Grace; misanthrope // Jai Brooks

Chapter 5

I'm at my locker before first period gathering my belongings to start out the day. Jai Brooks appears beside my locker and softly clears his throat.

"Hi," he says.

"What do you want?" I ask, not even looking at him.

"I'm sorry."

"You've already said that," I state.

"I know, but," he paused. "you seem angry,"

For the first time I really look at him, slightly puzzled. "Well, everyone seems to have shit to say about what happened at the party, so I'm not exactly happy about that. And surely you've probably run and told your friends that I made a pass at you and how I'm vile and a loser or what have you." I say with irritation.

"My friends don't know anything."

"You haven't told them?"

"No, why would I?"

I look at him, trying to figure out why he's talking to me right now and if he's even being truthful. I study his big brown eyes briefly before closing my locker and walking away, leaving him and the scent of his cologne alone, amongst the crowd in the hallway. Why would he care if I was angry, anyways? God, I was so not in the mood to see him during study hall.

Unavoidably, study hall came around. For once, I had arrived to the classroom before Jai. I had just started working on my art project, to get ahead before art class, laying my paints out neatly at my table. Our eyes met as he came around to take his seat behind me. I flashed a dirty look.

"You know what?" he said taking a step back toward my table. "Maybe you'd have friends if you weren't so mean."

"Hah, that's rich coming from you." I laugh. "You do nothing but torment me."

"Because you're annoying!"

"You're a cocky twink!" I protested, getting up out of my seat. We were starting to draw attention toward us as the classroom was filling with students.

"You're so nasty and rotten! You're nothing but a cynical misanthrope,"

"Big words for you, huh? You walk around with your nose in the air like you're better than everyone else!"

"Not true," he fired back.

I grit my teeth, picking up one of my bottles of paint. Without hesitation I dump it over his head, soiling his dark brown hair with bright pink paint. He froze, jaw hung open in complete shock. Everyone in the classroom is looking at us. Our teacher walks in just as Jai grabs the water cup from my paint and pours it on me, drenching my dark curly hair.

"Jai! Grace!" Mr. Creed's voice boomed.

We both froze, eyes locked on Mr. Creed who looked appalled.

"Mr Penk's office. Now. The both of you."

"But-" Jai tries to speak, but is cut off my Mr. Creed repeating himself.

I clean up my paint mess before heading down to Principal Penk's office. Jai was just taking a seat as I got there. Mr. Penk doesn't ask us for much context of the circumstances and chalks it up to teenagers being teenagers. In fact, Jai and I both hardly get a word in the entire time. Penk gives us after school detention for the following day and leaves it at that.

I continue about my day not so thrilled. At lunch, Chloe and Bella seem really intrigued by the situation. We sat around our usual table, picking at our food.

"Why would he apologize again if he's already done it once?" Bella asks, slurping her Starbucks.

"And so what if you were mad? What would he care?"

I shrug, not having any answers.

"Maybe he's got a little crush on you," Bella says, nonchalantly.

Chloe and I just look at her with disgust.

"What?" she questions, eyes shooting from mine to Chloe's. "It makes sense. He did kiss you after all."

I picked at my food, feeling nauseous. Once I got home from school I tried studying for a while. It was so difficult to focus when all I could think about was that kiss and all this tension at school. I was not looking forward to detention, nor having to explain it to my parents. Plus, I was sure my little sister was going to tease me for having ruined my perfect record. I stuffed my headphones into my ears and put on some Joy Division. I had always loved school. But the very thought of it was starting to give me anxiety.

The next day went on like any other day. I managed to make it through most of the day unscathed. The end of the school day neared once I walked into statistics class. Emma Cabot tripped me, and I smacked my face off a desk. It was painful but of course I had to suck it up and dust it off as if nothing happened. My cheek was hot and throbbing the rest of class. Afterword, I headed to the girl's room to rinse my face. My cheek did look pretty bad. Usually the havoc that the popular kids wreak doesn't get very physical, but this was overboard.