Young Writers Society

I watched the boy that meant more than family to me with a smile. Once again he was attempting, unsuccessfully to flirt with the girl from the coffee shop.

It was strange watching him, almost surreal. Nearly every girl fell for his looks, lots of girls have that weak spot for the dazzling green eyes and the honey blonde hair that fell just before his eyes, and then there was that smile that sent most girls into a frenzy that he loved. However, Paige, the girl he was currently attempting to woo, was having none of his so called ‘charms’.

I know it’s weird how my stories begins here in this coffee shop, I would like to say it’s because I spend most of my time here but that wouldn’t be accurate. Today in question was the day that my life completely changed.

My name is Jessica Olsen, my friend, Chase, calls me Jo. It was sixteen years ago that I was brought into this world, as I grew up my parents grew apart. By the age of seven I had almost completely pulled away from reality. My books and my mind were my escape. Was I neglected? I don’t class myself as that but if I were to look in on a family like mine I would want a child having more attention. I was fed and I got things I wanted, within reason of course.

My ninth birthday brought the news of my mother’s death, still to this day I do not know how she died. I could never bring myself to question my father, surely he knew, they tell you when they give you the news, don’t they?

After we learnt of her death my father seemed to spiral so far into his own form of depression. He soon became reliant on alcohol to get him through his days. There was no question on how distraught he was, it was only within months that he stopped being my ‘dad’ and he became my ‘father’.

As you are probably aware there are many different types of drinkers, the happy ones, the loud ones, the funny ones, the crying ones and worst of all, the violent ones.

Violent drinkers never start out as violent, it tends to build until it becomes unbearable, unfortunately my father becomes violent after he drinks. The first time he hit me was when I arrived home late after school. I wasn’t drastically late, just five minutes. At the time I was horrified and he also seemed to be. We both came to the conclusion that his worry laced with the alcohol caused him to act as he did. After it happened several times I started questioning it. That led me to finding out that he was a violent drunk.

I wasn’t seriously hit until after I turned ten. Until then it was the odd hit when he was highly intoxicated, ones I could push off hoping beyond hope that it was just the alcohol and once he grieved for my mother that he’d be alright and back to how he was.

I had blamed myself for my first beating, I had let slip at school about my father’s drinking habits and that he had certain violent tendencies. As much as I hate to admit it, my father is a clever man. He would never hit me hard in a place where bruises could easily be displayed and if he happened to forget that he would always have a simple excuse ready for me.

I soon realised that talking about my home life was not the best idea. Sometimes teachers would guess the cause of my silence and most of the time I have been so close to telling them the truth but I couldn’t. It was as though a lump formed in my throat that made it impossible for any sound to escape.

It wasn’t long until my school came to the conclusion that my cry for help against my father was a lie, after all he was never seen drunk in public and he was still a respectable citizen.

“Jo?” a gentle voice asked as a hand tenderly touched my shoulder. “Are you ok?”

Pulling myself out of my memories I saw Chase sat next to me, apprehension clear in his eyes. I nodded my head once, unable to talk around the lump that had formed in my throat making it hard to swallow.

“I brought you a hot chocolate,” he said as his eyes softened, understanding how difficult this was for me. He gestured to the cup that was sat on the table in front of me. “I had to get myself a manly drink,” he continued. “Paige thought the chocolate filled drink was for myself!” he said in disbelief. “I don’t know what to do with her.”

“Leave her alone?” I asked with a faint trace of amusement in my quiet voice.

“I cannot do that,” Chase smiled. “It would ruin my image, plus I like the fact she isn’t like everyone else.”

I raised my eyebrow as he took a drink of his coffee.

“You don’t count,” he added seeing my look. “You’re like my sister now, it would be weird if you were constantly trying to seduce me.”

“It would be disgusting,” I chuckled, unable to stop myself. “What did she say today then?”

“Not much, just asked for the order and money,” he sighed dramatically. “I feel like she knows how much she wounds me.”

“She probably doesn’t want to be another conquest for you,” I said as I lifted the cup to my lips. The warmth of the chocolate slid down my throat causing me to shiver.

“Are you ready for this?” Chase asked suddenly, his voice quiet and serious.

I took a second to think about my answer. Was I ready? No. The result could place my life in an even more hazardous position than I am already in. However, can I walk away and stay in the unknown? Just the thought of not knowing caused the fear to bubble up on me. So was I ready?

