Chapter Nine

.::♫&♥::.

“I can’t believe it’s the first day of school again,” Brian said as he looked for his homeroom classroom number on the window to the courtyard, under the label for senior. I looked under sophomores for Jon, Andrew, Desiree (who came back from her alternative high school), Ellie, and myself. I nodded in agreement with my brother, I couldn’t believe it either.

Then I felt something poke my sides, I jumped with a yelp, turning around to see who did that. It was Ellie and Desiree. I laughed smiling, “Y’all scared the crap out of me!” I exclaimed through laughter, but this only caused them to laugh more. I then saw the two out of the three Thomas brothers walk around the corner from the foreign language hall. I smiled and yelled, “Andrew! Dennis!” Before running to them and almost tackling the younger of the two to the ground.

We all then proceeded to our usual spot; to sit in the music hall. I put up my violin in my new orchestra locker, came back out and sat next to Ellie and Desiree, right across from Andrew.

“First day of school,” I said to everyone with a smile.

“Huzzah,” Ellie added in a monotonic sarcastic voice.

Dennis looked over to her, “You’re not a Greek God.”

She smiled, “Minime stericus, I’m a girl,” and with that she laughed. It was funny because the brothers took Spanish, not Latin, so they had no clue that what Ellie had actually said was ‘no s**t.’ I smiled to myself, resisting the temptation to whack my red-headed friend in the arm. My phone began to vibrate then. I looked at the text message, it was from Jon. I sighed inwardly, still having a smile plastered on my face.

“Where you at?” was what the message read. In turn, I replied to him where we were. Boy, after June was over, Jon had seemed to go back to normal (if you could call it that). Almost every Monday and Friday where date days, and he had given me flowers at some point (which had wilted in a week. Roses, what can I say?). Although I had hinted at him that my favorite flowers were yellow daffodils back in May, he insisted on giving me bright pink roses. He said that they were the flowers of love. Right and I was the long lost princess of flipping Norway! I rolled my eyes to myself, just as Jon turned into the music hallway.

I smiled up to him, “Morning babe,” I said, “sleep well?”

He grinned, “Yeah, I slept great.” He laughed and sat on my left side. Ellie and Desiree looked at me. Ellie smiled and whistled (this was when I whacked her arm, causing her to laugh at me), and Desiree said nothing. I knew she didn’t like the fact I had a boyfriend, but it really wasn’t like I was going to forget her or Ellie. She just didn’t like the idea of growing up, plus, on many of occasions, she had told me she doesn’t trust him (she had no clue about the getting me high incident, just the pool party fiasco). Granted, I never really listened, mostly because I was focused on the idea that she didn’t want to grow up. “Hey Caitlyn,” Jon said to me, causing me to get out of la-la land. I looked to him, but before I could answer, he said, “Come with me for a second, will ya?”

I nodded and got up, following my boyfriend. He turned left, thus causing me to say, “The classroom papers are at the other window too,” I pointed, still following him as he continued on straight, “I already checked for you, we got the same second period, we’re in 306.”

Jon smiled coolly, “Good to know,” he turned his face as we walked outside from the athletics hall, “but that’s not what we’re going to do.” I blinked, skipping? There was no way in hell I was going to skip the first day of school! I was never going to skip school! He went over to the dumpster area and sat on the ledge, patting next to him telling me I should sit next to him. I sat and looked at him confused, but I said nothing. He smiled coolly again, with a chuckle, “I want to do something.” I wanted to yell at him, but before I could, he interrupted me, “Not sex, or drugs! Trust me,” he laughed, “besides, you seem as abstinent as a Catholic nun.”

I lifted an eyebrow at him, “Half of my family’s Catholic,” I said to him crossing my arms in a defensive manner.

He smiled and looked down, “Right, I forgot that.” He looked back up to me, “I want to play a game.” Suddenly, the memories of Haylee came flowing back. Her crying after I mentioned going out with Jon, and being afraid of seeing him again, then her warning of the Game. I felt my heart beating quickly, so fast I thought it was going to jump out of my chest and explode like a hand grenade. His smile became a half grin, “Let me see your hand.” I obeyed, unsure of what I was doing. “I like to call this game the Rainbow Game.” I felt like something was lifted off my shoulders and I relaxed a bit, what was so bad about a game that was named after the arc of colors in the sky? He pointed his index finger upwards, “The object of the game is to make it through the entire rainbow with out pulling back, okay?” I nodded, it sounded simple. He rubbed the same finger across my wrist after pushing up the long sleeves that I had on. He rubbed seven times, “Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet.” It was gentle, and it even tickled a little. Jon smiled up, “Just like that!” I laughed, because I was worried for nothing!

