20 days before Valentine’s Day

It’s Thursday morning and I had butterfly stitches on my left brow to cover a cut from hitting the ground when I fell. I walked through the door into Art and immediately caught Dylan’s eye, who quickly stood up from his seat.

        “Avery.” He said cautiously as if waiting for me to throw a tantrum, “are you alright?” he asked with a wince when he saw the cut on my brow.

        “I’m fine,” I answered, “considering you kicked a football and hit my head. I’m great! ” I muttered sarcastically.

        “That was an accident,” he argued. His jaw tightened as he explained. “I wasn’t aiming for your head.”

        “Yeah, okay you missed. But thanks to your little ‘accident’, I had a mild concussion and got this,” I pointed to my brow. “It’s probably going to scar. Great. If you wanted to give me scar so badly, you should’ve aimed for my forehead.”

        “Again, it wasn’t intentional, but why do you want a scar on your forehead?” Dylan asked in confusion, his eyebrow raising in question.

        I shrugged slightly, “Then it can be kind of similar to Harry Potter’s.” I grinned at him.

        “I’m guessing that I’m forgiven?”

        “You can say that. But, I will get even.” I stuck my tongue out and he chuckled.

        “Whatever. Let’s just get this project done already.”

        “Okay.” I replied, sinking down into my seat and grabbed a pencil.

        “Just for the record, I didn’t miss. Your head is just so big that it blocked the way.” He joked and I elbowed his stomach.

        “Shut up.” I told him.

*** *** *** *** ***

It was lunch and I was starving. I had Biology for third period which really drained my brain power. Mrs.Coates was shouting at the entire class for the whole hour, I don’t know why. I think she finally lost her hearing and didn’t realise that she was shouting.

I was just about to sit down when I saw Emma dart through the other side of the canteen and she quickly dropped her tray on the table and hugged me tightly.

“Avery! You’re back! Oh my goodness, are you okay?” Emma exclaimed and finally released me from her death hug. She held me by the shoulders and examined me from head to toe, looking for any serious damage.

        “Crap! What happened to your head? Oh my God! Does it hurt? I thought you said you were okay?” She fired questions at me, shaking my shoulders.

        “Emma!” I half-shouted to shut her up then I looked her in eyes and gripped her shoulders tightly. “I’m. Fine. Calm. The. Hell. Down.” I say slowly, shaking her with every word. She looked at me with wide eyes as I pushed her down to the bench.

        Emma took a deep breath, “Okay, sorry, I’m calm.”

        “Good.” I said, sitting on the opposite side of the table.

        “But, seriously. Are you okay?”

        “Yes! Emma, you called me like a thousand times while I was off school. And like I’ve told you a thousand times before, I am fine.”

        “I was making sure.” She smiled sheepishly and pointed at my brow, “But that looks painful.”

        I chuckled a bit, “It was but it doesn’t hurt as much now. It just sort of stings, like when you get a paper cut on your finger except it’s on your eyebrow.”

        “Oh. But paper cuts still hurt, you know.” She said in a matter-of-factly way.

        “Not that much. So,” I paused. “No Aaron today?” I asked with a smirk and she kicked me under the table. “Ow!”

        “He is in school today. He’s just handing in his homework because he forgot to hand it in the other day.”

        “Don’t you mean, he didn’t do the homework so he’s handing it in late? And you know, you have got to stop kicking me. It’s not nice to hurt the injured.” I joked.

        “Pfft. You’re not injured.” Emma argued.

        I pointed to my brow, “Oh yes, I am.”

She rolled her eyes at me and I grinned widely at her as I threw fries at her face.

        “Avery! Stop that!” she exclaimed, shielding her face with her hands.

        “That’s a waste of perfectly good fries.” A husky voice said.

My hand froze and Emma peeked through her fingers. I turned slightly to see who it was, not that I needed to. I already knew that it was him but I just had to see his eyes. They were so strikingly blue that I can’t help but stare into them.

        “Jason.” I choked out. Well, this is embarrassing.  Act cool, I thought and cleared my throat.

        “Avery,” he nodded towards me and turned to my best friend who was still shielding her face. That’s when I realised that I still holding a fry and my hand was frozen in mid-air. “Emma.” He greeted.

        “Hey,” I said trying to act calm when inside I was freaking out. I’m not sure if I said that calmly or like a sexually frustrated ape.

        “I see your back. I’m glad you’re okay. You seemed a bit out of it when we brought you to the nurse after you fell.”

