A Dark and Stormy Night

*Ok, here's the second chapter. I know it's a bit short, but it has to be like this to make an effective jump into the next chapter. Anyways, hope you enjoy.*

“You can’t be serious. We’re locked in here?” Katlyn asked as she rattled the knob a couple of times in a vain attempt to force it open.

James sighed. Was she deaf or just plain in denial? Wincing from the pain of his injured chest, he slowly pulled himself up from the bench. He wanted so badly to clutch where it was hurting, but he didn’t dare show any sign of weakness in front of her. He took a few half hearted steps towards her. “Yes. Like I told you before, the door’s locked.”

“Then unlock it.”

James frowned. “I can’t.” he said in a low voice. “It has a special lock, you need the key to open it.”
Katlyn stared at him with a sort of unwanted belief in her eyes. “And you don’t have the key, do you?”
James chuckled softly and shook his head. He could have told her why he didn’t, but he wasn’t in the mood to advertise his recent ass kicking. “If it was that easy, you think I’d still be in here bullshitting with you?” He emphasized the last word, making it plain as day what he thought of being locked inside the building with her.

Katlyn’s face turned a pinkish shade, and she dropped her bag at her side. “What,” she said, her face tightening, “is wrong with you? Why are you being so nasty to me? What did I ever do to you?”
James could have just spat it out right then and there. He could have told her he had his heart shattered into a million pieces two weeks ago, and that he had just gotten his ass kicked by the guy his former girlfriend had dumped him for. It might have gotten some sympathy from her. But sympathy was something he didn’t want. In fact, he didn’t want to feel anything except the throbbing in his face and chest, they hurt a whole lot less that the emotional hell he had been struggling through for two weeks. James opened his mouth like he was going to say something bad about her. He caught himself just before words he would regret later slipped from his mouth. He dropped his head so that he was staring at the floor instead of her. “Forget it.” he muttered, sulking off to the coach’s room.

It wasn’t a great room, but at least he’d have a nice chair to sit in. Not a thought about what Katlyn would do crossed his mind. As far as he was concerned, he didn’t want to have anything to do with her. Her quickness to get angry at him was proof to him that all women were bitches. It wasn’t until he had walked into the room and slammed the door behind him that James started to figure that her anger might have actually been a product of his obvious distaste of being around her. As he dragged himself across the room, James thought about it more and more. When he finally flopped himself down on the chair, his anger flared even hotter than it had been before. But it wasn’t at Katlyn, it was at himself.

She really hadn’t done anything to him, so she had been very right about that. He didn’t even know her, which was also true. She had just had the rotten luck of running into him when he was at lowest view he had of women in his entire life. She wouldn’t even be stuck in the same situation as he was if he hadn’t bumped into her earlier. Folding his arms across the large wooden table, James planted his face in his arms and stewed in his agony. No matter how much he didn’t want to think of Clarissa, her face was pushing its way into the front of his mind. He replayed the events just a few hours ago around halftime. More specifically, Clarissa’s face. She had been giving Marcus the same kind of doe eyed smile that had been only for him. James clenched his eyes shut and pounded his fists into the wooden surface. Six months, he thought through gritted teeth. He and Clarissa had been together for just over six months. Maybe that hadn’t been very long to most people. But it had been long enough for him to offer all of his heart and soul to her, and have them sliced in half. James tried to stop himself from crying, but the pain was swelling over his natural barriers to hold it back. She had been his first love dammit! His first kiss! Hadn’t that meant anything to her? Apparently not as much as it had meant for him. James retreated into his misery, and hoped that the night would just fly by. Most of all, he hope that he would just be left alone. That was, after all, what he seemed destined to be. Alone. After so many rejections, so many times being brushed aside or not even noticed at all, he had hoped that Clarissa would be the one. She had been the only one that ever accepted his feeble attempts at getting a date. And she had actually been somewhat interested in him. She had actually let him kiss her on their third date, and had enjoyed it. She should have been the one. Now that it was all gone, James found himself seriously wondering if such a thing as a soul mate even existed. Or if there was such a twisted thing called fate.

When he heard the faint rattling of the door’s knob, James felt his face flush with intense heat. As he listened to the door creaking open, he wished so badly that he could have been able to pick the table up and throw it through the wall. Taking a few deep breaths to get a hold of himself, he did his best to hide the sadness he was going through. “What do you want?” he asked from under his arms, his voice very loud and aggressive.

