Assisting Victoria

Part Two

I sat at my usual lunch table twirling my fork around while I thought about how my day had been going. First there was the fact that I woke up to my mother complaining about how I should have been helping her out more around the house, because she woke up to dished still sitting in the sink, and then there was forgetting my English homework for my first hour. That was common for me. After that bad start though, came helping Tori.

I closed my eyes and it almost seemed like I could still smell the fresh sent of the pearberry fragrance I loved so much. I smiled to myself before I realized that I was in a room full of people. When I opened my eyes, my best friend Lauren was staring at me.

“Deep in thought there, Kels?” She asked.

“I….”

“Oh I already know.” She laughed a little. “You were day dreaming about Tori.”

I rolled my eyes.

“You’d understand if you were there.”

“Actually,” She paused to take a drink of chocolate milk, “I would understand if it was Kevin Cline. He is unbelievable gorgeous.”

I smiled knowing she would understand. She had been going after Kevin about as long as I liked Tori. The only problem was that Kevin had a girlfriend and they were pretty serious. Lauren had her chance once back in our freshman year, but she ended up chickening out and letting Audrey Adams get her sticky little fingers on him.

“Maybe they won’t last. Don’t people always say that most high school relationships don’t work out in the long run?” I asked.

She looked over at me with a serious look on her face.

“He already told her he loves her and they plan out leaving for college to the same school. My chances are blown.”

“You don’t know that.”

“And you don’t know that you don’t have a chance with Tori.”

She smiled and I shook my head.

“That is not the same situation.”

We ate the rest of our lunch period in silence. Lauren seemed to be watching Kevin pretty intently. Every once in a while Audrey would put her hand on his shoulder or lean in to kiss his cheek, just small things, but I could feel the tension hanging in the air like fog around Lauren.

Part of me just wanted the day to be over. If there was one thing that I hated, it was the hours after my band class when I had to sit and wait for it to be tomorrow already. I didn’t just want to see Tori, but I didn’t want to put up with the kids in the rest of my classes. In the morning everyone always seemed to be too tired to bother me, but after lunch it was terrible.

For example, I had my next class with a kid named Mitchell Evans, who happened to be the biggest jerk I knew. He had a real problem with me being a lesbian, and so did all of his friends. In middle school they started rumors about be and Lauren, freshman year they turned to calling me names, and now they brought it all the way to physically pestering me.

Once, in the beginning of the year, he walked by and pulled on my backpack while I was walking down the hallway. Since I hadn’t been expecting it at all, and considering Mitchell was quite a bit bigger than me, I ended up falling over onto my back with the whole hallway of kids laughing their butts off at me. After that, I usually tried to avoid him.

He knew I liked Tori too. Actually, more people did than I was comfortable with. I don’t know exactly how they all found out, my guess what Lauren told her friend Amanda, who I didn’t get along with very well, and who was also known to be a loud mouth. Lauren should have known she couldn’t keep a secret if her life depended on it.

When I walked into class Mitchell was already sitting in his desk two rows away from mine. A group of his friends were around him, either standing in the isle or sitting on one of the desks. They started whispering things about me when I walked in and I could hear the girls giggling. I tried to ignore them, but it was too hard, especially when they decided to address me directly.

“Hey Kelsey… how’s Tori doing? You guys hooked up yet?” he asked.

His friends laughed.

“Don’t listen to Mitchell.” One of the girls, Ashley Davis, told me. “He obviously knows that will never happen. I wouldn’t want you to get your hopes up.”

She started to laugh as she finished her sentence and the others joined her. I didn’t feel the need to say anything back. Instead, I sat down in my desk and put my head down like I did pretty much every day.

Unfortunately this was how my days usually went. I could have told somebody, I could have ratted out Mitchell and his friends, I was just too afraid. I didn’t want to have to explain to an adult why exactly they were teasing me. I mean, even if I only told them it was because I was a lesbian, they’d surely talk to Mitchell and he’d mention my crush on Tori. How embarrassing that would be.