Chapter 2- isn't life peachy?
This time outside the art room people were already filtering in. I followed not daring to look at the teacher but I could feel the stairs. Not just of Miss Fern (it said her name on the board) but of every curious little face. I walked up to the front glancing at the teacher.
'You can take any seat, don't worry, this class is a good one.' she didn't sound full of hate. I looked up at her narrowing my eyes. She was smiling...was it a face for the crowd? Possibly. I took a seat anyway. There were no desks here only large tables already covered in papers and glue. Well the larger the table to more art could be done I guess. I took a seat at the back, mainly because all the rest of the space was taken that and I didn't want to stay close to the teacher. The table was clean, it wasn't that bad...I had no idea why nobody sat here.
'Do I know you?' I glanced up at a very...no extremely large boy. He was glaring at me (what was with all the glaring today?). I looked him up and down, his height must even rival that gorilla of a principle and then there was the width- not to be mean but he was large in every sense (I mean is stomach). His dirty blond hair was grown long and tied back into a knot so it wouldn't get in his muddy brown eyes. In all he looked rather terrifying to the casual observer.
'You shouldn't, I'm new.' I looked away from him putting my bad on the table. I heard him grunt and then give up. It was clear I was meant to avoid this big guy after all. Well it didn't really matter.
'Ok class, we have a new student as you can see.' the teacher gestured to me 'Miss Ashley Spinelli started late but her record shows brilliant art so be nice.' she grinned in my direction...so that was it, she had already been told to be nice to me. I put my head down to the table as I felt everyone stair at me all the more.
'Anyway, get out your things and continue from where you left off last lesson. Ashley, you can just draw anything today and hand it in so I know what you can do.' I nodded getting up to grab some paper from the front. This was how it always started. Sample work to begin with and then, eventually, I just fall into place with everyone else. No longer sticking out, no longer anyone other than another classroom face. I headed back to the table to find I was still being watched by the large boy but something was different- he wasn't showing hatred.
'What? Do you think this paper is for you? Cuz if you think that I'm afraid you're pretty stupid.' he didn't answer. 'Ok, well if your ability for speech comes back feel free to answer.'
'Mickey.' he said loudly, I looked up at him. He still looked dazed, just like if someone had punched him square across the jaw.
'So what? You have a name? Everyone does, I don't really want to know it though.' I started drawing trying to block out the awkward staring. People in this school really had issues.
'Mickey Blumberg.' he said again. This did strike a chord. I felt my eyes widen to the point where I feared that they'd fall from my sockets. He looked like some bully! Grey shirt and black suit trousers masked the once calm natured boy. Now that he said his name I could really see the boy I used to know. If his hair was shorted there would have been no doubt about his identity...but he had changed...he was large but not necessarily fat. He was defiantly far too bulky for most guys but still...it looked like he had been looking after himself. That thought at least made me feel more relaxed.
'You've grown!' I grinned crossing my legs on my chair.
'You haven't. Still probably the smallest girl in school.' he grinned back 'why are you here? I thought when you said your last goodbye that was it. So long forever!' he put his hand to his head dramatically before winking at me.
'I thought so to.' I sighed putting my pencil back onto the paper. 'Last week my parents brought me back here...no offence but I really don't feel like sticking around for long.'
'Ah, now I don't blame you.' his voice was oddly sad. I looked up from my sketch. 'Things have changed.' he rested his head on his hand leaning forward. 'When you left everything changed.' I carried on drawing fast.
'Well that's obvious you big lug. We're meant to grow up.' I muttered sketching away all the way though the lesson.
The hour passed and I headed to the door with the rest of the chirping kids all eagerly heading to their next lesson.
'Ashley, a word please.' Miss Fern called me back from the door. Mickey stud in the doorway for a moment- clearly waiting for me. I looked back to the blond leaning against her desk. I held my sketch out to her. He nodded taking it from me. 'You're really good then, it wasn't just a bluff.' she straightened up. There was some sort of disappointment in her tone as she looked down at my work. She continued to look down at my drawing for a moment lost in thought. I crossed my arms looking back to the door.
