Tough Guy: PROVIDENCE PREP HIGH SCHOOL BOOK 2

by Allen, Jacob

  It would only last for so long, though, before the adulation of the adults would wear off and I’d want some friends. I wasn’t someone who had a lot of friends in elementary school, since I was so quiet, and I wanted to make an effort to be better at that here.

  It seemed that I would get my wish, though, because when I sat down in the back corner, I was near two other girls who smiled as I sat down—a skinny, athletic-looking blonde girl, and a tall brown-haired girl with freckles.

  “Hey,” I said.

  “Hi,” they both said.

  “You must be new here,” the blonde said in some sort of an accent. I wasn’t sure what it was, other than to say maybe it was European?

  “I am. Where are you from?”

  “She’s from Russia,” the tall girl said. “Isn’t that, like, so cool?”

  “Yes, Samantha, it’s so cool,” the blonde said, rolling her eyes. “I’m trying to wean myself off of it.”

  “I think it’s cute,” I said.

  “You do?” she said. “I don’t know. I think it’ll go anyways. But I’m Emily.”

  “Jackie, nice to meet you.”

  I then learned the other girl’s name was Samantha. Although it was readily apparent to me that Emily and Samantha were close friends, perhaps even best friends, they still seemed more than willing to welcome me in.

  So much so, in fact, that just before the bell rang, Emily leaned in.

  “Do you know anyone here, Jackie?”

  “No,” I said. “My parents got a scholarship to send me here. I’m from a place called Murfreesboro.”

  “Where’s that?” Samantha asked.

  “Far away,” I said, causing them both to laugh.

  “Well, Jackie,” Emily said. “You can hang out with us at lunch if you want.”

  “For real?” I said.

  Wow. I just wished I’d come to this school system sooner!

  “Of course!” Emily said. “We want you to be our friend. We really like your dress, anyways.”

  I beamed with pride. I had to turn around shortly after as Mr. Meade commanded attention of the class, but one thing was clear.

  I had found my group of girls. It might have been early, but I didn’t see anything that could have separated us.

  * * *

  Present Day

  Emily, Adam, and I stood near Adam’s locker, with Adam separating Emily and me.

  It was probably for the best, anyways, as I really was growing a little annoyed at having to constantly see the two of them make out. I was very happy that Emily no longer had to deal with Adam’s bullying, and I was very happy that I was with two people that weren’t going to bully me like Kevin did, but I did feel like the world’s most obvious third wheel. Someone could have taken a photo of the three of us, and it could have turned into a meme, the way I alternated between looking at them with grief and looking away in exasperation and the way the two of them kept going at it.

  I kept looking out for Samantha, hoping that she would appear somewhere—anywhere—to give me someone to talk to. Hell, at this point, I would have taken a random person bending down to whisper a comment about those two to me. It would have at least engaged me in the conversation.

  I wanted anyone except Kevin to come up to me, but I also wanted Kevin to most appear. Who else would understand the craziness I was seeing with my own eyes than him? Who else would have lost his best friend to a significant other?

  Maybe Nick, but poor Nick, I didn’t find him attractive either. He was hot as hell and had the best body of any of the Broad Street Boys, but he just didn’t do it for me. Maybe Samantha would. She was the only one of the three of us who hadn’t commented on Nick, but given her disdain she’d expressed on the car ride home, Nick seemed to be very out of luck.

  Suddenly, Emily called my name, and I turned in surprise. She was actually trying to talk to me.

  “Were you talking to Kevin earlier?”

  Did she see it? I didn’t mind that she had; I just couldn’t believe that her and Adam had taken a couple of seconds to stop swabbing their tongues on each other.

  “For a bit, yeah,” I said. “Why?”

  Adam chuckled, looked at Emily for a second, who shrugged, and Adam turned to me.

  “Kevin was acting a little rude recently,” he said. “Something seems to be gnawing at him. Was figuring you might know.”

  “No…” I said, my voice trailing off.

