Cheap Shots
by Ella Mai
High school: the beloved time were teens experience puberty and hormones while trying to tackle classes and find themselves. High school is also a time of the typical cliques: the jocks, the nerds, the smart kids, and the theater/music kids.
Raph himself was among the jocks and he's never thought twice about his place in the food chain of Roosevelt High. His group consisted of him, his brothers, and Casey Jones. Everyone steered away from them or worshipped them. There really wasn't any in-between. They were the popular kids, so you either love them or hate them.
Another well known friend group that most people actually liked were Stella and her friends, Karai, April, Renet, and Shinigami. They weren't the normal stereotypical popular girl group. They were nice to people, with the exception of Raph and his group, and they took on many aspects from the other cliques. For example, April was a jock, theatre kid, and one of the smart kids. Everyone in Stella's group knew they didn't have to fit into a certain social group.
But, what is high school without a little rivalry between the social groups?
As the two groups strode through the long corridors, they met up in the middle. Raph smirked at Stella as she crossed her arms, looking unbothered by the group of boys in front of them. No one seemed to notice the blushes and awkward glances between Donnie and April.
"What are you doing on my end of the school, Stella?" Raph taunted as his fist bumped a few of his friends that had walked by.
"Oh, you know, heading to English. I know you don't know anything about going to class." Stella said back, smiling innocently.
Raph and Stella have a history together, but not in the ex-boyfriend/girlfriend type of way. They've always fought (verbally and physically) despite the fact that deep down they both secretly had feelings for each other. There was one road block that kept them from realizing it, and her name was Mona.
Just as the two rivals stepped into each other's bubble while arguing, Raph's beloved girlfriend pushed Stella out of the way and kissed him dramatically.
Raph wrapped an arm around her waist. "Hey, babe."
Mona leaned into his embrace. "Raphie! You'll never guess what happened today."
"Pfft. Raphie? Mr. tough guy's nickname is Raphie?" Stella teased. "Please tell us what happened today, Mona." Stella said sarcastically.
The sarcasm went right over her head. "I lost my lipstick!"
"Oh, no! What ever shall we do without lipstick!" Karai mocked Mona.
Mona gasped. "You understand me so well!" She tried to hug Karai, but Raph grabbed her arm and pulled her back into his chest.
"Babe, we don't mingle with them. They're trying to make it seem like you're dumb."
Mona glared at Stella's friend group. Shini laughed and decided to join the conversation. "We're not the ones making her look dumb, she does that on her own."
Mona pouted. She kissed Raph one last time before stomping away. He glared at Stella one last time before his group walked away. He pushed a kid who stepped into his path and continued his cool guy stroll.
The girls finished their walk to English in peace. Everyone looked over to April fro answers. She looked up from her phone and was taken aback slightly by all the eyes of her friends staring at her.
"What?" She asked and returned to texting on her phone.
Karai leaned back in her seat with a smirk."Do you really think we didn't notice you and Donnie-boy making goo-goo eyes at each other?"
April laughed nervously and waved her hand dismissively. "Please, we're not gonna get caught. The rest of the guys have no clue that we're together."
Shini grinned and leaned in towards April. "Oh, so it's official now? When were you going to tell us?"
April pushed her face back. "Um, how about never. If we wanna talk about love connections we can talk about Stella and Raph!"
Stella's smile dropped and she blushed. She stumbled on her words and in the end decided it was best to take a deep breath and collect herself. "I do not like Raph! He's a big, stubborn, red-headed idiot!"
"As a fellow red-head, I am slightly offended." April teased.
"Whatever," Stella rolled her eyes, "you know what I mean. Besides he likes airheads anyway. Why are we even talking about me? Karai and Leo and Shine and Mikey clearly have something going on!"
"Don't try to put this off on them!" Renet exclaimed. "You know very well that it's forbidden for any of us to like them since you and Raph are always bumping heads."
"Exactly, that's basically breaking the girl code. You get your act together and maybe then we can all be one big happy family." Karai chimed in.
"Stop! You make it sound so incesty!" April groaned.
~~~~~
Two weeks later, Stella was walking through the halls, but she was alone this time because her friends had to go to different classes on the other end of the school. She opened her locker to retrieve her chemistry book. As she was tucking the book away into her backpack, she noticed Mona coming towards her. She rolled her eyes, anticipating her coming over to bother her. What she didn't expect to happen was for Mona to walk up to the school's star quarterback and start making out with him.
Stella slammed her locker shut in surprise. The two instantly separated after hearing the loud bang and turned their gaze towards Stella. Mona Lisa turned red in the face and began walking towards Stella. Stella quickly grabbed her bag and briskly finished her walk to chemistry. She threw her bag down and fell into her seat. She couldn't believe she just witnessed Mona cheating on Raph.
Raph gave her a confused look. "Is there a reason why you're sitting by me?"
Stella didn't really notice until he had said something. She was so focused on whether she should tell him or not. "Raph, look I know you don't like me, but I need to tell you something that you may or may not believe."
He rolled his eyes. "Well? Spit it out!"
"I..." She looked at him and saw how annoyed he looked. "I just saw Mona cheating on you with Jason!"
He laughed bitterly. "So, not only are you trying to lie about my girlfriend, you're trying to accuse one of my best friends too? Are you that jealous of me?"
Stella blinked in confusion. "You think I'm jealous? Of all people, you think I would be jealous of her? I'm trying to help you and keep you from getting your feelings hurt!"
"Stella, just shut up okay? Out of all your tricks you've played on me, this is probably the worst one yet." He grabbed his backpack and trudged over to the lab table where Donnie was sitting at.
~~~~~
Stella was fuming. The one time she tried to help Raph, he accused her of being a liar. She should've just let him find out by himself instead of trying to do the right thing. Nice people always finish last.
She was walking through the park after school, attempting to shake off some steam. The last person she wanted to see was Raph, which is probably why the universe made sure they crossed paths again.
She found Raph sitting next to one of the lakes in the park with his head down. Her feet began walking towards him, but she stopped herself. Should she really go over there? Last time he almost blew up.
That's when she saw him wipe a tear from his eye. Raphael, the school tough guy, was crying? He must've finally found out that she wasn't lying to him earlier.
She slowly walked up behind him. "Hey, Raph. You alright?"
He tried to wipe away the tears from his eyes. "I'm fine. What do you want?"
Stella sat down next to him. "I'm just checking up on you. What's wrong?"
He chuckled bitterly, the same way he did earlier. "Wouldn't you like to know? You were right. She was cheating on me. Go ahead and rub it in."
Stella put her hand on his shoulder. "I'm not here to rub it in. Do you want to talk about it?"
"No." He said stubbornly.
"Okay, well, you don't have to-"
"She was the first girl I ever really liked. I had some girlfriends in the past, but those relationships weren't real, you know. I just wanted to keep my reputation where it was at. I never really experienced real emotions like that before... well I have before, but that never turned into anything."
Stella's heartbeat picked up when he looked into her eyes after that last part. "Well, maybe you should drop some hints to her. She'll pick up on it sooner or later."
Raph laughed again, but this time he actually sounded happy. "I've been dropping hints to you for the longest."
Stella didn't think she heard him right. She blushed and looked at him. "I- uh... Gee Raph. I never really noticed. I always thought you hated me. It took me forever to actually come over because you don't like me. I've liked you for a while, but I never really thought about it because-"
Raph cut her off by kissing her. She let her eyes flutter shut and leaned into the kiss. Raph pulled away with a grin. "You talk too much. Just live in the moment, sweetheart."
Stella smiled and kissed him again, this time more passionately. Wait until she told the girls about this.