What You Mean to Me

Frank.

I pulled my plain white shirt over my head, slamming the locker closed, and walking out of the boy's locker room and into the gym, standing against the south wall like I was supposed to while roll was being called.

Leaning against the wall that had paint peeling off of it because it was so old, I turned my attention to my right, towards the dance room. The dance room was connected to the gym, and had a window across part of the wall the two shared, so I as able to watch the girls practicing.

But there was really only one girl that I was watching, and yeah, it was Lena. I just couldn't help but watch her. She was so graceful, so beautiful when she moved, really enchanting.

"Hey loser!"

Suddenly a basket ball came whizzing past me, slamming into the wall right next to my face, no more than two inches away. I turned so see a few jocks walking towards me. Damnit, why was it required to take Phys. Ed.?

"Hey, did you not hear me?" the one in the center yelled again. "I said throw me the ball!" then he continued to call me some degrading terms.

I nodded, too afraid to say anything, picking up the ball beside me and throwing it to him. He caught it with ease, stating to laugh as he walked away. I just shook my head, embarrassed and ashamed.

"Hey, you okay?"

I felt a hand on my shoulder and saw Lena by my side with a concerned look masking her face.

"Yeah, fine," I nodded, feeling completely better now that I was in her presence.

"Sorry about those guys," she said apologetically. "They're real…" she bit her lip, and I knew what she meant.

"Why am I always the one to be bullied?" I asked.

She shrugged, again, apologetically. "I don't know… maybe they're just jealous of you."

I watched her begin to walk back to the dance room.

"Why would they be jealous of me?" I asked.

She shrugged again. "'Cause you're gorgeous," she said simply before disappearing into the room again.

I felt a smile creeping across my face, and was standing there grinning like an idiot without even knowing it because Mikey came over waving a hand in front of my face, then pushing me, to snap me back to reality.

"Frank, what are you doing?" he asked pushing his glasses up on his nose.

"Uh…" I tried to get my thoughts straight. "Nothing…"

Mikey smirked. "Yeah, sure nothing's going on between you and Lena…"

I looked over at him strangely. "What did you just say?"

He shrugged. "Nothing… nothing at all…" he uttered before wandering off.

What the hell was that? Does Mikey know something that I don't know?

I was quickly broken out of my thoughts when another basketball came whizzing past my head. I looked over to see the same jocks laughing, starting to walk over to me, and I didn't have a good feeling about this.

"Hey, you!" the same blonde one yelled. "You know that babe?"

"What?" I asked, taking steps back.

"That babe that just came over to you. You know her?"

I was imagining they were talking about Lena, and hopefully not Mikey. "Um, yeah."

"How does some loser like you know a sexy bitch like that?" the guy demanded.

That got me mad, hearing them call her something like that, as well as boosting my confidence immediately. "Do not call her a bitch." I said seriously.

"What?" the guy looked like he hadn't heard me right.

"I said, do not call her a bitch," I told him. "Do I need to repeat myself for a third time, or did you hear me?"

The guy's face seemed to darken, and he and his buddies all tensed up.

"Oh, you're gonna regret saying that, little man," he said moving towards me.

Yeah, now I had a feeling that I would.