Sure, he had really amazing dark eyes, and this mysterious sort of sex appeal going on. But he was a creep, and that gave him no right to make me feel all fluttery about him. I had met lots of jerks in my time, and a few nice guys, and none of them had ever had this effect on me. I sighed and grabbed my bookbag, realizing had I had bigger problems at hand. I had just agreed to go to a dance.
4
Following the eventful lunch on Wednesday with Finn, he had avoided me the rest of the day. And by avoided me, I mean “treated me pretty much like he usually did.” I could feel him staring at me, but only when I wasn’t looking, and there wasn’t much I could do about that. Besides, I wasn’t in a hurry to talk to him again. I was trying to avoid feeling the way that he made me feel.
Unfortunately, I should’ve known that Patrick expected us to sit with Finn at lunch the next day, and I was starting to think that might be his plan for the rest of the year as well. Somehow, Finn managed to eat with us without me having the urge to punch him or… or… I don’t know. Do something else to him. Patrick hijacked the conversation, so we didn’t have any leeway to talk about things that I might find upsetting. Instead we talked about why people didn’t carry boom boxes on their shoulders anymore.
“Even in the 80’s, they had Walkman’s and stuff,” Patrick pointed out.
“So they weren’t carrying boom boxes just to hear music. If they wanted to do that, they could’ve carried a small, portable Walkman. No, the boom box meant that they wanted everyone else to hear their music too. Why did that stop?”
“When you consider how cumbersome a boom box was to carry around, it makes even less sense,” Finn agreed thoughtfully. “And they took like
37 D batteries. Wasn’t that the subplot of a Spike Lee movie? Somebody spent the whole film trying to get batteries for his boom box.” He had half of a turkey sandwich in his hand, but I had yet to see him take a bite of it. He had just been gesturing around with it since we had sat down at the table.
“Yeah, yeah, Radio Raheem in Do The Right Thing,” I answer quickly swatting it away. “I hate that movie. But you’re right. They were huge and expensive with the batteries. With iPods now, don’t they have like smaller, light weight iPod boom boxes?”
“Yeah, but I think they all double as a charging base so you have to plug them in,” Patrick shook his head. “But I mean, if there was a demand for it, I’m sure they would come up with some kind of thing like that.”
“Maybe the iPod killed everything.” Finn shook his head and leaned back in his seat, as if the idea depressed him. “Since it’s been around, nobody’s had the urge to harass their peers with their music anymore.”
“I should get a boom box,” Patrick added thoughtfully.
“You should,” Finn agreed, then tossed his uneaten sandwich onto his plate. “Anyway, I should get out of here. I gotta check on something before class.” He nodded at both of us and stood up. “I’ll see you guys later.”
After he left, Patrick smiled appreciatively at me. For lunch, I had settled on a massive pear and I took a bite out of it, waiting for Patrick to explain what he was so happy about it. He didn’t, so I quickly chewed my bite down and swallowed.
“What?” I demanded.
“That wasn’t so bad, was it?” Patrick was practically beaming. “I mean, you talked to him. And it was good. Right?”
“What is your deal?” I shook my head, refusing to admit that I had had a decent time over lunch.
“I’m just trying to prove to you that he’s not a creep.” Patrick feigned too much innocence, making me all the more suspicious. “If you’d just admit, I’ll stop.”
“Never. He is a creep. Just because he understands the complexities of boom box use in the 21st century does not make him any less creepy.” I took another bite of my pear, and Patrick shook his head at me. “I’m starting to think you might have a little crush on him.”
“Now you’re just projecting,” Patrick chuckled.
“Maybe you are,” I countered.
Patrick ate the rest of his meatloaf-esque meal, then suggested we leave.
I had already finished my pear, and the lunchroom smell upset my stomach, so I was happy to oblige. We still had plenty of time to kill before class started, so we meandered slowly in the direction of our lockers.
“Hey, hold up,” I paused at the women’s restroom, and Patrick halted next to me. “I’m gonna run in real quick.”
