CHAPTER 4: PUNCHED BY REALITY

So school was off to a great start. Some bratty girl with unfiltered access to daddy’s plastic was trying in all her power to make my life as miserable as possible.

The next day I came to school with my head hung low, hoping to avoid Stacy. Naturally, this meant she found me anyway. Walking up confidently at me she threw another pile of papers on my desk.

“Aren’t you ashamed you work there? Don’t you need to pay bills for your family and not my dress? You don’t want to pay me back don’t you?”

I didn’t reply, I didn’t even look at her. I could tell this angered her.

“You are dirty and poor, only one way you’re getting out of this little situation James” she threatened, voice soft and sharp before giggling and walking away.

I stewed with anger after her threat for the rest of the day. The more I thought and about it the angrier I became. By lunchtime the feeling had reached its zenith. The feeling I felt a few days back at the restaurant, the feeling I’d been trying to suppress for years was erupting. It was also as if this Stacy poked a hole through my walls and all my suppressed anger and envy were just overflowing.

Sitting down at a table I tried to recenter my thoughts. A deep ache in my head told me to not just go down without a fight, to not accept her terms. Still, it was no use being angry over this right? My head told me to agree to her terms, do her work, we needed to save my wages after all.

I snap out of my thoughts when I am thrown from my seat. Hitting the wall behind me I bring a hand to my head, groaning from the pain. I hear laughing. Opening an eye I see a pair of leather oxfords. Raising my head I’m confronted with the ugly sight of Ben Blitzerman.

Grabbing my lunch from the table he throws it onto the floor.

“The table is for humans, or did you forget that. Dogs are supposed to eat on the floor.”

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It’s not the most creative insult but what would you expect? Now normally, I would have ignored him, salvaged what was left of the wreckage and left. And that’s what I started to do. I avoided looking up at them, into their eyes. Carefully I picked up my bag, container and utensils. All the while they were calling me names, egging each other on.

Finally when I finished I got up. It could have been my lingering thoughts of Stacy Williams, the chorus of mocking laughs in the lunchroom or the smug expression on Ben’s face that pushed me to do what I did next. Glaring into his eyes I shoved him.

It really was a small act of offense in the grand scheme of things, especially in comparison to the bullying he and his gang had put me through over the years but it was nonetheless satisfying to see his face twist into a look of absolute outrage.

He looked frantically around his little cronies, as if to confirm what had just happened. A moment later he shoved me back, harder.

“Hold him,” he instructed his gang. And like the mindless puppets a dozen hands held me in place.

His perfect pearly white teeth bared themselves into a smile before punching me.

Pain exploded as his fingers made contact with my gut, all made the worst by him wearing half a dozen rings on each hand. He let out a whoop as the rest of the cafeteria waited in bated breath for me to respond.

“You coward,” I muttered under my breath, still hunched over from the pain.

“What was that, speak up” he said, putting a hand up to his ear in an exaggerated manner.

It was the adrenaline, I can see that now but in that moment with most of the school’s eyes on me my pride overtook rational.

“You’re a coward, Blitzerman” I spat. That earned me a slap across the face.

He pushes his face until we are inches away. His bravado fades away, revealing only anger.

“Stay away from Stacy Williams, she’s my girl. Don’t you dare speak to her again, dog”

He looks like he wants to say more but at that moment the bell rings so he settles for shoving me onto the floor.

News spread around school about my altercation with Ben, in which I was the obvious loser. Kids left me alone for the most part, some people gave me looks of pity and others called me names.

With a sigh I realized that Stacy was right. I let my pride go, went home and started her homework.