Your Eyes Shine Like The Stars At Night

>SCARLETT’S POV<

“Zack, stop trying to show me up. You know I can’t lift that!” I laughed, watching as Zack lifted his heaviest weight almost effortlessly.

He smiled. “Alright. I’ll play your game. Let’s run.” He set his weight down, getting off the bench and running full speed past me.

“Hey! Wait up!” I bellowed. I picked up my pace, catching up to him. I loved running; the feeling of my feet smacking against the concrete as I ran further and further away from my problems was exhilarating. If there was one thing I was good at, it was running away from things.

We ran for about twenty minutes, before turning around, going back to where the buses were parked. Standing together on the pavement, we attempted to catch our breath, smiling and waving at Seth and Jack as they approached us.

Seth smiled at us, greeting Zack and I with a “Hi”, but Jack just smiled at Zack, then furrowed his eyebrows at me. “Why are you exercising?” he asked.

“Um, because I want to…?” I chuckled, confused.

He just nodded, obviously unconvinced. Exercising had become another addiction of mine since I developed my eating disorder. Whenever I had the chance, I’d jog or lift weights. Anything to help me lose the weight. “Your shoe’s untied,” Jack said lowly, nodding his head at my feet.

“Oh, thanks.” I bent down, tying the knot on my running shoe. I looked up, seeing Seth and Zack staring at my chest. I rolled my eyes. “Could you two please stop trying to get a cheap look at my cleavage?”

They just shook their heads. “We weren’t –“

“Oh, sure,” I chuckled sarcastically, not really caring that much. Jack, however, turned to the other two boys, glaring at them momentarily.

“Jack, what’s your deal?” Seth asked.

“Nothing,” he mumbled angrily before walking away from us.

“He’s just mad we were looking at your boobs. He’s kind of protective over girls he likes,” Zack informed me.

“He doesn’t like me. Not like that, anyway,” I denied.

“Sure he doesn’t,” was all he said before he smirked and walked back to his bus.

>JACK’S POV<

Alex, Rian and Matt had been bugging me ever since I got back onto the bus. “Jack, for God’s sake, stop acting so pissed,” Alex complained.

“Fuck off,” I countered.

“Whatever.” He got up and left us, stepping into the back lounge. Just then, Zack opened the door, sitting next to me. Perfect timing.

“You still mad?” he asked.

“Um. Yes.” Matt and Rian were just staring, knowing better than to chime in.

“Hey bro, um, Rian and I were just…just going to talk to Josh and Darren. Um, yeah,” Matt said quickly, scurrying off the bus with Rian.

Zack sighed. “Look man, I’m sorry I was looking down her shirt. Okay?”

“That’s not what I’m mad about. Well, it is, just, that’s not all.”

“Okay, fill me in.”

“Why were you letting her exercise with you?”

“I don’t know, she asked to…? What do you mean?”

I rolled my eyes, livid. “Obviously if someone faints, you don’t take them out running for twenty minutes one way, then twenty minutes to come back the very next day.”

“I wasn’t going to tell her she couldn’t! I’m not going to tell someone what to do and what not to do,” he said, exhausted with me.

I wasn’t about to tell him what I thought she was doing, because I didn’t want to spill any secrets of hers, especially since I wasn’t even sure if my suspicions were right in the first place. We sat in silence for a few minutes, and I couldn’t take it. “I’m going to…go do something.” What that “something” was, I didn’t even know, but I really didn’t want to sit there any longer with Zack.

If anyone needed to run, it was me. And that’s what I did. I ran and ran and ran, not turning back until I felt like my mind was clear. Or, as clear as it was going to be.

I ended up outside of a nice restaurant, and after all the running, I was definitely hungry. But I wasn’t going in alone. I was going to recruit a certain someone, in the hopes of getting to the bottom of what was going on.

