Chapter Three: Rolling Girl
Meg was quiet.
Staring at the ground through her battered glasses, she didn't move a muscle or speak a single word to Principle Sheppard despite his expectant expression. His eyes took in her clumsily bandaged hand and the small bloodstain on her shoulder, then flitted up to her disheveled brown hair and tired eyes. Even though they were half hidden by her hair, she was sure that the bags beneath them made her already pale face seem gaunt.
This wasn't the first time she'd been sent to the headmaster's office, and it wouldn't be the last, but just like all the other times during the last three years of school... for some bizarre reason, all he did was look at her.
He always waited for her to speak rather than say anything.
She'd never really understood why... after all, this was the same man who'd once suspended her brother for having the worst grades in the whole school. Surely she would be expelled due to all the damages done to school property. Even if the incidents hadn't really been her fault, everyone would blame her, and because there wasn't a way to prove her innocence, she would go down in flames.
With a quiet sigh, she finally lifted her eyes, locking them onto her principle's steely gray ones.
Mr. Sheppard had to be around forty years old... he was overweight, and his dark brown hair was shot through with gray... but even though his face looked a little world-weary, his eyes were somehow kinder than most, even when he was looking at her.
He also had a good sense of style: the one thing that hadn't changed about him even now, at the start of her last year as a high schooler, was that every single day he wore a new tie.
Today, he was wearing one with piano key designs.
"I like your tie," she finally mumbled.
"Well," Mr. Sheppard murmured, lifting an eyebrow. "I assumed you'd be speaking up soon, but I surely didn't think you'd try ass-kissing."
Meg winced, then looked away, slumping down in the chair a bit.
"I'm not saying I like your tie because I'm hoping to get out of trouble," she sighed. "I'm in big trouble, so what? I still like your tie…"
Hearing that, he grinned and leaned back in his seat, then picked up the paper on his desk.
"You broke a window," he said simply. "The report I was given says you got angry and threw your chair through it."
Meg winced again, then decided there wasn't a point in denying it.
After all, even if she tried to tell the truth, nobody would believe her.
She was nothing.
"Yes, I did," she said in a deadened voice. "I... I was angry today, and I... I lost my temper."
The man's eye twitched and he slowly looked down at his desktop, nostrils flaring.
Then, taking a deep breath, he pulled something out of his desk and Meg looked at it when he set it down between them.
A video cassette.
She glanced up at him in confusion to find that he was giving a kind, but very stern look.
"I don't appreciate you lying to me, Megan," he quietly told her, making her blink. "I want to show you something."
Gripping the cassette, he stood up from his desk and walked over to the flat screen television resting on the wall across the room. Flicking it on, he pushed the video tape into the extremely old VCR and pressed play.
The screen flickered a bit with snow... but then, what looked like security camera footage met her eyes. She blinked again when she saw herself standing by the window, backing away from four hulking boys... flailing as she was lifted into the air... then, forcibly thrown through the window.
Everyone crowded around and pointed fingers at her through the broken glass.
Meg went bone white and looked away from the screen when Mr. Sheppard paused it using the remote.
"Many of the students and staff are not aware of this," her principle sighed, rubbing his forehead, "but there are security surveillance cameras everywhere in this school. The only places that aren't under watch are the school bathrooms and the locker rooms. Everyone's parents were informed several years ago, but since this school has students from a relatively small community, there's rarely been a need to rely on the security cameras. But they are indeed there, Miss Griffin."
"I... I..." Meg stammered, slowly shaking her head, "I was... recorded?"
"Yes," he explained, then walked over to a large cabinet and opened it wide; Meg's jaw dropped and she stared, bug-eyed, at all of the videos stacked up on the shelves. "I have four years' worth of security footage, as well as videos to go with every single claim that the teachers and students at this school have made against you."
Meg was stunned.
"Why?" she whispered. "Why did you do this?"
He sat down and folded his hands, giving her a very stern expression.
"Because I don't like what's being done to you," he said softly. "It's not right. It's never been right, and it bothers me that you've kept quiet about it for so long. So, what do you want to do?"
