602Skinny Dipping with Grove Murray
By: Hitanner85
The day Ella met the boy with all the piercing's, her world turned candy colored. This feeling was nothing of the romantic nature; what it had to do with was being knocked so hard on the ground her vision turned blurry and sweet and all she could feel for three straight minutes was some sort of euphoria. She felt the hands on her shoulders, hoisting her back into the real world and for the next few moments her head felt as if it were split open and her brains were bouncing around in her head, threatening to spill out on the ground beneath her feet. She heard her name a eight or nine times before she realized who and where she was. She turned toward her best friend Grace.
"What the hell happened?" Ella mumbled, holding her damaged head between her hands.
"You walked right into that boys fist." She pointed toward the two boys now wrestling on the ground. They were oblivious to her injury or maybe they didn't care. She squinted to make out the faces in the blur of human body parts flying back and forth. They hit the lockers, slam, they hit the water fountain nearly ripping it from the wall, slam, then the boy with the lip rings and the eyebrow piercing kicked the boy with the tattoo of the viper in the stomach. The fight was over, tattoo's didn't get off the ground for a while. In the meantime, piercing's spit on the injured party, blood mixing with saliva. "Cunt." Piercing's growled. He wiped his mouth free of spit and began his walk down the hall. Everyone turned to watch.
"What happened?" Ella repeated her earlier question, this time referring to the source of the fight.
"Well from what I heard before. . ." She grinned. "Tattoo boy was looking at Piercing guy's sister the wrong way and when he told him to stop. . . he didn't want to." She loved a good piece of gossip, no matter how small, and how insignificant it was to her life. She adored it.
"And that's why they fight like that?" She was astounded. "That's retarded."
"It's just how things are." Grace didn't care. She was relieved Ella wasn't dead on the ground.
Ella began walking toward the parking lot. She was tired of staring at the tiny spots of blood that littered the usually busy highschool hall. She rolled her eyes, walking past tattoo and his friends. He was standing tall, with cherry red hair and big brown eyes. He was talking to some girl who was babying him to no end. That must've been the sister from the story. Funny, she didn't appear to be fight over material. In fact she seemed very happy to be with Tattoo.
"So we going to get ice cream?" Grace asked, digging through her messenger bag and producing a makeup tote. Ella nodded while continuing to walk toward her car. It was beautiful, shiny and black and it was the one thing she felt really proud of. No matter what, she could go wherever she wanted, all with that car. She unlocked it, and just as she was about to get in, she saw him.
"What are you doing?" Grace asked. She watched her friend move suddenly toward the pierced stranger. She looked panicked for a moment but then realized Ella would do what she wanted either way and slipped in the car. She applied more lip gloss.
"Hey." Ella called toward the boy. He was sitting on the hood of a busted old black truck.
"Hey." He said, looking up only for a moment before returning his gaze at his hand.
"You hit me." She stated firmly.
"No I didn't." He looked up once again. She realized he was tending to a mess of split knuckles.
"Yes, yes you did. And I have the headache to prove it." She crossed her arms.
"No I didn't. I don't hit girls." He shook his head and began to wrap his hand once more.
Suddenly with a surge of confidence Ella walked forward and took the tape from his hands. "What the. . . " He started but never finished. Ella shot him a warning look, clearly annoyed and somewhat intimidating even for her timid height. He waited patiently while she began to wrap his knuckles, taking into account the lacerations on his upper fingers and wrist.
"You hit me, maybe not on purpose, but you did hit me." She mumbled.
"I'm sorry." He whispered.. He did sound sorry. After she was finished he examined her work.
"You act like you've done this before." He seemed intrigued. "Not even too tight."
"Yeah my dad used to box." She shrugged, tossing him the tape.
"Really?" He was impressed.
"Yeah, not anymore though. That was a long time ago." She sighed.
For the next few minutes they watched each other carefully. Piercing's was still holding his hands and seemed perfectly content with being still for a moment. He looked tired, a slash along his non pierced eyebrow gave him that rugged look, the messy black hair did nothing to go against that.
"Well I'm going." Ella turned to walk away.
"Why are you here?" He asked. Had he forgotten. She shot him an incredulous look.
