Willow
Tanner hands me a cup of coffee, which I gratefully accept. It has cooled down a bit too much during my complete collapse into a weeping pile of broken mush, but it still tastes nice. I should probably feel highly embarrassed about my disastrous loss of self-control ending in a crying fit, but I'm not.
I could sit here and think about it for a hundred years, but I'll still not be able to explain why I'm becoming more and more at ease in the presence of Tanner Trent, the one boy who'd had me on the verge of running away screaming since the first time I saw him wink at me in Detention.
I honestly believe I would be dissolving into a puddle of mortification right now if the boy sitting on the beanbag next to mine was anybody other than Tanner. Perhaps even Hunter.
Paisley always says that Tanner is so imperfect and messed up that he has no capacity to judge others. That might be an explanation. I feel no condemnation coming from him; he is not even giving me strange looks.
I glance at him, where he's calmly eating one of the tuna and mayonnaise sandwiches he'd made for us. The boy continues to tie my brain into knots. One minute he'll be incredibly kind and sweet, and the next, I honestly would love to punch him really hard, but I suspect that it would hurt me more than it would hurt him.
Right now, I'm just grateful to him for trusting me enough to enlighten me sharing with me a story that I had to hear, even though it tore my heart in two. I'm truly grateful he is here with me; it is oddly comforting.
"What happened to your hand?" I ask when I notice that the skin of his right hand's knuckles is broken and raw. He glances at it, looking a little uncomfortable.
"It ran into an obstacle. It's nothing."
It doesn't look like nothing to me. I put my mug down and rise from the beanbag to find the first aid kit in the kitchen.
"Seriously, Prissy, it's nothing," Tanner protests when I return to my seat in the living area, put the first aid case on the floor between us and take out some disinfectant, cotton wool and a tube of ointment. I ignore his objections, taking his hand in mine. Surprisingly, he doesn't resist; he merely blinks at me, looking a little confused.
"Shhhht," I hiss, applying the disinfectant to the broken areas. He winces slightly but doesn't say anything; he probably realises that it's better just to let me have my way. "These are your hands, Tanner. If something happens to them, they won't be able to cook anymore. That would be truly tragic."
I give him a long hard look. I realise that I'm sounding and acting a little bit like Aunt Beth when Hunter is being careless with his injuries. Thinking of Hunter and his injuries causes my throat to close up again, I can feel fresh tears threatening another uncontrollable bout of crying.
Oh! No!
"Besides," I add hastily, trying to distract myself. "They're bleeding slightly, which makes me wonder about that cheesecake you made and these sandwiches."
"I washed my hands! I didn't bleed in the food, Priss!" He tries to pull his hand away, but I hold on tightly, clicking my tongue at him and resume my task, ready to grab his hand if he tries to pull away again.
"Thank you for telling... or rather showing me what happened," I say after a while. "A lot of strange things are making more sense to me now. But to be honest, I still don't see how I could help Hunter because I still don't understand why he wants to run away from the people who clearly love him so much."
I think of Uncle Ryan's face in the video, the depth of pain in his eyes. How could Hunter want to cause his father that kind of pain again by removing himself from his life? Doesn't he realise how much Uncle Ryan loves him? I know he loves him back; I can see it. It makes no sense to me.
Tanner is not answering; he is just watching me put ointment on his cuts and abrasions as if he doesn't understand what he's seeing.
"His f... that man is still in prison, isn't he? Is Hunter afraid that he'll be released and hurt the people he loves again? I can understand that he might fear that, but it doesn't really explain the whole lycanthropy theory Paisley has going."
Tanner drops his hand when I finally let it go; he is gazing into my eyes, swallowing hard.
"That is definitely one of his fears, Prissy, but you're right; it won't make him run, it will make him stand and fight, and he's not a scrawny seven-year-old anymore."
I think I'm beginning to understand Hunter's interest in MMA and his extremely violent training with the dummy in the back garden. He wants to be able to protect the people he loves.
Why run away, then?
