DELICATE ★ JENLISA

Chapter 6

The mornings that Charles and Cate were home seemed to alternate, Charles being home one day and Cate the next. When I woke up on Thursday, I desperately hoped Charles wouldn't be home because I was feeling particularly weak towards him and though I was good at concealing my fear, it was getting increasingly difficult.

So when I silently padded down the steps and saw Cate in the kitchen making coffee, I had to breathe a breath of relief. I headed toward the kitchen much less terrified, only instead it was replaced by anger. I hadn't seen her since Monday night, but then I remembered Charles saying that she was the reason he followed me to work on Tuesday, and I couldn't help but give her a piece of my mind.

She turned around and saw me, giving me a soft, sad smile. "Morning, Jen."

I ignored her briefly, allowing myself to walk toward the refrigerator to grab a bottle of water per-usual. I tried to bite back my annoyance before talking, because I knew Cate only had good intentions, like for example how she thought adopting me would have been better and safer for me. She knew there was at least the possibility of Charles going back to alcohol and becoming dangerous, but she of course figured adopting me was well worth the risk considering I was in much worse conditions in the group home at the time. I had agreed with her on that, but at the same time, I still might've had another shot at being adopted into a real family. Now I was with Charles, and by the time I turned eighteen and could safely report his fucking abuse to the police, I'd have aged out of the system. Not that I ever wanted to go back, but I always held out hope on maybe having a family again someday.

I lowered the water from my lips, turning to meet Cate's pale blue eyes. "So let me just get this straight, Cate, because I'm having a really hard time understanding something. Tuesday you were worried about me, for whatever reason, so you figured that the best bet for making sure I was safe was to send Charles to pick me up? In what fucking universe does that make any sense?"

She shook her head, "You and I both know that Charles is harmless when he's sober, he's... normal when he's not drunk. It was the middle of the afternoon, Jen, and he wasn't drinking so I.. I didn't think there would be a problem. He hurt you... while... sober?"

"You should really know by now that it doesn't take much to get him to drink. I had to go to work and he apparently was so dead set on making you happy that he waited for me, which obviously gave him the time to get wasted. Why the hell did you send him after me in the first place?"

Running her small, fragile hand through her blonde hair, she poured her coffee out of the pot and sighed, looking extremely regretful. "You went to school with a black eye without glasses and you could hardly walk during the weekend Jen.. I didn't want you walking home like that."

I couldn't help but roll my eyes and let the sarcasm drip through my teeth. "Well gee, I really appreciate your concern. It makes me feel so god damn special."

"God Jen, what do you me to do? I'm trying my best, I..." she sighed, shaking her head. "You don't want me to tell your social worker, and I respect that, but you get pissed at me every time he hurts you. What can I possibly do?"

What could she do? She must've weighed a little over one-hundred pounds so up against Charles one-eighty, she couldn't do much to defend me, and I didn't want her to tell anybody about the abuse. Still, it was entirely her fault that I was having to deal with this. "I don't know, you could fucking divorce his sorry ass. Why the hell are you still with him anyway? It's not like you have any reason to be scared of him, he hasn't laid a hand on you in his lifetime. He has me for that."

Though her eyes held remorse before, something seemed to shift. "I can't do that  Jennie."

"And why the hell not?"

"For more than one reason,  Jen, I will never divorce him. He's a good person and-"

"And he fucking beats the shit out of me on a daily basis. He's a good person? How the hell can you say that?"

She lowered her eyes at me, gritting her teeth. Suddenly she didn't seem all that innocent anymore. "Shut the hell up Jen and listen to me. You don't know what it's like to not be able to control yourself. Do you know what it's like to act like someone that you're not against your will? No, you have no god damn clue. When I drank myself to near-death every night, I couldn't stop myself. It's no different for Charles, only when he drinks he can't control his anger-issues. I'm not saying what he does is okay, because it's not, but I'm not going to divorce him for something he can't control."

"But he can control it. I know you think that it's stupid to say alcoholism is controllable because you're a recovering alcoholic, but you were able to stop yourself. Why can't he?"

