No Time To Bleed

Turns out the assembly was on some “up incoming, dangerous flu” going around.

I was already a total and uncontrollable neat freak as it is, not in the bad way. Just in the “If you look at me, expect some hand sanitizer in your eyes” sort of way.

I picked the tube out of my messenger bag with purple stripes and squeezed some onto my hands.

It dried rather quickly and I made it through the rest of the day with minimal annoying social interaction.

“So, what's a girl like you doing at our school?”

I was at my locker and Jesse was preying on me.

I grinned back, “What's a thing like you doing near me?”

“Ah, a thing. That's a step up compared to what you called me last week!”

“Last week I called you a worthless piece of meat that slept around with girls to make up for his genital size.”

A hint of blush hit Jesse's creamy cheeks.

He was one of those guys you could look and expect to be completely and totally innocent, but that was a total farce.

I actually think he went for that look as a luring tactic.

He knocked some feather brown hair from his view and aimed his hazel eyes at me. “Are you sure you don't want to go on a date with me?”

“I'd rather have to digest and crap out barbed wire.”

I slammed my locker shut and started out the shiny hallways of the school.He followed me.

“So, I was talking to Jessica earlier and she seemed to have some sort of problem with you and your little friend, Amanda.”

This is what infuriated me. “Jessica hardly knows Amanda! How can she possibly have a problem with her? I'm the one who told her to shut up to her face!”

“Well, Jessica loves to prey on the weak. Amanda fits the bill to a T and I'm here to make a proposition.”

He opened the glass front doors of the school for me and we milled out just like the rest. I had to wait on the cement stairs for my ride as usual.

It had become a routine in the month since I'd been in school.

“You know what I'm trying to understand?” I said, looking to Jesse. Even through all the annoyance of the surface, I could somehow see Jesse had something underneath.

“Why do you even talk to Jessica? She's a blood sucking leech. It's very obvious.”

Jesse shrugged. “We grew up together. She taught me how to play basketball and I helped her figure out how to hot wire a car.”

“Yeah, sounds like the classic friendship if you ask me. Now, you're turning against the girl by trying to seduce her new found schoolyard enemy. Not very loyal.”

Jesse grinned and twinkles his hazel eyes, arm pressed against the wall behind me as he leaned. This position seemed to have an affect that made other girls swoon.

“I think we could work out long term. You're the first girl that I've liked.”

“And what are you trying to do right now?” I grinned, tucking my finger over his shirt collar.

“You could give me a kiss...” He pressed his larger than normal lips a bit further toward me.

I leaned in another few inches and closed the gap, just until our breath nearly mingled.

“I do the seducing.” I whispered. “Not you.”

I breezed right on past him as he let out a repressed groan, my ride had come just on time.

* * *

“New studies have revealed that the most recent outbreak of flesh manipulative cells have been shown to develop when-”

I snapped the radio in the car to a new station. Uncle Trevor liked to listen to this radio news crap.

Who listened to radio to hear news?

No one from the 21st century.

“Hey, hey, little girlie.” Uncle Trevor noted. “Why you changing my station?”

He slapped my hand and I gasped. “Trevor! I'm under 18! That's considered abuse!”

He let out a throaty laugh that shook the car windows.

“You need to pay more attention to the news. It's a lot of important stuff on there.”

Even though I had a problem with authority figures and adults and rules and lots of other stuff. Uncle Trevor was someone I didn't mind.

“What?! I know about sexism, homophobia, agism, and the stupid politicians ruling the entire world! That's why dynamite was created! To blow up their houses!”

“And I thought your mom was lying when she said you didn't make sense a lot of the time.”

I rolled my eyes. Yeah, I take back the comment about Uncle Trevor being a cool adult.
“Rude.” I murmured, staring out the window.

It was just starting to rain.

“Look I'm sorry. “ he said as we reached a stop sign. “I know you went through a lot with your dad.”

“Do you remember the first thing I told you when I agreed to live with you?”

“Um, hm, wait? What?”

I turned back to him. “I told you not to talk to me about it. I never talk about it, okay?”

He pressed his lips together and gripped the steering wheel a bit more.

“Okay, I don't want to push you to doing anything.”

That's when I set my earphones in my ear, scanned through my mp3 for the perfect artist for this silence.

Suicide Silence seemed to take my nerve.

Hello, hello can you still hear me?
This is not the church, get up off your knees
I do not preach

And you have no time to bleed as you fall to your knees
It's the gift that we've been given
Hello, can you hear me still?