Collision Course(48)
Author: S.C. Stephens

My tone was getting louder and louder as I spoke and Sawyer glanced around the hallway before stepping close to me, well within my one foot zone. I was so irritated that I didn’t care though. Quietly, she whispered, "Yes, Lucas, Randy. If you’d pay a little closer attention, you’d see that he feels really bad about drugging you. " I started to pull away, but she grabbed my arm, dragging me closer. "Josh tricked him into doing it. Randy told me that Josh told him it was a liquid laxative. Randy didn’t know what would happen. He just wanted you to suffer a little bit. He didn’t know you’d get suspended."

I jerked away from her arm, pulling apart. I was sure it looked like we were having a lover’s spat, but regardless of my actions, Sawyer wasn’t the one I was angry with. No, I was mad at everyone else -all of them, all of my harassers, all of the whisperers and all of the lookey-lous. "When did you…" I shook my head, not really caring when she’d had this heart-to-heart with one of my tormentors. "Well, that’s so much better. I’m glad he only wanted to send me to the John for a few hours." I threw my hands up as my voice got loud again. "God, what a relief, Sawyer!"

Her face flushed and with an irritated shake of her head, she stormed off down the hall. Closing my eyes and cursing my dramatics, I hurried after her. Everyone watched us leave. I grabbed her elbow right as she slipped into the door. She looked down at where we were touching and then up to my face. Red blotches were still along her cheeks and I sighed, hating that I’d hurt her. Ignoring every person in the classroom, ignoring the teacher writing on the white board, ignoring my own desire to keep a distance between us – ignoring it all, I pulled her into a tight hug.

"I’m sorry. I’m an ass, I’m sorry," I whispered into her hair.

She nodded against my chest and returned my tight embrace. I sighed as I kept my eyes closed. Here I was, just a few hours after telling her that I needed physical space, holding her tight, like I was afraid she’d vanish if I didn’t, while every eye around us watched. I was trying to avoid misleading her and I was trying to avoid more gossip about us…and I was failing miserably. A giggling titter filled the room and I finally broke apart from her, feeling my cheeks heat. Her face was flushed as well as she looked around the semi-filled room and awkwardly adjusted her bag on her shoulder.

I motioned to our seats and we gratefully sat down. A few eyes followed us back there before turning into each other, the whispering starting again. I got out my book and flipped through the pages, not seeing any of them. I heard Sawyer beside me do the same and snuck a glance at her. She was staring at her desk, but met my gaze when she felt my eyes.

‘I’m sorry,’ I mouthed again and she nodded.

The bell rang, the teacher turned from where she’d been writing equations on the board and everything fell back into normalcy. Well, as normal as things ever got for me. I thought about Sawyer’s comments during class. I ignored my over-reaction to them and really focused on what she’d been saying. I couldn’t believe it. I didn’t see how anyone in this school would want anything to do with me. It wasn’t like anyone ever approached me, other than to ask me questions I’d answered so many times, I was sick of it. I’d stopped even answering them awhile ago. And Randy…that one was definitely off. No way was he looking to be my friend. No frickin’ way.

Things got back to normal between us during lunch in her car. We lay back in her seats and ate our sandwiches and she commented that her dad had finally gotten a job with the logging company, so things were looking up for her family. She happily bit into her very own PB&J when she said that. I blinked at her in surprise when she did. I hadn’t realized her dad was out of work. I knew things were tough for them, but never really knew why, and had never asked.

"That’s great, Sawyer. I didn’t realize he was looking." I grabbed a corner off my own ham and cheese sandwich and curled it into a ball before eating it.

She watched my habit before responding. "Yeah. He and Mom both quit their jobs when we moved out here. They’ve both been looking, but times are tough…" She shrugged and looked really guilty. I wondered why, until I remembered that her parents had dropped everything and moved out to the middle of nowhere (from Portland she’d told me once) because of her.

"Do you want to talk about what happened, Sawyer?" I said quietly while she spaced out, gazing over my shoulder.

She brought her eyes back to me and shook her head a little, snapping out of her mini-trance. "No." She smiled and her face got animated again. "I want to talk about the dance." She was grinning ear to ear and I couldn’t help but grin with her. She was so excited about this stupid dance.

I rolled my eyes, but then laughed and we started going over the details. The dance was the last Friday night before the school broke for the holidays. It was a winter wonderland theme, of course, and both guys and girls were expected to wear nice dress clothes. Sawyer was a little anxious about that, not being able to afford anything even remotely nice yet, even though her dad was now employed. I told her my mom had a couple of nice party dresses that would probably fit her if she wanted to wear one. She looked at me oddly and said she’d have to look at them first. Then she smiled brightly and started going on about corsages.

We were talking about having dinner at my place to save on cash (she made me promise that we wouldn’t be having my Hot Pocket standard), as we walked to our next classes. I shook my head at her as we parted ways. For someone who seemed almost anti-social at times, she sure was digging this.

As I walked to Science, I was surprisingly grateful to Mrs. Ryans for even bringing up the idea. Maybe it would be good to get out in the real world. As I opened the door to Astronomy, I reconsidered.

