Insecure

Chapter 6

"Laura? Are you alright?" Jayce asked as he approached her.

She wiped her eyes and cleared her throat. "No, I'm not. Obviously if I want to die, something isn't right."

 "May I sit with you?"

 Laura hesitated but scooted over. "Can I ask you something?"

 "Of course," Jayce replied, looking at Laura who had mascara running down her cheeks.

 "Why did you stop me? Why did you kiss me? I was going to end all my suffering."

 Jayce felt like he just had been slapped in the face. He felt a sudden pain shoot to his chest. He recollected himself and looked up. "Laura. I saved you and kissed you because I like and care about you. I have no idea what you have been through, but that's why I'm here. I want to get to know you. Plus, the kiss wasn't that bad was it?" Jayce replied.

 Laura blushed and shook her head. "The kiss was good."

 "Good, but Laura, I need to know something."

 Laura nodded for him to continue. "Do you like me? If you don't, then I guess I'm wasting my time...."

 "Jayce, I do like you. I like you a lot. I actually started to reconsider this suicide thing because of you, but I figured you wouldn't want to be with me anyways."

 Jayce smiled and kissed Laura's forehead. "I'm glad I saved you," he said, looking at her. "Now can you let me know your story?"

 Laura bit her lip and shrugged. "I guess."

 "You want to talk alone up here?"

 "Yeah, Lilly already knows my whole life."

 "Okay, now tell me. You don't have to say everything, but I want to get some idea what your life has been like."

 Laura nodded. "Well, it started when I turned 11 years old. My mom took my brother and left me all alone with my father, and I was heartbroken because I haven't seen them for almost 7 years. My dad was and still isn't meant to be a father. He's an alcoholic. I've basically been raising myself with Lilly's help since I was 11. Not only was I rejected by my family, I've been bullied ever since I stepped into a school like environment. At first, it was just name calling, but when I got into 6th grade, it was physical abuse. Girls and boys would tease me in a bad way, push me down, shove me into walls and chairs. I was laughed at and humiliated..." Laura paused to wipe her eyes from tears falling down.

 Jayce put his hand on her arm. "You don't have to finish if you don't want to."

 "I have to go on. Anyways, I kept getting bullied when I went into high school when Lilly wasn't around. They were scared of Lilly, so when she was around no one would touch me or say anything to me. When she wasn't around, mostly guys would shove me around and last week someone tried to sexually harass me. Then...." Laura started to say, gulping.

 "What happened?"

 "When I went home that night...My dad beat me, threw me against the wall, making me go to the hospital. That's why I have this," Laura said, tears falling down her cheeks as she moved her hair to reveal the bandage around her head.

 "Oh my God! Laura, I had no idea. Are you okay?"

 "Physically yes, emotionally and mentally, no."

 "Damn, Laura I'm sorry..."

 "It's okay, I just feel sorry for you because now you have to find another girl to like," Laura said, standing up.

 Jayce gently grabbed her arms and said, "What do you mean? Why would I have to like someone else?"

 "After hearing all that, you're probably freaked out and want to be as far away from me as possible."

 "No Laura. Hearing that makes me want to learn more about you.

 "What is there to know?"

 "What's your favorite food? What movies do you like to watch? Do you like pets and what kind? Stuff like that."

 "Really? You want to know pizza, horror movies and bunnies and dogs?" Laura said, smiling a little.

 "Yes, the little stuff can mean so much."

 Laura smiled and nodded. "Okay, we'll do that, but we can do that with everyone else. Everyone wants to know you, come on," Laura said, walking towards the door.

 "Wait, one more thing."

 "Yes?"

 "Will you be my girlfriend?"

 Laura shot her head toward him. "Really?"

 "Yes, unless you don't want to."

 Laura jumped in his arms and kissed him. "Yes, I'll be your girlfriend."

 "Thank you," he said, kissing her cheek before letting her down.

 "For what?"

 "For making me the luckiest guy alive."

 "Oh shut up," Laura said, laughing. She walked down the stairs, hearing Lilly and Carlos talking about something. She couldn't tell if they were talking about her or not, but either way, they'll be happy to talk to Jayce. She turned around, jumping off the last step. She looked at Jayce, saying, "It's gonna be nice having a guy around for Carlos to talk to." 

"Yeah?" 

"Hey, you're back," Lilly said, scooting away from her boyfriend. 

"Yeah. Everything is all good." 

