Thunder

Alex sat down in his desk, next to Rian and Jack, in his third period with a big, goofy grin dancing on his lips. When Jack and Rian had spotted this, they couldn’t help but wonder what their best friend was up to now.

“Bro, where were you at lunch?” Rian cocked a brow at his friend, running a hand across his buzz cut. “We looked for you, but you didn’t show up.”

“I was with Abigail,” Alex said as if he expected them to know exactly who he was talking to. His caramel eyes met the confused expressions on his friends’ faces before picking up the looks. “Oh, a girl I met on the bus this morning.”

Jack let out a whistle, “You were getting some at school, Alex? Damn.” Jack’s comment had gotten Rian to laugh a good bit.

“No, it wasn’t like that. It wasn’t like that at all,” Alex detested, surprising his friends.

They knew the rumors and the reputation Alex had for himself was a lot worse than reality led on, but they were honestly shocked to hear that Alex had a girl in his life that he wasn’t planning on fucking.

“She a panic attack on the way to lunch… I was helping her calm down,” Alex finally said staring at his friends.

“Wait, who was this girl you said you were helping?” Rian stared at Alex dumfounded.

“Abigail Speed.”

“Oh, she’s in my first period,” the shorter man stated matter-of-factly. “Don’t you guys remember seeing her at lunch all the time? She was always either sitting there staring at the table blankly or had a book open,” when Rian realized that his friends had no idea what he was talking about, he continued. “Abigail’s the girl who never ate. Well, she never ate at lunch anyway.”

Alex and Jack nodded with a simultaneous “oh”. Alex remembered her now. She had seemed a bit familiar when they first met on the bus, but he couldn’t place his finger on it until now.\

Before Alex or Jack had a chance to give Rian a response their French teacher had entered the classroom, ready to give out their lesson for the day.

After Rian had recognized Abigail as “the girl who never ate”, Alex had a really bad feeling in his stomach. Abigail was really light… Maybe that was why.

Then Alex heard Abigail’s words echo in the back of his mind “I’m broken”, as well as in the middle of her attack she said something that sounded a lot like “Please don’t touch me”.

Deep down, Alex had a good feeling about some of the things about Abigail. That was only because he was starting to put things together. He didn’t want to call her out on things, especially if it turned out none of them were true, and she got offended.

Alex shook off the thoughts for now, he had one more class after this and then he could talk to Abigail.

——-

The entire time span of her third block, Abigail couldn’t stop thinking about what happened during lunch.

She didn’t know if she made a mistake by telling Alex that she was broken. He was going to start wondering things. He was going to start doing her least favorite thing – asking questions. And when he did ask questions, he’d want answers. Lots of them. Most of them, she didn’t possess. And when she didn’t give the answers that he wanted, he’d leave. Just like everyone else had.

Abigail didn’t want Alex to leave. She felt safe with him around. She didn’t feel like her depression or eating disorder defined her. Granted, she had known the guy for barely a day. Yeah, she had seen him around, but never actually talked to him.

Abigail listened to her English teacher drone on and on about something the brunette already knew by heart. To keep her mind preoccupied, the teenager gave her classmates a onceover, hating every single one of them.

No matter what she tried to get her mind off of Alex, he kept popping up in her thoughts. Sighing heavily, Abigail couldn’t help but think of the cuts and bruises on her skin. If Alex knew about all of those, would he still promise to stay?

——-

Alex raced towards the bus, and once he finally got to it, he immediately spotted the brunette he’d wanted to see all day.

Plopping down next to her in the brown leather seat, earning a jump from Abigail, Alex smiled, “Hey there,” he laughed, as the ice blue eyes across from him light up.

“Hi,” she smiled meekly. Abigail could feel her heart thumping loudly and quickly, she was almost sure Alex could hear it too.

“So… I was wondering… do you want to hang out today? Maybe go to the park or something?” Alex finally asked, just as the bus lurched from the parking space it occupied and began moving down the busy streets.

“Yeah, I’d like that,” Abigail admitted, brushing her thin, brown hair out of her eyes. She was being honest. She’d absolutely love hanging out with Alex.

“Well, good, cool,” Alex smiled, taking in how breathtakingly beautiful Abigail was, though, he couldn’t help but notice that she was still wearing the dark hoodie. “You can get off at your house or whatever, change, and I’ll pick you-“

Before Alex could finish his sentence, Abigail immediately thought of her father and blurted out, “No!”

Alex couldn’t go to her house and see her father. For two reasons, one, her father would have more of a reason to call her a whore, and two, her father would never let her out of that Hellhole unless she absolutely had to be.

Alex’s eyes widened in shock at her quick response. “Um…”

“Sorry… I just, uh… I’ll just text my dad and we can get off at your house and go from there, okay?” she really wanted him to say yes. She didn’t want to seem like she was inviting herself, but she couldn’t risk anything with her father. “Please, Alex. It’s best that…” She stopped herself before she said too much. “Just… please.”

Alex picked up on the urgency in her voice. He didn’t know what it was, but she was scared to go home, which kind of worried Alex. “Of course, Abigail.”

“Thank you,” she let out a deep sigh of relief. That was close. “I’ll just text my dad really quick,” she explained, grabbing her phone out of the front pocket of her blue bookbag.

I’ll be back late tonight… I’m going to the park with Alexis, she lied. She knew that if she said she was going to be called a whore for the rest of the week. Abigail knew all of the things her dad said were true, but she wasn’t a whore. She’d never even really had her first kiss. The only time she had had sex and her first kiss, if you could even call it that, was when she was assaulted by the stranger. Not once had she done anything willingly, so every time her father called her a whore, it killed her inside, which led her to think it was her fault she was raped.

Just as the bus lurched to a stop at Alex’s driveway, Abigail’s phone beeped with a text from her father. Fine, but I bet you’re going to fuck someone, right? Now you’re a lying whore?

Letting out a deep sigh of defeat, Abigail shoved her phone back in the pocket on her bag and ambled off the bus with Alex, earning a lot of confused looks from the other students on the bus.