Sporto was back in his seat, holding his nose with several tissues that were covered in blood and his jaw line was swelling slightly.

"Ya done pissing people off Sporto?" I asked, crossing my arms. I didn't really go back to my seat, I just sat on John's table, my feet on his chair.

He came over to sit down and lifted my feet into his lap and left them there. I didn't say anything, only glared over at Andy who was sending death glares our way.

"Wouldn't have happened if he wasn't such an asshole," Andy mumbled under his breath.

"Yeah well, you're not totally innocent either," Prissy said, making him exchange tissues.

"Shut up Claire," he grumbled.

This seemed to interest Mr. Trouble-Is-My-Middle-Name. "Cl-aire?"

She looked over at him. "Yeah, it's a family name."

"No, it's a fat girl's name."

I kicked his thigh. He looked up at me and gave me a dirty look before turning back to Claire.

"Well thanks," she said sarcastically.

"You're welcome," John replied.

"I'm not fat!" Claire cried out.

"Well not at present, but I could see you really pushing maximum density!" he said. He lifted my legs off of him and stood up to walk over by her table. "You see," he continued. "I'm not really sure if you know this…but there are two kinds of fat people. There's fat people that were born to be fat, and then there's fat people that were once thin but they became fat…so when you look at them you can sorta see that thin person inside! You see, you're probably gonna get married, you're gonna squeeze out a few puppies, and then," he stopped, miming becoming fat and making awkward noises.

She flipped him the bird with a disgusted look on her face.

"Oh, obscene finger gestures from such a pristine girl!" he mockingly said.

"Whatever. I'm not that pristine," Claire said, crossing her arms.

He bent down closer to her face. I don't know what it was, but something down deep inside me told me not to knock the living piss out of her right then and there.

"Are you a virgin Claire?" he asked. "I'll bet you a million dollars that you are! Let's end the suspense! Is it gonna be a…white wedding?"

"Why don't you just shut up?" Claire said after a minute. Her face was red and she was clearly embarrassed by the whole thing. But John kept on about it.

"Have you ever kissed a boy on the mouth?"

She looked away from him.

"Have you ever been felt up? Over the bra, under the blouse, shoes off…hoping to God your parents don't walk in?"

"Do you want me to puke?" she asked him, getting upset now.

I personally found the whole thing hilarious.

"…Over the panties, no bra, blouse unbuttoned, Calvin's in a ball on the front seat past eleven on a school night?"

"Leave her alone will ya?" Andy told him.

I looked over at Andy. "Shut it man. It doesn't concern you."

He just glared at me. I returned the look and turned back to John.

His attention was now on Andy. He cocked his head like a confused puppy, making his hair fall in his face. I felt my heartbeat kind of quicken at the sight. I always thought he was a good-looking guy, even in the fourth grade, but now, good lord, I kinda wanted to jump him. In a good way though.

"You going to make me?" he asked the jock.

"Yeah," Andy countered. He stood up and got in John's face again.

"You and how many of your friends?" John asked him.

"Just me, just you and me. Two hits; me hitting you, and you hitting the floor! Anytime you're ready, pal," Andy taunted.

John went to hit him, but Andy was in defensive mode and somehow flipped John onto the ground with a wrestling move.

"Damn it you two," I groaned, jumping up and grabbing Andy by the hood of his jacket and flinging him from John. He landed behind us on his ass about four feet away.

"Let's end this right now," I told the both of them, my hands on my hips. I pointed over at John. "You, stop starting shit. The last thing we need is to get in even more trouble because of your mouth overloading your ass."

"That's the truth," Andy mumbled.

"And YOU!" I said, turning towards him. "If I wanted any shit from you, I'd squeeze your head. You got that? Quit asking for fights, and you won't get your head beat in okay?"

Both of them said nothing. "I'm already sick of refereeing between you numbskulls. Now get in your seats before Vernon gets in here and chews all of our asses."

Wordlessly, everyone, including me, went back to our seats. I sat beside John and put my head down on my arms.

I ended up falling back asleep for a few hours, not really having anything else to do since Idiot One and Two decided to be quiet for a change.

JOHN POV

I sat there, watching Alexa as she slept beside me. The last thing that I had ever expected to do in that bathroom was kiss her. Sure, I'd had a bit of a thing for the girl, but I never thought I'd take it that far.

She always was a sweet girl, at least when nobody was around. She could be a total badass if she really wanted to, I had seen it myself, but most of the time, she just didn't want people to get picked on.

There were many nights back in middle school that I would run away from home not wanting to deal with my drunk father and my overly submissive mother and end up sneaking through her window, asking if I could stay there the night. She would always give in, getting a pillow and blanket from her own bed and letting me sleep on the soft carpeted floor next to her bed, out of sight of the door if someone ever came to check on her. Sometimes she didn't even bother with that, just motioning for me to join her on her bed. I never took advantage of her, though I could have easily at the end of ninth grade, considering the people I had started to learn from and hang out with.