"What he's really afraid of is doing the same thing to the people he loves as Gordon Matthews did."
I'm in the process of re-packing the first aid kit, and slam the lid shut, turning startled eyes on Tanner.
"Why on Earth would he think a crazy thing like that?"
"You think it's crazy?"
Don't tell me Tanner believes that Hunter could ever do a thing like that?!
"How can you even ask that? You know him! He would never..." A sob breaks out of confinement, and I can feel my eyes tearing up again. "Hunter is one of the kindest people I've ever met. He saves problematic rodents, for crying out loud! He's the kind of person who would die for the people he loves. He even proved that when he was just a little..."
I cannot talk anymore. I pick up my mug and take long gulps of the cold coffee still left in there to stop myself from crying again.
"Yes, I know, Prissy. I know that. You know that. Everybody who knows him knows that. The only person who doesn't know that is Hunter. He doesn't understand what happened to that man to turn him into such a monster, and he is afraid that the same thing could happen to him too."
I put my mug down a little harder than I meant to and fold my arms around myself.
"That is the saddest thing I've ever heard. He must be in so much pain." He shied away from the topic yesterday when I all but accused him of abandoning Paisley. I now understand why, and I regret pushing the subject.
"Seriously, Priss, you need to get your waterworks under control."
"I'm trying! Stop being so mean!"
Tanner suddenly grabs a tissue from the box and leans towards me; he doesn't try to shove it up my nose again like earlier; he just gently dabs at the escaped tears rolling down my cheeks.
"I'm not being mean. Do you really want to have to explain to Hunter why you're crying when he gets home? He cannot handle talking about this stuff. It makes him physically ill. You care about him, right? I'm pretty sure you don't want to hurt him. I swear I'll lock you in the toilet under the stairs if I have to."
I take the tissue from Tanner's fingers, wipe my nose and sniff.
"You're right. I'm sorry," I take one of the sandwiches and bite into it. I hoped for a taste explosion to jar me out of my misery, but there was none. I am certain that the sandwich is delicious, but I cannot taste it at all. Not a thing. It feels as if my mouth is filled with sawdust, and now I cannot stop chewing it because I've forgotten how to swallow.
"Something must have happened to plant that absurd idea in his head," I finally say, after using a sip of coffee to force the piece of sandwich down my gullet.
"Yeah," Tanner shrugs. "In ninth grade, Hunter was dating Céleste for a short time, but... well... stuff happened... uhm..." He suddenly seems uncertain about the wisdom of proceeding with his story.
"She was using Paisley to get to Hunter, and he was mad and broke up with her," I help the poor boy out before he tangles himself up in his tongue.
"Oh, you know about that," he looks relieved that he is not spilling more of Hunter's secrets. "Yeah. She was really mad and upset because she was actually seriously into him but would die rather than admit it.
"So, I heard her tell him that she was just slumming it, curious about what it would be like to date the son of a murderer. Hunter didn't know that she knew about all that. Actually, we didn't think that anybody but his closest friends and family knew.
"Saying that was bad enough, but then she said that she was going to dump him anyway because she realised what a massive risk she was taking since he is probably going to do the same thing to his family one day."
I cannot believe what I am hearing!
I slam my mug down on the table, and this time I mean to do it. I turn angry eyes on Tanner, glaring at him, clenching my teeth not to use some of the choice swear words I've heard jumping from his lips occasionally.
"What the hell are you glaring at me for? I didn't do anything!"
"No?! Why were you people all trying to encourage me to join Céleste's group if you knew she could say something that vile to someone like Hunter? That she could do to Paisley what she did!"
"Is that what we were trying to do?"
"Wasn't it? Is that what you thought of me, that I belong with people as mean as that?"
"No!" Tanner grabs my hand trembling on the tabletop. "Don't be stupid! We just wanted you to know what you'd be giving up if you didn't go... social standing-wise. We didn't want you to go or think that you should go... Were kinda hoping you wouldn't..." He mumbles his last sentence and drops my hand. "Besides, what the hell does any of that matter now? It was ages ago!"