  But Adam’s ask had prompted a train of thought in my mind. I couldn’t figure out why Kevin was acting so mean to me. My attempt to ask him this morning had been met with laughter and a “fortuitous” arrival of Adam to prevent me from getting an answer.

  What if, though, instead of asking Kevin directly, I just got the answer from the person who knew him best? I didn’t even have to ask Adam directly; I could just have Emily ask Adam and then relay the information to me. That seemed like a reasonable idea. Maybe it could help me finally reach Kevin.

  I turned to say something, but once again, they were making out. I sighed. I was beginning to think I either needed to come to school later, or I needed to hope and pray that this was just a one-time, beginning-of-semester deal. They’d made out like this in November and December, but never at the beginning of the school day. They’d kept it brief, to in between classes, when we weren’t trying to hang out as a group.

  “Eww!”

  I turned and laughed to Samantha’s very obvious and loud reaction when she saw Emily and Adam making out. Emily pulled back, laughed, and stood up. I was almost relieved that Samantha had shown up. I didn’t mind that she was closer to Emily than me; it just meant I didn’t have to look like the third wheel so much.

  Furthermore, it also gave me the opportunity to ask the question I’d wanted to ask for some time now. I turned to Adam, who had his hands folded over his knees, apparently deep in thought, and nudged him.

  “Sup?” he said.

  “You know how you asked if Kevin has something going on?” I said. “Well, can you tell me why Kevin hates me? Why he’s so mean to me?”

  Adam gave a short chuckle as he bowed his head, nodding as he appeared to go through various possibilities in his head. I wondered if he was thinking about his own thoughts and experiences with Emily and if that would carry over.

  “He doesn’t hate you.”

  Hmm. Well, I never thought he literally hated me, but I’m also pretty sure Adam’s not talking literal either.

  “I would say, knowing Kevin as I do, he just hates reminders of what he is.”

  “What do you mean?” I said immediately.

  But Adam shook his head with a bit lip.

  “Can’t tell you that, sorry.”

  “Why not?”

  I knew I sounded like a persistent school kid. But this was something that had bugged me from the start. Why was Kevin the only person to not only resist my attempts at talking to him and asking how his day went, but to mock me for doing so?

  “He’s very sensitive about it, and I have to protect him on that regard,” he said. “Nothing against you, but he’s a friend. And since he’s one of the Broad Street Boys, there’s no way I can betray something like that.”

  At that moment, the five-minute warning bell rang, advising that it was time for us to head to our first class. For me, that was AP Spanish.

  “One piece of advice I’d give you,” he said. “Kevin is Kevin. I don’t think he’s going to change, and if he does, it won’t be because of you. You’re a nice girl, Jackie. Maybe you should look elsewhere.”

  Maybe I should look elsewhere. I couldn’t think of five more painful words than that, but even I was surprised at how much it hurt. No one deserved to sulk without comfort like Kevin could, and no one who acted as strongly as Kevin had with me deserved to not have some help.

  I could see the validity of what he was saying, though. There came a point where trying to help Kevin became less of a friendly exercise and more of me just taking abuse from him. I couldn’t let that
happen.

  But I couldn’t also pretend that, with that hair across his left eye and his seductive blue eyes, I could just ignore him.

  He hates reminders of what he is.

  What in the world did that mean? Kevin coming from a hippy family? Unlikely—he didn’t ever show any signs of that. Kevin being poor? That seemed plausible, although there weren’t any overt or obvious signs. Then again, I hadn’t ever bothered to look at what those signs could be.

  Who knew?

  I didn’t. What I did know was I had one semester left before I had a whole new world before me, and I had to make the most of it. I didn’t want to be the girl who withered her senior year away worrying, most especially when it might be the last semester that Emily, Samantha, and I would all share together.

  6

  Kevin

  Most students—most seniors especially—took PE all of senior year. They wanted to have one full period at a time to slack off as much as they could, and if it got them in better shape, all the better, though the teachers seemed to not give a shit as much as the students did.

  But not me.

