You Never Learned A God Damned Thing

Billie lead me out of the park and then we were slowly walking in search of the nearest mall. I didn't quite like the idea, but at the same time didn't see any other chance as getting the hair dye before Mike could see me. The two of them wouldn't let me live later. With the earlier fight I didn't feel as good as earlier and I could sense some kind of awkwardness between me and Billie Joe, who was silently humming something to himself while still having his arm around my shoulders as if he was afraid I'd run away. I looked at him from the corner of my eye just to see the expression on his face. He had some bruise forming on his cheek already and he looked oddly calm.

"Tell me again..." I started with a heavy sigh. "Where's Mike? Why didn't we go to get him? Why can't we go home now? Where were you? Are you still mad for yeste-"

"Hey!" he stopped looking at me wide eyed. "How the hell am I supposed to answer all of that questions if you keep on coming up with the new ones all the time?" I shrugged and stared at him expectantly. He rolled his eyes and with a small smile he made an eye contact with me.

"Mike is still at school, at least that's the last time I've seen him." he said with a thoughtful expression clouding his face. "We can't go back to school...He won't skip without his girlfriend, so-"

"So what are you doing here? Skipping without your girlfriend?" I smirked as again he rolled his eyes at me.

"I don't need her to live, you know?"

"I've noticed." I sighed and we started going again. "That doesn't change the fact that you treat her...not like you should. Mike is better in that role to be honest." Billie laughed shortly like it didn't matter to him. It seemed like I was the one who was overreacting at this point, though I had not a clear idea how the relationship between Danielle and Billie worked. It was like I had no idea about those things and that's how everyone tended to see it. I didn't complain about no practical experience as I had my eyes and I could see how people treated each other and even though I didn't like Danielle as much as I should, I felt really sorry for her to have a boyfriend like Billie Joe. Sometimes I would ask myself if he really was worth it... Worth anything that people did for him.

It didn't take us much to reach some random mall or find a place where we could get a hair dye. For some reason I felt really uncomfortable with people looking at us when we strolled around the shelves of food and anything imaginable. I didn't have a clear idea of what my hair looked like, but I badly needed a new color after spotting Billie still trying to contain the laughter whenever he caught the sight of my hair. We've eventually ended up near the shelf full of different colors of the hair dye and I just knew that I had no idea what I really wanted on my head.

"What do you say for palatine blond?" Billie took the box with the dye inside of it and threw at me to catch it. I almost dropped it, but when my eyes looked at the box I couldn't stop the annoyed sigh that escaped my throat. "You'd look fabulous." he added after a while with a grin. "I can see it... I'm sure that we'd even have something from this...like... you know..."

"No, I don't know." I frowned placing the box back on the shelf where it belonged.

"Like...my little business would become bigger after you'd join the army of cheerleaders." his green eyes got bigger as he was pretending to see the vision just before his eyes. He put his hand over his heart and sighed dramatically and then pretended to wipe a tear of his eye. "It's beautiful."

"Forget it." I stated and took a random dark color from the shelf in front of me. Billie snatched the box out of my hand and his gaze quickly scanned the box. "What?"

"Are you planning to look like death?" he raised his eyebrow and raised the little box waving with it in front of my eyes. "With that bruise, bloody elbows...yeah, you'd be a perfect death."

"I don't see a problem" I shrugged my shoulders. "I only don't want to be blond. It makes you laugh."

"That's a good thing, Al.' he put the dye back and looked at my hair with a smirk. "Laughter makes my life longer...and more entertaining."

"Apparently it does." I looked away back at the shelf and decided to go for something...less dark.

"What about...I ask out some pretty blond and you'll cover for me, hmm?" I merely shrugged as I was gazing at the boxes . It wasn't new to me that Billie was thinking about some chick again. For some reason the past weeks he seemed to me like a needy, brainless, typical male that couldn't survive without a caring girlfriend or just some random chick that fell for them. I bet it was all about Billie's reputation. Not that he wasn't a good looking guy. With guitar in hand...well, that was adding some charm to what he got from mommy and daddy, but at school girls seen him as a sort of a bad guy. Was it the often detention or his famous business... I didn't quite care. Kids at school could easily get some good stuff from Billie just for $2. Yeah, let's call my friend a shady character. Finally I picked up a chocolate brown color and rushed to the register before Billie could put the box back. I payed for it and we left the mall quickly.

On our way home we didn't talk much beside the band stuff or anything that came to our minds.
Ah. The bonding time.
When we reached my house we were about to say our goodbyes, but instead the both of us couldn't hide the surprise when a certain bass player almost tackled us to the ground.