She stared blankly, not understanding what he was getting at.
"What do you mean? I don't understand."
"I'm giving you the option to use these videos as a means to file lawsuits against the people who've been hurting you," he explained, making her twitch. "I was told by your teacher that you got into a verbal fight with Connie DiMico, smashed a window because of it, and ran off in a temper all before he'd arrived. Due to a stern disagreement we had on behalf of your innocence, he demanded that I take a look at the security footage, so I agreed to do so and dismissed him."
"Wait, so... you mean..."
"Indeed," he confirmed, leaning forward with a sharp expression. "I saw what those children did to you, and I've had enough of it. If you choose to file a lawsuit against our school, I'll back you as a witness."
Looking up at the screen displaying her torment, Meg stared at the frozen image.
Noticing her gaze, he pressed the rewind button on the remote.
The images began to flash backwards, rewinding over unseen security footage. Meg instantly felt cold inside since the video only contained shots and camera angles of her. She saw herself being locked in the science lab on her first day as a Senior and nearly choking to death on the chemicals in the air... then, footage of the bullying from the end of last year.
She saw more places, more camera angles.
Being pushed around in the halls and having people violently pull her hair and drag her around by it, shoving her to the ground, tearing her books out of her hands, spitting on her, being smashed against the lockers, having things thrown at her during gym, and being hurt repeatedly by everyone in her class... over, and over, and over again.
In so many ways.
All she could do was stare at the images flashing across the television, watching the horrors that had befallen her since the day she'd first enrolled.
When the images zoomed in on her struggling to work hard despite having people spitting on her and her desk in class, she winced.
More footage showed her crying alone in an empty classroom, and she stiffened a bit since she actually remembered that day.
Last year, near the end of the summer, she'd hidden in one of the girl's bathrooms after the final bell to escape detection since she hadn't wanted to go home. She'd been regretting apologizing to her family for going off on them about the way they'd been treating her for so long.
Things had gotten too unpleasant for her to handle, and around that time of her life, she'd been secretly spending her afternoons hiding at school.
That day, while she'd finally been on her way outside, she'd passed by her own classroom... and, for whatever reason, she'd walked over to her desk. Sat down in it, looked at the dry erase board, wondered what her school life might have been like if people hadn't hated her, and before she'd known it she'd burst into tears without warning, just like she always did whenever she was alone.
Nobody, not even her own family, had ever cared when she'd started crying, so, she'd simply stopped doing it in front of them.
Crying alone was better than being sneered at by the people who were supposed to love her.
Mr. Sheppard watched her with a stoic expression when she leaned back with a lump in her throat, shoulders sagging. Everything that had been done to her at school... it had all been recorded. Even the other times when she'd stayed behind and broken down into raw, agonized tears.
The sights before her flashed across her glasses: crying... crying... crying... at the end of each day, despite how expressionless she'd looked while enduring the bullying, she'd been caught crying.
Every single day.
Swallowing the bile that rose up her throat, she turned and looked at her principle.
"I don't understand," she croaked. "Aren't you... aren't you going to call my parents? I mean, the window... I'm supposed to be in trouble..."
"The window was broken by your classmates," the man snorted, folding his hands and leaning forward with a firm grey gaze, "and although I haven't informed their parents about it just yet, mark my words, they will be held responsible. Unfortunately, because of how many students were involved with this incident, I'll need to start planning for a school conference between myself and the parents, and it won't be happening for quite a long while."
Meg felt dazed.
"You're being serious," she whispered. "You're really going to defend me?"
He smiled warmly, something that caught her off guard since she was almost never smiled at by people.
"I'm very good at my job, Miss Griffin," he sniffed. "As of right now, you aren't in any trouble... and no, I won't call your parents. I've had dealings with your father and mother before, and I have some ideas about what might be going on in that home of yours. I won't add any unnecessary stress."
Meg was shocked into silence.
"I don't know what to say," she admitted, hooking a strand of hair behind her ear. "Um... thank you."
