This War Paint

Jane


Wham.

It was as quick as that, as abrupt as any storm and just as fierce.

I was chatting to Lolly about something unimportant and I was doing my best to keep my eyes from straying to David. He was staring, but then so was Fraser. Their gazes weighed into me but I wasn’t giving anything away. I had my best poker face and all they had was their hot eyes.

What David had done, how close he had been to me, had me nervous. Just to remember the threat in all of his words and behind all of his movements was enough to set my jaw on edge. I’d already let myself slip by catching his eye. I’d probably shown him everything I was trying to hide – he probably knew by now that I was terrified of him. I was practically cowering behind Lolly after all.

Jennifer Jameson, known better to her friends as Lolly, hadn’t noticed yet that I was barely listening to her gossip. She, David and I had been pretty good friends for most of our lives, especially through early high school and she was still coming to terms with the fact that David had drifted off into his own waters. Of course, she didn’t know what he had tried to do. Lolly wasn’t the sharpest tool in the box but she was the sweetest girl to make up for it.

Lolly, like the sweet.

Sometimes how sweet she was got a little overwhelming and how shallow she was got a little daunting, but she could make me laugh. And even though she had the biggest crush on David, she had replaced him as my best friend. I knew she would never intentionally hurt me even if she was unintentionally in love with the boy making me hide behind her under the hot sun.

I caught Fraser’s gaze next and felt the smile relieve the poker face. I waved like we were children again, not caring even when curious onlookers followed my line of sight. Lolly turned to him too and giggled.

“He’s cute Jane.”

I was surprised that she didn’t realise who he was. Butch wasn’t usually defined around the town as ‘cute’ but if you saw Fraser without any labels he was undeniably beautiful. Rugged and very particular but still beautiful. There was suddenly a blush crawling up my neck because Lolly had seen right through this poker face.

“His name’s Fraser,” I told her with a small smile on my face, turning away from him before he could see the flush. I didn’t want to introduce him as Butch. He had never been that to me.

“Oh I know who he is, I’m just surprised that he’s not Butch to you. I don’t think anybody’s called him Fraser since middle school. He’s cute though, and I see your blush Jane, which means you like him,” she grinned and swung her arms around her.

I laughed it off because I didn’t even know if she was right. I found him interesting, intriguing; he was nothing like the people I usually surrounded myself with. But he was still a rebel who took drugs more than I knew most others did, and he was a danger to more than just my health. His reputation alone should have been enough to warn me away forever, me who was so obsessed with my standing in the school, knowing it was the only thing keeping me sane amid a world of madness. He was the one person who could bring me from my high standing to less than nothing in only a few seconds. Granted the right rumour was spread, I could lose absolutely everything.

Maybe that was where the appeal lay, though. Maybe it was that, for once in my life, the dangerous option looked the most appealing. With only my short experiences with Fraser I already knew I had felt something. And just hearing the one story behind his tattoos had me desperate for the rest of them.

Fraser was a puzzle just waiting to be put back together. He was a mystery just waiting to be discovered. And just before all hell broke loose, I found myself glancing over at him and wishing that we weren’t who we were. That I was just some girl amid a sea of others and he was just some boy who couldn’t make the football team and enjoyed math. We were already carved out by who we tried to be.

Wham.

I didn’t see the first punch but later Lolly would tell me that it had been David, lurching and flailing and trying so hard to find a part of Fraser to pummel. I had seen him walking towards David Armstrong across the lawn, weaving in between bodies, but I hadn’t put two and two together. They were renowned for never getting along. It was almost legend. David said Butch was jealous of him. Butch didn’t say anything but he didn’t need to, he showed how much he hated the stuck-up jock with his snarling eyes.

Instantly, the boys were consumed within a crowd of jeering onlookers. I saw Fraser’s best friend practically throw himself into people, trying to get them out of the way, hopefully trying to stop the mad testosterone battle they were both contending in. I gasped in so much air my lungs were aching with it and I held it all there as Lolly pulled desperately on my arm.

I just knew it was somehow about me. I knew what David had tried to do not even an hour ago and I knew the scared look that had escaped me. Fraser had told me, through his eyes alone, that he suspected there was something not right with us. And then he was steaming up to the boy and there were fists and insults flying.

