At the end of the school day, I had finally come to one conclusion; if I thought Blake Johnson hated me in the morning, I was wrong. So very wrong.
Blake didn't hate me, he despised me and it all started with a few splits by the bleachers after school. Here in this little town in the heart of Texas, football was everything, if you didn't like or appreciate the sport, you had just dug yourself a literal shallow grave with your own hands.
And that's why if you were a student here that didn't like football, you were instantly unpopular. Girls, namely like me joined the cheerleaders to support the boys because if we didn't, a drastic ostracization would take place. If being yelled at by Amanda every day after school during practice was the price for popularity, we all gladly took it.
"Look sharp, girls," Amanda snapped, placing her right hand on her hip and stretching the left arm towards her right foot in a fluid motion that made it seem like what she was doing was actually pretty easy. "You're slouching, Melanie."
Poor, tiny Melanie gave a tiny nod and a pitiful whimper before trying to get back into the correct practice position. We were currently trying out a squad position and I was secretly glad when Amanda had assigned me as one of the three supposed to just stay at the front and split with wide smiles.
Split. Look sexy. Smile.
We were in the middle of that and I could hear most of the girls at the back of the formation groan in pain. I couldn't blame them though, Amanda had put us to this for close to two hours now, under the influence of the low burn of the Texas heat on the football field and we were exhausted.
Relief came in form of the big, burly guys that were headed our way, the reasons we were out here. Our boys, the football players. Amanda wiped the sweat off her brows and tied up her honey, blonde hair into a loose ponytail.
She waved heartily at the guys while I noticed how they all shot her perverted looks at how hot she looked in the short jean shorts and blue, spandex top. Her boyfriend, Darren, our football captain, typically, was still dressed in his full football gear making him look bigger than the rest of the guys.
He removed his helmet to show his low cut, curly hair and coffee brown skin which always seemed to glow and I swooned. Darren was so hot, he deserved to have a highly flammable warning around his neck.
"Babe," he greeted Amanda, placing a large arm on her shoulder and hugging her, the other guys had scattered to start flirting with the cheerleaders while I was left still pondering on the mystery of why jocks and cheerleaders must always go together.
"You're dismissed, girls," Amanda called out, reaching up to touch her boyfriend's beautiful hair and completely ignoring us all. Those two were so in love that it sometimes made us all sick to watch them.
I sounded bitter, thinking about it, I probably was. I had my own fair share of guys but never what I wanted. To be fair, what I wanted was currently owned by Amanda.
"Ruby! Ruby! Ruby!" Molly kept calling as we crossed the field and walked to the locker room, I was still mad at her for being the reason for my stupid move earlier today and I hadn't had the time to let her know how pissed I was yet.
"What do you want, Molls?"
She caught up with me and was now pulling off her pink tank top to reveal a black bra top underneath, it was all probably to call the attention of the jocks.
Molly did stupid stuff like that all the time.
"Remember that new guy you spilled all that hot coffee on just this morning?" She was practically bouncing off the heels of her sneakers in excitement.
"It was your fault." I paused my walk to glare at her. "Have you got dung for brains or you're just stupid?"
Her face fell, her almond eyes showing how visibly hurt she was by the insult and I felt instantly terrible but you couldn't blame me, my life literally depended on my success on this task. What she had done this morning hadn't helped one bit.
"I'm sorry, I don't know why I just said that," I apologized, placing a hand to my clammy forehead. "I'm probably so tired and stressed."
"I'm sorry--" She was saying then her eyes spotted something and narrowed immediately. "When did you get that tattoo?" She reached out for my hand and stared at the tiny 31 open admiration.
"It's not a tattoo, I wrote it there," I tried shrugging it off casually and felt my head start to burn up, today had been a very stressful school day for me despite the fact that I had gone over all of today's activities before. "What were you saying about Blake?"
She seemed to remember why she was so excited and I was grateful for the topic change. "He's in most of my classes and can you believe he just moved here with his mom from New York? Isn't he so hot, like he has that beautiful city accent."
"I noticed." This was old news actually, Blake and his mom moved here from New York to this small town for reasons best known to them, reasons I didn't care about until now.
