Fractures

19 || Promises

Chapter 19: Promises

5:00am

Sleep was like a ritual to me, just some alone time between me and my soft, cosy bed for the next eight hours…

Well, today, that sacred ritual was interrupted.

“Wake up Frankenstein.”

I blinked. Standing in my room was Jessica, fully dressed in a grey hooded crop top and matching jogger pants, her hair tied into a ponytail with a bottle of mineral water on one hand.

“Am I dreaming?” I asked, blinking numerously.

“Get up! You said we’d go jogging together,” Jess said.

Oh, I remember. Yesterday, when I’d been filled with all the maturity of a five year old and agreed to something I had no chance of following up with, aka exercise.

I sighed, staring into my phone for the time and then looking out the window at the barely lit walkway.

“Right now?” I asked.

“Yes Maddie, now get up or I’ll be pouring ice cubes down your back. You have five minutes to get ready,” Jess said, leaving my room with the door wide open.

I let out a frustrated groan, diving head first into my pillow as I mumbled a silent, “why me?”

•••

I’d managed to get out of bed, tie my hair into a small bun and put on a Mickey Mouse t-shirt.

Jessica stared at me, her brows raised like she was staring at a u.f.o impersonation of a human.

“What?” I grumbled and she quickly looked away.

I’ve said this before and I’m saying it again, I’m not a morning person. My brain was legally not on duty till 10am at least.

The cold morning air brushed against my face, sending goose bumps down my skin. The whole campus was quiet, a tiny group of people littered here and there.

“Okay, we’ll start easy for today, just a small jog to the bookshop and back,” Jessica said nonchalantly, like the distance wasn’t a death sentence.

“You call that easy?”

…

“JESS! STOP, I BEG OF YOU… I’M GOING TO DIE ANY MOMENT NOW!” I yelled, panting as I made my way to Jessica who was a solid four blocks ahead, hardly sweating.

“Maddie, stop being dramatic, it’s barely been thirty minutes.”

I fell to the ground, a sweaty mess, begging for Jessica’s mineral water.

She sighed, handed it to me and joined me on the ground.

“So, why’re you doing this?” she asked.

I froze halfway through a gulp, slowly taking it down then turned to that. “Doing what?”

“Come on Maddie, you hardly wanted to start exercises when Angie and I offered, what changed?” she asked, pushing a dangling lock of blonde hair from her face.

She was right, I wasn’t one with the motivation or drive for this but I was fed up. I was tired of all the names I was being called. Memories of last semesters came rushing back, when joey had embarrassed me right in front of the whole hall.

“COOKIE GIRL! COOKIE GIRL!” the names came rushing back. I drew in a shaky breath and turned to Jessica.

“Am I ugly?” I asked.

She stared at me, a hint of surprise on her face but she quickly regained her composure. “I mean… You’re definitely not conventionally attractive.”

“So it’s true, I do look like an ogre who got knocked up by a bus.”

“Hey!” Jessica swung an arm over my shoulder. “All I’m saying’s your beauty isn’t necessarily in your looks Maddie… You’re more than that.”

I bit back from reminding her she utterly despised me last semester and took every chance she had to belittle me and my appearance.

“Who called you that anyway?” she asked.

I sighed. “Veronica and Kelsie.”

Her face took an unreadable expression. She finally stood from the ground and turned to me. “They still hate you, huh?”

“Don’t they hate both of us?” I asked, barely able to maintain eye contact.

Jess hadn’t been their closest friend last semester but they usually did invite her to a few parties. All that changed after she’d gone behind their backs and defended me. Now they utterly despised her.

“Do you know why they don’t pick on me?” Jess asked.

I shrugged. “You’re hard to be picked on?”

“And why do you think I am?” she asked.

I didn’t reply. There was a plethora of reasons ranging from the fact she barely ever saw them in her lecture halls to she just never minded them.

“I don’t care Maddie, that’s why,” she said. “They know they can’t get to me cause I’m just as confident within as I am outside and I want you to be the same.” She lent me a hand to get up, dusting my sweatpants. “Next time you see them, I want you to look them in the eye and speak your mind. Don’t hold back.”

I stared into her eyes, a calm reassurance in them. She’d grown into a vastly different person than when I met her.

“Promise me you won’t.”

I nodded. I had no idea what she expected me to do, or how she expected me to find confidence in myself when all I’d ever been told I had was the opposite but I pushed that thought to the back of my mind.

“Great! Now let’s get back to our jog, we have a long way to cover… Afterwards, we’ll need to change your wardrobe.”

I groaned. “Jess, I think I’m going to die if we take another step,” I grumbled as we continued our jog.