I’m crabby, I woke up twenty minutes before school started.  How would you like it if I left you tomorrow to sleep in and let you miss school?”

 

“I have an alarm set, remember?”

 

“Oh, yeah, well you know what? I-“

 

I was soon cut off by Mrs. Odenell coming back into the room with a fresh cup of coffee, smiling.  I shook my head at Jason, more mad than ever before.

 

“We’ll continue this conversation later,” I said turning back to open my book.

 

“Looking forward to it,” he said sarcastically.

 

But the thing is, we never got to finish the conversation, he avoided me for the rest of the day.  He even switched lab partners with Mason so he wouldn’t have to deal with me.  The first half of the day went by quickly.  Lunch was when it all slowed down.  My school is lame and we don’t have many choices for lunch.  We either take it at school or we go off campus.  Monday was my usual day to stay at school to eat and sit in the cafeteria with my usual group of friends: Trinity, Mason, and Jason.   But guess who decided to take off campus today? Jason and Mason.  I was so pissed off at Jason that I didn’t even want to look at him.  I just sat next to Trinity, picking at the disgusting school food because I forgot to sign up to get salad bar.  So I was stuck eating what they call shrimp poppers, even though I’m pretty sure that they are chicken.  I ended up throwing everything away and getting a small bag of chips to eat.  I went back and sat next to Trinity, leaning my head against the wall, trying not to fall asleep. 

 

“Are you okay, Lucy? You seem out of it today,” Trinity said. 

 

“I don’t think so,” I said.

 

“What happened?”

 

“Jason and I are fighting,” I said as I proceeded in telling her about what happened this morning.  The whole time, I felt like tears were rising in my eyes but I held them back.

 

After I was done talk, Trinity’s face was red with anger and she looked like she wanted to punch a wall.

 

“Jason’s a jerk,” she said, trying to stay calm and not yell. 

 

“I told him that.  He doesn’t seem to care.”

 

“I’ll talk to him during sports fitness, we have a substitute today so we have a study hall,” she said standing up and storming to bring her tray up.  Our cafeteria was for the whole school so there was the old fashion tables with the seats that were connected to the legs.  It made me feel like we were back in elementary school. 

 

Trinity came back to the table to bring me to our lockers to get our stuff for fifth hour, hers being sports fitness and mine being Real World Writing.  We shared a locker because there weren’t enough lockers for everyone and we were right next to each other in alphabetical order, obviously since we have to same last name.  As the bell rang, Mason and Jason walked past us and I watched as Jason ignored me the whole time. 

 

I left for the English room and when I went to turn the corner, I saw Jason staring at me with an agitated look.  I felt the tears rise up again and I ran for the bathroom to calm myself down.  The thing that I realized as I started sobbing is that I only want one thing right now.  And that’s just to make things right with Jason.

 

Jason’s P.O.V.

 

I felt so bad for ignoring Lucy throughout the whole day but I was so mad at her for choosing a complete stranger to date instead of me, one of the only people who had always been there for her lately.  I could tell that she was holding back tears that she wanted to cry her eyes out with, but she would either hold it in until her softball practice or is probably crying her eyes out in the bathroom stall right now.  I just hope we could make up soon.

 

Grabbing some homework from my Trig class, I walked with Mason to the health room and saw the best substitute teacher ever, Mr. Peterson.  He let us do whatever we wanted and he was more like another student then a teacher.  I sat down in the back with Mason to my left and Trinity sitting in front of me.  She was mad about something and her face was completely red with anger and her hand was clenched around a pencil.  When the late bell rang, Trinity turns around and glares at me, breaking her pencil lead from holding it so tight against the paper.

 

“What the hell is your problem?” she whispered, trying to stay calm.

 

“What are you talking about?” I asked focusing on my homework.

 

“You’re being a jerk to Lucy when she did nothing wrong.  Do you want to explain that to me?” she asked.

 

“How am I being a jerk?” I asked, playing stupid.

 

“You are ignoring her, treating her like crap, making her feel like nothing, and what was that stunt that you pulled this morning, when you ‘forgot’ to wake her up?” she asked.

“I didn’t mean it like that?”

 

“How did you mean it then?” she asked standing up, starting to yell.

 

“Trinity, you need to calm down,” I said slowly.

 

“No, I don’t need to calm down! You need to realize that you are making my best friend, my cousin, YOUR best friend like she is scum on the bottom of your shoe.  She may not realize it now, you may not realize it, but everyone else thinks that, no, know that you two are meant to be together.  Why can’t you get that in either of your heads?” she yelled.

