Tony, for his part, sat and listened to the exchange, watching as Jocelyn tried to focus on her food, but he could notice the small signs that she was bothered by Tora, but not in the way she was trying to let on. She wasn’t in his face, and she had yet to jump out of her seat and get physical the way that she would when other people got on her nerves. Most times when someone bothered her, she shoved them out of the way, or made threats to scare them off. The only thing she did was blow a lot of hot air around and toss taunts back and forth with the other boy at the table. He cringed when once again Tora commented about her being his girlfriend, and this time he decided to answer rather than let Jocelyn come up with another comment. “Nah, she’s not my girlfriend. Feel free to move on in if you want. Seems you two have a little something going on, although I might be reading into things wrong.” Jocelyn wasn’t answering, but the look on her face told him that she was seconds away from exploding, and he definitely didn’t want to be around when she did.

Jocelyn tried to ignore Tora’s question, and would have continued to pretend that he was not around, at least until his final words which set her off. It was one thing to have him leading everyone into believing she was flirting with him, but a completely different thing to insinuate that she and Tony were a thing. Dropping her spoon into the empty bowl that had held her jello, Jocelyn grabbed up her apple and orange from her tray, shooting a scathing glare over at Tora. “Listen here, pal. You’re not my father, or my brother, and you’re certainly not my keeper. If I want to go somewhere, you’re the last person I need to tell, and trust me, I’m not telling you because I don’t want you following me.” She wanted to grab up her tray and slap him across the face with it, but she held herself in check, her hands gripping onto the remainder of her food tightly to keep herself from lashing out. 

“And as far as who I’m ‘banging’, that is definitely none of your damn business, even if I was banging someone, which I’m not. Maybe where you come from, and every other girl in this school is willing to sleep with the first guy who looks their way, but I have standards.” Implying that she was sleeping with her best friend wasn’t that big of a deal, people did that all the time. What pissed her off was that Tora had taken it upon himself to judge her without knowing a thing about her. She wasn’t like the rest of the girls in her school who were only interested in jumping from one bed to the next without any respect for themselves. She considered herself above them, not that she was better than them, but she certainly had more sense than any of them. She might not be a straight A student, she might not even be perfectly innocent, but at least she had standards high enough that it took more than a look and a smile to get her to take her clothes off. As a matter of fact, it took so much that it had never happened, and it never would. 

Jocelyn grabbed up her backpack, tossing her fruit into it before grabbing a hold of her tray. Rising from her seat, she lifted the tray up from the table top and shoved her chair beneath the table with her foot. “This conversation has been enlightening. You really are a pig.” Pulling in a deep breath, she lowered her voice, but the usual condescending smile was absent from her expression. “Now if you’ll excuse me. I’m getting the hell out of here where the air isn’t quite as fouled up with the stench of pork.” Jocelyn didn’t allow either of the boys to protest her departure, not that she really expected either one of them to do so. Tony knew where to find her if he needed to, and Tora could kiss her butt for all she cared. She needed some fresh air, and to get out of the confines of the building before she completely freaked out and really did punch Tora in the face. Heading off to the baseball diamonds where she spent most of her lunch period, she dropped herself down onto one of the benches outside the diamond, pulling in a deep breath of fresh air, and completely ignoring the weird feeling she got once she was settled. Jocelyn was too concerned with absorbing as much sunshine as she could, that she didn’t feel eyes on her, and she would have been perfectly content to sit there for the rest of the day if it hadn’t been for the sound of her name blowing on the wind. At first she thought it was Tony messing with her, but a quick scan around the baseball diamond and the area behind her showed no signs of anyone at all. Brushing it off as her imagination, she kicked her feet up onto the chain linked fence in front of her, relaxing until the bell sounded and it was time for her to return back to class.

Tony watched Jocelyn storm off without concern, shrugging his shoulders at Tora once she disappeared from view. “She likes you. Anyone else, she would have punched in the face.” Tony proclaimed between bites of his burger, grinning broadly over at the new kid. “She’s a little rough around the edges, but she’s not bad once you get to know her. Considering that her mother attempted to kill her, it’s kind of understandable how she is.” He had only learned about the incident through Jocelyn’s brother, since she never brought it up, but he thought that Tora might take it easier on his friend if he understood a bit of her history. “But honestly, I don’t think I’ve ever seen her let someone talk to her that way without smacking them upside the head. That’s gotta count for something, don’t you think?”