Forbidden

Natural Actor

There we stood in the men's restroom of my school, my nose still bleeding from Abby's punch. Why? That's the only thing I wondered. Why would she say those things, to me, to him much less. I wasn't lying when I said I didn't want to see her again. I never wanted to speak with her, or hear her, or see her, or know anything more about her. Hate is a strong word, but that's what I felt for her in these moments. Mr. Reynolds stood close in front of me, wiping the blood from my face, trying to calm me. 

    "All done." He said. I looked in the mirror. My face looked rough. My makeup all gone, eyes red and still crying, my nose starting to swell up. 

    "Thank you." I look at him in the mirror, and then back to myself. "I look like a mess, like I just woke up by falling off my bed, 10 ft high in the air, and then washed my face with red Gatorade." We both laughed. 

    "You look wonderful given the fact that you just got punched in the face. If you ask me, I did a pretty great job at cleaning that mess up." He smiled and giggled. 

    "Sure buddy, whatever you say." I smiled back. 

    "Hold on a second," He moved his hand into my hair. I couldn't help but imagine other circumstances in my head. He pulled his hand back, holding a small twig. "You had something in your hair." 

    "I see that. It must have gotten there when I fell." 

    "I guess so." His eyes lingered on me for several moments, mine on him. I felt butterflies fill my stomach, whirring around so quickly it was hard to stand. Mr. Reynolds took a step towards me, now inches away, his eyes met mine, nervousness grabbing at my ankles, trying to pull me to the floor. I wanted something, anything to happen. But I knew I couldn't do anything, if I tried I would only make a fool out of myself. He took one step closer, only centimeters away now, his hand placed on my back. He leaned forward. I was freaking out. What was I supposed to do now, go for it? Was he going to? Was I just imagining it all? I gave in to my fear. 

    "Uh..um, I uh…" I took a half step back. "Did you say you had another shirt I could borrow?    This one is covered in blood and sweat." Mr. Reynolds snapped out of his daze, taking a step around me, leading me out of the restroom. "Yeah, I do." He said in a low tone. Luckily, no other teachers were around to see us leave together, that was something I did not want to have to deal with. 

    Once we made it to Mr. Reynolds classroom, he shut the door behind us. You weren't supposed to do that if you only had one student in the room with you, but I guess he didn't really care, or maybe he just wasn't thinking straight. I followed him to his desk, and sat down in his chair while he searched through his bag for a shirt. 

    "Hey um, thanks for helping me get cleaned up. If my mom saw me like that she would have freaked." I said. Trying to clear the silence. 

    "Of course." Were things just normal now? Were we just going to act like nothing at all happened in that bathroom? Because I don't know what it was, but it was something. "Can I ask though, why did that anger you enough to fight, Eleanor?" Crap. Was this the moment? Did I tell him now? Did I lie? Did I act like I didn't hear him? 

"I just…. I…" What was I doing? I didn't know what I was going to say, why did I open my mouth? "It's not just today." I said. "She's always on my back when I do something that's not to her liking."

    "Well I understand that, but you only started to fight when she brought up you liking me. Is there a reason why?" He paused searching his bag, and turned to face me.

    "Because I don't and that's something really embarrassing to have said about you, especially if it's not true." At least that was partially the truth.