Things have been...difficult here. Had to do some unexpected running around.
That said. I did have my sisters lap top...so i just started spewing a random story onto a page. It even cuts off suddenly.
I'm not even going to read it. I'm kind of insecure when it comes to stuff I write. I have a little panic attack every time I do a new page of Yielding.
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With a deep breath and her teeth clenched Laura Watson swung her hand across the grinning girls face. The annoying, girlish giggles that had been mocking her for most of the schools lunch break were replaced by the enduring sound of skin hitting skin. It seemed to echo and hang in the air for an infinite amount of time. Silence was a thing rarely had in Agnes’s School for Girls and, wihle this wasn’t a real silence, Laura enjoyed this moment.
The girl was no longer smiling. She held her freckled cheek tenderly in her hand while staring at Laura. Her friends were slack jawed, wide eyed as they joined in at looking at her.
It took a lot of will power for Laura to stay standing tall and not shuffle her feet under their uncomfortable gaze. She stuck her chin up in the air, as a way of making herself feel bigger than she real was, jutting her jaw to make herself look tougher. She could feel her cheeks beginning to flush with guilt.
She hadn’t meant to slap anyone, really. Her temper had just gotten the better of her. They had been teasing her mercilessly ever since she transferred to the school. Everything about her was fair game to these high fashion bimbos. Her dark, ill fitted clothing, her lack breasts, her petite thin frame, her thick rimmed glasses, her penchant for raising her hand every time the teacher requested an answer from the class, her solitary nature…and the fact she had switched schools at the mid point of her senior year.
That just screamed scandal to them. Scandal meant something interesting had happened. Gossip. Rumors. Theories were constantly being theown her way to be validated but she refused to give them the satisfaction of making her life their TV drama.
There was only a few days left, after all. She would be done high school. She could move out of her grandmother’s house and perhaps to a big city. Perhaps she could spend the summer with her brother James before heading off to any one of the universities that were interested in having her.
James had promised her she could spend some time with him.
She often had to push aside the fact that James rarely kept a promise in the way she expected him to.
Just a few more days. However, these girls had become obsessed with the reason why she was in their all girls school. Their questions had turned from casual and annoying into outright harssament.
She had been leaving the bathroom stall when they flanked her and would not let her leave. They were standing to close and getting in her face. She barely tolerated in the bathroom stall long enough to pee and now she was being forcibly held in such a tight space….
The final straw came when the defacto leader of the troop grabbed her arm. She had snapped.
The girl burst into tears. Deep, agonizing sobs. “Oh1 You bitch! My face! I think you broke my jaw!”
Laura rolled her eyes and bit her tongue. There was no way she broke her jaw from just a slap and she was still talking!
The bimbo posse crowded around their injured friend and started hissing insults at Laura while comforting their leader. In a show of bravery that Laura found her self impressed with, she stepped forward. The girls cleared out of her path as she went to the sink and washed her hands.
She hoped that they didn’t notice how much she was shaking. It was better if they thought she was just to cool to pay anymore attention to them.
The slapped girl was bitching her out through tears and exaggerated sobs as Laura dried her hands. “You’’re so dead! I’m going to tell Mr. Wideman on you and you won’t-“
Laura, suprising herself for the third time in one day, turned back to the gang. “I won’t what? I have a stellar record and pretty good grades. Exams are done, I’ve done well on my S.A.T.’s. They ain’t gonna do shit to me.”
She spun on her heel and left. The bathroom door swung shut behind her and she sagged, gulping in a deep breath. She had said those words but that was all they were. Words.
The bell rang and all the other young women of the school, oblivious to the bathroom incident, be gan heading to their classes to watch movies or play games while the teachers finshed checking their exams right before their anxious eyes. Laura threw herself into her usual seat at the back of the class, near the window and ignored whatever film was played.
Could something be done this late in the year? It was true, the exams were written and finished but they weren’t corrected. Perhaps the principal could decide to have her suspended for the last few days and her exams invalidated.
Her chest began to tighten with worry. In her mind she painted a picture of a tall, unyielding figure looking at down on her from behind an impossibly large desk, cukling and taunting her in a deep voice. Fishing her exams out of the void of a desk drawer the figure tosses them into an incinerator and tell her she will never be accepted into University. She would have to live with her grandmother indefinitely.
“Miss Watson!” Laura jumped and the class giggled. Had she been sleeping?
The kindly teacher shook her head. The film was paused. “They have been calling you over the intercom. I trust you can stay awake long enough to make the trip to the office?”
The blood drained from her face. She nodded and stodd from the desk, taking her bag with her. She was barely out the door before the film, and the whispers, began.
The office was only at the end of the hallway from her classroom. It might as well have been miles. She walked slowly. Every step became harder, the closer she got. It was like she was walking through pudding.
Why oh why did she slap that snotty busy body? Why did she sink to that level?
She turned the handle to the Office door and entered.
The receptionist glanced up. “Go on in. They’re waiting.”
They? Did the administration call the cops? An assault charge would certainly keep her from university!
The door to the Prinicipals room was open she entered and sat in the seat. Principal Wiseman, a stern old woman of sixty years old, looked at her across the wide desk. Laura could hardly meet her eyes.
“Miss Watson.” Principal Wiseman started in her usual stern voice but halted. When she spoke again it was gently and with out formality. “I hear that you’re having a hard day, Laura.”
Laura nodded, mutely. Her vision was beginning to blur with hot unshed tears. It was obvious to her that the head master was trying to break the news of her impending expulsion and rejection gently.
“I don’t condone fighting amongst the students.” She halted again. Laura thought this strange as Mrs. Wiseman was normally so sure of herself when she spoke.
She bowed her head..the looked back up, meeting Lauras eyes. A cold feeling started to settle into her stomach.
“Laura…your grandmother passed away this afternoon.” The words hung in the air. Laura stared.
An explanation followed but she couldn’t keep up with it. A blood vessel in her brain had burst…painless…very quick. It could explain her strange behavior, her thinking there were people in the house when it was only them, her mistaking Laura for her mother, her thinking James was talking through the TV.
“-you’re teacher tells me you passed all your exams so there is nothing really keeping you here in these last days.” Laura tuned in again at this.
It's due to be out two weeks! THAT SUCKS.
