Rainbow in the Darkness

Chapter 4B

            It was finally the last class of the day. After one silly gym class, I would finally be able to go home and relax and maybe forget what had happened hours earlier.

"Alright class!" my gym teacher yelled, drawing everyone's attention to him. "We are going to start learning how to play tennis. This is a short unit, so please try to get the most out of this experience. Tennis is seen as a silly or easy sport, but it is the exact opposite. Grab a racket and a ball and see if you can keep the ball bouncing on your racket the entire time before we break up into pairs."

My dad had taught me how to play tennis when I was little. We lived close to a tennis court so whenever it was nice we would just grab our rackets and head to over to play. I was far from US Open material, but I was better than most of my stupid classmates. I grabbed one of the bigger rackets that were left. Everyone took the smaller ones because they thought that those were the ones they were supposed to take, but that just shows how stupid they were. They would be playing with a child's racket for the entire class.

I walked over to an empty corner of the tennis courts wanting to be a good distance away from everyone else. As I passed a group of jocks, I heard them say things that were clearly meant for me to be hear, but not loud enough that anyone else heard.

"Maybe she will faint again to get out of this lesson," one of them said.

"Maybe she is sleeping with the teacher to get out of the unit," another one of them said.

What they said wasn't anything I haven't heard, but it was the fact that the same guys some what respected me a few months ago and now that one rumor had been spread around, they thought I was no better than dirt.

My fists clenched the racket, causing my knuckles to turn white. If only I was able to practice serving then I would have gotten my anger out, but instead it started to boil. I was focused the task of bouncing the ball on the racket when I heard the same guys come closer to me.

"I bet she had a one on one with the teacher, so she would look good in front of us. She just wants to show everyone that she is better than all of us, even though we all know her dirty secret," Jared the captain of the football team said.

"Heads up!" someone yelled from behind me.

Since I knew tennis, I ducked. Heads up means that it is most likely going to come at your torso or head, hence the term. The ball, which was going at a faster speed than it should have been considering we were just bouncing the ball on the racket soared over me and hit Jared straight in the chest. It wasn't a hard hit, but it was definitely going to be hard enough to leave a mark.

"Oh, man, I'm so sorry," a recognizable voice from behind me said.

"You did it on purpose!" Jared yelled, clearly annoyed, walking closer to Derrick.

"I don't even know how to use this thing," Derrick said, pointing to his racket. "It was really an accident."

Jared closed the distance between them. Jared was about six inches taller than Derrick, who made Derrick seem tiny, but he didn't seem scared. He knew what he was doing. You could tell by that smug look on his face that he purposefully hit him.

"Boys!" the teacher yelled. "Enough. Everyone grab a partner and start to hit it back and forth. Derrick, you and Abigail go to the farther court. Jared, you and your friends stay on the first court."