Simplicity

chapter 7

“I got your text.” I held my phone in the air and smiled.

  “I can see that.” Jasper grinned back.

He was sitting on a park bench under the street lamp. There were dark shadows falling over his face, making his cheek bones far more prominent. I would have liked to paint him sitting there; just a man alone on a park bench, the light from an overhead street lamp surrounding him in a soft spotlight. The trees were dark shadows in the background and made me see lurking monsters hiding behind each one.

Jasper beckoned me over and I slowly walked towards him and sat down on the other side of the bench.

  “I was kicked out.” Jasper’s rough voice interrupted the silence.

He turned to look at me with a crooked smile.

  “That’s why I moved to NYAA. I was expelled from the last school I was in.

  “Why were you expelled?” I was curious, I wanted to know all about him. He intrigues me.

  “A lot of reasons.” His voice was heavy and his lips were a thin line. 

So it does bother him.

  “Which were?” 

I want to know, I want to know, I want to know.

  “Who said I was going to tell you?” 

  “Well then why did you call me out here.” I shot him a cheeky grin and moved a little a closer, nudging him with my elbow “Come on.” 

He let out a sigh and ran his fingers through his hair; his scars highlighted under the street lamp.

  “I got myself into a lot of shit.” He sighed and didn’t continue.

  “No kidding. That’s usually how you get expelled.” I’ve always thought it was stupid when people pointed out the obvious.

He gave me this look. His eyebrows were raised and he had a crooked smile. Like he was thinking that he might actually find me quite interesting. 

    Or just plain nosy.

  “You gonna let me finish or what?”

I raised my hands in defence and waved him on.

  “There was a bit of an accident. It-” He paused, like he was trying to figure out what words would adequately describe what had happened. “Well, it was fucked up.” He looked down at the floor, kicked a stone and watched it as it rolled away. 

  “That’s what it was really; it was absolutely fucked up. People got hurt. Not even sure how it all ended up happening but somehow, somehow I ended up with blood everywhere; lots of blood everywhere and there was glass and splinters too. It looked as if someone had cut them all open and painted the floors with them and the walls too. All that red.”

He looked like he was freaking out at just the memory, his eyes had gone wild and he was speaking so fast. His hands were balled into tight fists; his knuckles had gone white. I found myself inching away from him, from the realisation that I didn’t want to hear about it anymore.                       

  “People were sprawled on the floor, with blood pooling everywhere. I hadn’t even realised that I’d done anything, I didn’t mean to. It was just everywhere.”

What is he talking about? What did he do?

He was trembling and I was sure it wasn’t from the cold.