Six: Xavier
As soon as I arrived at school, I looked for Eliza.
Yesterday after school I had gone straight home. I had no fucking excuse , just that I forgot. My body was sore and bruised and I’d been a tired fuckhead. Without thinking I’d gone home. And my body wasn’t half as bad in shape as Pedro, or the rest for that matter.
They had been with more than we’d anticipated and our advantage had been gone. We won nonetheless, but we’d been pretty badly hurt.
When I was home, I remembered Eliza. So now I was looking for her to apologize. Yeah, I couldn’t believe it myself either.
My search however, was intervened by coach Peterson.
‘Ah Mr. Sanchez, I was just looking for you.’ He said to me.
I raised my eyebrows, why would he be looking for me, ‘Why?’ I ask him, suspicion in my voice.
‘Come with me to the principal’s office, Mr. Sanchez.’
I try to read his voice, but it’s cold and emotionless. What did they want with me? Reluctantly I followed coach P to Principal Swooney’s office.
Without knocking Peterson enters, and the only thing that I could think of was, what if we’d caught Swooney banging his secretary? (God knew that old creep had it in for her) That would have made my week, a little something for blackmail was always bienvenida.
Swooney however was sitting behind his desk, looking all high and mighty, and motioned for me to sit.
When I sat down, he said, ‘I think you know why you’re here?’
Normally I would, but this time… ‘No, I actually don’t.’
This earned me a surprised look, as normally I wouldn’t bother covering up anything I did.
‘Where were you yesterday after school?’ Swooney asked, looking at me suspiciously.
‘With a girl. Studying.’ I lied easily. Though I had done nothing wrong, I knew they wouldn’t believe me if I said I’d gone straight home on my own. People rather believe the likely lie then the uncommon truth.
Behind me, Peterson actually scoffed, while Swooney arched an eyebrow.
‘Really, I was with Eliza Williams working on our geography project.’
Whoops, I shouldn’t have mentioned her name.
Swooney opened an envelope and shoved some pictures at me. One by one I looked at them. First confused as I couldn’t make out what I was looking at, and then, ‘Madre de Dios! Is this the locker room?’
The room was completely trashed, pieces of clothes lay everywhere, lockers were opened, toilet paper was spread all over the room. The word SUCKER spray painted over the wall.
Suddenly I became furious, ´You think I did this?!´ they couldn´t accuse me of anything, they had no proof. Twas not like there was written, Xavier was here, or anything. Stupid gringos.
´Someone saw you leaving the locker room after school. Around the time this happened.´
I clenched my fists, it wouldn´t be a smart move if I punched our principal, now would it?
´And who is this source of yours? Cause whoever he is, he´s lying.´
For a moment I thought it could have been Eliza, if she was pissed off enough about me ditchin’ her yesterday. But I couldn´t imagine her doing something like this, and going into a boys locker room. Then again, she could’ve just framed me.
Her fucking boyfriend.
Yep, it must´ve been Drew. And he had motive too. After all, I did beat him at that soccer game of his. Well if this was all the consequences of that, it was well worth it.
´He prefers to stay anonymous.´
Ah, so it was a he. Guess that let Eliza off the hook. ´Ever think ´bout how the one that told you I did it could be the one who did it?´ wait, did that even make sense?
´Well,´ Swooney then said, ´There is an easy way to solve this, Peterson get Ms Williams for me.´
Mierda, now I´m fucked. If Eliza told them I wasn´t with her, not only did I lose my alibi, they would also know that I lied.
Tense, I waited until the door finally reopened again.
Eliza was walking behind Peterson, a wondering look on her face. Then her eyes fell on me, those beautiful green orbs, and all thought cleared of her face. It stung, but at least it wasn´t fear anymore.
Eliza focused her attention and gaze at Swooney, who smiled at her.
´Alright, there´s only one thing we want from you Ms. Williams. Do you know where Xavier was yesterday?´
That old bastard. He´d deliberately phrased it that way so Eliza was at a guess what I had told him. No simple yes or no question. Damn.
I looked at Eliza with what I hope were pleading, big brown puppy-dog eyes, but she wasn´t even looking at me.
Her eyes never left Swooney, her face stayed that mask clear of emotion, and I couldn´t hold it any longer.
I was screwed. She wouldn´t lie for me.
´He was with me, actually. We were working on our Geography project. It´s for Mr. Wrights class.´
I didn´t show the surprise I was feeling, but I was feeling it alright. She had just covered for me. After I ditched her. Well, damn.
Mr. Swooney and coach P looked as surprised as I was feeling.
´Well then, you´re both free to go.´
Before Swooney could say anything else, Eliza had turned and was out of the door before I could stand. I hurried after her.
´Eliza, wait up. Hey, chica, parade por favor.´ the Spanish seemed to work as she stopped her hasty walk and turned around.
´Geez, woman, you sure can walk.´ I told her, though I could´ve easily caught up with her if I ran.
She crossed her arms, pushing up her chichis, drawing my attention to them once again. A shame that she had to cover them all up.
‘Thank you, chica, I owe you.’ I said to her, and I let my gaze hold the gratitude I was feeling. I couldn’t afford to get in trouble, not now.
