365 Days

April 4th 2016

April 4th 2016...

We were back in school. End of the weekend. Back to business.

Play rehearsal and therapy session still went on after school, of course. School only made Jess and my time together more limited.

If we thought we never saw each other on the weekends, it wasn't anything compared to weekdays.

Bus rides together were really all we had. And even then, we usually just sat in silence, occasionally hand in hand.

The other 7th graders seemed to find satisfaction in making my life a living hell. I don't know what I ever did to them, but clearly there must've been something I missed.

Gary Fulcher and Scott Hoager picked on Jess an awful lot before I moved to Lark Creek School in 2013.

Once I came, things got interesting for me and all three of them. Hoager, mostly, found that picking on me to get to Jess's head was the best way to go. He'd occasionally make comments about Jess's lack of wealth in class (I'm thinking more of Christmas time last year), but usually attacking me was enough to rack his nerves.

Earlier that school year, September 2015, Ricky Manning joined our class.

Manning wasn't the most buff guy in school like Fulcher, nor did he have the biggest mouth like Hoager. But somehow, he evened them out, like he belonged right in between them, the only place he really seemed to fit.

And I was his favorite. And by his favorite, I mean his least favorite. Favorite to pick on, to be exact.

Manning left Jess alone for the most part. But me? Girls were obviously a little more his type of victim.

Jess and I still had every class together of course. So we saw each other enough, we just never got to spend real time together.

At this point in time, April 4th, it hadn't even been a month since the fight behind the school.

March 15th 2016 was the day Tom Jacobs and I fought back.

I'd found a note in my locker that said to meet between third and fourth period behind the gym, sighed by Jess. It was a strange source of communication but whatever, I took it.

However when I went and waited awhile, knowing it was against school rules to be out of class during hours, Jess never showed.

Moments later, Manning and Fulcher were on either side of me. The moment I saw them I'd suspected the note had been faked. But I still said it anyway.

"What are you guys doing here? Jesse's meeting me any minute now."

They laughed at me and I never feared for my physical safety like this before.

They pull a picture out of their bag, and faced it away from me, revealing the white backside of the photograph. When he flipped it around to show me, I'd never been more disgusted.

"That's not me" my mind comprehended. A girl, my face and hair, lying nude on an ugly green sofa, my face smiling, looking like I'd enjoyed being photographed nude. Like I was some sort of porn star. The strange thing was, the pubic hair on my body was red. My hair wasn't red.

The second they'd come too close, I lost it. I'd assumed they were gonna hit me, so the only sensible thing to do was to hit them first. And so I did.

We fought around for longer than I can probably remember. Pushing, shoving, hitting, punching. Then all of a sudden, I was on the ground. I couldn't see or hear anything properly.

I slowly stood to my feet, and hearing one of them behind me, I swung my bag off my shoulder and knocked him out behind me, onto the ground.

On the other side of me, I felt a hard smack and someone call my name. I hit the ground too, suddenly surprised to see Tom Jacobs lying on the ground beside me.

The sounds of emergency vehicles, sirens, someone must've noticed all of our absences from class and suspected something was up.

When I got into the nurses office, I was informed of what happened. Both Fulcher and Manning were taken away in ambulances. Tom had been examined and taken home as well.

And when my head was really clear, I'd been asked what I was doing, why the hell I'd surrounded and beat those boys.

Wait, what?

That's NOT what happened. They'd tricked me, blackmailed me. I was defending myself. I had no idea what they were gonna do to me, what humiliating thing they'd make me do for that picture.

But it wasn't me. I'd picked it up as I lyed on the ground, half conscious and put it under my jacket. It was the only source of evidence I had against them. The only thing that'd prove I wasn't the culprit, but the victim.

And I was too embarrassed to show it.

I couldn't talk myself out of trouble. Because I had hit them first, and the damage they suffered was obviously worse than mine AND Tom's.

So as we all sat there in the Aarons living room, my family, their family, everyone, I knew I couldn't get out of this.

Jess and I took some time alone to talk about it. I decided to fess up and show him the picture. And that I did. He was shocked for a minute but the moment I told him it wasn't actually me, he believed me.

The Computer Technology classes at LCS were currently focused on photoshop. With both Fulcher and Manning in that class, I knew exactly where the photo had come from. In reality, it was actually two photos made into one.

When my parents came and met Jess and I on the patio, I decided I only had one way out of this. I was suspended. I couldn't have that on my record, no matter the cost. I handed Jess the picture after a small banter with my parents and ran off.

Obviously he showed them and explained it. It took a little convincing, he said, but they finally realized it wasn't me in the photo. Just my head neatly photoshopped on the body of someone with naturally red hair.

And we all concluded who that was.

And so Manning and Fulcher were suspended. Tom and I were still in big trouble, however, and still received punishment for being out of the building during school hours.

Justice prevailed that day but most things don't always end so sweet.

It had almost been a month since that incident occurred, April 4th 2016. 11 days and that was all. It'd gone by so fast but Fulcher and Manning had already been back in school. And boy, were they ever not done with me yet.