Breaking Boundaries (unordinary love story)

Chapter 2: Add Insult to Injury

That morning in Physics class Mrs. Strauss was raving about Final Semester exams. "It will be multiple choice...blah blah blah...a scantron test with 70 questions on everything we learned this semester...make sure to bring two sharpened pencils...blah blah blah worth 25% of your grade so make sure to study."

Behind me, Rick was chewing his gum loudly. "Why 25%? You expect us to all be try-hards and lose our brain cells for that?"

The class laughed.

"That is exactly what I expect, Mr. Hastings. Otherwise for you that will be an F. You need to pass to play football. Your choice."

From the corner of my eye I caught Rand rolling her eyes. When Mrs. Strauss turned around, she threw a crumpled ball at the teacher, being super uncivil.

Mrs. Strauss turned around, livid. "Who the hell threw that?!?!?!"

People snickered.

"Stupid exams," I heard Rick mutter.

Then the teacher talked about some egg drop project we had to do. She said she would go into more detail about that later.

The hallway was where I was picked on the most. After first period ended, Rick and his gang of friends cornered me in the hallway and took the opportunity to have some fun.

"Yo wassup, onion head," Rick said.

When I ignored him, he said, "Oi are you stupid? I'm talking to you."

He slapped the books out of my arms. "Are you a butterfingers too? I think you just dropped everything."

What a total jerk. His friends laughed.

As I bent down to pick up my stuff, Rick kicked everything, saying, "Here, let me help," scattering it across the hall.

I sighed, picking up my things when Rand came over and picked up something off the floor.

"What's this?" she said.

It was my sketchbook. Oh no, she could not have that.

"Give it back," I said. I tried to snatch it, but she threw it over to Zach and Phoebe. They started flipping through it.

My veins seared with rage. I stormed over and tried to grab it back, but they pulled away from me, shoving me away and laughing. They tossed it to Rick afterward, like it was a game of monkey in the middle. And I was the monkey.

"OK, here, you can have it," said Rick, holding it out to me.

I reached for it, but he quickly pulled it back.

"Gotcha!" he said. He raised his arm with my sketchbook in his hand.

"Give it back," I said angrily. I jumped for it, but I was still too short for him.

"Aw, what are you gonna do?" jived Rand. "Cry?"

My eyes got hot. I really didn't want to cry in front of them.

"Cry to mommy," said Phoebe.

They laughed.

I watched them walk away.

They just stole my sketchbook. It had all my imagination drawn in it, and now it was gone. I couldn't believe it. There was nothing I could do about it, either.

Tears threatened to overflow in my eyes. I had to push them down as I made my way to Español class.

I waited for the rest of the morning to crawl by, which was forever. It felt like I'd entered a parallel universe where time traveled snail-paced. It was like every minute was an hour.