"I think I like him, Ruby," she gushed, wiping her sweat with the pink tank top and bouncing on the balls of her feet. "He has appeal, like really appealing."
"I get it." Molly had told me all of these before and I was starting to get impatient, I could feel the sweat sticking disgustingly to my back and making my black tee feel gross.
I was walking away at this point when she finally spoke her first useful words. "He hasn't gone home yet though, I saw him walk past when Darren and the guys came up to us."
He was still here? At this time?
I murmured a few incoherent apologies to Molly then took off across the field as fast as my weary legs would go. On and on I ran until I reached the now practically empty school lot. The only cars left there were an expensive black SUV belonging to Darren which the whole football team was probably going to carpool later and an old, Ford truck that looked like it had seen better days and needed an expensive paint job.
The boy I wanted to see was in the truck, and to my surprise was quietly strumming on a brown, bass guitar with his eyes closed and head bent. Blake plays, who knew? I went over to the window side and tapped on the side of the truck. He jerked up in sudden surprise that quickly turned to annoyance when his blue eyes fell on my face.
"You again," he groaned, closing his eyes and reaching over to the dashboard to pull on his glasses. He glared at me crossly.
"Yes, me," I smiled uneasily.
"What do you want, weirdo?" He snapped, opening the door getting out of the truck to come face to face with me. He had changed into a black shirt that hugged his lean muscles snugly. He smelt nice and clean, unlike my sweat self and I found myself wondering how hugging him would feel like.
"I don't think we go off on the right foot-"
"You think?" He was leaning against the truck, his curls softly falling across his head. I had never been attracted to curly haired guys but this one struck me oddly.
"So, I'm Ruby, Ruby Davies." I stretched my hand out nicely, happy at the little progress I was making.
"And I don't care." He pointedly ignored my outstretched hand. "Please leave me alone now."
"Oh, don't be silly, you're new around here. You'll need someone to show you the ropes."
"Oh, it certainly won't be you." I couldn't help but notice how different his accent was from ours, it was the same but his had a bit of city to it.
"Be nice, Blake," I told him, reaching towards the truck door and getting it before he could attempt to stop me. "I need a ride home, drop me off?"
"No," he said in disbelief, like he couldn't believe I was actually here, disturbing his peace. "I don't even know you, weirdo!"
"You do now, and it's Ruby." Then I spotted a long, brown stick under the seat and I picked it up excitedly. "You play baseball?"
I mirrored swinging movements as he got into the car with me, I had never held a baseball bat before and this new activity pleased me.
"Drop that-" he was saying when it happened so fast I could barely react. In one swift motion, the bat had struck the truck's windscreen and the shattering sound of glass came after, I had completely smashed his truck's windscreen.
I met the Devil on the school bus.Okay, so it would be pretty fair to admit that after smashing Blake's windscreen, I had pretty much given up on stalking him. I tried getting to him a few more times but the look he always gave me told me to maintain my lane or else.The other day in the cafeteria when he was sitting alone, quietly chewing his spaghetti and looking like a fallen god while at it, I had walked up to him with my lunch tray which consisted of only an apple and yoghurt, and sat down right in front of him. He glared at me with those stunning blue eyes, hissed and picked up his textbooks before abandoning both me and his lunch.Talk about awkward. I had kept my distance after that. And there was also the fact that Molly was super into him and had spent the past few days going on and on about how his curly hair made her stomach go all wonky. Then there was also schoolwork, it was just a repeat of everything I h
I met the devil way sooner than I had expected.When he had told me he would intervene and help me out, I didn't think it would be so soon or that he would suddenly walk in as the substitute Calculus teacher.Yes, you heard me right. There I was, biting at the tip of my Bic and wondering if by any chance, Blake was staring over at my side. This was the only class I had with him and when he came in earlier and spotted my seating position in the middle of the class, he intentionally decided to go pick the seat far end of the class, at the corner.God, that boy hated me so much and it was all my fault.Our regular Calculus teacher, Miss Simeon was running late which was very unusual and most of us were already getting all rowdy in the class. For final year seniors, they all acted pretty dumb for my liking and I dully watched, Asher Hu, one of the blonde, football jocks lob paper balls at his teammates w