 

“Is everything alright over there?” Mr. Peterson asked turning in his seat.

 

“Yeah, everything is fine.  Jason just needs to realize that Lucy didn’t want to hurt him.  She just needs him there,” she said staring at me, then when she was done talking, she sat down in her desk again, facing the front, returning to her work.  Mr. Peterson went back to talking to one of the guys about basketball and I sat back in my chair, running my fingers through my hair, sighing deeply.

 

Is it just me, or does everyone else besides Lucy realize that we are meant to be together?  Obviously that fact was proven in that outburst from Trinity.  But why can’t Lucy realize that?

 

I stood up in my desk and walked to where Mr. Peterson was sitting and waited for him to turn to me.

 

“Would it be alright if Trinity and I go into the weight room next door and talk about something?” I asked.

 

“Sure, man, just don’t kill each other,” he said glancing at Trinity, who was staring at us.

 

“Trinity, follow me, please,” I said walking out of the room, hoping that Trinity followed me.  Sure enough, Trinity was just a few steps behind me.  I went into the weight room, pacing back and forth until she came and sat on one of the equipment pieces. 

 

“So it’s not just me who realizes that Lucy and I are meant to be together, you know too?” I asked stopping in front of her.

 

“Yeah.  And I’m not the only one.  I’ve talked about it with almost half of the people in our grade and they all think the same thing.  We just have to get Lucy to think that,” she said looking up at me, her face back to its normal tanned color.

 

“Why is she so hesitant about it?” I asked sitting down on the floor in front of her.

 

“You know about her past.  She’s never seen a healthy relationship.  I mean, look at her parents: her mom killed herself because her husband left her for another family because he ‘loved them more.’  Then there’s all her brothers, they can’t keep a girl longer than eight hours.  After the sex is done, they are out the door.”

 

“But why is she with Josh?”

 

“The way that I see it is that she doesn’t want to take any risks and Josh isn’t really a risk, from what I hear.  Nobody has met him so we don’t know what he’s like.”

 

“But she knows that I would never hurt her or leave her.”

 

“I don’t think she wants to date you because she’s worried that if anything bad or wrong happens between you two, that you’ll bolt and leave her alone.”

 

“But-“

 

“Just give her time.  That’s all she really needs,”

 

“I’ve waited three years.  How much longer does she need?”

 

“Not much, I can already tell she’s starting to want you as much as you want her.”

 

With that, she got up and started walking towards the door, smiling as she left the room.  She left me in a state of confusion with the only question on my mind being “should I try to get her or wait?”

 

Lucy’s P.O.V.

 

After crying my eyes out all of fifth hour, the rest of the day seemed to take forever to get through, even though it was only four hours, counting sports practice.  Jason seemed a little softer to me when he saw me and gave me a small smile that made butterflies start fluttering in my stomach.  What was that about?

 

After practice I was going over to Josh’s apartment to watch a movie and hang out with his roommates, Jessa and Conner.  Josh picked me up in front of the school and I jumped in his car as he sped off to the next town over.  He looked hotter than ever with his waiter uniform on and sunglasses over his eyes.  I leaned over and kissed his cheek.  He turned his head away from me as I leaned back in my seat.

 

“What’s wrong?  You seem mad,” I said looking at him.

 

“Put on your seatbelt,” he said looking at me shortly then staring back at the road.

 

“Tell me what’s wrong, then I will.”

 

“You’re not safe when you don’t have your seatbelt on.”

 

“First tell me what’s wrong,” I said, being stubborn. 

 

“Fine,” He said, pulling over to the side of the road and stepping on the break.  “I just had a bad day at work.”

 

“I thought you didn’t work during the day.  You work at the club with Jacob,” I pointed out.

 

“They needed me to clean up after a party they had there last night.  A bachelorette party.”

 

“That’s it?”

 

“Yep,” he said. “No put your seatbelt on.”

 

“Wow, that’s lame,” I said putting the seatbelt on.  When I heard the click, Josh started driving again.  An awkward silence grew around us until he reached his apartment building.  As soon as the key was out of the ignition, he unbuckled his seatbelt and stormed inside.  I sat there for a second in shock until he had disappeared in the door.  Why was he acting like this?  I had never seen him act like this before.

