AN: Why can't I write a chapter of this story shorter then 3500 words? I
can no longer feel my hands after prepairing an equally long update of RIDE
and a 17 page update of Adrenaline. So make it worth my while and review
please. I can't really type anymore but I can still mouse ;)
Chapter 22 – The Tough Girl
No more being something I'm not eh? Does that mean I get to put little miss bitchy in her place next time she pisses me off?
Oh, even better. I'll put her in her place in Spanish so she can know I've understood everything she's ever said. She should be unpleasantly shocked. The thoughts of it make me smile. Ah to put her in her place. What fun it will be.
Like the time I heard these two girls at school in the bathroom talking about taking my man. It was so fun to walk out of the stall and look them in their scared blue eyes as one stammered and the other tried to look tough.
They hadn't known I was there and once they did know the conversation stopped really fast. I walked up to the sink to wash my hands and they just looked at me like frightened little rabbits. As I was drying my hands off I looked at them again.
"Don't you have something to say to me?" I'd asked them with my typical 'I don't give a shit' attitude.
"Like what?" The bimbo trying to front like she was tough too had asked. Her friend just sort of cowered behind her.
"Like wouldn't you just love to break it down for me how you can take MY man from me? I mean, that is what you just said you and your whore friend could do right?"
"That's right." Tough bitch was keeping up the act. Good for her. I knew it would make it all the more fun when I got to make her grovel at my feet for me to leave her alone.
"I'll tell ya what. You and your friend can beat me up I'll give him to you." I answered her with a smirk. "If you both can beat me then I'll step back and push him your way. If I win you leave me'n him alone and stay away from races and his shop."
The skanks looked at each other like they didn't know if it was a trick or what that I said I would give him up if they could just beat me at a two on one fight in the ladies room. Never mind how many times I'd already been in shit for fighting on school property. With a look the two girls decided it would be worth a shot. I knew the only one who really wanted to go was the loudmouth one. The one who'd been all talk till she found out I was in the bathroom didn't want to fight me any more then she wanted to eat her teeth.
She should have thought of that before she let her idiot, bitchy friend talk for her. Because once they talked trash at me it was decided that they were leaving the bathroom with their perfect makeup rubbed off on the floor and their perfectly blonde hair stained red with blood from the hurt I was going to send their way.
"So, which one of you bitches wants to step first?" I'd asked them with a shit eating grin. I was never scared before or during a fight. Sometimes when it occurred to me how bad I could have gotten hurt I'd shake for a while after. Like the time I fought this huge dude in the back hallway of a club I was at. But that's another story.
'Tough chick' came at me. It was kind of comical because she clearly planned on slapping and clawing me to death. I don't bitch fight, I fight dirty. This girl planned on using her nails and no doubt pulling hair. It hadn't seemed to occur to her that my hair was tied up in a very sensible pony tail because I was going to work for Van after school and it had just been easier to chuck it up when I'd gotten out of the shower.
"I'm going to mess you up!" The blonde had yelled at me as she came at me, claws bared.
I dodged her and punched her in the gut. She doubled over in mostly shock I think, but a bit of pain too. Her friend discovered some balls and came at me then.
I sighed then. I really did. Her friend was another bitch slapin', face clawing, hair pulling pussy. They were hardly a challenge for a girl like me who was use to fighting the tough skanks we had around races and guys.
Some of those girls have been around and they can really fight. These girls had no clue.
I bopped the second one in the nose and she stopped in shock. Then the other one got back up and came at me again. So I decked her in the mouth.
The sissy one actually managed to scratch the side of my face at that point. I know it was my own stupid fault for thinking she was no threat. Anyone with fake bitch nails is always a threat in some sense. But I was so pissed she'd scratched me that I through a really hard punch into her face and blackened her eye really good. It started to swell almost immediately.
She started to cry, likely over how bad her face was going to look by that evening. Her friend came at me again. I ducked her pathetic attempt at punching me in the mouth and punched her in hers instead.
Like that made her mad she came at me even more ferociously. Bitch actually punched me in the face. She missed my nose and eye and some ring on her stupid hand cut my cheek. Then I was mad.
