Jake

7. Promise

As they walked out of school at the end of the day, Jake said, "My mom has a bunch of old magazines that she might let us use."

"Cool. I have a few at my house, too. Should we go get 'em?"

"Yeah. We need a lot to find everything we need."

"Okay."

She saw Joe standing by a tree in front of the school and she stared at him. He didn't see her, but she couldn't stop staring.

Jake looked at her and said, "What's wrong?" He looked where she was looking and saw him. He said, "Is that the guy?"

"Uh, kind of. There was a group, but only two of them messed with me. He was one of them."

"Do you know who the other guy was?"

She said, "Um, I think they called him 'Knuckles'."

He said, "Oh. I know who you're talking about. His real name is Kevin Nucleese. He's been the strongest kid in Panmore since like, 2nd grade. His dad was a boxer and he trained him. Now he beats on any kid he can get his hands on. He's very uh..." He mumbled, "What's the word?" It took him a couple second before he finally said, "Oh! Belligerent."

She looked at him curiously.

He said, "Trying to use vocab words in normal conversations. It makes me sound smarter.

She laughed a little and said, "Oh. Well, anyway, he sounds horrible."

They got to her house and she unlocked the door.

They walked inside and she said, "I'll be right back."

He nodded.

She went into her room and walked to her dresser. She kneeled on the floor and opened the bottom drawer, taking everything out until she found the magazines. She was skimming through them when she heard slow footsteps coming towards her room. She looked up and saw Jake walking in.

He stood by her and said, "Why do you have those?" while pointing to the pack of razor blades on the floor next to her. She sat on her floor, speechless.

There was a silence that lasted so long, she wasn't sure if she could still hear until he finally said, "Forget it. Just give them to me." She grabbed them and put them in his hand. He turned around and walked back down the hall. She got up and followed him as he turned into the kitchen.

He dropped them in the garbage can under the phone and said, "You don't need them. Now, promise me you'll never do that again." She just stared at him for a few seconds before he repeated himself. "Promise."

She slowly nodded and said, "Okay. I promise."

"Thank you... Now, where are those magazines?"

She said, "Oh, uh, over here." She walked back into my room and handed him the small stack of magazines. "They're mostly teen mags, but if worse comes to worse, we can use the ads."

"Alright, well, we should get going. We have to finish this today."

"Okay. Let me just leave a note for my mom. She should be here in a little while."

He said, "Okay," as he grabbed his backpack and started to open the door.

She grabbed a piece of paper from the notebook on the table and started writing on it with a pen that was next to it.

Mom,

I went to finish a project at my friend's house. I'll be back for dinner. See you soon!

- Sophia

She said, "Okay, let's go." He smiled and opened the door, heading out. She was halfway out the door when she looked back at the garbage can. She thought, There goes my past. Let's hope it stays there...