Chapter 4. Strength, some have it and some don't
The next day arrives all too soon and as I get on the bus I cannot help but feel a little weird at the prospect of having to deal with an actual fight today.
Thankfully I am the only one awake and get dressed without anyone noticing I'm awake. If any of my family saw me right now they'd know something was off. For breakfast I quickly grab a few pickled onions and eat as I pack my lunch in a daze. Once all that is finished Sarah and my Mom finally come downstairs and are surprised when I put pancakes on the table for them.
"Did you poison these," Sarah giggles.
"No why?"
"You just aren't a morning person," Mom says.
"Times change," I tell her cryptically. She gives me a stern look and I sigh, "And maybe I'm nervous to see if I made the team."
"Honey you'll be fine. Hurry up and get dressed so you don't miss the bus."
"Yes Mom," I yell at her from the top of the steps. I don't even pay attention to what is going on as I grab a random pair of jeans and a random tee-shirt. I don't really care about anything at the moment.
Dressed I go downstairs and ruffle Sarah's hair before I walk outside and wait for the bus. It pulls up and I walk up the stairs and sit in my usual sit with Sam, only today Lindsay is there too.
"What are you doing Linds?" I ask.
"Nice way to greet your best friend," she jokes and punches my arm. "Plus Brian's sick so I had no ride.
"Not funny," I mumble and sink into my seat.
I see Sam staring at me strangely and I shrug at him. Of course he's Sam so he doesn't listen to me, "Dude if this is about the fight just chill. You could have said no when Dylan got you into this mess."
"And what look like a fucking pansy, I don't think so."
"Wait what fight?"
"Nothing," Sam and I say at the same time.
"Seriously tell me," she pleads.
"Dylan got Matt into a fight with Bill since Matt crushed him during wrestling yesterday."
Her face lights up, "You mean you beat Bill! That's fantastic!" She reaches over to my seat and gives me an awkward hug before her smile turns into a glare. "And I'm going to cut that jerk's balls off for getting you into a fight."
"Lindsay you would really do that to your boyfriend?"
"Yeah, his idiocy could get Matt killed. And Matt you aren't off the hook either. You should have said no."
"I couldn't, I just have this strange feeling that I'd rather get hurt than go down without a fight," I explain.
"Idiot, and Sam you could have stopped this!"
"But what would have been the fun in that," he complains and we all laugh at him.
The three of us walk into school and Dylan comes up and brings Lindsay in for a kiss as Anna rolls her eyes as she trails right behind Dylan.
"Do you two ever do anything besides make-out," she jokes.
"Yes we have intellectual conversations," Dylan supplies.
"About what?" I question.
"Um how we are so hot that we resemble Aphrodite and Ares."
"Wow you pay attention in class," Sam laughs.
Before anyone can reply Bill and his gang, and I mean the word gang literally as in tattoos and street fights, walk up to us and Bill punches his hand. "Meet me in the cafeteria so we don't cause a scene," he says before walking away.
"So the rumors are true?" Anna asks.
"What rumors?"
"That you are fighting Bill," she says simply.
"Well then yes."
"Damn it Matt are you suicidal?"
Before I can answer Dylan steps in, "Usually I'd agree with you, but I swear Matt can beat him without a problem."
"Can we change the subject off of me?"
"In a second," Sam says. "Here I figured since you were going to need some strength health food is a good idea so take this." He throws me an ice cold thermos. "Eat it now."
"Um Sam I'm not fighting until lunch and I have a whole thing of pickled onions for right before."
"So you can kill him with bad breath," Lindsay groans and Anna laughs.
"Bitch eat it now or else."
Rolling my eyes I open it and laugh as I see the mostly melted pistachio ice cream. "Man you know I hate this stuff. And I take back what I said about it looking like puke, melted it looks like puke."
We all laugh and head our separate ways to our classes. I walk towards biology and am ecstatic when I see a woman standing at the front of the class. Something about her strikes me as comforting and strange at the same time.
