I winced.
Right down the row of the report card, read straight up B's, one A-, and one D. And that was in Mr. Hauge's class.
But I couldn't believe this. This was my report card, and I only pulled one A? Well, an A- wasn't technically an A in my family, so seriously, if my parents saw this, I'd be dead before I could figure out how to turn invisible again. Because this... This...
"What'd you get?" David asked, walking over to me as I stood next to my locker - our designated meeting area every day after school. Since my parents now trusted him over Sean, I guess I could get used to hanging out with him a lot. "Probably straight A's up and down, huh?" I managed to catch a climpse of his paper tucked under his hand - I saw all A's, except for a A-. Strange, how smart this boy was. "C'mon, Avaley, don't make me use my see through vision." Oh yeah, he could do that, huh?
"No," I said. "I don't feel like showing you."
"Why?" he asked. "Are you too modest? It's all A's, huh, with no A minuses, huh? Smart girl. C'mon, just let me see!" he held out both of his arms, as if trying to show he was safe to tell. But how could I ?These were the worst grades I had ever received!
"I just don't want to," I said, turning around. I started to walk down the hall and waited for David to follow me. But when I turned around, I realized Tamara and Shayline had approached him and were talking to him. What were they doing? I quickly headed back, and Tamara casted a dark look at my direction.
"I don't see why you guys matter," David was saying as I approached. "It's none of your business, anyway." he looked at me and said, "C'mon, Avaley, let's go."
"We still should know!" Shayline snapped. "We knew Sean, a little bit more than you probably do, David." she looked at me and said, "We heard what happened." Well, of course they did. I'm sure everyone did, but no one bothered to ask me, since I wasn't exactly the most popular girl.
"Yeah... So?" I said, a big immaturely, but whatever.
Tamara crossed her arms and glared at me. "Avaley, we may have been ignoring you for a while, but we still care about you." her voice softened and my heart went out for her. "We're just upset about how you've been doing, and we're still concerned about everything." Shayline elbowed her and whispered, "Don't sound like you love her, dummy."
"Okay," David said, stepping in. "You've had your love moment. Now can you just leave Avaley and I alone?"
"I don't see why you defend her so much!" Shayline snapped loudly at him. "You're not her bodyguard, why can't you let us ask her?"
"Maybe because you've been jerks to her!" David shot back.
"We have not! It's all because you've stepped in and stold her heart!" Tamara jabbed a finger at David. "Avaley was perfectly normal until you came into her life!"
"Who are you to say that?" David yelled. "Huh? You don't know Avaley as well as I do! You're just her friends who're into the latest gossip, just so you can tweet about it!"
And then I saw Shayline's hand reach up to slap David's cheek, but he was quicker. He grabbed her hand and she squealed, and I watched his fingers circle around hers tightly. He was going to break her hand if he kept squeezing like that!
"David, that's enough!" I cried, reaching over and wrenching his hand off of hers. "Just stop!"
Shayline stood back, clutching her hand against her chest as Tamara wrapped an arm around her. "We tried to help, Avaley," Tamara said as they began to walk down the hall. "Why are you just pushing us away?"
I looked at David and tried to bite back the curses in my empty, hollow self. "That was weird," I said.
"Yeah," David said. "Sorry about that, though."
"It's okay," I replied, waving a hand. "You were right. About the gossip part. But... Don't break any hands, all right? We don't need the whole school gossiping about your strength."
David chuckled. "Yes, ma'am."
We began to walk in the opposite direction of the girls towards the door. As we passed the faculty room, the door suddenly whizzed open and out Mr. Hauge stepped. His eyes flitted to mine and my heartbeat sped up out of pure terror. David quickly wrapped an arm around my shoulders and pulled me close to him. "Don't provoke him, Avaley," David whispered in my ear as he walked towards him. "Don't make him any more angry than he already is."
"Aha, Avaley and David, the two latest lovebirds," Mr. Hauge said, clapping his hands together. "May I have a word with you two, if you may?"
I bit my lip hard and stared at my shoes. "Sure, whatever," David said. Mr. Hauge held open the door and I walked in first, then David.
Once we were all inside, Mr. Hauge closed the door. I expected him to lock it, but instead, he walked over to a couch and plopped down like it was his own couch.
"So," he said, casting a sly look over in my direction. "Report cards were sent out today, were they not?"
"Yeah, so?" David asked.
"I was a bit shocked to see a sad grade on Avaley's," Mr. Hauge said, looking at me. "Care to enlighten us, darling?"
My hands curled into fists and David shot me a look and shook his head slightly. "No, not really," I choked out. "Everyone flunks up, don't they?" (I was careful not to say a certain bad word when I said 'flunk')
Mr. Hauge laughed, throwing his head back and cackling. What was wrong with him? "You're hilarious, Avaley," he said, grinning slyly at me. "You're so pleasing to me."
"Okay, what do you want to talk to us about?" David asked loudly, stepping in front of me. "We came in here like you asked, and now you're literally throwing yourself onto Avaley. Anything else?"
Mr. Hauge stood up, and I felt myself take a step back. I watched in terror as he walked over to David and chuckled. "Nice boy, standing up for his girl, aren't you?" he said. "I bet Avaley's so happy to see you defending her. But how will she feel when I... Do this?" and then his fist drove into David's stomach, and a scream escaped from my throat. What the heck?
David doubled over but quickly straightened himself. But Mr. Hauge was already coming towards me!
I took a step back, feeling anger and power rising up from me. "Stay away from me," I growled in an unhumane voice that didn't suit my personality at all. "You don't know what I can do."
Mr. Hauge cackled. "Oh, sure I do!" he laughed, and then ripped his shirt off. But I saw a nasty wound on his shoulder - the wound from the pencil I stabbed him with. Unbelievable. "This pretty much sums it all up, doesn't it?!" anger and craziness raged in his eyes. "I don't want to do anything special with you, Avaley, if that makes you feel any worse. I just want to know... WHAT THE H*** ARE YOU?!" he roared and then grabbed a chair and hurled it at me.
I ducked and easily missed the chair as Mr. Hauge came running at me. David yelled something and I did not want to get my fists all over Mr. Hauge's chest so I quickly threw myself back a few good feet away from the crazy man. I grabbed what items I could and just started throwing them at Mr. Hauge. One book hit his head and one microwave (huh?) hit his chest and finally a soda machine was able to knock him down.
Once Mr. Hauge was out cold, David ran over to me and before I knew it, wrapped his arms around me and squeezed me tight. "That was crazy," he said. "I think we should call the police."
"But look at him," I found myself squeak, pointing at the teacher. "It looks like I did this. When they ask him, he'll just say he asked us to come in here and I ended up throwing stuff at him."
David sighed and hugged me again. "We'll think of something, Avaley," he said. "We always do."
It was such a nice moment, being in David's strong, warm arms. And then it got better - because suddenly David was looking at my face and I was looking at his and somehow, we just managed to float closer to each other, destroying all leftover space between us, and instantly, our lips touched and things just went on from there.
Finally, I, Avaley Camber, got to be in physical romantic contact with David Pearson for more than a nanosecond, which is what happened before. And there, cradled in his arms in the faculty room of destruction, I couldn't ask for it to get better. It was perfect. I wanted it to stay like this forever.
Then it all ended when a sharp pain exploded through my wrists and I realized David had wrapped something around my wrists.
"You're under arrest, Avaley," he growled into my ear. "You have the right to remain silent."