REMEDY [ninjago jaya]

17. Pathetic

• Jay Walker •

Furious was an understatement. Jay was fuming as he descended the stairs and walked to the robotics club. When he entered, he tried not to look like he wanted to punch someone—since he really did not want to.

There was only one person already inside: Pixal. The girl quietly placed her project onto her table and was just grabbing a screwdriver when she noticed Jay in the doorway.

She looked at him curiously but didn't utter a word. Better so because Jay didn't know what was about to come out of his mouth unprompted. He had never been this angry in his life.

Being betrayed by the same person he had taken out on a date a day ago was rough. Being betrayed by the same person he had been catching feelings for was worse.

He cleared his throat. "Do you know where Nya is?"

That question lit up new unasked questions behind Pixal's steel-green eyes. "Negative," she answered, as if that word was easier to think of than a simple no.

"Have you seen her today?"

Why was he still talking to Pixal? It was clear she wanted to work on her project already, though Jay couldn't decipher what he was seeing on her desk. Something small but big enough to fit in his palm, surely.

Pixal shook her head, her silver-blond bangs gliding across her face. She had always been a mystery to Jay; her hair, her style, her mannerisms...

Pixal had always been the weird kid at their school. Always alone, and as far as he knew, she didn't have any friends, or at least anyone close enough to her to spark up the thoughts of them being friends. She was undoubtedly smart and able to solve any problem in mere seconds.

"I have not," she answered, then looked at Jay, giving him all her attention, her eyes analyzing him in a way that made him uncomfortable.

"Um, well, okay. Thanks." Jay glanced at the hallway behind him. "See you!"

He walked out and climbed the stairs back up to the ground floor. A few of the other robotics club's members passed him on his way up, most of them looking at him with uncomfortable looks on their faces and judging gazes. Even Scott, who had never regarded him in any way other than disdain, upped his disgust.

Nya still hadn't passed him, but he needed to talk to her. He pulled out his phone and clicked on their chat. His eyes glared at their previous texts, all filled with innocent teenage attraction and affection.

Where are you?
sent 02:17 p.m.

A response came only a few seconds later.

Nya
At home
sent 02:18 p.m.

He scowled.

Skipping robotics?
sent 02:18 p.m.

Nya
No, I'm home ill
sent 02:19 p.m.

Nya
I didn't go to school
today at all
sent 02:19 p.m.

Nya
How's the club going?
sent 02:19 p.m.

Jay turned his phone off without answering her question, his scowl permanently decorating his features. So she spread around his secret and had the gall to stay in her million-dollar mansion to stay out of trouble? The audacity.

No matter how much Jay wanted to have a go at her, he decided to go home instead. Turning up at the Smiths' mansion unannounced could go one of two ways: Either Nya opened the door and he could talk to her at the front door, or anyone else opened the door and he would embarrass himself in front of them.

Hell, he would embarrass himself either way. In the end, he was a nobody trying to reason with someone who could easily buy his entire existence and sell it at the clearance section of a supermarket.

The outside air was crisp enough to make him shiver underneath his blue sweater. He hurried over to his car, his fingers fumbling with his car keys, his intention being to get the heck away from the school grounds quickly.

His car was neatly parked between two other cars, none of them familiar to Jay, not that it mattered. Any student was allowed to park their vehicle on the parking lot behind the building.

Jay rounded the front and stepped in front of the driver's door. Then he froze, his mouth dropped low. His eyes swept over the word written across the side of his car in white graffiti, ruining the navy paint job of his doing.

broKie

"Oh my..." He walked around the back and read every graffitied message, his head spinning.

junkyard boy

u stink

EW

When he reached the passenger door, he let out a shriek. The graffiti was easy to paint over, though a pain in the ass to do because the white would surely require more than one layer, but the scribbles inscribed on his car was not easy to fix. Someone had damaged his car with what, a key? A thick needle?

Who's car did you steal

Not only was the grammar diabolical and the lack of a question mark was an eyesore, but there was no indication as to who could have written that. For all he knew, anybody could have done it.

With tears in his eyes, Jay got into his car and sped out of the parking lot, for once ignoring the speed limit, but he quickly regulated his speed once he got on the road.

Jay was a calm and collected person, ready to think things over instead of sprinting into action, but the thoughts in his head were anything but collected. He was angry and confused.

He thought, for once he really thought, that Nya was attracted to him, that she wanted more, that she was not a stereotype. After everything he had done for her, after every small touch that had left their faces in scarlet hues, after every word of sincerity he had uttered...

This was what he received.

Pathetic. So, so, so pathetic. How stupid of him to have trusted her. Of course she turned out this way.

Now he questioned how many words of hers had been true, how many of them he could actually believe now that he knew about her two-faced persona. Was she really the careless person who didn't care about money or was that an act as well? He didn't know what to believe.

The drive to his home took less time than usual because in the Sea of Sands, there was no speeding limit—it was a desert, vacant and empty.

The closer he got to the junkyard, the less he could believe his eyes. He had hoped for an afternoon of relaxation after the day he had just gone through, but instead he could see the outlines of his parents' bodies standing in front of the walls of their home, seemingly waiting for him to arrive.

As he stepped out of his vehicle, his nose picked up on the stark, horrifying smell of garbage. "What's going on?" he asked his parents, who were in pure distress.

"We don't know, son," his father said, lips turned down and a frown stretching across his old features. "We were woken up by the loud noise of car engines. A few hooligans dumped their trash into our Scrap n Junk."

"Who would do such terrible things?" his mother asked, on the brink of tears. Her husband slung his arms around her.

Taking a deep breath, Jay braced himself for the view he was about to see. But as his eyes grazed over the dirty clothes, the rotten food, the empty cans and packages of miscellaneous things, his blood no longer froze.

It boiled over.