Fighting to be Free by Kirsty Moseley (12 page)

“Casually. I told him I’m not interested in a relationship, which he was fine with,” I said shrugging.

I loved the idea of seeing Jamie again, he was such a nice guy and he seemed to take my mind off of everything, and the sex was seriously out of this world. I felt a little like a slut as I’d never been with anyone before Mark and now I was having a casual, no strings attached, sexual relationship.

But I honestly don’t think that Jamie thought I was a slut, otherwise I wouldn’t have agreed to it.

“What do you mean, casual?” Stacey asked, looking at me a little confused.

“Casual, no dating, booty calls…” I laughed and blushed at how cheap that made me sound.

She screamed and laughed her ass off, “You? Seriously that’s too funny! Little Miss Innocent, making booty calls?” she choked out through her giggles. I nodded laughing too, it did sound a little weird when you put it that way. “No wonder he seemed to like the idea, what the hell kind of guy is going to turn down no strings attached sex?” she asked, shaking her head at me amused.

“Can you drive me to get my car after school?” I asked, trying to change the subject from my slightly embarrassing sexual agreement.

She nodded, “Sure. So, when are you seeing him again?” she asked, obviously not finished hearing about him yet.

“No idea, we’ve exchanged numbers, maybe he won’t call me….” I trailed off shrugging, I couldn’t help but feel a little disappointed at the thought.

“Are you kidding? Trust me, he’ll call! Give me your cell,” she ordered, holding out her hand.

I put my phone in her hand, “You’re not gonna call him or anything though are you?” I asked frowning. I wanted him to be the one to make the first move, I instigated all that last night and he actually asked me to leave his place after he was robbed. I needed to check he actually wanted to see me again, maybe it really was an excuse that he asked me to leave. The only way I’d find out was if he called me to meet up again.

“No, I’ve got a song for you.” She shrugged, shaking her head dismissively. I let it go, she was always sending music to my phone, we didn’t really have the same taste so I just humoured her most of the time.

An arm went around my shoulder, making me jump. I looked up to see Mark just as he bent and kissed my cheek. What the heck is he doing? Stacey looked at me sympathetically, “I’ll see you in class, let you two talk….” She smiled sadly before walking off to class. Damn it, please don’t leave me! I watched her walk off, before turning to Mark and shrugging his arm off.

He looked at me a little shocked, “Why have you not been answering my calls all weekend?” he asked, frowning angrily at me.

“We broke up, there wasn’t anything else to say!” I stated, trying to sound confident. We’d broken up a lot of times before, always with me ending it, but we were always back together before anyone knew about it.

He shook his head and stepped closer slinging his arm back around my shoulder. “Don’t be like that, baby. That was just a fight, we’ve had them before,” he cooed, pulling me against his chest. I looked around the corridor was almost empty now, people heading off to class.

“Mark seriously, this is it now, I can’t do this anymore I’m sorry. You’re just too possessive, you don’t trust me at all. I can’t be in a relationship like that.” I put my hands on his chest, pushing myself back from him slightly.

“Screw that, Ellie! I love you.
You
were the one trying to get it on behind my back, so don’t start trying to blame this all on me!” he growled angrily.

Is he kidding me? This is exactly the reason we broke up, I didn’t even talk to whoever he was accusing me of trying to hook up with!

“Mark, no this is it, it’s over I’m sorry,” I stated, turning to walk off. He wouldn’t get anymore chances, this was the perfect opportunity for me to break it off, people knew we were broken up so I just needed to stay strong and not let him sucker me back in again.

He grabbed my wrist, stopping my escape. “No fucking way! We’ve been together for three years Ellie, I won’t let you throw it away just like that!” He looked at me pleadingly so I quickly averted my eyes from his sad face. I didn’t love him anymore, this relationship wasn’t good for either of us, he had to see that too. This was best for both of us in the long run.

“Mark, I’m sorry, I really am,” I said apologetically.

He laughed and shook his head, “You’ll take me back,” he stated confidently, touching his hair, making sure it was in perfect condition as usual. “I’m coming over for dinner tonight with my parents, remember? This will all blow over I promise, you’ll forgive me, you always do. I love you, baby.” He kissed my forehead and walked off in the other direction, leaving me standing there completely speechless.

