FicWad

I silenced my alarm clock and turned around with a deep sigh, ready to go back to sleep. After running away last night, I only returned after drying up my tear ducts. It was surprisingly along time later as I left shortly before eight and got back only after ten. Naturally I avoided a confrontation with Lisa, coming straight to my room and getting into bed without bothering to change. There I was surprised to find that I did in fact have more tears left to shed, ending up crying myself to sleep.

I could tell that I cried myself to sleep the night before, because my eyes burned and felt puffy. For some odd reason even my body seemed to hurt. I had too much stress in my life. My shoulders carried too many burdens.

There was a soft knock on the door which I chose to ignore, but it was followed by a louder knock.

"Jacey?"

"Go away," I grumbled, burying my face in my pillows, willing her to go away.

The door was pushed open and light from the hallway flooded into the room.

"Are you planning on getting up any time soon? School starts in less than an hour," Lisa wanted to know.

"I'm not going," I informed her in amumble, still suffocating myself with my pillows.

The woman took a deep breath before saying, "Yes, you are."

I lifted my head just long enough to glare at her.

"No, I am not," I gritted through clenched teeth.

"Jacey!" she said in a tone of admonishment.

"What?" I demanded. "What's the point?It's not like I'm going to do anything with a high school degree once I finish. I'm not going to mean anything to the world anyway so why bother?"

"Why are you always so angry?"

I felt my bed sink in as she sat down next to me and it took all the restraint I had not to push her off of it.

"Why do you choose to be miserable?"

"Excuse me?" I hissed in indignation, sitting up and practically flattening myself against the wall.

"You don't have to be this way. You have this negative outlook on life and I get it, I do, but you don't have to. You need to shift your focus to what is right in your life instead of everything that is wrong."

"You don't know me, okay! Stop trying to play the psychiatrist. And how do I focus on what is right when nothing is right? Tell me that, because I am just dying to hear your answer," I glowered at the brunette.

She sighed deeply as if the world was resting on her shoulders.

"I'm not even going to try to convince you otherwise right now, but you are getting up and you are going to school. I'm not budging on that," she stated firmly, standing up and heading to the door."I'll be checking in on you in five minutes and if you're not up by then, I'm dressing you myself."

"You'll try..."

"Don't underestimate me, Jacey," she cut me short. "I've been playing nice, but it's time to lay down some rules. Iunderstand that you don't want to be here, but you'll just have to be a big girl and suck it up."

With that, she left the room, closing the door behind her. I grumbled as I rolled out of bed and stumbled over to my dresser. This sucked. Now she wanted to be the authority figure. Life was about to get a little more difficult. I preferred it when she gave me my space and let me do as I please.

I entered the living room about twenty minutes later and found Lisa working on a clearly new canvas.

"I'm going to school now," I unnecessarily announced.

"I'll take you," she offered, getting to her feet and wiping her hands down the paint splattered apron hung around her neck before taking it off and hanging it over an old wooden chair standing nearby.

"Don't bother, I'll get there myself."

I turned away from her, with my backpack slung across one shoulder and headed for the door.

"You don't honestly think I actually trust you to go?" she spoke up, passing me and holding the front door open with one hand while the other grabbed her car keys from a hook against the wall near the door. "I'll take you and make sure that you actually attend school."

"I'll just skip as soon as you're gone,"I muttered under my breath, but unfortunately she heard me and gave me a sharp look. "I'm kidding!" I exclaimed in exasperation. "It was joke, jeez."

Her lips twitched up in a small smile and she locked the door behind us while I got in the car and waited. Didn't this day just start out great? Pretty soon she got in on the driver's side and started the car.

"Are you ready for the day?" she asked as she backed out of the driveway.

I sighed deeply, sinking lower in my seat and turning my head away to stare out the window.

"I like this idea of taking you to school. It forces you to listen to me and offers you no escape."

I grumbled incoherently, still not looking at her.

"You know, Jacey when my parents died it was hard to get over it, but eventually it got better. Now I know you were very young when your parents died and it must have been tough growing up without afamily, but you have to make the best of a bad situation. For instance, after Istopped mourning my parents' deaths and focused on what they left behind for me..."

"Let me guess," I interjected derisively. "You came from a wealthy family where Mommy and Daddy left you the family fortune."

Lisa let out a humorless chuckle, "Not quite. My parents were wealthy, but they didn't leave me their fortune. My parents raised me to be independent and they weren't going to ruin years of parenting by leaving me flush with cash the second they passed away. They donated the greater part of their life savings to charity organizations, like foundations and such. The only physical thing they left me with was a trust fund that pays pennies each month, but that doesn't bother me. Most people expected me to be upset, but in truth I was very grateful to my parents for their decision." She turned on her left blinker and we turned the corner before she continued her story. "The thing is my parents didn't leave me money, but they left me me. What do you think would have happened if they dumped aton of cash on me? I probably would've lost myself in it and turned into acompletely different person, but here I am, standing on my own two feet, living off my own dime and I'm perfectly happy."

"That's great, but my parents didn't leave me with anything except a college fund which will only pay out once Igraduate and actually go to college and until then the only thing I have left is vague memories."

