The Blackmail Dilemma

Dare Me To Break

Life is funny and fickle. It has no real rhyme or reason, it just is. I just exist, and others just exist, and we just happen to exist at the same time in the same place. Time is a concept that humans try to grasp and try to tame. No one will have enough time. Time is also fickle and funny and a stupid way of saying you're already late to your own funeral just hurry up and die.

Friday is a way of saying that the work week is soon to be over. And then people get to go home to their happy lives and drink in celebration that the week is finally over. News flash, it all starts over again next week. Friday, the day after Thursday. Friday, the day before Saturday. Friday, the day I want to desperately stay home and avoid. But I thought of my list of attributes I compiled the day prior, and I was sick of being a coward.

The school parking lot was packed. It felt like the people who always skipped first period had shown up for this one. Rumors were flying in the wind like they were attached to propellers, making sure they reached all the possible listening ears. Because everyone had to know about Dean's arrest and Janessa's porno video and maybe even the fact that I was a big, fat coward. I knew Janessa was already blasting me on social media, but I was too much of a coward to actually read what she was writing about me.

I had arrived ridiculously early, yet everyone else also seemed to want to be ridiculously early. I knew that I had to grab that file before I chickened out. Before someone else found it. Before I lost my chance.

I all but ran into the hall, anxiety constricting my chest but I tried to push it back. I didn't have time to have an anxiety attack. I needed answers, not an anxiety attack. Squeezing my eyes shut while I walked, I tried to push all negative thoughts out of my head. I had to do this. I couldn't let Dean's work go to waste. I knew that everyone hated me and I hated myself but I had one last task to do, one last chance to half redeem myself and be the bigger person.

My favorite part of school was before class began. The calm before the storm. The chatting, relaxing, happiness before teachers and bullies sucked the life out of you. My eyes were open now, and tears were leaking out of them. The few people wandering the halls were to stuck in their own heads to pay attention to me, the girl crying to herself because of her own stupid mistakes.

Once I reached the door, I stopped, took a deep breath. The lights were on, but whoever the substitute was for the day had stepped out of the room. I was incredibly lucky, I didn't know what I would have done if someone was in the room. How would I explain this situation to anyone in their right mind? I wouldn't, because no one in their right mind would get themselves into the situation that I was in now. I wanted to explain even to myself how I could be so stupid, so naive, so utterly thoughtless as to allow the chain of events that brought me here to even happen.

I couldn't think about this now. I inched open the door like there was a bomb set to detonate at the other end. My arms shook, so did the rest of my body. Deep breath in, long exhale out. Somehow I made my way over to the desk and opened the correct drawer. It wasn't even locked. The file felt foreign in my hands, but I picked it up and walked out of the room. I clutched it like it was worth a million dollars, but all it was really worth was my dignity. Revenge wasn't worth it to me anymore. It wasn't worth all the heartbreak that I had to endure. I knew that I would shred the manilla folder in my arms if it didn't mean so much to other people. If Stacie hadn't humiliated Janessa, if it didn't mean something to her and Dean, then I would shred it.

Janessa was standing by her locker like normal. Only, nothing was normal anymore and I could feel the strain of my heart against my ragging emotions. My legs felt like they were about to give way underneath me as I approached her. She looked like a deer in the headlights as I approached her, eyes doe like and glassy. All the other students offered her a wide berth already, making it easy to approach her without anyone overhearing the impending conversation. At least, I hoped so.