Loveb Irds

Jeremy III

The water streamed from the faucet as I tried to scrub the lettering off of my old blue backpack. Stupid Sharpie. Why did it have to be permanent marker?

"I told you not to wash that off." Rich Goranski came into the bathroom, thumps from his combat boots causing echoes along the cracked tile.

"Where's my homework?" I whisper.

Maybe if I pretended to be looking for my Physics notes, he would leave me alone. People totally ran their bags underwater when they were looking for their physics notes.

"I'm talking to you, Tall Ass!" Rich stopped in the middle of the restroom.

I turned around to look at him, despite me having five inches on him when I stood up straight, I felt very short in that moment.

"Why do you keep on calling me that. I'm not even that tall." I muttered, looking down at the suspiciously sticky floor.

Rich huffed and walked over to the urinal. That was my cue to get the hell out of there.

I grabbed my soggy backpack and started heading for the stalls. There was some hand sanitizer in my bag, that could get Sharpie out of almost anything, right?

"You could be, if you weren't hunched over all scared all the time. The only thing more pathetic is the way you're sneaking off to a stall to get away from me."

I stopped. Did he have eyes in the back of his blond head?

"Stall's for girls. You a girl, Jeremy?" He said, the trickling sound still very loudly continuing while he spoke.

"How can you talk to people while you're, you know?"

"Confidence," Rich said.

He jumped up a bit like he was pulling up his zipper and then walked over to me, standing all hunched over like the guy from the Notre Dame movie.

"You might wanna watch the floor."

Rich suddenly stopped and started twitching. I was about to run to the nurse and say that he was having a seizure when it stopped.

"I, uh, don't have to pee anymore. I'm just gonna go-"

"Don't move."

His voice sounded different. It almost had an electronic twinge to it. His eyes also flashed blue for a second. Not like Rich has blue eyes, like the entire eyeball became a source code screen.

Rich looked up from the floor and made eye contact with me. "You remember me freshman year, right?"

I shuddered. I tried to block out all of freshman year. It was not a good time.

Yet, as a few scary memories bounced around in my head, Rich wasn't in any of them.

"I did-" Rich pounded the wall for emphasis, causing the paper towel dispenser to go off. "You just didn't notice. Nobody did!"

He grew closer to me. That red streak in his hair that once looked stupid was now very menacing. The ripped, muscle top and camo pants didn't help either. "Freshman year. I didn't have a girlfriend or a clue."

Rich stopped and pushed his pointer finger into my chest. "I was a loser, just like you."

He then waved his hand at the ceiling like he was watching a plane fly by. "Good times would only, soar by."

I frowned. Was this just, advanced bullying?

"I was gross. My sexting was so bad, and I was just hopeless. Helpless, really."