'I have another lesson to get to.' I said clearly enough for her to look back up at me. 'Is that all you want?' she fixed her eyes on mine moving closer.
'I'd appreciate it if you didn't tell anyone about what you might have over heard earlier.' she whispered her eyes flicking up briefly to look at Mickey in the door way. So that was this was about, the false kindness and the smiles. I nodded gravely seeing how things were all meant to go.
'Sure. Don't worry about it.' I nodded walking back. 'I'll be sure to do that.' I turned and sped up to reach Mickey closing the door behind me. I wasn't about to get caught up in school drama.
'So have you met up with anyone from the old gang?' Mickey asked once we were on our way up the stairs. I snorted keeping my head down.
'No, I didn't want to come back here. Do you know how awkward it is after being away for so long? I mean you're nice and everything but it was heard enough moving away once, I know I'm going to again so what's the point?' I sighed; I didn't want to come back here. All I ever wanted was to forget this. The friends and the lousy teachers- all that was when I was a child. I had changed and by the looks of it so had everyone else. We weren't friends anymore.
'That's a very sad way of looking at life.' Mickey slowed down. I waited at the top for him. I looked down watching his pant, ok maybe he wasn't as healthy as I thought he was but he was defiantly getting better. The old Mickey would have never made it up this far.
'Well do you still talk to them? Gus and Gretchen? How about Vince? Or maybe even TJ?' he didn't answer.
'No, but not though lack of trying.' he caught up with me red faced. 'I'll show them to you.' he bent over panting. 'Show me your time table.' I held it out for him. 'Study period.' he smiled. 'Good, come on.' he straightened up and carried on walking.
'no.' I hugged my arms. 'I don't want to. I told you, I'm probably going to move and don't want it.' I put my time table back in my bag. 'I'm going to study.' I muttered walking down the hall and vanishing into the herd of students. This was the way it was meant to be.
I went straight to study period with the words of that giant idiot still in my head, why did he have to talk about them. I wasn't even sure how I felt about them now. Maybe if I had stayed they'd mean more to me but I didn't and so they didn't. Why should I mean anything to them anyway? It had been eight years! That's eight years of not seeing each other every day, helping each other in tests, chatting, laughing or playing. The gang was gone, that was just how it was.
'Yhea, that's the new girl. I heard that she get in a fight with Jasper.' a group of girls walked past me while I sat in study period.
'She better not have left a mark on him. Dirty little tramp.' I looked over my shoulder at them. They scarpered. The moral back bone in this school was really amazing. Glaring at new girls, teachers having affair with students and now some kind of gossip mill and instant judgment. Not even a day and I had a reputation. Picking off where I left- I was the tough midget yet again! I sighed putting my iPod head phones in listening to the loudest class of guitars and drums I could find. I just needed to draw- I didn't need to think what everyone else thought of me. It's just going to get me raising my fists again.
'So you're here.' the voice was muffled, I was surprised I heard even that much over my music. I just carried on drawing hoping that they'd get the message. 'I heard you were talking to Michael Blumberg.' I glanced up to see a pair of sharp blue eyes staring down at me. Brown hair flaring up over his head- an untamed appearance yet he didn't really seem to care. His bone structure from this angel was amazing, a very strong jaw line and high firm cheek bones. I stared up for a moment wondering the best way to try and draw this person. In this light you could possibly mistake them for some kind of Adonis- fair skin, a sprinkle of cheeky freckles but not enough to draw away from his stern eyes and strong muscular frame. For the first time I really wanted to draw someone- and I hadn't drawn an actual person since I was about nine. I followed the lines of monsters and scenery but...this person was inspiring. I took out my head phones.
'Sorry, wasn't listening.' the boy sat down. Then it hit, I had already seen this face, the jerk from this morning who tried to steal my book. 'By that I mean get lost, who said you could sit down?' the light and angel had dazed me; now that I look at him again he was nothing more than I fucking idiot.
'You were talking to Michael Blumberg.' he didn't move. His face was almost grave as he carried on talking. 'Do you know what that means?' I honestly didn't care.
'I have a feeling you're going to tell me.' I folded my arms staring at the clock; I really had a long hour again.
