You Can't Break Her

Chapter thirteen: part one | June

Age 13

June 2003
Bayhollow, Ontario

The preteen dance that Ruby, Renee and I had attended was boring. We walked a block behind the civic centre to Ruby's house when it was done and relaxed in her living room with her mother. We watched Fear Factor with Lesly before there was a knock at the front door.

Ruby ran to answer it, obviously knowing that she was the only person who would get visitors after nine on a Friday. She talked for a second but so low we couldn't hear her and then she reappeared next to us on the couch.

"Who was it?" Lesly asked while not taking her eyes off the tv screen.

Ruby bounced on the cushion a bit to get a better seating position. "It was just Steven. He wanted to know if we wanted to hang out." She looked at Renee and I and rolled her eyes.

"You told him it's too late, right?" Lesly asked, finally taking her eyes away from the screen when a commercial started.

"Yes Mom, otherwise we would be at his house already." She huffed and leaned back into the couch.

"Did you hear what that stupid little fucker Travis said at the dance?" Ruby covered her mouth when she finished speaking and Lesly gave her a look for swearing. "Sorry, Mom."

Renee and I looked at each other and shook our heads.

"No what did he say?" I asked.

She leaned in and whispered the awful things he said into our ears. My blood began to boil, no one said bad things about me, or they paid a price.

"We are not tramps and we don't dress slutty!" I threw my weight back and sprung up from the couch cushion. "He did not say that about us! No. Okay, I need to deal with this, right fucking now!" That part of my mother, the 'get up and whoop some ass', mentality never left me, in my mind he had broken a law and it was meant to be corrected in whatever way I could come up with.

Lesly sat forward and we looked over at her. "What's going on? What happened?"

"Travis said we are tramps when we were at the dance." Ruby put her hand on her mom's leg and leaned back. "Can Ama run over quick to yell at him for being mean?"

I was standing across the table from Lesly with my hands together and a smile on my face. "Please, Lesly. I promise it will take half a minute and I'll be right back. What would you do?" Let me go over there while I'm still this mad or I'll just let it go, please say yes!

Lesly shook her head and laughed. "Fine, go ahead. But you've got ten minutes and I want you girls back here."

I stomped out of the house like I planned to do when I heard what he said, before Lesly intervened and I remembered that there was a parent present. I was gentle with Ruby's door because I wasn't upset with her. I took deep breaths as I crossed the lush green grass to Steven's house, where Travis would undoubtedly be. I knocked hard and consistently until Matt and Steven  threw open the door and gave me identical looks of confusion.

I didn't give them a chance to question my mood. "Is Travis here?"

Steven nodded and backed away, Matt leaned out the door and stepped onto the landing next to me. "Are you okay? You seem really mad. Some guy here thought you were the cops and he almost flushed his weed." He laughed and patted my shoulder.

A smile broke through my intense look but I wouldn't let it be a mood changing expression. "Travis needs to be taught a lesson about respect and I'm going to be the teacher." I finished talking and Travis, the little snake slithered out the front door.

"What do you want?" Travis stepped closer to me and asked in a defensive tone.

I was a little taken aback by his approach, only because we were the same age and I was a foot taller than him. "I heard you were talking shit about me and my friends at the dance."

He stood his ground, crossing his arms and lifted his chin. "Yeah, so what? What are you going to do about it, bitch?"

The word left his mouth, bitch, I had no control over my body. I pulled my arm back like I was an expert in archery and my fist was the arrow. My knuckles met with his nose and his hands scurried to cover the immediate rush of blood and tears that soaked everything from his nose down. He tried to make a fist but was pushed aside my Matt who shuffled him into the house and upstairs. They closed the door and I heard laughter and hollering erupt from inside.

"Don't talk shit about me, dude!" I screamed at Steven's house and walked across the lawn to Ruby and Renee who were waiting in her open front door for me to come back.

"What the hell, Ama, did you just punch that guy?" Renee looked at the hand that I was shaking.

"That wasn't the plan but he called me a bitch. He may as well have asked me to hit him in his stupid smug face." I wiped the blood off my knuckles onto my shorts and pushed Ruby and Renee into the house. "I'm not sure what happens now." My anxiety was forcing me to analyze the situation from a different point of view and the possibility that I was in a lot of trouble was becoming greater with every passing second.

There was a knock on the door a few minutes later and Steven and Matt stood on Ruby's front step. "That was some punch, Ama. We told him not to make you mad but he was all What's she gonna do, she's just a girl."

Matt looked at my hand and shook his head. "We had to disconnect the phone and threaten him o not call the police on you. He went home after we told him he'd look like a dumbass when they heard he was verbally assaulting you." He smiled and patted the broken skin on m hand. "Not that it makes what you did any better."

I pulled my hand back and cradled it. "You're a jerk." I pulled him in for a hug. "But thank you for doing that. You saw how mean he was, I had no choice, right Matt?" I stepped back and looked between him and Steven.

He shook his head. "Yeah, I would have done the same thing. The other guys agree but they're stuck in a super Mario tournament that they couldn't pull themselves away from."

"Well, hopefully Travis will think twice before calling someone a bitch again."