A Golden Locket

Peter- A Spike to the Head

Walking to the gym was like making my way through a herd of sprinting antelope. FRESHMEN. Freshmen everywhere. I know the typical thing is to make fun of freshmen, but seriously. We still have four minutes to get to class, and these fucking idiots can’t decide which way they want to move, so their just standing in the middle of the hallway.

I made it to the locker room with two minutes to change out. As I walked in, the stench hit me like a brick wall. Ahh, the familiar smell of a high school locker room. Quickly scanning the rows of lockers, I see no one particularly interesting to change with. Falling into my usually lonely corner I begin to undress.

Exiting the locker room I make my way across the gym to where Coach Wilham’s class is to meet up. Almost the whole class is sitting on the bleachers, with the exception of Coach of course. He is always late.

Not thirty seconds after stepping up to my class, and I spot Alice. She’s put her curls into a neat ponytail, and has changed into a pair of the shortest gym shorts you can imagine, and a pink razorback tank top, no surprise.

Beside her is Christiana Bradford. Everyone knows she and Alice have become best friends since freshmen year. Christiana is dressed a bit more modest, even though she has more to show. She’s in a pair of black athletic shorts, almost identical to Alice’s, but a bit longer, and a plain olive t-shirt that compliments her tanned skin. They seemed to be sitting close in deep conversation.

Looking across the rest of the faces, I spot Levi Jacobs, a guy I had classes with last year, but never actually hung out with. I decide to go sit with him and try to catch up. We talk about what we did over the summer, and if we have anymore classes together. We don’t, but we do have the same lunch. I promise that William and I will sit with him after he explains he has no one else.

Looking back to Alice, green eyes meet blue ones, and I’m frozen. Trying to just concentrate on not looking like a complete fool, I furrow my brow and look out into the gym. That’s when I spot coach coming this way.

Coach Wilham likes to cut to the chase the first week or so of class. I don’t really mind, he mostly just assigns cardio. Two laps, I was thankful coach decided on running.

 When I’m running, I only concentrate on my breathing, and footsteps. Not long and I was done, barely breathless. It was about a minute or two before all of the others finished, but coach decided to go a little further, and put us in a volleyball match.

I don’t really care about volleyball; to me there was nothing interesting about hitting a ball over a net until someone finally misses it, only to be blamed by their team mates for causing them to lose a point. And that’s exactly how this game went. Not too long after we had gained a lead, I zoned out.

I was focused on a basketball goal at the other end of the gym when I felt a sudden pain in the back of my head, and I was knocked to my hands and knees on the cold gymnasium floor. The lines of the volleyball court swirling in my vision.

I was swimming in a sea of “are you okay’s” and “do you need the nurse’s”. The closest thing I could see that wasn’t floor was a pair of gray and pink Nike running shoes.

A soft, sheepish, “Are you okay?” is barely audible and I recognize Alice’s voice.

I whip my head up, to catch Alice with cold eyes, “I don’t need your help Alice.” I spit.

She said something else that I didn’t quite catch, to be honest all I could hear were my own ear ringing, they sounded almost like the school’s fire alarm was going off.

A jock on either side of me hoisted me up and onto my feet, just as Coach blew the whistle that meant it was time to change back. Assuring the two jocks that I was stable enough to walk, I headed off to change.

Back in the locker room I took a look in the mirror, to see the damage. Nothing was visible, besides the red mark on the back of my neck. After changing I slip into a hoodie, to maybe hide the marks. I don’t need any rumors going around.