the Secret Life of Damien Carmichael

5. the Final Straw

"What the hell is that?" Carrie asked as Damien sat down at their usual table for lunch. Damien sighed, trying to bury his face in his arms and cover his face with his hair.

"Please don't draw any more attention to it," he replied with a groan.

Carrie leaned over, lifting his head from his arms. "Why do you have 'asshole' written across your forehead?"

"Why don't you ask your brother?" Damien spat, leaning back over to bury his face in his arms once more.

"Tyler did this?" she asked, clearly surprised.

"I mean, I sort of woke up with that on my forehead; this is after spending the last half hour trying to scrub it off, but if I had to take a wild guess, it would be Tyler every time."

"Ugh," Carrie groaned. "I have half a mind to kick his ass."

"Don't, it would only make it worse," he didn't look up from his food, but he knew she was glaring across the room at Tyler. Not for the first time, he wished he could just disappear into a hole in the ground. It seemed to be an increasingly frequent occurrence, he noted with a sigh. 

"He had no right," she said. "Tell me you're at least going to bring it to the Principal's attention."

"No, I'm not. I'm going to keep my head down, and take a shower, and hope that eventually, this will come off," he replied. It wasn't as though the Principal would do anything. The Benson's were as influential as his own family, they could simply throw money at the problem and it would go away. That was assuming the Principal bothered to do anything in the first place. It wasn't worth the added headache. 

"Damien, you can't possibly think that this is okay or that you somehow deserve..."

"I'm not going to make a big deal of this," he snapped. "If I go to the Principal it's only going to make this into a thing, and then he's only going to get worse. Plus I have no way to prove it was him."

"At least you could get sent to a private dorm or something."

"Yeah that'll make people hate me less, getting a private dorm because I can't handle a little joking around?" Damien shook his head. "I appreciate the concern but trust me, you have no idea what it's like being a boy, if I say anything I'm only bringing more shit upon myself."

"So what, you're just supposed to laugh it off and pretend like it doesn't matter?" she asked. Damien really wanted to change the subject. The last thing he wanted to talk about was Tyler, and the writing on his forehead.

"Obviously," Damien said.

"That's ridiculous."

"That's being a guy," Damien replied. Carrie folded her arms across her chest, looking like she wanted to argue further. Damien tried to give her a beseeching look to just drop it. The last thing he wanted was to talk about it any more than they already had. It was better to just pretend like none of it had happened at all.

"At least get something to eat," she said. Damien nodded, getting to his feet and made his way over to lunch queue, keeping his head down and trying desperately to blend into the background. The last thing he needed was to call attention to himself right now.

To Damien's dismay however, it seemed fate was not on his side.

"Hey Carmichael, nice face tat," Tyler shouted from across the Dining Hall. Damien groaned, several eyes turned towards him then, and Damien felt his face burn in embarrassment.

"That's it," Carrie got up from the table, tray in hand and stormed her way over to where Tyler was sitting. Damien's eyes widened, before he had a second to even realize what was happening, Carrie had approached Tyler and slammed the tray hard into the side of his head, knocking him out cold. Several cheers echoed around the Dining Hall, much to Damien's surprise, as Carrie dropped the tray on the floor beside Tyler's limp body and made her way back over to their table. Phi sprang up, and ran out of the room, presumably to get a teacher, while Maddie leaned over Tyler trying to revive him. It was all Damien could do not to burst out laughing.