Chapter 4: Cornerside conversation

“Sally and I will ask for some ice at the nurses’ station,” Mark broke off the weird atmosphere. “We’ll meet up at the cafeteria, sounds good?”

“So, I’m Jake’s assistant for the day huh?”

“You said that, not me,” Mark smirked. “Hope the 20 credits were worth it.”

“Don’t worry,” Jake scoffed. “I won’t ask for much.”

Sally and Mark headed to the nurses’ station as Jake and Peter planned to go to the cafeteria next to the station, but unfortunately, while heading to the cafeteria they decided to head to the bathroom on their floor first because Peter just had to have a heavy breakfast.

“You sure?” Asked Peter trying to hold it in.

Jake chuckling, “Yeah, I’ll be fine, just go in already before you do it out here.”

As Peter hurried into the stall Jake chuckled again, but then he was tapped from behind which sent a shock throughout his body. He immediately flinched to turn around which scared Lily, the person that tapped him in the shoulder.

“Hey Lily, sorry if I scared you,” He said ignoring the shock of pain. “What’s up?”

“No, it’s fine, I’m just a bit jumpy and all,” She said but still a little surprised. “How are you holding up? You had a pretty rough night.”

“What? Oh, you noticed huh?” He hesitated, but then continued, “Is it obvious?”

“Not really, Ja—” As Lily was about to answer, she was distracted by a person running past them and into the bathroom.

“Who was that?” Jake asked Lily, confused by a sudden gush of wind.

“I didn’t really see, but he’s probably going to have a rough time in there.”

They both laugh at the thought of it, as Peter was just about to leave the bathroom. Peter heard the two laughing and decided to just wait around the corner and just listen.

“So anyway, I was heading to the cafeteria, want to come join me?”

“No thanks, I’m waiting for Peter, we were heading there later,” He politely declined.

“Sure, I’ll see you there, say hi for Peter for me,” She responded. “You probably should get some ice from the nurse,” She added while walking away.

They both chuckled as Lily walked away.

“Why does everyone’s first advice is to put ice on it,” He whispered to himself.

“Cause, that’s what the nurses always gave,” Peter said as he walks around the corner.

Jake was surprised by him and said, “Geez, how long were you there?”

“Don’t worry, I won’t judge you for using your bruise for sympathy with Lily,” He said while thinking “Teasing isn’t judging at least.”

“What? I wasn’t using—”

“Hey, don’t worry, I won’t judge,” he said. “come on, lets head to the cafeteria, so we can get that bruise iced up.”

They just chatted for a while in front of the bathroom, forgetting about the other two.

“Yeah, yeah,” Jake responded. “Anyway, who was the guy that came in the bathroom before you left? He seemed in a hurry.”

“Don’t know, he just hurried in the stall next to mine then slightly slammed the door.”

“Slightly slammed the door?”

“Yeah, like, he was trying to close it as fast as possible with the least amount of noise. If that makes sense.”

“Oddly enough, that does.”

“How’s your eye holding up? Does it still hurt when I touch it?” Peter said as he tries to touch Jake’s bruised eye.

Jake blocked Peter’s hand from poking the side of his eye, “Are you really trying this again.”

“How else can we figure out if it still hurts?”

Jake sign with a smile and said, “Fair point.”

“Where’d you even get that?” Peter ask Jake.

“Still don’t know,” Jake said, trying to remember. “I thought that I would’ve remembered by now.”

“Does your mom even know about that?”

“I don’t know,” Jake said, thinking if his mom even saw him run by earlier in the morning.

“Well you must’ve been hit pretty hard to not remember having that.”

“Huh, I bet I put up quite a fight,” Jake stated, expecting some sort of praise coming from Peter.

Unfortunately, he forgot who he was talking to and instead was just completely shut down, saying, “Woah, don’t praise yourself too much, you’re not really that hard to knock down.”

“Well thanks for the vote of confidence,” Jake said with a flat tone.

Peter laughed while saying, “Hey, hey, I’m sorry, you were right, you were quite the strong guy.” Then continued to laugh.

“Maybe I was, you don’t know, maybe they had it worse,” Jake again put on a sarcastic tone, but proceeded to laugh with Peter.

“Sure, sure, you won the theoretical fight, but we really should hurry, Sally and Mark would be there by now,” Peter said, while patting Jake’s shoulder as a form of saying congrats.

Unfortunately, Jake did not seem to accept it as a form of congratulations but a shock of pain. flinching as he said, “Why does everyone keep touching where it hurts?”

“What? I thought that it was just your eye?”

“Well it’s not just the eye.”

“We should probably start to head to the cafeteria,” Peter said. “We better check on your shoulder there as well.”

They hurried to the cafeteria, walking fast, but not quite running, heading downstairs to the 1st floor, where the cafeteria and next to it, the nurses’ station is located. Seeing Lily as they went past and entered the cafeteria.