She shook her head, the sincerity and harshness in her voice never disappearing. "Everybody works a little bit different, Jen. He has issues, you and I both know that, but it's damn near impossible for him to stop himself from drinking, and he can't control himself when he's not sober."

"So why aren't you trying to help him stay sober? Take him to an AA meeting, pull the beer bottle out of his hand every once in a while, I mean for fucks sake at least take the alcohol out of the house.."

"It's not that easy, Jen. I know I can't explain it to you because you're seventeen, but you just need to take my word for it."

I nearly growled in distaste, grabbing my bag that Charles had deemed inadequate not long ago and heading toward the door. "Because I'm seventeen I can't understand something like alcoholism? You should know by now that I've been through hell and back and I've dealt with way worse than what you have, Cate. I'm pretty sure I know how addiction works."

"I'm not saying you don't understand addiction, I'm just saying that you're lucky enough not to be an addict. It sucks and it's ridiculously hard to overcome, and if you don't really want it, then yes, it is impossible. Charles doesn't want to give up drinking, Jen, and I honestly don't even think he understands how bad he has hurt you in the past year."

"Then fucking show him how bad I'm hurting, Cate! I'm breaking down, and I don't know if I can do this for another year. If you won't divorce him-"

"Divorcing him wouldn't make a difference either way, he's still legally your adoptive father.."

I shook my head, ignoring her reasoning. "Please, just do something. I can't do this anymore, and he's getting worse and worse. He grabbed me in public, Cate, what if somebody decides to report what they saw? I can't go back to a group home, I swear to you I'd rather die than go back and then age out with no money and no food, no place to live, no real purpose."

Her voice softened, the harshness and defensive tone slowly melting away. " Jen, all you can expect me to do is try. I will try, but he's rash and unreasonable when he's drunk and you know it."

"So talk to him while he's sober."

She dropped her head, grabbing her keys and walking towards me. "God only knows how long that could take.."

Her statement was unsettling, mainly because I knew the extent of how truthful it really was. When would she get the chance to catch him sober?

This wasn't going to end anytime soon.

***
The first hour and a half of school passed by rather quickly as usual, and I found myself dreading biology. Jisoo lingered by the door in art today, casually striking up a conversation with me as we walked to bio. I didn't mind it, and I found myself actually enjoying talking to someone from school, which was rare for me. Last year I mainly stayed to myself, not only because I didn't want to introduce anyone to Charles but also because I found almost anyone that I met to be extremely ignorant and self-riteous. The people in my school, or rather people in general, usually had a hard time accepting views that weren't their own, which tended to piss me off greatly.

Not that all of my views were necessarily correct either, but I could at least see things from two different perspectives.

Most of the time, anyway.

We walked down the hallway, pushing through the crowds of students to get to third period. "So what do you think of Ms. Manoban?"

For some reason, her question caught me off guard and admittedly made me a little nervous. "Uh, she's alright I guess, why?"

She shrugged. "I don't know, I mean Zac talks about how hot she is all the time so there's really no escaping a conversation about her. I was just wondering what you think."

I raised my brows, looking over at her as we headed toward the science wing. "As in, if I think she's hot?"

Jisoo smirked and shrugged, but her eyes were clearly awaiting an answer. She seemed to be completely unfazed by the fact that I was gay, which I couldn't be more thankful for. In fact, no one in her friend group seemed to have a problem with it.

Charles certainly did. If by some chance he ever found out that I was gay, I didn't know what he would do. I honestly did not want to find out.

Unsettled by her question about Ms. Manoban, mainly due to the fact that we'd slept together not too long ago and I didn't want anyone to find out, I shrugged it off. "Uh, she's okay. She's our teacher though, so I don't know, the thought hasn't really crossed my mind."

We made it to the science wing and the woman we were talking about came into focus, standing at her door with her arms crossed. Her hair was up, admittedly giving her a more professional appearance, but I couldn't help but to think that what I'd told Jisoo was a completely lie. I nearly scoffed at myself, 'she's okay'. If she was just okay, I may as well have considered myself painful to look at.

