Broken Ever After (12 page)

“
Dad, this is Mr Matthews, you remember mum mentioned him to you yesterday?”

“
Ahh… Yes, of course. It’s a pleasure to meet you again Mr Matthews.” Dad nodded towards Jamie.

“
Jamie, Please.”

“
How is your mother this morning?” I asked Jamie, mentally crossing my fingers that this would work.

“
She’s well, she’s headed for an early treatment before we leave; I was just heading for breakfast if you would both like to join me?” Jamie focused on my dad, giving him time to answer but he didn’t.

“
That would be nice, wouldn’t it dad?” I looked up at my dad hopefully.

“
Oh, yes. Very well then. Thank you.” Dad and I walked down the stairs with me desperately trying to pull my arm free, but he wouldn’t let go. I wondered if he could feel the electricity that I could feel coursing through me with being so close to Jamie.

“
Will your mother be joining us?” Jamie asked as we approached the restaurant. I laughed and explained that she was feeling a little worse for wear and that it was just us.

We were seated in the dining room
and dad made sure he sat beside me rather than Jamie, who sat across from me; I slipped my shoes off so that I could run my feet over his ankles under the table. “Suzie mentioned you were helping Olivia with her maths yesterday?” Dad said before taking a sip of his black coffee. I looked down at my orange juice and smiled to myself.

Monday morning I was woken by an overzealous knocking on my front door; I’d had a shower and straightened my hair the night before so I could afford an extra hour in bed so I didn’t appreciate being disturbed fifteen minutes before my alarm was due to go off. Mum and dad were on an early shift after having their weekend off so I had no choice but to grab my robe, sigh my way down the stairs and greet a grumpy delivery guy who looked equally as pissed off at having to deliver a package at this time in the morning.

“
Miss Stevens?” He enquired.

“
Yes?”

“
Olivia Stevens?” He raised an eyebrow at me and I nodded my head at him; he handed me a large flat box that looked just a big pizza box, only a little deeper and asked me to sign for it. I looked at him confused, I hadn’t ordered anything online recently and it was definitely my name he’d read from the sheet.

“
Umm… Thanks” I said as I gazed at my name written on the box with no address. I peered underneath it to look for a return label but there wasn’t one, I shook it slightly and was greeted by a rustling noise.

Intrigue took over
me and I ran to the kitchen to place it on the counter. I grabbed a sharp knife from the block and sliced the tape that held the edges sealed and stared a little more at my name. I lifted the flap at the front to open it and held my breath as I lifted the lid. My breath flew out of my lungs as I made a noise half between a yelp and a gasp; my hand flew up to hold my lips closed as I took in my parcel’s contents.

A skewed bed of red rose petals lay in the box
, with a single red rose and I inhaled deeply taking in the beautiful scent that wafted towards me. I picked it up to shake them all flat and a white envelope caught my eye amongst the petals. I took a ragged, deep breath and held it for what seemed like forever as I picked up the envelope.

On the front was my name written in beautiful calligraphy that I instantly recognised as Jamie
’s handwriting. I flipped it over to open it, to see that it was sealed with an ‘X’. I smiled to myself as I lifted the flap and pulled out a folded piece of white card filled with more of the beautiful sweeping letters. A lump formed in my throat as I swept my eyes over the words.

‘
For my beautiful girlfriend,

Thank you for the most perfect weekend.

I miss you and can’t wait to see you later.

-
JM xxx’

I sighed dreamily as I read over the card again and again. I couldn
’t help the stupid smile that was plastered on my lips as I grabbed the box and bounded up the stairs two at a time. I grabbed my phone from the nightstand and immediately called Jamie.

“
Good morning.” He answered the phone and I could hear the smile in his voice.

“
I love them! Oh my God, I love them! I love them! I love them!” I repeated excitedly as I picked up a petal feeling its velvet softness between my thumb and index finger. He laughed quietly.

“
I love them too, I’m glad you liked them, it took me ages!”

“
You did all of this?” I gestured with my hand over the box even though he couldn’t see what I was doing.

“
Of course. It took me about an hour this morning to do them all.”

“
An hour?
Are you crazy
?”

“
About you, yes.” I had to suppress an ‘awww’ as I smiled goofily to myself.

