Chapter 2 - Chapter Two

Her parents had made the biggest fuss over her when Jet was there and had thanked him profusely for saving her life and had also told him that they wouldn’t know what to do with him. Jet smiled, embarrassed.

After Jet left, they told her off like there was no tomorrow and threatened to break her other leg if she ever went out alone again. She was grounded. And she had to use crutches. Luck was not on her side.

The next day, Tia had her sunglasses on as usual. She was extremely grateful that they didn’t get lost when she fell down the well. She limped with her crutches to a nice position under a tree and leant against its trunk and was reading under the shade when someone scared the living shoot out of her.

“Hello, Tiana Green,” Jet said, grinning and having seemingly appeared out of nowhere.

Tia yelped and had almost slipped and fell, but Jet caught her.

“How do you know my full name?” she demanded after she regained her balance.

He shrugged. “I looked it up on the school register. Took me a while, but I found it in the end.”

“Goodie for you,” she muttered. “But please don’t call me Tiana. Tia is fine.”

“What’s wrong with the name Tiana? I like it.”

“Yeah well, you would,” she muttered under her breath.

“What did you say?”

“Um, nothing.”

He looked at her suspiciously but left it alone. “So how’re you feeling?”

“Better. My leg still hurts quite a bit. You were right: it is broken.”

He grinned. “I knew it. It looked exactly like my leg when I crashed into a lamppost while riding my bike.”

“Crashing into a lamppost while riding your bike won’t make you break your leg.”

“Not if you break the lamppost.”

“Ah, I see. In that case, I’m surprised that you only broke your leg.”

“I was lucky, I guess.”

Tia snorted. “Lucky enough to break your leg when you crashed into a lamppost while riding a bike?”

He laughed. “I was ten at the time, cut me some slack.” His face darkened suddenly, his bright blue eyes burning brightly.

“What’s the matter?” she asked him.

He looked at her. “Nothing,” he assured her. “Wait here, okay? I have…something to do. I’ll be back in a sec.”

She looked doubtingly at him. “Okay.”

He walked away, and Tia was about to look away when she saw him stride up to Sherman, his face angry and determined.

“Oh, crap,” she muttered.

Jet was talking to Sherman now, his voice low enough so nobody else would hear him. Sherman looked surprised, but after a while started talking back. Jet took care of that soon enough. When Jet was finally finished, Sherman was pale with fear.

“Hey,” Jet greeted her as he walked back towards her. “I’m back.”

“Didn’t I tell you not to do anything?” she asked him, frustrated.

“No, you said you weren’t going to do anything, so I decided to take matters into my own hands.”

“As much as I appreciate the gesture,” Tia said through gritted teeth, “I’d appreciate it even more if next time you didn’t take matters into your own hands.”

“Believe me,” Jet said grimly. “There’s not going to be a next time.”

Just then, Sarah—Tia’s best friend at St. Morgan’s—bounded over. Sarah never walked. She always skipped or bounded. She was a bubbly person. Tia sometimes wondered why she was her best friend.

“Tia,” she called excitedly. “There’s something I want to tell you!” When she saw Jet, her jaw dropped and her eyes bugged out. “Uh, hey Jet,” she stuttered. “What are you doing here?”

Jet smiled at her. “I was talking to Tiana.”

“It’s Tia,” Tia reminded him.

“I like calling you Tiana.”

She liked him calling her Tiana, too. He was the only one who managed to say it without making it sound ridiculous.

She pursed her lips and looked away. “So, Sarah, was there something you wanted to tell me?”

“Uh, yeah. Carrie and I were wondering whether you would like a surprise birthday party.”

Ah, lovely, bubbly, airhead Sarah. “Uh, Sarah,” Tia said gently, “if you asked me whether I would like a surprise birthday party, then when you do eventually have a surprise birthday party, it wouldn’t be so…surprising anymore.”

Sarah looked upset for a moment, but she perked up again. “Well, now since that you know about the party, what theme would you like? Where do you want to hold it?”

“When is Tiana’s birthday?” Jet asked.

“Two weeks from now,” Sarah said before Tia could stop her.

“And am I invited to this party?” Jet asked Sarah.

Sarah giggled. “I’m sure Tia wouldn’t mind.”

Tia resisted the urge to kill something. “I have to go pee,” she muttered before limping away as quick as she could on her crutches.

In the bathroom, Tia looked at herself in the mirror. She wasn’t fat. Not too skinny, but definitely not fat. She sighed at the sight of her plain dark brown hair. It was straight and limp while other girls had bouncy, curly hair with highlights. Her hair was boring.

Her eyes were just plain frightening. They were so dark they were almost black. One had to look very close and shine a light under her eyes to see that they were actually a dark, dark blue. What was even weirder was that she had a wide silver stripe down her left eye. It streaked across the dark blue iris, disappearing only when the pupil took its place.

It was extremely disconcerting for people to look at her, with her dark blue eyes and the wide silver stripe, hence the need to wear sunglasses. Even Sarah hadn’t seen her without her sunglasses before. She had more than ten pairs of sunglasses at home, and she made sure every pair had dark lenses so that the bright silver streak wouldn’t show through them.

She readjusted her sunglasses before heading out again. Jet was talking to Sarah. He left just before she could join them.

“What was he talking to you about?” Tia asked Sarah, who was staring dreamily after him.

“You,” Sarah said. “He told me what happened. He really cares about you.” She shook her head. “I can’t believe Sherman did that to you.”

“Me neither.”

“I mean, did he actually get Tommy to push you down a well?”

“Uh, yeah.” Not wanting to linger on this subject, Tia quickly made a comment about how Mr. Linkman looked like a frog and they had a nice little giggle over that.

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