The Insanity of a Wallflower

Wallflower- IX

Everyone turned their heads. No one spoke. I calmly stepped forward but my head screamed and howled and tore inside of me.

They see you! Everyone's seeing you!

THEY'RE LOOKING AT YOU WITH THOSE FILTHY EYES.

"You," Shannon said stunned, "Who the fùck are you?"

"It wasn't her!" Karri snapped instantly, "The only reason you found out it was me was because I was pulling them down. And I did it because I felt sorry for you."   Her tears had stopped short the moment Shannon turned on me. Karri was as protective of me as I was her.

A crack echoed so loudly through the air that I had a hard time reacting to the slap, though I was suddenly aware that Tim's hands were pulling me backwards. "Wait," he hissed, "You'll only make it worse pretending to be responsible". I had clambered three feet forward and now fought the restraints of his arms.

Any attention that had been directed at me had long past and was once again on Karri and Shannon. Suddenly, another female's voice roared through the air. I struggled against Tim as we both realized Maggie had broken through the crowd.

"What the hell do you think you're doing being so proud," She screamed. Tim let go of me too fast and I fell forward. I looked up to see he was racing to Karri, apparently changing his mind on when to jump in on this. But he only got a few feet away before some of the teachers finally thought better and pulled all three girls away from each other. Karri met my eyes again, they were wide but serious. She subtly shook her head at me; saying it all. Stay out of this.

"In my office now!" Screamed a voice and I watched our vice principal Mr. Rodrigues come charging through the crowd. "All four of you!" He screamed, pointing a finger at me.

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"Alys, I will never forgive you if you try taking the fall for me. This was my prank, my idea, my joke- and everyone already knows I'm guilty." Karri said quietly through the side of her mouth so that the office staff wouldn't notice. She had just returned from the main office, but in her absence my mind had lost control to the fear, disgust and guilt.

I didn't say anything. My fists were white. I felt like my weak mental state was beginning to shatter; the stress, anger and anxiety were tearing through any sanity I had. My knuckles seemed to protrude even more against my grip.

"I'm getting suspended no matter what," she continued, "So why the hell would you pretend you made the posters when you really didn't? If you try to say you were involved, my dad will think you were the original instigator. He's been looking for a reason to end our friendship and you know it. If he even has an inkling this was your fault- we're done.  Did you ever think of that, Alys?" She spat my name and I tightened. I realized why.

I finally glanced to her. The red welts on her cheek were dark in contrast to her pale skin; she was shaken up and uneasy. But she was even angrier that I was making this worse not better. I suddenly realized how selfish I had been. She was just as scared as I was. But she was helping me instead; she was talking me through it while it should have been me to her.

"I'm... sorry," I said hesitantly, testing each word slowly; hoping that none of my true thoughts came out with it.

"Promise me." she said sternly. "Everything's fine right now, even though it's wrong. Everything's fine because I was expecting to be caught and I was ready for it. But don't you dare make this worse, Alys. I'll never forgive you for being so stupid."