Chapter 5 #2
“Come on now, don’t be shy. Everyone needs to get comfortable with public speaking. It’s an important asset in life. Tell us your name and a little bit about yourself.”
I withered slightly in my seat, but reluctantly got to my feet and shuffled to the front of the room.
When I faced everyone, I’d twisted my fingers together, praying to God that none of them recognized me at all.
“I’m Casey Cooper,” I said softly. “I just moved to Harley recently to live with my dad…”
“What school did you attend before you came here, Casey?” Mr. Kennard asked with a smile on his face.
I knew he’d been trying to be friendly, but honestly, the last thing that these kids needed to hear was that I had moved here from The Hill, known as Ashland’s snob-central, to every other community in the city.
Just like Harley was known as Ashland’s Piss-Bucket.
“I-I went to a private school,” I murmured.
From somewhere in the back of the room, I heard a wolf whistle, and two guys high-fived each other like idiots.
I narrowed my eyes at them. My chest tightened when I noticed the one with dark brown hair and amber eyes, as he seemed familiar.
He peered back at me and pursed his lips, blowing me a kiss, his silver lip piercings on either side of his bottom lip were glinting under the light of the fluorescents, standing out starkly against his tanned skin.
His friend across the aisle was dirty blond with hazel eyes and a septum piercing.
They have a hard edge to them, and honestly, I shivered at the way they checked me out so blatantly.
“And what do you like to do, Casey?” Mr. Kennard asked after he gave the boys a stern, warning glare.
“Um…” I shifted on my feet, lowering my eyes to the white floor.
“I like to draw. I play basketball, but not competitively,” I added with a quick side glance at Mr. Kennard, just as he opened his mouth, no doubt to encourage me to talk to the coach of this school about joining the team.
I wasn’t as good as Nylah, with her long, goddess-like legs.
But I was scrappy from playing ball as a kid with the guys.
I stuck to outdoor courts in the park, where she and I would spend an hour playing some days in the summer evenings when there hadn’t been a party to go to.
“And, uh... “ I felt my face burn as old activities came to mind. Going to The Hill’s Shopping Center with my friends, parties at some rich kid’s mansion, boating with Mom and Matthew in the summer.
The more I thought about it, the more I realized what a privileged life I’d been given when I left here, and I instantly shut down, registering that anything else I said would only alienate me from my peers even more.
I think Mr. Kennard finally saw how uncomfortable I was, because he nodded and flashed me another smile before handing me a very worn copy of Othello. “Well, welcome to Harley, Casey!”
No one in the class made any sort of greeting to me, except for those two dickwads who had high-fived each other, “I’ll welcome her to Harley,” the one I thought I’d recognized shouted, “How about you meet me after school in the back of my truck?”
“That’s enough, Mr. Tremblay!” Mr. Kennard snapped at him.
Tremblay… Hunter Tremblay! I felt a shock in my system as a memory came crashing back to me.
I was eight, and the guys and I were playing baseball with some kids in our neighborhood that we knew from school.
I’d been batting when Hunter and his small gang emerged on the other side of the field and began to taunt Lee, who had played before me and managed to make it to second base.
I couldn’t hear everything that was being tossed his way, but knowing Hunter and judging by the rigid way Lee held his features, it was nothing good.
I’d stormed across the field to confront him, to tell him to fuck off and leave my friend alone, when one of his cronies, Mark DeLuca, reached out and grabbed one of Lee’s dreads.
I’d lost it then, and the next thing I knew, I was sitting on Hunter’s chest, and pummeled away at every part of him I could reach.
A few feet away, Mark held a hand to his head, blood dripping down his face and arm, and my bat discarded on the ground nearby.
From behind, a set of hands pried me off of Hunter just as he grabbed a handful of my hair and ripped, but I didn’t care.
Now he would have to go around Harley knowing every boy in our class saw him get his ass beat by a girl.
No one fucks with my friends. Especially Lee, Shaw, and Vail.
I avoided Hunter entirely as I moved back to my seat, which luckily, was a few rows away. Yet off to my right, I could still hear those two talking about me for the whole class to hear.
“She looks like she gives good head with those full, pouty lips-” the dark blond said, but I didn’t recognize this creep at all.
“Mr. Fraser, that is quite enough-” Mr. Kennard tried to shut them up, but Hunter had cut him off.
“Hey Bryce, while she’s sucking you off, I’ll grab a handful of that purple hair to hold her in place while I fuck her from behind.
” In my peripheral vision, I saw Hunter craning around his friend to watch for my reaction.
But I kept my face impassive and just opened my notebook to jot down the study notes Mr. Kennard had pre-written on the chalkboard for us to copy.
“Detention, Mr. Tremblay!” Our teacher practically shouted the words. His face was red as he glared at the boys. “After school every day this week.” Hunter grumbled under his breath, but Mr. Kennard wasn’t done, “Want to make that two?”
Finally, the class descended into silence and focused on the lecture on the Tragedy of Othello.
When the bell rang after English, I was already packing up my satchel with my books and up and out of my seat, having gotten Mr. Kennard to sign the form earlier when we were reviewing Act 1.
I couldn’t tell if Hunter recognized me from our childhood, but I wasn’t going to stick around to find out.
Even though I wanted to keep a low profile, as I wandered the halls, I kept glancing up at the boys who would pass me, briefly checking their faces for one of the particular three, but none seemed familiar to me.
The school day was split into four extra-long periods, with lunch breaking them up in the middle of the day.
Next was P.E., then Home Ec. after lunch, and Math 30 at the end of the day.
Phys. Ed took place in the school basement, and I headed down, finding the coach’s office where three teachers had their desks set up.
Seeing as I was new, my gym strip had to be ordered in, so I filled out a sheet with my size and was given an invoice to bring home to Keith.
My teacher, Mrs. Reeves, explained that P.E.
was kind of old-fashioned here. Girls and boys were split into separate classes.
There was the main gym, and beside it was the weight room.
A glass wall separated us, so we could still see each other, yet not interact.
I bit the inside of my cheek, holding back a laugh at the old-school concept, however, I was also feeling relieved at the same time.
After wandering the halls this morning, and the sort of looks and catcalls I’d already gotten, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t at all nervous by the intense testosterone that was running through this school.
The guys just seemed so much more… confident here.
More sure of themselves. And the air around some screamed danger.
Mrs. Reeves, a pretty and much younger teacher than most of her colleagues, explained that we were in the middle of a gymnastics course, which would go on for another week after this one before we moved on to something else.
My gym uniform would be delivered by the end of this week, so in the meantime, she told me I could use this period to study in her office.
She left me there to teach her class, so I pulled out the small assignment from English on Othello, deciding to get it out of the way now so that if I was assigned any math homework tonight, I could focus on that instead, as math was the bane of my existence.
By the time the bell had rung for lunch, my anxiety, which had temporarily abated, came back full force.
I could hear the thunder overhead of hundreds of footsteps from students who were gathering for their midday break.
The thought of stepping into that cafeteria, being in the open for all eyes to see, made my palms clammy, and my heart hammered against my chest.
C’mon, Casey… you used to be tougher than this! It’s just lunch. No one gives a shit about you. Don’t be so narcissistic.
Packing up my bag, I ventured out, getting lost behind a small crowd of girls that had just come out of the changing rooms, all of whom ignored me completely as they chattered away with each other, walking to lunch.
I followed silently, hoping to use them as a shield in the cafeteria.
Still, to my disappointment, they veered away down the eastern corridor, leaving me standing alone outside the double doors to where the loud chorus of voices reverberated through the steel that separated me from them.