 

After the shock was gone, I went inside the apartment building, up to the third floor and knocked on Josh’s door.  Jessa, his roommate, opened the door with a smile on her face.  I heard yelling in the room behind them and realized it was Josh and Conner.

 

“What are they fighting about?” I asked after she let me in.  They were in Conner’s room but it sounded like they were right next to us.

 

“Just stuff that happened last night, it’s no big deal,” she said sitting on the couch.  I sat next to her while she turned on the TV to some show that I had never heard of before.  It was in a foreign language so I had no idea what they were saying.  Jessa was from France and spoke with a thick French accent but she was really nice.  She had long brown hair, green eyes, and was almost six feet tall.

 

“What happened last night? Can’t I know?”

 

“It’s not for me to say,” she said focusing on the TV.  About ten minutes of the confusing talking in French, the yelling got quieter and Josh and Conner came out from the bedroom.  Josh motioned me to come in and I practically ran in the room, Conner replacing my seat on the couch.

 

“I have something I need to tell you about,” Josh said sitting on the bed.

 

I took a deep, shaky breath. “What is it?”

 

“I cheated on you last night,” he said.  My breath stopped.

 

How could he cheat on me?  I know that we had only been together for a few weeks but I would figure he would wait a little bit until he decided to cheat on me.  Wait, am I thinking that he was supposed to cheat on me?  Why would I think that? He’s my boyfriend, I would never want him to cheat on me.

 

I sat down on the bed next to him and he tried to hold my hand but I pulled it away.   “Who with?”

 

“What?” he asked staring at me.

 

“Who did you cheat on me with?” I asked staring at the floor.

 

“Tha-that’s unimportant.”

 

“Not that’s not unimportant!  I want to know who you cheated on me with!” I yelled.

 

“Lucy, calm down,” he said.

 

“I’m not going to calm down.  Why won’t you just tell me?”

 

“It was Georgia, Georgia Smith.  She works with me at the club and trust me on this; I never meant to hurt you.  Someone drugged me last night and I wasn’t myself.  I think it was Georgia who drugged me, she’s been trying to get me into bed for over a year now,” he said with true honesty on his face. “You have to know that I would never intentionally cheat on you.  If I could take that night back, then I would.  Please forgive me.”

 

“You truly didn’t mean it?”

 

“No.  I don’t even know what I was thinking.”  By this time, he was on the floor on his knees, literally begging me for forgiveness.

 

“Then, I guess, I’ll have to forgive you,”

 

“Thank you, thank you so much,” he said getting up off the ground and hugging me.  He held me so tight that I knew that he was sorry.

 

“You’re welcome.  Just don’t let it happen again.  And you’re not completely off the hook,” I said when he pulled out of the hug.

 

“What do you mean?”

 

“Oh, you’ll see.  Just for now, let’s go watch a movie with Conner and Jessa that is actually in English,” I said standing up.  He stood up in front of me and hugged me again, lightly kissing me on the lips.

 

“Thank you again,” he said.

 

I just smiled as we walked back out to the living room to watch the movie Wanted with his roommates.  Now that everything is solved with Josh, I just have to figure out how to fix things with Jason.  And I can already tell it’s going to be hard.

Author's Note

I hope you like it!

Reviews

[Kyle]

I like it! It's full of energy and very realistic. I think that at times you need to allow your readers to fill in the blanks though. This can be done by starting a scene and then just moving on. Then one of the characters can refer to the missing scene a bit, but the reader can fill in the blanks. Make sense?

I love this story though. Your dialogue is impeccable!

[Kayo0104]

Great book! It is very... what to call it... catchy!

[Kyle]

You need to write more! Your fans await! Sorry to be demanding.....

:0)

[Coyote Poetry]

A strong chapter. I like the beginning. Your attention to detail make the story strong and each character important. I like the description of the teacher. Story got a little messier with new situation opening up. Thank you for the excellent chapter. You open the doors to many new problems.
Coyote

[Wolfwind Words]

You've got the dialog down. It's realistic in the way it comes across, which helps the reader identify easier with the characters personalities. One thing you'll want to watch is your tenses... Spotted a couple of places where you went from past tense..."ed" to present tense in the same paragraph. As this story is a narrative from one characters point of view, it should hold to one tense. Either past, if the character is telling it to someone in the now, or present, as she's living it.
I like the pace that the chapters are reading at. The story line is for the most part fluid. Over all, I felt this particular chapter was the best written. It's got a smoother balance of description vs dialog.

Keep up the good work!
Aaron