Jisoo smiled. "That doesn't seem to stop Zac."

We crossed Ms. Manoban's path then, our eyes briefly making contact before I looked away quickly. It seemed as though I was incapable of holding her gaze, her striking diamond eyes simply too much for me to handle. Her impeccably poised stature didn't help either, and I had to take notice to the fact that the worry in her eyes was completely gone, replaced by nothing less than a stony expression. I couldn't help but wonder what her deal was; why did she always come off as so unapproachable? Much like myself, she never smiled either.

I realized I hadn't answered Jisoo then, too wrapped up in my own thoughts. "Nothing against your friend, but I think he has a better shot with me than with Ms. Manoban." I almost smirked to myself. And not solely because she was his first period teacher.

Jisoo laughed lightly as the bell rang and our biology teacher walked back in the room. "Yeah, he aims way too high. Maybe you could help me set him up with someone that's not gay or his teacher sometime."

I just nodded. "Yeah, sometime."

With that, our conversation died and Ms. Manoban's eyes quickly scanned over us to count attendance before she walked over to stand in front of her desk. "I know most of you have already studied cell respiration in biology one, but we're going to be doing a lab today and tomorrow to study how exothermic reactions actually occur. Groups of three and I'm picking so we actually get work done, so keep the talking to a minimum while I pair you up."

I would so much rather sit down and take notes than do a lab because I had a hard time getting along with my group members. When our bio teacher so graciously paired me with the two most obnoxious seniors in the class, I knew there was going to be a problem.

Jisoo turned to me sympathetically. "Good luck with Bobby and June. They can be a handful."

I hardly smiled in response, getting up to make my way towards our lab table in the far back. Ms. Manoban stood at the demo desk and rather hastily explained what we would be doing, and when she finally concluded, I soon realized I would be the only one actually working in our group. I stood by the respiration chamber, shoving leaves into the small bottle while my two group members talked beside me, and I cringed with every word coming out of their mouth. They'd been talking for half the period about a topic that I coincidentally knew a lot about, and had a very strong opinion on, to say the least.

"I know right? And she wants me to act like the girl is actually my cousin. Like she's not related to me in any way, shape, or form, and I'm not going to fucking pretend that she is."

June sat at the other end of the lab table, shake my his head. "Dude that's bullshit, you shouldn't have to put up with that. Didn't you say this girl stole from you?"
Bobby nodded, "Yeah man, and then Amanda forgave her and went ahead with the adoption. Like, I didn't realize we were accepting delinquents into the family now."

I couldn't tune out of the conversation, and I no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't keep my cool. There wasn't a word that Bobby had said that didn't piss me off, and I swear I wanted to deck him right there. I didn't know what the girl they were talking about had been through, but I knew that I'd done the same thing multiple times in my life out of instinct. Not only that, but the first thing that he'd said pissed me off to no end as well.

"Yeah, that is so-"

"Hey, dickheads," I interrupted, completely unable to focus on the lab because I was practically shaking in anger. "Why don't you stop talking about something your small-minded brains can't understand and do the assignment?"

Bobby narrowed his eyes in my direction. "Who the fuck are you? I'm going to talk about what I want and do what I want to do, mind your own damn business."

"It is my business when I'm the one doing your work and you're getting a grade for doing nothing. Your fucking ignorance is pissing me off and at this point I'm thinking of bailing on this assignment just so you get a zero."

He got up from his stool and walked over to me, lowering his eyes. "Look little girl-"

"I don't know who the hell you're calling little girl, if anything you act like more of a child than I do."

I knew it was stupid to continue spitting back at this guy, but he'd gotten under my skin way too far to pull out now. I wasn't often bothered by many things, but after going through what I had in the past few years, I couldn't help but take certain things to heart.

June leaned forward to his friend, his mouth widening. "Dude, you gunna let her say that to you?"