"Dude!" he exclaimed once he spotted Billie "I was looking for the two of you everywhere."

"Does everywhere concern anywhere else beside the school?" I raised my eyebrow at Mike, whose gaze was traveling from Billie to me stopping on the forming bruises.

"So it is true." he smirked. "I've heard that the two of you got into a fight with one of those popular kids from the football team?" I shrugged and looked away from Mike, who seemed to be dying to tell us what we missed. If it concerned that asshole that tried to beat me up then I wasn't interested. Not at all. We started walking in direction of my house and soon we've entered the empty house as my father was at work at this time of the day. We went straight upstairs as Mike was telling Billie what he's heard about the fight and the usual bullshit that put Billie and I in more trouble. Detention? Would hundred years be enough to repay for kicking a spoiled brat's ass? No.
"And that guy, Jason Cole, got so worked up to find one of you and get the revenge." I rolled my eyes as we stepped into my room. Why did guys always feel the need to make things even? I so looked forward to the next day of school to get beat up once again.

Billie went to sit on the bed while I went to sit by the window, looking out at the street. Mike stopped in the doorway for a while before Billie decided to speak to him.

"What's up man?"

"I know that my room is a mess." I said before Mike could reply and looked at my friend who stared in confusion at me. "What! Your room is probably worse!" I glanced at the piles of clothing and random scattered objects that covered the floor.

"What's up with your hair?" he titled his head to the side as a frown covered my face. Then all of sudden I've heard Billie silent chuckle as Mike walked up closer. "Why the fuck is your hair blond."

"Why are you making such a big deal out of it?" I asked annoyed as Mike pulled me by the strand of my hair.

"Couldn't you pick something that would suit you?"

"Could you stop pointing out how horrible I look like or what I've already know?" I crossed my arms as Mike still studied my hair with confusion. When I thought it was over he burst out laughing out of random and joined Billie on the bed. Mike mumbled something incoherent, but Billie laughed at it and the two of them laughed like this situation was the best joke ever.

"You know," Mike said as he tried to calm down and looked at me. "The funny thing is that..." he looked at Billie and they doubled in laughter. I shook my head and sighed in irritation. I hated when I didn't know what was so funny. "When one of those girls was getting the hair dye we replaced it!"

My head spun to face them with wide eyes threatening to fall out of my sockets. Billie and Mike high fived each other and laughed again, not realizing that I got up from my spot and with a death glare went silently over to them.

"Don't you want to hear why we did that?" Billie asked suddenly raising his head to look at me with a smirk. I stopped just in front of the bed and with a roll of my eyes nodded my head slowly.

"So-"

"I'll tell her." Mike chimed in. "We've been in the mall in the afternoon to get some food and then we heard them talking about you."

"You know, many girls can be named Scarlet."

"But not many girls named Scarlet has friends named Billie Joe and Mike." Billie replied as he reached out for my hand and pulled me down to sit on the bed between him and Mike. "So, it was easier to guess that they were your friends and that they wanted to change you in some way that would make you look...different."

"Thanks. I look awful now." I said unenthusiastically.

"Wow. You do care what you look like, don't you?" Mike smirked as he glanced at me.

"Only when I look ridiculous."

The next day the three of us went to school and beside a week of detention nothing interesting happened. With a new hat on I could hide my blond hair under it as we didn't manage to dye them in the end. Billie and Mike found something to do on purpose and I eventually forgot about how it looked like. Another excuse was to have someone who could do it dye it for me. Beside the usual routine of going to classes and hanging out with the guys I've found myself abandoned by my best friends when they skipped without me. This was something they didn't usually do.
In the end I've found myself in company of Jen and Sophie, who couldn't stop talking about what happened to me.

"Are you sure you're okay?" Sophie said in a whispery voice as we passed some guys.

"Sure I am." I winked at her and smiled. "This is the proof of..."

"That guy being an asshole?" Jen finished for me and I bit my lip in thought.

"Well, that too, but that's the proof of-"

"No, don't give us this shit. I've heard enough about this from my past boyfriends." Sophie said suddenly realizing where I was heading.

"And I thought I was unique." I rolled my eyes and fell silent as we were heading to the lunch table. I was skeptical when I've reached the table with the girls. Couple of guys and their girlfriends, who were not as happy to see me as my two friends. As I decided to ignore this and sit with them a teacher walked up to us.

"Scarlet Bailey, aren't you supposed to have a detention?" she asked in a stern voice as her eyebrows slightly rose up. I raised my eyebrows in confusion and glanced at Jen, who was also listening to the teacher that approached us.

"I thought that detention was supposed to be after lessons."

