Happy Ending

Incident

The next morning, I waited for him before school.

He never came.

"Stupid" I told myself. "I should have known. He has other, more important things to do."

In English class, he came in late, holding a yellow tardy slip. "sorry." He whispered as he walked by me. "My alarm gave up on me."

"Remember class" the teacher said. "I'm not going to give you any more time to work on these projects in class. It's your job for you and your partner to get it done on time. Projects are due Monday."

Today was Thursday.

When the bell rang, I rushed out of class like always."Linda" a voice from behind me said, and grabbed me by the shoulder.

I flinched and jumped away from the touch, Stopping walking right in the middle of the walkway.

"Woah. Linda, sorry. Didn't mean to scare you. I was just wondering, do you think we can try to work on the project after school today?" James said, blocking hallway traffic.

"Umm" I said, thinking

"Move it, stupid emo fag." Some jock said, and pushed him out of the way. He stumbled and bumped into the lockers, making a loud bang that erupted a cacophony of laughter from the assholes.

"Hey! Scum!" one of them said. "This stupid fag you boyfriend? Good match. You can both waste away on drugs!" its dickhead friends laughed, as James glared at them.

"Don't be an asshole." He said menacingly.

"Oh! I'm so scared. What are you going to do, call one of your satanic bands to send me back to hell with them?" it asked, laughing like a hyena.

James' hands balled into fists. I stared at his hands, and suddenly they weren't James' hands, but dads, hitting me on the head repeatedly, pinned against the wall, for not vacuuming all of the corners.

Unable to stand there anymore, I turned from the assholes, from James, and the fists, and ran down the hall, a left down the stairs, and into a nearby open and empty storage closet, where I sat in a corner and curled into a ball.

"He's not dad." I told myself. "He won't hit you. They won't hit you."

After a few minutes, I heard James voice."Linda!" he called. "Hey! Linda! Where did you go?"

I waited until his voice faded until I shakily got up and forced myself to walk to my next class. Everybody stared at me, the alien who was late to class. I ignored the class and sat in my seat, trying to forget what had happened and focus on geometry.

Ha. Fat chance of that.