You groan, shaking your sleeves down over your hands and then rubbing your forehead. Your brain is a swirl of how you’re going to survive the day. You’re no-one. Just yet another person for all the popular kids to abuse because you’re not like them. You’re not as confident as them, and you know that you’ll never be the most graceful person in the world, but you don’t understand why they’re doing this to you. They don’t even know you.
You walk quickly through the corridors, keeping your head down low, letting your brown hair conceal your face. You hear the high laughter of them behind you, and you quicken your pace.
“There she is!” Someone calls.
Tears sting your eyes as the insults that they call you follow you down the corridor. Klutz. Ugly. Slut. And they weren’t the worst. The further away you walked, the worse the insults get and the smaller you feel. You were walking as quickly as you could, and the door leading outside was getting closer and close, which meant you could get outside and maybe hide.
It was all going well until someone sticks their foot out. You trip, sprawling face-first onto the floor, books spilling from your bag. You scramble to your feet, leaving all your things behind and run to the door while the laughter of your fellow students chases you outside.
You sprint across the field while the girls that loved to humiliate you followed you until you have nowhere else to run. You’re backed up against the chain link fence that surrounds the field and they can see that you’ve got nowhere else to go.
Their ringleader, Bethany walks up to you and slams her fist against the fence next to your head, laughing as you flinch and shy away.
“Hi, Joslyn,” She smiles. “Happy to see us?”
“I’d be happier if you go away,” You snap, but soon shut up as she grabs a fistful of your hair. Clearly, not all cheerleaders were afraid of snapping a nail.
“You just don’t have a clue, do you?” She simpers, tightening her grip on your hair. “Around here, people like you, you’re nothing.”
You sink your teeth into your bottom lip to stop yourself from crying out as she twists your hair. But that doesn’t stop your eyes from watering.
“Aw, look,” Bethany laughs. “Poor little Joslyn’s going to cry,”
Around you, the cheerleaders laugh at your pain and your humiliation.
“Hey!” A voice shouts. “Leave her alone!”
Bethany lets go of your hair and slinks over to the source of the voice. It’s Jordan Witzigrueter, a boy in your year that you didn’t think knew you even existed. She slinks over to Jordan, swinging her hips enticingly.
“Hey, Jordan,” She says in a breathy voice, a playful smile worming its way across her mouth. “What’s wrong? I was only having fun,”
Jordan looks down on her in disgust, and then over at you. “You think this is fun? Humiliating a girl who has done nothing to you?”
“But-”
“But I don’t give a shit. Now leave her alone, for good. If I see any of you come near her again, I swear to God, you’re all going to regret it?”
Bethany laughs. “Why? What are you going to do? You wouldn’t beat up a girl.”
He raises his eyebrows. “No, but I can spread vicious rumours about you all round the school. And make sure the teachers know about where you meet your boyfriends when you’re skipping class.”
With that, the cheerleaders quickly disappear.
He moves towards you, pausing when you flinch, softness filling his brown eyes. “It’s okay. I’m not going to hurt you.”
You sink to the floor, hugging your knees to your chest. “They’ve never done that before. It’s never been physical.”
He puts an arm around you. “It’s never going to happen again.”
You look at him, taking in every detail about him: his choppy brown hair that’s currently all over the place; the light that’s dancing in his brown eyes; his nose ring and the way that even though he isn’t smiling, it looks like he is. When he notices that you’re shivering, he slips off his hoodie and wraps it securely around you. You sigh and relax a little, breathing in Jordan’s scent, which somehow resembles cinnamon. But you like it.
“Why?” You whisper.
He shrugs. “I saw someone trip you in the corridor. That wasn’t right. So I followed you.”
“You could have just left. You didn’t need to stay.”
He frowns. “Yes, I did. I can’t just leave a damsel in distress, can I?”
You roll your eyes. “I am not a damsel in distress.”
“You’re pretty shaken,”
“Fine.”
He stands up suddenly, holding out his hand. “Come on. Let’s get out of here.”
Your eyebrows shoot up. “Are you asking me to skip school with you?”
“You don’t seriously want to be here after what’s happened, do you?”
You bite your lip. Your brain is telling you to be smart, to stay in school, not to run off with some guy you barely knew but had fantasized over talking to, but your heart was telling you to get out of there and have some fun, escape for a little bit.
You stand up, taking his hand and smiling as a sense of warmth rushes through you. He leads you along the edge of the field, to a gate, where you falter.
“What’s up?” He asks. “It’s only a gate,”
“I might fall,” You mumble.
“I’ll catch you,” He smiles, hopping the gate with ease.
You clench your jaw, the outgoing side of you getting the better of you. You were going to climb over the gate and you weren’t going to fall. Or so you thought. Your foot slips on the chain that holds the tall gates shut and you tumble, only for Jordan to catch you, bridal style of all things. A flush sweeps its way over your cheeks and you laugh slightly.
“Told you I’d catch you,”
He sets you down gently and the pair of you walk to his house, which he assures you will be empty.
When you get to his, he leads you upstairs to his room, where a giant TV hangs on the one wall that isn’t covered in posters. You smile to yourself, noticing that his music taste is fairly similar to yours.
You flop down on his bed while he sorts through his DVD collection, muttering to himself. After putting the DVD in the machine, he curls up next to you. You laugh softly as the opening credits roll across the screen.
“Monsters Inc.,” You laugh. “Really?”
“Shut up,” He mumbles. “This is one of my favourite films.”
You roll your eyes and wriggle around until you’re in a more comfortable position, your head resting on Jordan’s shoulder, still wearing his hoodie. He hugs you tightly and for the first time in a long time, you feel warm and content.
This was the start of something beautiful.
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Hi, I hope this was okay for you! I'm sorry if you don't like Monsters Inc. - it was the first DVD I saw when I was writing this... Feel free to substitute it for something else :)
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