A Pixie's Broken Wings

ellina HOPE

I don't own School of Rock.

oOo

School didn't matter much. Who thought about grades anyway? Certainly not Summer Hathaway, that was for sure. Not since that day, that day when she stayed after to talk to that teacher, not since that day that she kept telling herself didn't happen. She fidgeted, smoothing her skirt and pulling it down. Pulling it down to cover the bruises that remained on her legs.

Ever since that day, that day that didn't happen, her grades slipped, her concentration dropped, eating wasn't important, and who had ever heard of sleep? If it weren't for the band, she might've stopped believing herself when she said that day never happened. If it weren't for the band, she might've stopped listening to her brain when it said to breathe. But, she figured that eventually her brain had to give up. She was stubborn, stubborn in her beliefs and in her ability to ignore anything she didn't want to hear.

'It never happened. It never happened. It never happened.' Summer chanted this to herself as she stared at the clock. In the back of the class, Freddy drummed on his desk with pencils. 'It never happened. It never happened.'

The teacher drew formulas on the board, the chalk squeaking as the numbers were written. Out of the corner of her eye, Summer watched Lawrence twitching at every shrill note. Marta was humming as she doodled in her notebook. If she turned around just so, Summer could read the name of some boy in another grade.

The tapping of her pencil didn't steady her nerves, just set the whole classroom atmosphere on edge. 'It never happened. It never happened. It. Never. Happened.' She didn't believe herself anymore. Not at night, not when the dreams came, and with the dreams came all the hurt and all the bruises and all the touching. Summer broke out into a sweat, just thinking about it.

With the thoughts came the smells and the feelings and the noises. The hands that were everywhere at once, holding her down with fingernails that dug into her skin. The voice that hissed in her ear, "pretty little girl. Pretty smart little girl. Do you like being teacher's pet now?" Summer clenched her eyes shut, biting down hard on her thumb knuckle.

"May I go to the bathroom, please?" The teacher nodded, not even pausing in her lecture, and Summer ran out of the room. Those put in charge of education whapped those not paying attention on the side of the head with rulers. Those put in charge of education blatantly ignored those suffering in silence in their classrooms.

In the safe confines of the female's bathroom, she locked herself in a stall. Pushing her hands against the cool plastic, Summer cried. "Who would've thought, Summer Hathaway crying?" In the short span of a few days, the bright, smart young lady turned into a bitter cynic.

She didn't want to face the rest of the day. She didn't want to face her friends' and their happy faces and their cheerful habits. There were a lot of things that she could not bring herself to stare at dead on. So, what she did was slide to the floor, tuck her knees under her chin and sit there. It was last period anyway. Katie would come find her when it was time for band practice.

Sure enough, when the bell rang, the bassist peeked into the bathroom. "Summer?" Hurriedly, the girl wiped her cheeks, scrubbing them on her uniform sleeve. "Are you in here?"

"Yeah. I'll be out in a second. Did you get my back pack?"

"Uh huh, Marta has it. We're all waiting for you. Mr. Dewey has the van parked outside." Sniffing softly, the girl named for the third season unlocked the stall. She splashed her face with cold water. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, Katie, I'm fine. Let's go practice, okay? Dewey did say something about a gig, didn't he?" Distress disappeared as a fake smile melted on to her face. Summer didn't scratch at the wax covering, though it irritated her. This one little smile (however much it hurt) was her salvation and key to keeping things secret. Katie smiled; grabbed Summer's hand and they ran to catch up.

oOo

Summer sat on Dewey's couch, watching her friends cultivating the talent known as "melting faces." She played with the fringe on the scarf her mother knit her for Christmas last year. Had it just been last year? Surely it was older than that. Perhaps she was the one who felt old. Old and used.

She bent her head, keeping her mouth shut to hide the whimper. She was making all these distressed noises as of late. Perhaps it was time to take a note out of her mother's book and begin sewing. She knew just what she'd work on first, she thought as she ran her fingers over her chapped lips. She'd practice on sewing her mouth shut.

"Okay, guys, that's good for today. Zack, you're getting a lot better at that solo." The guitarist smiled as he put up his instrument. "Same time tomorrow, alright?" Alicia and Marta had already left, Tomika wasn't far behind. Zack, Lawrence, and Freddy joked as they walked out of the practice room. Being alone in a room with a guy made Summer shiver. She bit her lip, fighting all instincts to run. She flexed her fingers, clenching and unclenching her hands to fists and back again.

It didn't seem fair that it only took a little bit of brainpower to fix something like that. A small component of the machine still worked while the rest of it was surrounded by yellow caution tape. She hated the color yellow. Summer raised her gaze from the floor and took one deep breath.

'It's okay. It's just Dewey. He was your sub in elementary school. He's your friend. He wouldn't hurt you.' Taking a deep breath, she stood up and walked over to where he was sitting. Dewey looked up from his music to the resident band manager.

"Hey, Summer, what's up?"

"There's... something I need to tell you..." This immediately got his attention. Summer Hathaway was never nervous. Stuttering was one of the few words not included in her vocabulary. The rest were mainly words comprised of four-letters, which could easily be replaced by asterisks.

"What's the matter, girl?" The concern in his voice almost made her smile. There weren't many things that could do that nowadays.

"Last week..." She paused, it was harder than she thought. She stopped, took a deep breath, and started again. "Last week, I was..." He looked at her, brown eyes curious and worried. Dewey Finn, self-proclaimed rock genius was worried, all because of what one of his children was going to say.

"I was raped."