She held her first high over her head.
Taking only a moment’s breath, before bringing her clutched fist down, demanding and swift.
Quickly there after, as quickly as she had made the impulse to strike, she took hold the bottom side of her hand from the impact, pulling it close into her chest with a sighed whimper. Collapsing over some, to rest her head on the table in front of her with an arched back forward, squeezing her hand for a good long while, she swears to herself in three tongues. Eventually setting herself back up to look at the now swollen and burgundy coloured bump across the whole of her palm side hand.
“Miss, please don’t be hitting the tables. . .” a voice carries from behind the bar up front of the small Pizza restaurant. He flings a white towel over his shoulder, resting the other arm by hand on the bar side, watching the young woman in her booth, still in an almost quiet sob at the pain.
She turns in her booth as the leather gives a light squeak, to meet his eyes long enough to squint at him, and returns right to her booth, sitting in front of the table, reaching into her purse with the hand still well, keeping the other pressed between thighs. She retrieves a blue and white pack of cigarettes, pulling one out by her lips from the opened top, and tosses them back into the large purse casually, reaching in again to grab a slim silver lighter. Striking it twice on her leg, once down to open and once back up to light it, leaving another burned cinder hole on her tights among many, she lights the cigarette as the lighter makes a classic click with the lid closing and snuffing the flame.
The man from the bar calls out louder than last time, leaning in slight over the clear sneeze protection glass above the Pizzas laid out over a heater. “Hey, no smoking in here. This is a public place.”
She turns again, cigarette hanging from her closed lips, and shows him her beat and soon to bruise hand as an excuse with a whine in her near tearing eyes.
The man takes the towel off his shoulder, moving it in through some large metal cooler of unknown content, making quite the sound of solid against small solid. He approaches her in a brisk pace, as she begins to sink back in her seat, putting on a tough front to her facial emotion, as her body retreated to the wall side.
Reaching a hand out, the man snatched the cigarette from her mouth, dropping it into a large collection of ice cubes in the center of the towel, then spins the white cloth at the corners as the cigarette lets out a moan of a choked cinder. He ties the corners to one another, making something of a neat fold on the impromptu ice bag.
She protests. “You should, you know, ask a girl before grabbing something out of her mouth. Its uh. . . Common Courtesy.”
Without a rebuttal, he reaches out again to take her now bruising hand and lays it atop the ice bag left to sit on the table top. His facial expression and even posture finally loosen, into an easy shoulder hang and a small smile, before walking away.
She tries to keep her tough façade. “Oh, alright. . .” Watching him leave, once he has his back turned to her, she finishes. “Thank you.”
The cold on her hand began to set its self.
Memories from earlier in the day came back, of the cold Summer afternoon wind on the water side, where she had been sitting, where she had dropped her purse, where she had been offered a hand up from a pair of men, where she was assaulted.
The light she had been breathing careful to keep in control within her breast erupting on its own, after a casual smack across her high bone below the eye from one of the men. Both men falling to their backs. The brilliant awe in their eyes at the field of luminescence formed about her body, protecting the young woman. Her eyes glowing with the same bright patina, overflowing and flooding out, to dissipate little distance further.
Despite all the weightless wonder and brilliant elucidations, it soon went dark. She had fainted, to wake up alone on the grass hours later.
“Probably best it didn’t work this time," she thinks to herself.
“Probably better if it never does.”
Disciplinary Action:
Date: August 3rd, 2009
Student: Abramovich, Danelea W. M.
Grade: Junior
Enrollment Date: August 3rd, 2009, Fall Quarter
Mark: Absent without Proper Notice
From Period: All Day
To Period: All Day
Discipline Checks: 3
Punishment: Detention (after school)
From Date: August 4th
To Date: August 7th
Disciplinary Action:
Date: August 3rd, 2009
Student: Abramovich, Danelea W. M.
Grade: Junior
Enrollment Date: August 3rd, 2009, Fall Quarter
Mark: Failure to Return with Hall Pass in Time Limit
From Period: Detention
Discipline Checks: 1
Mark: Dress Code Violation
Discipline Checks: 3
Mark: Talking After Warning
Faculty Member: Sister Mary Moltar (signed)
Discipline Checks: 3
Mark: Using Profane Language
Faculty Member: Sister Mary Moltar (signed)
Discipline Checks: 3
Mark: Possession of a Lighter on Campus
Current: In Possession of Sister Mary Moltar
Threat to Harm: None
Discipline Checks: 4
Mark: Smoking on Campus
Location: Women’s Restroom, 2nd Hall, West
Discipline Checks: 5
Mark: Destruction of Property (smoke alarm)
Location: Women’s Restroom, 2nd Hall, West
Means: Punched
Discipline Checks: 5
Conduct Referral: Spitting
Punishment: On Campus Suspension (all day)
From Date: August 4th
To Date: August 7th
Punishment: Schedule Revision
From: Atwood, Valerie
From: Conrads, David
From: Sister Mary Moltar
Punishment: Student Conference
With: Atwood, Valerie, Counselor
Accompanied: Student's Parents
Punishment: Student Work on Campus
Job: Cloakroom
From: Present
Until: Payment of broken property, three fold