Ink (On Hold)

Chapter 4

The four of us exited the conference room in silence.

"You start when your senior year is over, Skylar," Kyle Chase said before heading down the hall and disappearing into another room. I was still hurt from what Jamal had done but suddenly that hurt was being quickly converted into anger. I turned to Jamal who was staring down the hall Mr. Chase went down. I grabbed his shoulder to face me, brought him closer to the ground and kicked him square in the chest. he dropped to his knees in front of me and grabbed his chest, trying to recover the air that I'd completely knocked out of him.

"Skylar, what the hell?!" Lilith yelled rushing over to Jamal's side.

"He told someone about me! That was supposed to stay a secret. I fucking trusted him! Sorry if I seem a little pissed off right now."

"I'm sorry," Jamal whispered, still trying to catch his breath. I rolled my eyes at him. I could care less about his stupid apology at the moment.

"Should I take you to the hospital?" Lilith asked him.

"He'll live, Lilith," I said. After a few moments, Jamal finally rose to his feet.

"Yeah, she's right. I'll be fine," he said and stared at me with big brown eyes filled with regret. I started walking out of the building for I had nothing to say to him.

"Where the hell are you going?" Lilith asked.

"Home." No one stopped me.

* * * *

It was nice walking down the street alone. My anger eventually dissipated and now I just felt bad for kicking Jamal. He deserved it, I tried telling myself. But I knew I could have handled it better.

My stomach grumbled abruptly. I took a look at my watch. 12:15. I had been walking around the city for almost five hours. How in the world does even that happen?

I stopped at the corner of the street and looked around and spotted a bakery across the way. I ran as fast as I could since I hadn't waited for the street light to change. I got honked at twice but I made it safely to the other side.

When I walked in, the amazing smell of freshly baked bread and cookies made my mouth water. I went over to the display cases of goodies and searched for what I wanted.

"Skylar?" I looked up and saw Alice on the other side of the counter. She had her golden hair in a low ponytail, her black eyeliner made her sapphire blue eyes pop, and she looked adorable in the pink and white striped apron. Then I remembered something that I had read last night: Alice works in a bakery owned by her grandparents. But I technically shouldn't know that so I had to play dumb.

"Hey Alice. I didn't know you worked here."

"Yeah. A lot of people don't. My grandparents own it."

"You don't say. How long have you been working?"

"Seven years now."

"Sweet." I smiled and walked over to look at the assortment of cupcakes.

"So how have you been?" She asked.

"I've been... pretty good."

"Liar." I looked up and saw her smiling mysteriously at me.

"Excuse me?"

"You heard me. But, can I be really frank with you right now?"

"What, the outright calling me a liar wasn't frank enough?" I joked. "But, yeah, go ahead."

"You kinda look like crap." I was shocked at her words but I now had even more respect for her. I liked people that were honest and I found it funny that she had said it so matter-of-fact.