She is relatively short and is wearing a dress with a design that resembles ropes. I see some girls snickering at her instead of flirting with me like usual. The dress wasn't the weirdest part about her though. I swear her eyes were the same weird color as mine.
People always tell me my emerald eyes were astonishing and girls gush over them, something I use to my advantage. Neither Mom nor Dad have emerald eyes. Mom's eyes are blue and Dad's eyes are brown so I've never known where I got my strange coloring from.
Besides her eyes her hair is a mess and I hear people whispering about that too as the bell rings.
"Hello class," she says.
"Good morning," we all say. Well the majority of the class and it isn't said with respect.
"My name is Ms. Tall and I will be your teacher for a substantial period of time."
"What happened to Mr. Smith," my friend Madison calls from the back.
"From what I heard he had an accident," the teacher says. "Now I know you were learning about the digestive system, but we are starting something a little different today. Can anyone guess what it is?"
People guess and none of the guesses are right, including mine. Suddenly my head starts to hurt and random pictures of this woman flash through my brain. Without thinking I raise my hand, "Mutations. And to start with we will look at frogs."
Ms. Tall smiles at me as if I just handed her the winning lottery ticket. "Correct, Mr.…."
"Matt Nash," I tell her.
"Well Mr. Nash here is right. Frogs are a great example of how mutations work in almost every organism you will meet. The major exception is wolves," she continues and I swear she is staring at me.
Class ends and I walk to English class with Madison. We used to be friends in Elementary school, but drifted apart over the years until this year when we reconnected a little bit.
"Wasn't that teacher strange," she says in her gossip voice.
"I guess. Something about her was kind of cool though. I don't know she seemed nice."
"You're getting soft Matt, she was a major freak," she laughs as we go into English.
As always I tune out my teachers in both math and English. Instead all I can think about is how nervous I am feeling right now. Not so much about the fight, but I really don't want to get in trouble.
Thankfully as I walk into the locker room I notice that Sam isn't messing with my stuff. We change in a comfortable silence and grabbing one of my water bottles I head to the field and we meet up with Anna.
"Today we are running two miles," Coach Pearson tells us and I hear most people groan in aggravation. Sam and I look at each other and laugh. For us this is nothing. Coach Pearson used to make us do three miles and suicides during football season.
"So not fair," Anna whines and I elbow her as she scowls at me.
"It's nothing Anna; I can carry you if you want."
"Bastard," she laughs.
"Love you too!"
"How about a bet then," she says.
"I'm listening. But I'm not hitting a girl so no fights."
"Sexist much, but okay I wouldn't want to fight you anyway. If you can run two miles in 8 minutes you get to pick the rest."
"Really? Why?"
"Cause I suck at that stuff and you're the one running."
"Okay so if I run it in 8 minutes or less you are going on a date with me this weekend."
She blushes and nods before joining her other friends in stretching.
"Dude you totally just asked Anna out!" Sam says.
"I guess I did."
"Wait until Dylan hears about this. I didn't know you liked her."
"To be honest I didn't either," I blush as we finish stretching and with one last gulp of my Gatorade I run when coach blows his whistle.
My mind isn't focused on the running. Instead I'm wondering why I asked Anna out. Yeah she's cute and all and I love her, but our relationship is that of a brother and sister. I have no idea why I asked her out at all.
This is going to drive me crazy. Coach blows his whistle as I pass him, but I ignore him and keep on running to clear my head.
After my second time around, the course is a mile, I stop at Coach and notice that the only other person here is some Sophomore I didn't know very well from football. Guess I didn't get my time after all.
Sam finishes a minute later and sits down next to me. "Damn I didn't know you could run that fast!"
"What do you mean?"
"I mean you have your date."
"No I don't I heard Jim's time was 9:00 so I came in after him."
"Oh, but you were running as if you were in the Olympics."
I roll my eyes, "Stop exaggerating."
He gives me an exasperated sigh and suddenly Coach is calling us over to him. We walk up to him and he gives me an odd look.
"Yes Coach," Sam says.
"Sam have you noticed anything unusual about Nash?"
