Willow Academy (Spanking Story)

Chapter 19, Part 2: Penny's POV

I thought about running straight back to my dorm, but I figured that'd be the first place my brothers would look for me—it was as obvious as running back to their house. Since the only school building that was open was the gym, I decided to just stay outside. But I wasn't an idiot—I knew that I couldn't just stand out in the open field for long—I needed to find a good hiding spot if I wanted to be left alone. Although I was still trying to wrap my head around how both Cooper and Emmett could be such cold, heartless, cruel jerks, I was able to break away from my train of thoughts when I saw the bleachers that were by the track.

"Guess that will have to do," I said to myself as I ran over to the grey metal bleachers. While I had the intention of going to hide under the bleachers, my game plan quickly changed when I laid eyes on Zach's secret hiding spot, which was just begging me to hide inside.

So I did.

After making sure no one was looking, I quickly opened the storage shed door and shut it behind me. I wasn't surprised to see that all the equipment in the shed was as nicely organized as Jerry's janitor closet on the second floor. I think that was one of the reasons my brothers—but Dana in particular—didn't mind me hanging out with Jerry back when I was younger: he helped them instill the "a clean space is a happy space" policy in me.

I sighed as I went and sat down on the large, red tool drawer that was over in the corner. While this definitely wasn't the worse night of my life, it was pretty damn close. I'd never felt so humiliated, so embarrassed, so betrayed, so stupid—

I jumped off the toolbox when I heard the sound of the doorknob turning. I could feel myself start to get annoyed and hurt all over again at the fact that my brothers had found me so quickly—didn't they get that I just wanted to be left alone? I snuck out the bathroom window for a reason!

As the door opened, I was shocked at who stepped inside the shed.

"Zach?" I tried to wipe the newest tears off my face without messing up my makeup. "What are you doing here?"

"I could ask you the same question, Pidge," he said as he closed the door behind himself. "You okay?"

"Do I look okay?" I snapped. "I'm a hot mess."

"You're not a hot mess." He pointed towards my face. "You've got some dry tears strained on your face, but you're not a hot mess."

"Gee thanks."

"Here, let me try that again." He slowly walked towards me, only stopping once he was about a foot away. "You're not a hot mess. You're hot, but you could never look like a mess. Even on your worst day, I bet you look as beautiful as ever."

"I meant I feel like a hot mess," I said.

"Oh ..." Zach rubbed the back of his neck.

"What are you really doing here, Zach?" I snapped. "Besides pissing me off." At that moment, I was honestly just annoyed with the male-species in general, so Zach was unfortunately just in my line of fire.

"I saw you run out of the dance after dancing with that kid, and I just wanted to make sure you were okay."

I rolled my eyes. "Yeah, sure you did."

"What, you don't believe me?"

"I don't believe that you were at the dance. No offense, but you were the last person I thought would ever go to homecoming."

"You're right, I never go to those stupid school dances. I hate them more than I hate regular school."

"Then why did you go to this one?"

He stepped closer to me. "Because I knew you'd be there."

I looked at him confused. "What?"

Zach stepped even closer to me so that we were face-to-face. "I wanted to ask you to homecoming, Pidge," he said, "because I figured that you wanted to go."

"You, you did?" I asked.

Zach wiped a tear off my cheek. We were definitely breaking the six-inch rule, but I wouldn't have cared even if my brothers were watching us from outside the shed's window.

"Yeah I did." His fists then tensed up. "But that idiot of a soccer player beat me to it. So much for his 'No dates to the dance' rule." I initially thought that Zach would have asked to the dance right away if he wanted to go with me ... but I guess looking back now, I wasn't too surprised that he hadn't gotten around to asking me sooner since he probably didn't think that he'd have to worry about competition from Emmett.

"Yeah so much for that," I said.

"So, not that I didn't already know that that kid was a loser," Zach said as he unclenched his fists, "but how did soccer-boy screw up this time?"

I sighed. I didn't really want to talk about it with anyone at that point in time ... but I guess Zach had helped me with my problems before, so it couldn't hurt. "Let's just say, Emmett was using me to get in better standing with Cooper for soccer."

"Wow, how pathetic," he said. "I mean really, how stupid can this guy get?"

"I know." I sighed again.

"I'm gonna go find this guy and teach him some manners," Zach said as he cracked his knuckles.

I quickly grabbed onto Zach's hands and lowered them. "Don't, Zach. Trust me, I feel like punching Emmett in the face right about now too, but beating him up isn't gonna fix anything," I said. "Besides, I'm even stupider for falling for it."

"No. You're not stupid. At all," Zach said with a dead serious look on his face. "This guy is the idiot, not only for using a girl like that, but for using a girl as incredible as you."

I looked at him and let out a small smile. "Thanks, Zach." I gently put my hand on his cheek. "You know, I wish you had asked me to the dance."

He raised an eyebrow. "Really? You would have said 'Yes' if I had?"

"If you asked me before Emmett did I would have," I admitted.

"Well, hopefully he didn't beat me to asking you this question." I looked up him with another confused expression as he took both my hands into his. "Penelope 'Penny' 'Pidge' Kherrington, will you be my girlfriend?"