Record Breakers

Chapter 3: Day Two Fight Anyone?

When I woke up, I felt heavy. Physically and mentally. Tyler decided to try to make me get up by grabbing my shirt and throwing me off the couch. And let's just say, for a 14 year old, he's stronger than a 22 year old professional boxer.

"C'mon Jade, get up, we're gonna be late!"

"Are we Tyler, are we?" He stopped and made a frustrated face. Turns out his clocked had stopped working at 8:10, making it look like it was 8:10 in the morning. It also doesn't help since it's an analog clock and there's no little PM or AM sign.

"How do you know it's not actually 8:10 AM?" I took out my phone and showed him the time, 7:50 AM.

Cell phone time is always right.

As we got ready with our binders, pencils, notebooks and highlighters, we headed to the bus stop. There we met up with Brooke, who was sitting on the curb with her hands wrapped around her knees.

I sort of cringed, not because it smelled like smoke had been thrown into the air non-stop since last night, but because it looked like she had been in a fight with Canelo Alvarez.

Tyler walked faster to get to her, and I kept my pace. He got down on one knee and put his left hand on her right shoulder. When I got there in about a 1 foot radius of them, I bent down myself on her left side.

"Hey, you okay Brooke," Tyler asked worried. She looked up and looked back down, her hair covering her left eye.

"Yeah, I'm fine." But that answer made me jerk to grab her face and push her hair away.

And then it was revealed, her black eye.

I gasped and just looked at her. I felt like crying or running off to her house, because I knew who did it and I knew where he was.

Tyler decided he wanted a look and he gently turned her to face him. He let out a short breath, "Wh-who did this to you," he said, tears filling his eyes.

She jerked her head away from Tyler and looked straight forward and in a monotone voice said, "A pole." Tyler broke down into tears and started sobbing. He could no longer could control his emotions or his breathing. He also had an idea who gave her that black eye.

I couldn't cry, I wasn't sad anymore, I was pissed.

F****** pissed.

" 'A pole' my a**, Brooke."

"Excuse me," she got up, fire in her eyes.

"You know what I mean." I held my ground. Not knowing what her next move would be. She wouldn't give me a deathly blow but she wouldn't mind hitting hard enough to put me in the hospital.

She got closer to me, "Shut up, Jade."

"What? You want me to keep my cool while you sit at home getting beat by him? No I don't think so, because I can't stand to see you like this anymore!"

I let it go. I didn't care for this moment.

Suddenly, she let it go too. And she snapped. She pushed me back making me trip and fall on my butt. Now I'm on the concrete sidewalk trying to inch away and looking up at her.

"SHUT THE F*** UP! DON'T EVER FEEL SORRY FOR ME! THERE'S NOTHING TO BE SORRY ABOUT BECAUSE IT'S BEEN THIS WAY FOR A LONG TIME! So DON'T decide to butt in all of a sudden! I can take care of myself!"

I stood up and looked her in the eyes, trying to flip away my white blond-ish hair from my eyes, "Taking care of yourself isn't being able to take a punch, Brooke."

Tyler got up and started hugging her, still bursting with tears.

"Please Brooke! Please don't let him hurt you! Please!" I leaned in to her ear and whispered, only loud enough for her to hear, "You're right, I'm strong enough to see you like this. But he isn't."