morP 3.3

Jesse walked upstairs to his locker after lunch and passed Sophia laughing with her friends making their way down.

"See you at practice on Monday, Sophia," he said in a friendly manner.

"Yeah, yeah, Monday." Sophia grunted a perfunctory reply and turned back to her friends, "Hey so what are you going to wear to the dance at Immaculata tonight? If I have to go I might as well look good…"

As he reached the top of the stairs and turned down the hall, the Track Team captain overheard some girl quoting the only Pink Floyd song every kid was guaranteed to know.

Jesse turned the corner and joined in, "We don' need no educa… what the hell happened to you?!?"

The tall, skinny girl in front of him looked like the Sixties had thrown up on her. Red, purple, and orange stains in haphazard streaks and blotches colored her jeans, hooded sweatshirt, and backpack. Damp hair matted the top of her red-stained scalp, which he suddenly realized wasn't stained at all, but bloody. She looked like she had been in a fight and lost.

The girl looked at him and said three words: "Sophia FUCKING Hess."

"Okay, What did she do?"

"Broke a glass bottle of apple juice on my head and dumped juice on me while I was in a stall."

Jesse was stunned. Hess had managed to use the bottle he'd subtly threatened her with this morning and bully someone else with it. He was impressed and appalled at the same time.

"Why the fuck would she do that to you?"

"She said if she had to take the Track team's shit, it would all flow downhill to me." Taylor replied.

Jesse fumed as his thoughts raced. Hess needed to be taken down a peg or two. Who did she think she was, Alexandria?

He turned to the girl and asked, "So… You know that old saying; 'Don't get mad, get even,' right?".

Taylor nodded.

Jesse realized Sophia was one of those Type A personalities that would benefit from hazing in the long run. To get knocked down, but then have the ones who knocked you down help you back up again. That's what being part of a team meant to him, a group you'd shared adversity with and knew coulkd be counted on when the chips were down. Sophia could be an asshole, but she was OUR asshole, a part of the Track Team and it was past time she learned that.

"Just be at Immaculata tonight at nine and you can watch Hess experience a favorite word of mine." Jesse said.

The tall skinny girl cocked her head quizzically.

"Schadenfreude…"