‘Look,’ she said, looking me defiantly in the eyes, ‘The only thing I ask in return is that you at least try to put a little afford into this project. I don’t care why you were in the principal’s office or why the hell you didn’t show up yesterday, but…’
I cut her off, ‘I didn’t do it.’
She looked startled, ‘What?’
‘I was in there because some culero trashed the boy’s locker room and blamed me. But I didn’t do it.’
She didn’t even hesitate replying, ‘Then why did you have to use me as alibi?’
I couldn’t help but grin, she was damn feisty for a white chick, she threw me a look that said she didn’t find anything funny at all.
‘I’m sorry. You’re arms like that, well they kind off…’ I didn’t even have to finish because she threw her arms down, a blush creeping to her cheeks. She tried to fight it off, I could see it in her eyes, but she failed miserably.
I smirked at her, and her face now reddened with anger.
‘You pig, ugh, just like all men!’ she exclaimed.
I cocked an eyebrow at that, didn’t she have a pig as a boyfriend then?
‘You can hardly blame a guy, with chichis like that.’ I told her, the smirk on my face only got bigger.
I watched her face redden even more as she realized what chichis meant.
‘Ugh!’ she just grunted.
‘Anyway, totally got sidetracked there. What I wanted to say was, why I was actually looking for you in the first place, I’m sorry I ditched you yesterday.’
With a blank face she stared at me, as if she couldn’t care less.
‘You were right, I did get in a fight and yesterday I just totally forgot I had to meet up with you. I was tired and sore and I just went home without a second thought. I know it isn’t really an excuse, but I am sorry.’
Wow, goddamn longest speech I ever gave without swearing. My mommy would be proud.
‘You didn’t strike me as the apology type.’ She said, her green eyes boring into mine.
‘I’m not, so you should feel special.’ I couldn’t help but add with a grin and a waggle of my eyebrows.
She got a mischievous twinkle in her eyes, and she stepped a little closer, ‘You’re forgiven, if you do this one little thing for me.’ Slowly she licked her lips.
My gaze dropped and watched as her pink tongue slid over her lower lip, and she stepped even closer to me. Was she implying what I think she was implying? Maybe not such a virgin after all.
She slapped her hand on my chest, and woke me from my daydreams, ‘Leave Drew alone. No more teasing, no starting fights, or you’ll regret it deeply.’
I stared at her wide eyed. She tricked me. Tricked. Me! If it had been anyone else I would have been mad. But staring at her angelic face, with those green orbs and pink lips, I couldn’t help but be amused.
‘Alright, chica, I owe you that much, I won’t start a fight, but I will finish it.’ It was half a threat, added with a smile.
Involuntarily she smiled back, shook her head, blushed at the fact that her hand was still on my chest, that I tightened to make it feel extra impressive, then she smirked and said, ‘Good boy,’ before turning and walking away, leaving me staring at her pretty ass.
Because the locker room was still trashed, and all of our gym clothes were lying everywhere, it were the guys this time who had to watch. It was only fair since the girls had watched last time, but I´d rather joined them, if I had decent gym clothes.
Eliza joined us, or well Drew, at the bleachers, but the rest of the girls joined coach P.
Me and the guys were trash talking in Spanish (Mary’s ass as current subject, it was bouncing up and down and up again as she walked, that’s how fucking huge it was.), earning glares from the white boys, who weren´t sitting that far away from us. The only reasons we were on the same bleachers was because coach P had ordered it. The old bat.
I was glad that Eliza and her novio weren´t being all luvy-duvy. That was a sight I couldn´t stand.
Halfway through gym, I was pretty bored and decided to stir up some trouble. Of course, I did promise Eliza I wouldn´t taunt her novio, but with an innocent question I wasn´t really doing that.
´Eliza,´ I called out to her, several heads snapping in my directions, Eliza and Drew´s included, ´Why don´t we work on our project today?´ I added a cocky wink for affect.
I could see her eyes roll, ´Have you forgotten our deal?´
With the most innocent face I could muster, ´No, of course not!´ then, with an added smirk and taunting voice, ´I haven´t done anything to break our little deal.´
The simio´s eyes were suspicious as he looked from me to Eliza. Eliza was about to speak but I cut her off, ´Look, I just thought that because we didn´t get much work done yesterday,´ I waggled my eyebrows, ´We could do some of it today? Unless of course you´re the kind of girl that does everything last moment.´
The last comment made her forget about my suggestion at what we´d been doing yesterday, and anger colored her cheeks, ´I´m not the slacking kind of girl type!´
Before she could say another thing she was interrupted by Drew. He was whispering, so I couldn´t hear, but he looked pretty pissed. A smile crept it´s way to my face.
Diego leaned over and whispered in my ear, ´Don´t forget what I said, bro.´ I simply rolled my eyes, he was always so worried when it came to others.
´Shut up or I´ll cover that culero´s mark with one of my own,´ I threatened, referring to the nice big bruise on his jaw.
I looked back at Drew and Eliza, they were still whispering, both looking displeased, and Eliza had put a little more distance between them. Now that´s better.