Warfare

Jessie lives life in her own little world. But when Devin steps in, Jessie gets the chance to see life from a brighter point of view. At least until he's gone.

Warfare

 

Things just took a downward smile from there on out. It was full blown revenge-warfare. A cycle I could live my whole life winning. Still that remained half the problem. No one was winning. Plotting Devin’s latest downfall did give me a decent source of entertainment when I was bored.

Because of this, mornings at the bus stop for the next two weeks became almost white flag territory. Basically: “the public education system makes us relate peacefully for five minutes every morning so we may as well practice self control while we can”.

Though my revenge heists were far more successful and far cleverer than his, Devin did manage to be more than a slight annoyance in those few weeks. He was never quite able to top his original act of revenge, though, and I was sure to one-up him every time.

When he stole my jacket off the tree I had hung it on, I ripped the strings off his guitar. When my backpack mysteriously went missing and was found a day later in the janitor’s closet, I threw his in the lake. Not all his papers, just his backpack and oh-so fancy graphing calculator. And so the war continued.

It was just a pass-time until he took it over the line four days before homecoming. I stepped out of my rowboat onto the island to find a small, green turtle spray painted onto my cliff. The poorly-done picture was about the size of my hand, and also a warrant for his death.

He didn’t even understand how over the line this was. Spray-paint was permanent. As in he had permanently graphitized on my island. Not that I really had anything against graffiti, which actually made up a good part of my Saturday nights, but this was so different. Not on my island.

Let’s see how he liked it.

I paddled back home with all the power I could, and ran into the basement. I pulled my favorite squirt gun out of its retirement in the far back corner of the room, and ran into the garage.

Andrew walked in on me, “Jessie, what are you doing?”

“Just playing a little trick on Devin,”

Tomorrow couldn’t come quickly enough.

And yet it did, somehow, and for the first time in years I was excited to go to the bus stop. But when I got there, I saw he had a squirt gun too. I put mine up, and aimed.

“How’d you know?” It really didn’t matter, but I was curious.

“Little brothers speak to-” And I began to squirt. Paint went flying everywhere. It crossed my mind that Devin had enough time to fill his own gun with paint, but not to grab protection glasses. I nearly laughed at his stupidly as I drenched him again and again with shots of lime green paint.

As he ran out of paint, he began to run towards the lake. I set my backpack down and chased after him, drenching the front of his brand-new backpack as I did.

“Get back here you f*****g coward,” I called after him.  I reflected that if this was the army he would be dead. Probably from my shot.

He ran head-first into the water, and I ditched my gun to run after him. After a minute, I got my hand around his wrist, and pulled him out of the water. Before he even got a fresh breath, I slapped him across this face.

“Damn, b***h, you slap hard,” He whined more than my three year old cousin.

“Yeah, I tend to do that when people spray-paint on my island!” And he began to laugh. He doubled over, soaking when and still slightly painted, laughing.

“What’s so f*****g funny?” I asked, pushing him down into the water.

“Its temporary-” he got out between breaths, “It’s not spray paint. It’s water color.” This was the last time this or any guy would make me feel like this. I felt so stupid. I had made a complete idiot out of myself. And he was going to tell everyone how he single-handedly outsmarted Jessie Walter.

“I hate you!” I really hoped it looked like I was still dripping wet, and that angry/relieved tears weren’t leaking out of my eyes.

He laughed again and mockingly said, “Aww, you’re crying.”

“B***h!” I knew I had lost when I was reduced to swearing to save my face.

He knew, and he gave me a Colgate smile as he stood up, “I win.”

I began walking back to my house to go to bed, but I felt a hand on my shoulder.

I was ready to slap him again, “What could you possibly-“

“Do you need a ride to school?” His eyes locked in mine, and I quickly looked away. He thought he could play those stupid little games with me that were working so well on Sara. I rolled my eyes, and once again turned towards my house. “Jessie, I’m sorry!” Yeah you better be.

“Tell that to my ruined converse!”

“I’m sorry Jessie’s converse!”

“F**k you!”

I heard his footsteps, running, behind me. I didn’t bother running. I was too tired. Nothing he said mattered anyway.