"Good. I was worried." 

"I know you were," Laura said, looking at Lilly. She held out her hand to Lilly. "I'll never leave you." 

Tears almost swelled in her eyes but blinked them back. "You better not."

"I think everyone will feel better if we sat down and interviewed Jayce----"

"Carlos!" Lilly scolded. "Can't you see something serious just went down?"

"No, Lilly. It's alright," Laura assured, tapping Lilly's shoulder. "I'm okay."

 "You sure?"

 "Of course. Come on." 

~~~~~~~~~~~

"Wait, you've been on t.v. before?" Carlos asked, surprised.

 "Yeah, it was an old T.V. series. I was on the last 4 seasons of it when I was like 12."

 "So you're famous?"

 Jayce laughed. "Not anymore. I'm not into the whole 'famous' thing. The acting was great, but I had to go to photo shoots, meetings, signings. I just didn't have time for school and to be a kid. I haven't acted for 6 years now."

 "Do you ever think you could do it again?" Lilly asked.

 "I'm not sure. I would always be away from my Mom and my friends."

 "That's understandable."

 "I think so. Anyways, Carlos, how long of you been in the picture? Like, I mean, how long have you known Lilly and Laura?"

 "Actually, I met Lilly 6 months ago, and we got along great, same with Laura. Laura is really nice, and I think she's warming up to me. I just think Lilly and I had something special between us. At first, she thought I was a total douche bag, but now she has changed her mind about me," Carlos smiled, looking at Lilly.

 She shoved him and smiled. "I admit, you did prove me wrong."

 "But see, the cool thing about Laura is she has had a hard past, but she would keep going through her life. She never let anyone get to her that I know of. She's a very strong person especially from what happened one or two days ago. She's very tough," Carlos said.

 "Thanks Carlos, but really it was nothing. So what if my head was bleeding like hell because my dad threw me against a wall? I'm just glad I got out when I could."

 "I agree. I could've lost my best friend," Lilly agreed.

 Laura smiled and hugged Lilly. "So who wants to play a game?" Jayce said, standing up.

 "What game?" Laura asked.

 "We can either play truth or dare or a question game where we have a die, someone picks a number and if it rolls to that number, that person gets to ask any question to any person."

 "Did you make that game up?"

 "I think. I never played an actual game like that."

 "We should play the second one because Carlos likes to get sexual with Truth or Dare," Lilly said.

 Carlos laughed and shrugged. "Guilty."

 "Okay, let's get started."

 Jayce searched around for a die in his jacket, and when he pulled it out, he received weird looks from everybody. He looked at them and said, "What?"

 "You carry around a die in your jacket?" Laura asked.

 "Not usually. I found it on my kitchen floor, and instead of putting it back where my Mom keeps it, I felt lazy and put it in my pocket."

 "Laura, I think this one's a keeper," Lilly said.

 Laura just rolled her eyes and nodded towards Jayce. "Alright, now tell us how to play, Magic Man."

 "What's with the name?" he asked, grinning.

 "Just talk," she replied.

 He chuckled and started rolling the die in his hand, then he threw it on the table, waiting to see what the number was. "Don't worry, this will be fun."

 Lilly and Laura looked at each other. Laura whispered, "What did I get myself into?"

 "Tell me about it," Lilly replied.

 Jayce looked up. "What's with all the whispering over there ladies?" he asked swirling his fingers around their noses.

 "We're just saying how great of a gamemaker you are," Lilly said, biting her lip to hold in her laughter.

 "She's lying! I know that face!" Carlos exclaimed.

 "No one asked you!"

 Jayce looked at Laura. "What did you say?"

 "Nothing!" She shrugged. "This is just a great game. I can tell we're gonna---" Laura couldn't finish her sentence. She was already laughing. This caused Lilly to laugh and it was no use to talk now.

 "Girls, I swear. Right man?" Carlos hinted over to Jayce.

 "You got that right. But, she's cute anyways."

 "Are you talking about Lilly?"

 Shaking his head, he looked over at Carlos. "Come on. You've known me for how long now?"

 "Not even a full day, man."

 Jayce stopped and thought for awhile. "Oh yeah..." He turned his head back to the girls.
"Seriously, what did you guys say?"

 "Jayce, it really was nothing. We were just saying that you were taking too long with this game."

 "I literally just rolled the dice!"

 "Let's go then!" Jayce shook his head and smiled at Laura. What did I get myself into?