It seemed as though most of the class was in tune to June and I's little disagreement, and I noticed Jisoo standing to the right, her eyes telling me that he wasn't worth the fight. I knew she was right, but it didn't stop me.

Bobby stepped forward, towering above me at six foot. "Why don't you stay out of conversations that aren't yours? Are you really that desperate for someone to talk to?"

"I'll tell you what I'm desperate for. I'm desperate for dumbasses like you to actually gain some intelligence and stop saying such idiotic things."

Bobby narrowed his eyes and stepped toward me again, but I pushed hard on his chest to send him stumbling back, which incidentally caught the eye of Ms. Manoban. She narrowed her eyes and immediately stood up, making her way over to where Bobby was bracing himself on the side of the table and I stood with my arms crossed.

"What the hell is going on here?"

"Bitch won't mind her own damn business," Bobby muttered.

"Maybe I would mind my own damn business if you didn't sound like such a fucking moron when you speak, Bobby."

"That's enough Jennie, you already have detention with me for the next four months, do you really want to add to that?"

I huffed and lowered my eyes, annoyance clear on my face. Jisoo caught my eye and tossed me a sympathetic smile, and I took it upon myself to assume that she knew how much of a dumbass Bobby really was.

"Bobby, I suggest you take a seat and do your work or you'll be joining Jennie and I in detention this afternoon."

He complied, and with that the next twenty minutes passed by painfully slow. I was still doing all the work but now they at least weren't pissing me off with their conversation. I could feel Ms. Manoban eyeing me continuously from her desk in the front of the room, but I didn't look up.

Finally the bell rang and I left Bobby and June to do clean up considering they hadn't done anything else. Jisoo caught up to me in the hall and placed her hand on my shoulder. "Hey are you okay? What was that all about?"

I shook my head. "They were just... saying stupid things and it really pissed me off."

"Yeah Bobby's an idiot... I couldn't hear, did you guys get in trouble?"

"No, Ms. Manoban just warned us and sat back down."

Jisoo nodded and we walked the remainder of the way to lunch silently. The next few periods were dreadful because all I could think about was detention, which I had a high suspicion would not be like last week. I predicted silence and Ms. Manoban's sharp brown eyes on my back for the full hour until I would be released for work.

When the school day finally concluded and I began my walk towards her classroom, I tried to make myself believe that she wasn't that scary. I had seen worse, right? I forced myself to remember my experience at my first group home; the girls standing over my frail body, laughing at the new arrival. I was small and shy back then, and those six months had been horrible. Surely Ms. Manoban didn't scare me as much as the older girls back then had?

Yet even as I thought this, I shivered when I pictured those piercing brown eyes and her immaculate appearance, nothing out of place, her expression never shifting far from stone.

I lingered outside of her door for a few moments, but finally grasped the cold metal handle and pulled it open. She sat at her desk with her hand in her hair, facing away from me as she whispered into her phone.

"He said he would be there."

She obviously didn't hear me walking in and I wasn't exactly sure what to do, so I slowly sunk into the seat farthest away from her and played with my phone to try and give her privacy, though I could still hear her speaking quite clearly.

"Yeah well I don't like being made to wait. I'm trying here Ash. I'm not too fond of myself either, but how can he possibly expect to fix things between us without at least talking to me?"

The person on the other line continued speaking and she sighed, turning her chair back around so that she was facing me, and she nearly jumped when she saw me sitting in the desk. Pushing her hand farther into her tied up hair, she locked eyes with me and tightened her jaw. "I have to go Ashley."

She waited, never breaking eye contact with me, before speaking again. "Yeah, I know. Call me later."

With that, she ended the call, shaking her head at me. "Do you know how to knock?"

I stuttered, her voice making me shrink back in my seat. "Uh.. sorry I figured I didn't have to... I mean I am supposed to be here at 2:15 on the dot right..."

She eyed me for a while, but she finally released a breath and sighed. "Yes, yes you are."

And just as I had predicted not five minutes earlier, when I fell silent and looked down, I could feel her eyes on my back. My hair fell around me so I took a chance and peeked upward to see if I was right, and I found her staring at me. It didn't appear that she knew I'd caught her in the act, and she continued to let her eyes roam.