Less than a week, to be precise.
"I've punished her for what she did... multiple times. It's done."
What on Earth is that supposed to mean?
"Someone posted that article link on the school chat group, and there was still a video on that page then. The post was removed very quickly, and Kyle did some things to make it less easy to find that link again. When that article was written, Uncle Ryan took legal action to have that video removed, I don't know how it managed to get on the page again, but Kyle got rid of it. Hopefully, for good this time.
"At first, I thought it was Céleste, and I took her on about it but it turned out it was posted by a guy who wanted to take revenge on Hunter and try to gain favour with Céleste or some kind of shit like that."
I cannot even begin to imagine how horrible it must've been for Hunter and his father to have that awful article and video shoved back into their lives like that.
"For some reason, Hunter thought it was Galen who posted it. He might actually still believe that even though Kyle and I have proven that it wasn't. Besides, Galen would never do something like that."
It baffles me that Galen can be Dex's twin brother, apparently friends with Tanner, and still be enemies with Hunter. It doesn't quite make sense. If Galen is so awful, why would Tanner like spending time with him, and why would Paisley become a little blurry-eyed when she speaks about him?
"Céleste really regrets what she said to him, you know? She didn't even believe that crap herself when she said it back then. She was just mad and lashing out. Later, she even tried to apologise to him, but... well... she's invisible to Hunter now."
I was about to give the sandwich a second chance, but Tanner's words make me drop it again so that I can glare at him some more.
"Are you defending her right now?"
"No!" he exclaims, dropping his own sandwich back on the plate too. "I'm stating a fact. Look, Céleste is just a messed up little rich bitch living under too much pressure from her perfect parents and unable to deal with it. She takes it out on others... in a very hoity-toity overly friendly way."
"You sound as if you actually like her!"
Tanner laughs, shaking his head. "I just don't actively hate her anymore. Don't be jealous, Prissy; your mission is to seduce Hunter, remember? Stay on target and leave me alone."
"Oh, do be quiet," I snap, pulling a face when he laughs at me.
♫
Declan
It's been one hour and eight minutes, and at least the last 20 minutes were spent listening to Blanche and Raymond arguing, as usual. Who the hell cares about what colour we're going to use for the small cards attached to the chocolates we're going to hand out to the students to wish them all the best for their exams?
We're giving them chocolates to cheer them up for their exams, not making political or social statements. Most of the buggers won't even read it or notice it; they're just gonna gobble the chocolates and not care whether the colour of the card is inclusive and diverse enough or not. What does that even mean in the world of notes attached to chocolates?
For all I care, it can be printed on toilet paper so they can wipe the chocolate off their fingers when done. And no, I don't give a shite what colour the toilet paper is either!
People who want to be offended will be offended no matter what ye do. I agree with Blanche on that one; if a person is going to be offended by the colour of a piece of paper an encouraging message is printed on, they're missing the point of the message and can just go ahead and be offended. I agree that there should be options for diabetics and other dietary needs, though.
I can also see Raymond's point that we can use the last period before lunch tomorrow to brief the grade eight classes on all they need to know about the exam procedures. Official lessons have stopped for the semester, and revision is great and all, but we still have the rest of the week for that, and those who need help will be in next week as well and between exams. Why take their lunch away or keep them after school?
Sometimes it is fine just to skip a class.
I skipped one today and am feeling a shitload better for it, though I had a bit of an issue getting the wet ice stains on the front of me pants to dry. It was not the easiest task with Hunter hanging around, making all kinds of stupid jokes about it, and coming up with plausible and not-so-plausible theories about why my pants were wet.
Did we really need to find an answer to that question?
Weren't we there with the ice for a full 45 minutes? No mystery to solve there, but that didn't stop the plonker at all. Thinking about it makes me want to laugh again.
I'll admit I've not been all that focused during today's meeting, or I would've nipped this nitpicking in the bud by now.