"You may go now," he told her, smiling broadly when she hunched her shoulders up to her ears. "Also, stop and see nurse Anna so she can take a look at your shoulder. After that, you can go back to class. I've already sent an email to your teacher explaining that you are not the one to blame and that I'm highly disappointed in his rash, unethical conduct. Remember what I said, though... think on what you want to do."
"Okay," Meg murmured, slowly standing up and hefting her backpack. "Um... thanks."
Dazed, she left the office and headed towards the infirmary, and upon walking in, the woman sitting at a desk in the corner of the room looked up.
Her blue eyes widened when she saw the blood on Meg's shoulder.
"Oh, dear!" she squeaked, leaping up and frantically hurrying over. "What on earth happened to you?"
"Glass," Meg explained, avoiding her eyes. "It's a long story."
"Take off your shirt and let's get you cleaned up," the woman sighed, clucking her tongue as she walked over to grab a first aid kit. "Children these days..."
Annabelle McClaren, the school nurse, was among the few people working at school who treated Meg normally.
Plus, she really was a beautiful young woman, all things considered... creamy skin, dreamy blue eyes, platinum blonde hair with just the right amount of messiness, and a breathtaking smile. On top of that, she had a gorgeous figure, super long legs, and a very refined manner of speech.
She looked, for all the world, like a barbie doll, and compared to a pasty, pudgy, extremely undersized freak like Meg, she literally shone like the sun.
After taking off her beanie and pulling her torn pink shirt over her head, she sat down on one of the beds and self-consciously covered her middle with a downcast expression.
Anna, however, paid her repulsive figure no mind and began to clean the cut.
"Ouch!" Meg squeaked, wincing as she dabbed at the cut with a swab of alcohol. "That stings!"
"I know it does, but you'll be fine," Nurse Anna murmured, looking up at her; after a moment, however, her gaze dipped lower and she examined her arms with a blink. "Why are you holding your stomach? Do you have a belly ache, too?"
Meg stared at her glumly.
"I'm fat and ugly," she explained, hunching her shoulders with an ashamed expression. "I... don't want you to see it."
The woman's brows shot into her bangs and her mouth fell open, but then, a laugh escaped her lips, startling Meg into glancing up.
"Oh, that's a good one," Anna cackled, shaking her head. "Drop your arms honey... it's okay."
Meg hesitantly did as she was told, letting her arms fall to her sides.
"See?" she rasped, flushing bright red. "I'm... I'm..."
She couldn't even finish her sentence.
The woman looked at her waist-line, then lifted her eyes to her chest and smirked.
"You're what?" she cheerfully asked, folding her own arms with a slightly disbelieving expression. "Enviously petite?"
Meg blinked, not comprehending what she'd just heard.
"Enviously... petite?" she asked, staring at the blonde woman with blank eyes. "What do you mean?"
"You've lost a lot of weight since your second year of high school, Ms. Griffin," Anna sighed, giving her a look. "Honestly, I was worried about it for a while since I received word from a student that she thought you were becoming bulimic, and about halfway through the year, when we had our second physical exam, I was stunned by how much weight you'd dropped off within such a short time. In all my years, I've never seen anyone lose ninety eight pounds that quickly without developing Anorexia."
"No way," Meg retorted, instantly looking down at herself before frowning; she didn't really notice any changes... then again, she also hadn't really looked at her figure in a long time. "I don't believe it."
"Then step on the scale and see for yourself," Anna chuckled, putting some gauze on her arm before waving her over. "Come on. Don't be shy."
Meg was hesitant.
The last time she'd stepped onto one of these things, she'd been fourteen years old. Her weight at the time had been two hundred and thirty-three pounds, and memories of being called fat and disgusting by her family resurfaced.
Nervously standing stock still in the middle of the room in nothing but her bra, she looked at the school nurse with hesitant eyes before glancing down at the scale.
Against her better judgment, she stepped forward until the soles of her sneakers pressed against the scale, but she closed her eyes.
In the last four years... she could have only gained weight.
Losing weight was impossible for her.
