Personal Space (Patrick Hockstetter)

Chapter 3: The Invitation

[Name] crouched down and began picking up the pieces of her brush. Once she had gathered them all, the stuffed them into her backpack and slumped against the statue. She caught herself crying a bit out of fear. She wiped her tears with her sleeves to make sure no one could see. She quickly rubbed her sleeve under her nose too. Normally this would disgust her, but she was in no place to be gagging about snot. She grabbed her backpack and pulled it up into her shoulders. Once she had stopped crying, she heading out into the front of the school.

[Name] headed home for the day. She just wanted to go home and sleep. The day had been way too stressful for her. She began thinking to herself on her way home, what was valuable to her? She did a mental scan of what she could remember of her room. She saw a few pictures of her and her friends, a few scattered pens. Then it hit her. [Name]'s aunt wrote poems in her free time. [Name] had a poem hanging on her wall that was written all about her. It seemed as if it were the perfect thing to show Patrick since it literally described her. "I can't let Patrick see that poem...what was I thinking? I'd be giving away my entire life...", she thought out loud. She quickly quieted herself to avoid anyone listening in. Patrick mentioned had not anything before, [Name] had no recollection of anything going on between them. In fact, this is the first time she had even said a word to Patrick. She wracked her brain, thinking hard. She had only ever seen him in the hallways. No speaking ever took place, not to say they hadn't known eachother though. Everytime Patrick passed her in the hallway, he'd look her up and down, making her very uncomfortable. [Name] was a modest girl and hated this brief interaction, but she was thankfully it was the only form of interaction they'd had, until now. Patrick said that he had chosen [Name], what did that mean? She shook her head and decided to forget about it. She had 24 hours until she needed to worry about him again anyway. Today [Name] would take a trip up to the arcade. That place always made her feel much safer. It was surrounded by other people and it helped her forget.

[Name] took out her tiny mirror to ruffle her hair when someone fell into her. She watched her little mirror hit the ground and shatter right in front of her, out of reach. That's the second item that had been broken today. Slowly, she turned and looked behind her, expecting one of the Bowers goons. Instead of what she expected, there was a short kid who seemed to be very distressed. He sat on the ground where he fell, his books surrounding him. He reached into his backpack and pulled out a blue inhaler. He took a quick puff and held it in. [Name] immediately recognized him by the sound of the puff. "Hey what happened?", she asked him. "I tripped and I'm bleeding, Oh lord. Uhhhh that's a lot of blood", Eddie panicked. The blood he was referring to came from a small cut on his left knee, there was barely any blood. He swiftly pulled out gauze and an extra large bandaid and began to dress his wound.

[Name] kneeled down on the ground and began packing his books back up for him while he obsessed over his cut knee. "Sorry for knocking into you, I was aiming for something cushioned so I wouldn't get injured, but now I'm sure I have street gravel in my knee.", Eddie said, still packing on the bandaids. "I'm sure you'll be okay, I mean it didn't look horrible to me.", she said, trying to console him. "It's not about how it looks", he took another puff, "It's about what's going on inside. It could get infected and they could have to amputate, and then I'd be a cripple and I would have to use crutches for the rest of my life...". Eddie droned on and on about losing a leg over his simple scrape. "Hey calm down, I can guarantee they won't have to amputate. If they do though, I'll carry all your books for you. It's the least I can do since I didn't cushion your fall", she giggled. Eddie half smiled. "So, where are your friends? Aren't you usually with them?", [Name] asked, as she finished piling his books back into his bag. "Yeah they're at the roller skating rink right now, I'm meeting them there, I just needed to get my knee pads and helmet from home first.", Eddie explained, "Do you want to come too? I mean, I know we don't talk but you're in my class, right?". "Yeah I am, and I'd love to join you guys there!", [Name] accepted. Eddie finally got up and thanked her before waving goodbye. He had written down the address of the rink for her so that she could find her way. [Name] was overjoyed. Today she would let loose and forget about the whole experience with Patrick. Little did she know that Patrick would never let her forget him so easily.

I hope it's a little easier to now see why Patrick did what he did by the statue. Way more will be revealed next chapter, so don't worry. Anyway thanks again for all the kind comments and reads! I didn't expect this to have as many reads as it does but I appreciate them all!

-944 words