I feel like I've been nipped in the bud... or the butt... or, more precisely, the other side of me butt. The ice has done wonders, but I'm still a wee bit uncomfortable and would really like to call it a day. Nothing spoils a bloke's day as fast as having to get in the middle of some dumb fight about hell knows what just to get kneed in yer privates as a reward for yer trouble.
Bleeding agro melters!
I look around the long table in the middle of the student council lounge, scanning the bored faces of the other leaders seated around it and am shocked to see Hunter diligently taking notes on a notepad propped against the thigh and knee of his one leg, folded into a triangle and resting on the knee of his other leg.
Aye, he doesn't write on the tabletop like a civilized person; it's Hunter, after all. I never thought I'd see the day when Hunter Drake grew up and became an upstanding, note-taking member of the student council. I literally have to drag the yoke to these meetings. Usually, he plays games on his phone the entire time.
It never ceases to amaze me how smoothly the lad can switch from one frame of mind to the next. One minute he's mocking me for being kneed in the groin by a girl half me size, trying to work out exactly how she could've managed it. And the next, he's gathering ice into a plastic bag and handing me a soft drink from the vending machine.
While I sat in this lounge, sipping the drink and moving the ice around so I didn't freeze off me junk, he was patting me back, telling me one annoyingly stupid joke after another, until I wanted to shove the ice down his throat to stop him from talking. The pain in me loins was bad enough, I didn't need the added suffering of listening to his shite!
Now, he is sitting over there looking all diligent with a concentrated frown on his brow. The guy doesn't even like writing; why on Earth is he sitting there taking notes of this bullshite when he could be doing his duty of disrupting the meeting to help us get home faster? What's there to take notes of anyway? I could sum this meeting up in 5 seconds.
Why don't ye bloody do it then, McKenna, ye moron?!
"Aye, that I will!" I agree and realise a little too late that I did so out loud. Everybody is looking at me now; even the eejit taking notes over there is watching me, one eyebrow raised in question. "Ye both have valid points," I say politely. We are all intimately acquainted with these valid points since they've been repeating them for the last 15 minutes at least. "I say we make a hybrid plan combining all those valid points and vote on the ones we're unsure of. What do ye think?"
Have I gone off me friggin' head?
I should not have given these people any choices or opened any discussions because now it's not just Blanche and Raymond going at it; it's become a bleeding free-for-all. I can see why Doc likes to leave these meetings up to us and then just have either Blanche or meself give him a summary of the decisions to which he will give his final aye or nay.
I am completely failing at this game today.
"No, screw this!" Hunter jumps to his feet, slamming his notepad on the table loud enough to silence the room for a few seconds so that he can have his say. Just to clarify, this is not how he normally disrupts the meetings.
"C'mere to me for a minute, and I'll tell ya! There's not gonna be any more faffin' about now. Ye've been acting like a box of mangoes for long enough, I tell ya! I say we take those very valid points that Blanche and Raymond raised about... uhm... stuff," Hunter snaps his fingers; he clearly has no idea what valid points they raised... and he'd been taking fecking notes! "And write them on that wall over there!"
I'm relieved that he is pointing to the whiteboard, not the actual wall.
Is he supposed to be me now?
I have pulled this kind of technique with some success in the past, but not with so much noise and bluster. I'm never this aggressive, and I usually at least know what the valid raised points are. The bloke is disturbingly good at mimicking how I talk, but as usual, he is making up his own slang, using a mixture of things he's heard me say with a dash of his own garbage thrown in for the hell of it.
Me father's family is from Belfast, and me mam's people are from Cork, I possess an entire arsenal of the best slang and expressions from both Northern Ireland and the Republic, and this melter still ends up making up his own!
A lesser man might've been a wee bit offended, but it's Hunter, and the arsehole loves me and is actually trying to help me out here in his own messed-up way. It's working too, because the other council members are now happily calling out those valid points and some of the not-so-valid ones as well.
I'm quite impressed with Hunter's ability to embrace the valid and reject the invalid on the fly. I would really like to read his notes; it seems that they might be useful after all. The bloke can be a really strong leader when he wants to be. He seldom wants to be.
