Now It's My Time to Strike Back

Mel made a small ruckus about the outcome of the schedules. Rose and I had the exact same schedule while Jake and Mel had only one class difference.

Rose looked around nervously seeing as she hated unwanted attention while Jake tried calming Mel down. It was hilarious to say the least, but I didn’t think about it at the time. My thoughts and concerns were only on Rose.

“Well, at least we have three classes together,” Jake said in a cheerful tone, but I could tell he only said that to piss me off.

I merely stared at him wanting to respond to his words, but I didn’t. I had to stop worrying about Jake and Rose and be by myself.

That’s what I kept telling myself until Rose spoke.

“We have about ten minutes until its 7:40,” she said casually.

Seeing as we were crunched for time, we headed out of the D.A.B. and to the Academic building to the second floor. Our teacher was female this time for English IV, but I tuned her out most of the time as my eyes roamed the room, them landing on a particular person I wasn’t too fond of. Victoria sat in the same group as the previous English class with her cheerleading friends while I sat with Rose, Jake, and Mel.

I felt like wishing time would rewind itself to last year when Jake wasn’t in our class, but I knew that was impossible.

I heard Mel groan in disgust at them, but I diverted my attention back on Mrs. George as she began speaking again, catching my interest at the end when she instructed us to take out a single sheet of paper and a black pen.

We scrambled doing so, but it only took a few minutes for everyone to have the materials out. Her instructions were simple: exchange contact information with your group members, write something about them as well as yourself. That wasn’t a hard task seeing as our group knew everyone in it personally outside of class.

As I wrote, I stopped, feeling someone watching me. I looked across the room seeing Vic glaring at me. She pulled out her cell phone texting me in class before quickly finishing before she stared up and smiled at me as though nothing happened.

My phone vibrated once, but no one heard it and I quickly pulled it out, reading Vic’s text as a frown formed on my face.

Did you like the picture?

I sighed quietly before stuffing my phone back into my pocket, staring at her again, giving her a hard look.

She smiled, flashing me a smile before returning back to her work as I rolled my eyes at her. I glanced down seeing Rose staring at me as I caught wind of the conversation she and Mel had a minute or so previously.

“This assignment is easy, but is it really necessary?” I asked, realizing how simple the assignment was. We were in English IV for crying out loud!

“I guess we’ll be working in groups a lot just like Schick’s class,” Mel said with a slight smile. I knew she wanted to say more on the matter, but didn’t.

“You guys had Schick?!” Jake asked in a shocked whisper.

I smiled a small smile just as Rose answered the question before I did.

“Uh, yeah. Who did you have?” she asked as though he were an idiot.

Jake began to speak, but his sentence was interrupted by our teacher. At first, I thought she was going to scold at him for talking, but she greeted him.

“Jacob! So good to see you again! I see they stuck you with me again this year, huh?” she joked.

Ugh, they got along? This was going to be annoying.

“Yes, Mrs. George. Unfortunately I am,” he joked back flashing his pearly whites, ticking me off by the second.

“Well, don’t get too carried away this year. Oh! I see you have new friends this year. Who might these lovely people be?” she asked, her eyes landing on Rose.

“She must be your girlfriend, am I right?” she asked, causing Rose to be embarrassed.

Mel coughed loudly, this time not laughing, but because of how awkward the situation was. My eyes landed on Rose and she glanced at me before opening her mouth to speak.

“No, I’m not his girlfriend. We’re just friends,” she said more than likely uncomfortable answering the question in front of me and Jake.

“Aww, I’m sorry. You two would make a cute couple,” Mrs. George gushed before walking away from our group altogether.

I began to write feverishly as another song popped into my mind, but I had to wait until later. The rest of the period was boring since we had to present what we wrote to the class. It was annoying to say the least.

Second period rolled around and we headed to the 4th floor this time back to Mr. Ashman’s class. Jake greeted him just as casually as we did causing me to assume he knew who Mr. Ashman was already.

Just as the previous school year, however, today’s class was cut short and we were released to get our final school ID’s for the year as well as our books. Rose and I got the same two, average sized books for the year making me grateful.

It was quiet to say the least especially when we began our walk to our dorm. I didn’t speak to her at all on the way to our dorm so as we headed down the steps to the first floor, I decided to tell her once and for all everything I’d decided to do without mentioning Mel’s input, of course.

“I’m sorry,” I got out, more than likely surprising her for the third time that morning.

“What for?” she asked, biting her lip afterwards.

“For saying how we shouldn’t be friends. I was jealous that Jake asked you out and it seemed like you just forgot about everything that happened,” I answered honestly.

She didn’t respond until we got to the first floor, her mind more than likely racing just as fast as my heart was.

“Jake and I aren’t dating and yes, it was wrong of you saying that, but the fact is, you meant it. I understand if you’re uncomfortable or if you don’t want to wait for me to make my decision. If-if you want to date other people, that’s fine-,” but I cut across her.

“I never said I wanted to date other people. I just honestly am afraid of losing you to him,” I admitted, squinting my eyes in the bright sunlight.

She didn’t speak at first again causing me to worry, so I did a few moments later.

“If you want to date Jake, then you can. I’m not saying this to make you feel bad. I just want you to be happy,” I concluded before walking ahead of Rose leaving her in silence.

I didn’t expect her to react at all to my words, but she did, surprising me again.

“Wait, wait, wait! You’re just going to say that a-and give up just like that? What about last week? What about everything?” she asked, causing my heart to break on the inside.

I have to let her go. I thought.

“I had you for 7 months and I didn’t realize how much you meant to me in the last three. I caused a lot of drama in the last month and I realize if you don’t want to be with me because of my past actions, I understand that. I can’t change your mind and I’m not going to continue torturing you by making you think of me,” I said truthfully, breaking my heart even further.

But what broke me the most had to be the fact that my words caused tears to fill her eyes.

“W-what are you saying, Nick? Are you saying that that’s it? That you’re going to just move on?” she asked, choking on her words a little.

I couldn’t look at her while she was on the verge of tears, suppressing my own. I was giving up on the woman I loved.

“I’m sorry. I love you, I really, truly do, but I don’t want to keep doing this to you,” I said, avoiding her eyes.

She sniffed, wiping her tears away as I watched her out of the corner of my eye.

“O-OK. I’ll see you around,” she said before walking ahead of me to the cafeteria alone.

At first, I wanted to chase after her, but my body wouldn’t move. I guess that was it. I’d finally learned to accept Rose doing things on her own without me and moving on alone.

I followed in her footsteps, deciding to take whatever heat was going to be thrown at me when I opened the cafeteria doors a couple of minutes later.

But even as I made my walk to Rose in the Subway line seeing her a few people ahead of me, I wiped all emotion from my face as I saw one person ahead of her comforting her as she kept sniffing, suppressing her tears as I saw her mouth moving more than likely explaining what was going on.

Jake.