Ms.Bully

12

I walk out of the locker room as the last bell rings and I stride out of the door and toward the parking lot. I wait there for about ten minutes before a car pulls up. I peer down to see Vivian in the driver's seat and the man in the passenger seat who was built like a bodybuilder. Is that her father? No, he looks too young. But he also looks like he doesn't belong in high school anymore. "Get in before the cars start honking," Vivian shouts. I quickly duck my head into the car my body following. She drives off and I continue to look at the man. "Yo, what's your address?" She says snapping me out of my daze. I put my address on my phone's GPS and hand it to her and she grabs it. "S-so um...is this your friend you were talking about." I stammer uncomfortably. "Yeah, this is Clyde. He's like a big brother to me," she announced taking a sharp turn that made my seatbelt tighten as my head hit the window.
"What the hell Viv." I hear his deep voice complain. I rub the side of my head. "Sorry you can drive next time," she says not sounding sorry at all.
The ride was dangerous, to say the least, and I was starting to doubt that she has a license. We stopped in front of my house.
"Wow, you have a pretty house." she compliments. "Thanks?" I say unbuckling my seatbelt. I get out of the car and slam the door behind me. "Careful this ain't brand new!" she shrieks walking around to my side. "Sorry," I say quickly.
Clyde gets out of the car and I quickly realize how small I must seem to him. He was at least half a foot taller than me and I was roughly 6'2ft(187cm). I quickly snap out of my thoughts and walk past my gate and to the front door. I take out my keys and unlock the door letting them in.
"Wow, so pretty." Vivian spouted looking around. "No, it's not." I scoff, setting my bag onto a chair. "Do you want anything before we start?" I ask walking toward the refrigerator. "What you got?" Vivian said as Clyde sat down at the table. I peek inside the refrigerator "I got yogurt, Ginseng tea, fish sausages, and probably some dried squid in the cabinets." I say looking back at her to see her face scrunched up "What are you, an only child?" I nod my head and she sighs "I'll take the yogurt." she says before leaning over Clyde's chair "What do you want? You gonna ask for water aren't you ?" she teases as he rolls his eyes. "I'll take the Ginseng tea," he says and I bring them their orders.
Vivian takes out our outlines and I take out my sketches. We start working a little more but it felt awkward to keep looking up to see Clyde staring at me. "Um... Is Clyde gonna help us or..." I ask Vivian as I was looking nervously at Clyde. "Clyde stop staring holes into his head he isn't gonna hurt me." She says slapping his shoulder. He finally stops staring at me. "Honestly, I brought him because I don't know you well and I didn't plan on coming to your house alone," she explained.
"I just wanted to be safe," she says looking like she expected me to get angry. But I understand her completely, probably more than she does.
"Plus that's the only way, my mom would have let me come over." she chuckled. "So he's your big brother or something?" I question She laughs and shakes her head "No, he's my best friend we grew up together." she said patting his head he shoos her hand away. "He might not look like it anymore but he used to get bullied for looking like a girl and yours truly was his savior. Well... I was partially his savior he kept beating the kids up so I had to cover for him." she spouted waving her pencil around.

Look like a girl? She's kidding, right? This dude was radiating masculinity. I chuckle before being shot a glare.
"Stop it, Viv he doesn't need to know that," he grumbles. "See his skin is so pretty and dark and his eyes are hazel he was so cute, but he didn't use to be so muscular. " she rambled rubbing his face. I was more uncomfortable watching than he appeared to be. He looked used to it.
"Viv" he warned. "Yeah yeah I'll stop," she said holding her hands up. "Anyways he can help you color or something he's pretty good at coloring," she said. "Oh but I'm not done, so I don't have anything for him to do," I say glancing at him as he takes a few sips of the tea. "He can just do some of his homework," she said as she wrote. My eyes widen "He goes to our school?" I asked surprised. "Yeah, he's a senior though so you won't see him at school often." she continued to scribble. I peek over her shoulder to see before I continued drawing.

I don't enjoy calling just about everyone I meet weird, but here we go. See, Clyde was a really quiet person but not shy or introverted from what I could tell. He only talked when he needed to. And even without words, he speaks very clearly. I don't think he likes me, because every time I glance at him he glares at me. And because my eyes kept drifting over to him I earned a lot of glares. He eventually finished his homework and I started to give him sheets to color.
"Where's your bathroom," he asked. "Down the hall to the right," I say and he rises from the chair and follows my direction. Once he leaves I let out a sigh of relief the pressure of his gaze not being on me, I turn to Vivian.
"I don't think Clyde likes me," I say worriedly. "Well he doesn't hate you so you'll be fine," she says. "How would I know if he hates me?" I ask "You'll know" she snorts. That doesn't sound very assuring.
Clyde comes back and continues to color the drawings. I hand him the last paper and watch as his large hands carefully wield the brush pen. His hands had calluses probably from lifting weights. As a fellow artist, I couldn't help but watch in awe as he applied the colors in perfect layers. He looks up at me for a second.
"You could help," he grumbles. "But you do it so beautifully." I gawked. "Close your mouth," Vivian says pushing her papers towards me. I could feel my face heat up a bit. Well, flattery didn't work.
I've noticed that every time he talks to me he doesn't make eye contact which is also kind of weird. He looks Vivian in the eyes and kind of ignore me. The lack of eye contact made me think of some old tale where he was a nobleman and Vivian was some type of queen and I was on the side somewhere being a peasant that he wouldn't dare look at. Then again maybe I'm just being sensitive or something.

"Finally finished."She stretched. She looked at her watch. "Shouldn't your parents be home by now? A melancholy feeling wash over me. "No, he won't be back for two weeks." I grimaced
"Oh, that sounds lonely and you're the only child." she turned thinking for a bit before returning her gaze to me "Ok, we'll come over after school then and keep you company." she beamed. I could hear Clyde swear. "That's ok you don't have to," I say not trying to have a repeat of what happened with Santi. Trust me, Clyde looks like his punches hurt way more than Santi's.
"No we're coming over and that's final, it's not safe to be in this house alone." Vivian reasoned not letting me say no again. Clyde didn't look so fond of the idea of having to see me after school every day for 2 weeks. But he still managed to compliment me on my art style and for a moment his cold demeanor had seemed to thaw a bit.
It was starting to get late and Clyde was signaling her to leave. She grabbed her things and Clyde was already at the door. I walk her towards the door. She stops me grabbing my arm "Did you ever get to talk to Raul about whatever had him ignoring you?" she asked I nod my head "Thank you for talking with me, it was nothing too bad." I smile warmly "That's what friends are for." she says patting the side of my face. Clyde leads her out to the car and the car drives away. I close and lock the door.
I walk back into the kitchen and gather the rest of the scrap paper to dump them in the garbage.