Jon dug in his pocket for something, “Now that was just to show you,” he pulled out a large pink eraser, “this is the real game.” I slowly blinked, what did he mean by that? I was about to say something, when he placed the eraser on my wrist, and struck it hard and fast as if it was a match, “Red!” he said with vigor, I yelped and pulled my arm back, wide eyed, when I looked at my wrist, it was red. I glanced back to Jon, who looked kind of disappointed, “Babe, you’re not even bleeding yet!” He took back my wrist violently, “Now we have to start again.” I gasped when he struck at it again, “Red!” I winced, “Orange!” I flinched, “Yellow!” I tried to pull back, but he wouldn’t let go, “Green!”

“Stop it!” I cried, seeing the crimson blood seeping out, “I-I’m…”

Jon shushed me, “You don’t want the whole school to find out, do you?” I gulped and shook my head in fear as he continued, “Blue!”

A tear fell down my cheek from the pain, “Please,” I whispered.

“Indigo!” I held back my scream of agony. I closed my eyes and clenched my fists, “Vi-” strike, “O-” again, “Let!” all three syllables had their own blow. I pulled back my hand two seconds later. I looked down at the blood. I felt faint, I honestly loved gore and horror stories like that, but seeing my own blood seeping from my wrist was like someone seeing a spider while having arachnophobia. I sobbed quietly, feeling the sting of the wound. Jon took my wrist again, gently this time. He took out a white bandage roll, wrapping my wrist. I blinked, after he would do all that, he would bandage me up. Why? I noticed he got some blood on his index finger; he looked at it, and licked the finger, cleaning the blood from it. My eyes widened as he chuckled, “Yeah, I’m what the doctors call a celiac…”

I instantly began to shiver, but not in a good way. “Jon…” I whispered, and then the bell rang. 8:30? Already? I thought. Jon chuckled quietly again, kissing my bandaged wound.

He stood, “Here,” he tossed the gauze to me, “this is going to become your new best friend.” He winked and me, causing more shivers. “Wipe your face,” he said again, as he pulled me up, “you look like you’ve been crying a river.”

.::♪::.

“What happened to your wrist, Caitlyn?” Andrew said as he sat in the orchestra room during lunch. We had this class after lunch everyday now, so we decided to hang there after we ate. I looked at my arm, as if I hadn’t noticed, “You didn’t have that this morning.”

“Oh yeah… well,” I had to lie, and I had to do it quickly, “There was an accident in my history class.”

“What happened? Are you okay?” Andrew had a look of general concern.

“Yeah, I’m fine… I just… fell… on a plug,” I said to him, lying quickly, “you know who clumsy I am!” He lifted an eyebrow at me, but said nothing. I was going to wear a jacket tomorrow for sure.

.::♪::.

I closed my locker that afternoon once school was out. I just wanted to go home, I wished to change my gauze in peace. Then, Jon was standing next to me, as if he appeared from no where. I gasped, “Oh… hi Jon…”

He nodded at me, “I didn’t see you at lunch today.”

I gulped, “Yeah, sorry, I was hanging out in the orchestra room.”

“With who?” he asked me, an eyebrow being arched.

I gulped, afraid to answer, “A-Andrew T-Thomas.”

He growled, slamming a fist into the locker, “What does he got that I ain’t got? Huh? Tell me! WHAT?!” I gasped and took a step back, afraid of being hit. “You know what? Screw it!” he took my good hand and took me through the school. Out the doors we went and to the boiler area. He sat me down, rolled my sleeve up, and took out the eraser. “Andrew doesn’t love you… I DO!” he started at striking my arm, saying the rainbow extremely fast, and numerous times. I began to cry on the inside, because I knew the truth.

If you loved me so much, why does hurting me amuse you?

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