I rammed into her, took her down, sat on her chest and just started pummelling her. Her stupid friend tried to pull me off so I knocked her down and wailed on her for awhile.
The first girl somehow managed to get up and she kicked me in the ribs. It hurt like a son of a bitch. But I'm a lot like Dom when I fight too. The pain doesn't set in till later, at first the adrenaline just makes me want to fight and fight till I get put down for good or I win. I grabbed her leg and yanked. She fell backwards and hit her head off the concrete floor of the bathroom.
She got knocked out when she hit the floor. That scared me. I mean, I'd known I was gonna mess them up but I'd never planned on really hurting them.
In my shock of knocking the other bitch out, even if it was by accident I took my attention off the sissy girl. She'd been no trouble to take care of up till then but I think the fact her bitch friend wasn't moving scared some adrenaline into her. She managed to roll us over so she was sitting on me. Then she slapped me hard on my already cut cheek.
Pissed me right off. I threw her off me and go up faster then her. I kicked her in the head and cut her scalp. I'd predicted there'd be blood in that blonde hair at some point and I was right.
She came at me again and we locked up in the middle of the bathroom. We were still grappling for hold when some other chick came in to use the john. She saw one girl out cold on the floor and the two of us bleeding on each other and ran away. I thought she was just going to use another john but she came back with the big dykie gym teacher.
Ms Campbell pulled me and sissy girl apart and let us know with a look that any more fighting would not be a good idea. Then she went to check bigmouth girl. She was fine, just stunned but I knew I was in for it.
No matter what those two other girls had done to deserve what I'd done to them I was going to be the one in the most trouble. I was always fighting and I was hardly hurt while the other two were bruised and broken.
We were marched down to Principal Marks' office by Ms. Campbell and sat on opposite sides of the anteroom in hard plastic chairs. I crossed my arms and stared the other two down till they both looked away.
"You know what this means right?" I asked as soon as the gym teacher had gone back to ogling the running female students in her class and we were alone waiting for Mr. Marks to make an appearance.
The bigmouth looked at me but sissy girl just kept her eyes trained on the ground.
"What?" She asked me snottily.
"You stay the fuck away from Dom. I handed your ass to you and I'll do it again if you come anywhere near my man."
"I wouldn't really want a man whore like him anyway." Miss bitch answered in her most stuck up tone.
"Yeah, that's why you were going on about how much you wanted to be wit him and how big you think he is where it counts when you thought I wasn't in the room. Why you frontin? You know you want him, you know you can't have him and now you know if you even try to have him I'll hand your ass to you again. You and your whore friend aren't gonna be winnin' no beauty pageants any time soon anyways."
"I don't know what Dominic sees in you anyway Letty Rodriguez. You're more guy then girl anyway." The skank sneered at me, I don't know where she found the guts to do it, and looked me up and down like she found me wanting.
"You wanna come say that to my face?" I asked as I stood up. "Chinga tu madre asquerosa!" (Fuck your mother asshole) I made a gesture with my hand from under my chin in a menacing way. Blondie got a scared look in her eyes. Mr. Marks picked that moment to come out of his office. He had me sit back down with one cold look out of his ice blue eyes. I knew he'd heard me swear. And since he taught Spanish I knew he'd understood the whole damn thing.
"I'll see you first Jameel." He took loudmouth into his office. She came out about 15 minutes later looking scared.
"I got a week of detention." Jameel whispered to her friend but I over heard her.
"Stacy, I'll see you now." Mr Marks called skank number two into his office. So now they had names. He was leaving me for last because he was going to believe them. It was painfully obvious. It wasn't my fault people seemed to take my attitude as an invitation to fight me. Or that I'd been fighting life for so long I didn't know any other way to cope.
After another 15 minutes with Stacy Mr Marks sent her out and on her way. She looked just as upset as the last one had. I was really in for it. If he was going this hard on the Barbie squad he was gonna have it in for me.
"Leticia." He said shortly and I got up and followed him into his office.
"This is the 3rd fight in as many weeks! What is the matter with you?"
"That girl, Jameel, she was talking shit about me and she got in my face."
