Chapter 10 - "You know nothing so back off!"

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Taylor was jolted awake by a hand shaking her. Eyes blurry, she jerked her head around, trying to make sense of the world that wasn't familiar. The uncertainty of her surroundings sent her heart pounding, muscles flooding with adrenaline.

"Hey, it's okay. You're fine."

The voice shocked clarity back into place. The library. Dominic. The Time Stop. Shaken, Taylor flopped back onto the rough carpeted floor, resting one arm over her eyes.

"You all right?" Dominic asked.

She nodded, trying to calm her rapid heart rate.

"I didn't mean to startle you, time is almost up and I figured I would give you a chance to wake up."

"Thanks," Taylor breathed out.

As she relaxed, other pieces of her world returned. She realized in her stretched out form - with her legs laying over Dominic's, her backpack wasn't beneath her head. When she found it, it had shifted close to where he sat, telling her she must have looked like some curled up C shape as she slept.

"Late night?" Dominic asked.

"Yup, the usual, stalking my crush."

Dominic didn't reply and Taylor wondered if he believed that or could tell it was a joke.

"What did you read today?" she asked, drained from the spike of adrenaline and having no want to move at all.

"Pride and Prejudice."

At this, Taylor lifted her head and stared at him. "What do you think?"

Dominic eyed the cover as if he could glean from the picture the entire plot.

"It's not great. It's about an egotistical guy and a judgmental chick."

Taylor let her head fall back to the ground with a muted thump. "Way to downplay a literary classic."

She felt Dominic shrug from the shift in his legs. "Nothing happens. All everyone does is stand around and talk. No one takes action. Elizabeth seriously does nothing but sit on her a-"

"Hey." Taylor propped herself up on her elbows. "She is one of the first strong female characters."

"Who does nothing and lets everyone else solve her problems."

Taylor sighed and sank to the ground, realizing she didn't have the strength to argue. Besides, he had a point.

"I want a character who takes action. For instance, in this other book the character Kvothe has to fight for everything and takes charge of a situation, he doesn't just wait for things to happen."

Taylor stared up at the patchwork ceiling, mulling over his opinion. There was nothing for her to add since it made sense. A person couldn't simply sit around and wait for life to happen.

"Where did your interest in reading come from? It's not something most teenage guys do all that much."

The silence that followed told her that she had crossed a line that she hadn't known was there. When she looked at Dominic he was stuffing his book into his backpack.

"My mom," he said.

Even with the answer, Taylor knew a brick wall when she saw it. She pulled her legs away and the world raced back in, the sudden wave of life less disorientating. As she gathered her things, she handed Dominic his jacket.

"Thanks for letting me use it," she said.

"Yeah."

He tugged it on and headed for the exit. Before he disappeared, Taylor drew him back. She glanced down the row, checking that they were still alone. A question that couldn't be held in any long popped out.

"Do you ever get a strange feeling in your stomach when someone needs help?"

Having the same caution as she did, he closed the gap.

"You mean the Fire Alarm?"

Taylor furrowed her brows. "The what?"

"The Fire Alarm, you know because it warns you when something is wrong."

"I call it The Pull."

Dominic crossed his arms and leaned his shoulder against the bookcase.

"That's a little on the nose but I guess it works. But yeah I get it."

Hesitating, Taylor took a step towards him.

"Have you ever made it go away without dealing with the situation?"

It was Dominic's turn to frown in confusion.

"Yeah, all the time."

The complete certainty startled her. She had never managed to cut it off, only once when she had no other choice.

"How do you do that?"

"It's a technique that my coach taught me. Sometimes when you're facing a linebacker who is twice your size and who looks angry as hell, you want to piss yourself with fear. Coach tells us to breathe and imagine that there is a dome over our emotions and that whatever we are feeling is closed off. It takes away the strength of the fear. I've used it since the feeling first appeared."

Right then Taylor could feel that they were on the brink of something more. With one question it would be easy to simply tilt forward and fall into a deeper relationship than what they had. The current arrangement was mutually beneficial, but beyond that...

"Thanks," Taylor said, letting them stay exactly as they were, connected without a true connection.

