Broken Defender

Chapter Two ~ Higher Education

I hate school. I hate everything about school. I hate the smell, the sounds, and the people who inhabit this hellhole excuse for higher education. It is the epitome of terrible, for more reasons than one. My teachers hate me. Mr. Jackson thinks I'm not trying hard enough in Math, Ms. Walters thinks I have no imagination in English, and Coach Madell has told me to my face that I run like a chicken. As for Professor Welch... he just hates me. I'm assuming he just hates red heads or something, because he isn't partial to Jack Crocker either, and Jack's hair is just as red as mine. Most of all I hated my classmates, or rather they hated me. I hadn't done anything to be treated as poorly as I was, but they were awful. They just hated me... and though I didn't know why, I didn't nesisarily blame them either. Every day passed by boringly. I went from class to class, repeating the numbing daily ritual. Finally I had one class left before the weekend could begin.

"Hey Suzanne!" Rachel Martin said, walking into the ladies room behind me.

I ignored her. Rachel was the definition of the word "bitch." She was an attractive junior, with a beautiful bright smile, clear sparkling eyes, and perfectly styled blonde hair that stopped at her chest. Her hair made me hate her more than anything else. I was envious of its stupid perfection.

"Didn't you guys see Suzanne?" She asked her friends as I closed the bathroom stall behind them.

"I don't know." Her friend Catherine said jokingly.

"It's hard to see her because she looks like a popsicle stick." She laughed.

I rolled my eyes. It was no secret that Catherine had gained weight over the summer. She couldn't be categorized as fat, but she was chunkier than she had been. She didn't seem to see this as a problem though since it only made her boobs bigger.

"Suzanne, when are you going to hit puberty?" Rachel asked through the stall door.

"Not ever." Her third friend Tianna laughed.

Tianna was a tall slender black girl with the most beautiful ethereal voice on planet earth. It was angelic. Considering she hung out with Rachel though, the words she spoke contradicted her harmonious tone ridiculously. She could easily tell someone to piss off, and it sounded like she was singing in an aria.

"Is she still a virgin?" I heard Rachel ask one of the other girls.

"Hey Suzanne are you a virgin?" She pried.

I finally walked back out of the stall, and pushed past them on my way to the sink. It was cowardly of me to just stand in that stall and wait for them to leave.

"Of course she is." Catherine said.

"Look at those knobby knees. There's not a guy on earth who could get past those knobby knees." She laughed, poking fun at my weight.

I wondered if she brought up weight so much because she was self conscious of her own? Regardless, it did make me feel awful. I'm too damned skinny. I eat like a pig in hopes of some day looking like a woman, but it doesn't work.

"Not just her knees though. Her face too." Rachel added.

I wanted to hang my head, and shut out her words, but was unable to. My pride wouldn't allow it. Instead I stared back at them through the mirror, glaring through them in annoyance. Somehow it felt better to stare them down. At least this way they knew I wasn't just a ragdoll to poke fun at... though it didn't stop them.

"You can hardly see her over the ugly freckles. Any guy would have to have sex with her in the pitch darkness." She giggled.

Okay, head back down. I was embarrassed now, trying to shake off her suggestion. I wanted to cry. I was so sick of this. Don't cry. That's weak.