“
How many roses did you destroy to do this?” I laughed as I picked up the single rose, bringing it up to my nose to inhale the wonderful scent.

“
Fifty.”

“
Fifty? God you
must
be crazy!”

“
I told you, about
you
.”

After ending the call to Jamie I rushed to get ready
; I couldn’t shake the stupid, big grin from my face. Sticking my hair up into a pony-tail, I snipped most of the stem from my rose and tucked it into the side of my gathered hair.

I stalled in the hallway to pause in front of the big mirror while I called Lily. I straightened out my black skirt
, white shirt and black cardigan that distinguished us sixth formers from the high-school kids who wore grey and checked that my rose was still neatly tucked into my hair. I told Lily that I was awake early and too fidgety to wait so I’d be in the music hall before school started; I knew my exam piece inside out but it couldn’t hurt to practice more.

The early morning sunshine
was warm on my face, escalating the happy feeling inside of me. I was thinking about my time with Jamie at the weekend; how perfect sleeping in his arms had been. I sighed happily to myself when my headphones were ripped from my ears making me jump and spin around. Lucas stood two inches from me with a smirk on his face that I wanted to slap clean off. His dark eyes contrasted with his dirty blonde hair, as his gaze raked over me. Despite the sunshine, my happy feeling was gone.

“
What are you doing, Lucas?” I snapped at him and took a step backwards. He followed as he took a step forward.

“
I’m walking to school. Just like you.” His tone was clipped and showed no signs of humour, or even friendliness in the slightest.

“
On you go then.” I gestured in front of me so that he could walk ahead; I could afford to walk slower to avoid him. Luke shook his head and held out his hand gesturing for me to go first instead. “Can you just go?” I snapped at him again.

“
I’d much rather walk behind you.” He smirked at me as he glanced down at my skirt. I nervously ran my hands over it making sure it was down properly, causing Luke to laugh loudly.

“
Is there something you want Lucas?”

“
Besides you? No.” I sighed dramatically, rolling my eyes; there was no getting rid of him, so I turned back and carried on my walk to school. Lucas kept trying to hold my hand which I had to keep pulling away from him, eventually hugging myself to keep my hands out of his reach; I could feel his fingers lifting the ends of my ponytail and cringed as I pulled it around over my shoulder away from him. “I want you back, babe. Come on.”

He pulled my arm roughly away from my body
, pulling me back towards him. I caught him off guard as I brought my hands up to his chest to shove him away, watching as he stumbled backwards looking angry as Hell.

“Piss off, Luke!”
I yelled at him. I turned to stomp away again but he grabbed hold of me once more, pushing me against a wall. It hurt. A lot.

“
I just want another chance, babe. Come on, just one.” I shook my head at him, furious. I brought my hands up to his chest to shove him away again but he was too strong.

“
You think I’d give you a chance now? No, just leave me alone!”

“
You heard her, let her go.” A strained voice from behind Luke called.

“
You have got to be fucking kidding me.” Luke let go of me and I immediately skipped around him towards whoever had saved me from him. Jamie stood a few steps from his car, parked awkwardly over the kerb.

“
Olivia? Are you ok?” Jamie said as my eyes connected with his. I nodded and went to stand slightly behind him. “Go and sit in the car, I’ll take you the rest of the way.” I looked up at him biting my lip as I stopped myself from jumping into his arms and kissing him; I walked around to the passenger side and climbed in.

I could see that Jamie looked tense from behind but I couldn
’t hear what he was saying. Luke looked pissed off too and he was yelling so loud I was sure people in the next town could hear, saying that he just wanted to walk me to school.

Jamie said one last thing to him before turning and heading back to the car. He sat and glared at Luke as he gathered himself and carried on walking to school. He threw the car into gear and darted for school
, not saying a word the whole way there. He angrily flew through the gear box going faster than the speed limit dictated, weaving through the early morning traffic. His jaw was clenched tightly and his knuckles were white, he was gripping the steering wheel so tightly.

Parking
in his usual spot in the car park he jumped out grabbing his bag from the back seat and came to open my door for me. I stepped out and looked up at him to see he wasn’t looking at me; he hadn’t looked at me since our eyes met when he first spoke to me.

