Forces of Nature

Good Intentions

 Son of a bitch.

I stared at the inside of my locker with a combination of impotent fury and exhaustion. Someone had poured copious amounts of raspberry juice into my locker to soak all of my belongings, which would explain the massive puddle of it I was standing in. Hell, who was I kidding? It didn't take a genius to figure out it was Serena and her minions making my life harder than it needed to be.

The entire week I'd been harassed with pranks of similar nature. On Monday I'd been forced to walk around in my gym clothes for the second half of the day thanks to Serena's air headed entourage dumping my jeans and sweater into a trashcan full of sour food. Tyson had given me his hoodie, unsatisfied with the explanation I'd given him where I'd omitted, well, just about everything of importance.

I'd simply told him I dropped my clothes in a puddle of water. So okay, I'd lied, but Serena was my problem and since Tyson had enough of his own shit to deal with there was no way I was adding to it. I knew he had his suspicions, but for now he was letting me handle it.

Tuesday brought with it rotten eggs. I'd come out to the parking lot to find my truck covered in egg residue and stinking to high heaven. Thankfully Courtney and Drew had made after school plans, so she hadn't seen the mess. Knowing her, Courts would have hunted Serena down and coldcocked her even without any proof it was her. Wednesday wasn't so bad; I made it through the day suffering nothing worse than gum in my hair. I'd been thinking about getting a haircut anyway, so it wasn't a major affront.

Of course Courtney had looked at me funny; she'd left me Wednesday afternoon without me saying a word about a hair cut, to discover me on her front doorstep Thursday morning missing two thirds of my hair. While she absolutely loved my layered, shoulder length style complete with side swept bangs, she was far from convinced I'd spontaneously decided to hack it all off. Probably because she'd accompanied me to just about every hairdresser appointment I'd ever had to help me choose a new look.

I'd been left alone all day Thursday, which was a bit of a surprise. While Serena had never fully stopped harassing me, up until this week she'd pulled back until I was only contending with being shoved into lockers and having my hair pulled on an irregular basis. And while it wasn't exactly pleasant, I'd grown so used to it, recovering from the sneak attacks was like second nature.

I had no idea what had sparked new interest in trying to make me miserable, but today was now Friday, and as I stared at the contents of my locker, my fledgling hope of things maybe calming down again was dashed. My fingers curled around the sopping wet material of my white cashmere sweater, or well, my splotchy pink and white sweater.

I really needed to stop buying white clothing. Obviously I didn't have the best luck where it was concerned. Sighing, I dragged the nearest trashcan over and dumped the sweater into it. At least it was the beginning of second period, and I no longer had a class to rush off to. My self study economics slot was sometimes a blessing.

My textbooks went in next, so waterlogged they were falling apart in my hands. Using an entire roll of toilet paper from the nearby girls bathroom, I mopped up the mess as best I could, and had just tossed the last of the sodden tissue into the trashcan when a voice sounded behind me.

"Spring cleaning?"

I spun on my heel at the sound of Tyson's voice, a dorky grin transforming my face. The level of excitement I was experiencing should have been ridiculous, but in my defense I hadn't seen Tyson yesterday; he'd been pulling a lot of overtime at work with 4am finishes, and exhaustion was finally catching up to him.