“I’ll be right here.” Patrick leaned on the wall next to the bathroom.
“Alright,” I smiled and turned to head into the bathroom.
Stupidly, I had been looking at Patrick instead of paying attention to where I was going. At the same time I went to enter the bathroom, Tegan started to come out, and we ran into each other. I don’t know if she was running or what, but it wasn’t a gentle bump. It was a total smack into each other. I cracked my skull on hers and stumbled backwards. I saw white for a minute, and when I regained my footing, Tegan was standing in front of me, yelling.
“Why don’t you watch where you’re going, you dirty bitch!” Tegan shouted at me. Between the hit and the confusion of actually getting screamed at, I was too startled to say anything for a second. “Are you like half-retarded or something? Oh my god! You totally are! You’re drooling all over yourself, again.”
“What the hell is your problem?” I yelled back. I’m ashamed to admit that I also absently wiped at my chin to check for any drool, and there wasn’t any. I have no idea what she was talking about, unless she hit her head so hard that she was hallucinating. “You ran into me!”
“I don’t even know why they let you in this school, you brain dead freak!” Tegan hissed, stepping closer to me. She was challenging me, which I didn’t understand at all. I could kick her ass, and I wouldn’t hesitate. In fact, why wasn’t I already kicking her ass?
Tegan open her lip-glossed mouth to say something more, but I had enough. Before she could get a word out, I punched her in the face. I don’t mean one of those little-girlie cat-fight slaps either. I full on decked her on the mouth, where her idiotic insults were coming from. Her eyes widened with shock, and she stumbled backward. She tripped on her own ridiculous shoes and fell on the ground. Her lip was already bleeding, so maybe I would’ve just left it at that. I was trying to make a new start, after all.
“You’re dead, bitch!” Tegan growled. She was crumpled on the floor bleeding, and instead of begging for mercy, she thought threatening me would be the best way to go. Well, she thought wrong.
I bent over and grabbed a clump of her blond hair in my fist, causing her to yelp in pain. She tried to scramble away from me, but only succeeded in pulling her hair more. I cocked my arm back, preparing to wail into her. Then I felt a strong hand on my wrist, and when I tried to move my arm, I couldn’t. I turned to glare at the interloper, expecting Patrick.
“Stop,” Finn commanded coolly, gripping my wrist tightly. It wasn’t enough where it hurt, but it was just enough where I knew I couldn’t break free.
“Let her go.”
“What are you doing?” I demanded. I was still super pissed off, and I wasn’t a big fan of people intervening in these kinds of situations, especially people like Finn who gave me ambiguous feelings.
“There’s a teacher coming!” Patrick shouted nervously.
“Come on.” Finn yanked my wrist and started pulling me.
Reluctantly, I untangled my fingers from Tegan’s hair and let Finn drag me away from her and the gathering crowd of onlookers. If I hadn’t promised Matt I would turn things around, I wouldn’t care if a teacher caught me pounding on Tegan. She deserved it. I looked uncertainly back at Patrick, who ran a hand fretfully through his thick hair.
“I’ll cover for you. Hurry.” Patrick nodded, shooing me on.
Just before Finn dragged me around the corner, I saw Patrick go over to Tegan to try and clean up my mess. The bottom half of her face was covered in blood, and she screamed when Patrick went near her.
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“Where are we going? What are you doing?” I snapped at Finn.
Somewhere in the back of my mind, I couldn’t believe I was letting anyone drag me anywhere. Why wasn’t I prying his fingers off of me or putting up a fight? Maybe, just maybe, it had something to do with how warm and strong his hand felt on me, and maybe, I kind of like it.
“Shut up,” Finn whispered harshly.
Finn peered in a window in the door to the art room. Since lunch hadn’t ended yet, the class was still empty. It was a studio art class, though, so it was never locked in case students wanted to work on something, and the teachers never hung around to monitor it. Finn pulled open the door and pushed me inside.
“Will you stop pulling me around like that?” I barked at him, but he said nothing.
I finally wrenched my wrist free from him and took several steps away.