Mr Marks looked almost sad. That was scary.
"Letty," also scary, he never went with short forms of names, it was always formal with him, "there are always going to be people who don't like you, who get 'in your face'. You can not beat up every last one of them in the ladies room. You must learn to control that temper if you're ever going to make something of yourself."
"I already am 'making something of myself. All I want to do is work for Van in his garage and I already do that."
"Well then it's good that auto shop is the only class you are making over 80 in. You're a smart girl but you don't try and you have the biggest chip on your shoulder. There will always be a girl who's prettier or richer or has more things then you. That girl is out there for every other person in the world Miss Rodriguez. You have to learn to deal with it. And also when you have something everyone else wants you must accept the fact that others will try to take it from you. Have enough confidence in yourself to just let it slide."
He was just being honest. But I was only 17. I didn't want to hear it. It made me angry he was right. I did have a big chip on my shoulder about a lot of things. But anger was easier then admitting it hurt me when those girls called me names like tomboy or scruff or greaseball. Or that it hurt when the guys looked at me and made cracks like 'flat as a board, never been nailed'. If I could just show that I was tough enough that it didn't matter then I could let on it didn't hurt.
Mr Marks handed me a tissue to wipe the blood off my cheek.
"You want me to just let them talk about me all over the place?" I flopped back into my chair, crossed my arms and looked at the man who was only trying to be civil and lay it down straight for me for the first time ever.
"I want you to realize that violence only makes more violence. You're lucky those girls hurt you some too or I'd likely be forced to call the police and press charges Letty. A mutual brawl I can explain to the parents of those girls and convince them that it would mean all three of you would be up on charges. But Letty, you are a very strong young woman and you're going to seriously hurt someone someday if you don't learn to control that temper."
I sighed. He was right. Didn't mean I had to admit it.
"I guess." I mumbled. He sighed and ran a hand through his black hair.
"I'm going to have to send you home Letty and you're going to have a week of detention too."
"Fine."
"Should I even bother calling your father or should I call Mia's father right away instead?"
"You may as well call Van. It's not like my father gives a fuck and even if you did get a hold of him or my mother she'd be too coked out to drive and my dad would just come to beat my ass." I was sick of hiding it.
"Letty! Language please. I'm not one of your schoolyard friends with the same potty mouth. That said, why didn't you ever tell a councillor how bad it was for you at home? We all knew of course, that your parents couldn't take a very active role in your education since they never come to your conferences but we didn't know just how bad it was. We could help you if we knew, get you out of there."
"I don't know why I said that Mr. Marks. Things are fine. I pretty much live with Mia anyway. If you tell on my folks then I might end up in foster care. I'm 18 in less then a year anyway then I can just move into Van's. He's already said he doesn't mind."
I didn't want Mr. Marks to tell child services about how my home was. I wasn't really ever there anyway. That much was true.
"Fine Letty. But you can't ever tell anyone you told me about it or I could lose my job."
"Thanks Mr. Marks, you're alright."
"Alright, just wait there while I call Mr. Toretto."
I sat back and crossed my arms. Van would take me back to the garage with him and I'd forget my troubles while I worked on one of 'The Ladies' as Dom and his dad called them, or maybe I'd finally get the time to install my new HKS lowering springs into the Silvia. It had been at the garage for the last few weeks waiting for all the modds to be finished. I was missing driving him already.
Mia had gotten a car for her birthday mere days after mine. But her Acura, while nice, was nothing like my Silvia. But Mia had been driving us to school for all the time that Raidon had been laid up waiting on parts.
"Yes, could I speak to Giovanni Toretto please?"
I imagine Dom answered the phone and I imagine he knows both who was calling and why.
"Will he be back?" There was a pause while Mr Marks listened to the reply.
"I see. Is this Dominic?" Another pause.
"Well, is there any chance you could come get her? I have to send her home in the company of an adult...Great, see you soon then, I'm sure you remember where my office is Dominic."
Mr. Marks chuckled and I'm sure so had Dom. I was kind of upset about this whole Dom coming for me thing.
