More Than Friends | ✓

Chapter Seven

My dad took me home. He asked me on the way home if Alice and I were still “just friends”.

I played it cool and didn’t let on. He commented on how I was washing more regularly, had started shaving, had been keeping the house tidy, as though these were random unrelated things. Of course it was because I was preparing in case Alice ever came to reclaim her clothes she’d left at my house.

When I got home I looked in the mirror and saw my face plastered with pretty perfect little red lipstick pucker marks! Dad and Anita must have seen them; they must know.

I didn’t wash my face that night. I lay awake all night, still, on my back, my eyes wide open, reliving the cuddle and kissing. My erection was desperate but I couldn’t bring myself to relieve it; it felt so inadequate and impure to touch myself alone now that I had Alice.

I tried to hold hands with Alice on the way to school but she shrugged me off and said we’d better keep all displays of affection private. She had been hiding from the world for so long that was the only way she felt comfortable. I went along. At least it was clear that she wasn’t going to pretend that last night never happened, tell me that we were still “just friends”.

That was the day it came to a head with the boys. That morning when I got to the form room the boys were already there, and I had to push my way past their outstretched legs to reach my seat at the back. The room fell silent, watching, as I slowly fought my way through. Alice and I were sitting apart in our normal chairs again today. I was feeling awful for Alice, but I couldn’t imagine Helen sacrificing her back row seat indefinitely.

Just as I reached my seat Helen put her hand out to block me sitting down. She said clearly, and the room was dead silent so everyone heard, “They’ve put tacks on your chair.”

I looked down. It was subtle, but there were needle-like spikes sticking up. I looked around asking who did it. There was just mirth and laughs.

Deep down high school came flooding back. I was scared, alone, cornered. And then a small part of me snapped. I wasn’t a push over any more. I’d spent the summer mixing plaster and I had some muscle now.

I walked deliberately up the aisle towards Alice. The silence took a new deathly depth. The legs across the aisle instinctively shrank back as I approached; the bystanders suddenly didn’t want any part of this fight. Alice looked really scared. The boy sitting beside her, Roy his name was, tried to look brave. But I had a strange sensation. I could tell he was shitting himself. I’d never had that feeling ever before. I’d never had anyone scared of me. I moved like nothing would stop me.

Nothing dared stop me. I reached Roy and grabbed him by the tie. He just sat still, not moving. He was staring straight ahead. I suddenly didn’t know what to do. But I was angry, really angry. The words, the threat, just came spilling out without thinking, “I’m going to find you, alone, and kick your balls off.”

Mr. Davis walked in. I don’t think he heard my threat, but he saw me gripping a petrified Roy. He saw the pale white scared faces of the rest of the class. He saw Alice crying. I think in that moment he saw everything, how it really was. I just pushed Roy back into his seat and, still fuming, walked slowly deliberately threateningly back to my seat and sat down gingerly on the edge of the chair.

Everyone was watching me. Mr. Davis was watching me. He didn’t say anything. There was a long scared silence and then he did roll call.

That lunchtime the whole school was abuzz with the fight. The Posse were all gathered around me like cheerleaders. The crowd was pushing me inexorably towards the centre of the quad. I could see Roy being pushed by the other boys towards me. Everyone wanted to see the fight. The whole school, all years, seemed to fill the quad. Everyone was chanting quietly, insistently, together, “fight! fight! fight!” Except Alice.

I couldn’t see Alice anywhere, no matter how hard I looked and stared around.

And then there was a clearing in front of me, with Roy on the other side. I realised this was it. I had to fight. If I bottled out now, I was sunk forever. And I could smell Roy’s fear. I was now the top dog, and Roy had already lost the fight in his head. I went in for the kill and punched his lights out. It was all over so suddenly that there was just silence and confusion. Roy dropped to the ground as though he was thinking it a merciful chance to stop the fight at the earliest possible opportunity.

Suddenly everyone dispersed. There was no excitement and anticipation now; the fight had happened, almost nobody had actually seen my rapid punches, and now everyone felt vulnerable and didn’t want to be around when the teachers intervened.

I looked around me. Roy was being dragged off by the boys, and The Posse had closed in around me. Suddenly I felt very very scared and vulnerable. But Katie was bucking the trend and cooing, and Helen was determinedly dragging me to safety from right under Katie’s nose.

We found Alice on our bench on the far side of the games field. The Posse were with me, them heading to the copse in the corner as they always did.

“Oh you should have seen your man,” they cooed, “he knocked out Roy with one punch!”

They all talked at once and gave conflicting accounts of the blows I’d given. Alice seemed shocked and horrified.

I sat down beside her. Katie was telling everyone how next time we should fight here on the games field where the teachers wouldn’t see so I could really finish Roy properly. Only Helen asked how I was feeling. I asked The Posse to leave us. It was weird being the only boy, surrounded by so many excited girls. But I was secretly scared. I was scared there would be more fighting. I was scared because this could end up with me having my head kicked in. As Katie’s Posse strutted off towards the copse I heard Katie telling them, “She must be blowing him!” and cackling.

Alice couldn’t believe what I’d done. She was a strong pacifist. I tried to explain that I’d been bullied enough at high school and now I’d snapped. I tried to appeal to her, but she couldn’t see that this fight had to happen. She pointed out we didn’t actually know it was Roy who had put the tacks through my chair.

She said she didn’t like ‘this Sam’; she didn’t want to go out with ‘this Sam’.

I cried. I sat beside her and sobbed and apologised. She put her arm around me, comforting, and I think this was the only public display of affection and touching she ever showed me in public. Perhaps The Posse were watching.

I didn’t feel like a hero when Alice and I went solemnly home from school.