He stood in front of me, clearly annoyed, rubbing the back of his head. His dark eyes burned on me, and all my anger disappeared. I was too startled and confused to really feel anything else. My heart pounded heavily in my chest, and I tried to slow it down.
“What the hell are you doing?” I asked, almost meekly, and rubbed the wrist he had been grabbing. It didn’t really hurt, but it felt like something to do.
“What the hell are you doing?” Finn shot back. He was looking at me like I had done something wrong, and maybe I had, but I didn’t get why he cared so much.
“I was fighting with this bitch that has been out to get me since I got here!” Some of the anger surged back through me, and I felt my confidence return. She had deserved it, and even if she hadn’t, I was still pissed off and Finn had no right to be mad at me for that. “Now I’m trying to figure out why you stopped me and what the hell your problem is!”
“You can’t solve everything with a fight,” Finn said, as if that explained anything.
“Good. Great. Maybe I can’t,” I admitted. “But why do you even care?
And why did you drag me off like that?”
“So you didn’t get caught! Do you want to get suspended again?” Finn looked at me evenly, but I just furrowed my brow at him.
Had he been trying to protect me? He was afraid that I might get expelled or something? What did that even matter to him? My heart fluttered happily at the thought of him caring about me in someway and trying to protect me, but the rest of me angrily acknowledged that I didn’t need anyone to protect me. I could take care of myself.
“That doesn’t answer anything!” I shook my head. “You stopped me before the teacher was coming. That was just incidental.”
“A teacher was going to come eventually,” Finn reasoned. “And even if they didn’t, Tegan isn’t going to keep this to herself.”
“She will if she knows what’s good for her,” I crossed my arms over my chest.
“Wendy!” Finn was completely exasperated, and I couldn’t figure out why. “You think you’re so wild and untamed, but you’re not. You’re just rude.”
“She was rude!” I countered defensively.
“So what? Just because she’s an idiot doesn’t mean you have to stoop to her level!” Finn insisted. “You’re almost an adult! You can’t keep freaking out like an angry little kid every time something doesn’t go your way!”
“You’re the one that’s freaking out!” I snapped. Finn nodded, seemingly aware that he was letting this get to him more than it should. He ran a hand through his black hair and took a deep breath.
“You’re a bright girl, Wendy, but you can be so… hard to be around.”
Finn sounded pained, and he wasn’t looking at me when he spoke. For some reason, his words stung a lot deeper than they should have.
“You frustrate me so much!” I still had no idea why he was so upset, and I had no idea how he could make me so upset.
“You frustrate me!” Finn countered, not unkindly, and looked back up at me.
“Me? How did I frustrate you?” I asked incredulously. “I’m nothing but straight with you! I don’t drag you off without any explanation!”
His normal unruffled demeanor had returned. He stood in front of me with that perfectly unreadable expression, and he smoothed out the untucked tails of his navy blue button-down shirt.
“What do you want me to explain?” Finn kept his eyes on me evenly, and I swallowed to keep back my anger. I wanted to shout at him, but if he was going to play this reasonable, then I was going to prove to him that I could too.
“Why you were so upset that I was fighting with Tegan.” I looked at him expectantly, and part of me thought he would just brush me off and walk out of the classroom. The bell was about to ring, and I had my fingers crossed that it would hold off long enough for him to answer.
“Fair enough.” He paused thoughtfully before continuing. “It matters to me if you get expelled. Your safety is important to me,” he answered coolly.
I had no idea what to make of that. Truthfully, I had no idea what to make of anything about him. He was like nothing I had experienced. The obvious follow up question to what he just said would be, why do those things matter to you? Instead of asking that, I just stared at him, trying to collect my thoughts and slow the fluttering of my heart, and then the bell rang before I had a chance to really find anything out.
“We should get to class.” Finn went to the door and held it open for me.
“Okay,” I nodded and walked over to the door. I stopped when I was right next to him and looked up at him. This close up, his eyes were even more intimidating, and he smelled sweetly of cologne. “But if you every drag me away like that again, I will punch you. Hard.”