Josh was glaring at me and I quickly ducked my head and broke eye contact. We hadn’t had any confrontations in awhile and I was trying to keep it that way. I heard his laughter and resisted the urge to look as I sat down.

Keeping my eyes straight ahead, I started daydreaming about Lillian to distract myself; I couldn’t wait to see her tonight. I was in the middle of reimagining slow dancing with her in my dream, my fingers low on her waist, hers running through the back of my hair, when a wadded up piece of paper smacked me in the side of the head. Irritated, I looked over before I could stop myself.

Josh was laughing, sneering cruelly while Randy held down his arm, stopping him from chucking another piece. Brushing it off, I exhaled slowly and stared straight ahead, again.

"Hey, Luc," I heard Josh say from the other side of the room."Heard your date to the dance went off on you." I closed my eyes and focused on my breath, focused on not reacting. It hadn’t taken very long for that tiny spat to twist into high school dramatics. Josh, apparently enjoying my attempt at non-reaction, continued, "Hear she only agreed to go in the first place to be your designated driver. At least one of you is smart," he added.

My head twisted around as I visually drove nails into his body. That? That was the way he was going to spin our fight in the hall? I gripped the edge of my desk, my fingers digging into the hard, wooden top, urging the flare of anger he sparked in me to die down. He started rocking with laughter at my reaction and I started shaking from the restraint. Biting my lip to not tell him to go to Hell, I made myself face front again. The laughter from his side of the room grew even louder.

Fortunately the bell rang and the teacher started class. I knew it was too late though. I knew the student body would take that pathetic gossip and run with it. By the end of the day, the very idea of me going to the dance with Sawyer would be akin to me going with a breathalyzer attached to my arm; someone to keep me in check, since I obviously couldn’t do it on my own. I sighed as I listened to what had once been my favorite subject. What else could I have expected from these people? Definitely not friendship. Sawyer was so wrong about that.

As soon as I could, I darted out of that class. Even though I’d sat in the back, I got out into the fresh, chilly air before everyone else, having gotten up from my seat a second before the bell had even rung. I heard Josh snigger as I left the room, and practically speed-walking to my next class, I pictured an irate Darren beside me.

I imagined restraining him from turning around and beating the shit out of Josh. Much like the time I’d had to restrain him from wanting to go after some senior last year who had said Sammy had a fat ass. Personally, I think the guy was just upset that Sammy had turned him down, but Darren had taken it as a personal attack on his girlfriend. He’d been determined to give the guy a broken nose…in the middle of American History. I’d dragged him out of the room with both arms locked under his elbows as he’d yelled threats at the imbecile.

Picturing restraining hot-headed Darren from fighting helped calm the inner beast within me, and I felt more relaxed with each step away from Josh. For as much as I understood his anger, as much as I tried to ignore the hurts and insults, a part of me just wanted to kick his f**king ass! Much like Darren had done when he’d finally run into that guy at a party a few weeks later.

Using Darren’s remembered temper to moderate mine, by the time I stepped through the doors into art class, I was calm again. Josh was behind me for the day and I could let him go. I was easing a smile onto my face and working on my latest project, when I felt Mrs. Solheim come up beside me. She praised me for my work and then chirpily said, "I hear you’re going to the dance, Tom. That’s great!"

She walked away before I could respond to that and I shook my head as I watched her, her loose pants and flowing tunic a myriad of contrasting colors that was almost dizzying to look at. How had my spacey art teacher heard that already? News traveled so fast around here.

I waited outside of art for Sawyer to get out of choir. I’d tried to go to one of their concerts once, but she’d told me she’d rather not have me there, so I hadn’t ever heard her sing. She’d explained it away as her having a solo that she’d never be able to get through, if she knew I was listening. I was dying to hear her sing, especially if she was good enough for the teacher to have her sing by herself, but I’d respected her wished and stayed away. Looking back on that, I wondered if it was more keeping me away from her parents, than her nerves. Or maybe it had been a combination of the two.

I waited for awhile and frowned. She was taking a long time to get out of there. Remembering the flood of gossip that had started this day, I started to worry about her. Brittany hopped on anything she could to tease her, and I’d handed her a nice little bouquet to choose from. I started walking over to the room just as her black hair came out the door.

She immediately looked over to me and started walking my way. She walked tall and straight and didn’t look behind her. I did. Brittany, and the group that usually flocked around their Queen, was just exiting the building as well. They were looking over at her and laughing. Brittany looked past Sawyer’s back, to me, scowling at her. The smile fell from her lips and she glared at me. Then her lips twisted into a look that clearly said ‘come get me’. I was not about to.

Ignoring her, I focused back to Sawyer as she walked up and adjusted the bag on her shoulder. "Everything…okay?"I asked, glancing at Brittany’s retreating form, her h*ps swaying in a much too exaggerated way to be a natural walk. She confirmed that by looking over her shoulder at me. She muttered something to the girl beside her, which made her laugh and look at me too. When their joint laughter died down, her friend faced front while Brittany lifted a lip derisively and ran a hand down her ass seductively.