Helping me up off the floor, Jake pulls me up with one hand easily. He has pretty good sized muscles and a six pack while Kyle is scrawny and tall and just pretty average which I don’t mind, but it’s better when boys have abs. I should know. Kyle turns the corner of the hallway. “Ready for Homecoming next weekend, Hammerson?” He did a dude handshake with Jake.
Suck up. “Yeah man!” Jake body slammed his body against Kyle’s. I cover my on coming smile with my hand, knowing that Kyle wanted to fall back onto the floor, but caught himself before that could happen. Aw man, I wanted to see that.
“Are you bringing her to homecoming?” He gestures to me with his finger as he falls back onto a nearby locker, leaning against it in a cool looking way.
Jake tightens his grip around my waist. “Duh, I want her to wear my number.” He looks down at me and smiles cutely.
I just now noticed Kyle wearing a football jersey as well. He must be a football player too? Oh brother, more things to complicate my life. If I knew Kyle, he’d make me feel guilty and ask me to wear his number too. Then what would I do? Jake’s number would have to come first. He’s the first male that hasn’t embarrassed or degraded me in front of others. He cares.
“Oh yeah. I just gotta find someone to wear mine.” Kyle smirks and looks in my direction quickly so maybe I’d catch his drift. I did.
“Be careful, Caleb! I mean it and if you have any problems-” He cut me off with his little hand to my mouth.
“Yeah, yeah. I’ll call you. Don’t forget to get my that new video game. I mean my birthday is this weekend after all.” He smiles and winks at me before catching up to his friends in the school Courtyard. Oh crap. His birthday was this weekend and it was Homecoming too. Over the weekend, Jake and I had had a very good weekend. Caleb had been at his friend’s house and we’d had the whole apartment to ourselves.
Driving to school, I applied some make-up to my face. Monday morning and I was not looking forward to health class today. I mean, I was a prostitute, what did you expect? That’d I’d be disease free? His friends were with him when I got to the school in the hallway by my locker. Jake escaped his maniac group of jock friends and hugged me, kissing my lips gently. “Hey, babe.” He walks me to my locker. “Hey, at least your getting the whole combination thing down.” He was right, I’d gotten better.
Grabbing my health book, I slam my locker door and head to the class. Jake walked me there with no complaints, and that’s what I’d loved about him. I was so mad because health was an open class, you talked a lot and read out loud and I hated it. “See you at lunch.” Jake whispers, making out with me until the final bell.
Naomi smiles at me when I enter the room. She waves her arms frantically for me to come and sit next to her. Thinking about it, I guess I just hadn’t realized that she was in the class with me. “Oh, thank God your in this class!” I gush, hugging onto her for dear life.
Unfortunately, I hadn’t noticed Gina and her little posse were in the group of classmates too. “What’s the other two’s names?” I whisper in Naomi’s ear.
She whispers back. “There Katie and Farrah.” That explains. One was Indian and the other one was just plain out American like Gina. “And did you know Gina’s real name is Regina?” We both burst into a fit of giggles and the teacher walks in, so I turn around in my seat.
I sat in the second row front seat. Fun. “Okay, class. Today we’re going to be doing the swab test so everyone grab a swab and take a seat.” Naomi grabbed me a swab as well and we were ordered to put it inside our mouth and swab it around in our cheek area. We do so and laugh at all of our expressions. “Alright. Now stick them in these test tubes, write your name on a piece of masking tape, and I’ll ship them out after school today.” She says, fixing her glasses.
Later on, we were discussing how far we had all gone, and the teacher was making us go around the room which was ridiculous. I didn’t want to do this. When it came to me, my knees shook and my palms were sweating and my face was hot and clammy, my hair sticking to my face. “I-uh…” I think about this for a few seconds. What am I gonna say? I cant really speak the truth. “Uhh.” Without knowing it, I fall to the floor on my hands and knees and feel bile rising in my throat.
Throwing up wasn’t even the worst part; the laughter that filled the room was. When I look up, Naomi has a hold of my elbows and is picking me up. The floor and walls spin in different directions and when I glance over at my friend, it looks like she has four or five faces. “Allie?” Her voice echoes above the laughter.
Dropping to the floor, I completely pass out and everything goes black instantly with shocked gasps and the teacher screaming the last thing I heard.
“Mmm.” I groan, feeling something cool and wet on my forehead. Laying on something hard, it’s definitely not my bed. Or Jake’s. Someone’s hand is in my own and it’s sweaty too, now someone’s stroking my hair.
“Allie, you’ve got to stop scaring me like this.” Jake says in a quiet voice, probably so he doesn’t startle me. “I ran out of the classroom as soon as I heard your name over the Overcom. They kind of go crazy when someone even faints here, they like call paramedics and everything. I cant believe it. I told the health teacher off for making the students do that. And got detention.”
“What?” I ask, sitting up instantly, regretting it sooner.
