As crazy as that shit sounds, it’s true. Throughout my whole school life, since about twelve, anyone, especially female, who got too close to me have been hounded and questioned about our acquaintance, some even bullied.
I usually steer clear of such situations, not my circus, not my monkeys, but later I learned to just avoid everyone except Lance while on school grounds, though he still catches shit every once in a while from some unknowing fool that I end up having to hand their ass.
The thought of anyone going after her with that shit is enough to make me want to go weapons hot, which is not what I’m about. The least amount of people who know what’s really behind my cool façade, the better. “I know.” Her voice was soft and cute.
“What was that?”
“I said I know. I’ve heard the rumors. Some girl got beat up because she was seen talking to you in like the seventh grade.”
“You remember that?” I haven’t even thought about that shit in years but come to think of it, it was that situation that had made me wise up and cut all contact with those around me.
That poor girl had just asked me about something pertaining to a class we had together, and I guess the group of demented chicks who were into me had got it into their heads that it was something more and had knocked her around. There were a few lesser incidents since then but none in the last year or so that I know about.
But dragging this one around two days in a row is bound to raise some questions. “I’m going to leave the slap thing alone for now, but if it happens again…” I left that one hanging because she didn’t need to know.
I remembered way after the fact that I was still holding her hand, and the fact that I was in no hurry to release it spooked me so bad I dropped the shit like she’d burned me. An awkward silence fell between us, and since I had no idea what was going on with us and no way of knowing how to deal with it right this second, I felt relief when the bell rang.
“I’ll walk you to your class.”
“You don’t have to…” She stopped short at the look I gave her, and I had to remind myself that she doesn’t know me. I smiled to put her at ease.
“You’re right; I don’t. I don’t do anything unless I want to. Let’s go.” I didn’t need to take her hand this time around, but I did. The school’s policy of no touching can go fuck itself.
People scattered out of our way like the bell ringing wasn’t enough to send them back to their class. Hers was a good distance away from mine, one level down and all the way on the other side. I’m gonna spend the rest of the damn school year having to make this trek, I’m sure. My heart jumped in agreement. Fucking aye.
I zoomed through the rest of my classes on autopilot because my mind was occupied with her and what the hell was going on with her. It’s only when the last bell rang that I remembered the girl shouting something about a drawing of me. She’d put the sketchpad in her locker on her way back to class… Damn.
“You can’t date her.” That was Anna’s greeting when the girls climbed into my ride after school. I didn’t show any reaction to her words as I started up the Hummer and drove out of the lot. “Date who?”
“That Victoria girl.”
“What’re you talking about?”
“We asked around, and she’s not a very nice person. She bullies her sister.” Which for these two is a sin worthy of death.
“What makes you think I wanted to date her?”
“You asked about her, but what were you doing with the other girl? Who is she?” Sometimes talking to these two is like being on the set of the Twilight Zone.
“That was her sister, Gianna.”
“That’s Gia?” Anna looked back at Rosa in disbelief.
“Yeah, why?”
“Because according to what we heard, we thought she was frumpy and ugly, at least that’s what Victoria says about her.”
“Yeah, that’s why we hate her. We thought we’d talk to her for you, get to know her and all, but two minutes in our skin began to crawl.”
“We were coming to find you to warn you; that’s when we saw you with Gia.” They tag-teamed me with info. I was trying to put a picture together in my head. From what they were saying, they’d had a conversation with Victoria before she and her posse came looking for Gianna.
“What else did you learn?”
“Well, after we spoke to her, we started asking around, and most people we talked to that knew anything told us how mean she is to her sister.”