Crap, I forgot about him coming over for dinner tonight! It had been arranged for a while, our parents got on really well, my parents adored Mark, as did all of the school. I guess that’s because he didn’t show them the dominant angry side, he could be adorable when he wanted to be and very charming.

I sighed and went to class, I’d worry about dinner later, I’d just remind my parents that we’d split up and they’d cancel dinner, easy. In the back of my mind though, I knew it wouldn’t work out like that. I plopped down next to Stacey, who slid my phone back across the desk to me.

“How’d it go?” she whispered.

I shrugged, “He wants to get back together, I told him no.”

She frowned a little, “Why don’t you take him back? I mean, you two are so cute together,” she suggested, nudging me with the elbow.

“Stace please, you’re supposed to support me and tell me I don’t need him!” I hissed, annoyed.

She sighed, “You’re right, you don’t need him. Besides, you’ve got the hot booty calls now,” she teased, waggling her eyebrows, making me laugh.

The rest of the morning passed exactly the same as I thought it would. The girls were consoling me, asking if I was ok. The boys asking if I was now free to date. By lunchtime I just wanted to go home and curl into a ball. I grabbed a sandwich and drink and sat down with Stacey and the rest of my girls, when out of nowhere, Mark plopped down next to me slinging his arm round my shoulder.

I could feel all eyes on me again, he knew I wouldn’t make a scene and embarrass him. I wasn’t the type of person to hurt someone on purpose, so he would use this as his opportunity to tell everyone we were back together, knowing I wouldn’t protest. Asshole!

“Hey baby, missed you this morning,” he purred, kissing my cheek.

I gave him my best death glare, “Mark seriously, don’t make me do this in front of everyone,” I whispered pleadingly. He kissed me, he actually had the nerve to kiss me, full on the lips too, what an ass! I pulled back quickly, “Mark, I’m sorry I can’t!” I said, shaking my head. I didn’t want to hurt him, I didn’t want to embarrass him but I wasn’t going to go along with this little charade for the sake of everyone else. He gave me the begging face as he brushed my hair back from my face lightly, I suddenly got flashes of Jamie doing that exact same thing and how soft and cute he was last night.

“Give me another shot, please Ellie,” he whispered, leaning in to kiss me again.

Oh God it would be so easy to just get back with him. People would stop hassling me, boys would stop asking me out, I wouldn’t have to make a scene in front of everyone, I wouldn’t have to hurt Mark. I knew he loved me, but he just didn’t trust me, which just wasn’t good enough. I gave him no reason to doubt me, he shouldn’t think so little of me, if he truly loved me he would trust me, right? Shouldn’t he have faith in me?

As his lips touched mine I jumped out of the chair. “I can’t, I’m sorry,” I said, walking off quickly into the nearest bathrooms, where I burst into tears. Stacey immediately wrapped me into a hug so she must have followed me out of the lunchroom.

“It’ll get easier, Ellie,” she cooed, rubbing my back soothingly.

She obviously thought I was upset because we’d broken up, when in all honesty I was crying with relief. It was hard to keep up the act of being in love with someone, it was hard work being with Mark, always walking on egg shells so I didn’t upset him and make him shout at me. I felt kind of free without him, I couldn’t wait to just be on my own for a while, do my own thing, have fun.

The afternoon passed with people whispering in the hallways, I kept my head held high, I had an image to keep up of sorts. People looked up to me, I was the cheerleading captain. I needed to show people I was still Ellie Pearce, with or without, Mark Barrington.

After cheer practice and no further incidents with Mark, Stacey drove me to get my car from where I left it last night. “So, you want to do something? Watch a DVD or something?” she offered trying to cheer me up, I’d told her Mark was due over tonight. Hopefully I’ll be able to get my mom to cancel it, if not then it would be awkward all night.

“No, actually I have something I need to do, then I need to get my homework done,” I said hugging her.

“Ok, call me and let me know how dinner went, ok?” She smiled at me sadly.

“Sure thing, thanks for the lift.” I climbing out of her car and jogged over to mine. It was cold today, I smiled remembering how cute Jamie was last night, giving me his jacket to wear. As I climbed in my car I got a text from him, checking that I got home ok. Bless him, he was so adorable. I quickly text him back and then drove over to the mall, heading to the Photoshop.

