She's Gone

Before I Went

It was 4:00 P.M., and I was in my room thinking back on every memory of the two of us. Every little thing she did, her reactions to what I did.
"Hey Kate!" I called, rushing up next to her on her way to the bus.
She stopped and turned to see who called her. A smile appeared on her beautiful face as she saw me and said, "Hey Thomas!"
"Social Studies am right?" I said.
"That was great!" She laughed. "God, Serotte is an idiot, he thought moving me away from my friends would make me shut up and behave. Then he put me by you and fuck, how did he not notice?" She laughed.
"That was beautiful!" I laughed. "I still can't believe you wrote that and chucked it at him!"
"I've done worse to a teacher, just ask Mrs. Gale. Wait, shit, I have her a heart attack. Forget that."
"I never had her," I said. "I had Mr. Picasso for social last year."
"You're lucky, Mrs. Gale hated me with a passion, she loved my friends and just hated me. So I was a pain to her. I would skip her class, and then come to her room at the end to wait for Anna."
"Seriously!? What did she do?"
"She made me write an essay apologizing to her for everything I did during the year a couple days before she left. It was like a five page essay and I added a beautiful note at the end of it. I used to steal random shit from her when she turned her back and when she turned back she would spend ten minutes looking for it before giving up. I hid like everything on a shelf in the cabinet but she never found it."
"What the fuck did you write on that note!?"
"Something along the lines of, 'Happy now? I wrote this god damned essay to make your little bitchy ass happy, but you'll never fucking be rid of me, I will always come back to annoy you and scare you shitless. You can never escape the curse of Katherine Ryan! The my name or even the thought of me will send shivers down your spine for the rest of your life, and when you die; you'll have a few years of peace in hell before I join you there and rule the place and you will be under my control for all of eternity.' Something like that. Guess it gave her a heart attack, I didn't know I was that bad, but whatever."
I started laughing, "You're so fucking lucky that she didn't get you suspended."
"OH SHIT THE BUS! NOT AGAIN!" She yelled as she chased down our school bus and made them stop. "HURRY UP THOMAS!" she yelled as she got the bus driver to open the doors and let us on. I ran to catch up and got on the bus and followed her to the back.
"It's a good thing we didn't miss it again, last time we had to take the subway," Kate said to me.
"That was fun as hell," I said. She may have been a punk, but she sure as hell was my punk. My grandparents who had left the Amish community when they had parents, as both sides did, would never approve of her, but that's okay, because she may never be the girl I know my family will love, but she's the girl I love and nothing can change that.
'Ah,' I thought. 'That was a fun day. She mauled a seventh grader with his own hat for hitting her with his gym bag, trying to hit another seventh grader. She's my pain in the ass punk.'
I remembered when we first missed the bus because we skipped 8th period and my 8th period teacher was patrolling locker room and we couldn't get to our lockers without her seeing us. So we hid in the staircase until 2:40 when she finally left the room, we both knew our bus had already left.
"What the fuck are you doing Thomas?" she asked me when we were hiding inside the classroom of our tech teacher from last year. The teacher only let us stay in there because he didn't hate Kate like he did me. She was one of his favorites.
"What? I'm just having a little fun," I said, holding tennis ball that I cut open and drew a face on. I had made the cut part the mouth. "Hi there, I'm Ballin' Lyfe," I said in a weird voice making the ball "talk".
"Now if only you were a ballet in real life," she said sassily as she smirked.
"Thomas is baller," I said in the voice.
"Oh yea? Prove it. Get the ball into Ruby's backpack," she said pointing to the bag of a 7th grader on our bus.
"Ok, fine I will," I said and threw the ball into it. "OHHH!!!" I started yelling. "BALLER FOR LIFE!!!!"
Kate was laughing so hard as I ran around screaming. Then I went to grab the ball and the bell rang.
"Come on," she said. "Let's go et our shit from our lockers."
We walked toward the locker room and see my 8th period teacher, Mrs. Heff.
"Shit," Kate hissed. "It's Heff, dash to the staircase."
We dashed across and avoided her sight.
"Fuck! She's right by my locker, wait here with me until she leaves?" I asked hopefully.
"Sure," she said and smiled. We waited and watched everyone else leave. Them finally Mrs. Heff left, and we dashed to our lockers and got what we needed and met up before rushing out to the buses, to find them all gone.
"Well, shit," I said. "My parents are going to kill me when I have to call for a ride."
"You don't have to, we can just take the subway back to our neighborhood."
"How much does it cost?"
"$2 per person but we can just go without paying this once, I don't have any money on me anyways."
"Uh, ok." We laughed and talked all the way to the station and while waiting for the train.
When it pulled up, we got on and there were no seats left so we just held onto a bar.
"Hey there, ginger," a guy said coming up to Kate. "What's your number, hot thang?"
"Back off, creep," she said annoyed.
"Come one sweetheart, give me your number," the guy said.
"Hell no."
"Why not?"
"I don't want a creep like you to even know my name, much less my number."
"Come on sweet cheeks," he said.
"Back off," I said. "She's not fucking interested."
"Make me, shrimp."
I pushed him back, and he stumbled back and fell. He liked up at me, looking startled and terrified as hell.
"Ok, ok, I got you. I'll leave your girl alone," he said. "I won't disrespect your girlfriend no more," he said as he got off at the stop.
"Thanks so much," Kate said.
"It's no big deal," I said.
"It's just a nuisance to deal with creeps like that and it's even worse when I'm alone or don't know anybody near me."
"As long as you're with me, I will always make them back off. "
"I don't know what I would do without you," she said as the train pulled up to our stop and we walked out of the station up onto Main Street and started walking towards her house, which was in the same direction as mine. We got to her street and she said goodbye to me, and I offered to walk her to her house, she let me and hugged me goodbye and I gave her the tennis ball from earlier before she walked up her driveway and opened the side door as she waved goodbye to me.
That was a nice day, I got to be a hero to her and I made her laugh. It was a great day, a day I can never forget.
I looked at the clock, it read 5:00. I had to get going. I rushed down the stairs and told my mom that it was time to drive me to Caz rink.