Chapter Three
Sam jolted awake to the sound of something in her bathroom tumbling to the floor. She wanted to get up and go investigate, but the same pounding headache that made her fall asleep in the first place quickly returned. With a groan, she dropped her head back onto her pillow and let her eyelids droop.
"Sam?" That was Danny's voice, but why he was even at her house was beyond her. She cracked her eyelids open partially and hummed loudly to let him know that she was, in fact, awake now. He exited the bathroom a few seconds later, carrying a first-aid kit and a bottle of soap.
There were still a few remnants of sleep that left her feeling disoriented and muzzy, but she still managed to groggily ask him, "Which ghost was it this time and how severe are the wounds?"
He paused for a second before rolling his eyes and smiling gently at her. "This isn't for me this time." He crossed the room and took a seat beside her on the bed, towering over her as she rolled over and lifted a brow at him. "Where are your parents?"
"Beats me." Her parents scolded her earlier that evening for fighting and being suspended, as they didn't buy her self-defense excuse at all. She wasn't in the mood to put up with their yelling because the intense volume of their voices worsened her headache, so she went up to her room and locked her door.
If they weren't in the house at the moment, then she had no idea where they went. They stopped informing her of where they were heading out to after she turned sixteen. However, she did know, or guess, that her grandmother was somewhere downstairs either asleep or reading one of her favorite books.
She closed her eyes again and was ready to fall back asleep, but then she felt a burning sensation on her cheek. As a result, she moaned and clenched her eyelids much more tightly. "Sorry," she heard Danny say, "I forgot to warn you first."
"It's okay. I kind of like it." She kept her eyes closed and let him continue to tend to the scratch on her cheek. "My head hurts, though." Her headache greatly resembled a dull-pounding of a hammer against her skull... repeatedly, which left her wondering how she easily fell asleep to begin with.
"My head would hurt too if somebody I fought pulled my hair that hard." She heard the peeling of a wrapper before feeling a band-aid being pressed gently against her cheek. There was a moment of silence before Danny added, "Especially if I threw my hair into a tight bun later on."
It took her several seconds to realize that he was referring to her hair being in a bun. Her lips then curved upward into a lazy smile when she felt him tugging on her hair tie. She usually didn't like being coddled or babied, but because she was in pain, she didn't mind seeing the compassionate side of him.
"At what point did you come over? Were my parents around whenever you got here?" she asked him, and in response, he shook his head.
"I'm guessing they left a few minutes before I got here. I didn't really hear or see them." With her bun now gone, he absently slid his fingernails through her hair and looked down at her. "I stopped by to check on you, but when I phased in here, you were asleep. That was some fight, Sam. What happened?"
She finally opened her eyes again, this time keeping them open, and lifted her shoulder in a half-shrug. "I was having a bad morning and just snapped, I guess." She slightly turned her head to the side and looked up at him while he retracted his hand. "I told her I didn't want to fight, but she kept provoking me."
"Provoking you how?"
"Well, she kept shoving me and getting all up in my personal space. It was either let her beat me up or fight back, so I chose the latter." Truthfully, she didn't feel bad for fighting Paulina. She was only dreading the result of it, which was suspension and having to attend a program with her. "Principal Ishiyama wants us to pick one thing we like about each other everyday and read it out loud during Lancer's class."
Danny dragged his fingers through her hair again and snickered a bit. "That sounds like... torture. I'm sorry." She thinned her lips and nodded as he raised his shoulders. "How long did you get suspended for?"
"Three days. Well, now it's two because I agreed to join some stupid character education club with Paulina at school."
"Let me know how that works out." He leaned down and kissed her forehead before returning to his upright position and smiling at her. "I was going to ask if you wanted to head over to the Nasty Burger with me and Tuck, but I can see that you're not feeling well."
She glanced over at the digital clock on her nightstand and stared at it for a few seconds before slowly working her way into a sitting position. "No, I'll go with you guys. I'll just have to pop some Tylenol or something before we leave."
Paulina grimaced as she watched Dash gobble down a bacon cheeseburger from his combo meal at the Nasty Burger. Beside him was Kwan, who was mirroring his actions with a regular hamburger. To her right was Star, who was blankly staring at both of them as though she were used to them eating like that.
"I'm going to have to sweet talk Principal Ishiyama into letting me drop out of that stupid character education club. If I don't, I'm pretty much done as a cheerleader." When neither Dash or Kwan acknowledged her, she snapped her fingers and cleared her throat. "Uh, hello? I'm speaking, you morons."