I closed my eyes and tried to settle into the uncomfortable silence, but unfortunately I didn't succeed and I ended up on edge until she finally spoke.

"Jennie."

I looked up briefly, pushing my hair out of my face so that I could see her hardened expression taking me in. I imagined what I looked like to someone like her; I was a seemingly fragile seventeen year old girl who let people get away with hurting her. I didn't bother dressing myself up and I acted out in class, as opposed to her immaculate appearance and abnormally calm yet at the same time strict attitude.

She tilted her head at me. "Can I ask you a question?"

I leaned back in my seat, folding my arms over my chest. "I guess, no guarantee I'm going to answer you though."

"You don't seem like you'd be a bad kid, but yet, you do things like use a fake ID, fall asleep in class, and get into pointless fights.. why is that?"

I bit the inside of cheek, adverting my eyes from hers. "Maybe I'm not as good of a kid as I seem."

"Well why is that? Why would you continue putting yourself in a position to get in trouble when I'm sure you have better things to be doing than sitting here with me every Thursday?"

I didn't quite know how to answer that. Because I didn't want to deal with the pain of Charles abuse while sober? Because I'd been through over ten years of foster care and I disliked ignorant people like Bobby? Instead of giving her one of these answers, I opted to acknowledge the second half of her question. "The only thing I have to do is work, Ms. Manoban, so I'll trade out an hour of my time with you for a drink any day."

She lowered her eyes at me, her pen tapping on the desk below her. "Hobbies? Friends?"

Hobbies? Please, the only hobby I have is drawing, and when I draw, I only make myself more depressed because I'm incapable of illustrating happy drawings.

And friends? Not with Charles around, no.

I just shrugged in response, lowering my head to rest on my hand. "Isn't detention supposed to be quiet?"

"It is, but usually the people I give detention to don't compel me to talk to them."

"I'm not forcing you to do anything, Ms. Manoban, in fact I would much rather you stop talking so we can sit in this detention quietly."

She shook her head, sighing. "Not what I meant, Jennie. I meant that I usually do not find myself wanting to speak to the people I give detention to."

I glanced at the clock, sinking into my seat as I realized that there were still forty-five minutes left. "Well then I'll consider myself special."

We fell silent for the next twenty minutes or so, me tapping my foot on the cold tiles beneath me while she continued to scribble on paper, occasionally looking up at me. I had asked for the silence but now that we'd been sitting in it for a while, I liked the idea a whole lot less. I could feel a sort of tension hanging over us, and I wasn't sure what it was from. Perhaps it was because of the hostility in both of our voices when we spoke to each other, or maybe the tension came from the sheer inconvenience of our situation. I still couldn't believe that I'd actually slept with the woman sitting in front of me. It was hard to believe that the woman was my biology teacher, but she made it quite clear that we were on two completely different levels. She was my elder and my teacher, and I was her student, and what we'd done that night was a mistake.

Yet even so, I couldn't help but find myself entranced by her movements. She scared me and intrigued me all at once, and I didn't understand how that could be possible. I found her to be striking, in fact a hell of a lot more striking than the first time I'd seen her. She reminded me of that kind of person that caught everyone's attention immediately as they walked into the room, but not because she was particularly beautiful, though she really was, or particularly kind, which I couldn't say was one of her strong suits. She just had something about her persona. It could've been her posture, or simply the way she carried herself, but I found it to be captivating.

But somehow that all seemed to fly out the window, and I found myself confused by her hardened exterior and by the fact that she never, ever seemed to smile. I had to understand it, because I never smiled either, but I had my own reasons. What were hers?

Eventually I found myself wanting to hear her voice again, and I spoke even though my mind was screaming at myself not to. "So are you one of those teachers then?"

"I'm sorry?"

I thought back to our brief conversation twenty minutes ago. "You give people detention often?"

She looked up, putting her pen down only to turn to her computer. "Only the obnoxious ones."

