Care For Me Not, I'll Hurt You Too Much

“Uh…hey Kendall.” Gerard whispers while leaning into you slightly. You snap back to the reality you were currently trying to escape from and fall back into your body with a slight shudder.

You begin to worry, the previous resolve you had earlier slipping away slightly when you remember his current popularity status. You chance a glance up through the shield your hair created, but not at him. You look around the room quickly and notice that no one noticed his attempts at conversation. They were all busy with completing their homework quickly and you wonder slightly if your invisibility shield actually prevented them from noticing him too.

He clears his throat and the action causes you remember that he was still sitting beside you. Your hand shakes slightly as you go ahead and start doodling mindlessly around the edges of your paper just for something to do. It was the only thing you could do to prevent yourself from even glancing at him.

“How-…”—he clears his throat again—“How are you doing?”

Ignore it Kendall. You command yourself.

The question seemed to startle you slightly. Actually you expected the question to appear out of curiosity or courtesy, but you didn’t expect for it to actually sound like he was concerned. You nearly looked up to look at his face to try and tell whether or not he was serious, but doing that would make him think you noticed him.

You didn’t feel right doing this, but you couldn’t not do it. You felt like you were being extremely mean to someone that was actually bothering to talk to you, but you convinced yourself earlier on that this was what was best for everyone. It would save you heartache when he would leave you after finding out you’re a hopeless head-case, and it would save him regret of ever wasting his time on you once he figured that out. This was what was best, so for now you just had to ignore those feelings and continue with what you were doing.

He doesn’t say anything or make any noise or movements, but you know he’s staring at you. This feeling wasn’t like all the other times when you would feel someone’s eyes on you only to look up and find nothing. This feeling was so much stronger. You knew he was staring. You actually had no doubt about it that his eyes were currently searching your hidden away face for some type of response that you refused to give him. You were thankful for your hair being down and covering your face now, because your ears were a bright red from the sudden heat that flooded your face once again.

You caught yourself gasping as you saw his fingers slowly reaching their way across the small distance between you towards your right arm. Don’t touch it, please God, don’t let him touch it.

You didn’t know if you would be able to contain any type of movement your body would do as a reaction to his touch, especially in this very sensitive area. You closed your eyes and prepared yourself for whatever it was that he was planning on doing. He was obviously trying to get your attention, but you couldn’t show him any because then he’d end up wasting his time with you like everyone else. Brace yourself.

When nothing happened for a while, you opened your eyes slightly to see him paused with his hand less than a foot away from your arm. His hand looked so delicate just waiting there that it seemed to be taunting you itself. It was teasing you by making you think that his touch wouldn’t hurt, but you knew better. You knew that it would hurt both physically and mentally. No one ever deliberately touched you here, you were thankful for that. The physical contact might reveal your bruises, and would cause you to worry even more about how you would react every time someone came close and touched you. The fact that no one bothered or cared was helpful. You don’t think you would have been able to handle all the extra worry. Everyone avoided you here, and if you did happen upon any physical contact from anyone it was purely by accident.

You watched his hand as it slowly curled into a fist. You convinced yourself for two nano-seconds that he was going to just punch your arm just to watch you squirm. You saw him doing this violently in your minds eye and you saw yourself falling to the ground and screaming in pain as he laughed proudly at you. You didn’t doubt that someone would probably do that if they knew about your injuries, just to watch you squirm. The world was evil like that.

A word catches in your train of thought though. Injuries.

Oh God! He’s seen them all! You realize as you see his hand slowly being pulled back away from your arm.

He knew about all your scars. He knew that your arm was the most injured and he’s see all the bruises lining your flesh. He must have remembered and that’s why he didn’t try to touch yoru arm!

Why did it have to be him? Why couldn’t it have been someone else? Why didhe have to be the one to see you in the alley? Why did he have to help?

You half-convince yourself that you would have rather been beaten up, or worse, by those thugs just to prevent the knowledge of your wounds from spreading.