While Kwan cast a sympathetic look her way, Dash rolled his eyes at her and swallowed his food. "You said that club meets three days a week, right? Well, just move cheerleading practice to the remaining two days, or add Saturdays and Sundays to the schedule."
Star puffed out her bottom lip and stirred her soda around with her straw. "That's not such a bad idea. It could only be a temporary change until the club is done. You said it's only a month long, right?" With a sigh, Paulina nodded. "Then there you go. You won't have to give up your head cheerleader position that way."
"And you're only suspended for two days. I doubt you'll miss that much work," Kwan chimed in after he finished up his hamburger. Star pursed her lips and hummed, which quickly caught Paulina's attention.
"You'd be surprised how much work one can miss in even a day's absence from school." A death glare sent towards her by Paulina was enough to make her hastily backpedal. "I mean, I'm just guessing. I could be wrong."
Dash popped a fry into his mouth and snorted. "I'm surprised you're even worried about that. If I were you, I'd be more worried about my reputation." He chewed the fry for a bit and then swallowed it before cracking a slight smirk. "I mean, Fenton's cool and all, but Manson's still considered a nerd, and the fact that you got beat up by her makes you look—"
"I did not get beat up by that freak!" After realizing that she had accidentally shouted out the sentence, a sheepish expression crossed her face as she lowered her voice. "She just caught me off-guard. That's all. What, did you guys hear rumors about the fight going around or something?"
Nobody said anything; Star sipped her drink, Dash continued eating his fries, and Kwan looked at the surface of the table. It wasn't until Paulina snapped her fingers again that Star responded with, "Yeah, everybody's talking about it."
"Everybody?" Paulina repeated. Each of them nodded, and that's when her gaze fell to the table as well. She heard Star click her tongue and, out of the corner of her eye, she saw Dash shrug. After a moment of silence, she scoffed and looked up at them. "If anything, that fight was a tie. She mostly threw cheap shots, and if anybody thinks otherwise, I can just prove them wrong."
The corners of Star's lips rose into a pleasant smile. "Exactly."
"Then now's your chance," Kwan replied, motioning towards the entrance of the restaurant. Everybody at the table looked over just as Danny, Sam, and Tucker stepped inside. They conversed for roughly thirty seconds before parting ways, with Sam and Danny heading over to a table and Tucker making his way over to the counter to place an order.
"Piece of cake." Paulina grabbed her untouched bottle of water from the table and twisted the cap horizontally to open it. "Watch." She then rose up from her seat and marched over to Sam's table, smirking once Star got up to join her.
She couldn't help but feel a great deal of anger and envy surge through her as she drew closer to the table. She wished that Danny wanted her instead of Sam, but for whatever strange reason, he didn't anymore. Everybody wanted her; she was Paulina freaking Sanchez, the prettiest girl in all of Casper High, and who was Sam? Nobody but the weird Goth girl.
But he liked that weird Goth girl.
"Uh, hey, Paulina." The sudden sound of his voice dragged her back into reality. She hadn't even realized that she was now standing at the table, staring blankly ahead of her. She acknowledged him with her award-winning grin before flicking her hair behind her shoulder.
"Hi, Danny. What are you doing here?" She was aware that it was a stupid question, but she was really hoping Sam would intervene so that she had an actual reason to start a fight with her. Unfortunately, she wasn't taking the bait just yet, so she decided to spice it up. "Mind coming with me for a second?"
She heard Sam scoff and mutter, "I wonder how many different guys she's said that to in total." She didn't know if Danny heard the comment or not because he didn't acknowledge it, but either way, it pissed her off enough to want to start a fight. Without thinking twice, she removed the cap from her bottled drink and poured some of the water right on top of Sam's head.
Sam's reaction was swift; she slapped the water bottle right out of Paulina's hand and sprang up from her seat, getting right in her face. Danny wasn't having another fight break out in front of him, so he swiftly slid in-between them. "Whoa, whoa. Please don't fight each other again."
"No, Danny. Let her hit me," Paulina said calmly. She wanted Sam to hit her first so that anything she did after that could be deemed self-defense, but unfortunately for her, Danny moved his arm around Sam's waist and towed her towards the exit. Before they left, he signaled to Tucker that it was time for them to go.
Star's right eyebrow arched and she started to turn over her shoulder. "Well, so much for that. Come on, Paulina."
Paulina stared at Danny's retreating form for a second or two before spinning around and trailing after Star as she walked back over to their table.