Knowing Me, Knowing You

When All Is Said And Done

I'm sorry about not updating. I keep forgetting how long it's been since I'd last updated, and before I know it, a whole week passes. I promise that when my new series comes out (October 6th, in case you were wondering), I will be sure to do a better job at updating. In the meantime, enjoy the newest chapter!

Xander understood that the bullying Carter received was normal for her. He understood that she was used to it and found her own way to cope with the snarky comments by using dry humor and comebacks to get people to back off, but he never expected the harassment to escalate to property damage.

As he ran into school to meet Carter by her locker before class, he was disgusted to find the words YOUR UGLY written in black sharpie over her locker. Vandalism was used in most teen dramas to make a statement about how the audience should root for the underdog, but he'd never seen it in person.

The closest anyone had seen to vandalism were inappropriate pictures Heather Bailey hung up of Thomas McCartney after he sent her five dick pics and a slew of crude messages calling her a whore and slut when she didn't respond. Everyone saw the pictural evidence of his privates and the text conversations, humiliating him for trying to belittle her. After that day, the amount of dick pics sent to the female student body declined heavily. But this vandalism was anything but close to that.

Whoever wrote the message on Carter's locker had malicious intentions. The idea of someone going after Carter in such a petty way pissed him off. Xander knew Carter was the last person who deserved it. While she may have acted like a bitchy witch to most of her peers, it was all an act. She never went out of her way to cause any actual harm, and she'd never stand by and let it happen to someone else. She'd jump in the middle of fights and break people up when the teachers were too afraid to get in the middle of the action. A front was not a good enough of a reason to harass someone.

When Xander spotted Carter walking down the halls, he tried to quickly come up with a plan to hide the message. But every day before school began, she'd get her books for her morning classes and head to homeroom. There was no way to prevent her from seeing the message.

From the moment Carter walked into school, she felt people stare and whisper at her. While she was used to it from her normal appearance, something felt off about it that day. For once, it seemed like the stares and whispers out of pity.

The last thing Carter wanted was people to think she'd gone soft. The moment she went soft, the bullying would get worse. They'd laugh in her face no matter the comeback, and they'd make plans for people to gang up on her. She did not want to go back to her days of being bullied without any way of fighting back, so she refused to show her internal panic.

Once she spotted Xander standing by her locker, she wondered if people were staring at her because of him. She began to wonder if he was going to ask her out on a date. Or worse, to a New Year party. Xander couldn't help but flick his eyes back and forth between Carter and her locker, instantly giving it away.

When she realized the actual reason for the pity, she relaxed and smirked to herself. A little vandalism was not going to knock her down a peg. Instead, she reached into her bag and pulled out a sharpie, correcting YOUR to YOU'RE. She nodded, capped the marker, and opened her locker.

"What the hell?" Xander exclaimed.

"What?" she casually asked as she switched her books for the morning.

"How can you be so nonchalant about that? Someone vandalized your locker."

She scoffed. "Yeah. And they failed." Holding up her finger, she smirked as she took a step closer to Xander. "Important life lesson: if you're going to let someone hurt your feelings, make sure they know the difference between 'your' and 'you're,' okay?"

"No," he huffed, rolling his eyes. "Carter, this should piss you off."

"I don't want it to, so I'm not going to let it," she shrugged. "Fuck whoever did this, but it's my problem. They can suck my wiggly dick," she snickered, shimmying her shoulders as she walked backwards away from Xander.

As Carter walked away from him to class, Xander pulled out his phone and group messaged the swim team. He took a picture of the locker and sent it them. If any of you find out anything about this, or if you ever see it happen it again, let me know immediately.

Is that Carter's locker? Trevor sent him in a text outside the group chat.

Xander: Yes. I'm serious, let me know if you find out anything.

Trevor: Poor Carter. I bet she's devastated.

Xander: No. She actually corrected the locker. I don't get why she's being so nonchalant about the whole thing.

Trevor: Because she's used to it.

Even if it didn't upset Carter, it upset Xander. But knowing Trevor was right was what made it ten times worse. He wouldn't let it happen again. The moment he found out who vandalized her locker, he planned to kick their ass.