She opened her mouth to respond, but stopped when I fixed her with a cold stare and put in my earphones, turning my music up to full volume and turning away again. She really needed to stop trying. She was scratching at wounds that haven't even begun healing. She was only making things worse by trying to fix them. My life was more complicated than she thought. Everything didn't revolve around the death of my parents, granted that the reasons for me being the way I was sprouted from that occurrence. Sometimes it was just life in general that got me down.

The car pulled up at school and Ipractically fell out of the door, slamming it behind me and running across the parking lot towards the school building, hurrying to escape the confinement of the car. She was right, she had me cornered in the car. I didn't like it. Now to survive the rest of the day.



*



At lunch I chose a spot where I was sure no one would bother me. It was way at the back of the cafeteria where only lurkers would ever go. If that was what people thought of me then so be it. At least I would have peace from everyone else who went here. They were serving meatloaf today. I hated meatloaf.

I was just about to turn on my Ipod when I heard someone speak to me.

"Hey, mind if I sit down?"

It was the boy I ran into the day before in my hurry to get to art. I just ignored him, I was pretty good at doing that, and went back to inserting my earphones and turning on my Ipod.

He pulled out a chair and sat down looking at me interestedly.

"You're new here, right?" he guessed. "'Cause I've only seen you in school like one time before when I nearly bulldozed you,"he giggled.

I looked around the cafeteria, trying to locate the group of misfits that lost him, but couldn't find anyone suitable so I turned back, facing him with a deep frown creasing my forehead.

"But I'm relieved to see that you seem perfectly fine after the incident," he continued. "Can I ask you a question?"

You already did.

"You don't talk much, do you?" he asked.

I just kept quiet, hoping that he would take a hint and leave, but for all my glaring and lack of responses, he stayed seated and talking.

"What year are you?" he wanted to know when it was clear that I wasn't going to answer his question.

Damn, this guy was persistent.

"You do understand English, don't you?"he checked after a few seconds.

I gave him a weird look and then got an idea. This was going to be fun. Time to get rid of the little pest.

"English?" I asked in a different accent- don't ask me what. It was just different meaning completely distorted from probably any normal language in the world.

“Frank, you idiot!” He said so suddenly that I nearly fell from my chair from shock. “She doesn’t speak English. No wonder she hasn’t responded to any of your questions. She doesn’t understand a word you’re saying.” He was talking to himself.

Poor idiot. He looked a little embarrassed. It was cute, but it took everything I had to keep from laughing.

“What language do you speak?”

I gave him an innocent smile and said, “Uh-huh.”

That did it. He hurriedly scraped back his chair and said bye nearly waving his hand in my face, forcing me to lean back and nearly tumbling out of my own seat. He turned and left – probably as fast as he could. I couldn’t help but smile. What an amusing kid.

I turned my attention back to my lunch, finally turning on my music and relaxing for the short time I still had left.

*

“Jacey?”

I shut the front door and walked into the living room where Lisa was working on a different canvas than that morning and it was coming along pretty nicely. She looked up when I entered and smiled. It was amazing how well she could pretend that everything was perfectly fine even after I already ran away twice. I was rude and disrespectful towards her and quite frankly my words were nothing but a complete disregard of her personal feelings. I would’ve kicked myself out of the house forever ago.

Contrary to my expectations, she didn’t try to force a conversation like she usually did. She simply went back to painting, leaving me standing there with nothing but a mouth full of teeth. It was somewhat unsettling.

My eyes followed the slow and gentle movement of her hand as it travelled over the canvas with a brush. Her movements were an art of their own. I was actually jealous as I stood there.

I thought about everything she said since I got here and as much as I hated to admit it, she was right. This was new to both of us and apparently she only wanted to help. It would definitely make things a little more bearable during my short stay here if I at least tried to be civil towards her. Besides, it wasn’t fair of me to take all my anger out on her. She didn’t do anything to deserve it. It wasn’t her fault that my life was a mess. Then again, I was moved all the way here because of her…

“How long have you been painting?” I asked in order to stop my negative thoughts from taking over.

I regretted the question the second it was out, because I immediately realized that this was exactly her plan. She put me on the spot, hoping that I would crack and come to her. I lost.

“I’ve been painting since I could hold a brush,” she answered my question, still painting. “Or at least since I can remember.”

“And this is what you do for a living?” I gave in, walking over and awkwardly sitting down on one of the couches.

Her head turned slightly and she offered me a smile.

“Yes.”

“It looks good so far,” I commented genuinely.

“Thank you. How about you, how long have you been doing art?”

I ducked my head a little embarrassed by having the attention turned to me. A strand of hair fell forward into my eyes and I carelessly pushed it back, hooking it behind my ear.

“The same. It’s all I know,” I admitted.

“There’s nothing wrong with that, you know?” she told me, turning back to her painting to add the final strokes before leaving it to dry. “Art is a release and a creative way to express yourself. It’s a good way to let off steam as well. You would’ve believe how many disastrous canvases I’ve had to do over because of it.”

I wanted to laugh at this, but caught myself just in time.

“I have a lot of work,” I mumbled, hurriedly getting to my feet and running from the room. I locked my bedroom door and fell down on the bed with a groan. Now was not the time to get friendly with her. I had to stick firm to my resolve. I was going back to Chicago and didn’t need any emotional attachments to complicate things.