“I don’t doubt you will, and I’ll keep that in mind.” A hint of his smile played on the corner of his lips, sending my ridiculous heart into a tailspin.
I lowered my eyes and hurried out the door. I glanced back over my shoulder as I walked away, and he was going in the opposite direction. Taking a deep breath, I rushed to my locker and tried to convince myself that I wasn’t attracted to that clearly disturbed boy. Patrick was waiting anxiously at my locker, but he broke out into a relieved smile when he saw me. Tegan and any sign of our fight were long gone.
“So, everything’s okay?” Patrick ruffled his hair and watched me as I struggled to open my locker. After he second, he offered, “Here. Let me try.
What’s your com?”
“36-21-7,” I told him. “I don’t know if everything’s okay. What happened after I left?”
“Mr. Meade came and got Tegan and took her to the nurses’ office,” Patrick explained, and he popped open my locker com almost immediately.
“She didn’t give up your name or anything, so you’re good. Where did you go?
What happened with Finn?”
“I don’t know.” I honestly didn’t know how explain what had transpired between us. The best I could come up with is that he had been trying to protect me, and he’d been angry that I’d put myself in danger in the first place. That sounded stupid to say aloud, so I just loaded up my bookbag and shrugged. “He just took me to the art room and told me to grow up.”
“So, he did it just to save you from the fight? So you wouldn’t get expelled?” Patrick asked, and a smirk was growing on his face, one that I didn’t approve of. “He helped you, if you will.”
“I guess.” I slung my bag over my shoulder and slammed my locker shut.
“Oh, yeah, he is a total creep!” Patrick nodded exaggeratedly. “You really nailed that one on the head. I’m never gonna question you again.”
“Shut up,” I laughed and shook my head. “Don’t you have a class you’re late for or something?”
“Always!” Patrick turned and jogged down the hall, apparently taking my suggestion seriously.
I sat through Algebra, but I was even more fidgety than normal. I had an adrenaline rush from the fight with Tegan and the bizarre rendezvous with Finn. Class went by incredibly slow, especially since I had History next hour with both Tegan and Finn, and I was kind of
excited to see what that would bring.
To be honest, History was a little anti-climactic. Tegan was gone, and Mr. Meade hushed the class when people tried to speculate. There were a lot of murmurs and glances in my direction, but I didn’t give away anything. I tried to play completely innocent, like I had no idea what any of them could possibly be thinking.
When I came to class, Finn was already there. Instead of blankly staring at me or ignoring me, as had been previous greetings, he actually gave me a small smile and nodded hello at me. Throughout Mr. Meade’s lecture, when I was wishing I was sleeping, I would occasionally glance over at Finn. He would look back at me and offer me some kind of friendly expression. Something had changed between us, and I for one, liked it.
After school, Patrick rushed out after me to walk me to the parking lot.
There was a comfortable routine growing, and I enjoyed it. Maybe it was good that Finn had stopped me from slaughtering Tegan. I was actually starting to like this school.
“Hey, Wen,” Patrick grinned when he caught up with me. “So, everybody is talking about you and the way you took down Tegan. You’re like Mothra.”
“Mothra?” I wrinkled my nose at him.
“Yeah. Mothra vs. Godzilla.” Patrick stopped, thinking. “Or wait. No.
Mothra dies in that. So, you’re like Gozilla, and she’s like Mothra. Except Godzilla still gets killed by Mothra’s babies. Oh, well, never mind. You’re the big man on campus. That’s what I meant.”
“Alright.” I stopped at the beginning of the parking lot so I could talk to him for a minute before departing to get into my brother’s car.
“It’s pretty cool being you right now,” Patrick offered me a sly smile.
“It’s always pretty cool being me,” I teased.
Finn’s Cadillac was parked a few spaces down from where we were standing, so I wasn’t that surprised when I saw Finn walking towards us. I kind of expected him to just go to his car, erasing any idea I had that things might be changing. Instead, he walked over to us and actually joined in the conversation of his own volition.
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