First Punch ➟ Kellic

T H R E E

I wake up with a start the next morning as water splashes my face.

"Morning, sleepyhead," Dimitri says to me, standing above my mattress.

"What the fuck!?" I exclaim, wiping my face and shaking the moisture from my hair like a dog.

"I tried to wake you up, but you were really out," he says. "Now get the fuck up before we start getting calls."

"But-"

"I don't care how hungover you are," he adds. "You're going."

I groan, knowing not to argue with him. He just shakes his head and leaves the room. I immediately lay back down on my cold, wet pillow and think about last night. I got fucking jumped. And Jacob of all people came to my rescue. Where did he come from anyway? I probably would've noticed him earlier if I hadn't been so drunk. Speaking of which, I think I'm gonna- yep here it comes. I run over to my garbage can—a bag hanging on my door handle—and empty the liquid contents of my stomach.

"Oh God..." I groan, throwing up a second time. Each one makes my stomach fucking kill and when I look down I see the mass of bruising coating my skin. I don't have a mirror or anything, so I can't see the full extent of the damage but it feels pretty fucking bad. It probably didn't help that I hadn't eaten a single bite of food all day yesterday.

I throw on a black long sleeve to cover my bruised arms and pull on ripped jeans before tying my bandana around my ankle and shoving my switchblade into my pocket. I head across into the bathroom and thankfully no one else was up yet to witness my mess of an appearance. I look into the mirror, happy to see that they didn't hit my face—I honestly couldn't remember for sure. I stick my toothbrush into my mouth but give up when it makes me gag again, thinking it's so not worth it.

I groan one last time, fixing my hair a little before leaving. The walk to school is pretty uneventful, but I'm then confronted with a new problem: he knows my hiding place. Where the fuck am I gonna stash my blade? I slow down as I pass the abandoned house that was my go-to, but I can't risk even loosening another brick to hide it in. I need to find somewhere new. I continue forward, looking around for somewhere, anywhere to stow it away. I eventually give up on finding a good spot and just bury it in the dirt of the garden, putting a rock overtop so I can find it later.

I make sure to walk inside between class—I'd missed the first two periods—that way the hallways are populated and Jacob couldn't ambush me if he wanted to. As I make my way to my locker, I pass him standing at his with three other hispanic guys around him. So the devil has friends, huh?

I take this route every day that I show up, meaning I'd probably walked by him a million times and just never noticed. I mean, we're a month into second semester, he's in my calculus class and I didn't even know. That shows how little I pay attention and care about this school. I think I know about four people's names and his is one of them. I just have no interest.

As I walk past his locker, I tense up in anticipation of a possible fight. The tallest of his friends glances at me, noticing my bandana immediately. I debated not wearing it, but the protection it gives me outweighs the risk of them seeing it, besides, Jacob already knows. As soon as the guy connects the dots, he nudges Jacob and starts towards me. Oh fuck. I didn't expect to have to take on four of them.

Thankfully for me, Jacob grabs his arm, reminding me of last night. For whatever reason—probably to avoid getting in shit—he holds him back, saying something to him that I can't hear.

"What?" I reply boldly, knowing they can't touch me with all these kids and teachers making their way to their classrooms. "Got a problem?"

Every single one of them look like they want to punch me, if not more. I'll probably pay for that later, but right now that thought hardly crosses my mind. I just smile smugly, strutting away like I'm on top of the world.