03; Guns and Roses
"There's that pretty face I love to see," she chirped, plopping down at the lunch table where she poked Jackson's bicep.
"Seen Alison, yet?" He mumbled through a chicken sandwich that had to be, at best, lukewarm.
"Nope," she answered, popping the 'p' as she traced the damage in the table- a small spiral that sent goosebumps down her back.
"I haven't laid eyes on her, yet, and I know she wouldn't really want to look at me right now," he murmured, letting some distressed hair fall to his forehead.
Scarlet sighed, bringing her hand up to his head and brushing the dark blonde hairs -and with some stress- away. "She doesn't want to see anyone; her aunt died and it's being publicized. Don't blame yourself, Jackie. You knew next to nothing."
"Yeah?" He turned to her, hurt and angry tears pooling in his blue eyes. "Well, my stupidity got my girlfriend- ex-girlfriend- running around in the woods like a madman, trying to escape her own personal hell."
She dropped her hand to his back, patting it comfortably.
He cared so much more than what he put out there. He had a lot of possessions, but it's not what he wants. He wants the things he can't have, and can never have, and it's making him crazy. He wants his biological parents, but can't have them.
He needs their praise, and is diving into every which way to try to find them, regardless of himself.
He puts himself out there as a douchebag, but people like Danny, Lydia, and Scarlet saw the true side of him. The side that would put a stranger behind him when they were attacked in a Blockbuster, which he did that night, and tried to protect the random woman who was secretly pregnant.
He just drives into his mind that if he does a certain thing a special way, it'll get him somewhere new in his life, but that just won't happen.
"We're going to find her. I heard that Coach is putting together a search party for lacrosse and-"
The bell rang, signaling the end of lunch, the period she had gotten late to because Harris wanted to scold her privately about how she did her paper so well, that he couldn't believe it was her's, even if she was in all the other honors classes that the school provided.
"They're going to find her," she finished, squeezing a hand on his shoulder before taking off to her last class of the day.
Only problem was that she didn't know who needed more assuring; him or her.
-
"I-I don't think I can do this," Alison stammered, tears forming in her brown eyes. She blinked, glancing at the crowds of strangers with either cameras or phones whipped out, sticking their noses where they didn't belong.
"Think about Scott," Scarlet replied, running her hands down Alison's arms to comfort the stressed friend beside her. "There's a work in progress. Think about happy things right now. Or, maybe think about Kate, the version that you loved. The one that was good to you. Grieve her, not the new fame that she's brought on. Okay?"
Alison nodded, as her family approached and wrapped their arm around their daughter. Scarlet went over to the mob of people, a burning anger radiating off her body.
