No Good Nick (Part 3)

Part 5

School was still hard, and people still liked to jab hurtful words at her... but at least home was beginning to feel okay again. To Nick, that was a miracle, and she wasn't complaining.

It was now marked 3 weeks since the Thompsons had brought her home after her attempted run-away. Nick couldn't believe it had been 3 weeks, that night had felt like both yesterday and a year ago.

Nick had been working hard to improve her relationships with all of the Thompsons, and they too had worked hard to make things right with Nick. All of them had lovingly accepted it, and she couldn't have asked for more.

Nick was grateful for Jeremey extending a new olive branch to her. A chance to start over and finally gain a friend in him was something Nick had wanted even before everything went downhill. Already he made the whole "getting -up- out- of- bed-each -day" easier.

And Molly... Nick was 1,000x grateful for her best friend. How she would have survived school without Molly, Nick would never know. Especially through what happened that Thursday.

Nick had wanted to walk to school alone again that morning. She found it relaxing, and helped clear her head before taking on the long day of classes and work to be done. It was late February, so the air was still chilly around her. A light dusting of snow covered the ground, but Nick knew that by March it would be gone. Until then, she didn't mind it too much.

She had been walking across the football field when an ice-packed snowball hit her in the face. Nick stumbled back, surprised from the shock of what happened. She reached her fingers up to her stinging cheek, and whirled around to see who threw it at her.

"Who did that??" She yelled, anger rising up her throat. Her gaze landed on 3 boys, all snickering and whispering to each other. Nick clenched her fists and stomped towards them.

"What the heck was that? You could have taken my eye out!" She yelled, glare piercing each boy.

The biggest guy, Nick recognized him as a guy named Mathias, snorted. "Please. You'd be just fine little con artist. You could go buy a nice glass eye if you wanted to with our cash."

Nick licked her chapped lips. "Look, I know what I did was wrong, and you'll never know how sorry I am. I did a lot of things I'm ashamed of but I swear, I've changed."

He frowned, and studied her for a second. Then he lowered his voice and said, "Look. The whole school is watching you. You try anything... and I mean anything, to try to scam us and get your way, you'll go down."

Nick shivered but still met his eye level. She had dealt with plenty of bullies in her life. "I swear I've changed. So that won't be a problem." She spat back, her tone just as icy as the snowball that had hit her face.

***
By the time Nick had walked into school, first block was starting so she had to run to class. She barley had made it. Once she had made it through her geography lesson, she went to her locker to grab a book. Molly was there waiting for her.

"Nick! You didn't show up before school so I was worried!" Her grin fell. "What happened to your face?"

Nicks fingers absentmindedly went to brush over her cheek, but then she forced them to stop. "My face? What do you mean?"

Lying through her teeth again. She didn't want to, but she didn't want to worry Molly. She could handle herself just fine.

Molly gave her a look. "Nick, come on. You know why your cheek has a nice purple bruise on it. You don't just get that."

This time, Nick brushed her cheek and flinched. It had bruised?

"Huh. Well I didn't know it had bruised." She said, then paused when she realized she said that out loud. Ugh.
Nick slid past Molly and began to open her locker.