“Stay still and lie down. The paramedics told me to take you home after we get all of your homework. Your gonna stay home for a few days and rest. They said that something went weird with your tests and they don’t know what it is, but we have to be cautious.” He squeezed my hand tighter, running a hand through his hair.
Later, I recognize the room we’re in as the Nurse’s Office. Wow, that was scary, embarrassing, and I knew I couldn’t go back to health class again. Not for awhile anyways. I finally convinced Jake to go back to health class after a while, telling him that I wanted to be alone for a little bit. The nurse was very friendly, and told me I could stay here as long as needed.
I’d stay until the end of the day. What was wrong with me? Why did they want to take precautions? Shaking my head, I get up off the bed and remove the cold washcloth from my face. Exiting the office sneakily, I wander the halls for a few classes, just thinking. No one even caught me. Kyle turned the corner and I bumped into him. “We’ve really got to stop meeting like this.” He smirks, helping me up.
“Your telling me.” I say, rubbing my temples because I had a major migraine.
Some of the jocks that I notice hanging out with Jake in the mornings came around the corner as well. A brown haired boy much taller than myself by a long shot. “Hey, you’re the girl that we dared Jake to-” Kyle elbows the boy in the ribs.
“Kyle, she doesn’t know?”
“No, Jack, she doesn’t!” Kyle ran a hand through his hair. Now I was just completely curious and wanted to know what was going on that I didn’t know about.
“So, Jack, I’m the girl that you dared Jake to what?” I smirk, crossing my arms. “If you don’t tell me, Jake will and he’ll kill you.” I whisper with an innocent smile, batting my eyelashes.
Jack takes me around the corner to a janitor’s closet.
Kyle runs after us, but Jack is smart enough to lock the door. “Okay, fine. When we were walking around one night we passed the bar that you…work at.” He smirks and continues. Oh god, he must know what I truly am. “And just goofing around because we were quite drunk, we double dared Jake to go into the bar and get a lap dance from one of the girls, that girl being you, and well, it turned into way more than that.” He was hiding something else, I could tell. But, I’d find the rest out later.
“Wow. So, I was all just a bet?” I ask, anger bubbling up inside of me. It simmers down when I see the pleading look in Jack’s eyes.
“Yes, but look. To be honest, Jake was a total player before you came and now that you’re here, you’re the only one we ever see him with and he’s the only one that talks about how gorgeous you are and what a nice ass-” He was beginning to use hand gestures.
“Jack, I get it.” I say with a small smile, exiting the janitor’s closet. We were seniors, so I was going to be mature about this. Wait until I got a hold of Jake, he’d be sorry and I was going to mess with him ten times harder now that I found this new information out.
After school, I kick off my shoes and throw Caleb’s backpack onto the table, removing my jacket. How was I going to manage Caleb’s birthday and homecoming on the same day? I know. “Caleb, about your birthday. How about we have a party for you Friday, and Saturday, you let me go to the homecoming with Jake and you stay at Aden‘s house, okay?” I say to him while I’m tucking him in.
“Yeah,” I say, with a smile. I go to ruffle his hair, but then take my hand back before he can notice. His hair has completely fallen out thanks to the chemo, and it broke my heart. It will grow back, Allie. I tell myself.
The next day at school I went anyways. Jake was at football practice all day and didn’t have to attend classes. Walking up to my locker to get my biology book, I freeze. Right there in big capital letters, the word ‘SLUT’ was written on my locker, just like that. I knew who it was.
Entering biology, I find Kyle and thump him in the back of the head. “Okay, why would you write slut on my locker?” I whisper, tears in my eyes. I thought we were sort of friends!
“I didn’t, Allie?” He whispers, confused. He looked genuinely dumbfounded. “Whoever did, I’ll kill them for you. I mean, I did save your life and all.” He always uses that line ever since that night in the parking lot. Ignoring him, I pay attention to class.
Of course, I get chosen to read and have no clue how to. “The pro-pro-” I couldn’t say the word as I tried to sound it out and the kids whispered and cracked a few jokes behind the teacher’s back.
“Process.” The teacher read for me. I re-read the word slowly so maybe I could memorize how to say it. “Allie, it’s fine. Let me just finish reading for you.” The teacher flew through the sentence like it was nothing, and I envied my father right then. How the hell was I supposed to know how to read when I’d been home taking care of my brother all those years? I’d never even had a childhood. “Allie, come here please.” The teacher asks.
I reluctantly walk up to his desk. “I’ve noticed you cannot read too well, and your grades are very low in all of your classes. In fact, your failing all of them. I suggest you get some sort of tutor to help you out.” My teacher explains. “Someone like…Kyle for instance.”
My eyes go bug-eyed as I turn around to see a smirking Kyle waving at me. “Sure teach, I’d love to help Allie out.” He was a really good actor.
_____________________________________
Comment, vote, and fan? Hey this is kinda a longer chapter for everyone. (: