Guns & Stilettos

A New Friend

Jessica walked into school in her usual. Jeans, slightly too big grey hoodie and sneakers. The hoodie was a blessing when you needed to hide bandages. She tugged the sleeves down over her hands. Jess had gone straight to the medical team after the raid to get fixed up. The whole window incident had completely shredded her arm and was going to leave an awful scar. Ben had come to 'bring joy to her weary heart' and after some light bullying agreed to buy her pity coffee.

Coming back to school after a mission was always strange. Jessica had never really gotten used to the contrast of having a gun to your head the one minute and a string of homework assignments the next.

People were chasing each other up and down the hallways and screaming with their best friends. If she was honest, their happiness was starting to tick her off. Seriously, you saw her yesterday, calm down. It wasn't helping that she had only gotten to bed at 4:00AM last night. Because she was running solely on caffeine. Thus improving her mood by, nil.

By the time Jessica got to class she was ready to snap something in half. Ducking to avoid a flying pencil that someone had thrown across the class she wove her way through the ocean of desks to her seat. Jess dropped her bag on the floor and sat down at her desk. Starting to pull out her books with her good arm she mulled over last night's events.

Jessica's pen dropped to the floor and she bent over slowly to reach it. She'd had worse injuries but still it was better to be cautious. As she placed the last book on the table part of her bandage peaked out from her hoodie.

Jess quickly pulled her sleeve back down but she was too late. The boy sitting next to her called Tristan leaned over and asked quietly, "What happened to your arm?" She turned to look at him.

"Oh I fell off my bike yesterday." Jess lied trying to make it sound like it was no biggey.

"Well that must have been one hell of a fall to- did you break your fingers?"

Jessica smiled ,"Only two, and yes it was one hell of a fall. Got nicked on my face too. See?"

He scaned my face looking at the cuts and bruises, "Ouch. I feel bad for you now." Jessica looked up at him, slightly taken aback at his blatant concern.

"What?", he asked.

She shook her head, "Nothing, don't worry about—."

"Hey!", Ellie interrupted, "Nerd! Are you trying to make friends?"

Jess lowered her head, resisting the urge to punch her, but Tristan stood up, "Leave her alone Ellie!" The room went silent and Ellie sat down slowly, "Anyone else?" Nobody piped up. "Good", he said simply and sat down again.

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Jessica ran down the hall after Tristan at full speed. "Tristan! Hey Tristan!" Tristan turned around and she bumped into him, "Hey. I guess I just want to say thanks for earlier. Umm...yeah, no one has ever really stood up for me before. Not that I can remember anyway."

He looked at her and shrugged, "You seemed really nice and it was about time someone stood up to her anyway." They continued walking down the corridor chatting idly until they reached the school entrance. "I really enjoyed chatting with you. We should be friends," he said as we were saying our goodbyes.

"That would be great. See you tomorrow?"

"Yup, see you tomorrow."