The hospital stench was getting to me.After school today, my mom had called from work to ask if I could kindly swing by the hospital to drop off some files she had forgotten in the process of her rush this morning. Molly and I were about to have some sandwiches at my place for lunch when she called, I agreed and we packed up some tomato sandwiches and pink lemonade to go for all three of us.After taking the bus heading out of town and a very long hour or so, we got to the psychiatric hospital where my mom has worked as a nurse since before I was born. She appreciated the lunch we brought her and after a few minutes of sitting around and eating, I was already impatient and ready to leave. Molly, on the other hand had made herself completely comfortable on the office couch and was ranting to my mom about how she had been saving for some new designer boots that had gotten even more expensive over the weekend.Sometimes, I
The Devil was driving the cab.At this point, I wasn't even surprised to see him anymore and I felt the first signs of a splitting migraine as he continued to weave the car at insane speed not the least disturbed by the heavy rain.Molly's eyes were still closed, with her plump, pink lips slightly parted and wet hair matting to her soft face. I wondered if she had fallen asleep by her own will or that of our infamous driver. It was probably the latter."Are you following me now?" I asked."Yes." He replied without an ounce of hesitation and I didn't know whether I was supposed to be creeped out or reassured by the thought. "And I helped you out of this rain, didn't I?""Thanks," I murmured sourly. "Also, could you maybe slow down, I wouldn't want to die before my twenty-two days are up." The dark, casual tone that I used to refer to my death scared me. Had I accepted my fat
I couldn't breathe.The large hand was firmly clamped on my throat, restricting any such luxury such as breathing. I fought the hand, desperately clawing at it when she spoke. I was startled to look at the face of my strangler and discover that it was in fact a giant woman.There were no other words to describe her safe from giant. The clear hairnet she had on did nothing to cover her short, mousy brown hair framing her square jawed face which held the first bearings of a sprouting moustache. A mole stood out on her cheek and her huge blossom rose up and down rapidly as her large, frying pan sized hands continued gripping my neck."Johnson!" She yelled, and my ears temporarily went out of commission then I heard static. "This chica is what's chasing you?"I could understand why she called me chica, most people tended to do that because of my exotic looks. My dad was part Latin and part Mexican and I had his
Friday, Day 11.Things were finally looking up.Our school was no different from those typical ones we read in books; we had the jocks, the cheerleaders, the nerds, the computer geeks and the whole lot. However, the only difference was that we barely related with those that weren't in our cliques, meaning your only friends were those on the same social status as you.Our seating arrangements during lunch even showed the segregation clearly, the popular kids sat separate from the ones with no social status, it was the rule of the jungle called high school. I usually sat with Molly and the other cheerleaders at our special table outside. It was more of a school patio converted hangout for us. Yeah, the school didn't complain about it, why? Because the boys liked it, the jocks were everything.This town loved football more than anything, so these boys were hero worshipped.
Saturday, Day 12.My body was literally on fire.I groaned once again, making the girls put on those worried looks once more. Amanda, placing her pom poms down knelt beside me on the bench and reached out to feel my tummy which I was currently gripping.Her big, blue beautiful eyes showed intense worry for her fellow teammate and once again, I remembered this was why she deserved to get Darren. The thought snapped away as fast as it came when another shot of aches coursed through my system and I involuntarily yelled in pain. I closed my eyes, wondering why my body chose today to behave this way, we had a game right now, I was supposed to be out there, not acting as a liability here. I had started feeling the first bearings of pain earlier during practice earlier today but it got intense about an hour ago.It was an unexplainable kind of pain in the sense that I wasn't feeling it in just
Day 13.Sundays were my rest days, basically my favorite day of the week.Binge watching TV.Stuffing my face with junk that would give Amanda an instant heart attack.Wearing sweats all day.Those were my ideal Sundays, only this Sunday wasn't turning out too well and the first sign that today was going to go all wrong came in the form of my sleep deprived mom walking into the kitchen to announce that she wanted to spend the day with me. I was naturally surprised, I couldn't even remember the last time I had hung out with my mom.It was always work, I was used to it though, at least I still had her. I hadn't talked to my father in years now, I wasn't even sure of his whereabouts now, yeah, it was that bad.I had nodded and quietly continued nibbling on my waffles while she continued to stare at me critically. After coming to pick me up f