Your hand had stopped moving as soon as he began to extend his arm towards you out of pure shock and anticipation. You quickly regain its aimless scrawling and hope that he didn’t notice this either. If he did then he might realize that you actually were paying attention to him…very close attention.

-
After homeroom you spent your time ignoring him and pretending that he wasn’t following you too closely. People tried to say hi to him and catch his attention, but he seemed so intent on you that they eventually gave up trying to talk to him too. You just hoped that they would forgive him for that and let him back into their good graces as soon as they see that he’s ditched you. The only problem with that was that he wasn’t leaving you alone!

He sat closer to you in your classes and only asked a few more questions before giving up on speaking to you. He seemed to be catching on that you weren’t saying anything or looking at him, but he still followed you. You had virtually no escape from him until those two classes you didn’tshare with him came up. It was only for those two classes that you were really at peace…partly.

You still had reason to worry even when he wasn’t around you though. You began to get some attention from other students because of all the attention he was giving to you. They must have noticed his persistence in trying to get your attention, so now they were just trying to see what was so interesting about you that the new kid would hang around you. This provoked problems. Someone might notice the healing bruise around your eye, or the scratches along your cheek, or even the sores hidden partly by your collar because of the many hands that had worked their way around your throat. You didn’t need that, and you had no way of expressing how much you didn’t want that. Most of them gave up after a couple seconds of bleak examination, but there were some that still continued to glance at you from across the room.

You knew this because sometimes those feelings of being watched came back to you. You tried to shake them off, but they wouldn’t leave no matter how hard you tried to convince yourself no one was looking. At one point you became fed-up with it and looked around the room. It scared you to see that there were actually a handful of people staring in your direction. You hoped they would stop as soon as they saw that you noticed, but they just continued to glance then whisper to their neighbors. You immediately dropped your head and bit your lip as the blood rushed through your head.

The attention you were getting didn’t mix too well with the mass amounts of confusion you were feeling. Not to mention all the anxiety that had built up inside of you during your classes without Gerard. You couldn’t stop thinking of what he might do or what he might try. You were hoping before that he would give up and walk away, but after his persistence earlier you weren’t so sure it was going to be that easy. A part of you still tried to convince the rest of your mind that he would give up, and you clung to that in desperation. After a while, the feelings of solace slipped away and left you feeling sick during your brooding. Your empty stomach was no help either.

Eventually you felt so sick that you nearly got up and asked to go to the bathroom. But you didn’t. Doing that would have involved speaking, and you were pretty sure that most of your class doesn’t even know you’re capable of producing sound. Also it would have given them reason to stare and gossip. Which would lead to more attention.

The fact that he still tried to talk to you and didn’t give up that easily made you realize that it might take some time for your plan to work. The tension built up inside you as the bell rang, signaling your next class…the one with him.

This is where you now walk slowly down the hallway. You felt like you were getting ready to see the undertaker…although you wouldn’t have totally minded at this point. Anything seemed to be better than seeing him right now. You try to convince yourself once again that it was only a matter of time before he gave up as you walk with your head down into class. He’s sitting at the back table again, probably waiting for you. You sit down at your usual seat, even though he was too close for comfort again. You don’t shift away your chair though, it would let him know he was getting to you. Bastard, that’s probably all he really wants. You think bitterly glancing at him quickly while he’s distracted by something out the window.

The look on his face isn’t one that you expect. You expected some type of annoyance or even anger there, instead it seemed…discouraged? This brought some confidence to your plan, Maybe he was considering giving up after all.

You glance at him out of the corner of your eye and see him picking at his nails. You look up through you hair at his face and see a look of pure concentration etched into his features. You knew it wasn’t about your assignment because all you had to do was read the next chapter in your book and his wasn’t even open. He must be considering his options with you.

Eventually, lunch came, and the fact that he hardly even looked at you, or even followed you that closely gave you hope. Confidence came with the hope too and you found yourself ignoring him more easily now. He quickly became a figure in the background while you ate bite after bite of your sandwich and stared blankly at the table in front of you.