All My Mother's Rules

Chapter 36: Retribution

I had a difficult time paying attention to the remainder of Mr. Higgin's lecture about the Cold War. My thoughts ran off to a new fantasy of how I might exact revenge on Claire for what she had done to Lisa. I had become so engrossed in that daydream that I completely missed the end of the class period. Even the bell ringing out in the hallway hadn't been enough to catch my attention as I stared blankly at a notebook that I'd hardly written anything in during the last forty-five minutes.

"Sarah, earth to Sarah, come in," Desi said.

I jerked upright as she snapped her fingers in front of my face. Had I been out of it that badly? My first concern was for my pull-up. Had I been out of touch with reality so much so that I had had an accident? Dry, without any sensation of warmth or wetness down there that would have indicated that I had wet myself while I was distracted. Still, I did feel the urge to get up and go to the bathroom. I could barely make it to the end of a class without feeling the need to go.

"You were really out of it," Desi said. "Wanted to make sure you weren't the last person out of the classroom."

"I'm fine. I was just distracted," I replied, while blinking and rubbing my eyes, unsure of what excuse to use for my daydreaming.

I didn't want to tell Desi and Samantha what I was planning to do about Claire. They would probably try to talk me out of it. And I worried that my initial bravado would fade if they forced me to verbalize exactly what it was that I was intending to do.

Samantha and Desi both ran off to catch the bus, leaving me in the back of the classroom by myself. I was a bit envious of them getting to have their school day end earlier than mine. Normally, I would run out to the hallway to make one of my many obligatory trips to the toilet that my bladder was telling me I needed to do, but with Lisa's absence, I wanted to get a chance to ask her uncle how she had been coping.

By the time I had gathered up my things from my desk, a line of students had already formed in front of Mr. Higgin's desk. I groaned. Normally, everyone would be rushing to leave school rather than bothering a teacher after the final period ended. I stood in the back of the classroom by myself for a bit, glancing at the clock on the wall. I didn't have that much time before I needed to be at cheerleading practice, especially since I would need to go to the bathroom to change into my workout clothes. I could wait, but if anyone got in line behind me, or just hovered around near Mr. Higgin's desk, I wouldn't have the privacy to talk about Lisa with him.

I didn't bother getting in line yet. That would only make things more awkward if I ended up having to rush off to cheerleading practice without getting a chance to talk with Mr. Higgins. From the back of the room, I wasn't able to make out the conversation that was taking place as I was fiddling with my phone, but I could hear laughter from a joke that must have been told. The casual conversation was moving at a glacial pace. With no signs of progress, and a couple more students lined up still to talk with him, I realized I would have to settle for trying to catch Lisa online on Fortnite later tonight.

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I was much less nervous stepping into the locker today than I had been yesterday in the immediate aftermath of Claire having outed Lisa's incontinence. Whatever crude or demeaning comments Claire had come up with for today wouldn't matter. I'm sure I'd get looks from her friends as well as soon as I pulled open the door, but with my plan already set firmly in my mind, the weight of their judgement came out to nothing at all.

I had wished that Coach Addison had moved our lockers apart after our previous scuffle, but she instead left us to having lockers that were side-by-side, as if to test us to see how much self-control and restraint we were capable of under the threat of being kicked off of the team. That had been a big annoyance the previous month, but today it would be exactly what I needed.