        “Yeah, I don’t even remember being in the nurse’s office.” I shrugged.

        “You did hit your head pretty hard.” He paused, “well, I’ll let you get on with eating your lunch.” He glanced at my fries, “or throwing them. I’ll see you later.” He shook his head and smiled.

        “Later,” I replied and watched him walk away.

        Emma was staring at me strangely, “What is the deal with you and that guy?” she asked, resting her elbows on the table and lacing her fingers together.

        “What do you mean?” Now I’m confused.

        “You know what I mean,” she smirked at me and I stared at her blankly. She sighed, “I mean, like when you fell he carried you.” Emma explained.

        “He did?” I paused, “Erm...well, that’s probably because he was right next to me when I fell and he didn’t really have a choice. Duh.” I rolled my eyes at her.

        “Well, he didn’t exactly carry you.” I gave her a puzzled look. “I mean he did, sort of. Only like, half way to the building though. Technically, Dylan carried you to the nurse’s office.”

        “Dylan?” Now I’m really confused. “Tell me exactly what happened.”

        “Okay,” she started. “I wasn’t really there because Aaron thought I’d freak out that you fell and hit your head. I was freaking out but that was because you were unconscious and I was afraid that you might have cut your head open or something and died,” Emma rambled on.

        “Emma! Just tell me the relevant parts!”

        “Fine! Jeeze.” She exclaimed. “So like I said, I wasn’t there but apparently this is what happened. Dylan kicked a football which hit your head. Then you fell and you were unconscious. The Jason person carried you but Dylan ran after him and blocked him. Then they had like a staring contest or whatever. Dylan didn’t want Jason to carry you so he did. But then, Jason followed Dylan to the nurse’s office. You woke up but only stayed awake for like thirty seconds and the fell asleep again.” Emma was speaking quite fast and I had to listen carefully to even understand what she was going on about.

        “I don’t even remember waking up or even being in the nurse’s office.” I said dumbfounded.

        “Yeah, but now I hear that Dylan and Jason hate each other. At least that’s what everyone is saying.” Emma said, throwing a fry in her mouth.

        “Why do they hate each other?”

        She shrugged, “I don’t know.”

Then the bell rang signalling the end of lunch.

        “I’ll see you after school.” I waved before heading towards the opposite direction. I spun on my heel quickly and shouted after Emma before she disappeared into the growing crowd. “Hey! You need to help me get back at Dylan for kicking a football to my head.”

        “Sure thing!” Emma yelled back before grinning and vanished into the crowd of students that was starting to fill the halls.

I began walking to French, clutching my bag as I weaved through the crowd. My next class was in the far end of the school and I didn’t want to be late in fear that we had a test like we always do on Thursdays. I glanced at my watch and walked into someone.

        “Oh! Sorry! I wasn’t looking and I’m s-“ I saw that I bumped into Jason.

        He laughed, “We really need to stop walking into each other.”

        I chuckled, “I know.”

        “What class have you got now?” He asked, blinking waiting for my reply.

        “French.” I said sadly. “How about you?”

        “Geography." Jason said bitterly.  Looks like we’re headed the same way, do you mind if I walk with you?”

        “No, not at all.” I answered.

        “So how’s it going?” he asked trying to make conversation.

        “Pretty good. How’s your first week of school coming along?”

        “It’s good considering that on my first day the first and only friend I made got a head injury and I had no-one interesting to talk to yesterday in Math.” Jason joked and nudged me.

        “It wasn’t my fault and thank you for calling me interesting. Although, I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.”

        “How could it be a bad thing?”

        “I don’t know. I might be interesting because you find me weird or you’re some kind of alien who wants to experiment on humans.”

        Jason chortled, “No and no. Maybe I find you interesting because you say funny things like that. You’re not afraid to be yourself, that’s what makes you interesting.”

        “Really?” I asked curiously.

        “Yeah. Most people prefer to copy others which makes them boring.”

        “Oh. And this is completely irrelevant to the topic of me being interesting, and it’s going to sound stupid but I’m curious.”

We were only a few doors away from my classroom.

        “It probably won’t so yeah, go on.” He responded.

        “I hear that you hate Dylan. Is that true?” I asked.

        Jason’s jaw clenched, “Yeah, I guess you could say that.” He answered.

I was right outside my French classroom but refused to go in before I find out why he hated him. There must be some kind reason.

        I turned to face him and asked, “Why do you hate him?”

        “We just want the same things.” Then Jason gripped my shoulder lightly and spun me around before gently pushing me into class.

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{Unedited}

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