It annoys me that he calls me by my last name, I prefer Matt.
"No sir, he's just Matt."
"Hello I am right here! And no I am not doing steroids."
"Are you sure?" Coach asks. "Matt you finished at a record time."
"Jim finished running first so why isn't he here?"
He shakes his head, "Matt you ran three miles. When you passed me the second time my watch told me 6:13. That's amazing! And three in 9:15. A mile in three minutes is not normal for a 14 year old. I saw you drinking something before you ran. Is it some new steroid?"
"No sir, it's just my Gatorade I drink all the time."
He gives me a look of authority that says 'I don't believe you' but allows us to leave to change.
"So you have your date," Sam exclaims as we change.
"I guess I do," I frown as I change. I still don't know why I asked her out, but I'll go with the flow.
In History class I tell Dylan about what happened during gym and he smiles, "About time you got a girl dude. I swear half the school throws themselves at you and you act as if it doesn't matter. I thought you were gay for a moment there. Not that that's a problem or anything."
"Bastard," I tell him. "I just didn't want a girl to go out with me because of a stupid chick bet. But can we get back to work now?"
"Nerd," he scoffs but starts to flip through his text book. "How about we research the feminist movement so we can talk about women and bras?"
"Pervert," I laugh.
"And that matters why?"
I ignore that comment and think for a minute, "Come on you know me I want to research a war."
"That could be easy. How about the Civil War or WWI or WWII?"
"Everybody's going to pick those," I protest and suddenly my head hurts just like it did in biology and strange words float through my mind. "How about the War of Scars?"
"What the hell is that?"
"I don't know," I admit. "I must have read about it somewhere." A total lie I have no idea what it is or why I blurted it out.
"Well if you do the research then I'm game."
"Never mind any other ideas?"
"Nada, you're the nerd not me."
I think for a moment, "Battle strategies."
"That could work," he says through pursed lips and we start to work on out project until the end of class.
By the time we get to the cafeteria Dylan, Sam, Lindsay, Anna, and some other friends of mine are flanking me and I want to scream. This is becoming ridiculous. I see Bill walking up to us and I close the distance between us.
"Here's the deal we are going to the back where no teachers ever go and there aren't any cameras."
"Understood."
Our two groups walk outside and eventually everyone splits apart leaving me and Bill in the middle of everyone. I gulp in anticipation and suddenly am only partially listening as we go over the conditions we made yesterday.
Once I nod in agreement we shake hands and he suddenly punches me hard enough to leave a bruise. He tries to kick me and I dodge it and use his size to my advantage and when he strikes me I quickly move out of his way so that his momentum sends him flying.
Thank god I took physics last year!
Without warning he lands a blow to my head and I fall down onto the hard concrete bleeding. I wipe the blood off of my hand and lick it off of my lips so that I look better and am suddenly parched.
I don't know how to explain it, but I was thirstier and hungrier than I had ever been in my life. Thankfully Bill decides his shoulder needs to be reset, I must have dislocated it but I don't remember doing that.
During our short break my friends surround me, but I ignore them and eat a pickles onion and chug the rest of my water to satisfy me.
We get in positions again and this time I feel a lot stronger. Without warning I attack him and he's lying on the ground with a bloody nose and a concussion. I lean over his head, blocking everybody from our view and without understanding what I was doing I close in as if I was whispering in his ear.
However it was as if I was in an out of body experience and suddenly my finger wipes the blood off of his face and I stick my finger in my mouth before helping him up.
He glares at me, 'Everybody leave now," he commands and everyone leaves only I know they are only behind the dumpster. "Why'd you help me up?"
"I won fair and square. I wasn't going to let a petty argument stand in the way of being the better person. And by the way the terms we made are off. Wrestle or don't; I couldn't care less. But what I do know is that you are good at it and I shouldn't take that away from you because of my stupid friend."
I stick my hand out and for a moment I swear he's going to be the better person and shake my hand, only instead he punches me in the jaw and takes another swing at my temple and all I see is black.