I turned to face him as he spoke, “Look, I really am sorry. I’ll make it up to you. You clean up-if you feel like- and I’ll drive you to school, okay?”

I sighed and ran my fingers through my soaked hair, “Do I really have any other choice?”

“No, not really. Unless you want your mom to-” Anything that involved my mom was not an option.

I cut him off with a glare, “And you have your license?”

“No, well, not exactly. I have my permit.” He gave me what he must have thought was an innocent smile. I wanted to slap him again.

Then again, what were my options? “Fine, I’ll go.”

Ten minutes later, after hosing myself down outside, and quickly changing into something dry, I walked outside to see one of the most laughable cars I had ever seen pull into my winding driveway. A dryer, and neater, version of Devin than I had seen earlier got out. He patted the top of an ancient-looking Ford dramatically. I gave him a disapproving look and walked out towards the embarrassment on wheels.

“Is this what you call a car?” I demanded with a raised eyebrow.

He began to walk towards the passenger side, “It’s more than what you have.” He held the door open for me.

“I have arms,” I growled in response to his gesture, ignoring his other comment.

He wasn’t going to let it go, “It’s more than what you have.”

“I heard you the first time, I just ignored you.” Why was I spelling things out for him? I had met retarded squirrels that could outwit Devin in their sleep. “How do you know I don’t have a car anyway?”

“Let’s see. First of all, because I know you-”

I scoffed, “I love how you say that like we’re friends.”

 He ignored my comment, “Second of all, because if I know anything about people like you-“

I gave him another glare, “People like me?”

“-I know that you wouldn’t be taking the ‘yellow torture mobile’ to school.” He gave me another grin, and walked over to the driver’s side of the car.

“Damn you.” He was right, and he knew it.

He climbed in and stroked the steering wheel like it was a newborn kitten. “It’s a Ford Focus. Nineteen-ninety eight.” He grinned proudly, despite the fact the car was nothing to be proud of.

I wasn’t giving him the satisfaction of a good response, “Okay then.”

 We were both quiet for a moment as I stared out the window. Everything looked different through the dirty windows of Devin’s beat up ‘car’. He took a route through the center of town, passing the few little shops and mildly bored people who inhibited the most dense part of the city. Devin cleared his throat, breaking my train of thought.

 “So, we’ve sort of been fighting for a while, I was wondering if we could sort of just stop. I’m not saying we have to be like best friends, but I’d rather not be fighting.” He did not just say what I thought he said.

“Absolutely not.”

“Is there anything I could do to like sort of ‘apologize to you’ or make it up or something? If I had known the island was such a big deal to you I wouldn’t have painted on it.”

 My response was automatic, and I later regretted it. I actually had a long list of things he could do to make it up to me, starting by going back to wherever the hell he came from, “No.”

He gave me a coy grin as we stopped at a red light, “What if I ask you to homecoming?”

I bet he had planned all of this. Diving into the lake. Making us miss the bus. The car ride. Damn him!

“Then I push you out of the car in the path of an eighteen wheeler, watch you get run over, and then drive to school myself.”  I said it through my teeth, controlling my anger. I took a deep breath, and then continued, “and what about the crowned Miss W***e?”

“Sara Jay?” He looked honestly confused.

“Yes her.” I didn’t want to say her name. I might get sick, “I thought you liked her.”

He laughed, “Just because I asked you to homecoming, that doesn’t mean I like you.” Avoiding the question. Who said anything about him liking me, besides?

I crossed my arms over my chest. When were we going to be at school already? “Then what does it mean?”

“You never have any fun, and I thought if someone asked you then you might consider going. I do like Sara Jay.” He left the last sentence open, like there might be something more to it. As if what he had already said didn’t make me want to hurl enough. “If you said no I was planning on asking her.”

“Player,” I said the word in a cough, and he rolled his eyes at me.

He smiled, “This is going to be fun to explain.” He looked down at his watch, and then up again at the building. “If we hurry, we might make it in time before homeroom ends.”

Reviews

[Daydreamer54]

I think he likes her because he asked her first and he should have known there was gonna be a most likely chance that jessie would say no, but he asked anyways..yea he probably planned the whole thing so she would go with him. LOL, the water gun filled with paint seemed like a fun idea! ^^