FREAKS || Jerome Valeska¹

03 || More Than Enough

The girl sat silently in an old waiting room two days later, on Wednesday afternoon. Her eyes looked around the room impatiently, avoiding the pity-filled gazes of others. Instead, she focused on the old clock hung up on the brown-colored wall. It ticked slowly, much to her discontent; its continuous movement signaled the anguish of the passing of time, pulsating a new round of anxiety with every tick. Then, the loud, abrupt ring of the bell came and jolted her to sit up straighter. Afterschool had come, and the sound of students chattering in the halls behind the closed door echoed.

"Did you hear what happened to Reese?"

"Yeah."

"It was hilarious."

Reese squirmed in the plastic seat as she heard the sound of their chuckling. Here she was. A stinging busted lip that had only just stopped bleeding. She could feel all the tender spots where the bruises would inevitably start to form as she pressed an 'ice pack' on her aching temple from being kicked. Nausea twisted her stomach, and her vision blurred ever so often.

"Ree..." A voice called for her attention to the other girl sitting a couple of feet away. Amelia Dominguez, her Biology lab partner. She had recently moved from Connecticut due to her father being contracted for work, and from the moment she arrived, she had a tough time making friends. So, naturally, she offered to be her friend.

Now, Reese wanted nothing more than never to see her face again.

All she could hear when she looked at it were the sounds of her crying as they fought in the yard, begging her to stop. Other students yelled as if they had paid for the entertainment, exclaiming in surprise when she gave in for a moment, punching back, 'Oh, she fights back?'.

She knew how to fight; she had fought her entire life... she just didn't like to.

She didn't want to anymore.

Her own hands, when curled and attacking, could bring back memories of all the times she had been forced to use them.

Amelia's hazel eyes were welled with tears, swollen from crying, and a twinge of guilt hid there - Reese chose to ignore that. Her nostrils crusted with dried blood, and her cheek was swollen. "I'm sorry -" She began to say, but Reese was already shaking her head slowly so as not to aggravate her headache. There was no way that she could trust her again. Reese looked at the ground, devastated. "I - I just -... I wanted to fit somewhere in this school... I know that you know what that's like."

Reese's eyes clenched, "You are selfish. I was your friend." Her voice cracked, and she quickly blinked the tears away. "I accepted you. I never asked you for anything, not to change for me, not to do something fucked up, and you betrayed me like it was nothing to you." She gently leaned against the wall next to her, laying her head on the cold of it. "Was it worth it? Are you popular now? Do people like you better now?" She seethed and turned to glance at the girl one more time.

Amelia shook her head vigorously, her lip quivering, "No, it wasn't. Please forgive me."

Reese shook her head bitterly, "I can't do that. I don't feel forgiveness. When you walk out -" Tears attempted to choke her up. She did not understand how people could be so cruel as to ask someone she cared about to do this to her and how that person could just do it, "you're gonna get applauded, and I'll be laughed at."

"Please -"

"You apologize? I have to take my sister to the hospital because she might have a concussion." A booming voice came from the principal's office in the next room. Her mouth dropped in surprise, hearing her brother argue passionately.

Edward Nygma crossed his arms, his jaw locked, "My sister is getting beaten on school grounds, and you are just sitting here, and no one is being reprimanded or expelled. This girl seriously needs to be made an example."