Dom's dad would have shared a look with me, patted my hand and taken me for an ice cream and an icepack for my face. He knew why I fought all the time I think. He didn't agree but I guess maybe he knew that since all I'd seen at home growing up was fighting that it was hard for me to respond any other way.
Dom got pissed at me for fighting so much. No that he'd fought much less. But he didn't like it when I did.
Dom arrived for me inside of 10 minutes and signed me out. We got into the RX-7 and started for home.
"What was this one over Let?" Dom asked, sounding disappointed.
"Nothin'." I mumbled back.
"God Letty. All you do is fight."
"I can't help it. What, you'd rather I let those buffies talk shit about me and beat on me and not do anything about it?"
"I'd rather you learned to walk away and learned that just cause some skank talks shit about you, about me, or about us it doesn't make it true."
"I know that. But it's still hard to know the whole school is likely talking about you."
"You're done in a few months anyway then you can just come work with me'n dad'n Vince. Don't make your last few months harder then they have to be by fighting all the time or getting expelled Letty. You wanna face a whole 'nother year of this crap?"
Dom knew what he was talking about.
"No, I don't want to 'pull a Dom' and do an extra year." I answered him with a shit eating grin.
He smiled back and pulled into a little off the way beach he and Mia call theirs.
"You don't want to pull a Dom huh?" He asked as he leaned onto my side of the small red sports car.
"No." I breathed out.
It was a lot later when we got back to the garage to find Van had returned and had been talking to my principal. I think he was starting to get disappointed himself with all my fighting.
Dom and I worked on my car for the rest of the afternoon and then went home.
So no, I didn't normally take shit quietly, I normally fought it out. But I'd learned that day that all the fighting wasn't a solution either. But Rome was right, it wasn't like me to just take it in silence either.
I'd let them see the real Letty from now on. A tough girl, with a better control of her temper that knows how to run her mouth, doesn't take shit, gives it instead, and takes care of herself first and foremost.
I worked on the car till 6. That was when Tej came over to me and tapped me on the shoulder.
"We racin tonight. You comin?"
"Oh hell yeah." I answered.
"Good. You should knock off early to get ready then."
"I'll do that."
Tej walked away and I smiled softly. It was on. Races. What I lived for.
I couldn't wait for night to come. I was going to kick some ass.
Chapter 22 – The Tough Girl
No more being something I'm not eh? Does that mean I get to put little miss bitchy in her place next time she pisses me off?
Oh, even better. I'll put her in her place in Spanish so she can know I've understood everything she's ever said. She should be unpleasantly shocked. The thoughts of it make me smile. Ah to put her in her place. What fun it will be.
Like the time I heard these two girls at school in the bathroom talking about taking my man. It was so fun to walk out of the stall and look them in their scared blue eyes as one stammered and the other tried to look tough.
They hadn't known I was there and once they did know the conversation stopped really fast. I walked up to the sink to wash my hands and they just looked at me like frightened little rabbits. As I was drying my hands off I looked at them again.
"Don't you have something to say to me?" I'd asked them with my typical 'I don't give a shit' attitude.
"Like what?" The bimbo trying to front like she was tough too had asked. Her friend just sort of cowered behind her.
"Like wouldn't you just love to break it down for me how you can take MY man from me? I mean, that is what you just said you and your whore friend could do right?"
"That's right." Tough bitch was keeping up the act. Good for her. I knew it would make it all the more fun when I got to make her grovel at my feet for me to leave her alone.
"I'll tell ya what. You and your friend can beat me up I'll give him to you." I answered her with a smirk. "If you both can beat me then I'll step back and push him your way. If I win you leave me'n him alone and stay away from races and his shop."
The skanks looked at each other like they didn't know if it was a trick or what that I said I would give him up if they could just beat me at a two on one fight in the ladies room. Never mind how many times I'd already been in shit for fighting on school property. With a look the two girls decided it would be worth a shot. I knew the only one who really wanted to go was the loudmouth one. The one who'd been all talk till she found out I was in the bathroom didn't want to fight me any more then she wanted to eat her teeth.
She should have thought of that before she let her idiot, bitchy friend talk for her. Because once they talked trash at me it was decided that they were leaving the bathroom with their perfect makeup rubbed off on the floor and their perfectly blonde hair stained red with blood from the hurt I was going to send their way.
