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*****
The ADA was fuming, the psychologist and resource officer looked scared. The ADA was ten steps ahead of me and walking quickly. I was running to try to catch up. I usually tried to avoid running, being behind in time it looked funny but I was running now to try and keep up. It still wasn't enough.
The ADA and turned and shoved me. We were in the high school hallway surrounded by my classmates and an officer of the court shoved me. I didn't have time to react. I could do nothing as I started to fly backwards off my feet. I was slow and weak. I didn't have time to think. My head slammed into the locker. I could feel a trickle of blood.
"Simon T. Jones. Are you fucking playing me? I'm the mother fucking Assistant District Attorney. If you hadn't had fucked things up with this bullshit rape I was up to become the DA. Don't just lay there like a retard. I saw your test scores, you're a mother-fucking genius."
It was at that point I realized I should have slowed down or even stopped time as he turned on me. My head hurt, my neck hurt, and my back hurt. I was bullied a lot in school for being slow and different but almost none of it was physical. I had been living time slower than everyone else for a decade and moving through time slower made me weaker and more fragile. I couldn't run as fast or hit as hard. A simple arm grab led to a dislocated shoulder. The high school bullies learned that yelling at me, calling me freak or retard was just as satisfying as hitting me, but couldn't get them into trouble, since the school administrators couldn't be bothered to take the time to listen to me tell them in my slow pace.
The ADA was still raging. "I had you on rape. Half wit brute rapes pretty young thing. It was going to be a banner news story. I had alerted the media there was a rapist running around and we caught him. Then you fucking hadn't done it. I was up shit creek. TV reporters get bitchy when you tease them with a story and don't deliver."
I could barely keep up with what he was saying. He was screaming it so quickly.
"Then it hit me. You were shouting no. It would be almost impossible to get a conviction on a woman raping a man, but with the tape, and you being a fucking potato, I figured I might be able to pull it off. Who knows, I might be able to parlay that into a run for Attorney General. Rights for gimps and retards, guys would love me for turning the rape tables on women, feminist cred for treating women equally, fuck, they would have lined up around the block to suck my fucking dick."
I looked around. Thats when I saw the phones out. This was going to be on YouTube. The school resource officer, Brian, saw as well. Brian wasn't so much a person as a wall that moved his way down the hall. There were stories about a kid a couple years back who punched him in the jaw and ended up with a broken hand. They said he carried two football players away from a brawl at once. He got between me and the ADA. "Look." He said in a voice that was soft and firm. He was looking at a gaggle of girls all of whom had their phones out taping.
The ADA turned on the girls. He started to scream and Brian said more firmly, "We can't take all the phones." That was a tone he used to stop fights. The ADA knew he was beat and stormed out of the building. Brian led me down to the nurses office. The psychologist started to follow and just sort of wandered off.
Ms McAdams was the school nurse. She was tall and in her early mid twenties. She had short blonde hair, cropped close in the back and side and moderate sized tits. One thing that drove all the boys and admittedly some of the girls crazy was that fact that she never wore bra. She always wore turtleneck sweaters so you couldn't actually see her nipples but you could tell by the way they bounced when she moved.
When she saw me walk in she had me grab a seat. She was new at the school and was still adjusting to seeing injured children. "What happened Brian?"
He hesitated. I knew he didn't want to get into the middle of this.
"I fell."
She looked at me and shook her head. "I'm going to need supplies. Help me carry things, Brian." She turned to me, "You, Simon, you stay here."
The two of them walked off and I heard her chewing Brian out quietly. She was demanding that he tell her the truth, that he fill out the paperwork. I heard Brian tell he that he couldn't do that. The argued in hushed tones. I couldn't make out all of it but I knew that she was standing up for me.
Five minutes later they came back. He was carrying a handful of gauze packets, she was carrying a bottle of saline wash and a roll of tape. I was certain she could have carried twice as much by herself, but I said nothing.
She washed my wound and bandaged it. It hurt like hell but I was used to it. She then had me sit down while she started to fill out the paperwork. Brian came over and started to talk to me.
"Family is important you know. When you have no one else and no where else, there is family and home. You need to forgive them. You can't believe the shit I've done that they have forgiven me for."
I looked at him.
"Give it a shot at least."
I spent the rest of the day with the nurse. I sped up time even more. The three hours left of the school day passed in a heartbeat. I smiled when I realized I never had to be patient again.
Mary Jo came by at the end of the day and we took the bus home together. She sat next to me in the seat and held my hand. I could smell her shampoo as she leaned closer. It was something floral and delicious. She took my hand and held it in her lap. "Does it hurt?" she asked.
"Not really" I lied. It hurt like a son of a bitch. It would hurt and bleed for weeks.
"I'm sorry." She said and lowered her head.
"It's not your fault. He pushed me, I fell. You weren't even there."
"Not that, everything. You were on your way to my birthday when it happened."
I realized then she was talking about the accident almost eight year ago. The accident that unstuck me in time. The accident that killed my parents.
"I've had you in my prayers every night. I would always pray that you would get better or that I could take care of you. I guess it was like in
Back to the Future
, where Marty's mom fell in love with him because she was taking care of him. I guess wanting to take care of you I fell in love."
I didn't know what to say. I wanted time to think but knew it wouldn't help. I squeezed her hand and she leaned in close. When we got to her house her mother was horrified at how bad I looked. She checked the bandage on my head and made the mother hen clucking sounds.
Mary Jo and I worked on homework until dinner. I sped myself up so that I could keep up with Mary Jo in the homework department. I was beginning to appreciate how far behind in time I had been. The two of us were working in her room, I was lying on her bed while she was working at the desk. It was nice doing my homework with feeling rushed. I was almost beginning to understand how people could procrastinate on these things. Before I had to work from the time I got home until almost midnight to do the days homework. Now I would be done before dinner.
When we were called down to dinner Mary Jo was sitting across from me. She reached her feet across the table and our ankles rubbed together. I stared at her. She was incredibly gorgeous. Everything that I could want in a woman, beautiful smile, long dark and and deep blue eyes. She was giving me a hundred watt smile and I melted.
Dinner was meatloaf, mashed potatoes and broccoli. Home cooked meals were definitely something that I could get used to. With Tiffani, my brothers girlfriend, the closest we would get would be TV dinners and that was only for special occasions like Thanksgiving and Christmas. Usually it was pop tarts and hotdogs. Once she tried hamburger helper. It didn't work out well.
I savored every bite of the meatloaf, the herbs and bits of rice cooked into it, the sweet ketchup crust. The mashed potatoes were something else that I wasn't used to. They tasted strange to me, then I remember that Mary's mom was peeling the potatoes when we came in, real mashed potatoes with melted butter on top.
We had barely sat started eating when the phone rang. Pastor Kopernick stood up and said, "Excuse me, it may be a parishioner in trouble."
I only heard his part of the conversation. "What? No? What? No, no comment."