Love Within

Chapter 2 - Jade

Why the hell did that boy talk to me?

I exited the classroom, trying my best not to stomp. Was he really so blind that he couldn't tell how much I hated attention? I already got enough negative attention. Was he trying to make it worse?

A little voice niggled in the corner of my mind. "He didn't mean it."

"Shut up," I told it as I continued speed-walking. I couldn't stop thinking of him. I kept seeing him in my mind's eye. The more I saw him, though, the madder I got. Underneath my carefully-composed stony mask, I was seething. That idiot.

I got outside, the air crisp and cold. I could feel the nip of frost in the air. Winter was coming. I stared sadly at the dying grass, glistening with frost. I nudged a patch with the toe of my sneakers, listening to the grass crunch. Again, the boy's face flashed in my mind. Blindly, I wrestled my backpack open and grabbed the first thing I touched. My binder. Perfect.

Screaming, I hurtled it at the ground. Blades of grass snapped and laid pitifully on barely-supportive bodies of their still-alive companions. That boy bothered me quite a bit. What was his name? Connor?

He wasn't bad to look at, though, with his mussed, tousled dark brown hair and chocolate brown eyes. He was broad-shouldered and lean-muscled, a head taller than me. I was of average height, though, so that probably didn't count for much.

I stood in silence, staring at my binder. Bending, I picked it up and briskly brushed off the dirt before putting it back in my backpack. I had to control my anger. I didn't have the right to blame Connor--as obvious as it might have seemed to me, he might have been genuinely curious. He might actually have even cared about my wellbeing. He probably thought I was lonely.

Was I lonely? It didn't really matter to me. Though everyone around me had their circle of friends, I was fine with being by myself, either writing or reading, always listening to music. No matter what, my music could never block out the things other people said about me. I heard them, though they probably thought I'd never hear. It was fine by me. Their words didn't hurt me. No matter what was said, people were hypocrites. Try as they might to chastise others for judging people without really knowing them, they also judged. It was in human nature to judge. So I would let them. It wasn't like their opinions made a difference in my life. It only would if I let them.

Sure, I wasn't pretty, but what did that matter when you were intelligent? That was what mattered more, right? And despite the girls in my school pitying me for being single and not having anyone, I didn't care. I was actually happy. Being single was less stress for me, not having to worry about the needs and wants of someone else. It was easier not having to care for other people. Some part of me wondered if it made me selfish or self-centred. If it did, no one told me. Not that anyone would talk to me, anyways, save for the rare brave soul that insulted me to my face.

I used to have friends. Actually, no, I had A friend. Only one. When I was really young, she had died before my very eyes. She had been struck by a speeding car. The driver saw her--I was sure of that--but they still came at full speed and hit her. Despite her traumatic death, I was rather unaffected. Sure, I was sad to have lost her, but I wasn't mentally scarred or anything. Her parents had moved away after her death, without a word to either me nor my parents. My parents had been supportive of me. They tried to take me in for grief counselling, but they stopped when they realized nothing was changing for me. That was when I was six.

When I was seven, I lost both my parents in a bad car accident. They had both died during the crash. Part of me was glad that they didn't suffer too much, but most of me--of course--was sad that they died. In my mind, I still saw them as the kind, gentle, supportive, accepting parents.