"So, which one of you bitches wants to step first?" I'd asked them with a shit eating grin. I was never scared before or during a fight. Sometimes when it occurred to me how bad I could have gotten hurt I'd shake for a while after. Like the time I fought this huge dude in the back hallway of a club I was at. But that's another story.
'Tough chick' came at me. It was kind of comical because she clearly planned on slapping and clawing me to death. I don't bitch fight, I fight dirty. This girl planned on using her nails and no doubt pulling hair. It hadn't seemed to occur to her that my hair was tied up in a very sensible pony tail because I was going to work for Van after school and it had just been easier to chuck it up when I'd gotten out of the shower.
"I'm going to mess you up!" The blonde had yelled at me as she came at me, claws bared.
I dodged her and punched her in the gut. She doubled over in mostly shock I think, but a bit of pain too. Her friend discovered some balls and came at me then.
I sighed then. I really did. Her friend was another bitch slapin', face clawing, hair pulling pussy. They were hardly a challenge for a girl like me who was use to fighting the tough skanks we had around races and guys.
Some of those girls have been around and they can really fight. These girls had no clue.
I bopped the second one in the nose and she stopped in shock. Then the other one got back up and came at me again. So I decked her in the mouth.
The sissy one actually managed to scratch the side of my face at that point. I know it was my own stupid fault for thinking she was no threat. Anyone with fake bitch nails is always a threat in some sense. But I was so pissed she'd scratched me that I through a really hard punch into her face and blackened her eye really good. It started to swell almost immediately.
She started to cry, likely over how bad her face was going to look by that evening. Her friend came at me again. I ducked her pathetic attempt at punching me in the mouth and punched her in hers instead.
Like that made her mad she came at me even more ferociously. Bitch actually punched me in the face. She missed my nose and eye and some ring on her stupid hand cut my cheek. Then I was mad.
I rammed into her, took her down, sat on her chest and just started pummelling her. Her stupid friend tried to pull me off so I knocked her down and wailed on her for awhile.
The first girl somehow managed to get up and she kicked me in the ribs. It hurt like a son of a bitch. But I'm a lot like Dom when I fight too. The pain doesn't set in till later, at first the adrenaline just makes me want to fight and fight till I get put down for good or I win. I grabbed her leg and yanked. She fell backwards and hit her head off the concrete floor of the bathroom.
She got knocked out when she hit the floor. That scared me. I mean, I'd known I was gonna mess them up but I'd never planned on really hurting them.
In my shock of knocking the other bitch out, even if it was by accident I took my attention off the sissy girl. She'd been no trouble to take care of up till then but I think the fact her bitch friend wasn't moving scared some adrenaline into her. She managed to roll us over so she was sitting on me. Then she slapped me hard on my already cut cheek.
Pissed me right off. I threw her off me and go up faster then her. I kicked her in the head and cut her scalp. I'd predicted there'd be blood in that blonde hair at some point and I was right.
She came at me again and we locked up in the middle of the bathroom. We were still grappling for hold when some other chick came in to use the john. She saw one girl out cold on the floor and the two of us bleeding on each other and ran away. I thought she was just going to use another john but she came back with the big dykie gym teacher.
Ms Campbell pulled me and sissy girl apart and let us know with a look that any more fighting would not be a good idea. Then she went to check bigmouth girl. She was fine, just stunned but I knew I was in for it.
No matter what those two other girls had done to deserve what I'd done to them I was going to be the one in the most trouble. I was always fighting and I was hardly hurt while the other two were bruised and broken.
We were marched down to Principal Marks' office by Ms. Campbell and sat on opposite sides of the anteroom in hard plastic chairs. I crossed my arms and stared the other two down till they both looked away.
"You know what this means right?" I asked as soon as the gym teacher had gone back to ogling the running female students in her class and we were alone waiting for Mr. Marks to make an appearance.
The bigmouth looked at me but sissy girl just kept her eyes trained on the ground.
"What?" She asked me snottily.
"You stay the fuck away from Dom. I handed your ass to you and I'll do it again if you come anywhere near my man."
