by Nessa Morgan
Smugly, Ryder says, “Hey, Zephyr, what brings you down here?” His friends start laughing. “Ooh, you look a little mad.” The jackass can’t help but taunt him. He disgusts me.
“Zephyr?” My breathing calms and I want to reach to him. He’s so close, I could touch him, I could and pull him back to me, I could reach him… Avery gently grabs my arm, pulling me back toward the crowd and out of harm’s way, preventing me from stopping what’s about to happen.
Zephyr doesn’t answer. He doesn’t need to. His fist connects with the left side of Ryder’s face so hard, the sound echoes down the hall. The crowd emits a depressing groan when Ryder’s head snaps back, banging loudly off the locker.
“That’s for taking her out.” I’ve never heard Zephyr so angry—it’s terrifying but I still struggle against Avery knowing I can calm him down. He punches Ryder in the stomach, causing Ryder to double over in pain. “That’s for the crap you’re spreading about her.” Ryder leans back against the lockers for support. His friends deserted the moment Zephyr landed the first punch. They’re smart if you ask me. With one more punch, straight to that perfect nose, Ryder’s on the floor, moaning and groaning like a little baby. “And that’s for even thinking that she’d be dumb enough to actually sleep with you.”
“ZEPHYR!” I scream.
He’s standing over Ryder, his body heaving up and down, his fists tightly clenched, as he stares down at the heap of Ryder at his feet. I yank my arm free from Avery’s grip and walk over to my friend, placing my hand—because I apparently have my own death wish—on his shoulder. He turns, chocolate eyes turned black from anger and fury, until he notices me. Then something in him shifts and he’s calm. Somewhat.
“I think you broke my nose,” Ryder squeals, much like a pig, from the floor, crying like a little bitch I might add. His hands, which were of no use to him, cover his nose, both turning red from the blood gushing from his face.
From the silence, I hear, “Hit him again, Zephyr!” Harley’s excited voice pierces through the noise. I can see her bouncing up and down between Kennie and Avery. She’s enjoying this far too much.
I try and hold in my laughter, failing as I see Harley—so excited—and Ryder—so defeated.
“What is going on here?” Mrs. Taylor, a freshman English teacher asks from outside the gathered crowd. She pushes her way through, most students scattering. Others wait to see the repercussions of what happened between Zephyr and Ryder. I don’t leave Zephyr’s side. I can’t.
Now I know Zephyr will get suspended for protecting me.
Again.
It’s Bobby Logan all over again.
He can’t go down alone for this, not again. Without rethinking it, in front of Mrs. Taylor, I reel back my foot, and aim for the only place Ryder has left open—stupid boy.
It’s sad because he should be protecting that little area most of all. Especially in front of me.
My foot connects with Ryder right below the belt and he lets out the loudest, highest pitched scream I’ve ever heard. He instantly grabs for his jewels but I know it’s no use. I can’t help the laughter bubbling from me, neither can Zephyr or the rest of the crowd.
That should teach him not to mess with me, or any other girl, again.
“Josephine Archembault, Zephyr Kalivas, principal’s office,” she demands. Her arms wave wildly in the direction of the main office. “NOW!” she yells when we haven’t moved. “Avery and Jackson, please take Ryder here to the nurse’s office,” she instructs, pointing to Avery and Jackson. “And if the rest of you didn’t know, that was the bell; you’re all late for class.”
Slowly and begrudgingly, Zephyr and I make our way to Principal Grady’s office, taking up the two uncomfortable chairs in front of his desk. He sat behind the large oak monstrosity that took up half the room, his hands folded together, as he stares at the both of us.
“What brings you both to my office?” he asks us, acrimoniously. Neither of us speak. “What? Cat got your tongues. Lucky for you, Mrs. Taylor already called and filled me in on the situation at hand, here.” He grabs the two file folders from the corner of his desk. He pulled those from his file cabinets before we got here and was waiting for the big reveal. “First period hasn’t even begun,” he tells us. I have to suppress my giggle but Zephyr remains expressionless, a stone among us. “Josephine Archembault—4.0 grade point average, AP classes, tutor, orchestra—I’ve never seen you in here before.”