'He's not the type of person you should get involved with.' he just continued to talk. 'Rotten down to the very centre and I have to say-a new girl should have been warned.' ok, now I was a bit annoyed.
'Shut up will ya.' I carried on drawing, my fist clenched round my pencil. 'Mickey is an old friend of mine and I don't like people talking shit about him.' I pressed down too hard on my pencil, the led snapped onto the paper. I growled slamming the pencil on the table. 'Can you just get lost?' I looked back to him.
'Why am I annoying you?' he folded his arms putting his legs on the table. His shoe landing dead on my sketch book creasing the page. 'You can't expect to have a table all to yourself.' ok, now it was just doing this on poorly to piss me off.
'Move your foot.' I muttered staring at the page his leg rested on. He started humming. 'Can you hear me? move.' he looked at me smirking.
'Why? oh.' he nodded reaching forward to take my book. 'I believe I was interrupted when I last tried to read this.' he started flicking through the pages 'you know your art work is really interesting. Kinda creepy.' he hummed louder flicking through the pages. 'But I do like the picture on the front, looks like an old photograph.' he closed the book pointing to the picture I had drawn on the front ages ago. 'Who are they?' I looked at the front of the book; I had sketched out that picture many times. It was the one acceptation to the no drawing people policy. The only people I couldn't forget. The old gang; Mickey, Gus, Gretchen, Vince, TJ and myself all leaning on each other laughing. It was of the summer before fifth grade and we were the closest we had ever been. But it was over now- none of those people existed now.
'Give back that book before I tare you hand off with it.' I tried to take the book from him but he moved it away. He stared at the front for a while.
'You know I think I know some of these people.' he nodded leaning forward on the chair. 'Yhea, the tall big one is obviously Michael. I mean only he could be so fat.' I gritted my teeth again trying to slowly cool myself down. I wouldn't let him get to me.
'This girl here, the one with the glasses. That looks a bit like this girl called Gretchen. You know I think she's just the opposite of Mickey here, smart- too smart. She makes the rest of us feel like dirt every day and you know I bet she's anorexic. You always know when I girl is anorexic cuz they have no breasts.' he was speaking really loud now. I wouldn't be surprised if the whole class could hear him.
'This guy on the end, yhea, that almost looks like Gustav but you know healthy. That guy is always ill looking. Best avoid him or you might catch something. I bet if he had the change he'd run away from himself. He's a massive coward you know. And this one. This one with the basket ball looks just like Vincent LaSalle' he spat the name. 'You'll never find a bigger fake in the world. I mean look at that smile. He's clearly just thinking of ways to screw you over.' I stud up throwing my hands on the table.
'JASPER!' the teacher called from the desk. 'That's enough. Put the girl's book down and go straight to the principal's office.' I glared at the boy as he dropped my book on the table. 'I said move It.' the teacher ordered. The boy, Jasper, snarled at me.
'Going to the principal's office twice in one day all because of the new girl. this whomps.' I folded my arms watching him smirk and head to the door. There was no way that...it couldn't be... the boy left and the class continued talking energetically. I grabbed my bag and book and went to the desk.
'I need the toilet.' I said bluntly. The teacher didn't look impressed. He wasn't going to give me the pass. I bit my lip leaning forward. 'You know, it's kinda awkward but I have...ladies problems.' I straightened up to watch this take its full effect. In no time I was given a pass and was running out the door to catch up.
I saw the boys back, head hanging down as he slowly marched to the main reception.
'TJ!' I called. He stopped in his tracks. 'That's right. You jerk with the messy hair and bad attitude.' he looked over his shoulder; he was smirking right at me. I couldn't move, now that I knew who he was I felt myself freeze over. There was no way this guy was him, there was no change. He slowly walked over to me his smirk growing with every step.
'It took you long enough, Spinelli.' he wrapped his arms round me tightly almost collapsing in a full on bear hug. This was so different to the many other hugs I had got form him. He was taller for a start and completely covered me without any effort needed. His body was toned and hard under his shirt- this was sooo different to him as a chubby ten year old. But he was still warm no matter how strong he had gotten. I dropped my things hugging him back, I didn't even know why. He was such a jerk before he was still the arse that messed with my book and insulted my old friends. But it was TJ! The goofy, cheeky, mischievous boy I knew...no. I pushed him back fast staring at him.
