Don't Play With My Heart - A Jai Brooks Fan Fiction (Watty Awards 2014)

Chapter 22: Girlfriend (What Would I Do Without You)

Tamara’s POV

I finished my final class before the second lunch break and as usual I made my way to our lunch table by the beautiful, but at the moment, very bare Casuarina tree because of the autumn winds. I wasn’t the first to arrive and started casual chatter with James as he continued with whatever class work he was doing before I arrived. He wasn’t the only one that was focussed on school work lately. I had continued making it a priority, more so after the whole baby thing. It also helped that it provided a little bit of a distraction from me dwelling on everything that had happened and so my mind, most of the time, stayed clear so that I could concentrate on getting the best HSC score that I could possibly get.

The others arrived a few minutes later, although it was odd that Jai wasn’t with them, considering he should have just had visual art with Sami.

“You know where Jai’s gotten to?” I ask Sami as she sits down tentatively.

She hesitates before she answers,

“I didn’t meant to get him into trouble. He was just trying to help me but he kind of took it a little too far.”

“Sami, where is he?” I say I little more worried.

“He’s in the nurse’s office,” she said meekly.

I sprung up from my seat and left my bags at the table as I head in the direction of the nurse’s room. A thousand scenarios went through my mind as I briskly walked through the corridors. When I arrived at my destination, I peered through the window to see Jai sitting on the couch, waiting to be treated. I knocked and Nurse Julie opened the door.

“Am I able to see Jai?” I ask.

“I don’t usually allow requests to see patients, but seen as it’s lunch time, I’ll give you until I’m finished with the current patient,” she said sweetly.

“Thank you,” I said, although my eyes were focussed on Jai slumped in the chair.

I walk over to him and sit in the chair next to him, and before I can even speak, I assess the damage. He looks up to me and I can still see the remnants of anger in his eyes along with a very apparent look of defeat. Around his left eye is already beginning to bruise, so it’s going to look something shocking tomorrow. There’s also a scrape above his right eyebrow that looks like it had been bleeding not that long ago. Various other small cuts and scrapes covered his arms and there were also a few on his legs. Grass and dirt stains plague his crumpled shirt and pants and there was a prominent scuff mark on the top of his once glossy left shoe.

“What the hell happened Jai? You’re a mess; Sami said you were trying to help her?” I said firmly.

“It was all Mikaela. She threatened Sami: if she didn’t break us up and I confronted Mikaela about it and she stuck her current boy toy onto me. All I was doing was defending myself, but I was so angry that Mikaela just won’t leave you alone that I kind of went a little overboard,” he admitted.

“I can see that. And let me guess: I should see the other guy. I know she makes you angry Jai, but you can’t go off like this every time she gets on your nerve. But I can’t really judge you; if I had have found out about Mikaela’s threats towards Sami, I would have torn out her hair, there and then,” I disclosed, “but still. Who knows what’s going to happen now Jai? This could really jeopardise all the good work you’ve been working on to get into university.”

“I know, but that was kind of the last thing on my mind when I was trying to defend our friend. I won’t just stand idly by and watch our friend get bullied on account of some raging bitch wanting to get between you and I. If it weren’t for me having gone out with that two-faced whore in the first place, then Sami would never be in this position in the first place,” he said, anger starting to build in his voice again.