P.S. I Hate You

My first thought is not the usual I need breakfast NOW but oowwww!

I groan and lift myself up, rubbing my eyes. Right. Benji's room. Speaking of who, is peacefully asleep, both of us still in yesterday's clothes. I sigh, rubbing my head. I wince and can see myself in the mirror- the right side of my face is covered in scratches and a new painful bruise.

Youch is correct.

I climb off the bed and gently shake my little brother up. "Hey, kid..." He groans. "Benji, you need to get up, now." He peaks one eye open. "Now the other," I give him a small smile and poke his tummy. He smiles. "Good. Come on. Find some clothes and we'll grab a donut on the way out. Sound good?" He nods. "Good. I'm going to go now. You're safe," I remind him, unlock the door and go to my own room.

In the shower, I am reminded of the blow on my back. Changing into the dark wash skinny jeans and black and green striped shirt, I lift the back to reveal a very beautiful and sore bruise. I wince but nothing can be done about it, so I pull my shirt back down.

My hair sucks. I manage to make it look a little better, grab the partially finished homework and shove it in my gray backpack.

"Benji?" I knock on his door.

He comes out with his own backpack. "Good kid," I grin. "Gotta hurry, or we'll be late and can't have that. And why?" I remind him as I tie his shoes. I wince, seeing how awful they look already. I'll grab some money and buy him some after school...

"Too many tardies," he announces.

"Yep." Before going down, I slip in the master bedroom, find a wallet and pull out two twenties. I sneak back out- he never notices.

We leave the house quickly before mother or Gerald can stop us. The next street over, I buy him a donut but none for me- my stomach is feeling a little queasy, anyways. I drop him off at his class and hurry to mine, entering just in time.

"Miss Shiloh, how nice of you to join us," Mr. Alder says with sarcasm. No worries. I hate him too.

"Or not," mutters a voice in the room. More particularly two rows back, on the right edge. Whee to me, sitting in the middle of the class. I hate it.

For once I don't respond and pull out my jumble of pages as Alder collects homework. He sees my scribbling and I can already see his mind giving me an F most happily. Honestly, I never did anything to him. Except freshman year and let loose the frogs we were about to dissect. But can you honestly blame me? NO ONE wanted to kill those little amphibians... except for a few.

Classes went through okay- except for the fact Caleb has practically the same schedule as me and no matter how many times I've tried to change mine... they won't let me. Evil people. They think we should all be happy and all be friends... more like shoving everyone's faces in the dirt. Like communists, yeah?

Lunch is my salvation! I do a small victory dance to myself and hurry to our table. It's crowded with all my pals. Jaz, Sable, Regan, Marcus, Dave, Misty and Levi. Jaz is the crazy daring one who plays on our school's coed soccer with me, Sable is the real bohemian artist, Regan's our nerd, Marcus the dumb jock, Dave our computer geek, Misty the shy swimmer and Levi the all-around cool guy who knows everyone. Gotta love him.

"I hate the first day of school," I announce, sitting. "It's exactly like last year but worse. My teachers hate me even more," I emphasize with a groan.

Sable laughs. "Girl, you hate every day of school."

"Noooo," I say. "That one day.... was good..." I trail off, trying to think. There was a good day, wasn't there? Everyone laughs at me and I can't think on it any more. "Fine, fine, whatever," I tell them.

"So how's our Emo girl, besides school?" Levi jokes.

They call me Emo girl or skatergirl. Whatever. We're pretty much the school's outsiders or those who chose to be. We're all so completely different yet we manage together so well- it's awesome. I shrug. "The usual, unfortunately." I look around. "Where's Rhea?" Rhea's second cousin married my father's sister-in-law's cousin so we're actually related...weirdly, but still.

Jaz sniggers. "Two guesses."

"Lost on a safari?"

They all roll her eyes.

"Basement snogging Mustard?"

More sniggers. Knew it. It's not usually the school's basement, but a closet or empty classroom. Snogging...well, she is British. And I just call any boy she's out with Mustard, due to her crazy obsessiveness for the game Clue. Our dear friend Rhea was the weirdo in the group. She didn't exactly match in any group, I suppose. She's pretty and graceful, has five parrots, and her biggest hobbies are getting terribly lost while simply getting the mail [she's called me three times in the past month to remind her where to go] and kissing guys. Like I said, weird. But she's so good at keeping secrets, everyone loves her.

We joke around and finally have to part for classes.... P.E. Everybody hates the one after lunch, but... well, I don't know why I didn't try that hard to change it. But I've kept it.

"Two laps, kids, go!" Coach Wilson blows the whistle once he's made a headcount of everyone. I grab Dave and Misty, the two I share the class with, and we take the laps slowly for Dave, our stick-thin friend. We finish slightly out of breath. "Let's see how y'all do with softball!" Wilson cries and shoos us towards the diamond.

But that's Wilson for you. Very random. One day last year he couldn't decide on a sport so we spent the entire period holding a 'debate' to see what sport we should do... but ran out of time. It was actually pretty funny...

Most of the girls groan and the guys start talking. Misty and Caleb are randomly selected as Team Captains. Misty gets to go first and plays with her shirt hem, nervous. "Um... Kiley," She says softly.

Coach Wilson shakes his head. "You know the rules, Missy. Gotta choose a guy first."
She nods and takes Aiden, one of Marcus's close jock friends that she actually has a crush on. Caleb chooses someone and then Misty grabs me. I speak in her ear, telling her to choose after that, to help her out.

Misty's team gets to bat first and she makes me put everyone in order. Aiden hits a home run and we cheer. Then Dave strikes out but I give him a high five for trying. Then me.
I'm ambidextrous and use my left hand like always for this sport. "Come on..." I chew on my lip, watching Danielle play pitcher. She throws.... bam! I run and make it to second base and hear a few cheers from my team.

Then Misty's up to bat. I watch her prepare, smiling a little at my friend. "Run!" I scream with my team, seeing the ball go up in the air. Not high, though. But she can make it to first base, at least. Meaning... "Crap!" I jump off the second plate as though it's fire and start running to third. I peak. Still passing it... I step off, and start running.... then something hard hits me in the back, right in my bruise, and it makes me stumble and fall.

"Oww..."

Misty's running over, ignoring the fact she should still be on base... so's my team. I turn on my side and gingerly sit up. "Who the heck hit me!" I demand and fingers are pointed at, who else, but Caleb. I glare. "Thanks a lot, you jerk! Coach, he's out, right?"

"Are you okay?" He pointedly ignores my last question. Misty tugs at my t-shirt and I hear a few gasps. It can't be that .... oh. The bruise. I wince. Still hurts like heck.

"Ow," I say purposefully and tug my shirt back down.

"Kiley, it looks awful!"

I grit my teeth, not saying anything. Bruises never form that fast, but I can't say how I got it since I'm still a minor and I can't leave Benji or anything. "It's fine. Just gimme some ice."
"Misty, could you please escort Riley to the nurse's office? Caleb, you know you never throw the ball at people unless you're still holding it. Detention and you can sit out for the rest of the game." Coach Wilson decides and everyone parts like the red sea.

Misty gives me a hand up and we yank off the helmets and head out. "Are you sure you're okay? That bruise looks absolutely dreadful, Kils!"

I shrug and wince. It's definitely worse now. Just when I thought I was lucky... "Whatever. I heal fast, no biggie." She keeps talking like that and I keep trying to brush her off as we enter the school.

Nurse gives me an ice pack, making me lie on my stomach and since I only have two more classes after this, she says I only need to go if I feel better. Which I probably won't- the pain spreads and numbs my entire back for a while and I just lay there, partly dozing and wishing Caleb would die.