Chapter 2: Rough Day
Paisley:
I was walking down the hallway with my head held high. I knew what was coming. I am currently heading down the junior territory, aka, my territory. All eyes were on me. This means one thing and one thing only! That slut just released the photos. Once I looked over closer to the students who were leaning by the lockers, I could see them with their phones out and scrolling. Their eyes soon met with mine and stared. This. Is. A. Nightmare! This is sophomore year all over again.
As I entered my classroom I find people constantly looking over at me. Why can't there just be a year when stuff like this won't happen?
"Hi," I hear next to me. I turn and find a girl smiling. She seems perky. What's her deal?
"Hi," I respond but flashed her a small smile.
She stays quiet. I look her over, blonde hair, brown eyes, she looks about 5'2, and really pretty. I begin to notice her drumming her fingers on the side of her ripped up jeans.
"You okay?" I ask out with a laugh.
Her smile fell, but she clears her throat and it quickly returned. "Do you seriously not know who I am?" She questioned me before flipping her hair back. I felt a bit guilty since I had no clue who the hell she is. Is she someone important? Is she relevant to anything going on right now? I shake my head. "Ugh!" She groans out. "I'm Tonia."
"And?" I ask out softly with a shrug. "Did I have to help with something?"
Her smile stayed intact. "I'm. The. Tonia." She said to me between pauses. "Also known as the girl your boyfriend is cheating on you with," she announced proudly. She let that slip out of her tongue so fast as if it would fall out of her mouth unless she told me. Poor, girl.
I begin to snicker at first, but the laugh then escaped. "Tanner? Tanner Richardson isn't cheating on me," I tell her. "You must have the wrong guy," I played around. I can't let her know that I knew about her plan. Not yet at least.
"Are you sure about that?" She asks me as she takes out her phone from her back pocket. She begins tapping away with her fake nails. I wait. She's trying to "hint, hint" that she has evidence to back her up.
"I am," I finally answered after she took a while. "But by all means, show me the fake pictures you have," I tell her. Her eyes look up from her iPhone, scared all the sudden. Her smile was gone and for good. She shook it off and handed me her phone. That's brave of her, I can easily break this phone with one stomp. But I won't because I am mature. I begin scrolling through her pictures to find Tanner and her kissing. My heart dropped, but I kept reminding myself that this meant nothing. Absolutely, nothing. I hand her back her phone and give her a shrug. "So?"
"So?" She asked out repeating me. She was not expecting my reaction to be like this. "It means Tanner and I are an item!" She blurts out. I look around and find everyone watching. I look over to the door to find our teacher standing there quietly. I'm surprised he isn't going to interfere like any other teacher would. "You are getting replaced!" She bellowed out as she got in my face.
I push her away from me. She crossed the line. I knew better than to do what I am about to do, but there was no way I could keep it in. So much for being mature, I tell myself mentally.
"Look, Tonia, I know you two aren't a thing because he told me." I stood up from my seat. "Yeah, he told me how you approached him during class." She takes a step back. "Stop causing problems where they are not needed! You are literally embarrassing yourself!" I tell her. "By you doing all this," I signal to everyone watching. "You are just showing them how much of a slut you are for trying to break up a well-built relationship, just for your own pitiful pleasure!" I shout out. "You need to stay away Tanner or else you'll have to go through me physically," I let out. I take in a deep breath and took my seat. God that felt great! Currently, I could careless of my classmates staring at me. Frankly, I'm proud of myself, and this comes to show to all of them that I'm not someone to mess with.
The next couple of classes have been wild. Yes, like always there was a video released. What's new around here? And for the first time ever, I was completely fine with it. As I entered my next class, I find her there talking away with her friends. Our eyes met and she smiled at me. This girl is strange. I roll my eyes as I took my seat. I begin taking out my notebook just as Samantha took a seat next to me.
"Hey," she says out. Her voice was soft and I could feel her looking over at me. I look at her and smiled. "Are you okay?" I nod my head. "Do you even know what's going on?"
"Yeah," I say with a smile. "Obviously." We stayed quiet. "So, you aren't mad anymore?"
"After we're done talking about you, we can move to me," she laughed.
"Okay fine," I played along.
"So, what did happen? With Tanner and Tonia?"
"Nothing, supposedly she was trying to make Tanner hers and when she didn't get what she wanted she had to make these photos of them so I would go all insane and break up with him," I tell her with a scoff. "But don't worry, I told her off."
"Wow, some people are just so—"
"Insane", I cut in.
"Exactly," she laughed. "But, something else happened," she tells me in a whisper. I can see in her eyes that she was debating whether or not to tell me.
"Come on," I begged her. "Tell me, what happened?" As she opened her mouth speak, the school's fire alarm went on and we rushed out of the school. She's lucky.
