"Whoever is careless with the truth in small matters cannot be trusted with important matters."
~ Albert Einstein
***
"What do you say we get out of here, huh?" Mac whispers once he finally separates his lips from mine. My face heats up and I can feel my heart hammering mercilessly in my chest, threatening to break free. Everyone around us who gathered for the show previously are staring at the two of us now, open mouthed and shocked. Even Harley who's snarky, teasing and awful expression has faded away from her face and dissolved into look of angry surprise. Mac's ice blue eyes are locked onto mine and he gently takes my hand that stings from my nails digging into them, and he kisses my knuckles gently.
"C'mon Little Miss," He says softly, his breath warm on my skin. His fingers close around my hand and he smirks at me. "Let's ditch this place." And not a moment later, he's pulling me after him through the throngs of drama-hungry classmates and out of the cursed building.
It's a warmer day, as it should be in the middle of April. All the trees are blossoming thanks to the many rain showers that occurred over the past month, and the air smells like perfume and dandelions. Usually we don't get much rain, but this year there was a whole week where it was dumping to no end, surprising I would think the whole city.
Sadly, spring also means that the bugs are out. Yesterday I got home from school to see my brother in the driveway, smashing ants with his old scooter he hadn't used since fifth grade. Once I got out of my car, I could see little black spots all over the cement and my dumb little brother grinned up at me sinisterly and crooned,
"I call it Antmageddon."
This morning I found a wasp's nest underneath my window on the outside of the house. Being that my window was wide open when I discovered it, I shrieked and immediately closed it, then army crawled downstairs to avoid getting stung by any of those little beasts that could've gotten into my room. Would it surprise you if I told you as a kid, I wanted to be an entomologist?
"Come on, this way," Mac says, pulling me to his truck sitting in the student parking lot. The hand he's holding begins to sting badly and I bite my lip -which somehow is a little bit swollen - and I follow him with haste. Once we finally get to the truck, he lets go of my hand to let me round about to the passenger side to climb in. I look down at my palm hesitantly, to find that my nails had dug in so hard as to make them bleed. In a panic, I press the sleeve of my right arm into the burning cuts and try to staunch it, but only managing to stain the fabric and make them sting even more. God, I'm such a mess.
I sigh heavily and climb up into the truck, swinging myself into the leather seat and feeling the machine tremble when Mac turns on the ignition. Before he even changes the gear, he looks across to me with an apologetic look. A look from him never fails to lift my spirits though.
"I hope I didn't cross a line," He tells me. "I didn't know any other way to get them to stop."
I press the hem of my sleeve to my palm, desperately now, anything to get it to stop bleeding. I feel his eyes on me though.
Without another word, but not before he gives me an empathetic rub on the shoulder, he shifts the car into reverse and backs out of the parking lot. He tears down the road leading to the highway and from then on, I have no idea where we're going.
