Six

"What?" Her voice was strained as if she were trying not to show the hurt. She practically just threw herself at him, and he straight out rejected her.

For the hundredth time in the past twenty four hours, I had to ask myself, ‘what is his problem?!’

"Look, I just met you! It's kind of pathetic how you threw yourself at me so quickly. I thought we were just messing around back at work." Her eyes filled up with tears, and she didn't move. It was like she was frozen.

I quickly left my hiding place and went to confront him. He immediately saw me stomping over and groaned. This kid has an attitude problem, and I'm so sick of it.

"What do you want?! What, are you stocking me now?" He glared cold and hard.

"Um, excuse me, but I was here long before you were," I said with as much venom as possible, but not sounding as confident as I thought I would have. "What the heck is your problem?! Why are you being such a jerk to everyone?" He let out a dark, low chuckle and glared at me.

"Really? That's the best you got? That I'm a jerk." He tried to mimic me when he said jerk.

"No, I also have some ice cream that I didn't eat." I walked a few feet to the left, to the frame of the swing set where we had left our now melted ice cream. Picking it up, I turned quickly, walked back over, and threw it in his face with a smile.

"What, nothing to say? It looks like you finally got that much needed attitude adjustment. Turns out you really can be sweet!" I smiled at my own lame joke and quickly took a few steps back when his hands tightened into fists. The sticky goo ran down his face and onto his shirt, giving me even more satisfaction.

"Oh, no!" I said like something was wrong. "I forgot the chocolate to go on top! Darn it!" I was still smiling, and he looked like he wanted to explode. I grabbed for the girl's hand, and she placed hers in mine gently as she laughed at Jessie. It made me happy that she had stopped crying.

"You should probably go take a shower. The ice cream seems to be sliding off, and your ugly personality is starting to show again." His face was turning so red it was on the way to going purple. I pulled the girl across the park as quickly as my feet would carry me in case he decided to come after me. She quickly dismissed herself to head in the other direction so she could get to her house, and I continued to speed walk back to mine.

I was both proud of myself and terrified that if I looked behind me, I would find him stalking after me with murderous intent.

Walking up, I noticed the two additional cars in the driveway. So, I picked the safe route and walked around to the backyard so I could sneak upstairs. Hearing the voices coming from the front room, I closed the back door silently and tiptoed up the staircase.

After a warm shower, I cuddled under to duvet and called Chris to tell her exactly what she missed.

"Oh, my god!" Chris yelled over the phone. "Jules! Do you realize that this was the first time that you were ever actually mean to someone? How did it feel?" I thought about it, and she was right. That is not who I am. It briefly crossed my mind that I needed to find him and apologize tomorrow for taking it so far. The other side of my brain was saying that he kind of deserved something like that to happen to him for the way he was treating everyone.

"No! Julie, I know what you are thinking. He deserves it! Don't feel bad! He is an asshole!" She was right, but that didn't mean that I handled that situation the right way.

"Okay, so who was the girl? Did she go to our school? I didn't recognize her." Chris asked eagerly and was quickly disappointed when I had to tell her I didn't get the girl's name and didn't know anything about her.

* * * *

The next day at school, there wasn't a second where I wasn't receiving a death glare from Jesse. At one point in math, I thought he was going to rip my head off in the middle of class, witnesses be damned. I was actually really scared, but I bit it back and plastered a smile on my face. I would have expected to get the glares from his friends too, but I think he decided not to tell them to save himself the embarrassment.

Smart move on his part. I should know. They try to embarrass me all the time, but I do my best to ignore them, which just ends up pissing them off more.

So, I had learned to just pretend to be hurt or upset when they were bullying me when in reality I couldn't care less about what they said about me. It made it easier. They get the reaction they want, and I get them to leave me alone for the rest of the day.

Jessie's badass act won't last too long in this school. Soon, he too will be ripped apart piece by piece, and he will have to find someone to 'stitch him back together'.

The bell rang, letting school finally end. I walked up to my locker to grab my homework and book bag. When I closed the metal door, I came face to face with Jessie leaning up next to my locker.

"Hello." I cleared my throat as I collected myself from the small fright he had given me. He didn't deserve to ruin my day. I was in a good mood, and I wasn't about to let him change that.

It didn't matter to me that I was the star of the new rumor going around. It was no different than any other day. I was still getting glares and being laughed at as I walked down the hall, but I held my head up high. "What can I help you with?" I smiled at him, and he looked confused.

"Why are you being nice? I thought the dark Julie had come out to play. I was looking forward to it." He looked at me, and I tried not to laugh.

"Am I supposed to be evil or something just because I dumped melted ice cream on you? Hate to break it to you, but I'm not normally a mean person. That would be the people you hang out with." I watched amused as the crease between his eyebrows went away, and his head tilted to the side like he was trying to figure me out.

"Well, no. It's just that after the way that yesterday went, I would expect you to be as pissed at me as I am at you. Why do you keep smiling at me?" He just stayed still leaning up against the locker next to mine, not bothering to move even though I had already closed my locker and was ready to walk away.

"Why would I be mad? You were awful to several people yesterday. You deserved some sort of bad karma, but it wasn't my place to step in, and I shouldn't have dumped the ice cream on you. You were awful to me. I was awful to you. Seems like we are equal right now, so there is no point in me holding a grudge." He didn't smile or look me in the face as I spoke. For a moment, I thought he was actually taking in what I said.

Instead, he just crossed his right foot over the front of his left and crossed his arms. "Don't you even want to know why everyone in the school hates you?"

"No. Why on Earth would I care about them? I have my family and my best friend. As long as I have them, I'll be fine. You can hate me as much as you want, too. It won't be any skin off my back." He looked up as I said this, and my smile faltered by his disgusted look.

"You're so fucking weird. I can't stand it. You don't even care that the whole school is going around saying shit about you. You just walk around with a big goofy smile on your face with your one friend. Your life is a joke." My lips parted in surprise that my existence bothered him so much. How could someone hate another person for such a stupid reason?

He opened his mouth to speak again. His eyes roamed over my face before he changed his mind. Jessie snapped his jaw closed, pushed his shoulder off the lockers, and walked away without looking back.

I shook my head in shock, trying to figure out what was going through his mind before shrugging to myself. Not my problem.