Cloverfield

7: Strike two

At the cafeteria, Alison caught Hanna staring longingly at Sean. "Oh, my god, just talk to him."

Hanna snapped out of her bubble. "No! I mean, what would I even say?"

"Ask him out." Ali bumped her shoulder with her fist encouragingly. "C'mon, it's the twenty first century."

Hanna smiled, getting a sudden confidence. She got up and walked to Sean's table, which he shared with his friends. "Hey, Sean." He turned around. "Can we talk?"

Sean looked confused, but stood up anyway, following her. "Go get that big ass booty, champ!" one of his friends, Ben Coogan, catcalled.

Hanna stopped a few feet away, her insecurities rushing back. Dumb Hanna. How is he gonna date a fat girl like you? she beat herself up.

She looked up at Sean, but tears were starting to form at the corners of her eyes. She tried to blink them back.

Alison watched the scene in disgust. Sean, defend her! He is your friend! But he just kept giving her a so-what-were-you-going-to-say? look, as if what Ben said didn't matter.

Ali pushed back her seat and made her way over furiously. Hanna is her friend. She faced Ben. "If we're gonna talk about sizes, I know things: Tiny, little, pinky sized things. So do you want me to keep going?"

Fear crossed his eyes. "No." He turned to Hanna. "I'm sorry."

Alison held back her smirk and then interlaced her arm with Hanna's. "You don't really wanna date a coward, or do you?"

Hanna shook her head, feeling a little better. They started walking away. "Is his dick actually small?"

"Probably," Ali laughed. "He was so scared. I was just quoting a movie."

"Thank you."

Ali smiled, but before she could say anything back, she noticed Spencer, Aria and Emily had been following them.

"That was badass, Ali!" Spencer cheered, high-fiving her.

"Yeah!" Aria agreed.

"Ali," Emily started, trying to not sound serious. "Can I have a word with you?"

Alison's smile turned into a straight line. "Yeah. Be right back, guys."

Emily went towards the outside area of the school, where she had called her out for the first time. "Ali, you promised."

"Was I supposed to let him shame Hanna?"

"You ruined his... love life."

Ali found it cute that she didn't say sex life. "If he's gonna speak about any girl like that, then he shouldn't be near them."

Em couldn't really argue. But she was disappointed with the way Alison had been handling things for these last couple of days. With her, Ali had always acted like an angel. Emily hope it wasn't just an act. If deep down Alison was really this mean and tempered person, she wouldn't know how to help her out of whatever hole she was in. "Okay. But this is the last time, Ali. I mean it."

Alison broke into a grin. "When did you get so bossy?"

"Oh, shut up," Emily answered playfully, not helping it. 

x-x-x

"You should actually congratulate my daughter. You should be more worried about the horny boys at school than the girls standing up for each other." Jessica hung up the phone.

Alison just got home. Okay, her mom could be a bitch and an awful parent, but she could also be a badass (and yes, she liked stealing words from Spencer's vocabulary).

She left her bag on the floor after closing the front door and then stepped in the living room. "Was that the principal?"

"A counselor trying to blame you." Jessica scoffed. If her daughter was really scared of this guy, she definitely was allowed to yell at him. "So what really happened?"

"Some boy was making fun of Hanna because she has a little weight."

"Well, she has."

Ali raised an eyebrow. Her mom had just said the most feminist thing ever. Was she just defending her without actually meaning her words?

Jessica didn't even glance at Ali when she sat in front of her laptop, browsing for emails. "Maybe you should tell her to tone it down on the chips."

"You do know she does it because her parent screwed up," Alison indirected. "Right? Got divorced..."

"If she wants attention so bad, maybe she should be skinny, be pretty."

Alison felt a pang. Ali was skinny and pretty. Why didn't she get her parents attention?

With no other word, not daring to have the last say in a conversation with her mother, she walked to the kitchen and started making herself lunch since her mom was probably too busy to remember humans needed to eat to survive.

At this point, Ali wasn't even sure if she even wanted to survive anymore. Coming home to this was just not worth it.