The whole time we were waiting outside I would try prying it out, but she kept telling me that it's too public, so I stopped. When it came to finally entering the school, she rushed away from me so she wouldn't share. I take my time. Either way, she's going to tell me. As I was walking done the hallway, I find Tanner at his locker. I smiled. I need to tell him how great I felt after telling Tonia off. I wrap my arms around his waist and he gives out a sigh. His hands land on mine and he gives them a squeeze.
"Look, Tonia, babe, I said yes already...I'll see you later at my place," he says out.
My heart sunk deeper than it did when I saw the pictures. Wait a minute. Is he cheating on me after all? No way. I let go of him and backed away. He turns to look at me and his grin fell.
"Paisley?"
"Yeah, Paisley," I answered back as I crossed my arms over my chest. "Tanner! How could you!" My voice echoed through the hallway. Everyone was already in class.
"It's not what you think! We're just going to chill."
Anger rushed through my body. It was getting heated up in there. "Just chill!" I bellow out.
I give him a slap on his cheek. I saw it begin to redden just before I started walking away from him. Tears began to fall down my cheeks. I wipe them away before entering and taking my seat. The teacher didn't say anything.
"You found out didn't you?" Samantha says to me softly. I nodded my head. "I'm so sorry Paisley." I didn't bother to say anything else to her. I just wanted this day to be over.
*
When it was time to leave class, Samantha and I headed to my locker to find Amy there. She was facing my locker.
"Hey," I say out making Amy jump. Samantha and I laugh, but that soon disappeared when Amy turned. Great, I guess I'm not the only one having a bad day. Her eyes were swollen and red. She's been crying. "What happened?!" I ask her frantically.
"Um, Josh and I—" she cut herself off when a sob came out.
"What? What did he do?" Samantha asks her as she places her hand on Amy's shoulder.
"He broke up with me over text," she cried out as she hugged Samantha to her.
"Damn, this day just gets better every hour," I tell myself mentally.
"This can't be possible," I say out shaking my head. "The two of you were talking about your relationship in the cafeteria, how could this have happened?"
"That's something I would like to know!" She shouts out. "I swear when I see that son of a—"
"Okay," Samantha says shushing her before she cursed. "Um, let's go get you cleaned up and we'll talk about this after school."
"Okay, but if I ever need you guys can I text Y'all?" Amy says with tears forming again in her eyes. I look down. She knows I don't like using my phone in school. "Oh yeah, never mind, I guess I'll just text you, Samantha."
"No," I interject. "You're important to me and I did say I would use it for emergency reasons, and this is an emergency". Amy's lip began to quiver. I come to her and hugged her. She hugged me back and begins crying.
"I thought he cared about me," she cried out. "I'm in the same position," I say mentally. I pat her back and look over at Samantha to find her concentrated with someone down the hall. I turn to her direction and find Josh and Sam laughing.
"That mother f— relax," I tell myself. I take a deep breath.
"I think I'm going to skip the rest of the classes...I don't feel so good."
"Do you want to go to the nurse's office?" Sam questioned out.
"No, I think I'm just going to hide in the bathroom and cry my eyes out," she tells us as she backs away from me. "I heard about you and Tanner," Amy says as she wipes her tears away. "I shouldn't be throwing more problems to you–"
"Don't worry about me, it's not like it's the first time," I remind her. "I'm here for you no matter what." Amy smiled and nodded her head.
The bell rung.
"Go to class, I'll be okay, just have your phones ready," she reminds us. Samantha and I hugged her one last time before we hurried off to our next class.
*
It was the last class of the day and she still hasn't texted me. I have no clue if Samantha has gotten a message, but I certainly haven't. I kept looking at the gym doors waiting for Amy to enter any second, but she never did. I knew she wasn't. I look down at my phone and waited. This certainly was a good distraction.
"Hey," Tanner says taking a seat next to me.
"What do want?" I questioned him roughly.
"Nothing is going on, Tonia and I are–"
"You're cheating on me, Tanner! You called her babe, you don't just say that to just anybody!" I tell him harshly. "Stop being a douche! I've told you before that if you ever cheated on me again then you and I were done for good!" He stayed silent.
"So...what are you saying?"
"I'm saying that I'm not really sure on what I should do," I tell him. "I don't really know if that whole babe thing was you cheating on me, but I'll let it slide, just this one time!" I tell him. He smiled. "I'm still mad," I remind him.
"Hey guys, have any of you seen Amy?" Josh asks out. I look away from him.
"Nope," Tanner answered. "Paisley?" I stay quiet.
"Am I missing something here?" Josh asks out. I finally look up at him and he raises his eyebrow. "Are you mad at me or something? Where is Amy?"
"Don't worry about it", I sassed him.
"Wait, what is going on here?" Tanner asked out.
"Ask Josh, maybe he can show you the text he sent to Amy", I say standing up when I see our coaches enter.
They were laughing away like teenagers. Yup, they are finally an item. I get in line with my volleyball team and waited for orders. I turn my focus over to the boys to find Josh with his hands up in the air. I rolled my eyes and focused on our coach.
So, the directions for today was that we have to jog for the whole class period. For both teams. Great.