Chapter 11
I was standing by my locker on Monday and running late for first lesson. Ali and I were up as usual watching movies but we stayed up extra late last night and now I was regretting it. The hallways were almost empty so I was a little surprised when I heard whimpering. I furrowed my eyebrows and followed the noise. I came round a corner and froze to see Blake, one of Luke’s friends, harassing a girl. His fingers were digging into her arms and I winced when he held on tighter. I quickly hid behind some lockers.
“Where’s the money bitch?”
“I-I’ll get it tomorrow. I-I promise, p-please.” I clenched my fists. She sounded so scared and all I wanted to do was go help her but I had another way, of course, and that was his humiliation. Because if I helped now, then no one would know and if I punched him then I’m sure he won’t go round telling that he got it from the school’s Freak.
“Two days, in two days I want double. Understood?” he gripped her throat. “Understood?” she nodded and he let her go. She hurriedly made her way to what I assume would be the bathroom.
That was still playing in my mind when I reached first lesson when it was almost over. Everyone stared at me and the teacher raised his eyebrows. I looked at the time to see I had 15 minutes left so I made my walk of shame to my seat and sat down. Mr. Lee was a chilled out guy and this was my first time so he didn’t say anything. Jess just raised her eyebrows at me and I just shook my head at her. Barbie broke the silence, of course.
“Why late, Freak? Did someone lock you in the janitor’s closet? If they did, it’s a shame they didn’t throw the key away.”
I clenched my jaw. She was going to get it one day and she won’t even know what hit her. Her popularity, her smug confidence would all be gone just like that and she won’t even realise it. As it became a routine, I ignored her. Until she said, “Or were you busy cutting yourself or something? I wouldn’t be surprised, Freak.”
I froze. I stared blankly at my paper. I could hear Mr. Lee shouting at her but I wasn’t focused. Instead I was thinking about the time I had thought about self-harm. Who knew I wasn’t going to need it after all…?
Jess shook my shoulder and I snapped out of it. “Hey, you okay?” I nodded and looked around to see everyone getting up from their seats. Huh, the bell rang? I slowly got up and turned in time to see Barbie coming at me. She pushed me aside roughly which made me stumble and flipped her hair before walking out the classroom. I looked up to see Cole who was just staring at me. There was some odd worry and anger in his eyes which confused me. I frowned at him but gave him a small smile before making my way to English.
I am surprised. Cole is ignoring Barbie, like fully. He would reply to her texts once a while but today he put his phone on silent and his back pocket. I saw her turn around and glare at him which made me stifle a smile. I cleared my throat and Cole looked at me in confusion.
“What’s so funny?”
I was taken aback. How did he know I found something funny when I was a master of controlling my expressions? I just shook my head not wanting to talk about Barbie. We got to work and we made a rough plan for the introduction of the role play.
When class finally let out, Cole stopped and turned to me. “There’s a game on Friday so we’ll have to cancel our session.” I nodded my head and told him it was fine.
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Friday. Game day and also my day for the prank. Last game I pulled a prank on Luke and this time it was going to be Blake. I heard he has hair all over his body, a lot of it. So I decided to… meddle with his shampoo and shower gel. The guys usually took a shower here after the game instead of going home which made it perfect for me. But I had a problem; I couldn’t find a way to get to his shampoo and shower gel. It was already game time and everyone was out. As usual, I was with Jess and Marissa and they were practically screaming into my ear.