Dominic nodded and left. After waiting a beat, Taylor followed after him. As she approached the librarian, he lowered his book. Today he wore suspenders like he had stepped out of the 20s.

"What do you both do back there?" he asked.

From his point of view, Taylor knew it looked like they snuck into a corner and reappeared only moments later. She buried her hands in her pockets.

"He controls time and lets me do homework or sleep and in exchange, I manipulate space and teleport him to school."

The praying mantis returned to his book. "Be careful around my books with your make out sessions."

"Got it."

Taylor escaped back into the hallways and headed towards the noise that emanated from the cafeteria. By the time she got inside, Dominic was already in the throes of talking and laughing with his friends. Spotting an empty spot a couple of chairs down from a pale figure, Taylor navigated her way through the tangle of teenage life. Bailey glanced up as Taylor slid into a chair.

"Interesting that you should arrive only a minute after Dominic for the last four days," she said.

"Is that so?"

Bailey shrugged, staring at her open book. "Just stating an observation."

When Bailey didn't try to further her inquiry into the strange coincidence, Taylor ignored her. After wolfing down her food, she spread out her homework on the table, doing as much as she could without the aid of a textbook.

The racket around her dulled in her ears as she worked. She wasn't aware of the clicking of heels that undercut the noise. Nor was she aware of the sound making its way towards her.

The only thing that registered was the sudden disappearance of her chair. The seat was ripped out from under her so fast, her forehead collided with the table and she crashed to the ground, pain throbbing in her skull. She clutched her head, trying to make sense of what had just happened. The answer was given to her.

"Whoops," Elena said, standing over her. "My heel must have caught on your chair accidentally."

Taylor squinted up at the girl, at a loss for words. Sneering, Elena bent closer to Taylor.

"Now you're the one being laughed at."

It was true, the cafeteria was ringing with the amused laughter of her peers. It was a sound that said they were happy that someone else's life sucked and not theirs.

"Guess so," Taylor said, struggling to think beyond the pulsing in her temple.

As Elena spun away, furious, Bailey crouched beside Taylor, biting her lip.

"You okay?"

Taylor nodded and pushed herself up. As she righted her chair and dropped into it, something drew her attention to across the room. Clint was watching her, wearing his intense instructor face.

*******

As Taylor made her way towards the training room, a bit of her weariness faded. This one single place had become a spot where she felt in control. Though she left exhausted, it was an exhaustion that she had chosen.

When she stepped inside, Clint was standing at the center, arms folded over his chest, waiting for her. There was a fire in his eyes that made her pause before fully entering. The pain in her head had been dealt with thanks to a couple of aspirin, but she was still left with a bruise across her forehead.

"What are we learning today?" she asked, deciding to ignore the unsettling atmosphere.

At the question, Clint tucked his hands behind his back.

"We are going to learn that there are two types of fighting."

Taylor held in her confusion over this statement since she had thought there were more than just two ways.

"There, of course, is the first way of fighting, which is what you're learning, the physical aspect." Clint paced from one end to the room to the other as he talked, looking more like a lecturer than an instructor. "There is also a second one. And that is the fight for one's worth."

Taylor nodded, not tracking where he was going with the lesson.

"I'm teaching you to defend yourself," Clint said. "But what does that matter if you don't choose to face what's difficult?"

He stopped before her again, his eyes trailing pointedly from the faint bruise on her cheek to the fresh one on her head. Even with this blatant hint, Taylor didn't see what he was leading up to, focused on the situations she had faced at night when she had failed to step in.

"It's sometimes a stronger act of courage to say stop than to take a man down," Clint said.

"I understand."

Clint frowned at her, not believing that she did.

"Do you?"

It was Taylor's turn frown. "Of course."

"They why do you let Elena bully you?"

Taylor didn't reply right away, thrown by the strange twist in the topic.

"Who?"

"The girl who has been bullying you for the past couple of weeks. The one who gave you that bruise." Clint pointed at Taylor's head.

In response, she touched the sore spot, almost like she had forgotten it was there.

"Oh that, cause it's not a big deal."

