Who are you Jill Smith?

Chapter 5

I had just packed my books in my backpack and was going to go home.

Finn went home early because he had his foreign relatives visiting him and his family at home. His mom asked him if he could show them around town.

I went down the stairs, going pass the 9th grade hallway when I saw her figure, cleaning once again.

She was cleaning the 9th grade hall alone. The halls were practically empty because most of the students went home. I normally stay put somewhere til there would only be a few students left in campus. And also, why the hell is she always cleaning around?

I looked at her funny. Watched her a bit. And like the thick-skinned son of a bitch that I am, I decided to come up to her.

"Jill." I called out.

She turned to me and stared for a moment before responding.

"Hello." she answered.

"You enjoying yourself?" I said, with the intent of teasing.

She gave away this judging look before going back to her cleaning.

"You can say that." she still answered.

"Can I help with anything?" I asked, just for the sake of keeping the conversation going.

She glanced at me with the corner of her eyes. "If you wanna clean shouldn't you do it in the 10th grade hall instead?"

I caught a bit of sarcasm but I could tell she didn't mean anything by it, or maybe I just couldn't take her trying to be mean seriously because it didn't suit her.

"Our halls are already clean." I said. "10 graders are surprisingly diligent when it comes to their cleaning."

That was a lie. A hard lie.

Jill looked at me; her eyes caged me for a second but I was determine not to quiver. She gave me a small smile afterwards.

"Yeah, you're probably right." she said. She turned around and continued cleaning.

"For sure." I grinned, taking a look at the halls; studying how she did so far. "Looks to me that the 9th graders are lazy, seeing how they left one girl to do all the cleaning."

No respond.

"Mind if I help?" I followed.

Jill turned to me, again, caging me with her eyes. I stood my ground, not wanting to show how it made me uneasy in some ways. Somehow it seemed to be like a test; a test that I really wanted to pass.

This time she gave me a genuine smile as she made up her mind that I wasn't up to anything weird. She nudged her head towards her bag that wasn't so far from me.

"Well, can you please get the rag in my bag?" She said.

Why does she have a rag in her bag?

"Sure."

I dropped my backpack on the floor and made my way towards Jill's bag. When I opened it, and just when I thought the complicated feelings wouldn't drag me into this bottomless pit of fuck once again, I see the soda Finn gave her.

She hasn't drank it yet?

The thought gave my chest a tight squeeze.

Suddenly, questions infaded my thoughts. Agitated ones. I started questioning her in my head on how could she possibly like Finn that much to even consider this cheap piece of can treasurable? I was convincing myself that she was overplaying this crush thing and how it's starting to come off as pathetic to me now. In my head, I was calling her out and throwing insults to her face.

"This soda is getting warm. Don't you wanna drink it?" I asked, quite grimly.

I could tell even without looking Jill was horrified seeing the can of soda in my hand.

"No!" She quickly retorted, dropping the broom in her hands. "No. Please give that back. It's...It's—"

"It's what?!"

I shocked myself with how know loud that came out. It echoed the halls, and that's when I knew I needed to calm down. I did, but the anger did not decreased.

"This soda isn't even that good!"

Her eyes; obviously confused and lost. The sight made me feel ashamed. I struggle to find words but she beat me to it.

"Put it back." Jill managed to say. "It's special."

"No, it isn't!" I retorted, feeling the sense of control leaving my body. "It's just a piece of can! There's no meaning behind it, do you understand? He would have done it with anyone! Finn doesn't have feelings for you!"

The hall was dead silent.

Jill froze and so did I.

It was a official. I'm a complete dick. 

I knew I completely crossed the line when tears started to escape from Jill's eyes. She was pierced with reality; how it reminded her about the sad truth. Her look told me everything.

How could you...

I thought I heard her say.

She wiped her eyes then made her way so close to me to take her bag. She ran off and she didn't even look at me once when she walked passed me.

I fucked up.

I fucked it all up.

My spirit left my body while I was standing still like an idiot, holding the soda can in my hand. 

How could she look at me now?

The thought terrified me, something inside of me kept breaking whenever the thought of being ignored by her comes to mind. I don't care if I do hate her or not, I don't want that. I don't want her to not look at me.