Disclaimer: I do not own anybody or anything related to Ann M. Martin.
Chapter Two
Biting her lip, Mary Anne walked into her first period class with Kristy by her side. Mrs. Turner glared at the two of them when they walked in as the final bell rang. "Sit down, Miss Spier and Miss. Thomas." Kristy rolled her eyes at the woman but she and Mary Anne sat down.
Mrs. Turner was a grumpy fifty year old, graying woman, who enjoyed tormenting her students. "Today, I am going to pass out your last essay grade, your oral report grade, and your final exam grade. Most of you did an abysmal job."
Cokie Mason laughed out loud, but she abruptly stopped when Mrs. Turner turned her yellow eyes to Cokie. Cokie slid down in her seat. Kristy snickered under breath. Cokie had always been a pain in the butt. She hated Kristy and, especially, Mary Anne. Cokie had liked Logan for longer than Mary Anne could remember. When Mary Anne and Logan were broken up she had seen him and Cokie frequenting movies together while making out.
"What a stupid bitch." mumbled Kristy, glaring at Cokie as the class began to chat around them because Mrs. Turner was handing out the grades.
"You shouldn't--" Mary Anne was cut off by Cokie's irritating voice.
"Hey, Mary Anne! I saw you and Logan today. Did you finally put out for him?" Cokie said all of this with an evil grin. "Oh, wait, of course you have, you put out for Pete, didn't you? Logan's best friend. Why you slut!"
People from all sides started to laugh. Mary Anne looked down at her notebook blindly. Her eyes were filling with tears. She tried to calm herself down. She felt Kristy's hand resting on her back, rubbing circles.
"Shut up, Cokie. You really are one to talk aren't you?" Kristy smirked when that shut Cokie up. Mary Anne bit her lip, Cokie would get them back for that. Boy, did Mary Anne hate conflict. Kristy was referring to the time when Cokie had slept with her best friends, or rather ex-best friends, boyfriend.
At least the laughter had stopped and people went back to their talking. Mary Anne really wanted to run out of the classroom and find somewhere where she could cry, along. She could do this, she wasn't out of glass besides she had brought this on herself. Trembling, she took a deep breath and looked up at Kristy, who immediately smiled at her.
"God, I don't even want to know what I got on the essay." Kristy groaned, she had stayed up all night the night before the essay was due writing the essay.
"I'm sure you did fine. You always do. At least you didn't have to leave in the middle of your oral presentation to 'go the bathroom.'" Grumbled Mary Anne, remembering that horrifying experience. Kristy laughed.
"Nobody could out do that. Despite that, it was a well thought out presentation so you probably made up for your delivery. I don't think your perfect straight A's are in danger."
"I hope not--" once again, Mary Anne was cut off. This time Mrs. Turner was holding out her oral score and Kristy's.
"Yes!" Kristy shouted, waving the large red A in front of Mary Anne's face. Mary Anne looked down at her own grade: a B+. She breathed out a sigh of relief.
"Congrats, Kristy!" Mary Anne said, smiling. She realized that her smile seemed forced. She hadn't truly smiled in a long time.
Kristy stopped jumping around and shouting "Yes!" and sat back down. She looked worried. "Did you do all right?"
"Yeah, got a B+." Kristy smiled and began to stare at her A. Kristy was a good student but she got more B's than she got A's whereas Mary Anne received more A's than B's. Near the end of the class period both Mary Anne and Kristy got their essay grade and their final grade from the teacher. Mary Anne was relieved to see an A for both, actually she received an A+ on the essay. Kristy had gotten an A on the final but her essay received a C+ to her immense displeasure.
When only fifteen minutes remained in the class, Mary Anne's tense shoulders began to be less tense. The bell rang fifteen minutes later and Mary Anne breathed a sigh of relief.
"Hey, Mary Anne!" Mary Anne closed her eyes, praying that Cokie would disappear and not say a word but that was not to be. Mary Anne turned to see Cokie smiling sweetly at Logan. Logan looked up at his girlfriends name and smiled but the smile faltered when he saw the expression on her face. He pulled out of Cokie's clutches and walked over to Mary Anne.