“As ready as I’ll ever be,” I whispered, looking at Chase. His tanned face was drained of its natural colour. It seemed as though the longer I stayed silent the more his worry increased. I was positive that the anxiety that sparkled in his eyes was mirrored on my face.

“We can wait…” he trailed off softly as my eyes fell to the cup of hot chocolate I held in my hands. I drew the warmth from the cup as the icy fear gripped my insides. “You know I’ll do whatever I can to help you, don’t you?” he asked in a helpless tone as he grasped one of my hands. My eyes closed tightly as even more memories bombarded their way into my mind.

I could not doubt the words he spoke. Chase had proven that he would help the best he could in the past.

Chase and I were not always close. We had at one stage hated what the other was. It was not until a year ago that our friendship grew to the stage that it currently is. Two years before that was when began to gain each other’s friendship. Chase was your typical popular boy, he seemed to have a new girl on his arm every week, despite his young age. He was so high on the chain of popularity that no one messed with him.

Luckily for me he was only in one of my classes, History, however those two hours each week were dreadfully long.

It was a month into the school year, once everyone had settled down, that our teacher decided to mix the popular people with the losers, which I am sure you can guess went down wonderfully with our class.

Unfortunately I can understand his logic, however, that did not mean that I enjoyed that year in the slightest. You see, our school was really divided, but, as the same in any place, attempts to mix those that were not meant to socialise always ended in disaster.

As I am sure you can guess, Mr. Popular, in other words Chase, did not like the thought of sitting next to the biggest loser in school, in other words me, for a whole hour.

To begin we, we had an arrangement that worked perfectly. We would not talk, or even acknowledge the other’s presences. Then everything changed. Our wonderful teacher was still unsatisfied with us sitting next to each other in silence, he wanted work to be completed together to form friendships. This is where the idea for our assignment developed. In that assignment we were to work with the person that we were sat next to. At which point, I was positive that everyone in the class shared a thought and feeling towards the teacher.

Looking back, I can see his amusement. The whole class had turned, as one, and gave him the deadliest looks ever recorded in history. However, at the time I was so overcome with shock that I was questioning why everyone and everything in the world seemed to hate me. I was also wondering what I had done to receive this treatment? Did I kill a priest in my previous life? I might be exaggerating slightly on my thoughts but they were similar to those.

However, my bad luck wasn’t happy with what was already said because it made our teacher add a bit to our assignment. As well as having to work on the assignment within school hours, it was required that we meet outside of school to get the work completed in time.

Silence followed before an uproar broke out in the class. Surprisingly enough it was not only the popular people that argued.

The first time Chase and I spoke, we did not need to exchange names. We knew the other from the school itself. Gossip does have a way of finding everyone, no matter how low or high they are in terms of popularity.

As neither of us wanted the other at our house we had arranged to meet at the local library. Chase wanted his house to be loser-free and I wanted my father to know as little about this project as possible.

The first few times we met passed slowly but without too much conflict. I was content to do most of the work whilst Chase flicked through the magazines and the books that were on offer.

It was on the following Saturday that my father grew suspicious of my actions. I had, somehow, managed to convince Chase to meet with me almost daily. There were two reasons for this, it allowed us to complete the assignment as quickly as possible and it also meant that I was spending less time with my drunken father.

Obviously I only told him one reason.

At first, I had attempted to brush off my father’s questions, however, that had been in vain. I had no other choice in the end but to tell him partly the truth, that I had an assignment that I had to do. His next question was then why I couldn’t do the work at home like ‘normal children’. This resulted in me mentally responding with a ‘normal children are not scared of their father like I am so clearly I am not normal’ but I held my tongue.

Once again, I went with the truth, I had learnt how to handle my father. Questions wanted honest answers unless there was no chance of him finding out the truth.

I had mentioned that I was required to work with a partner, however that wasn’t enough information for him. For the rest of that night my father seemed to question me constantly before I accidently let Chase’s name slip from my lips.

I can remember that moment so clearly that it scares me.

“Chase?” he asked in a quiet whisper that made my blood run cold. It is hard to understand unless you have felt that terror. He fixed me with an icy stare that made his dark eyes sparkle with madness. I could feel him take a step closer towards me, my instinct begging me greatly to flee to safety. He spoke in barely a whisper as he brought himself closer still, “who is Chase Jessica? It sounds like a boy’s name. You know full well that you aren’t to be around boys Jessica. You wouldn’t purposely disobey me would you?”

