I’ve Got My Mind Made Up || Self Para
It had been three days.
Three excruciatingly long days. The hours of each day dragged with purpose. A purpose of driving the brunette absolutely mad. Each class she attended and extra circular activity she participated in did nothing to prevent the tick of the clock from lasting sixty times its usual amount.
The extended time reality she experienced would have been acceptable—bearable, even—if that were the only plight she was plagued by. But that most certainly was not the case.
For every lengthened minute, she spent her time thinking about none other than Peter Bagley.
Initially, she found her train of thought to be understandable. After all, he had broken into her bedroom, snatched her off on a night adventure, and got her tipsy before kissing her without permission.
Those were the sort of things a person didn’t just shrug off the moment they happened.
So she allowed the first few hours she had returned to her room to be spent staring at the shadows on the wall opposite her window. Being mindful and attentive, so that she would not be taken so desperately aback again as she had earlier that night.
It was also logical, she posited, that the sensation of his lips on her own was to be expected for the rest of the evening. But when she awoke to the same tingling sensation the next day stronger than the evening before, she was unable to validate why it was that the man-child had left any permanence on her physically or otherwise.
She was back in her dormitory at school, meaning that she didn’t have to endure the glares of her brothers anymore. That didn’t stop her from their protests reverberating through her thoughts with Peter’s various comments entwined with them. At times, she would swat the air in front of her as if it would allow what she was thinking to go away. To vanish into thin air like a thick sort of smoke.
But that only served to remind her on the constant cigarette Peter seemed to have in hand within their limited encounters.
And the way he spoke to her. That was yet another diatribe that existed on an on-going basis throughout her thoughts.
Perhaps he had a right to be rude under the pretense that she did take away potentially valuable members from his band of miscreants, but it didn’t add up as to why he was almost kind to her at times. He had offered her a position within the gang if she so wanted it, after all.
But she had declined. She had explained herself—that the sort of life he led was not for her. Somehow, all her disclosures did nothing to stop Peter Bagley, and now he had won a place in her every thought. He had won this battle.
She wasn’t sure if she had a choice in backing out now. This had to be a war, didn’t it? He knew where she lived. He had already threatened never to see her ever again the first time she walked away, and that resulted with him scaling the walls of her parents’ house to get into her room. He wasn’t a simple bloke she would write off and expect it to end well.
The first day carried on just like this.
The second day, she swore she felt his breath on the back of her neck at every passing moment she spent in her seat. She’d turn around frantically only to find a student giving her a weird look for appearing so paranoid.
Maybe he died within the last day. Maybe this was his ghost haunting her; she thought with part hope, and part fear. It would explain the phantom hands she felt on her waist and the inching of his persistent fingers on her legs all throughout her lunch hour. Her eyes would drift shut from time to time, allowing her imagination to fill in the gaps reality left her with.
By the end of the second day, she reluctantly accepted how affected she was by him, and fell asleep to dreams of suggestions he had made to her two nights before.
On the third day, Manny decided his pull over her was that he had gotten the upper hand. That the only way to remedy this was to take it back. She was determined that there was nothing really appealing about him. He was like any other boy her age—she just had to be the one to assert a bit of dominance and his behavior would be so childish, that it would loosen all power he had over her.
As she strolled past one of the main building at her school, a tall blonde flagged her down, waving her arm overhead until she finally came into view for Manny.
“There you are! I thought you’d gone AWOL,” the other female exclaimed.
Manny smiled, happy to have a reason to be brought back to the reality of her life.
“That’s a pretty wild guess, Elsie.” Her friend crossed her arms over her chest and shifted her weight to her right leg.
“Is it really? You usually phone every night unless we’ve been out earlier in the day.”
Manny gave her a look before she responded, “Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t know you were my mum.”
“Don’t be that way,” the blonde chided before throwing her arm over Manny’s shoulders with ease. “Just worried about you is all. Anything troubling you?” she asked, despite knowing the answer already.
After thirty or so paces, Manny finally worked up the nerve to reply. “A bit, yeah.”
Elsie stopped, removed her arm from her friend, and turned to face her. “You look like shite, and now you’re not answering in full sentences. “
Manny looked down, kicking the grass beneath her feet. “…It’s just…this guy.”
“A guy!?” Elsie shrieked.
Manny gentled pushed Elsie on the shoulder to make her take a few steps back. “Don’t act so surprised. And it’s not what you think.”
“Well, I don’t know much of what to think. Since you’ve seemed to forget to mention it to me.”
“Sorry,” Manny said while avoiding eye contact.
“ ‘S fine. Want to talk about it?”
“He’s awful, really.”
Elsie quirked a brow at her. “Does he have a name? What makes him so bad?”
Manny was aware of her friend’s tendency to play the devil’s advocate, but she wished Elsie would believe her without explanation.
“Don’t think you know him. He’s…not a very good person. Does not make a respectable living.”
Elsie stared blankly at Manny. “Very enlightening.”
“He’s awful, and he made me follow him one night. And he kissed me,” each statement sounded like a separate train of thought and Manny realized she probably wasn’t making much sense.”
“Did you kiss him back?”
“No!”
Elsie threw her hands up to defend herself. “Slow down there. So you didn’t kiss him back, then.” She pondered for a few seconds, letting a small humming sound out. “Did you like it?”
“No. I don’t think so. It wasn’t expected, but it’s not easy to forget that sort of thing and well, you know. I’m not like that usually. Not the one to go off snogging any random stranger…” she rambled.
The blonde slowly nodded her head. “Right. Well, my only real suggestion is to find him and confront him and kiss him on your terms. If he’s bad at it, you can stop thinking about it. Easy peasy. If he’s good at it…well…there could be worse things.”
Manny gaped at her suggestion. “Kiss him?! I was just going to talk to him.”
“And what?” Elsie laughed, “Assume your words are going to make this disrespectful git respect you by giving him a firm talking to? Unlikely.”
“You’re sure, then…”Manny started, hesitant but slowly beginning to accept Elsie’s suggestion, “That this won’t backfire?”
“Oh goodness, no. But, for what it’s worth, you might actually sleep easier tonight and get those dreadful circles to go away under your eyes.”
They had stood for several beats before Manny shrugged. “If this goes wrong, I am going to blame you.”
“When don’t you?” Manny and Elsie laughed, before setting off on their path once more.
Manny did some scouting out of abandoned warehouses, figuring it was the best place to lure him out, and sided on a structurally sound location. When she was home, she scrawled out the address of the warehouse and a specific time that night on a piece of paper before ripping it off. She went to Trevor, knowing she had some sway with him, and asked him to deliver the paper to one of Peter’s followers. She specifically noted that if he were to look at the paper, she would make sure their parents knew about his previous excursions into the land of being a delinquent.
She knew it was a bit of a long-shot, but if she wasn’t able to take back some control, she knew she was as good as ruined.