"I wanted an apology or at least some sort of admittance. You said sorry."
"Yep." He jumped off his truck, a rush of oil and cologne scent flew at her nose.
"So bye." She again turned to move away.
"Where'd I hit you?" He asked.
Ella's eyes widened before she realized he actually seemed curious. She shrugged, glancing back at Grace who was making rapid hand gestures with her arms. She smiled slightly at her extravagant friend.
"No really, where did I hit you?" He asked again. Her gaze shot back toward the boy. He was digging in his truck, through small mounds of plastic cups and empty beer bottles. She heard him click something then he emerged with a new t-shirt.
"Oh just around here." Ella replied pointing to a area near the back of her head.
"Come here." He said. She refused to move.
Piercing's took off his shirt and slipped on another. This one was free blood stains but did appear to have a cigarette burn near the hem. He glanced back up, grinning slightly at her dazed expression. She was attracted but was writing the drawing affect he had on her as confusion.
With three short steps he was in front of her, examining the bruised area with calloused fingers.
"I'm so sorry. I don't hit girls." He said. The warmth of his breath hit her ear. "I really am sorry. You're actually the first female I ever hit, even on accident." He continued to let his breath warm her upper back. She shivered.
"It's not a big deal. I'm fine." She was going to move away but felt something foreign press against her neck. The softness of his lips along with the cool glide of his lip rings produced an abrupt result. The bruises were forgotten and were replaced with a tingly hot feeling along her whole body. She was dizzy. A swirl of delirium twisted around her head. His lips parted and the tip of his tongue grazed her battle wound. As much as she would've loved to let that tingly sensation travel around her body she couldn't on good conscious. She moved away.
"What the fuck?" She touched the now moist bruise with her hand and stared at him condemning him with bright blue eyes.
"I don't even know you, you can't touch all over strangers, ass hole."
She did feel a little guilty. She had let him go that far and now she was expressing anger. It made no sense but then again, neither did he.
"It was an innocent kiss." He remained calm.
"Whatever." She rolled her eyes, moving a step back, to ensure safety.
"I'm sorry. It's usually what people do when they get hurt." He grinned. She knew the kiss wasn't innocent, tongue was never innocent. She couldn't argue though, she wanted to do it again. That jarred her into a small shock. She refused to admit it, even to herself.
"Yeah it's fine." She waved him off. For a moment she knew she should reprehend him further on his recent actions, not the hit but the sparkly silver feeling kiss he had placed on her neck. She shivered just thinking about it.
"I mean, just say the word and I'll never touch you again." He was suddenly much closer.
Both their eyes flew toward Ella's shiny black car. Someone was pressing the horn with full intent to break up some sort of anything going on between the two. Grace then emerged from the vehicle, waving her arm, telling Ella to get her ass back to the car before she dragged her.
"I gotta go." Ella suddenly turned back into Ella and rolled her eyes at her reactions as of late.
"Are you sure?" He asked.
"Yeah, I have places to be." She sneered.
"Leave me if you must." He faux pouted.
She turned to go, making sure to put as much space between them as possible. She didn't trust herself around this boy.
"What's your name baby?" He called from the junker he called his truck.
"Ella." She replied. She reprehended herself for being so obedient. She hadn't planned on giving her name but it had slipped out. He had some sort of power over her. Stupidity reigned free.
"I'm Grove."
"I didn't ask." She called back. She felt as if she was being herself again and smiled inwardly.
"Why not?"
"I guess I don't care." She gave him her best bitchy smile the kind of smile you toss at your enemy just to show them that they haven't got to you and you're still a little bit smarter than them.
Grove replied with a soft laugh and shrugged his shoulders. He knew she cared, and that made her blush. She turned away before he could see and ran back to Grace.
"What the hell was that?" Grace turned to look at Grove through the rear window.
"Nothing, just another boy that's full of himself." Ella smiled smugly. She could pretend.
"I could've sworn he was sucking on your neck." Grace stared hard.
"He was just trying to get to me."
"Seems like he did." She grinned.
Ella rolled her eyes, her cheeks once again burning from the thought of something more.