Promise

Chapter 26

I was late to school the next day. I'd waken up at my normal time but remained on my back in bed thinking about my life. Mainly my thoughts revolved around Darius. I didn't even want to go to school after our argument yesterday about Jay. Darius hadn't responded to the few texts I'd sent him. He must have been really mad or Jay could have just scared him so bad he no longer wanted anything to do with me. Either way he hadn't talked to me and I felt like crap.

When I walked into first period I instantly glanced over at Darius but he was avoiding eye contact with me. I felt my throat close up as I attempted to hold back my tears.  Mr. Lee had assigned a lab for today and because I was late my partner Ericka was working with two other people in the class already. I looked around the room as everyone worked on the lab assignment and Mr. Lee walked around monitoring. When he got to my desk he raised an eyebrow.

"What's going on?" he asked. "You should be working on the lab."

"I don't know what we're doing," I said quietly. I could feel a few of my classmates looking over at me, judging me like they'd been doing the past month.

"Why didn't you ask?" Mr. Lee gave an impatient sigh and shook his head when I shrugged. "You can just go ahead and work with Ericka, four in a group is fine."

I nodded not really listening to what he was saying. He walked away to go answer another group's question and I turned in my seat to look over at Ericka. She was working with two of my old teammates from the cheer squad. I turned back around remaining in my seat. When I knew I had Darius it was easy to set aside the fact that I no longer had friends or that big of a support group like I used to. It was easy to face the whispers and judgmental looks. Now I felt too afraid and embarrassed I couldn't even work with people I once used to be cool with. I knew what girls on the cheer team said about me, about my relationship with Jay. I'm sure Chantel was giving them all the details she thought she knew.

I could feel my palms getting sweaty and my heart began racing the longer I sat in my seat alone.  I needed to get out of here. I stood up and walked up to Mr. Lee at his desk, clenching one of the straps on my backpack.

"I don't feel good," I said. "Can I go to the nurse?"

He sighed and waved me off which I assumed was a yes. He didn't even bother to write me a hall pass. Mr.Lee had developed a bit of impatience with me throughout the school year due to both my tardiness and lack of effort in his class. It wasn't my fault there were times Jay and I would argue right before school started causing me to disrupt Mr. Lee in the middle of his lessons. I often wondered if he paid attention to the rumors about me. You'd think he'd cut me some slack.

As soon as I stepped into the hallway and the door closed I let out a relieved sigh and closed my eyes to calm the shakiness from my body. I had a lot of anxiety lately and again I didn't have Darius there to distract me from it. After a couple moments of getting my breathing under control I almost felt good enough to go back into class until I heard something that shot fear up my spine and made my breath hitch. A laugh. A laugh I recognized but also surprised me because I hadn't heard it in a while.

Jay's laugh. 

When we were still together he hardly did it but when he did it was loud and humorous. The fact that the laughter was nearby frightened me. I looked around the corner down the hall and saw Jay standing by a row of lockers with a few of his friends from the football team. I immediately retreated back remaining unseen. He was here today; he'd been on campus the other day when he'd fought with Darius; and Naomi had implied she'd be returning to school. This all had to mean Jay was returning too otherwise he wouldn't be here. But from my knowledge Jay had been permanently removed from school at least that's what I'd heard. I'd thought the same thing about Naomi yet she would be coming back as well. Would I just have to deal with him for the rest of the school year? If I filed another restraining order how would it work with Jay and I attending school together. What if I had to be the one to drop out of school? To be honest it didn't sound like a bad idea. Probably wouldn't make any difference though, Jay somehow always managed to find a way to be in my life. He'd just broken into my house a day ago so at this point I only expected the worse.