He nodded with his head towards our building
, taking off with his long strides. He bounded up the stairs two at a time and I followed, jogging a little behind him to keep up. Jamie shoved his key in his locked door and held it open for me, locking it behind us. I placed my bag on the table by the door and turned to face Jamie. He was leaning his head against the door with his fists bunched up against the wood supporting his weight.

“
Jamie? Are yo-” My words were cut off as he whirled around to face me, pulling me in for a desperate kiss, I tried to pull away to breathe for a second but he kept pulling me closer to his lips. He slowed down after a minute, placing delicate, soft kisses over my now swollen, tingling lips; breathing hard and rested his forehead against mine.

“
Are you ok?”

“
I- I’m f- fine” I managed to get out.

“
God, I saw him… I saw him grabbing hold of you and I almost lost it! Are you sure you’re ok?” He asked before kissing me desperately again.

“
I’m fine, I promise. He freaked me out a little, but I’m ok.”

“
Good. I was so worried about you. I wanted to hold you and kiss you and tell you that you were safe but I couldn’t. I couldn’t say or do anything because I knew I couldn’t stop.” He kissed me again deeply, pulling my body against his. I could feel how relieved he was that I was ok, that ‘relief’ was pressed up against my stomach as he pulled me closer to him. “Promise me that you’re ok?”

“
I promise.” He wound his fingers into my hair pulling me in again but I stopped him.

“
Hey! Watch my rose!” I said as I lifted my hands to my hair to check it was still in place. I turned to the side to show him. “Does it look ok?” I smiled shyly at him.

“
It looks beautiful, just like you.” He softly pressed his lips to mine once more. “We need to go and talk to Mr Wright.” He looked down at the bulge in his trousers and sighed. “
Fuck!
” I giggled and turned away blushing. “This is so
not
funny!” He scowled at me before breaking into his heart shattering smile. He shook his head and turned away from me to rearrange his trousers; he took a few deep, calming breaths and turned back to face me. I inadvertently looked down his body to his groin and snapped my eyes away when I heard him chuckle. I flushed crimson as he quietly said “Oh God” He cleared his throat and came to stand in front of me again, placing a gently kiss on my lips. “We should go and talk to Mr Wright before I’m tempted to drag you back to my car and we both skip school today.” I took a deep breath and nodded my head at him as I picked up my bag.

Arriving at Mr Wright
’s office, I was suddenly filled with nerves about how we were going to handle things. I began nervously chewing on the pads of my thumb as we stepped closer to his door.

“
Don’t worry; I’ll do all of the talking.” I could only nod at Jamie as I glanced up at him, quickly averting my eyes back down to the floor; I hid behind him as Mr Wright opened his door.

“
Jamie. What can I do for you?”

“
We have a problem.”

“
We do?” Jamie looked around and stepped aside so that Mr Wright could see me hiding behind him. I kept one arm crossed over my chest, holding on to the crook of my other elbow, as I carried on biting my thumb.

“
Olivia? Are you ok?” I kept my eyes down and away from both of them, afraid that if I looked at Jamie, Mr Wright would know that not five minutes ago I had my lips pressed up against Jamie’s as he held me tight to his chest. I shook my head to tell him that I wasn’t ok. “Come on in.” He stood back and held the door open for us, Jamie led me in with his hand purposely high, between my shoulder blades. “What’s the problem?” Mr Wright asked as he closed the door and took his seat at his desk.

“
Lucas Fletcher.” I shifted nervously in my seat when Jamie said his name, folding my arms tightly over my chest again.

“
Oh?”

“
On my drive in this morning I saw that Lucas had accosted Olivia in the street. He had hold of her against a wall, she looked to be trying to get away from him so I stopped. I told him that I would be reporting his behaviour to you and he threatened me with physical violence.” My mouth fell open as I looked at Jamie. Luke threatened him? “He told me he’d find me after school and beat me to a pulp, with a few more choice words than that.”

“
I see; Olivia can you start at the beginning?” I relayed what had happened with tears brimming my eyes at how scary Luke had looked. Or perhaps it was the prospect of getting caught. I went through how he kept trying to get a hold of my hand, asking me out, telling me how he ‘wanted me’. Jamie had his fists clenched tight in his lap while keeping his face impassive to my words. I could tell from his deep breaths that he felt anything but that.