Her father had screamed it into her face over and over again when she'd been sixteen, so she couldn't have lost weight, it was impossible.
"Oh, my," Nurse Anna murmured, making her heart drop with resignation. "You've lost even more weight since the last time. Are you truly eating healthy, Ms. Griffin? Be honest, please."
"I don't eat very much in the mornings," Meg admitted, swallowing hard. "I eat a lot at lunch and dinner time, though."
She hesitantly opened her eyes and looked down at the numbers, but all she could do was stare. Lifting her glasses and furiously rubbing her eyes just to make sure she wasn't seeing things, she leaned down towards the scale and peered at it more closely. Her face went blank with disbelief.
Turning, she looked at the nurse, who was frowning.
"Is this a joke?" Meg asked, not thinking it could be true. "Am I on candid camera or something?"
"Of course not," the woman snorted, frowning at her. "Why would you think so?"
"Because," Meg retorted, shaking her head. "There's no way I can be a hundred and fourteen pounds! It's not possible!"
And it wasn't... it wouldn't have made sense... but according to the nurse, and the scale...
"Let me feel your stomach," Anna told her, moving forward and tentatively lifting her arms; Meg held her breath when the woman's fingers gently pressed in specific places along her belly, moving around to her sides and waist. After a moment, her brows raised and she nodded before pulling back. "Well, you're obviously eating healthy, and there's no sign of any surgery... color me impressed."
"No way... I'm really a hundred and..."
Right around that moment, the lunch bell rang, making the woman look up.
"Well, it's lunch time," Anna sighed, rolling her shoulders. "Make sure to take care of yourself in the future, okay? And if you ever want to talk, you know where my office is."
Meg wordlessly nodded, then slid her shirt back on, still unable to process what was going on around her. Not bothering to look back, she hefted her backpack and left the infirmary, heading for the school rooftop.
Every day at lunch, she would hide up here and eat her brown-bagged food by herself since it was isolated from everyone, and as a plus, nobody really came up here despite the fact that it was allowed by the faculty.
Walking out into the open air with haunted hazel eyes, she sank down against the rooftop wall and stared at the sky, coughing slightly as the abrupt smell of smoke hit her nose.
I'm stepping on Dad's scale when I get home, Meg silently told herself. If she was lying, or playing a mean joke... at least then, I'll know.
She coughed again when the scent of smoke intensified. At first she was able to ignore it, but eventually she started hacking up a lung.
After a few more moments of coughing like a maniac, Meg finally rubbed her stinging eyes and turned to look around the corner, but the moment she saw Michael Pulaski staring at her with his piercing amber eyes, she gasped and drew her head back with her heart in her throat.
What is he doing here?! she silently wailed. This place is usually abandoned!
"Hey, Beanie Girl," his deep voice growled, making her twitch and huddle down. "Do you hide here during because you don't want to get bullied by everyone? You're never in the cafeteria anymore."
Meg swallowed, wondering why her luck was so bad.
"I... just like eating up here," she croaked. "It's quiet, and peaceful. I've been doing it since..."
She trailed off and clamped her jaw shut because he was the reason she'd stopped eating lunch in the cafeteria. Ever since the day he'd beaten her up, she'd completely avoided eating around other people at school.
Hell, for the most part, she didn't even grab things from the lunch ladies anymore: she brought her lunch with her from home to avoid coming into contact with anyone.
"So," he drawled, making her shiver, "let me ask you somethin', Beanie Girl... are you still scared of me?"
She didn't know how to respond, but she decided to be honest, even if it got her in trouble.
"Yeah," she said in a detached tone. "Who wouldn't be scared of the guy that put them in the hospital?"
Silence came from around the corner.
Meg numbly stared at the sky, gazing sightlessly at the drifting clouds, withdrawing into her own head.
"You were taken to a hospital?" he asked, voice coming out abnormally dark despite the faint undertone of confusion in it. "I didn't... hurt you that bad, did I? I mean, after all that crap went down, I got suspended for a week and that's all. My dad didn't get a phone call from your folks or anything, so I figured you were fine."