  For whatever fucking stupid reason, when I signed up for classes at the tail end of my junior year, I had it in mind that I would strive extra hard my first semester, just as that last added boost, by taking a one-semester AP class like Macroeconomics before shifting over to PE.

  Well, that was really fucking dumb. No school was going to give me scholarships for the B+ I got in AP Macro, and no school other than maybe Vanderbilt would have denied me because I chose PE over AP Macro. And since I wasn’t a rich kid like the Collins—to say nothing of their stepfather—I had zero chance of finding myself on Vanderbilt’s campus eight months from now.

  What I did have, though, was a class I could finally slack off in, and wouldn’t you know it, it was with Providence Prep’s newest power—and very public—couple, Adam and Emily.

  “Oh, shit, puppy’s in the class now,” Adam said, rather loudly, as I entered, having changed into my gym clothes later than the rest of them. “What’s up, dog?”

  He emphasized the last word. It was not lost on me. I let it go for the time being, but goddamnit, I’d be lying if I said it didn’t piss me off a little bit.

  “Not much, bro,” I said, also emphasizing the word he had given me. “Emily, good to see you.”

  “I’m so glad we have another friend in here,” she said with a smile.

  Friend? I like you as a person, but I’m not your friend. I don’t know that I’d call many people here friends.

  If anything, the people I should call friend are the ones who control me the most. And I let them, too.

  “Well, don’t get your hopes up about me being athletic or anything,” I said with a chuckle. “If we play football, I can block. I can screen if we play basketball. But—”

  “Alright, alright, line up, damnit!” Coach Ott, the PE teacher and football coach, yelled. I figured he’d be in an extra pissy mood after the way the team had lost its playoff game—if Nick was pissed, I knew the coach would be downright furious. “All of you will be playing kickball. Split up by yourselves, I’ll blow the whistle, go. If you get hit, you’re out. If the other person catches the ball, you’re out. Clear? OK, good, go!”

  Coach barely allowed us to get a word in before we split up. I found myself going to the far side of the gym, only to see Adam and Emily going the other way.

  “Oh, I get it,” I said sarcastically. “Split up the Broad Street Boys, but not the power couple, right?”

  “And for that, I’m coming for you first, puppy!” Adam said.

  There were many ways that this game could go, and I recognized that not a high number of them involved me surviving to the end of winning. But there was one thing that was for damn sure after that.

  Adam was not going to get me out. No matter what, this was going to be one area in which I rose above the bullshit and beat Adam. If it meant that I focused on him only and got pegged by Emily or someone else when I wasn’t looking, fine. But Adam was not going to beat me.

  Coach Ott blew the whistle, and students sprinted to the middle. I didn’t even bother; I knew my skills did not lie in sprinting speed. Adam tried to show off to Emily, but with her soccer background, she blew right by Adam, which caused me to laugh rather loudly. Adam knew exactly why I was laughing, and I relished it. I wanted him to get off his game just a bit; it would make it easier to knock the fucking king off his pedestal just once.

  Someone threw a ball at him but missed. Emily picked it up off the ground and tossed it to Adam.

  “Come forward, puppy!” Adam yelled. “Or are you too scared to get bopped on the nose!”

  “Careful!” I shouted as the game continued around us—enough space opened up that I was basically taking the two of them by myself. The rest of gym class had the right idea to give us space and not interfere. “You two are close enough together I could get a two for one deal.”

  “You wish you had your own two for one deal.”

  It was a really stupid comeback, and even Adam’s own face suggested that. But that statement pissed me the fuck off. Adam got lucky he had history with Emily. I was going to make sure that he was wrong on that count. If I couldn’t outshine him in dating, I sure as hell was going to outshine him here as a starting point.

  Adam chucked a ball at me with full force. It hit me in the gut and bounced off.

  But I caught it midair, smiling at him and holding it out in triumph.

  “Sit your ass down!” I yelled triumphantly.

  “That was bullshit!” he shouted. “You bobbled it!”