'No, you don't get to touch me.' I scooped up my things and quickly fastened my book in my bag. 'I'm pissed off at you.'
'Then why haven't you hit me yet?' he grinned 'you haven't changed much.' he was still grinning. 'I bet you've moved back to your old house too.' I had but I wasn't about to tell him. 'Still feisty and tiny. I can't believe you haven't really grown that much.'
'You've changed.' I said clearly. 'What the hell was that back there? Insulting the guys like that? Sure you must have grown up but was that needed?' his face turned grim again.
'Things change Spinelli. Things you don't need to worry about.' I narrowed my eyes looking him up and down.
'You should know that I'm not going to take that.' he didn't say a thing. 'You knew I would come out after you and I want more than a hug and a little smirk. Give me an explanation now.' he looked down at his watch.
'Aren't they going to think you're taking a dump if you take much longer.' he half turned to face away from me.
'That's not an issue for me. See growing up as a girl gives you a whole new excuse for tardiness.' a saw a shadow of a smile across his face again. 'now I want a full explanation to what the hell you were saying and why you had to be a dick to get me to listen you could have just said "hey, I'm TJ, REMEMBER ME!" or something like that. I'm not that slow.' he sighed looking back to me.
'Fine. But I don't want to talk about it in school.' he scratched the back of his head. I folded my arms before striding past him. 'Where you going?'
'We're skipping school so you can answer all my questions without being a dick I want to punch in the mouth.' I looked back at him 'come on.' he frowned not moving an inch.
'On your first day? That's a bit risky, they'll catch us anyway.' I dug around in my bag fishing out my keys.
'I have a truck and I'm going to run you over with it if you try to come up with any other excuses.' he joined me as we headed to the nearest exit.
It was easy to just hop in my truck and drive off, no one stopped us and frankly I didn't care if they had tried to. I drove in silence all the way to the old lake we spent all those summers at long ago.
'Get out.' I muttered turned the engine off and jumped out of the divers seat myself. I looked back at him next to y truck looking a little smug. 'What is it now?'
'You remember everything, don't you?' he walked to the short peer sitting down. I followed just to stare out at the misted waters. It was still quite cold- it was winter after all but the lake was not frozen over. There was merely a frost in the air that skimmed over the surface of the lake. The trees round the area were stripped bare to leave only dark weedy branches.
'Well I've lived all over now, New York, Main, Boston, Florida; I've even been to Canada for a while. But in all those places I've only stayed a few months. So really this place has always been home. I can't really forget it.' I sighed looking over the lake. Even if I said that it was all alien to me. I had spent too much time away from this place...it was like returned after a war. Everything looked broken and diminished. I looked back to TJ, even he looked so different. He had grown up too much without me. My eyes felt as if they were burning as water swelled to the surface. I quickly looked away rubbing my sleeve across my face.
'You ok?' I felt TJ warm hard move across my back. I moved away from him across the peer.
'Yes, just the cold air...I forgot to blink.' I coughed looking back at him. 'Now questions.'
'Yes, that's why you dragged me out into the cold.' he looked at my shirt. 'Aren't you cold? Didn't you bring a coat?' I folded my arms, no I really wasn't cold. 'Fine, but if you get ill don't come near me.'
'Don't worry about that.' took a deep breath catching his eye again. 'Tell me what happened to the guys.'
'You know. We fell apart.' now it was his turn to look away. 'We weren't really getting along anyway- we all wanted to go different school, then you moved and that annoyed us so we just gave up. We had better things on our minds then trying to keep that friendship afloat.' I sighed letting a cloud of breath escape from his mouth. 'You saw it was going downhill.' he ran his hand back through his hair. 'It was messy back then.'
'You straight out insulted them though. What happened back then could have been fixed but you just completely trashed them.' I glared at them. 'There was no need.'
