The Girl in the Hooded Jacket

There are many fishes in the sea, but there's only one Violet Sanders

Sir Elliot McGruder droned on about Modern Expression— or something of the sort. Sir was not his title; Sir was literally his name. After twenty-five years of students treating him "disrespectfully", Craig Elliot McGruder had legally changed his first name to Sir to deem himself a "more respectable man of society".

After what felt like years, the bell rings, and I meet Ray in the cafeteria.

"It was fantastic." Ray was explaining to our friends, Andrea Kim and Justin Castle. "I was giving my presentation on the candiru fish, 'cause the little shit drinks human blood and that's, like, the most awesome thing ever. And of course Mr. Richards had to butt in to tell me that 'fishes' was not a word." He pauses in the middle of his story to greet me. "Oh hey, what's up Carter?" Before I can respond, he continues, "so anyway, I'm like, 'dude, it is a word', and he doesn't believe me. And being the stubborn asshat he is, Mr. Richards pulls out a dictionary, muttering about his students being imbeciles and how he's never wrong and whatnot. So he flips to the page, and there it is— fishes." He pauses, flashing a triumphant grin around the table. "So then I'm just like 'ha, take that, asshole' and he kind of just slumps back in his seat defeatedly and doesn't make eye contact with me for the rest of the period."

I take a bite of my mashed potatoes, a food that falls under the category of 'not too crappy foods' coming from our school cafeteria. "What was the sentence?"

Ray raises his dark eyebrows. "What?"

I swallow the mashed potatoes. "How did you use the word 'fishes'?"

Ray clears his throats and pulls out a folded-up sheet of paper. "Candiru fishes are a species of parasitic freshwater catfish in the family Trichomycteridae native to the Amazon Basin." He reads.

"Mm." Andrea says, pointing her spoon at him. "Incorrect."

Ray frowns. "What?"

A smile creeps onto my face. "'Fishes' is the plural to multiple species of fish, therefore using 'fishes' to refer to just the candiru fish species would be incorrect."

Ray adjusts the glasses on his thin face. "Well. Fuck you."

"Aw, c'mon Ray you should've know that." Says Justin, prying his eyes away from his laptop screen for once. "Aren't you supposed to be Asian?" Justin took delight in pissing Ray off, and it seemed to work extremely well.

Ray curls his fingers into a fist. "Say that one more time, Justin, and I will shove your foot so far up your ass that your dentist will have to be plucking toes out of your teeth."

Justin laughs.

"Ahem."

I look up to see Violet standing in front of our table. "Carter, a word?"

Justin elbows me in the ribcage, grinning like an idiot. I ignore him and nod at Violet.

Violet took my hand and lead me out of the cafeteria, through the hallways and into the gym.

She squared her shoulders and jutted her chin out. "Hit me."

I raised my eyebrows. "Hit you?" I repeated, dumbfounded. "I'm not going to hit you, Violet."

"Why?" She folded her arms. "Because I'm a girl? Because I'm weak?"

I shook my head. "No— I'm just not going to hit you."

A hard blow to my chest landed me on the ground, which brought back so many memories. When Dayton Grey purposefully chucked a volleyball at my head and I sported a huge red mark on my face for the next couple days. When Aaron Smith had beaten me up because rumors had been going around that I had been seeing his girlfriend— when she was just meeting up with me to copy my chemistry homework. When I had attempted to join the wrestling team— bad idea. To say the least, I was familiar with the cold, waxy feeling of the gym floor against my cheek.

Violet towered over me. "Hit me."

I laughed, shaking my head. "Okay, you asked for it." I rose to my full height and swung a fist. Before it could reach her face, Violet grabbed my forearm and flipped me over, my back making harsh impact with the ground. "What the hell did you do that for?" I muttered, rubbing the back of my head.

"You're strong, I'll give you that." She said, grunting as she helped me up. "But what you don't have is focus. Say, if I were to do—" She landed a hard punch to my gut. I groaned, recoiling in pain. "—this, you wouldn't know what to do, now would you?"

"You're enjoying this, aren't you?"

Violet grinned. "Very much."

I sighed. "Okay. That's great. Was there a point to this, or did you just use me as your own personal punching bag for fun?"

Violet tilted her head to one side, then the other. "I'd say more of the latter." She laughed lightly, tucking a strand of dark hair behind her ear. "But yes, there's a point."

I nod, willing her to continue.

"You go to the same school as you did when you lived with him." She says, slowly walking around me. "You're less than twenty miles away from him. Just because you hit him once doesn't mean he won't come after you."

"Well," I say, crossing my arms across my chest to show Violet that I do have muscles and despite the past five minutes, I'm not weak. "If he does I'll just fight back."

She laughed, shaking her head. "You don't have what it takes."

In one swift move I had her pinned against the padded gym wall, my face a mere inch from hers. "I do have what it takes."

I stared into her dark blue eyes, but she didn't seem scared. She seemed... amused.

"Carter," she said softly, looking up at me. "I'm a seventeen-year old girl." And then the next thing I knew my back was slammed against the wall and her forearm was firmly pressed across my chest. "And you can't even beat me. Gabriel's a fourty-seven year old man."

I pursed my lips. As much as I hated to admit it— she was right.

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Author's note:

Yo! What's up guys. I've said it before but pleaseeee vote on my chapters and comment what you think, if you do I'll love you forever.