“God Jane, what the hell is he doing to David?”

Lolly’s voice rose at ‘David’ as if she could barely control herself over just his name alone. I knew she was in love with him, but I didn’t know she was that hysterical over him. Then again, he was currently circling a guy bigger and taller than him laced in tattoos that anyone in their right mind would put their money on. Lolly, while not the brightest girl in the world, understood this too.

“I can’t see,” I said, as if I didn’t know what was happening within that crowd.

Lolly pulled me sharply forward, over curious bodies and into the growing mob. Sharp elbows cast out, she forced us straight through. If the people didn’t part for me and my reputation then they parted for Lolly and her determined shoving.

We were at the front before I had regained my head. And I was lurching forward to a bloody nosed Fraser just as David went for another crushing blow. I was saying something, unknown to even myself, that was directed at both the boys in front of me.

The cliché circle of students around them watched in awe as if this was some kind of movie put on purely for their entertainment. They made up a boxing ring which I found myself spat in the middle of. I had to take a staggering step away from David as he redirected his fist, curving it upwards so that I could almost see the impact of it stifling through Fraser’s jaw. The crunch which echoed made me sick. And the triumph on David’s face made me sicker.

It gave me little satisfaction to see that David’s face too was plagued in nasty cuts and bruises. He’d have a definite black eye in a few hours and his left wrist looked alarmingly crooked as he kept it nursed close to his side. Fraser appeared better but the blow he’d just sustained looked nasty enough to have most of the onlookers cringing. I put up two hands and rested them both firmly on their chests.

“Back off,” I said coolly although my insides were reeling. I was somehow caught up in this. The big drama, the biggest gossip. And of course I had managed to get myself tangled right up in it. “What the hell are you two doing? Putting on a nice show for your fans?” I hissed; quiet enough for my voice not to carry to the rest of the world.

David wasn’t looking at me but instead glowering straight at Fraser from across my arms. Fraser, on the other hand, was staring right at me, right into me, and it took everything inside of me to keep myself from staring back. He was questioning, obviously confused that I had thrown myself in between the two of them as I had. I was confused too. This wasn’t my fight and yet it felt like it was.

“If this piece of shit hadn’t come at me all guns blazing I wouldn’t have felt the need to punch his lights out,” David snarled.

“Oh that’s rich, pretty boy, coming from you. I don’t feel half bad right now but from the looks of it you’re close to being unconscious,” Fraser bit back just as fiercely. I could practically feel the heat from the exchange sear into my arms still holding them back from each other.

“Give it a few more minutes Butch and you would have been unconscious!”

“Fuck off Armstrong if you think for one minute you could take me.”

“Just because you’ll never have her the way I have, no need to become so bitter,” David retorted cockily.

I stood there, stunned, knowing exactly what he was alluding to and exactly what he was dangling in front of Fraser’s face. The boy groaned with so much frustration at David’s words that I thought for a brief moment he would break my arms in half just to get at him. We all remained as we were though, only my hold now felt hollow, just waiting to be lifted off.

And then I was the one lifting it off, raising up one hand to send it sailing into David’s face. My slap sent such satisfied ripples through my body that I thought for a second that everything he had ever done could be made up for. Could be punished. But then I was flinching away once again at just the harrowing look in David’s eyes which he had turned onto me.

“Oh Jane, sweetheart, please tell me you didn’t just do that,” he hissed out through gritted teeth.

“You’re not laying a single finger on her,” Fraser stepped forward so they were chest to chest, so that I was blocked from David’s sight.

“David Armstrong! Fraser Swank! Jane Hathaway! If you don’t break it up this instance I’ll call the ground security up here to haul you all off to prison.”

Everyone turned to look at the incoming principal who had no doubt been fetched by a few terrified students. The crowd around us muttered discontentedly to each other and someone even had the nerve to call “spoilsport” over the mobs’ heads. I was rooted there in my shock but Fraser and David weren’t. Instantly, they were recoiling from each other as if burned, Fraser’s hand catching my arm and dragging me with him.

There was nowhere to hide and we were already caught but he held me discreetly anyway. It was just for us, this touch. If I hadn’t been so mortified at being in trouble I would have been able to respond to it somehow.

