Head above the water

19

(Y'all being angry about the way I left that last chapter)

"Anastasia, sit down," Julianna said, trying to gently pull me back into a chair.

I quickly fight out of her arms and run out of the lunchroom. I can't believe he did that. I can't believe he kissed me and then ran away, like we didn't need to discuss it. I wanted to find him. I needed to talk to him about what had happened. I had to admit my feelings to him.

If he didn't feel the same, I'd move on, but if he did we could move forwards. I needed to know. I had already spent so much of my life worrying it away that, for once, I wanted to have the answer right there, plain to see.

I couldn't find him. He wasn't in the halls, and the old infirmary was disappointingly empty, but I could tell he had been there. The notebook and papers that had been scattered earlier were now completely gone. I couldn't have been very far behind him, but the fact remained that he was no longer here. As much as I wanted, needed, to talk to him, he wasn't here.

I hadn't known Jimin long, but he had never struck me as one to avoid conflict. In fact, he had continually put himself in conflicts just to help me out. We both had, but this time he was scared. I didn't know what he was scared of, though. It wasn't like I would hurt him. I'd already saved his life. I wasn't planning on throwing all that work away over a kiss.

"Jimin!" I shouted as I ran out of the side door of the school.

It was the only door that was unlocked at this time of the day, and I knew that if he wasn't in the school he would have had to come out of this door. I was right, too, but I was also late.

Just as my racing feet hit the asphalt of the parking lot the door slammed on a nice black car, and Jimin drove away from me. Away from confrontation. My knees were weak. The one that I had hurt throbbed from running, and my lungs were burning, though I didn't know if it was from the kiss or the running.

I could feel the tears running down my face, and I knew that I looked worse now than I had this morning before my nap. I didn't want to be desperate. I wanted to be strong and independent, but Jimin made me weak. I was weak. I hated being weak.

I didn't realize how long I had been standing there, looking at the corner that Jimin's car had disappeared around, until a hand wrapped around my wrist gently.

"It's time to go back inside," Marissa said softly, like she was calming a wild animal.

She was probably right to do that. I didn't doubt that I was wild at that moment. I let her pull me back into the door, but we didn't go to class. She led me into one of the girls bathrooms and closed the door, locking it.

"I'm so sorry," she whispered.

That's all she had to say. She wasn't a logical person. She was emotional and brash. She judged a person in the first few hours she knew them, and she never looked back. Her saying that to me said more than three words could ever convey. Her "I'm so sorry" was really a "I'm here for you if you'll let me be," and I really wanted to let her be. I was tired of keeping secrets from my best friends.

I broke. I let myself go for the first time in a long time, and as I cried she used her strength to hold me up, and her sleeves to dry my tears, and her arms to hold together the broken pieces of my soul.

I didn't go to school for three days. I was in no shape to deal with Trent, and I surely didn't want to face Jimin if he didn't want to talk to me. My heart was broken, and another person that I had depended on had left me to pick up the pieces.

The only good thing was that this time I wasn't alone. There were always two or three of my friends here after school, and one of the days Taehyung and Julie, the neighbor girl, even skipped school and hung out, bringing with them an arsenal of sweets and comedy movies.

I laughed with them, and then I cried myself to sleep. Every night I had the same nightmare that I had had days before, but this time no one came to save me. I allowed myself to be dragged down.

The day I returned to school it was raining, which seemed to match my mood perfectly. I was still a dark cloud of hurt and embarrassment, but, cloud or not, I had school work that I had to get done.

Math was hard. I tried to keep myself from looking at him, from thinking about him. I was distracted the entire period, but I found nothing to satisfy my mind. He wouldn't look at me.

Math was hard, but Literature was hell.

"What a wonderful day, class!" Mrs. Peak exclaimed brightly as she entered her room.

My mind was still focused on Jimin, but with the other guys here too it helped me to distract myself.

"Today," Mrs. Peak continued, "We will all be presenting our scenes from Shakespeare's play, Othello."

The class groaned in annoyance, but my heart stopped.

Jimin was my partner for this. I had to speak to him. I had to act with him. We had chosen The characters Othello and Desdemona. We had chosen husband and wife, both plagued by work and tormented by secrets not entirely their own. Oh, God, I had to be in love with him.

"The first pair to present is Jimin and Anastasia! Take it away, kids," Mrs. Peak said. She couldn't see the tension radiating between Jimin and I.

I cleared my throats and walked to the front of the room to meet him for our scene.

"We'll begin now," he said, and his voice held a strength that I was in desperate need of.

"Othello, why must you do this?" I pleaded, immediately beginning the scene.

"Why? My wife asks why? Thou canst produce the handkerchief and thou ask why I must be like this?" Jimin says his part, emotionless.

It made me angry, the way he said it. He was ignoring me, that much I knew, but he was also throwing our grade down the drain. I could not accept that. He may not want to be my friend, but he was still my partner; he was going to act like it.

"Thou think me unpure?" I asked, veering slightly off script, "You, who would accuse me of lies, the only one whom has lied, call me unpure?"

Jimin was confused and irritated. I could clearly see that much. Good. That's what his character was supposed to be like. I couldn't hold the old language as I went off script, so I completely abandoned it.

"I'm the one who lies?" He asked.

I knew Jimin was asking me as Othello, but it made something inside me spark. Suddenly it wasn't Othello and Desdemona arguing. It was Me and Jimin.

"Yes! You lie! Your every action is a lie! You comfort me! You act cold to me! What should I think when you leave me running in circles, trapped in my own mind?" My voice was going up in volume with every word.

"What have I lied about? I've been nothing but good to you! What is a time when I betrayed your trust? What is a time I betrayed you?" Jimin was getting louder, too.

"Now! You betray me even now!" I was yelling at this point, "You make me think that maybe, just maybe, there is something to salvage between us, and then you destroy that hope! You kiss me and then run from me! You're driving me insane with every passing second! Do you know how it feels? To witness the person that you love destroying you, and to have no strength in yourself to stop it? Do you know how it feels to give away your first kiss, and get nothing but devastation and sadness in return? Do you know how it feels to have your heart ripped from your chest and then to continue on with life like nothing ever happened?" There were tears on my cheeks, and my chest was heaving. The class had fallen deathly silent.

"I'm sorry," Jimin whispered.

"If you were sorry you would have heard my side of things," I said.

"Wonderful!" Mrs. Peak spoke up, "I loved it! Good thinking, putting our two main characters in modern times. I'm glad you two really seemed to understand the dynamic between them," she clapped.

I couldn't stand in that room any longer. This time, I was the one to run away.

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Soooooo........ how was it?

Next chapter coming at you soon.

Very soon.

Love Ya Always,
-Haleigh.