7TH HEARTBEAT

JORDI ADKINS

“Are you going to hit me again?” I asked outright. I felt frightened and shocked at the very same time but I felt compelled to act tougher this time around.

“Why would you think of that, curlytops?” He replied with another question and the weirdest thing I noticed was he doesn’t sound like the jerk that I used to know.

Am I allowed to think that the world may be turning upside down? Because the look painted in Xavier’s face doesn’t look like he’s going to beat the shit out of me. In fact, he looked like he’s way too confused and I’m just as baffled as he was.

“Don’t act brand new, Xavier.” I blurted out feeling a lot like filled with courage. Maybe having the whole week Xavier-free was the only thing that I needed in order to have this fleeting feeling of courage.

“Jordi, I... I...” Xavier couldn’t even look at me in the eye for more than a few seconds. That’s obviously the oddest thing for the person who used to humiliate me.

“What, Xavier? Are you the one who’s stutteri