Meg snorted in grim amusement and bitterly drew her knees up to her chin, wrapping her arms around them.
"I had four broken ribs, a punctured lung, and you fractured both of my arms in different places," she quietly told him. "I was out of school for more than two weeks."
"Tch, liar," he snorted, sounding a little pissed. "If that's the case, why the hell didn't your folks come screaming for a lawsuit?"
A breeze swept across the roof.
Meg let her head thump back against the wall.
Brown hair brushing against her cheeks, she stared off at nothing with a hazed expression.
"They didn't care," she said, voice coming out colder than she'd expected it too. "My injuries were covered by my insurance. They didn't have to pay anything, so for them, it was like there wasn't even a problem. I heard later that while I was laid out in the hospital, my dad actually threw a party since I wasn't at home."
When she let out a humorless laugh, another, much longer silence came from around the corner, but then his shadow obscured her form and she looked upto see him staring down at her with an intense frown, blonde hair ruffling slightly in the breeze.
"Are you fucking with me?" he demanded, cracking his knuckles and quirking an eyebrow when she froze. "If you are, you're dead! Tell me the truth or I'll beat the shit out of you again, Meg!"
Her heart seized.
"I'm telling the truth!" she protested, frantically shaking her head. "I am! I swear!"
"Are you?!" he sneered, leaning down. "Because what I just heard sounds like a load of horse shit!"
"It's true!" Meg shouted, face twisting up. "You just don't get it!"
"You're right, I don't," he snapped, making her flinch. "You were being pushed around even before I transferred here! If I were you, I would have left this school a long time ago. You should just go home."
In an instant, without warning, she snapped and fury roared throughout her chest.
Every now and then this anger would surface, quick and unexpected, but completely uncontrollable.
Smacking her bag against the ground and standing up, she clenched her fists and glared up at him.
"Go home?! Go HOME?!" she screeched, making him back off a step with a surprised look. "WHAT'S YOUR DEFINITION OF HOME, HUH?! There's no difference between the treatment I get here or there, at all! It's the same either way! At least at school, I know there's an excuse since bullies are fucking EVERYWHERE, but home?! That place isn't home, it's HELL!"
She stood there, heaving for breath, face slightly red... but then, her hands unraveled.
The truth of her own words had hit her hard.
Shoulders sagging, her eyes filled with tears that started running down her cheeks before she could stop them. Lifting her hands, she pulled her glasses off and tried to rub them away, but more came out. Mike merely stared at her, looking like he didn't know what to make of what she'd just said... hell, he actually looked pretty uncomfortable.
"So... what are you sayin'?" he demanded, sliding his hands into his pockets. "Your parents... seriously didn't care?"
"Nope," Meg sneered, keeping her voice under control. "To them, not having me around was like having a vacation. At any rate, I'm not going to leave this school until I graduate. I made a deal with my dad: if I can manage to get my diploma, I'll be able to move wherever I want and get the hell away from here."
His brows raised a bit.
"You're dealing with all this shit, just so you can move away?" he asked, not believing his ears. "No way."
Finally managing to reign in her feelings, she dried her eyes and started cleaning her glasses off.
"Believe it or not, it's up to you," she muttered, grabbing her bag and heading for the door. "I'm not the kind of person who gives up. Don't mistake my patience for being docile. I'm not just taking what they're throwing at me. I have my own reasons."
"I have a feeling you're going to leave," Michael drawled, taking another puff of his cigarette. "Just sayin'."
"You're wrong," Meg retorted, shaking her head. "I'm going to stay here until the very end of the school year."
"After what I overheard in the locker rooms today, I highly doubt that," Mike snorted, giving her a sarcastic look. "If you can manage staying here for another month, I'll take you out to the movies and tell the whole school it's an official date."
Meg stiffened, hand freezing on the doorknob.
Despite being a bully, and despite being a huge dickhead to everyone around him... Michael Pulaski was one of the most popular boys in her school. He was tall, broad -shouldered, naturally blonde, and had a very handsome face... but even more impressive than that, he was actually an intelligent human being. Meg had been shocked about that. A bully getting straight B's and A's was practically unheard of.
