“Oh, you noticed that?” I asked, realizing I’d now have to tell her that Cody was picking on me, which I found highly embarrassing.
“I think everyone did, it looked like Derek was going to pummel his ass.” She smiled happily. No one seemed to like Cody.
“He was just standing up for me,” I divulged, trying to sound like it didn’t bother me at all, bursting her bubble.
“Looked like more than that to me,” she said cryptically. What was that supposed to mean?
James
Mickey was in my gym class, that made two classes we shared. We hadn’t had any of the same classes for three years and now we were in two together. It was too bad we hated each other, otherwise it would have been a lot easier. She’d really lost a lot of weight, not only on her body but her face too, showing everybody how pretty she was, even though I saw it all along.
“It was hil-arious!” Tiffany laughed with Megan.
“What’s so funny?” Cody asked, slapping Meg’s butt.
“Hey!” she scolded, pretending to be angry but stepping closer to him. Girls like that annoyed me, especially when they already had boyfriends.
“It’s just in history, Michaela,” Tiffany started, pronouncing her name wrong, before bursting into a laughing fit. I looked over at Michaela, who was wearing grey sweatpants and the mandatory gym shirt. She was just as skinny as Tiffany now, which was very skinny but I found her a lot prettier, maybe because she was natural. There was no makeup caked on her face or just because she was a genuinely good person. She was with her friend Tara, who was laughing hard as well and holding her stomach while Mickey looked neither impressed or happy. What’s so funny? I wondered about them curiously.
“Mr. Renner made her stand in front of the class so he could stare at her boobs!” Tiff stated, doubling over, tears were coming out of her eyes. “It was so funny, she just stood there and waited and turned no joke, bright red and then covered her chest and asked to sit! And still he stared!” Tiffany continued to laugh.
“That’s creepy,” I said feeling both disgusted and angry. How did they let creeps like him teach?
“And hilarious, the only guy she can get is an old teacher!” Cody chuckled.
“Guess she’ll have no problem passing,” Meg added. Mickey never had trouble passing, she was way too smart, smarter than all of them.
“Let’s go see what groups we are in,” I said, having had enough. I was in group four, with Brent, Tiffany, Alex, and Sarah. Great, Brent hadn’t liked me since we stopped hanging out. I stopped hanging out with him because he was considered uncool, well more of a reject who loved Star Wars, we used to be good friends before I became popular.
“Yay, we’re together!” Tiff said grabbing my hand and pulling me to the line for group four.
“Yeah,” I said tiredly. Cody followed behind us.
“Lucky you two. My group sucks, I’m with Lloyd the freak, Derek the giant, Sam the loser and worst of all Michaela, the stalker,” he said, mispronouncing her name again. “At least I can make fun of her,” he said as an afterthought. Tiffany laughed delightedly.
I remembered when Mickey and I were still close, we always used to make fun of people like Tiffany and the popular group.
“They’re all posers or they’re actually just a group of mean people, that are considered cool for some unknown reason. I prefer to believe the first, don’t ever let me act like them. Promise?” she said as we watched TV on her bed. I promised her I’d never let her become one of them but I never promised that I wouldn’t. Did it actually make Tiffany happy to know someone would be bullied? Because it didn’t for me, but maybe Tiffany was never bullied like I was or even at all. I gave a weak laugh, feeling a little sick again. Mickey and I had been avoiding each other ever since that day almost two years ago and now she was all anybody was talking about. All these feelings that I’d buried and had been keeping hidden resurfaced.
“You okay, James?” Tiffany asked, putting my arm around her small waist, a place it didn’t want to go.
“Yeah,” I lied, pulling her closer, not that I liked Tiffany like that but I had an image to maintain; hot, smoldering, bad boy. Brent watched me and Tiff walk over and then completely ignored me. Good start, I thought sarcastically.
“Hey guys,” I said smiling at all of them, especially Brent, but there was no luck he didn’t even look at me. “What’s up?” I asked, trying to kill the awkward buzz around us but all I got were some shoulder shrugs, making it all the more uncomfortable.
“Is Derek going to kick Cody’s ass?” Shannon asked that Tara girl who was friends with Mickey. What? I wondered a little worried about Cody, he wasn’t the smartest person in the world and he was often pissing people off, including me. If there was a fight, there’d be no question who would win: Cody the entitled rich boy or Derek the freaking house. I turned to my left to where Shannon was pointing and watched along with everyone else.
“I hope he does, Cody’s an asshole,” Tara said, looking amused. Derek was up close to Cody and smacking his fist into his hand while Mickey stood behind, looking both embarrassed and stressed out. I could just imagine what Derek was saying, “this hand is your face and this is my fist, do the math, rich boy.” Except in my mind Derek’s voice sounded like Lou Ferrigno and Mickey wouldn’t be looking so embarrassed. I practically jumped on Cody the minute