“No, sir,” I respond quietly, trying to be polite to authority.
“I guess there’s a first time for everything,” he tells me before he switches folders. “And Zephyr Kalivas. Your GPA isn’t stellar, it’s not bad, but your football performance is spectacular, made the starting varsity lineup your freshman year.” He keeps rambling off facts about both of us. “I’ve never seen you here before, either. But tell me this, Mr. Kalivas, why did you punch your teammate hard enough to break his nose?”
Zephyr doesn’t respond. He doesn’t even look to Principal Grady. God help him, he just stares out the window at the student parking lot.
“Well, I know you didn’t just go into a blind rage,” the Principal begins. “That wouldn’t account for why Miss Archembault here kicked him…” he trails off, pausing, his face twisting in confusion. “Where, dear?”
“South of the border, sir.”
Is it wrong how proud I feel?
He winces, no doubt having dealt with injuries there himself in the past. “Now, why did you do that, Miss Archembault?”
I shrug. “It seemed like a good idea at the time.” Zephyr looks over to me, puzzled, his brow knit.
“I’ll have to call parents,” Principal Grady tells us. He catches himself and adds, “And guardians,” for my benefit. “Just tell me what happened and the suspensions won’t be that long.”
“Suspension?” I might be suspended? That little thought never crossed my mind. Suspended? “As in gone? From school? Like, away?”
“Yes, suspension,” he answers, leaning back in his leather chair.
“But I’ll miss tests,” I mutter, dazed. Oh, I feel lightheaded. He knows my GPA; he knows how this will affect me. That’s a lot of work that I can’t successfully make up. This would ruin me. It would destroy my chances of keeping my 4.0. “And homework assignments and notes.” All the notes that I’d miss. Oh, no.
“She really had nothing to do with this,” Zephyr suddenly blurts—it’s the first time he’s spoken since the fight—leaning forward in his chair to connect eyes with the principal. “Don’t punish her. I’ll take the suspension, however long you want to make it.” He’s nearly begging. “Sir,” he adds for good measure.
“Tell me what happened, kids,” the Principal offers. “I can’t make any promises but I’ll try and see what I can do.”
Of course, I want to say.
Instead, I start talking about the fight in the hall, telling him what I can without going into more detail than necessary. Ryder spread a rumor about me—I even told him what the rumor was—and that Zephyr, as one of my best friends, was defending my honor. The kick was just for good measure.
In the end, I got detention—for the first time in my life—for the next two weeks. I can handle that. Zephyr gets suspended for the week and detention for the following week. Even Ryder got two weeks detention, with a different teacher, and that made me smile. He even got a two-game suspension.
“We can’t have students spreading rumors about other students,” Principal Grady tells us. “Especially rumors of that nature.” He signs two slips of paper. “Mr. Kalivas, I know that you were only looking out for your friend, and Miss Archembault, I know that you’re having a bad morning, but violence is never, ever the answer, okay?”
I nod. Zephyr shrugs.
The principal excuses us from his office, me to second period because I missed first, and Zephyr home.
***
The rest of the day is a blur—a giant hazy blur. Some people, mostly the people that never liked
me to begin with, still laugh at me when I pass in the hall. These are the ones that like to believe everything they hear about the freak. Then there are the people that praise me for what I did. This is a smaller number than the first group. Some girls give me a thumbs up or attempt to high five me when they pass me in the halls, they’re proud of me for showing Ryder Harrison a thing or two. Really, the only thing I showed him was the underside of my back Converse low tops. And, if anything else, I taught him not to make up stories about people, not to spread rumors about girls, and not to leave himself—ahem—open when the girls he’s spread the vicious rumor about is able to hit the family jewels.
I stop by AP Euro to see about the notes I missed. Lucky for me, Mr. Cheney likes me. No, not like that. He likes me as a student; I’m kind of the perfect one. I always hand in my homework on time or earlier if I can—which I normally do—I’ll help or tutor struggling students that want the help, I’m always the first to raise a hand for tough questions, and I rock at presentations of any kind.