"No thanks," she said, making him scowl. "There used to be a time when I'd have accepted that sort of offer without a second thought, but you're kind of out of luck."
That much, at the very least, was true.
She had bad experiences with things like romance and boys.
Her first crush, a boy named Kevin, had faked his death after going to the army and had, as a result, turned into a pathological lying lunatic with mental issues. Her first love, sad as it was, had been a guy nearly twenty five years older than her... the Mayor of Quahog, Adam West. Until him, she'd had other typically small crushes on boys she'd thought were cute... but, by some chance, she'd ended up working for him as an intern.
He was the first person, in her whole life, who had ever looked at her as someone worthwhile.
He had never looked through her, as if her existence were a passing thought... he had looked at her, seeing her for who she was.
His acceptance had filled a void within her heart that she hadn't even known was there.
But then, Brian had gotten involved... and because of his actions, distance had formed between her and Adam. She had held onto the hope, day in and day out, that he still loved her... that he would remember his promise to wait until she was eighteen to get her out of the hell she called a home, and cherish her to make up for all the years of hate and abuse she had been put through.
But it had never happened.
The next time she'd seen Adam had been during the week her Aunt Carol had come to visit.
And he had forsaken Meg for Carol.
She could remember that night so clearly that the memory still wounded her... pretending to smile at Adam and her aunt, trying to be happy for them... but later, after her father's typical drama had sent everyone into a frenzy, she had been left alone at the table. Wondering whether or not everything he'd ever said to her had been a lie.
But the misfortune hadn't ended there, oh no!
After all, only a few months ago, the day after her eighteenth birthday, Glenn Quagmire had approached her. It had been completely unexpected since a man she'd known her whole life had abruptly attempted to make her feel... cherished. For two weeks, he'd acted as though he'd been waiting for her to grow up just so he could show her that she could be loved. Glenn had been one of her father's closest friends since before she'd been born, too.
He'd known just how fucked up her living situation was, had known about the extent of her problems at school, he had even known about all the online harassment she'd been suffering though, from the petition with more than thousand votes on Facebook to kill herself, to all the nasty things people said about her on their public walls, he'd known everything and had used her own weaknesses to his advantage.
And because of that, she'd almost made a huge mistake.
She'd almost slept with him.
If it hadn't been for her father, who'd surprised both of them by barging in, she wouldn't have known the truth.
She wouldn't have known that he hadn't really meant any of the things he'd said to her.
In his own words, she was a female: an object he could sleep with.
Nothing more.
Gleen Quagmire had KNOWN what he'd been planning on doing to her was cruel beyond words... but he hadn't cared, and he'd abruptly lost interest in her when she'd refused to sleep with him.
Since that day, she'd given up on having things like dates, or crushes, or anything that had to do with romance.
Forget friends. Forget love. Forget everything.
Michael stared at her quivering shoulders, brows furrowed slightly.
"Fine," he sneered, tilting his head back. "If you make it two months, I'll become your bodyguard and prevent anyone from bullying you for the rest of the year."
THAT caught her ear.
Whipping around, she looked at him with a startled expression.
"Seriously?" Meg scoffed. "Are you joking?"
"I don't lie," Mike retorted, looking up at her with a condescending expression. "We got a deal?"
She was stunned into silence for a moment, but when he sneered past the cigarette in his mouth, his bargain finally clicked and a huge grin slid across her face. In a fit of daring courage, she looked down at the nicotine-ridden object with a smug expression; then, with dainty movements, she plucked it right out of his mouth and crushed it under her left foot, ignoring how he jumped to his feet.
"Hey!" he angrily bellowed. "The fuck was that for?"
Meg merely stared at him with a rare smile.
"It was for mocking me," she chimed, pushing her glasses up her nose. "We have a deal, Mike. Don't forget what you just said to me."
"If you can pull off getting through the scale of bullying headed your way," he snorted, "I can definitely pull off being your bodyguard."
Meg nodded at him before she turned and left the roof, walking through the door.