I headed over to the counter, pulling out Jamie’s photo I’d stolen from his room this morning while he was in the shower. “Hi, can I help you?” the lady asked, smiling from the counter.

“Err yeah, I hope so. I have a photo that got ripped and I was wondering if there was any way you’d be able to restore it or something?” I asked, handing over his photo.

She looked at it for a while. “We should be able to do something, I’ll scan it into the computer and then match the two pieces together and try and blend in the damaged pieces. It won’t be perfect, you’ll probably still see the line slightly and these bit’s don’t join properly at the bottom, so there will be a little hole which I’ll have to fill in, but it should look ok, not perfect but ok,” she said smiling at me kindly.

“Sounds awesome, how much?” I asked, pulling out my purse.

“It’s $18 for a full restoration like this one, that’ll give you one print and a disk too.” She smiled, grabbing a little white envelope to put the photo in.

“Great, how long will it be? Would you be able to do it today?” I asked hopefully, as I handed over the money.

“Sure sweetie, I’ve got no others in, so I can do it within the hour.” She put the money in the till and handed me a little ticket. I glanced at the clock and went to go have a coffee upstairs in the café for an hour while I waited for it, deciding to start my homework to kill some time.

I called my Mom while I was waiting, to see if she could cancel dinner, but as I thought, she refused adamantly. I knew she would, so did Mark, which is probably why he didn’t say anything to me about it all afternoon. He knew he’d have the whole evening to work on getting me back.

After an hour I went back to the Photoshop to collect it. “It came out great!” the lady enthused.

“The line is so faint that if you didn’t know it was ripped, you wouldn’t even be able to tell.” She held it out to me, obviously proud of herself.

I looked it over, she was right you could barely see the line down the centre of the little girls face, the hole at the bottom was a little noticeable where it had obviously been coloured in to match the yellow of the girls dress. Jamie was going to love this, I could see how upset he was when he saw it last night. He was trying not to show me, but he looked totally devastated.

“This is incredible! Thank you so much,” I gushed, grinning.

I was actually really excited to give it to him, I wanted to call him and see if he wanted to meet up but that didn’t fit in with the whole letting him call me first thing. Hopefully he’d call or text me tonight and I could arrange to give it to him tomorrow or something.

“You’re welcome sweetie. Here’s the disk so you can make more copies too if you want, and the original,” she said, handing me a paper bag.

“Awesome, thank you so much,” I chirped happily, skipping back to my car.

When I got home I went straight up to my room and pushed the bag into the back of my dresser drawer, before heading into the shower. When I was dry I pulled on a pair of ripped jeans and a tank top and scraped my hair up into a messy bun. No need to dress to impress tonight! I headed downstairs to help my Mom with dinner.

“Ellison, shouldn’t you get changed?” my Mom asked, looking me over disapprovingly.

Oh yeah of course she would want me to change. For my Mom everything was about looks, money and status. She believed you had to look your best all the time, she wouldn’t even do housework without a full face of makeup. This is why she approved of Mark, Mark’s father was a big time lawyer and she liked the idea of us being together because she got to associate with a different class of people. She was shallow and I worked my hardest so that I would never end up like her.

My Father on the other hand was incredible, he supported me wholeheartedly and I was a complete daddy’s girl and could do no wrong in his eyes. His attention made up for the years of disapproving looks I’d gotten from my mother, when I climbed a tree or played football with the boys, instead of playing tea parties with my dolls.

“No, I’m fine in this. Do you want help with dinner?” I asked politely, ignoring her death glare.

She sighed and nodded towards the vegetables, “You could chop those up. You do know the Barrington‘s will be here in an hour, right?” she asked coldly.

Bitch.

“Yeah I know. You do know Mark and I have broken up, right?” I countered, trying to mimic her hard tone but failing miserably.

She waved her hand dismissively. “You two will get back together,” she said, rolling her eyes.

I didn’t say anything, let her think what she wanted. Tonight was going to be extremely awkward, Mark always did know how to twist me around his finger and get me to do what he wanted, I just prayed I was strong enough to say no this time.