Just the thought of that memory sends shivers down my spine. It was the first time I truly feared my father, I actually thought he would kill me.

That night was also the first time that I know for sure he was not under the influence of alcohol when he physically lashed out at me. It was also the first time he was careless with the amount of damage he did.

It seemed to be daily after that night, he would find some silly excuse to take his anger out upon my body. His excuses were pitiful and could vary from the house being messy to him not receiving a letter he expected.

Yet, I still prefer to believe that he was constantly drunk. It made it easier for me to sleep and the idea that he did it willingly or that he got enjoyment from it makes me physically sick.

Within school, no one cared enough to notice my change in behaviour. It came as a shock to me when Chase began to question my actions. By the end of our assignment I had come to the conclusion that he had very little to do within the library so he entertained himself using other means, in others words he watched me and waited for me to fail.

It was after the assignment that he decided to ask me why I always seemed to be in some form of pain. The initial shock caused me to hesitate in my answer, instead I just offered him a small smile along with a raised eyebrow, silently questioning why he cared.

He seemed to understand as the weeks passed smoothly. He went out of his way to avoid me and my father was happier that I was spending time at home.

It was around a month after that assignment that my father seemed to snap. He became more violent than usual. I am unsure of what caused the drastic change in him. Perhaps it was a small reason; like he ran out of alcohol or that he didn’t get enough sleep the previous night. Even if that isn’t true, it resulted in pain coursing throughout my whole body for a week.

My history class took place twice a week, each time before lunch. By the end of the second lesson I felt the dread build in my stomach.

My classmates scattered as the bell sounded, chatting loudly about the latest piece of gossip. Unlike them, lunch was not something I looked forward to, I rarely ate within school and normally, my lunch hour was spent on my own either studying or worrying about what I would meet at home.

As I slowly packed my things back into my bag I saw the teacher leave the classroom in a hurry, talking on his cellular phone. Was it possible that I was invisible? I thought with a humourless laugh.

Wincing slightly, I picked up my heavy bag that was filled with the necessary equipment for the school day, before heading towards the door. Just as I reached the door I heard somebody clear their throat behind me, turning, I came face-to-face with Chase.

It felt as though someone had thrown sand into my mouth. It occurred to me that he had been in the room with me the whole time, I hadn’t noticed and he probably saw how I acted. My heart rate shot up as I tried desperately to regain some moisture within my mouth.

We stood in silence. Chase’s green eyes watching me and mine avoiding his, each of us waiting for the other to speak first.

“Er… can you take a seat?” Chase asked nervously, scratching the back of his head.

I stayed stood upright, however, I did move away from the door and towards the chair that he had gestured to opposite him.

“Come on Jo, I don’t bite you know,” Chase said cheekily with his trademark smile. I felt a smile tug at the corner of my mouth as he said that annoying nickname he gave me whilst we had worked alongside each other.

I saw his smile widen and the happiness shine in his eyes as I realised my mistake at letting my amusement show, deciding to take his earlier offer to distract myself I sat slowly across from him. As soon as I felt the comfort of the chair I couldn’t help but lean back against the supposedly soft surface, what I was met with was not soft at all. My eyes closed as the pain spread throughout my whole body.

“Are you ok?” Chase asked, having seen my eyes close and my hand ball into a tight fist.

“Yes,” I gritted out.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes,” I snapped as the pain began to dull, giving me the ability to refocus on my thoughts once more.

“I don’t believe you,” Chase said simply causing me to look at him. He looked content as he sat back in the chair. He raised one of his eyebrows, almost daring me to lie to him again.

“Why not?” I asked, deciding to stick to safe short answers which would stop any information being given to him.

“You just seem to be in an awful lot of pain recently,” he said softly, his voice taking a slight sing-song quality, causing me to scowl in his direction.

“Positive you aren’t imagining it?” I asked, hoping my uneasiness was not obvious.

My eyes darted towards the door, mentally considering just how much it would pain me if I were to give into the temptation of running from the room and not looking back. It was only then it occurred to me that I had no chance of outrunning Chase, even if I was healthy. There had been this joke previously at how ‘it’s barely a chase if Chase is on the case’, it is rather pathetic but then again, most eleven year olds are.

Chase’s eyes flashed slightly with a silent warning before he said, “I think you do,” as he sat forward. “I noticed it from our first day working together. You can hide it well, I will give you that much. Your only problem is when you think nobody is looking,” Chase’s voice quietened as he spoke. “A good example is a moment ago, you thought you were alone and your well-constructed mask fell. Did you notice what you did?” he asked softly.