"Hey, sweetie. How was class?" His voice was friendly but Mary Anne could tell that he knew she hadn't had a great class. She just wanted this day to end already or she wanted him to hold her. He hadn't truly cuddled with her in a long time.
"It was ok. I got a B+ on my oral--" What was with people interrupting her today?
"Slut? Hey there." It was Cokie's voice again. Logan's face turned very dark when his girlfriends face turned bright red and tears that were constantly wanting to fall lately tumbled out of her eyes. "What's the matter, Mary Anne. Slut. That's what you are."
Mary Anne lost all control and burst into tears. A slap rang out and, through blurry eyes, Mary Anne saw Kristy smack Cokie in the face leaving a huge red hand mark. Mary Anne turned and ran. She wanted to, no, she needed to get out of this place. Would it never end? She found a deserted hallway and sank to the floor, attempting to take deep breaths, trying to calm down. She told herself, over and over again, that everything would be all right. She only had four more classes and she would be done for the summer. She couldn't do it. But she had too, her father would kill her if she left.
"Mary Anne?" Mary Anne jumped at Logan's voice. But she couldn't bring herself to look up. Why had he forgiven her two months ago? Suddenly she went to a similar scene, except this time his voice was kinder…
Flashback:
Mary Anne sat on the bench outside of the movie theatre while her friends sat watching the movie in the theatre. The day was cloudy matching her mood. A cloud of depression had encompassed her ever since her break up with Logan, after that horrible night…
"Mary Anne?" Logan's voice rang out as if in a dream. She could not have heard his voice, she just couldn't have. She looked up expecting to see some other boy that she knew. It was Logan: nobody else had those blue eyes or that gorgeous hair or that perfect body.
Blushing, Mary Anne mumbled, "Hi, Logan." She looked past him, thinking that she would see Cokie's sneering face. She wasn't there.
He sighed. "I need to talk to you." His voice was kind but it had an edge to it.
"O-ok," Mary Anne stumbled on her words, feeling frightened knowing that confrontation was about to occur. Logan held out his hand, she took it, and he pulled her up.
"Let's go to my car where we will have some privacy." Mary Anne nodded, as she tried to breath in and out to calm herself. Logan might be angry, she told herself, but he won't hurt you…He won't.
"Get in," He snapped when he pulled open the door for her. Trembling, she sat down and he slammed the door. Biting her lip, she waited for him to come into the car. A few minutes later, he sat down next to her. "Why did you do it?"
His voice was so cold that she shrank away but she knew she deserved her discomfort. She was relieved that he didn't yell and only waited calmly for her answer. He knew her better than almost anybody else so he knew it would take her a few minutes to gather her thoughts and speak, with stuttering.
She swallowed. "I-I--" Calm down, she thought to herself, just don't look at him, don't look at that furious look. Logan sighed, frustrated.
"You know what Mary Anne. I don't what you were thinking, perhaps you don't even know what you were thinking but did you, have sex with him?" His voice was very sharp and blunt. She flinched.
"No," she whispered.
"What? Speak up, Mary Anne!" Despite his angry tone, he hadn't raised his voice.
"No, I didn't sleep with him." Her voice was wobbly but louder and clearer this time.
"Look at me!" He grabbed her chin and pulled her chin towards her firmly but gently. She met his eyes for the first time in over a month--since that night. He looked deeply into her eyes. She almost flinched away at the intense rage she saw in his eyes but she told herself to stay put. She didn't know what was going on. She didn't know why he wanted to talk to her.
"Well, at least your not a complete slut." She bit her lip at the cruel words and felt tears sting her eyes as she looked back down at her lap. Silence fell over them. Mary Anne was losing her battle not to cry but she didn't want him to feel guilty. She deserved her misery. Despite that she wanted all the cruel words to go away, she wanted everything to go away. She wanted Logan to forgive her but she knew that wouldn't happen anytime soon.
Suddenly, Logan jerked her towards him again and slammed his lips down on hers. She felt real terror then. Was she wrong? Would he actually hurt her? Would he force her to-to…? But he jerked away before she could finish that thought.
