Fuck Gary Smith.

I wanted to kill him, wanted to bash his head into a wall and break his nose. Break his jaw so he couldn't pull that shit again. I would have gone back and done it too, if it wasn't for the fact that he would have laughed in my face while I did it.

Fuck him and his weird gay shit, I didn't need to deal with it.

The problem was, what was I going to deal with instead? Classes were a joke, I was sick to death of doing favors for people, and I was avoiding Petey, in case he asked about what had happened on Saturday. Hanging with Russell didn't take any thought, and I felt weird as fuck with Zoë. So there were my options, and all of them sucked.

Gary, Gary, Gary. This was ridiculous.

"Hi Jimmy!" It was Beatrice. She came up beside me, her books and precious journal held over her chest. She was smiling. I had no idea why she was so happy today.

"What's up?" I kept looking forward to where I was walking. If I didn't look at her, I couldn't see if her cold sores were acting up. Or her face.

She blushed. Great. "Nothing. Haven't seen you for like a week—studying hard, huh?"

Yeah, that's me. I was too busy studying to be seen around school. "Yeah, something like that." It was lunchtime, and I just wanted to go into the cafeteria, grab something to eat, and leave. She followed me in.

"Wasn't that announcement from Crabblesnitch this morning crazy?" She laughed, like she'd made this great big joke.

I scanned the lunchroom to make sure Petey wasn't there before grabbing a tray and heading to the line. Beatrice grabbed herself a tray, putting her books on top of it and trailing behind me. It was kind of like Petey on an annoying day, but grosser. "What are you talking about?"

"You didn't hear?" I'd slept through most of first period, so no, I hadn't. It was the first real sleep I'd had since Gary fucking touched me. I shook my head. "Apparently, a bunch of parents filed a complaint with the school board, and now all the students have to have psych evaluations done this week to make sure that, well…the stuff that happened with Gary won't happen again."

Fucking Gary. Of course everything went back to him. "When?"

"People will be taken out of classes all this week to do it," Beatrice answered. "Isn't it exciting?"

"Yeah, exciting." About as exciting as anything was around here.

Beatrice sighed. "I mean, I've got doctor's appointments all this week, so I might have to reschedule my psychological examination." She seemed really into this whole 'doctors looking in your head' thing. She didn't get that going to Bullworth meant you were fucked already. "I might have to do it over the weekend, at Happy Volts. That place is so creepy, isn't it?"

"Okay…" I didn't know what that had to do with me, but Beatrice just liked to talk sometimes. If I let her ramble on for a while, she'd remember she had something to do and go off. Either that or Zoë would show up, and Beatrice usually avoided her.

On cue, Zoë cut the line in front of Beatrice. "Long time no see, Jimmy. Where've you been?" She grabbed a milk carton and an orange, ignoring the little gasp from Beatrice.

"In the city." I shrugged, moving forward as Edna dropped…something on my plate. It looked like meat. I was going to pretend I was sure. "Why, needed something?"

That wasn't exactly fair. Zoë didn't come and demand shit nearly as much as everyone else did. She just did her thing, and we hung out. Should have been with her on Saturday instead of Gary. I would still have gotten kissed, but at least not by a mental patient.

And it would have been by a female. Which, was, well, more than a plus.

Zoë shook her head no. "I'm good, just wondering where the hell you've been. I was in the city this weekend, we could have chilled." She sounded a little disappointed.

"I went to visit my parents—" Beatrice started, but when she realized neither of us were listening, she fell silent. She stared down at her lunch tray like she was embarrassed. When I first got to the school, I would have felt bad, and tried to talk to her, but at this point, I was sick of people coming up to me to talk.

I wanted to mumble something inaudible, but I knew Zoë wouldn't be satisfied with that sort of answer, and would press until I gave her a real one. "Just relaxing." I didn't want to lie, especially since I wasn't that good at it. "I wanted some down time."

Zoë considered my answer and shrugged. "Alright, whatever. You heard about the Halloween 'bash'?"

"No." Apparently, shit did happen at Bullworth without my noticing. That was more of a relief than I'd have thought. "What about it?"

We finished grabbing our food and headed towards a table. Before we made it a couple of feet, though, my fucking conscience got the better of me. I turned and looked at Beatrice. "You coming?"

She glowed, and grabbed her books and tray and followed with. Zoë threw me a look, but continued. "Apparently, Crabblesnitch wants to prevent any major pranks this year, so he's organizing this big party for all the students. It's not required but…" She rolled her eyes. "It's 'advised', whatever the hell that means."

"Fun," I deadpanned.

"I know, right?" Zoë made a face of disgust. "The only thing even remotely fun about it would be showing off costumes—you know what you're gonna be yet?"

I hadn't even thought about Halloween, had forgotten it was coming up. Honestly, the idea of dressing up and 'partying'—which at Bullworth would likely involve music about five years too old and the cliques awkwardly marking off their individual territories and standing with their backs to each other—sounded like about as much fun as waiting in front of the headmaster's office.

"I'm dressing up as Amelia Earhardt," Beatrice announced. "Or Helen of Troy." She giggled, looking proud of herself.

Zoë opened her carton of milk. "I'm thinking Robin Hood. Bows and arrows and everything. The G&G boys have a few props from their games, and I think I might jack some." She smiled. "So, if you feel like being my Maid Marion, Jimmy…"

I snorted. "Yeah, I'll get on that." I wondered why Petey hadn't mentioned the party to me earlier, but the answer to that was that I'd been avoiding him. And he might have said something about it when he was babbling until two in the morning. I'd only heard bits and pieces of that.

