Powerless

Meeting Him

"JACK!" Mrs. Daniels shouts up the stairs. Then she turns to me. "He's probably just getting up. Sorry to make you wait dear." 

"It's ok." I say my voice barely making it to her ears. 

"Yes mother?" I hear a groggy voice. 

"Come down here and meet your new friend." Internally I cringe, I wouldn't say that I and this Jack kid are friends but I didn't want to contradict Mrs. Daniels. 

"Who?" The voice, Jack, asks. 

"You have to come down and find out mister. You have five minutes to get presentable!" 

We sit in awkward silence until we heard the pounding of feet slowly coming down the creaky stairs. I wipe my cheeks hoping nobody could tell I had been crying before coming here. 

Then a striking, tall boy appears at the foot of the stairs. His shaggy blonde hair looked as though he hadn't bothered to comb it. 

His green eyes lazily scanned the room before landing on me. As he looked, I unconsciously started to chew on my bottom lip. His eyes grew more alert the longer he looked. 

Mrs. Daniels cheerfully cut in to my thoughts, "Jack this is Shelly. She will be joining you at Cresswood as a senior! Isn't that wonderful?" 

She then leans to whisper something in Jack's ear, but I couldn't hear it. After a few minutes of their whispering, which was obviously about me, Jack reaches out his hand and says, "I'm Jack Daniels, pleasure."

"I'm Simpson- sorry I mean I'm Shelly. Shelly Simpson." I take his hand reluctantly and shake his hand harder than I meant too. 

Then he looks at me in a way I am very used to. Pity. But this was a different this pity was more solemn. Like he knew some of what I was going through. 

"Come on let's go to my room." He says gesturing towards the stairs. My face starts to feel very warm. "I-uh-" 

"Not like that." He stutters. 

"Um. Yeah sure." I manage to say, my face still beet red.

"Here it's this way." He says as he walks up the stairs. He turns into a room and I shuffle along behind him. 

"Sorry about the mess. I wasn't exactly expecting company." He says looking around the room sheepishly. 

"Oh it's alright mine's just as messy." Mostly because I'm still unpacking from moving in. 

I glance around the room curiously. I walk over to the bedside table and pick up an orange pill bottle. 

I wonder what these are for. 

I search for the label but before I could find it, Jack snatches it away from me. 

"Those are...nothing." He says quickly obviously hiding something. He shoves the bottle into his drawer and sits down on his bed. 

"I didn't know the Simpsons had a daughter my age." As he says this, internally I flinch. I don't consider myself their daughter. I only came three weeks ago. 

"They don't" I say my voice coming off a lot colder then I meant. He looks as if he wants to ask a question but I glowered at him and he shut his mouth. I'm not going to explain, he wouldn't understand. 

"So...are you excited about Cresswood." He asks, trying to change the conversation. 

"No." I don't know what else to say... I'm not. 

He was about to say something then Mrs. Daniels shouted from downstairs. 

"Shelly! Your mother is here sweetie," she says. We walk downstairs in silence. Annalise, my foster mom, and Mrs. Daniels on the loveseat. 

She has her hands folded in her lap and whenever she stands up, so did Mrs. Daniels. 

"Ah there you are, Shelly. Come dear." Annalise said gesturing towards the door. Mrs. Daniels rushed to hold the door for us. 

"Uh. Bye Shelly." Jack awkwardly said. 

"Bye." I quietly said as I walked out without a glance back.