Delaney Blake's Guide to Detention

Step #1: Break Up With Your Boyfriend

I blink at the picture on my phone, looking up at Miranda on the other side of the table. My first reaction is... well, I'm a little turned on, to be perfectly honest. That's the top layer. That's the flimsy, papery onion skin layer. Wow, that's pretty risque. I kinda like this dirty side of Miranda, sending me steamy photos of somebody's else's make out sesh.

Then comes the next layer.

I know that ugly wallpaper in the background. I know the worn-out suede couch that couple is making out on. I've made out on that worn-out suede couch. I've made out with that guy on that worn-out suede couch.

Holy shit.

Miranda raises her eyes at me, silently watching me. I get it now. There is a whole conversation now happening between us. No words. A very private talk happening right in front of our yammering friends, going on about the football game.

Jesse is the loudest. His mouth is big and full of dumb words and I've kissed that stupid mouth like a bajillion times in the two months we've been dating.

I stare at the picture again. The picture of Jesse's big, dumb mouth being occupied by... Christ, is that Lena?

I look up again, blinking at Lena just two measly seats away from me, fluttering her lashes at Jesse like she's a baby deer. The thing is, she's always been like this, but it was way cooler to be the girlfriend who laughed about other girls flirting. I am a cool girlfriend. Too cool? Or not cool enough?

I have to tap my phone to revive the picture of Lena's tongue invading Jesse's mouth like it's goddamn Germany invading Poland. No big deal. Except, you know, staring World War II or whatever.

I feel nuclear. Uranium atoms are pinging around inside of me, trying to split apart and flatten the entire cafeteria.

Or, whatever. I wasn't paying that much attention in that class.

The point is, I'm sitting here freaking out and nobody but Miranda knows it. She gives me a tiny shrug, curls springing up and down with it.

I could punch Jesse in his dumb Germany-occupied mouth. What does that even make me? Belgium? Known for chocolate and waffles?

I get up, lunch tray untouched. Now is not the time for thawed broccoli and boiled chicken. My vision goes all kinds of blurry, the headrush too real. I hold onto the edge of the table.

"Delaney? Where are you going?" Jesse asks.

I couldn't just slink away casual-like from the table to go punch a wall somewhere. Not me.

"Uh..."

In the bottom of my heart, I want him to make sure I'm okay. I want him to know that something's wrong and make bad apologies that don't mean anything, but I'll probably forgive him for anyway. I dare to look him in the eye as the black spots fade out of my vision. He's stupid handsome, this boy. Blue eyes and messy brown hair and varsity football jacket. What a jock. What a jackass.

"You never gave me your milk."

It smacks like a slap to the face. I look down at the milk carton on my tray. Is that a hey you forgot to give me your milk. You always give me your milk. Are you okay? Or is it a greedy, I'm going to milk all the life and love and actual dairy milk out of you.

He reaches out, but for the carton, not for my hand. I'm faster, snatching it off the tray. I almost crush it then and there, right in front of him.

Not right now. We can talk later, but right now, I can barely look at him.

"I'll wrestle you for it," Jesse teases, giving me his flashy grin. The grin three years of braces made perfect and straight.

"I don't think she wants to wrestle for it," Miranda says, exasperated for me.

"If you really want it..." I say, popping open the carton. I lean forward over the table. I pour the whole thing over his head.

The table freezes in tableau. Nobody says a word. They just all watch it happen. Miranda, Lena, all Jesse's football teammates. We all watch as milk drips through Jesse's hair, sliding down his face and onto his letterman jacket and then the floor.

I leave the table in stunned silence, but it's not just our table that's stopped in its tracks. Nobody from the nearest tables says anything either. Every one of those students is locked in disbelief. Did I, Delaney Blake, really just pour milk all over our star quarterback? Was that a thing they witnessed with their own eyes? The audacity. The scandal!

I want to feel like a badass, but the lighting's pretty bad in the cafeteria. Too fluorescent. Not very Hollywood. I have no sunglasses to dramatically put on, like I'm walking away from an explosion.

"Delaney, what the hell?" Jesse scrambles after me, yanking on my wrist. The badassery is definitely gone. Now Jesse is just dripping milk on my sleeve.

"Get your slimeball hands off me," I say, "you've probably got Lena cooties all over you." I'm contaminated. Ugh. Now I'm going to get a bad case of fluttery doe eyes.

Jesse turns beet red, dropping my wrist.

"Did you seriously just say cooties?" he says.

My hands fly up. I cannot. That's what he's hung up on? Is this the fifth grade? Is the entire class going to make fun of me because I believe in boy and girl germs?

"Is that what I'm doing wrong? Is that why you made out with Lena?" I ask. There is a lot whirling around in my like smoke at a stage show. Half special effects, part pot, part cotton candy vaping. Nothing is bigger than the anger, like bright red stage light cutting through the fog.

"Well, not the only reason," Jesse says like slamming a brick into my face. Oh, there are lots of reasons. There are plural reasons for making out with Lena. Plural things I am doing wrong.

"You're just so intense, Laney," Jesse says, "but like, so immature, too."

Too intense? I am too intense for the star quarterback. I am too much. If there's too much of me for one guy, maybe I should be the one going around behind his back invading other people's mouths.

"You want intense? I haven't even reached my peak," I say.

Before I really know what I'm doing, my boot is already in mid-swing. In slow motion, it arcs towards Jesse's ball sack. I can practically hear the elongated voices, all low and vowel-y. Deeeeelaaaaaaneeeeey whaaaaaaaatttt

My foot connects and Jesse crumples. He lies on the floor, clutching his junk and moaning dramatically. Now who's too extra? If I am too much than I will be mucher. More. Too intense. Oh, I can be worse. I can be the most morest, intense, imaturest out there.

I don't to prove Jesse wrong.

I look down on him. The anger all bleeds out and I just feel empty instead, but it's hard to feel bad when all Jesse has done is told me that Lena is less than me. Lena is easier and I don't want to be easy, do I?

Except, I kind of do. A little bit. There is a tiny bit of me that hurts.

I turn, ready to walk out of the cafeteria with my head held high. Delaney against the world, capable of kicking Jesse Johnson in the balls.

Mr. Chadwick stares me down.

"Ms. Blake," he says. It's so stupid how he says my last name like he respects me. "Detention."

And that is how I, Delaney Blake, have the worst lunch hour of my life. 

a/n omg i'm so excited to be working on something new and fun and playful. i hope y'all like delaney and her zany antics