Between You and I

Chapter Twenty- Three

May 18, 2012: 127 Hours After

The halls of High School are bursting with life on this Friday morning, but all that does is just piss me off. Maybe because 1. We're here for an assembly in memory of Valentine Holmes.

2. They're all just annoyed because they had to get their asses out of bed early.

3. Every person here besides me doesn't give two shits about Val. I grumble under my breath as another person can't watch his way and rams his shoulder into me. The laptop is heavy in my backpack and it only just gets heavier. Today: Not my day.

"Dan!" My ears perk up and I search the crowd for who called my name (which was quite easy because I'm quite tall), and it's impossible  to not notice Charlie's red head coming through towards me. And guess who's right behind him? If you guessed Cady Summers, then gold star for you. A tiny sigh escapes my lips just before he reaches me.

"Hey, Dan," He grins up at me and I nod back with a small smile. Cady shyly smiles up at me (yeah, she's a shy one) and speaks a small, "Hi." I do the same to her that I did to Charlie. Hm, both their names start with a 'C'. Looks like I'm going to start calling them C^2 now. I'll make a mental note to annoy the hell out of him with that. 

"I heard you and Valentine were really close," I flinch at her name coming out of the mouth of Cady. 

"Well, yeah... we were." Besides that, I don't really know what to say. Valentine hasn't talked to me in school in front of people for a long while, so not a lot of people know about it. Which is totally fine by me now. I'm not in the mood to be rained on by a pity party with a bunch of, "Oh, we're sorry for your loss." or, "Hey, things will get better, yeah?" If that happened, I'd probably lose it one hundred percent. By the time of graduation, I'll be insane. 

Cady presses her lips together and I catch her giving Charlie's hand a small squeeze. 

"I hope things get better for you," Her voice was soft, but strong at the same time, as if she understood just what kind of hell fire I'm going through. I give her a tight small smile.

"Yeah. Me, too." 

-------------------

"Valentine was one of our great students, here at this high school," Bullshit.  You've got to be kidding me. Almost all the teachers hated her for being so loud, outspoken, and right in most of the arguments she starts up with them. She's paid one too many visits to the principal’s office for that. 

"She's loved by everyone who knew her and will be missed very dearly," Oh God, shoot me now. This is class A shit right here. If everybody loved her so much, why the hell is she dead now!? My fists ball up and my teeth grind together. 

"Hey, dude, you alright?" Charlie's eyes dig holes in my face, but I can't look at him. I can't look at anybody because everybody is such a saint, right? Everybody can't help but love everyone, yeah? Jesus!

Why is every single person in the room so fucking busy with standing on their minuscule soap boxes to even notice the one girl who's been tearing up her insides and wrestling with her demons until she eventually gave up!?

"I'm sick of this," I mutter loud enough for him to hear as I get up. The headmaster's fake loving father speech wavers when he sees me all blurry eyed and angry. But guess what? I don't give a single fuck because I have the right to be angry. All eyes are on me now, and I look around at every. Single. Uncaring face. 

"Dan, sit down," Cady harshly commands me, but it just goes in one ear, and goes out the other.

"So, you're all here because you're practically chained to your chairs until eleven, yeah?" I spit out bitterly, stepping out into the walking aisle between the set up chairs in the gym. 

"You all don't really care about what happened, or what she went through," The words are tumbling out: the anger I've kept inside for so long finally breaking out of my bones. 

"None of you even knew her! All you knew was a name-"

"Daniel Ridgewell, take your seat-" 

"Hey! This is directed at you, too, Mr. Headmaster. Don't think it isn't." I turn and stare at the man, each syllable dripping with venom. No, no one's going to stand on their soap boxes now. Not now. Only a tiny wall is standing between my rage and my throat.

"When you hear, 'Valentine Holmes', all that used to go through your heads was that she was the one girl everybody couldn't get. One moment you believe she's a slut, the next you believe that she's the hero who helped you with your math homework," I only catch some teary eyes, but it was obvious who these words were impacting the most. The girls and boys who toyed with her and knew it. My feet slowly make their way down the aisle, my mouth throwing each string of letters at different faces as I go.

"And now? Now, all you think of when you hear her name is 'The Girl Who's Dead'. Right? Don't start shitting me and say that that isn't what first comes to your mind." Trevor Hayes rolls his eyes at me with a tiny smirk, and I feel that tiny wall break loose and give way. 

"Trevor, don't you care?" My heart's pounding against my ribcage, but my breathing's even. I should have done this a long, long, long time ago. 

"Out of all of us here, I thought you would be one of the people who did give a fuck about her." His smug face falls as I walk as close to him as I can get, only a few people on chairs separating us. 

"After all... She did keep the secret of how you've been sleeping with Emily behind pretty little Miley's back." Damn, this feels so... Good! Automatically, Trevor's face is over taken by shock and my mind goes to work by saving this sweet memory's every detail. 

"What!?" Miley yells right next to him, and his gaze tears away from me to her, just to get his face bitch slapped. A smirk dances on my lips and I keep walking, ignoring the sparks of a fight between Trevor's girls slowly igniting a fire.

"Don't you guys dare say that you loved her. That you were friends with her. 'Cause you know what?" It feels like I'm just getting started with a hurricane, but I've reached the back of the gym, and probably can't stay because the headmaster is- no doubt- going to lose hell on my ass.

"All of you here are just sick. Fake. Bastards." I finish it off with a grin because the weight of my anger lifts off of my shoulders in this moment, and I swear to God I've never felt so alive! Currently, Emily and Miley busy themselves in a bitch fight and everyone's getting up to either cheer them on or tear them apart. According to the high school book of law and order, it's probably to cheer them on. 

"Students, please-" The headmaster's frantically trying to calm down the chaos I just brought up, but nothing's working at all. Charlie's laughing his head off as Cady's trying to get through the crowd to break the two girls apart, and I join him in with a couple of laughs that escape my throat. Damn, I wonder how high school would be different if I did something like this when I was a freshman. 

"Daniel Falconer Ridgewell!" The headmaster shouts, and now even the teachers are mixed up in the mess, trying to calm every single high schooler's ass down. His glare meets my eyes, but I no longer feel terrified of him.  I don't feel terrified of anyone at all.

"I can't wait to graduate and leave this hell hole!" I holler at him, his face taking the record for 'Fastest Time to Get Red'. Charlie joins my side, yelling, "Yeah, fuck this shit!" through the screams, shrieks, and chaos in action. The finale? The both of us turn around, fling both hands in the air, and flip the entire high school off as we exit through the back gym doors. 

My parents are definitely going to hear about this.