Jenny

I pretended to be sick, and stayed home from school for a couple of days after my fight with Draven. Truthfully I was just a coward, and I didn’t want to run into him. It wasn’t going to be easy to face him after the way I acted, so I milked the whole sick thing for as long as I could. Mom didn’t ask me about the fight, even though she knew it happened. She knew I wasn’t actually sick, but she didn’t ask me about that either. She just let me lay around for a couple of days and sulk. 

My time was up though. After spending last night at the mall with Lo, shopping for the perfect dress for her to wear to her cousin’s wedding, I finally realized that I couldn’t avoid it forever. Lo tried to convince me that it wasn’t that bad, but I just let her believe that.

It was more than bad.

For the first time in my life, I just blew up. I was a raving lunatic, and I completely lost it. It was so out of character for me, and not in my nature to act so ridiculous. I blamed all of it on the fact that Draven acted like an ass to my parents, which he did, but that wasn’t the real reason. One minute he was sort of nice, and the next minute he’d become cold as ice. And maybe I was madder at myself than at Draven, but I took out all of my pent up anger on him. All those years were spent hiding in dark corners with my nose firmly placed in a book, instead of giving myself a chance to hurt. I was protecting myself instead of allowing myself to feel anything. For the past week, I agreed to let him in, because my Mother suggested it. I let my guard down, which left me with an unsettling feeling. I couldn’t stand him, and for one brief second, I felt sad for him. I felt like maybe he might change his ways and care about something for once. Especially after the way things went down with Tyler. Guess I should’ve known better than to expect good things from a bad person. When he sat there at that dinner and ate the food that my mother prepared, and treated them like dirt, I lost it. It wasn’t about my parents. They didn’t even seem to mind. I was angry with myself for letting my guard down, and even angrier that my thoughts had been consumed by his touch. At any given moment, he was going to do the one thing I feared the most. He was going to hurt me and humiliate me, like he did with everyone else. So, I pushed everything aside, and stood up to him in private before he could belittle me in public. 

I was such a coward. I let this town, and these people define me. Always worrying about what people might say, or think, made me weak. And instead of allowing people to see it, to prey on my weaknesses, I pushed it away so that I could save face. With only weeks left until graduation, I’d soon be out of this town, and on my way to a new life.

It’s pathetic.

I was pathetic.

I’d never felt guiltier than I had in that moment when he left my room. All those harsh words, they weren’t me. I didn’t cry because of him. I cried because I felt like the biggest bitch on the planet. So what he was an asshole? It was no secret. 

I only had two choices in this horrible situation. I could either let it go and make things go back to the way they were, or I could swallow my pride and apologize. I knew that the right thing to do was to tell him I was sorry, but it would backfire. I’d leave myself vulnerable to him, and to other people. It was the one place I didn’t want to go. It was the place I’d ran from. 

So what did I do?

That was the big question, and I assumed I had my mind made up. 

***

When I got to school on Thursday, I thought I had it all figured out. Draven would ignore me, and make my decision so easy. I thought I’d let it all go, and pretend it never happened. But he didn’t show up at school. His car wasn’t in the parking lot, and I never saw him. He wasn’t at Maxwell’s that morning, he wasn’t in the halls that afternoon, and he wasn’t in the parking lot after school. 

Maybe the whole letting it go thing really was the best idea. 

At least that’s what I thought, until later that night. 

Lo waited until she was leaving for the airport to inform me that Draven had been out of school all week too. She said she heard people talking about him dropping out. She wasn’t sure if it was true, but gossip was known to run rampant in our town.

Just when I’d thought that things would blow over, I realized that I was completely wrong. I had to make the situation right no matter the consequences. I couldn’t help it. I was the kind of person who couldn’t sit back even when I wanted to. I had to make this right.

Thanks to a few calls made by my Mom, I had Draven’s address. It wasn’t too hard to figure out where he lived, once she got a few gossiping ladies on the phone. I wasn’t joking when I said everyone knew everything. It was all still so perplexing though. People knew he lived alone, and no one said anything. How was it possible that no one had turned him in? The only possible explanation I could think of was that he was so close to being eighteen that no one really cared. They all just left well enough alone. It was sad, really, how none of them seemed worried about him. He wasn’t important to them. He didn’t matter, and that didn’t sit well with me.  

The tiny piece of paper with his address written on it was taunting me, and I knew what I had to do. I slipped on a pair of black leggings, a t-shirt, and my running shoes and I was out the door. I didn’t even bother brushing my hair. 

For the life of me, I couldn’t figure out what was happening inside my head. This crazy idea hit me, and I was outside of his apartment building before I even had time to think about what I was doing or what I was going to say.

It was dark outside and there wasn’t much lighting on the old, worn apartment building. 

Who was I kidding? 

It was far worse than just worn out. The place was a real dump. There were windows covered with garbage bags. Like, those big black ones used for stuffing leaves in. Someone had spray painted a naked woman on the edge of the building by the entryway. It was rather good actually, but tacky as hell. The paint was peeling off the sides of the building, and there was mold growing up around the piping. It was unsanitary as hell.  

“I don’t think I’m in Kansas anymore,” I said to myself as my fingers gripped the handle of my car door. 

I glanced down at the paper once more and memorized his apartment number. There was no way I’d be lingering around outside for too long. The place was too sketchy and it was far too dark for my liking. 

Slipping my purse over my head so that it crossed over my body, I quickly opened the door, trying not to catch my foot on the broken threshold.

208.

208.

208. 

I repeated the numbers over and over in my head as I rushed into the entryway was as fast I could. The darkness alone was scary enough. I’d seen enough horror movies to know that there was always something waiting in the darkness ready to pounce. I took the metal stairs up to the second floor and followed the numbers as they led me to his door. 

My body shivered as I stood there staring at the old rusty numbers. 

Just do it already. I told myself. 

It had to be better inside his place then it was standing on the outside. Right?

I knocked on his door quickly, and hoped no one else thought I was knocking on his or her door. That was the last thing I needed. The echo of my knock rang through the corridors. Something inside me stirred leaving a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. 

When I heard a shuffling sound inside, I started having second thoughts. 

But it was far too late for that. 

The door opened slowly, and I stood there face to face with Draven. He was wearing nothing but a loose fitting pair of shorts that hung low off his waist, and he looked like death. I wasn’t exaggerating. His face was pale. There was sweat rolling off his forehead, and nasty black circles under his eyes. Something was wrong. 

His eyes locked with mine, and he finally spoke. “What the fuck are you doing here?” 

Great idea Jenny...