Wednesday, September 2nd
Marisa's POV:
When Megan gets in the car, we recap our nights. Megan literally swoons over Dawson. When I tell her about the hands touching incident, she almost screams of happiness!
"I ship you guys so hard already and it hasn't even been a week!" She says. "Calm down, you know I'm not ready." "I know, I just want you to be happy especially after this summer." "Yea I know"
~At School~
When I'm at my locker, I see James wave at me, and of course, I wave back.
In between 3rd & 4th period, at my locker, my ex friends, Jill Sanderson, McKenzie Casper, Taylor Jamison, Jenna Herman, and Maddie Hawthorn all appear at my locker.
Jill says "I see you're getting cozy with the new kid, James. I suggest you don't if you know what's good for you." Maddie says "yea, we know how much of a slut you are and we don't need to taking the hottest guys in school and fucking him like you did with the other guys in the school." I roll my eyes and say "We have a project together, I can't just not talk to him."
McKenzie says "well then we better not see you talking to him outside of that class if you don't wanna get hurt." I say "Since when do I take orders from you guys?" Jenna says "Since you messed with most of the hot guys in school behind our backs."
I'm about to retaliate when a hand slaps me across the right side of face. My hand shoots up to cup my face stunned that I was just assaulted and tears spring into my eyes.
Joey, Adam and Megan come running up to protect me for any further attacks and humiliation. The crowd that gathered around us during this quarrel started laughing and cheering when Taylor slapped me. The football and soccer guys are the worst culprits.
Megan takes me to the side to check on me. With unshed tears in my eyes, I make eye contact with James, he looks so concerned; I also notice that Dawson doesn't look very happy either.
I look away when I feel blood dripping down my face and a pain in my lip. I run to the bathroom, Joey and Adam are done with our ex friends so they guard the door to make sure I'm not bothered again. Megan helps me clean up my lip and just looks at me sympathetically.
I say silently crying "I had a hunch that something like this would happen. They think I fucked most of the guys in the school, when that's them, not me!" Megan just comforts me until it's time for class. Where I just try to keep my head down and ignore the world.
James POV
I can't believe what I just witnessed. I have to check on her at lunch. She looks so lost in her own thoughts in Spanish. Her lip has a cut on it; it must hurt.
~Lunch Time~
I stop by the nurses office on my way to lunch for an ice pack. I just faked a shin splint from soccer to get it. When I reach the lunch room, I look all around for Marisa and her friends. I luckily find her alone in the court yard. I see that's she's trying to eat but she keeps wincing.
I gather the courage to walk up to her and sit down. She looks up at me confused. I hand her the ice pack and an Advil. She looks at me surprised and grateful.
I say "Are you ok?" She just shrugs her shoulders and says "once I'm out of high school, I will be; how did you even get an ice pack?" "I just made up a soccer injury to get it from the nurse." "Thank you, you didn't have to do that." "No one should have to go through that, especially not someone as fantastic as you." She smiles bashfully while tucking a piece of hair behind her ear. I say "I better get going my brother is gonna start to wonder where I am."
Evening of Thursday, September 3rd
James POV
After my shower, I clean up my room as fast as I can before Marisa gets here. The doorbell rings and I basically run down the stairs before anyone else can get the door. Marisa is standing there looking as gorgeous as ever even with a cut on her lip.
"Come on in, how about a tour of the house before we start?" "Sure, that's sounds great."
As the tour is almost finished, My sisters come running in from dance class and greet Marisa with a big hug, I guessed they missed her, I wish I could hug her like that.
Mom asks "will you be joining us for dinner Marisa? I hope you like chicken Marsala. Plus it's the least we could do for you feeding James the other night."
She's about to decline when my sisters basically beg her to stay. She says "Ok, ok I'll stay" My sisters cheer.
I chime in and say "Ally, Lucy, I hate to steal Marisa away, but we have a project to work on." I place my hand on the small of her back to guide her upstairs but she flinches a little and then relaxes knowing that it's only me.
I lead her upstairs, I tell her to make herself comfortable and I leave the door open so she's not uncomfortable.
While working on the project and our homework, we get interrupted several times by all of my family members. "Im sorry for all of the distractions, I didn't think it would be this bad, it was much quieter at your house." She looks sad and says "Its kinda nice having other people to talk to; its always quiet at my house."
"What do you mean?" "Well my parents are rarely home, and when they are home, they sleep. My brother is away at college so that leaves me alone most of the time." "What about weekends?" "It's like that even on weekends too" "Seriously, you're alone most of the time?" "Yupp." Im about to that's not right but mom says it's time for dinner.
During dinner, the conversation between my family and Marisa is easy, it's like she's been around us for years. My parents and sisters love her already.
After dinner, Marisa helps clean up and the conversation shifts to high school football. She starts becoming noticeably uncomfortable especially when Jason Carter, the former star quarterback who plays for Ohio State now, is brought up.
She says "Oh I didn't notice how late it is. I should get going. Thank you for everything especially dinner. It was delicious!" Then she rushes upstairs to grab her things, I follow and say "you know you don't have to leave right away, stay a little longer." She says "I can't, I just can't. I'm sorry." She runs down the stairs and thanks my family again, and in the blink of an eye, she's gone. What just happened?
Marisa's POV
I get home just in time. I didn't want the Kingsley's to see me having a panic attack, so I tried to get out of there as soon as I could without being rude.
While the conversation shifted to high school football, I felt a sense of impending doom, and rapid, pounding heart rate. With the help of my therapist and her techniques, I've started to recover some of my memories a from that night. Jason Carter being my rapist was one of them. And now that I'm home the other symptoms are kicking in like the Sweating, the shaking, the Shortness of breath and the tightness in your throat.
I have enough sense to call Joey. It's takes around 15 minutes, but he talks me down. He was so close to just hopping in his car and driving over here. I calmed down just in time. I thank him and tell him I'll see him tomorrow. The panic attacks leave me exhausted. So it's straight to bed for me.
