He pushed me up against the wall, hard. I kick his legs out from beneath him, and he pulls me to the floor over him. He rolls us to where he is above me. I pull out my plastic knife, play stab him and say, “I think you forgot about this.” That is when our weapons master calls time. He declares that I win and I shoot an arrogant look towards my partner, Peter. His face is downcast in a mock look of defeat. As I’m packing up Peter comes up to talk to me. “You did well today, Carter. I had fun, but it was unfair where you hid the knife.” I am silent for a few beats, and then I answer sarcastically with, “Yes, I totally abused the fact that you’re a gentleman, by hiding the knife in my sports bra. I knew you wouldn’t check for weapons where they would be hidden inappropriately. So I used that to my advantage. Should’ve thought of that West.” I am still happy about winning the match, so that when Peter picks me up and throws me over his shoulder it comes at a complete shock. “Hey, no PDA West,” a deep Irish accent scolds us from behind. I know it belongs to Mr. McKinnon. Peter puts me down and apologizes. We walk to our next class laughing. Halfway to English we are joined by Ashley, Peter’s girlfriend. They just started dating and she’s new. She also hates me, but that is inevitable when your best friend/crush has a girlfriend. I go into English and sit down. I can’t remember anything about Shakespeare and where he was born. I was too worried about Ashley; how I knew she was going to tell Peter to stop talking to me, tell him he can’t be my friend anymore and how that might just kill me.
I can’t say that all my worrying was for naught because exactly what I feared happened, and at lunch too. He couldn’t have just waited until after school, no he had to do it right away and make me feel quite crappy and horrible for the rest of the day. The worst class was calculus. It was awful because my partner was... Peter! Yay! Little did I know that this would be the least of my worries.