Mr. Cheney hands me a copy of the notes, something he doesn’t do for just anyone, and a spare copy for me to take to Zephyr.
Is he even aware that Zephyr has been skipping his class for the past two weeks?
“I’ll make a copy of the notes for him daily,” he tells me, rubbing a hand over his gleaming, baldhead. I open my mouth to tell him that Zephyr can always borrow my notes but he cuts me off with, “It’s not a problem for me, Joey, and you won’t have to worry about losing your notes to another student.”
If only he knew that with Zephyr living next door, the room across the alley, there’s never a chance to lose anything that I lend him. I know where he’d keep it.
PE isn’t fun, especially with the boring mile, without Zephyr. Today, I’m keeping pace with Harley, barely running, so we can easily talk.
“I heard that Ryder had to go home,” she says with a huff. We’re jogging but it’s still difficult for her. You’d think by now that she could run this. “Zephyr definitely broke his nose and it’s New Year’s for him.”
I’ve never heard that before.
“What?” I ask, slowing down my stride to better suit my friend.
“He’s waiting for his balls to drop,” Harley tells me with a snort.
I snort right along with her.
“I don’t even want to think about that idiot’s balls,” I growl through clenched teeth. If I see Ryder—just see him, he doesn’t even need to breathe in my direction—I will punch him myself. Or castrate him. The latter seems like the better option. “Or any part of his vile anatomy.”
“Are you ever going to tell me about that party?” she asks, slowing down around the corner when we disappear from the coaches’ sight. I drop to a walk, something we’re not allowed to do, but I don’t really care.
“No,” I answer, stopping to stretch. I don’t want to run anymore, I just want to stand and stretch my legs until class is over.
“That bad, huh?” she asks breathlessly, stopping to stand next to me. Harley hates stretching so she only watches me.
“You’ve no idea,” I mutter, adding a roll to my eyes. I can’t tell her what really happened. She’d go all Rambo on Ryder’s ass. Now, as much as I’d like to see that, I’m not really in the position to see all of my friends get suspended for defending me.
“Come on, ladies,” Coach Jones, the girls’ basketball coach, yells as she runs up to us. She has a habit of doing the laps with us students. Weird. “Let’s keep running. Lift those knees.”
Yes, ma’am, I think in my head, I really want to accentuate it with a salute, but that’s Smart Ass Joey. I’m trying to be Good Student Joey.
So my hand stays down and I just run.
Damn. What a wasted opportunity.
I keep running because it’s gym class and that’s what we’re supposed to do in gym: Run, run, listen to the coach, and run.
At lunch, because I can’t take all the weird looks and loud whispers—There she is. Look, there she goes. This it’s true? Who knows?—I hide out in the library near the classics section. Harley joins me, taking the available recliner next to me while I look over Beowulf for my final paper, taking notes in my notebook.
“Kennie’s getting information for me,” Harley tells me once she’s settled into her seat.
“What kind of information?” I ask, my nose stuck in my book. I’m almost finished. A few more pages to go.
“I want the lowdown on what happened after Ryder went home.”
“He’s in detention for the next two weeks, like me, and he’s suspended from two games,” I tell her, repeating what Principal Grady told me. “I mean, it’s something, right?”
“It’s not enough, Joey,” Harley almost yells. Looking around us, she leans forward, her hands tugging up the front of her low cut top. “People like him go around doing whatever they want despite whoever gets hurt. I want to make him pay. You’re one of my best friends and he’s hurt you. You’ve been through a lot, Joey. I want him to know that you’re not just another nameless girl in the crowd. I want him to feel the pain that you’ve felt.”
The pain that I’ve felt… no one should ever experience that.
“I don’t wish that upon my worst enemy, Harley,” I tell her as sincere and serious as I can. I mean it. No one should lose their entire family. No one should feel like they’re a problem inflicted upon someone not ready to be a mother.
I think of all the things that my Hilary had to give up just for me. Normal people her age are married and starting their families, starting their own lives. At a young age, she was given a kid to raise, a little girl with serious mental issues and medical problems.