"You didn't say what you were dressing up as," Beatrice piped up.

Zoë kept throwing me little looks like she wanted to laugh, but luckily I was too tired to give into that. Didn't actually feel like making Beatrice upset right now. She hadn't done anything to me to deserve it.

Unlike Gary. That little slimeball deserved to be miserable. Miserable and confused and exhausted, so he could feel like me for a little while.

I shrugged. "I don't know. Haven't thought about it." I didn't really want to waste money on a costume. I still had my costume from last year, so I'd probably throw that shit on again and call it a day. Except that Gary had gotten me that costume. It hadn't occurred to me before that Gary had gone through the trouble of purchasing me a costume. It was another moment of realizing how bizarrely controlling the guy was.

At least he'd given me a cool costume. It was better than Petey had gotten, anyway.

"Well, let me know," Zoë told me.

I nodded, although I doubted I'd come up with anything, let alone anything interesting. I couldn't wear Gary's costume, that was for sure.

I was sitting next to Zoë and moping. This was ridiculous. "Hey, Zoë, I'm outta here, alright? I've got some shit to catch up on." Zoë looked annoyed. I shrugged, pasting on a grin. "Come on, I'll make it up to you later. Ice cream floats in town sound good?"

She narrowed her eyes. "When?"

"Tomorrow after class?"

She smiled reluctantly, shaking her head. "You better be there."

"Of course I'll be there," I said. I waved to Beatrice. "See you later, Beatrice."

"Bye…" Beatrice waved back. I started making my way out the lunchroom, but I was still in earshot when Beatrice awkwardly continued trying to speak. "So, um, Zoë…when did you guys start…dating?"

I rolled my eyes.

"Oh, sweetie, you missed me, didn't you?"

He stood up, crossing his arms. He looked fucking smug, ignoring the fact that I hadn't shown up in days. I knew that I had caved, that I shouldn't have shown up at all, but I didn't need that smug little facial expression to tell me that.

I kept my face as blank as possible. He could read my facial expression—actually no. If he wasn't having a stretch of paranoia, he could read my expression. Otherwise, he'd make up facial expressions that he insisted that I was wearing and we'd get into a fight about it.

I didn't answer right away, and so he moved in closer, leaning forward to get a better look at me. He narrowed his eyes at me suspiciously. Instead of letting him have his creepy little moment, I moved around him, not caring that I had to nearly shove him out of the way to do it. The room he was kept in was small, and it felt like it was getting smaller each and every time.

He straightened up and leaned against the door. I dropped my backpack on the floor at my side.

Silence and Gary didn't mix. Silence made a guy feel like Gary was just dripping with little things to say, like there was this ongoing commentary unfolding inside that asshole's head. And it wasn't just a feeling, either. I knew it was true, and Gary didn't do much to hide that he was quietly making jokes only he would find funny.

But that was okay. Because I could say shit in my head too. I could stand and stare at him and think about how much he'd been trying to play with my head the last couple of weeks. I could think about the fact that I should have had a great night with Zoë, my girlfriend. That I went out with her, and my mind should have been on me and her hiding in the back of the theatre and making out.

I could stare at Gary and not tell him about Zoë clearly wanting to do something in the back of that theatre, in the ice cream shop, and me barely noticing because every so often I'd get distracted at the thought that I hadn't seen Bully's ex-resident psycho in days. He could just stand there and not know that I could be back in my room right now with Zoë, doing the unspeakable shit that usually dominated my shower thoughts.

And I'd bet money that he couldn't figure out how recently, my shower thoughts were completely fucked up, and I was completely unable to have any sort of fun fantasies about my girlfriend.

I could look blank and without any cares while what I really wanted to do was beat the living shit out of Gary for still doing this to me. Not that he'd done this exactly the first time, but let's face it…this was just another way that Gary completely fucked with my head.

My life.

My sense of sanity.

No, Gary Smith could just look at me and wonder what the hell was going on in my head. And that was just fucking fine. Because he was probably being driven insane by the fact that he had no idea that instead of doing anything with Zoë, I'd dropped her back off at the girl's dorm—which had likely confused the hell out of her—and made my way to grab my bag and head up to Happy Volts for the first time in about a week. A week that was totally dominated by the fact that a complete psychotic had kissed me and no one knew—even though it felt like everyone had to know.

He moved himself off the wall, still grinning, smirking, whatever—looking like an evil little impish thing even though he had a good three inches of height on me at least. With his arms still crossed over his chest, he leaned in again, that shitty little light in his eyes growing. "You really did miss me, didn't you?" He sounded delighted.

I felt like cursing under my breath. Who was I fucking kidding? The second he had looked at me, he'd known exactly was I was thinking. I wasn't exactly a good liar, and I was a shitty as hell actor. And Gary's favorite hobby was apparently examining my face like he was Ms. Phillips grading a student's artwork.

He knew why I was there. And for some sick reason, it made him smile.

The problem with him being taller than me was that even when I tilted my head up to look him in the eyes, we still weren't eye level. Which left me staring at the very thing that had made my life so very fucked up the past week.

Well I was sick and tired of being one step behind the freak. Let him be thrown off for a minute. That was why I grabbed him.

That was why I told myself I kissed him.

TBC