"I wouldn't really want a man whore like him anyway." Miss bitch answered in her most stuck up tone.
"Yeah, that's why you were going on about how much you wanted to be wit him and how big you think he is where it counts when you thought I wasn't in the room. Why you frontin? You know you want him, you know you can't have him and now you know if you even try to have him I'll hand your ass to you again. You and your whore friend aren't gonna be winnin' no beauty pageants any time soon anyways."
"I don't know what Dominic sees in you anyway Letty Rodriguez. You're more guy then girl anyway." The skank sneered at me, I don't know where she found the guts to do it, and looked me up and down like she found me wanting.
"You wanna come say that to my face?" I asked as I stood up. "Chinga tu madre asquerosa!" (Fuck your mother asshole) I made a gesture with my hand from under my chin in a menacing way. Blondie got a scared look in her eyes. Mr. Marks picked that moment to come out of his office. He had me sit back down with one cold look out of his ice blue eyes. I knew he'd heard me swear. And since he taught Spanish I knew he'd understood the whole damn thing.
"I'll see you first Jameel." He took loudmouth into his office. She came out about 15 minutes later looking scared.
"I got a week of detention." Jameel whispered to her friend but I over heard her.
"Stacy, I'll see you now." Mr Marks called skank number two into his office. So now they had names. He was leaving me for last because he was going to believe them. It was painfully obvious. It wasn't my fault people seemed to take my attitude as an invitation to fight me. Or that I'd been fighting life for so long I didn't know any other way to cope.
After another 15 minutes with Stacy Mr Marks sent her out and on her way. She looked just as upset as the last one had. I was really in for it. If he was going this hard on the Barbie squad he was gonna have it in for me.
"Leticia." He said shortly and I got up and followed him into his office.
"This is the 3rd fight in as many weeks! What is the matter with you?"
"That girl, Jameel, she was talking shit about me and she got in my face."
Mr Marks looked almost sad. That was scary.
"Letty," also scary, he never went with short forms of names, it was always formal with him, "there are always going to be people who don't like you, who get 'in your face'. You can not beat up every last one of them in the ladies room. You must learn to control that temper if you're ever going to make something of yourself."
"I already am 'making something of myself. All I want to do is work for Van in his garage and I already do that."
"Well then it's good that auto shop is the only class you are making over 80 in. You're a smart girl but you don't try and you have the biggest chip on your shoulder. There will always be a girl who's prettier or richer or has more things then you. That girl is out there for every other person in the world Miss Rodriguez. You have to learn to deal with it. And also when you have something everyone else wants you must accept the fact that others will try to take it from you. Have enough confidence in yourself to just let it slide."
He was just being honest. But I was only 17. I didn't want to hear it. It made me angry he was right. I did have a big chip on my shoulder about a lot of things. But anger was easier then admitting it hurt me when those girls called me names like tomboy or scruff or greaseball. Or that it hurt when the guys looked at me and made cracks like 'flat as a board, never been nailed'. If I could just show that I was tough enough that it didn't matter then I could let on it didn't hurt.
Mr Marks handed me a tissue to wipe the blood off my cheek.
"You want me to just let them talk about me all over the place?" I flopped back into my chair, crossed my arms and looked at the man who was only trying to be civil and lay it down straight for me for the first time ever.
"I want you to realize that violence only makes more violence. You're lucky those girls hurt you some too or I'd likely be forced to call the police and press charges Letty. A mutual brawl I can explain to the parents of those girls and convince them that it would mean all three of you would be up on charges. But Letty, you are a very strong young woman and you're going to seriously hurt someone someday if you don't learn to control that temper."
I sighed. He was right. Didn't mean I had to admit it.
"I guess." I mumbled. He sighed and ran a hand through his black hair.
"I'm going to have to send you home Letty and you're going to have a week of detention too."
"Fine."
"Should I even bother calling your father or should I call Mia's father right away instead?"
"You may as well call Van. It's not like my father gives a fuck and even if you did get a hold of him or my mother she'd be too coked out to drive and my dad would just come to beat my ass." I was sick of hiding it.