  “Boys!” Coach Ott yelled. “Language! And Adam, sit down!”

  I smirked at him as Adam put his fist behind his other hand, a signal that he was giving me the bird without actually giving me the bird.

  Unfortunately, I failed to pay attention to the fact that Emily had lined up a shot and almost got me. It actually grazed my hair, but since it didn’t change trajectory, she didn’t bother to claim that she had hit me. I decided that, unless my side suddenly had a huge numbers advantage, I was going to save her for the end.

  The game went on, and soon, it was just me and one other girl named Rose on my side and Emily on the other. Rose was lightning quick but had no arm; I had an arm but was so big, even an inaccurate throw could hit me. Rose leaned forward and chucked the ball, but she did it too weakly. Emily caught it with ease.

  “Final two!” Coach Ott yelled from the stands before he went back to his phone.

  “Knock him out, Em!” Adam yelled from the sidelines. “Don’t let the puppy win!”

  Oh, hell no. Now she’s going to lose on the next throw, whether I peg her or she misses.

  “Come on, come on, come on,” she mumbled as I held two balls in my hand.

  I liked playing with Emily. She was tough but a fair sport.

  She deserved much better than Adam. Much better wasn’t me—I wasn’t better than anyone for anyone—but damnit, I hated losing one of my few “friends” to romance. I hated seeing the fucking bully win. I hated seeing that shit.

  I—

  I missed as Emily lined up a shot for my leg, hitting me on the shoe.

  “That’s it!” Coach Ott yelled. “That’s a hit! This side wins!”

  Emily raised her arms in triumph. At least she came over and shook my hand with a playful grin before she went over to Adam. Ugh, what a fucking sight that was.

  The rich guy wins again. How shocking.

  I’ll get it next round.

  We played about four games of dodgeball total, though Adam and I wound up opposing each other only once more. My side finally won that time, but Adam got knocked out by someone else. Both of us were on edge to not cause problems after Coach Ott yelled at us regarding our language.

  Then, at the end of class, Adam came up to me, patted me on the back, and said something that I hadn’t heard from him in a long, long time.

  A compliment.

  “
Not bad for a big guy,” he said. “I didn’t think you could move like that.”

  Even with his compliments, there was a hint of a back-handed insult, but the way he had spoken most certainly suggested sincerity. I tried not to show my appreciation too much, shrugging it off.

  “I made some decent plays,” I said. “I’m sure we’ll have many more battles.”

  “One can hope,” he said. “By the way.”

  I should have known there would be a caveat of some sorts attached to this. Goddamnit. He’s incapable of giving compliments for the sake of compliments to anyone except Emily. And since I don’t have a rack like hers, I don’t think that’s changing any time soon.

  “You wanted yourself a two for one deal?” Adam asked.

  Where is this going?

  “Jackie asked me today why you hated her so much.”

  It was not lost on me that Adam had only asked this question when Emily had gone to the women’s locker room. I was tempted to deflect the question and crack a joke about how maybe he needed to follow her into that locker room again to showcase that he didn’t hate her, but Adam had a way of making me do whatever he wanted. It was getting tiresome.

  More like you make yourself do it because you want to be around the rich kids.

  “I don’t hate her, that’s ridiculous,” I snapped. “I hate that she thinks I hate her. I hate that you would believe her.”

  Adam just shrugged, as if he knew I was going to give, in his mind, some sort of bullshit answer. That was the thing, though; there was no bullshit in my answer. I didn’t hate Jackie, but I sure as hell found it obnoxious that she didn’t get the hint.

  When she wasn’t pushing me, in fact, I could say she was pretty damn attractive and interesting. If you took out the part where she insisted on knowing your entire soul as she pushed and probed you, I’d say you’d have someone worth taking out. Maybe even going on multiple dates with, in fact.

  “If there’s anyone who knows when someone is being an ass, it’s me.”

  “Hah, true!”

  I blurted it out faster than my mind could reconsider. Adam flinched, but it didn’t take long for him to go back to his normal, cocky scowl.