I felt eyes staring at me and looked up to see Claire watching me, watch Alexa. She had a little knowing smirk on her face, but she didn't say anything. I narrowed my eyes at her, and just to get her to leave me alone, I made a very obscene hand gesture with my hand at her, just to get her to look away. It worked like a charm. She scoffed and turned back around in her seat, pouting.

It had been about forty minutes since Alexa had fallen asleep, and since I had been in this joint before, I knew that Vernon was about to walk in here in about three minutes, announcing that it was grub time.

I gently shook her shoulder, trying to wake her up. "Alexa, sweetie wake up," I whispered VERY quietly so nobody else would here.

"Leave me alone Johnny," she mumbled.

I nearly laughed. She never called me Johnny unless she was verry asleep. How did I know this? I would always at least warn her before I left her room in the wee hours of the morning, and it had become sort of a ritual before I just started crashing at friends' houses.

"Come on Peaches, wake up," I said in a little louder voice. Andy and Brian now turned around and looked at her as she sleepily lifted her head and sighed.

"That was not long enough," she grumbled, rubbing her eyes.

"You can sleep later after Vernon leaves."

She looked around. "He's here?"

"He will be in a few minutes."

"How do you know?" Brian asked. I shrugged and started whistling a random little marching tune that most people knew. The rest of the crew joined in the whistling fest until Vernon walked in the door. I then whistled one of Beethoven's symphony things, and he glared at me.

"Alright girls, that's thirty minutes for lunch," he told us.

"Here?" Sporto asked.

"Here."

"I think the cafeteria would be a more suitable place for us to eat lunch in sir."

Vernon narrowed his eyes at him. "Well, I don't care what you think Andrew!"

"Uh Dick?" I asked. "Excuse me, Rich…will milk be made available to us?"

"We're extremely thirsty sir," Alexa chimed in.

"I have a very low tolerance for dehydration," Claire lied.

"I've seen her dehydrate sir, it's pretty gross," Brian cut in.

I stood up, knowing that he wasn't going to let me do anything. "Relax everyone, I'll go get it!"

"Ah, ah, ah! Grab some wood there bub!" Vernon objected. I just grinned at him. "What do you think, I was born yesterday? You think I'm gonna have you roaming these halls?" He pointed towards Sporto, Alexa and the quiet girl. "You three, what's her name? Wake her up! There's a soft drink machine in the teacher's lounge. Let's go!" he kept saying. Alexa sighed beside me and got up and walked out of the room.

I watched as the girl rose from her seat and shuffled through the double doors, Sporto following behind.

ANDY POV

We were walking down the halls, turning around several corners to get to the lounge.

"What's your poison?" I asked the quiet girl. She didn't say anything. "What do you drink?" I asked, making the question clearer. She still didn't answer me.

"Okaayyy. Forget I asked…" I said, mainly to myself.

We took a couple more steps before she answered, and when she did, it kind of caught me off guard.

"Vodka," she said.

"Vodka?" I asked. "When do drink vodka?"

"Whenever…"

"A lot?" I asked her.

She actually smiled a little bit. "Tons."

"Is that why you're here today?"

She didn't answer. "Is that why you're here?"

All the sudden, she snapped back. "Why are you here?"

I stopped walking and leaned up against the wall, looking at her. "Um, I'm here today…because uh, because my coach and my father don't want me to low my ride. See I get treated differently because uh, Coach thinks I'm a winner. So does my old man. I'm not a winner because I wanna be one…I'm a winner because I got strength and speed. Kinda like a racehorse. That's how involved I am in what's happening to me."

I knew it was all bullshit, what I told her, but she didn't know that.

"Yeah?" She asked, that's real interesting," she said. "Now why don't you tell me why you're really in here?"

I got angry, mainly because I had been caught in my own lie. Well, technically it wasn't really a lie, it was just half the truth. Both Dad and Coach had really laid into me for what I had done, and I kind of didn't blame them.

"Forget it," I said, shoving away from the wall and continued to make my way down the hall.

ALEXA POV

He didn't know it, but I knew exactly why Andy was here. I had been in the office that Thursday whenever he had gotten in trouble. I was very tempted to blurt out what really happened, but I figured the beans would come out of the can eventually.

I had been ahead of the two and stepped inside the lounge. It smelled of smoke and coffee, which really came of no surprise to me. Smoking was really the only way some of the teachers could deal with some of us troublemakers anyways.

I took some change from my pocket and got a couple sodas and headed for the door. It opened and in came Andy and the quiet girl. I looped my arm through the girl's and took her with me as Andy rummaged through his pockets for money for the cokes.

"Where are you going?" he asked when he realized that I wasn't sticking around.

"Back to hell," I retorted, walking out the door.

I handed her a coke and we continued down the hall back to the library. She didn't seem to want to initiate any conversation, so I decided to. "What's your name?"

She seemed kind of surprised that I even said anything. "Allison," she replied after a second.

"Cute name," I commented. It suited her well; strange and mysterious, yet petite.