"Letty! Language please. I'm not one of your schoolyard friends with the same potty mouth. That said, why didn't you ever tell a councillor how bad it was for you at home? We all knew of course, that your parents couldn't take a very active role in your education since they never come to your conferences but we didn't know just how bad it was. We could help you if we knew, get you out of there."
"I don't know why I said that Mr. Marks. Things are fine. I pretty much live with Mia anyway. If you tell on my folks then I might end up in foster care. I'm 18 in less then a year anyway then I can just move into Van's. He's already said he doesn't mind."
I didn't want Mr. Marks to tell child services about how my home was. I wasn't really ever there anyway. That much was true.
"Fine Letty. But you can't ever tell anyone you told me about it or I could lose my job."
"Thanks Mr. Marks, you're alright."
"Alright, just wait there while I call Mr. Toretto."
I sat back and crossed my arms. Van would take me back to the garage with him and I'd forget my troubles while I worked on one of 'The Ladies' as Dom and his dad called them, or maybe I'd finally get the time to install my new HKS lowering springs into the Silvia. It had been at the garage for the last few weeks waiting for all the modds to be finished. I was missing driving him already.
Mia had gotten a car for her birthday mere days after mine. But her Acura, while nice, was nothing like my Silvia. But Mia had been driving us to school for all the time that Raidon had been laid up waiting on parts.
"Yes, could I speak to Giovanni Toretto please?"
I imagine Dom answered the phone and I imagine he knows both who was calling and why.
"Will he be back?" There was a pause while Mr Marks listened to the reply.
"I see. Is this Dominic?" Another pause.
"Well, is there any chance you could come get her? I have to send her home in the company of an adult...Great, see you soon then, I'm sure you remember where my office is Dominic."
Mr. Marks chuckled and I'm sure so had Dom. I was kind of upset about this whole Dom coming for me thing.
Dom's dad would have shared a look with me, patted my hand and taken me for an ice cream and an icepack for my face. He knew why I fought all the time I think. He didn't agree but I guess maybe he knew that since all I'd seen at home growing up was fighting that it was hard for me to respond any other way.
Dom got pissed at me for fighting so much. No that he'd fought much less. But he didn't like it when I did.
Dom arrived for me inside of 10 minutes and signed me out. We got into the RX-7 and started for home.
"What was this one over Let?" Dom asked, sounding disappointed.
"Nothin'." I mumbled back.
"God Letty. All you do is fight."
"I can't help it. What, you'd rather I let those buffies talk shit about me and beat on me and not do anything about it?"
"I'd rather you learned to walk away and learned that just cause some skank talks shit about you, about me, or about us it doesn't make it true."
"I know that. But it's still hard to know the whole school is likely talking about you."
"You're done in a few months anyway then you can just come work with me'n dad'n Vince. Don't make your last few months harder then they have to be by fighting all the time or getting expelled Letty. You wanna face a whole 'nother year of this crap?"
Dom knew what he was talking about.
"No, I don't want to 'pull a Dom' and do an extra year." I answered him with a shit eating grin.
He smiled back and pulled into a little off the way beach he and Mia call theirs.
"You don't want to pull a Dom huh?" He asked as he leaned onto my side of the small red sports car.
"No." I breathed out.
It was a lot later when we got back to the garage to find Van had returned and had been talking to my principal. I think he was starting to get disappointed himself with all my fighting.
Dom and I worked on my car for the rest of the afternoon and then went home.
So no, I didn't normally take shit quietly, I normally fought it out. But I'd learned that day that all the fighting wasn't a solution either. But Rome was right, it wasn't like me to just take it in silence either.
I'd let them see the real Letty from now on. A tough girl, with a better control of her temper that knows how to run her mouth, doesn't take shit, gives it instead, and takes care of herself first and foremost.
I worked on the car till 6. That was when Tej came over to me and tapped me on the shoulder.
"We racin tonight. You comin?"
"Oh hell yeah." I answered.
"Good. You should knock off early to get ready then."
"I'll do that."
Tej walked away and I smiled softly. It was on. Races. What I lived for.
I couldn't wait for night to come. I was going to kick some ass.