Jaded

 

My body ached. Everything hurt. I was stood in the school parking lot and looked up. It was getting dark, maybe around five or six o’clock. I limped home and thought about how useless my life was. Nothing good ever happejned to me. Even if something good did happen, it would just slip between my hands. I continued my walk home thinking about this until I reached the door of my house. I reached for the keys in my purse and opened the door. As the door swung, my little sister materialized and glared at me. I stared back.

“You got beat up again didn’t you Jade?” She asked.

“Shut up Vicky! Mind your own business,” I retaliated.

“When it concerns my big sister, everything is my business. Now answer me. You got beat up again didn’t you?” She asked again.

“Leave me alone. That doesn’t concern you,” I persisted. I entered the house and walked up to my room. She followed, but I closed my bedroom door. This didn’t stop her. We had a conversation with the door between us.

“This is getting out of hand Jade,” Vicky said. “You have to tell Mom and Dad before things get worse. Bullying isn’t a small issue. If you keep getting beat up, I don’t know how you’ll survive the rest of your junior year.”

Vicky had a point. She always had a point. She was thirteen and I was seventeen, but she always made more sense than me. She was right though. I couldn’t go through my third year of highschool getting beat up all the time. I really wanted to tell my parents, but I lacked the courage. I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. Even I didn’t know why I couldn’t tell them, but I just couldn’t. I had always been shy and timid for as long as I could remember.

“I’ll survive somehow,” I lied. “I just will.”

How I was going to survive? Only God knows. I changed into my house clothes and tried to do my homework, but I couldn’t concentrate. What Vicky said was still bugging me. I listened to some music while lying on my bed to clear my thoughts, and eventually fell asleep thinking about my problems.

I dreamt about how my bullying started and how it was a huge misunderstanding.  This wasn’t a new dream. I’d been having this same dream for weeks now, and no matter how hard I tried to avoid it, the result was still the same.

In the dream, I was in my Social Studies class. The teacher assigned a project to the class and put us into groups. I was in a group with Jason Smith and two other girls. Jason was pretty much the most popular guy in school and the two other girls followed him wherever he went. As the different groups discussed the project, my group decided to meet at Jason’s house that Saturday and finish it there. I was a bit excited because I rarely went to other people’s houses and people rarely came to mine.

Saturday came and I got ready to leave for Jason’s. I walked to his house, which wasn’t far from mine, and met the two other girls in my group along the way. We greeted each other and continued to Jason’s. When we arrived, they rang the doorbell and Jason opened the door eagerly. He welcomed us and we went to his room.

My group worked well together and we finished most of the project that afternoon. We decided to meet again the next day to complete it. We then began to leave. The two girls left quickly because they said they had a movie to catch. After they had left, I realized that one of them left her bag on Jason’s desk. I wanted to go after them, but Jason stopped me. He insisted that he would give it to her, and that I stay longer. I took a seat on his neatly made bed while he sat on his desk’s chair. As we sat there, he just stared at me like I was a prize. He offered me a drink from the kitchen and I took a few sips. He asked me questions as if interrogating me, but I didn’t mind. We got into a good conversation because of his interrogation, and surprisingly, we had a lot in common. He continued to stare at me as if he wanted something from me. Then he unexpectedly told me how cute I looked the way I was sitting on his bed. He stood up from the chair and took a seat on the bed with me with his eyes never diverting from me. He moved closer to me until there was almost no distance from us. He leaned towards my face and kissed me. It was sudden and I got a bit scared. I pushed him away, but I felt weak and dizzy. Then I realized that I had drunk something. Maybe he had put something in the drink to knock me out. I noticed too late because I was already seeing stars. I passed out.

When I regained consciousness from blacking out, I saw Jason still sitting on the bed while I was lying on it. I looked at him sleepily then examined myself. I was under his covers and felt a little cold. I removed the covers, but quickly put them back on when I realized I was more than half-naked. I didn’t know what had happened, but I was scared, confused, and still dizzy.