"Instead of thinking you'd better go to the canteen and work there."

"Why?" Jen asked even more confused. "Is this a new kind of detention?"

"It'll be a good lesson for Miss Bailey." the teacher said expecting me to follow her as she made a few first steps. I stood up, grabbing my bag.

"I don't need a lesson like this. I can cook and prepare dinners." I smiled at her.

"Better hurry up or I may consider staying after the lessons your additional punishment." She walked away in direction of the canteen as I groaned and was about to follow her.

"Dude! She hates you." one of the guys sitting by the table said.

"Tell me about it..." I muttered and followed her.

By this point I knew that I'd regret not being a stalkerish type of the friend. If I was with them all the time I'd skip with them and never have a detention like this. Perhaps it would be worse later, but it was already degrading. Well, not the work itself, but the lack of possibility to fight back when someone said something that I didn't like. It seemed that it wasn't my lucky day just like it wasn't as calm as it seemed.

Working in the canteen consisted of putting the food that the students wanted on their trays and giving it to them. I'm not sure how many mean stuff I've heard. It seemed that if you get into the fight with the wrong person the whole society will hate you cos you've beat up the guy. Shouldn't it be the other way? Like...people laughing at the guy being beat up by a girl and some other guy? And yet I got all the shit from those girls and some guys. If I could, without getting into more shit, I wouldn't let them talk like that to me. I could be quite persuading at times.

But the nightmare has just started when the guy that never cased to annoy me appeared in front of me. Jason Cole. A son of the owner of the factory where my dad worked as well as one of the richest jerks that went to this school. He would always find some poor kid and no one would get in his way in fear of being the next one.
I didn't get it...
Jason was a tall, well-built guy with light brown short hair with some blond highlights here and there and the front and top o his hair were slightly spiked. His eyes had a dark brown color and his full lips were always formed in a small smirk or smile. He was too confident and too arrogant for his own good. He knew what girls thought of him, but if you were not from his clique then he was just a far away dream.

"And how long am I supposed to wait?" he spoke after a moment as I glared at him. A girl next to me handed me some tray with some food on it already and I pushed it into his hands hoping for him to go away. "Is it even edible?" He looked at the food closely and then at his friend and smirked.

"Could you go away already? People are waiting..." I asked in a bored tone.

"Sure." he shrugged his shoulders and turned around, but then he stopped and faced me again. "I don't think I'll need it."

Without any warning he shoved the tray in my direction, which ended with the food all over my t-shirt. I gasped, looking down at what he's done and then back at him to see him walking away laughing with his friend. All around people were laughing at what he did, but I didn't find it funny. Not at all. I took some napkins and tried to clear the t-shirt, but there was a huge stain with only one option to clear it.

"I'll get back at you somehow." I growled going out of the canteen. I went out the school building and looked around looking for a certain lunch table with the certain asshole. Once I spotted him laughing I rushed in his direction.

However, Jen stopped me on my way to get my revenge and wouldn't let me pass without telling her what happened.
"You know, just let me go and I'll come back later and explain. Right now I have to-"

"No!" Jen exclaimed throwing her hands into the air. Some people turned their heads to look at us. "Who did this?" she asked in a more calmer tone.

"That jackass. Cole." I said through gritted teeth. Jen sighed and forced me to follow her as she gripped my arm.

"You will not go up there and argue or get in fight with him especially when it's something he expects you to do, understood?" Jen looked at me demanding the answer.

"But-"

"No, you're not going there. We're going to your place and we'll get you a new t-shirt." I rolled my eyes at her and was about to continue my quest to get a revenge. From the corner of my eye I could see Jason getting from his place and I desperately wanted to somehow make an idiot out of him in front of everyone. "Listen, Scarlet, don't act like an idiot and for once be wiser then those up there."

"Idiots?" the both of us froze as we heard Jason's voice as he passed by us. Before any of us could say anything a cold liquid soda was spilled over the two of us and again that day I could hear the annoying laughter of people, who again found it funny. Jason chuckled and winked at us before walking away.

"What a jackass!" Jen exclaimed as she wiped the soda off her face, making her make up looking even worse as she smeared the eyeliner all across her face.

"See? You should have let me go."

"Oh, really?" she growled. "And what would you do?" I shrugged my shoulders, but then smiled at her.

"Let's get back home and you'll fix your hair and make up and I'll get new clothes." she nodded her head gloomily and we rushed to the parking lot as fast as we could. Jen couldn't get over the fact that someone spilled their soda all over her. As for me...I really begin to strongly dislike Cole and completely understood what Billie meant by telling me to stay out of that guy's way. It's not like Billie would do that...