I swallowed around the lump that had formed painfully in my throat. Of course I knew what I had done, how could I not?

“If you weren’t hurt you would have left with everybody else,” Chase continued, his eyes growing soft, almost pleading with me to tell him the truth, for a second I almost did.

“You don’t even deny it,” Chase muttered to himself, his voice full of disgust. “If you weren’t in pain you wouldn’t have left me go on this far.”

His voice seemed to do the job of shaking me from my inner thoughts and everything he had said hit me like a tonne of bricks. I didn’t even allow myself to think before the defences my father had drilled into me snapped up full force.

“Look,” I said, my voice turning venomous. “I haven’t the foggiest idea what you are hinting at or what you think is going off but I can assure you that you will be so far off base that it is laughable, so I suggest you mind your own business. I don’t even know why you care, or is it just a way to get more popularity points by befriending the freak?”

Even as I spoke I felt my own words stab me and yet I could not find a single thought or sign to prove those horrible words wrong.

As soon as Chase opened his mouth I knew exactly what was going to happen. His anger and frustration would take over and if I stood my ground a full blown argument would occur. Strangely enough I couldn’t bring myself to apologise or even dread the unavoidable argument.

“You?” I faintly heard Chase mutter before he gathered himself together and found his words. “Seriously? You actually think I would do this to boost my popularity? Are you really that insane? I know you are an absolute nobody but surely you know at least something about the way the popularity system works. By doing this I am putting my image in danger!” Chase exclaimed angrily, his words cutting every inch of me they could touch.

I sat back as though I had been hit, my eyes closed as I thought of my comeback.

“I apologise that I have trouble taking the great Chase Marriot seriously, especially when it comes to my private life,” I exclaimed just as loudly as he had, the pain and confusion amplify my anger.

“Well if you had a brain you would realise I had a heart and that I did care. You would realise that there is more to me than a jock,” Chase hissed, no longer shouting, his tone was almost one of defeat.

As Chase spoke, our History teacher, who had a look of urgency, reappeared, his eyes widening as he saw Chase and I alone in the room, signalling that we were, indeed the only ones that had caused the raised tones.

“Well,” Chase said, annoyance flaring in his tone once more. “Leave then. Forget I even offered my assistance. See if I give a damn!” As he spoke his voice had once again rose to a frustrated yell.

“Fine,” I said, trying desperately to hold onto my anger that was fading fast into fatigue. “I thank you ever so much for all your consideration into my personal life Mr. Marriot,” I said in a bitter, sarcastic tone before grasping my bag by its strap and standing quickly. Ignoring the shooting pain that emitted from every inch of my sore body, I made my way towards the door, using the pain as fuel for my anger. I passed the History teacher, purposely ignoring his inquisitive gaze.

I exhaled a sigh of relief once I had left the classroom Chase had cornered me in. my relief wasn’t long lasting though, it seemed as though as soon as I had left the classroom I felt a hand grasp my wrist, limiting the distance I could move.

I couldn’t stop the frightened shivers that clawed their way from my body and betrayed my calm stance. I felt Chase drop my arm as if I had electrocuted him.

“Jessica,” I heard him whisper, almost as if he was struggling to obtain the correct wording for what he wanted to say. “I… I shouldn’t… I shouldn’t have lost my temper,” he stammered. If it was any other situation it would have probably made me laugh. “I cannot let you go… if I don’t try… if what I think is true I wouldn’t be able to live with myself. I cannot let you walk away without offering my help,” as he spoke, his voice grew from a whisper to his normal volume.

“You are insane,” I laughed dryly before the laughter caught in my throat at the worried glint in his eyes.

“I guess that’s a part of my charm,” he said lightly, although there was an edge to his voice that I had learnt to detect when he questioned my health.

From that day on I am glad to say that Chase grew on me. He went out of his way to preform acts of kindness and he even stopped people picking on me like they used to. All in all, Chase’s companionship had its benefits.

Then again, it also had its disadvantages. Chase, being the opposite to the stereotypical jock, seemed to notice everything. He continuously challenged my instant lies and after a few months I was positive he knew what my father was doing to me, although he never once said it.

“Jessica?” I heard Chase say, pulling me from my thoughts once more. I knew what he was asking instantly, I nodded, the nerves I had pushed away were back once again, clawing their way through my body.