Fighting to Be Free (Fighting to Be Free 1)

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.