'Yhea, I got that.' he groaned. 'But after you left things got worse.' he leant forward 'middle school sure was fun.' he smiled. 'You know we almost patched things up. That was when you sent letters to us. You kept in touch and we all got together so we could share you but...you know...we all started to change. Gretchen was taking tons of exams early- she still is now. She's constantly preparing for some kind of exam or experiment so she gets all stressy and unbearable to be with.' he took a deep breath before continuing. 'She just kept snapping at us and then decided she was better off alone. That or with more intelligent people who "shared her pain" so we just left her to it.'
'Vince got a girl friend about a year after you left and there were a few arguments about her. She tried to take your place and that didn't rest well so they skipped off. Gus went ill- I mean seriously ill and missed a lot of school. He missed out on a lot and the few times he actually showed up at school every one tried to avoid him. You know how kids are.' he glanced back at me. 'We were kids, nothing was wrong with that. But Gus was singled out, almost like he was a new kid all over again. You remember how he freaked out when he first met us? Well it was like that but on over drive. It looked like a zombie attacking the living so he soon became a zombie- the contagious type people avoided. No one wanted to be a zombie with him and he didn't even want the gang to help him out. He just saw himself as a victim.' he hissed spitting into the lake. The water rippled as his saliva made contact. 'It was pathetic. He and Vince were just pathetic waists of space.' he took another deep breath. He closed his eyes continuing.
'One of the biggest changes was with Mickey- he got bullied. You know because of his weight and I guess one day he snapped and started picking on everyone else. That was a scary moment. He went crazy and jumped at any chance. I think he'd calmed down now but everyone knows what he's done. And he did some pretty horrible stuff to people.' his eyes darkened as he spoke. 'We all turned bitter, bad experiences changed us. Gretchen's stress took away her childhood, Gus's illness, Mickey turning on everyone. Vince's girlfriend turned out to be some lying cheating bitch so he kinda lost faith in us all. I mean everyone, it wasn't pretty.'
'And you?' I interrupted. He looked back at me. 'Why are you such a twat?' he grinned
'In my defence I've always been like this.' I raised my brow. 'No?'
'You used to be cheeky but when I first met you today I wanted to kill you. You've changed so much, you're unrecognisable.' his grin fell. Again, a darkness came over his face.
'So you just take a stranger to an abandoned lake alone?' he leaned forwards hand gripping the edge of the peer.
'It wouldn't be the first time. If I want to know something I get to know it.' I pushed him back. 'And despite you being a jerk you were part of the best group of people I ever had the change to know.' he looked away from me. 'That and I could always toss you into the lake if you proved to be too much.' his smile appeared again.
'Fancy trying that?' I folded my arms waiting. He groaned again relaxing. 'Ok...well I was mad. I didn't want you leaving and then everyone changed. I ran out of friends after a year and a half of middle school. That kinda made me bitter too. Just by seeing what life threw at the people close to me...Mom died soon after that which didn't help...Becky moved out and Dad's always at work so yet again I'm alone.'
'Sorry.' I muttered as he looked back. 'I didn't know- you're mom.'
'It's fine. By that time you stopped writing- which pissed me off more. So I'm abandoned...can you blame me?' I hummed looking away from him.
'I guess not but you're still a jerk. And why didn't you tell me it was you? You knew it was me.' I held back the bitterness in my own voice now. 'Should I call you Jasper now? Everyone in school does now-'
'no.' he stopped me. 'To you I'm TJ or Teej.' he sighed. 'And I'm aloud to hate you.' he caught my eye. 'You started off all the leaving. You were the first- everyone else just followed. If you didn't go then things would have been alright. Then you come back to town without telling anyone, you don't recognise me and then go ahead and talk to Mickey! Of all people! You chose him!'
'I didn't choose. He told me in art class. I had no idea!' I stud up heading back to my truck. 'He was the first person to speak to me without being an idiot! So Teej before you start hating me just make sure to think, I didn't do a thing.' he stud up following me.
'So you just going to leave me here?' he was fast, already he was almost on top of me.
'Why not? I mean I have to give you a reason for being a jerk, you know fixing the world order and all.' I turned to open my door but he was already behind me slamming his hand against the door firmly. I turned round glaring up at him. His breath was pushing down onto my face as we stud there.