He commandeers Wendy to write the core ideas and decisions on the whiteboard as they come up, and she happily gets up to do it. I swear the lass would wrestle a cow if Hunter asked her to.
Done with his performance, Hunter gives a bow to the applause and starts to gather his stuff. I am not surprised to see the others following his lead.
"Have a good one, yeah?!" I call out to the student council members leaving the room, saying their general goodbyes. Jake gives me a wave of his hand and dashes past from where he'd been sitting at one end of the table, working on the budget for many of our upcoming activities. As usual, he had not taken part in any of the discussions; in fact, I doubt he'd heard any of it.
If he'd completed his work before we were done, he would've said cheers and left long ago whether the meeting was finished or not. Jake lives at his own pace and by his own rules.
I look at the board where Wendy puts a list together in an impressively legible whiteboard script. Well, she did say she wanted to be a teacher one day. She already has her boardwriting technique perfected, which is why Hunter picked her.
1) Gather eighth graders in the main hall for general examination orientation – Wednesday (tomorrow) – The last Period before Lunch. - Blanche, Dex, Raymond, Narissa.
2) Get re-cycled paper for the cards - any available colours (multiple) - Donation from Louise's father's stationery shop. - Louise
3) Print the message on the paper - Steven - Wednesday (tomorrow) - school library - during his PE period.
4) Attach the cards to the good luck chocolates – Thursday After School (and Friday if required) – Student Council Lounge. - All available leaders.
5) Hand out good luck chocolates – Monday - Assembly. - All.
She still has a couple more to go, but it looks good. She is well on her way to creating a complete list of tasks leading up to the exams starting next week Wednesday. It's not a long list. This meeting could've been over in less than one hour if the blood flow to me brain hadn't been cut off and Blanche and Raymond didn't feel that they were required to disagree about every little nitty-gritty thing... as usual.
Raymond is the vice-head boy, and for some reason, he thinks it means that he should contradict Blanche and me as often as possible. We're on the same effing team for crying out loud!
"Where was your head today, Declan?" Blanche asks, gathering her stationery into her bag. "We could've been out of here ages ago."
I just look at her, blinking me eyes slowly until she looks away. There is no point in me trying to explain to her that she might be a little bit more to blame than me for the meeting running on this long.
Besides, who appointed me as the designated argument-stopper? I've already been balls-deep into one argument today, and that went super well. She's the head girl, not me second in command, and I'm not hers; we're partners.
To be fair, we usually have each other's backs.
Seeing that I'm not going to show any remorse or even acknowledge her accusation, she sighs, picks up her bag and leaves the room. Satisfied that Wendy has listed everything she had to, I gather my possessions too.
"Cheers for that... whatever that was," I say when Hunter joins me. He just shrugs; maybe he doesn't even know what he did. There's a chance he wasn't even trying to help me out and is just hungry again and wants to go home.
"I made you something," he says, handing me a neatly folded paper square. I take it, looking at him in trepidation.
Why is he grinning like that?
"What? I thought ye were taking notes." Well, there goes any lofty ideas I might have had about the eejit finally growing up and becoming diligent and other insane notions.
"Notes?" he frowns, looking horrified. "Have you actually met me?"
I laugh; yes, I have indeed met him.
"Damn, and I was right impressed with ye too! I was going to ask ye to type and print them so that I could hand them out to the others."
"Well, they're kinda already printed... in there," he says, pointing at the paper in me hand. "I don't mind handing it out to others, but they might not appreciate it as much as you will."
I narrow me eyes at him and slowly unfold the square, not entirely confident that it's not going to be something nasty. I know me mate too bloody well.
I am not disappointed.
"Ye made me a sorry-about-yer-flute card?"
"Aye," Hunter grins.
I am at a loss for words, mainly because I'm basically losing me spleen through me nose with laughter.
There, in the centre of the page, sits what I believe to be a leprechaun, crying waterfalls of tears cascading from his eyes in streams thick enough to drown the guy.