"Does that mean you think I'm obnoxious?"

The blonde squinted in my direction, shaking her head. "Surprisingly no, I don't think you're obnoxious, I just can't seem to figure you out."

"Yeah well, don't take it personally. Not many people can."

"I don't doubt that, you don't seem like a very open person Jennie."

I glanced at the clock, silently thankful for the fact that there were only ten minutes left because I could only see this conversation going to a place I didn't want it to go. I snorted, raising my eyebrows in her direction. "You're definitely right about that, but you seem to be guilty of the exact same thing."

She stayed silent and adverted her eyes from mine, and I realized that she didn't like where the conversation was headed either. We let it die and I leaned back in my seat, watching her. I studied her features and as she glanced up at the clock, she pulled the band out of her golden hair and let it fall over her shoulders, completely fascinating me. She caught my eye and tilted her head.

"What?"

I shook my head. "Nothing."

"Why are you looking at me like that?"

"I'm not."

She narrowed her eyes at me, but glancing at the clock, I realized the hour was up. I raised from my seat, though she never looked away.

I was about to slip out the door, but her voice stopped me. "Has anyone ever told you how frustrating you are?"

I looked up, but suddenly I wasn't in the room anymore. The beige walls of her classroom faded away and instead I was standing in my old house, my mother standing above me. I looked down at my small hands and saw that they were covered in paint, and then I looked ahead of me at the white walls of my old house to see that I hadn't kept the colors to myself. The paint was splattered everywhere but I was having fun, after all, my mother never said not to touch the walls.

"God damnit Jen! I don't have time for this, your little sister is sick and instead of caring for her, I'm in here cleaning up your mess."

My smile instantly fell from my face as I saw how disappointed my mom was, not angry, but disappointed. She sighed and grabbed a bucket, starting to wash the walls with soap and water, but it wasn't coming off. "Jen my patience is running thin..."

At the time, I was five, about six months or so from turning six. I never wanted to make my mom upset, and seeing her with such a look of disappointment broke me. I started crying, bringing my hands to my face to try and wipe away my tears, which only spread the paint. My mom looked over at me and sighed, pulling my tiny body into a hug. She ran a hand through my hair, trying to stop me from crying. "Shh.. Jen, I'm sorry for yelling at you, you're just so frustrating sometimes.."

Through labored breaths and the tears pouring down my face, I tried to answer her back, "I'm s-s-sorry m-mom.."

Her voice softened and she pulled back from me. "Shh... come on now Jen, it's okay. I didn't mean to yell. I love you bunny, you hear me? Forever and always."

I tightened my arms around her, burying my face into her neck. "I love you, mommy."

My mother's voice faded away, replaced by the voice of my biology teacher. "Jennie? Are you okay?"

I snapped back to reality, my eyes scanning the room frantically. I reached up and realized that there were tears forming in the corner of my eyes. I didn't know why Ms. Manoban's question had brought back the memory, but I was a complete mess. I hated thinking about my parents, not because I didn't love them and miss them, but in fact the opposite. They were the one thing that could get me to cry. Charles would never, ever bring me to tears. The girls in the group homes I'd been to could never bring me to cry either. Maybe my eyes would start to burn with a tear or two, but I would never let them break me down completely.

But thinking about my parents, especially the moments when they repeatedly told me they loved me, is what brought me to tears. Ms. Manoban raised herself out of her chair and started toward me, reaching out but I shook my head.
"I'm fine, Ms. Manoban. Yeah, I've been told that once or twice." I sucked in a deep breath, my thumbs pressing into the corners of my eyes to get rid of the salt water forming. I didn't shake away her worry though, because for the second time her guard dropped and she started towards me with concern laced in her eyes. I slipped past her though, grabbing my bag in the process and heading toward the door.

"I have to go to work," I said, already half way out the door.

She reached out to me, "Je-"

"See you tomorrow, Ms. Manoban."

And then I disappeared down the hallway, practically sprinting out the doors and down the sidewalk toward the grocery store.

That could definitely not happen again.