S'Agapo

I flicked off my MP3 with my thumb and shoved it into my pocket.

"You've got thirty seconds to tell me what the hell you want."

I looked at my watch.

"Starting...now."

I was not feeling very well at the moment. I had just given myself a mental beating, and I definitely didn't need some moron idiot like him trying to hit on me, for some incomprehensible reason. He probably wanted something out of me. He wasn't getting it, whatever it was.

"Well, I was just at your house, and Apollo said you'd gone out for a walk. He sounded worried. Wouldn't want to do that to such a cool guy, Laurel. That's just mean." He walked up to me and tried to wrap an arm around my shoulders. I started walking again, Jake's arm
hanging in midair.

"Hey, Laurel, why don't you like anyone?"

"Why the hell should I?" My answer bit harder than I'd meant it to. Shit, I was too easily readable. I turned away gruffly and tried to pull my emotions in control. Unfortunately, they wouldn't go under the blanket.

I started walking again. He followed.

"Maybe because nobody likes to be lonely? Perhaps?"

I rolled my eyes, but continued walking. "Go away," I said, resetting my headphones.

"What if I don't want to?"

"I'll call the security guard." I pointed to a station nearby.

"Oh, and what are you going to tell them? That a boy is following you and trying to start up a conversation?"

"No, I'll tell them that a boy is harassing me, and I thought he was going to rape me, and I was...so...scared!" I pretended to be afraid and cry. Then I turned on my heel and continued walking.

"Piss off already." I added, before turning the corner.

I had almost come to the end of the path, and I ought to have started walking home from there. But Jake grabbed my arm and stopped me. "I'm starting to get sick of this attitude of yours." I snapped, trying to pry out of his grip.

"And I'm starting to get sick of you constantly pushing me away when it's obvious I'm interested in you."

'Ew.'

"You know, why don't you go shove your face up your-" I turned, but found myself unable to finish my sentence. Jake pulled me into a hug and suddenly, his mouth was on mine. My eyes popped out of my head, and I pried myself out of his grasp. He looked at me dumbly, and I quickly slapped him hard across the face.

"You...bastard!"

He was about to say something, but I punched him in the stomach and ran home. I shut the door behind me, and covered my mouth with both my hands. Tears sprung unbidden to my eyes. 'How dare he! That sick monster!'

I crumpled and buried my face in my knees. "Stupid-stupid-stupid-little...errrrg!" I pulled at my hair, trying to force myself to calm down. I succeeded, but not in time.

"Laurel! You're back...What happened? You're crying!!" Apollo knelt in front of me, pretending to be concerned.

"I'm just fine, thank you very much." I glared angrily, wiping the tears falling down my face. I sniffled angrily and pulled a tissue out of my pocket.

He smiled, chuckled, "I would never have guessed that the impenetrable Laurel would actually sob in front of me. And all these years, I thought you were made of much tougher stuff."

He was right. I was so weak all of a sudden. How in hell could I have been broken so fiercely, so deftly, so quickly? What had it been, three days? And yet, I was strewn across the floor, two-halves of a single person, confused, tortured, torn.

It was because suddenly I was interacting with people, suddenly people were responding to me. Sure, in school I had 'interacted' with people my age, but here, they were actually near me, seeing me live, work, be me. And it was rattling me. But there was something a bit
more pressing on my mind at the moment.

"What do you mean, 'all these years'? What are you, some kind of stalker? Geesh!" I stood up and wiped my eyes with my arm, "You're creepier than I first thought. Next thing I know, you'll be attempting to make out with a tree because apparently it has a sprite in it or something retarded like that." I shook my head and started up the stairs.

Apollo smiled. "Glad to see your back to yourself. I almost missed your cockiness for a moment there."

"Ha, ha, ha." I turned and smiled tightly. "Don't you have a girlfriend to attend to?"

"I suppose, but I think I'd rather stay home today."

Apollo opened the top button of his polo shirt and plopped down on the couch.

"Loser." I muttered, and continued trudging up the stairs. After I took a shower, attempting to drown myself (but failing) I pulled on my pajamas and collapsed on the couch with a quart of Haagen-Dazs...comfort food.

Apollo was staring at me so I turned up the volume on the TV. No idea how that was supposed to counter-act his staring, but it made sense to me. Of course, it wasn't working. I continued to shovel vanilla ice-cream into my mouth until he said, "How much weight do you plan on gaining to get your way, may I ask?"

I turned to look at him, the spoon halfway to my mouth. I glared at him so nastily his skin should have melted right off. Instead, he smiled and stole the spoon from my hand, and ate the ice cream on it.

My lip quivered as if I were going to burst into sobs...I almost was.

No one steals my ice cream without suffering my wrath!

Instead, somehow I managed to strangle out, "You...jerk! That...that's my ice cream! And you ate off of my spoon! That's as good as kissing! Ew!" I said in a loud, irritatingly whiny voice, and put down the quart on the coffee table. "I loathe you!"

I barely noticed what I was doing, I was so annoyed. It had been an annoying day. And it was barely evening. I got up and went to the kitchen to grab another spoon. Just as I closed the drawer, Apollo appeared in front of me. He grabbed the spoon from my hand...and licked it! I pulled out another spoon, and tried to run to keep him from getting his cooties all over it, but he caught my arm and licked that one too!

"Stop licking my spoon!" I snapped, wrenching myself out of his grasp. Then, I got an idea.
I ran to the ice cream and shoved my hand into it. Sure, it was cold as hell and I think I got frostbite, but, it was worth it. I pulled out my hand and basically swallowed it whole to make sure all the ice cream was in my digestive tract, and not in his.

"Who needs a spoon." I licked the vanilla off of my fingers as Apollo stared, astonished. I sat back down on the couch, wiping my hand off with a napkin. Somewhere remote in my mind, I was aware that I was showing much more of my personality than I would have liked, but the 'fight' that was occurring had made my common sense barely comprehensible.