Y/N
Junior high is bad. The first time you ever have more than two teachers, longer class time, the teachers are more strict, the endless nonsense they drill into your head, and the "Prepare for high school! It's the most important part of your life!!" line.
High school made Junior High feel like heaven and ambrosia under a tree.
The worst part, by far, was P.E. If there was a class that made me more pissed off than any others it was this one.
On top of being physically demanding and pointless, Mr. Taylor, the teacher, was an absolute prick.
When you first see Mr. Taylor your first thought would probably be something like, "Oh he looks cute" or "Oh he seems sweet."
You see, Mr. Taylor looked the polar opposite of how he looked.
With his soft, gentle voice, blonde hair, blue eyes, muscular body, and shorts that were too short for even me, Mr. Taylor was often the subject of desperate, hormonal teenagers' wildest fantasies. Girls and boys.
I was certainly not one of them.
For some unknown reason, Mr. Taylor and his favorite students made it their duty to royally fuck me over every P.E. session. Various things would happen, big or small. Sometimes, my socks would disappear from my locker for no apparent reason, and I was left to nursing destroyed calluses, or the opposing team would accuse me for cheating or something retarded like that. Something would happen. Without fail.
The only thing I enjoyed during P.E. was this one redhead.
I know nothing about him except that he's in jazz band and marching band... and every class that I have. His little smirks at me from across the gym was the secret relationship we had that I barely knew about. A relationship that consisted of zero words for the first few weeks I even knew he existed.
The first day I realized he was... existed, we were starting our dodge-ball unit. How absolutely wonderful.
Once again, my teammates were hounding me with countless insults, each one more ruthless than the last, and Mr. Taylor was doing zip. Carrot-top was on my team, and, now that I can reflect back, he seemed more uncomfortable than I was with the comments.
Soon enough, there were two of maybe thirteen people left standing, and our teammates were screaming monstrosities left and right from the bleachers.
"She couldn't hit someone if they were sitting on her face!"
"That little dike is gonna cost us a win."
"Communist!"
I actually turned at the last one, laughter bubbling up inside me. I wouldn't be laughing though. A ball whizzed past my ear, brushing my ponytail.
"You're out, y/n." Mr. Taylor cooed.
Fuck my life.
I stomped towards the sideline, brooding over my unfair eviction. Standing in the bleachers, I observed the remains of my team.
Who's that??
The redhead's hazel eyes had followed me all the way to the bleachers, yet he somehow managed to not get annihilated by the dodge-balls whizzing past him. We had made eye contact, and I was immediately intrigued. His eyes held a sparkle of mischief and I knew that i should keep watching.
After this little 'moment' we had, he gripped onto the ammo in his hand. He turned sideways and in one fluid movement, sent the ball soaring towards the dildo of a fifteen year old that got me out.
The ball made contact with its target, and the loudest smack! I had ever heard echoed through the entire gymnasium. Joe looked triumphant from his place at the edge of the teams lines.
A symphony of, "Oooh!" followed the impact, but the celebration was soon doused with the wrath of Mr. Taylor.
"You're out, Mazzello. Your foot was in the barrier."
"The barrier," was a gay rule that Mr. Taylor added to the game after a kid got his glasses broken by some neanderthal football player named Ben.
The redhead's face fell, but we made subtle eye contact once more. I gave him a shy smile, and he returned the gesture.
I turned my attention abruptly feeling a slight burning feeling light my face. Who the hell was that kid?
I stared back out at the seemingly doomed game. The opposing team seemed to think they had us beat, and to be blunt it seemed that they did. There were two other players on my team and the other had two as well. Except they had the two most athletic players. Because of-fucking-course.
My eyes darted from our teammates to the opposing couple of athletes. I sat down carelessly my arms splayed across the bleacher seat behind me. My eyes turned half-lidded as the game dragged on far longer than it should have.
Most of the time games got like this when only a few people were left on both teams, it was only people dodging the balls and running away. I stood up rolling my eyes, I'm going to go to the bathroom, and Mr. Taylor can suck my balls if he thinks he can stop me. I think, making my way down the bleachers.
I make it to the bottom of the bleachers and turn toward the hall, when I see one of the jocks on the opposing team look at me, his eyes scanning me up and down. He has that fuck-boy look that completely tells his whole story to anyone who so much as glances in his direction. I proceed to stare back at Fuck-boy and I reach to flip him off. My hand nearly gets torn off as I lift my finger, and I practically feel the air beside it part.
A blur of blue tears past me and a solid sound follows after. I see the asshole who had been eye-fucking me crouched over clutching his stomach. The blue dodge-ball lies a few feet away looking innocent. Almost as innocent as the person who threw it.
The boy who had thrown the ball of death was standing almost directly behind me and for some reason, I couldn't recall seeing him on the court before this incident. He wore one of those old English looking mail-boy Stetson hats. He wore beige pants that were too short and socks that were too long. The boy wore a button down under his sweater even though we lived in California and it was like 420 degrees outside.
He looked at me briefly, shuffling his leather Levi boots. Then he looked up, threw me a smirk, and tossed the last ball in his hand. It sailed toward the corner of the court my eyes following every inch it arched.
It hit the last boy on the other team.
The entire gym lost its shit.
________
The following few weeks in P.E. were insane. The levels of hostility on any teams Mr. Taylor put together were off the roof. The really bad things that happened, often happened after class. Example? Ray Foster. He had been picking fights all week, even once with the redhead I used to not know the name of. I did some snooping at lunch and on Instagram and I found his name was Joe Mazzello. Nothing had happened between Joe and Foster but the tension had been there all week.
Foster was a senior that had seemed to have been held back about six years. He was by almost all definitions a neck-beard, and was one of the biggest bullies. He favored targets that appeared weak.
Such as the losers and the nerds, also known as me.
You'd think that the girls and boys locker rooms would be on the opposite side of the gym right? Wrong. They had only a wall and two doors separating them. Which often meant the rooms smelling like piss, sickness, and semen. Lovely, huh?
Ray Foster was waiting for me outside the girls locker room. I sighed. I knew what was coming.
"Hey, you! Yeah the girl with the boots."
"What do you want, Foster?"
"You messed up my game." He declared referring to the earlier game we had played, "I had a date and ten dollars riding on that."
"Boo-hoo," I muttered sourly under my breath.
"What was that?" He accused. I was so done with this chittering retard.
"Boo-hoo,"
Foster snarled at me and from the corner of my eye I saw someone abruptly stand up. And at that moment I realized that this was gonna end very badly, because the person who stood up was none other than the spitfire red head Joe Mazzello who had avenged me for my death by the deadly dodge-ball fight a week ago.