"Well? Was that better than Pete?" Logan growled.
Mary Anne stared with watery eyes. He shook her, "WELL?"
She bit her lip, "Yes, you could never-never com-pare." Her voice cracked, she was losing control quickly.
"Humph." More silence rang out as tears slipped down her face onto her lap as she was telling herself desperately not to cry. It didn't work.
"Damn it!" He snapped, she cringed again, her tears coming faster. She was trying to stay silent. "Don't cry! Just don't!"
He looked at her, frustrated, but being that they were in the back seat, he reached over and pulled her towards him. He let her cry in his arms and that was when their relationship had started again…
End Flashback
"Mary Anne, it's okay," he said, softly pulling her towards him. This time, he rubbed circles on her back and just held her. She took a deep breath.
"I hate to see like this. Cokie is a horrible person and she always has been." He spoke kindly. "You are a better person than she will ever hope to be."
"No I'm-I'm not!" Mary Anne chocked on her sob.
"People make mistakes, but that does not mean that they aren't good, kind-hearted people. You have a better heart than anybody I know. I swear to you." He wiped her tears away when she looked at him with lost brown eyes. She took another deep breath.
"I don't know what to do anymore." She whispered. "We are doing all right, aren't we?"
"We are doing fine. Perfectly fine, I told you it would take a while to get back to normal but I don't want you to be hurting."
"I'm fine," she said but he shook his head.
"No, your not." He sighed, stood up and held out his hand. "Come on, are you ready to go to history."
She took his hand, taking comfort in the fact that they shared the next class with each other.
History ended up being very boring and nobody spoke as Mr. Kane droned on and on. Logan and his friends sat behind Mary Anne, whispering to each other and playing hang man. Mary Anne was turned around in her seat, resting her chin on her hands, watching them. Every once in a while, Logan would look up and smile. Occasionally, one of his friends would look at her and wink.
Then came her Spanish class. Mary Anne had this class with Claudia Kishi who kept complaining that she would have to retake the class in summer school. Claudia, luckily, never treated Mary Anne badly. Sometimes, over the past months, Claudia would catch her looking at her in a compassionate way. Spanish rushed by and at the end, Mary Anne received her final exam grade: another A. At least she had kept her grades up.
Lunch was uneventful besides Abby sticking a noodle up her nose or Kristy loudly making fun of Cokie. Logan sat at the table across the cafeteria, laughing with his friends. Mary Anne jerked her gaze from him and looked around at her friends.
Kristy was talking to Abby about some softball team. Stacey was laughing with her friends about the nerd that was in their math class. Mary Anne felt left out as usual. Would anything get back to normal again?
Mary Anne forced herself to participate in the conversation after that.
Both math and science flew by with no incidents. People had whispered behind her back but she got the feeling that somebody had told everyone to back off, because nobody had said anything to her face.
At the end of the day, Mary Anne started to clean out her locker thanking god that this horrible year was finally over. She sighed and smiled when she took down the picture of her, Kristy, Abby, and Stacey. Her eyes landed on the picture of Logan and herself, taken at the dance they had attended together two weeks ago. Logan was looking down at her with an affectionate smile on his face and she was smiling as well, surprisingly. That night had been good because people were having to much fun to pay any attention to her and Logan.
She packed her photos, notebooks, spare pencils and pens, some of her textbooks, and her PE clothes into her backpack. She pulled it over her shoulder and pulled out her last three textbooks she couldn't fit in her backpack. Damn, were they heavy. And then, two of them disappeared off the top of the pile. She jumped.
"Jumpy, aren't you?" Logan laughed, carrying two of the three of her textbooks. "Need a ride home?"
Mary Anne smiled a little, "Don't you have to take Kevin and Dylan home as well?"
"Yes, and the front seat is saved for my lovely girlfriend," he nudged her, a real smile broke out onto her face this time. He leaned in again and kissed her.
Notes: There, chapter two. Once again, I want to remind you that this is a romance but other things will be going on as well. The really good stuff won't occur for a couple more chapters. By the way, please try and read and review. I don't think that the next chapter will come up as quickly as this one did.