Hunter has thoughtfully decided to make matters even worse by surrounding the fella with a warm, heartfelt message: Me Mucker, I be right heartbroken about yer broken flute! Love, that fecking Git.
♫
Paisley
Once upon a time, in a land far, far away, this tutu might have made Cinderella sparkle at the ball, but now the lilac and silver organza and netting are faded and torn, looking sad and mouldy.
It's lost most of its flowers, and one of the shoulder straps has torn off. I think this is what the girl's ball gown looked like after the mice turned back into mice and started chewing on her.
"Seriously? I'm supposed to wear this?" I ask, glaring at Jill, our self-appointed costume manager. As usual, she's doing a stellar job of managing absolutely nothing.
"Yes," she says, unable to meet my eyes. "You know there's not enough money in the budget for new costumes. Just spruce it up a bit, and you'll be good to go."
Spruce it up?! The thing needs a new heart, a kidney and a lung! And then it will only look like garbage and not like total crap. I know why Jill is unable to meet my eyes.
"What happened to the yellow one I was going to wear? At least it didn't have any obvious holes in it. This thing looks like it's made from putrid lettuce and fairy puke!"
"T-the yellow o-one i-is..."
I shouldn't be taking it out on this girl, I know where the yellow one has gone.
The skirt Willow fixed for me is a dream to move in. Today the guys and I went through our routine with no trips or stumbles. It flowed like a breeze and looked really good too.
When Jennifer saw our dance, she became all huffy and suddenly had a wardrobe malfunction which caused her to simply no longer be able to wear the lovely tutu her mother had made for her. She also had a sudden vision and revelation about the exact costume she needed for her routine. That bloody vision obviously involves the yellow tutu set aside for my solo.
I doubt she'll really wear it, but what Jennifer wants, Jennifer gets.
Her parents might be huge contributors to the ballet company, but so are Uncle Ryan and Aunt Augusta and the family of many of the other dancers. Yet, Jennifer is always favoured, quite possibly because if she doesn't get her way, her mother pays a visit, and nobody (myself included) wants a visit from Janice Birchleigh.
Without the generosity of every benefactor, there wouldn't be any money for essential things like tape, ointments, and repairs to the décor to avoid nasty accidents.
Costumes always seem to end up at the bottom of the endless list of needs, and we're always just sprucing things up. One of these days, I'm going to just give up on the whole idea of wearing a costume and just dance covered in string and duct tape.
I notice Jennifer standing almost out of sight amongst the many racks of old costumes. I did not realise she was among the dancers in the costume storeroom with us. She is indeed hugging the yellow tutu. She is smirking, satisfied with her portrayal of the role of the main bitch in a ballet drama. I could go smack her around a bit, but I won't give her the satisfaction.
Making up my mind, I turn to Jill, offering her my warmest smile. Well, I'm aiming for it to appear warm, but the boys usually start to run or cover their wickets when they see this specific smile. I am not sure why. Jill also looks more frightened than consoled right now.
"Actually, on second thought, I think I prefer this one. Dead butterfly Lilac is the perfect colour for what I'm going for. Yellow makes most people look jaundiced and ill."
Well, it is definitely going to make Jennifer look jaundiced and ill. Mostly because once she's wearing it, I'm going to shove her head up her butt.
Jill blinks at me, surprised when I pull the desiccated tutu and all its dead accessories off the hanger, bundle it into my gym bag and turn to leave the room.
For once in my life, I am happy to hear that ridiculous horn Hunter insisted on installing in the van, quacking through its jaunty little tune because I need to get the hell out of here before Jennifer loses all her hair and half her teeth.
I'm only almost happy because, as usual, my brother thinks it's a great idea to make it repeat at least five times, shredding my already frayed nerves to ribbons.
"See you," I say sweetly and march off to get into the van and kill Jake.
He just loves to piss me off!
♪♫♪
Note:- Thank you, Jeandré, for providing the sorry-about-yer-flute card and image idea.