She saw him out the corner of her eye, strutting down the hallway in his usual uniform of dark jeans and bright t-shirt. She caught his mischievous eye and immediately looked down. He usually didn’t make direct eye contact with her like that around his friends. She looked back up in time to see one of them shove a girl out of the way and make a threatening move as if to ask her what she was going to do about it. The girl backed away apologizing profusely which only made the pose laugh.
“ Hey Aly.” Jack said smoothly as he leaned up beside her locker. His friends encircled her.
“ Hhhii,” Aly stuttered kind of confused that he was talking to her out in the open like this and dazed from his mouth uttering her name.
“Everybody, this is Aly.” He motioned to his friends. Everybody repeated the same greeting of hi. “I have something I want to tell you guys.” He continued.
Her heart started to race and her blood went cold. She had no idea what he was about to say.
“This amazing girl right here, is my girlfriend.” With that he pulled something out of his pocket. With one motion he put it around her neck. She looked down to see it was a gold necklace with a bright, shiny, gold star. She looked back up to see if it was just a ploy to embarrass her when he harshly grabbed her arm to kiss her right there in front of everyone.
When he was done proclaiming her to be his, he walked Aly over to her 5th period. He gave her another rough kiss before skirting off to his class as the late bell tolled. She sat down next to her best friend Ryleigh in a dream-like state.
“Pppsssttt, Ryleigh.” She whispered leaning over. The teacher fixed her eyes on the class to see who was talking during roll call.
“What Aly?” He hissed while training his eyes on the board as the teacher looked back up.
“You know Jack right?”
“Yes…” Ryleigh replied cautiously, “Jack Advantis, right?”
“Yes. He called me his girlfriend today and kissed me and gave me this necklace!” Her voice was growing in pitch, “In front of everybody!” Ryleigh fully turned in his seat to face her with an incredulous look.
“Are you serious?” he replied.
“Yes!”
“Ryleigh Righteous!” The teacher called out. “There is no talking during roll. Come up here right now young man.” Ryleigh got up and walked to her desk. “Put your hand on the edge; you know the drill.”
THAWK THAWK THAWK
The ruler left 3 bright red, gridded, rectangular marks on his pale skin.
The lunch bell rang and everybody filed out of the class room in a single line.
“Aly Politis,” The teachers voice rang out, “What is wrong with what you’re doing right now young lady?”
She looked down and replied, “I’m out of step ma’am.” She fell back in cadence and kept facing forward. Once they entered the cafeteria and grabbed their lunches, Jack was motioning for Aly to come sit by him and his friends. She looked over apologetically to Ryleigh and sat down with them. She kept silent the whole lunch, nodding and smiling when any opinion was thrown her way. When it came time to leave, Jack grabbed her hand and pulled her off to her class. Outside in the hallway, Jack took her face in both his hands.
“I don’t want you talking to anybody but me, you here? If somebody asks you a question, you smile pretty and keep shut. You got that?” Her eyes started to fill with tears as she saw her world growing smaller. “And I don’t want you hanging out with that Ryleigh guy. He doesn’t give two craps about you. Nobody does.” With that he shoved her back and walked away. She slid to the floor as tears streamed down her face, smearing her mascara into black spiders down her cheeks. She fingered the golden star and pushed herself up.
No sooner had she gotten when home when the house phone rang.
“Hello?” She answered.
“Aly?” A male voice replied.
“This is she; may I ask whose calling?”
“No.” He barked and the phone went dead.
The next day Aly walked outside, backpack on her shoulder, when Jack pulled up in his military camouflage jeep. She had called Ryleigh last night and told him not to worry about picking her up in the morning anymore. She climbed in and no sooner had she buckled her seat belt when he floored it. The tires squealed and the smell of burnt rubber filled the air and stung her eyes. The jeep shot forward like a bullet out of gun. She clutched her seat as she saw the speedometer climb past 70 with no signs of slowing down. Out the corner of her eye she saw Jack staring straight ahead, like he was calculating something. She looked back at the road and saw a busy intersection.
“Oh god.” She mumbled. Jack looked over at her with a cruel smile on his handsome blonde face and stepped on the gas pedal harder.
The last thing she heard was the sound of car horns and the screeching of tires as smoke filled the air.
She awoke in a white room. There was a single window with a single purple flower upon a white wood desk. Aly Looked around for what woke her and saw that she was hooked up to a heart rate monitor. She looked to her right and saw Ryleigh asleep in a chair next to her.
“Ryleigh?” she said, her voice thick and hoarse. He woke up in kind of a panic and smiled when he saw that she was awake. “What. Happened.” She asked pronouncing each word as a statement.
“Shhhh,” He said taking her hand, “You’re ok now. You were in a car crash. Do you remember that?” She nodded her head slowly. “Jack was killed upon impact. And your parents…” He looked away, misery reading across his face. “…didn’t make it.” Tears started to fill her eyes and spill over. “They were on their way to church when Jack smashed into the passenger door, killing your mother instantly, and I found your father still breathing but the ambulance wasn’t fast enough. I pulled you out from under the jeep. The doctors say you may have a concussion, a broken arm, and few cracked ribs. The asphalt took the skin right off your leg but they did a skin graft a few days ago. I’m so sorry Aly.” He pressed her hand to his face.
“How. Long. Been. Sleep.” She choked out. Ryleigh’s eyes started to water and a tear escaped.
“12 days.”