“And you lot,” the tall wizened man turned to the crowd which had parted for him like Moses “scram. You’re all welcome to join these three in my office but I can assure you the punishment you’ll receive will dissolve any of the fun gossiping about it will bring.”

They listened too and dispersed quickly. I saw Lolly, caught her eye, as she sent me an apologetic look. Another few stragglers I recognised seemed to be trying to tell me something with their looks but they had soon disappeared. The bell had rung minutes ago but I had missed it, the jeers from the fight and the hissed words from Fraser and David had drowned it out.

“It seems, Mr Swank, that we’re back in a similar situation once again, and it seems with the same David Armstrong you were bullying last time,” our principal took the few remaining steps until he stood before us, rising up even taller than Fraser.

He scoffed “I don’t bully Armstrong. The prick tried to hit me first.”

“As if I would stoop so low as to touch you, Butch,” David sneered.

“And just what are you doing here Jane? A lovely young lady like you shouldn’t be getting involved with boys like Mr Swank here and in such situations as this,” the man zeroed light grey eyes onto me. I shrank back into Fraser’s side, unable to find even my tongue let alone any words. I was aware of how the fight had already been twisted in David’s favour but I seemed paralysed to tell the truth.

“We’re not involved sir,” Fraser stated coldly. “Jane just got thrown out of the crowd and into our fight.”

“The bitch slapped me,” David cut in.

“Is this true Jane?”

“I...” I struggled profusely, already feelings tears stinging my eyes.

“You fucking insulted her Armstrong. You don’t get to say shit like that and get away with it!” Fraser beside me was practically shaking with rage.

“Mr Swank!” the principal reprimanded stonily “I’d like it if you calmed yourself down! Now you three, I don’t care who or why the fight started I just care that you’ve disrupted the entire student body with this ruckus. I expect an essay from the both of you about how using up valuable lesson time is unproductive, David and Jane. And from you, Fraser, I expect ten hours of detention after school over the next week. We’ll see if we can’t stem that violent nature of yours yet! Now go to class and I don’t want to hear one bad word about any of you ever again. You’re supposed to be seniors so lead the school in an example, and don’t start pointless fights in the middle of lunch where you’ll just encourage other morons to do the same.”

David was already turning away, striding angrily up to the school building and disregarding all of us completely. I had caught his snide look just before, though, directed right at me. It told me of how this wasn’t over, and that I’d pay for slapping him in front of everybody. It was a million promises which had me quaking in my ballerina pumps.

“Please sir, I have work to get to after school. Can’t I do an essay too?” Fraser was no longer the indestructible persona he’d been personifying for the past hour.

“Mr Swank my decision is final. You’re the one here to blame I have no doubt and so the punishment must fit the crime.”

He began shaking again but I grabbed firmly onto his forearm, the muscles underneath my fingers playing out like an instrument. I sent my most perfect smile at our principal, stunning him slightly as if he had just glanced directly up into the sun, before I coaxed the boy beside me into a walk.

“We’re sorry Sir; you won’t hear a peep out of us for the rest of the summer,” I called, feigning cheerfulness.

I was aware of how it wasn’t fair on Fraser. It wasn’t right, and it wasn’t just. David had been just as much to blame, if not more so, and yet he walked away with just a two thousand word essay to write. I did too and I had just been trying to stop their craziness. But poor Fraser had to jeopardise work for something so mundane as a detention.

“I’m sorry Jane,” he let out a long shaky breath as we crossed under the first part of the school building. Shade was cast down upon us, alleviating the sunlight which had been frying into my skin unpleasantly.

“It’s fine. He deserved every punch you got in.” I was surprised at the venom in my voice but then I realised I hated David Armstrong. For everything he had done and said and everything he would try again.

Despite everything, Fraser chuckled beside me.

“Oh he’ll be feeling pretty sore for a week or two. I don’t know what he did to you but I know that if he tries it again you come to me. No questions asked, just tell me and I’ll go give him a second black eye to complete his whole racoon look.”

I watched him from the corner of my eye and smiled too. I didn’t release my hold on him until we stood outside of my classroom, just out of sight from the curious onlookers already inside.

“I promise I will.”

“Good.”

“Thanks Fraser,” I squeezed his arm one last time before I broke away.

And I sat with my head in the clouds for the rest of the day even though my whole world had suddenly turned completely crazy.