>SCARLETT’S POV<

“Take my life, I’ll hand it to you. You can try on my clothes, but you can’t fill these shoes…” My ringtone rang through my ears as I was surfing the Internet on my laptop in my bunk.

I looked at the caller ID, and grinned when Jack’s name appeared. I clicked the Talk button, saying “Hey, Jackie,” into the phone.

“Hi, Scarlett.” I could hear the smile in his voice. “What are you doing?”

“Nothing important. Why?”

“Well, I’m walking towards your bus as we speak. So…stop whatever you’re doing and come outside.” He hung up, and I laughed at his strange ways of doing things.

Closing my laptop, I exited my bunk, then the bus, being greeted by Jack’s smiling face and big brown eyes in the parking lot. “Hey cutie,” he chuckled.

I smiled “What’re we doing?”

“Going out,” he said, grabbing my hand and walking out of the parking lot and onto the sidewalk along the street.

“Out where?”

“You’ll see when we get there.”

-------

I gulped when I saw where Jack led me. A restaurant. And a very nice one, at that. Of course I wasn’t complaining; being anywhere with Jack always lifted my spirits and made me smile. But, of all places, why an eating establishment? Hadn’t he boy ever heard of movie theaters?

“Wow, looks fancy…” I chuckled nervously as he opened the door for me.

“Yup,” he exclaimed, obviously proud of himself. I couldn’t help but grin at how cute he was.

Gripping my hand sweetly and smiling at me, he led the way to the table, following our waitress. He sat down across from me, and we both ordered drinks. For him, a glass of wine. For me, just water. As usual.

We sat in a comfortable silence until the waitress arrived moments later, drinks in hand, and placed them in front of us. She smiled and nodded to us after we ordered our food and walked away again.

Silence yet again overtook us. It wasn’t awkward, though. After several minutes of Jack inhaling his food while I picked at mine, sliding my fork around the plate, he looked up at me. “Have you even taken a bite of your food?” Jack asked skeptically.

“I, uh…I just…” Obviously I hadn’t; I couldn’t lie and say, “Yeah, didn’t you see me?” He was two feet away; he’d seen everything.

He sighed and pushed his own plate away. “Really, Scarlett, is anything going on? I mean, are you okay and everything?”

I looked into his eyes and lied. “Yes, everything’s fine. I’m just not all that hungry. I just ate before you brought me here.” He could usually see right through me. I was just hoping my pleading eyes didn’t sell me out.

Just to prove him wrong, I reluctantly forced a few bites of food into my mouth and chewed. “See?” I asked.

He smiled, continuing with his own food.

I couldn’t take the sensation of the food as it went down my throat. It was like a ton of bricks sliding down my esophagus. “Can you excuse me for a sec? Restroom,” I nodded.

With a grin, he nodded. Upon entering the women’s restroom and making sure all the stalls were empty, I went into the stall at the end and vomited. I hated what I was doing, what I’d become. But I didn’t know how to stop. I was doing so well, then when tour came along, I was back to my old ways. I felt bad that I’d just left Jack at the table to do something as horrible as this, but it was like an addiction; it was an itch in my brain and the only way to scratch it was to do what I’d grown accustomed to: purging.

After I lifted my head from the toilet and flushed, I washed my face, hands and mouth. I looked at my cell phone, seeing that I’d been in the restroom for nearly twenty minutes.

Glancing in the mirror, I saw my face; now pale and exhausted looking.

There was a light knock on the restroom door, which I found odd. Why would someone knock in a public restroom with stalls? It wasn’t private; they could just walk right in.

Hesitantly, I creaked open the door, realizing why the person knocked: it was a guy. Not just any guy, it was Jack, and his eyes and facial expression all read concern.

“I just wanted to see if you were okay. You’ve been gone for about twenty minutes,” he said lowly. “You’re white as a ghost, Scarlett.”

“I know,” I whispered, leaning forward and resting my head on his shoulder and wrapped my arms around his torso. He held my waist, rocking me back and forth.