Messed Up Vita

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Joey and I part in the hallways after I'd returned his jacket, note included. I didn't exactly mention that I saw the drawing of me, but what could I say, really?

   I give him a goodbye squeeze of the hand. Instead of squeezing back he gives me a kiss on the nose. I smile, but quickly wipe the grin off, seeing the glaring faces around me. I needed to get to the bottom of this whispering and staring nonsense. I part to get to my locker, and oddly, everybody moves out of my way. Not in friendliness I'm assuming, but in disgust. Their faces give it away.

   I glare back at them, spinning the lock on my locker. I swing it open, and grab my books. That's when I notice somebody wrote something very sloppy in big, black thick marker. I tilt my head to the side to read it.

   "Bak Off or gef hurt."

   What the hell does that mean? It looks like, "Back off or get hurt", but many of the letters look lopsided and have weird curves to them, as if somebody wrote it quickly. Before they get caught.

   I feel people watching behind me, waiting for my reaction. I laugh, a big loud one. I chuckle and slam my door shut, moving through the crowd like they weren't there. My reaction seems to shock them, because they look at me, dumbfounded I didn't explode into a frenzy of catch-who-wrote-this-and-take-me-to-a-teacher. A big guy in a Packers jersey stands in my way between a bunch of people. I stare blankly up at him.

    "Please move," I say, a note in my voice of warning.

   "No," he says simply, crossing his arms. "Gunna make me, little singer?"

   "No," I say back. "This is a pretty big hallway." I quickly dodge around him, slipping in between two girls. "Bye!" I call out in a friendly voice. As I glance back, he stares at me equally daunted by my reaction. Maybe he was expecting me to hit or punch him. Nope. My plan is, until this all dies off, to stay friendly. Not sarcastic, but real niceness. See what that leaves them with. And it's not hard. None of this bothers me, so it's quite easy to pull off.

   I push my way into Mrs. Fern's room, where nobody sits. I slide into a desk in the silent, empty room. I grab one of my assignments from the top of her desk-- a math worksheet-- and start on it.

   Ten minutes passes, and Mrs. Fern walks in with Ryan behind her, who seems to be sulking still. She blinks in surprise that I'm here, doing my work. She narrows her eyes and walks over to me, gazing down at what I'm doing. Simply marking the answers, reading the problems.

   "Are you cheating?" she asks suspiciously.

   "No, Mrs. Fern," I answer. "I came in early and thought I'd start on my work."

   She huffs. "Well, good job, Ms. Peterson. Ryan, please take a seat so you can also start."

   Instead of turning around and snickering at him, I do my work and don't turn to face him at all. I quickly finish that in half an hour, and get onto my next assignment.

   This time I'm not so focused on my French homework. My thoughts keep flashing back to Joey, to the note, where he drew me in almost exact detail. And to the dance tonight. I wasn't exactly excited for it, but I was dreading it, in a way. I still needed to present him with my song, which I have no idea where I'm going to do it. I would have to do it afterwards or something, to be able to do it in private. 

    "Focus, Ms. Peterson!" Mrs. Fern says, looking at me over the top of her reading glasses. I bite my lip and try to focus on my French homework.

   Later at lunch, I try to find Joey with my eyes as I stand in line. 

   "Hey!" somebody says behind me. Assuming it's for another person, I ignore it. When I feel a slight shove on my shoulder, I turn to see Mandy, a bright white smile on her face. She has her hair in a pony, long and silky over the side of her shoulder.