it seemd as though jason was glued to my side. he followed in my every footstep throughout the day never leaving my side. as we walked from history to geometry we spoke and smiled and laughed. it was surprisingly easy to talk to him and finally be myself around someone other than Ivy. i told him about a lot of things i had never even told ivy about like how i was adopted and never knew where i came from or who my birth parent slived, my uncanny missuse of the girls restroom (he thought it was really funny) which i thought was horribly embrassing. he told me a lot about himself too like how he doesnt have parents either, he isnt adopted he just lives with his older brother in an apartment not far from school. he used to go hunting with his father until he bacame an alchoholic. his mother had him at the age of 18 and was ill prepared for his arrival. we then got into all the embarrasing stuff like how i use the bathroom enough times to pee for everybody on the planet and how he goes camando when nobody is around. we talked continually all the way into lunch.
we walked over to the same lunch table me any Ivy always sit at.
"hey Iv's" i said to her as we sat down.
"whoa....... who is this? care to tell me charolette? is there something we need to discuss?" she said smiling and looking jason up and down.
"Ivy!" i scolded quietly apologizing to jason in a qiuck whisper "this is Jason he's new here" i said looking at ivy with a death stare. she knew i liked him maybe even loved him and she was trying to embarrass me. so like Ivy.
"can i get a picture of you two?" she said with an micheivious smile.
"Iv's really? are u really going to embrass me like this?" i asked mortified.
"yes" she answered defiantly.
"charolette, its fine its just a picture" he said smiling at me with a cocky grin. before i had time to protest he put his arm around my thin shoulder and pulled me into the outline of the side of his torso. a rush of Jason smell flooded my nostrils. he smelled like shower. or soapy shampoo.i sat awkwardly in the crook of his arm memorizing his touch. he flashed a huge grin and i plastered the most non-nervous looking smile i could muster.
"there! my hot new freind is a kodak moment" she said still smiling at him. i was twisting my finger toether tryig to forget who was touching me. he looked down at my hands.
"charolette? are you ok?" i could hear his voice through my stare at the concrete pavement."charolette" he said not as a question.
"hmm?" i asked breaking my gaze and looking into his worried eyes.
"whats wrong?" he asked. i didnt really know what was wrong, like something inside me went wrong. my stomach cramped and my hands felt clammy. a metalic taste rose in the back of my throat. i was now unconsiously looking at the pavement again mesmorized by the tiny cracks in the cement. when i didnt answer he put his hands on the side of my face near my temples. ripping my gaze back to his eyes. i hated to be touched. i didnt like human contact. when he touched me i flinched away and put my hands on top of his on my face trying to remove them.
"charolette, answer me!" he said his eyes frantic. it was like i was somewhere else my mind shattered. i fought with his hands but he was too strong. as his hands remained. i flashe d back or whatever people in movies did. i was 6 years old again i was watching tv when my dad came through the front door and another man with a knife in his hand holding it up to my dad sback.they started screaming at eachother. the man with the dark hair and the knife ran over to me speaking words too fast i couldnt understand. he took me by the throat and spoke some unintelligable words i didnt know. my dad ran to the man screaming "no!" he released me and went into the bedroom . the next thing i remembered my face was being sqiushed between the two bloddy hands of my father. he was telling me that it was ok and that nobody was going to hurt me. from that day on the human touch has wavered my existence and shattered my insides.
i knew he thoguh he was comorting me but i hated the human touch. Ivy qiuckly knew what i was doing. she rushed over to the side of the table frantically pullling my hands of of his and finally speaking.
"dude, dont touch her." Ivy said her voice stern and demanding. he instantly dropped his hands from my now frigid face. i looked into his eyes. his forehead creesed with worry.
"im so sorry jason i didnt mean to do that " i said fighting back tears.
"im sorry i didnt know....i ....." he looked at his hands.
"its ok dont worry about it. its a long story." i said my heart sinking. " we better get going the next period is in 3 minutes." i said grabbing my book bag and water. we walked to science in silence digesting ther incident at lunch. we came to the old looking green door of Mr.varner's science lab. as i pushed open the door the smell of burning marshmellows and gramcrackers filled the surrounding air.
"mmmmm" i said taking a deep breath of the sweet air. me and jason walked to the end of the lab and took seats nect to eachother in the far back corner. Mr. varner launched into his exciting tale of his epiphany last night on how he wanted to make science lab days fun, delicious, and educational.
"so! were making smores for the WHOLE class period as we experience the chemical reactions occring when a marshmellow burns!" he exclaimed his deep voive bouncing off the tile walls of the class room. when his speech was done we scurried off to a lab station and started to roast marshmellows.when we were cleaning up all the sticky marshmellow goup we took our seats and silently wrote our lab write ups. he went into his backpack and took out a note book, opened to a random page and scribbled something down.
he passed me the notebook. it read: "you dont like me very much do you?" he wrote. i looked at him and gave him a worreid glance. i pulled the notebook closer to me. and scribbbled down "you know that i dont hate you. something hapened a long time ago....i dont like talking about it but. i just cant be touched." i scribbled down under his message.then i pushed it toward him.
"will you tell me sometime?" he wrote and pushed it toward me.
"if you want to know" i wrote back.
"i do"
"tomorrow, my house" my heart beeting a mile a minute i passed the note book to him
"sure" he wrote back with a weak smile, his spiky blond hair radiating in the fire light of the bunsen burners.
