Chasing Charming ✔️

16 - I'm Fine

I did not think it was possible to have butterflies in my stomach for days, but every time I thought about Eli, which was a lot, my tummy would flutter.

Although I had not gotten the opportunity to be with him alone again, I sat closer to him every chance I got.

By the time Friday rolled around, I was exhausted from my anxiousness about Saturday night. My first date.

However, Friday was not a good day, and it successfully distracted me from my nervous thoughts. It wasn't just one thing that made it a bad day. Eli wasn't there, and neither was Taylor since she was sick. Kyle was in an uncharacteristically bad mood, and Jones was sleeping at the cafeteria table.

Even though my friends were in a bad mood, that wouldn't have made it classify as a bad day just on its own. Jackson was the one who put the cherry on top.

If I had decided to cut off my caffeine addiction like I was supposed to, I guess nothing would have gone wrong. But Jackson's asshole moves weren't exactly my fault.

Either way, I found myself at the vending machine, getting an iced coffee, when I was stopped by Jackson, who placed his hand on my forearm.

"So I see your boyfriend isn't here. Where is he?" He asked me. His face was contorted into some sort of smirk, and he looked like he was just trying to start trouble. His hand was uncomfortably warm on my arm as if my own body was warning me to stay away from him. I don't know what kind of beef Jackson and Eli had, but I wanted to be no part of it.

"Leave me alone, Jackson." I tried to shake his hand off of my arm, but he just held it tighter. My hair stood up on my body. I did not like being near this boy. They called Eli aggressive, but Jackson was by far much worse from what I had seen.

"No," he almost growled at me. "I have issues with that moron. Tell me where I can find him." I have no idea why he was bothering me about this, probably because he couldn't bully the rest of Eli's friends. Because that is what Jackson was. A bully.

I tried to pull my arm away a little bit more aggressively, which just made him squeeze tighter, Much tighter than comfortable. My hand started pulsing as I lost blood flow. "Ow," I said softly.

Kyle was there in seconds, "get the fuck off her, Jackson!" He growled.

Jackson took his palm off of me and put his hands up in surrender. I pulled my arm to my chest in reaction, and Jackson looked at it in shock, as if he had not realized how hard he had been holding me.

"We were just talking." He said.

"Ya right," scoffed Kyle. Jackson marched away, and after a moment, Kyle patted me on the shoulder and walked away as well.

I took a deep breath and tried to collect myself before walking back to the table, where Jones was still passed out and grabbed my stuff.

I still went to gym class, but I was very disengaged. Kyle wasn't there, and I did not see Owen either. I tried to speak with Vanessa and Claire in gym class, but we had been placed on teams for the day, and I was in a group with people I had not spoken with yet. By the end of the day, I was in a bad enough mood myself that I had no interest in making new friends.

My thoughts were consumed with Jackson. Why won't he leave me alone? Do I tell Eli? Do I tell my parents?

Eventually, the questions came to a halt, and I drove home, diving into homework to distract myself from my bad day.

Later that night, my problems came back when I looked down at my phone and saw a text from Eli.

How was your day?