There wasn’t a handbook attached to my jacket, no way to know what was right and what was wrong, just me. Little damaged me.
“You’re right about that,” she tells me; regret clouding her eyes. “But he needs to suffer.”
The way she says that should worry me, but she’s Harley. She’s a bit creepy to begin with.
“And what do you propose we do about it?” I ask, my mind filling with all things revenge worthy. I hope that she doesn’t to Revenge him. I’m not capable of Amanda Clark/Emily Thorne-ing someone. I don’t really have the patience for that. “Do you want to tape him to the flag pole? Maybe take his car and place it on the school roof.” Awkward suggestions. “I don’t know about you, but I’m not that strong and I have no idea how to put his car on the roof.”
“You might not,” Harley mutters cryptically. “But I think I do.” She rubs her chin—Holy hell, she’s plotting!
Now, I’m wondering what’s going on in that devious little mind of hers when the bell rings and I’m walking to my next class. In American Sign Language, we play state-bingo. Mr. Penn signs the state, if we have it on our card and recognize the sign; we black it out with a chip. If we have it and don’t recognize the sign—that happens to my sign partner, Cassie Bell—we just suffer. The prize is five extra points on Friday’s test. In English, I work on my final paper for Beowulf, finishing the rough draft; I only need to type it up. In orchestra, everyone is talking about the very one-sided fight.
“Is it true that they were fighting over you?” Marilyn, first chair viola, asks when she passes by me in the instrument storage room. She disappears down a hall and pops out holding her rectangular viola case.
“Not fighting over me,” I clarify. “You mean to tell me that you didn’t hear what Ryder said about me?”
That’s a first. A story not making its way down the ladder.
“Who’s Ryder again?” she asks. Right now, I realize that Marilyn is a freshman music nerd that doesn’t know many upperclassmen—except for the juniors and seniors in this class. She’s very much in the dark about the gossip spreading through the school. Normally, if it doesn’t involve a freshman, it won’t sink down to their level.
I pat her on the shoulder and tell her, “You don’t need to know who he is, dear.” That makes her laugh and we walk to our resp
ective places to start tuning.
My stand partner grabs the sheet music from my case and sets it on the stand, spreading all the pages of Brandenburg. He pushes his glasses up onto his nose—they slide down again—and tightens his bow. He doesn’t look at me. He doesn’t even acknowledge me, which is fine.
Max has been my stand partner since last year when we both moved up to first violin. He transferred schools, extremely excited to join an award winning orchestra rather than deal with his last school’s music program. Suddenly, his eyes start glancing to me, brief, fleeting glances, and I just want him to ask whatever question is on his mind.
Though, knowing him, it isn’t good.
“What is it, Max,” I snap, annoyance settled in my tone. Mrs. Pearl hasn’t arrived so we have a few minutes to talk. I know I’m soon going to regret this.
He looks to me, eyes hidden behind thick glasses. “Nothing,” he nearly whispers. He doesn’t look to me again, just ignores my brief outburst. I will never understand this guy.
After orchestra, I walk to Mrs. Taylor’s room, the teacher that happily agreed to lead my detention. Usually, the same teacher holds detentions for the entire school in the same room but I can’t be in the same room as Ryder, so I’m with Mrs. Taylor. She lets me do homework so I finish my calculus homework and a history worksheet Mr. Cheney gave me. After detention, I end up taking a transit bus home—it almost passes my stop.
I’m not the type of girl that gets in trouble in school. Hilary has never received phone calls from the principal or a teacher telling her that I’ve done something bad. My nervousness is growing the closer I get to home.
I inch open the door, sneaking a peek into the living room as far as the door allows.
If Hilary isn’t in there, I can just run up to my room and hide in my closet like I used to. That sounds tempting. She could be asleep—I pray that she’s sleeping—trying to catch up before she starts her next shift. I take a step through the door, quietly closing it behind me.
“Josephine. Elizabeth. Archembault.” I was very wrong. “What were you thinking?” Hilary asks from the dining room table. She’s been waiting for me.