“You don’t have a cell phone, do you?” he heard Katlyn’s voice whisper to him.

“It’s in my car.” he grumbled. “Yours?”

“It’s in my car too.” she said.

“Terrific foresight we have.” James grumbled. “Don’t we?”
Katlyn was silent for a few moments. James really hoped that she would just go away. When she didn’t, he wanted to scream. Didn’t she see that he just wanted to be left alone? Was that asking too much? James was really starting to wish that he had been locked in the building by himself.

“So,” Katlyn asked. “How long will we be in here?”

“I don’t know.” James answered. “Probably till about ten tomorrow morning.”

“But,” he heard Katlyn gasp, “that’s over twelve hours from now.”
Not even looking up, James glanced at his watch. Five after nine. It was going to be a long, long night. The near pouting tone of Katlyn’s voice was just too much for him. He looked up at her with his moist, bloodshot eyes.

“Well then, I suggest you get a damn hobby. Because I don’t feel like talking to you.” he snapped, emphasizing ‘you’ again.

He really did expect Katlyn to get mad and scream at him or something. That would have been perfect, it would have given him all the excuse he needed to write her off as another problem. Katlyn did exactly the opposite. A very hurt expression washed over her face, and it left James without any good reason to get mad. In fact, it made him feel a little bit bad. She didn’t say anything to him. Instead, she threw something that was in her hands at him. James jerked upright as it struck the table and slide to a halt at the edge right in front of him. He starred down at it for a few unblinking moments before realizing that it was a towel with something inside.

“What the hell is this?” he growled, unfolding the towel. When he saw that there were two bags of ice inside, he froze. A chill ran up his spine with the realization. His breath drained from him in a crushing emotional way. Slowly, he forced himself to look up at Katlyn.

She stood tall in the door’s entrance, even though she was shorter than him. The look on her face would have been perfect for an image of a pissed off banshee. She locked her eyes on his with a defiant kind of determination that James had not seen in a girl like her before.

“W…why?” he weakly asked, feeling his voice die inside his throat.

“Because I’m a nice person!” Katlyn snapped. The sudden fire in her voice made him sink a little further into the chair. Katlyn pointed an accusing finger at him. “And I don’t treat people like they’re slime just because I’m upset.”

James stuttered to say something. The sudden ferocity was not something he had been ready for. Katlyn, apparently, wasn’t in the mood to listen to anything he might have to say.

“Go ahead and stay in here all night by yourself. Sit there and cry, you certainly deserve it. See what I care!” She slammed the door shut with such tremendous force that the frames on the wall rattled.

James didn’t move an inch for well over a minute. What could he do? After all, he had just gotten what he wanted. To be alone. Staring down at the bags of ice, his wish didn’t feel nearly as sweet as he had first thought it would be. “Dammit,” he muttered, picking up one of the bags, “why did she have to do that?”
As he placed it over his throbbing face, James found himself feeling something else other than the agony of losing his girlfriend and being beaten up. Guilt. He wondered how in the hell he was ever going to get through the night.

**

Katlyn snatched up her bag from its place at the front door and carried it into a back corner of the large locker room. Once there, she opened it and pulled out a small black case. Sighing, she sat down on one of the benches. Screw it if it was uncomfortable on her butt. That idiot could have the nice chair in the nice room. He wanted to be alone, she’d happily give it to him. Her cheeks burned with her growing foul mood, she very rarely got that angry. Katlyn had saw how he was hurt, and had quickly figured out why he didn’t have any keys to get out. Like the considerate person her parents had taught her to be, she went and got some leftover ice at the bottom of one of the coolers to give to him. Katlyn also thought that it because he had been beaten up that he was acting so mean to her. She was sure it was. Until that was, when she had been about to open the door to give him the ice. She had heard him crying. She had never heard a boy her age crying. It had made her feel, well, sad for him. She didn’t know what, but something had hurt him very bad, and it wasn’t just being beat up.

That was why she had been so hurt when he snapped at her. All she wanted to do was see if maybe he wanted someone to talk to, but he had made it clear that he didn’t want anything to do with her. He hadn’t called her a fat cow or anything, but what he had said had been almost as bad. She looked down at the still visible brown stain on the lower left sleeve of her marching uniform. It was doubtful she would ever be able to wash it out. “Stupid jerk.” Katlyn mumbled, blinking away a few forming tears, weakly kicking over her marching hat. “I was only trying to help.”