"Hurry up, Way!" Coach John shouted at Mikey. We were running laps around the gym because not everyone was dressed in their gym clothes. I was getting irritated by everything, we were on our sixth lap and had nine more to go. Mikey fell to his knees, and I picked him up.
"Come on," I said pushing him forward. Coach John blew his whistle twice.
"That's enough, or else I'll have a class full of unconscious lazy kids." he said. Mikey crashed on the floor; someone had kid kicked him in the shin. He winced and pulled his foot up. I kicked him back and turned to sit next to Mikey.
"I'm so close to passing out," he wheezed out.
"Go drink water," I suggested. He shook his head.
"Not yet, there are too many people over there," he explained.
"Are you going to tell me why you climbed into my bedroom yesterday?"
"I told you, I wanted to say thank you and talk to you."
"I'm not much of a talking person," I said.
"Get up you lazy bums, give me twenty minutes of pushups." Everyone groaned but got in place. He blew his whistle and everyone started doing pushups. Mikey was next to me. No one bothered him a lot as long as I was close to him. He was holding on, but he couldn't stay like this for long. Ten minutes went by when Coach blew his whistle twice. "Quinn, get up here." Is he talking about me or the guy who's named Quinn? "Iris Quinn, not you Quinn." I stood up and walked over there. "Teach these idiots how a push up is done." I got down to my hands and knees and started doing the pushups. I did them for two minutes. He blew his whistle for me to stop. "This scrawny little girl is better than most of my football players in here! You should all be ashamed! Go change before I make you do more laps!"
We all scampered to the locker rooms. People shoved me around, I ignored them and went to my locker. I grabbed my bag and clothes. I didn't want to change in front on everyone so I went to one of the bathroom stalls and quickly changed. I added deodorant and fixed my makeup a bit. The bell rung and everyone left. I got out and saw Mikey getting cornered by four guys. He looked at me with pleading eyes. I closed my eyes and sighed. Mikey was a really sweet guy, and I didn't want him to get hurt, but I don't want to risk getting kicked out of another school. I turned around and started walking away. Keep walking, keep walking, keep walking. I heard Mikey cry out in pain. I punched the locker closest to me and ran back. I pulled the biggest one away and punched him in the face. Someone punched me hard in the stomach, I kicked him in the groin and pushed him away. Someone pulled me by the hair and smashed my head against the locker and I elbowed him in the face. The guy I kicked punched me in the face. The other guy tackled me down. I got on top of him and punched him repeatedly in the face. Mikey pulled me off him. I held his hand and pulled him along. When we were a safe distance away, I let go of him.
"Are you okay?" he asked in concern.
"Yeah, I'm all right," I lied. My stomach was hurting so I'm pretty sure I have a huge bruise. My forehead also hurt.
"Your nose is bleeding," he said and stopped me from walking. "And you have a cut on your head." I wiped my face with my sleeve.
"Happy? Now I'm not bleeding," I said, beginning to get irritated. We walked outside and saw Gerard, Frank, and Ray waiting for us.
"Whoa, what happened?" Frank asked.
"Iris helped me when four football guys were trying to beat me up," Mikey explained. He was limping a bit. "Iris, you took a hard hit to the gut and you're limping."