Clint spread his arms out in frustration. "How is it not a big deal? Taylor, she hurt you and you're not fighting back. You're simply letting her do it."

His emotions rolled over Taylor, making her tired of the conversation. This was not what she wanted to discuss.

"Yeah, well it's not something worth fighting over."

Clint's eyes sparked with annoyance. "Then why am I even teaching you to fight, if you won't even do it? Clearly, it doesn't matter to you."

All of Taylor's late nights of helping people, of doing what she could to keep someone else from getting hurt, or walking into dangerous situations because someone needed rescuing all converged on her and she snapped under the weight of it all.

"This does matter! Just because I'm not pushing back against some random girl who has a vendetta against me for a reason I don't even understand doesn't mean this doesn't matter."

"But how can it when you let someone walk all over you. It's all connected. You back down once and when you need to stand up, you won't."

Taylor glared at him, exhaustion and frustration roiling inside her.

"Don't give me that crap! She's one stupid girl."

"A girl who left damage on you!"

"It's one bruise."

"It's more than that! How can you not see that this is something that should be dealt with?"

"It's not worth my time. I fight where I need to."

"Do you? How can protecting yourself against someone's abuse not be worth your time? Do you think so little of yourself?"

Taylor threw her hands up, shaking her head. "What is this, some psychoanalysis on my self worth? Guess what, I don't need you to be my therapist."

"No, but maybe you could use one. You show such little disregard for yourself that anyone could bully you. You give up easily."

Months of struggling to do all she could were a contradiction to his accusation. In that moment, Taylor felt every night clinging to her, fueling her on.

"I give up easily? That's funny coming from the guy that gave up on the one thing that he clearly enjoyed doing."

She swept her hand over the line of plaques to drive her point home.

Clint - who had been vibrating with energy - went suddenly still, his eyes hard.

"You have no idea what you're saying," he said, balling his hands into tight fists.

"And neither do you! You think you can look at my life and assume you understand what I'm facing but you don't. Guess what? I could do the same to you."

She jabbed her finger at the empty space where new plaques should have been.

"You're clearly not injured so the reason you quit is because you were the weak one. You were the one that didn't fight back."

"Stop!" Every muscle coiled with rage. "You know nothing so back off!"

The intensity of his anger sucked all of Taylor's away, leaving her spent. She took a step back, palms open in surrender her.

"I guess you were right," she said, backing up to the door. "I am weak cause I'm not going to fight you."

In a breath, all of Clint's fury vanished.

"Taylor-"

She didn't hear what he had to say as she slipped out the door.

**********************************************************************

"Peter Tingle!"

(Haha had to put it in! It's too great!)

Well let's have it supers! Our first big fight of the book, whose side are we on? Whose placing bets? Who thinks I should have ice cream? Who wants some? What flavor?...Dang I think we're drifting away from the book. Well, fly your way back to the first question and answer! 🦸‍♂️🦸‍♀️🦹

Now I promised you a story of a 200 year old house and my adventures.

(Warning, will be exaggerated for dramatic effect)

Looking at it now in the light of the computer screen, I'm not sure its as great an adventure as I promised. But I'll tell it anyways cause you're here and are trapped!

My house is 200 years old. There is not a spot that doesn't creak or squeak! You try to break in or crept out, nope! It ain't gonna happen pal!

The floors are fire alarms, the stairs are a steep mountain that you have to use grappling hooks just to climb! Want to go down into the basement? Sure, if you want to enter a horror film or enter a spiderweb! (Or possible hit your head with a low beam, which I did the other day)

Adventure they say is out there, not for me! It's walking down a hallway while your mom is asleep and trying not to make it sound like you're your own stampede!

Ever crept out of the house without your parents knowing?

Me neither!

(Though I really haven't tried. I don't have friends and the outside world is less entertaining than the ones in my head)

So do I try to play ninja while walking through my house, dang right I do!

Do I succeed?

Very rarely to almost never. But I find it amusing.

So there you have it, that is my 200 year old house wild woes!

What adventures do you find in your own life?

Leuk weetje (Dutch):  The war rhinos in Black Panther were played by really big horses.

Vote, comment, follow but only is you stand for your own made up adventures!

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