My Name is Bitch

Chapter 7

Chapter 7

He could his hear his name being called by whiney girls, demanding jocks and the appraising ladies who were to cool to voice their whines.

Bending over at his locker, he heard almost in unison a sigh from his peers. He turned to see them looking at him discreetly, behind an open locker, out of the corner of their eye.

A blonde head, he would know anywhere, was walking down the hallway. She seemed to be really interested in the ground as she passed him. And he seemed to be really interested in her.

His hand shot out to her shoulder, twisting her to body to him. “Jane.”

Startled, she brushed her hair out of her face and shrugged off his touch. “What?”

Verbally gulping, James mouth went dry- his tongue twisted so badly that he wouldn’t have even been able to grunt a response.

Her forehead wrinkled, glaring at him. “What, James?” she says impatiently.

Finding the words, he battles his dry mouth. “I-I need to talk to you.”

Jane, who seemed to be staring at James as if he had grown a second head or perhaps a sixth finger, tried to disguise her excitement as amusement.  “No.”

Gaping at her, James decided it was his turn to find the floor very interesting. His response was muffled and barely audible above the din of the students.

Jane leaned forward, looking as if she was intentionally getting closer to him, which she noticed and quickly took a large step back. “What did you say?”

Suddenly angry, James tossed his head up. “I said, Jane, “ pausing for effect and to notch his voice up a little louder, “that I want to go on a date with you!”

It was as if the school froze. Students dropped books and teachers looked alarmed at such a public display of affection that their glasses seemed to droop down to the tips of their noses, clinging to their face.

Jane’s mouth moved, but nothing came out, nothing coherent seemed to make an appearance. It took her a few minutes until she found the word she was looking for. “No.”

James expected the answer and figured out how to get his way. He started to stomp his feet, throw his fists against his locker and yell sentences littered with so much profanity that many of the students covered their ears.

But Jane didn’t notice any of that, all she seemed to care about were the stares directed at her, analyzing her moves, her body, her books, trying to find the attraction James saw in her.

Not being able to take the stares, terrified they might find out her secrets and paralyzed that she might be subject to attention she would never be ready for.

But her secrets, they couldn’t find those out. They couldn’t know what has happened and what will happen, they can’t ever know. The whole thought of it, her world crushing, her tiny inconsequential life being taken from her, scares her more than any gun could, more than any convict, terrorist, or car hurtling at one hundred miles an hour at her.

And those thoughts conjure up tears, tears that she had cried only a day ago, to slowly trace its own path down her cheek, dripping onto the floor that seemed to save her at the most opportune times.

Noticing this, James stops his rant and takes Jane by her shoulders, draping his arm across them. “Shhhhh, its okay, Jane,” he whispers in her ear, a soft lullaby of words.

She lets him lead her out into the parking lot, alarmed that she cried and let the person that made her cry help her.

“Let go,” she murmured, hoping her voice didn’t sound frightened, hoping that it didn’t have that I-have-a-secret-you-can’t-know-about tone to it.