In Over My Head

As I arrived at the Gym the next morning I could already tell something was wrong. Or at least stranger than usual. All the students were gathered in little groups whispering amongst each other vehemently and when they spotted me they shut up. All at once.

Suspicious, much?

They stared intently as Ms. Keller, a short pixie-like woman with elfish ears, made her way towards me. I could never understand how a small woman like that could coach the entire high school student body AND girl sports on her own. But trust me, ever play volley ball on the opposite side of the net and she'll volley that ball straight into your face.

"Robbins wants you in her office" Squeaked the coach giving me a small paper that said 'pass' on it, ahh how easy it would be to duplicate it but I shrugged my mischief side off knowing I was already in deep trouble.

I shrugged rolling my eyes as everyone gasped simultaneously watching my every step as I left, what thespians.

But I had more pressing matters at the moment, what had I done?? My father would cheerfully whack me with maple syrup if I got ISS one more time.

I listed in my head all the bad things I'd done in school recently but I only came up with putting gum in one of the cheerleader's hair last week. And it wasn't even that bad! It was like near her ends, she needed a hair cut anyway, they cant honestly punish me with ISS for that??

I knocked lightly on the principle's door with my head reeling. "Enter" Ms. Robbin's low voice boomed from inside.

I did blurting out stupidly, "I didn't do it! I swear I have absolutely no idea how Mr. Heimlich's frogs ended up in your lunch!"

Ms. Robbin's shot me a grim smile clearly showing that she wasn't putting up with my witty banter and said, "Take a seat, Pandora"

That's when I noticed we weren't alone, Lara and Brittany sat in two of the five chairs available. Lara was patting Brittany's shoulder as Brittany sobbed into her hands loudly.

I rolled my eyes, it was clearly fake, and did take a seat, at the end.

I looked back at Ms. Robbins wanting her to tell me what I'd done this time but she just stared at me with her ancient looking dark brown eyes. Ms. Robbins was around like three hundred and forty-eight, minimally, and had a voice that strongly resembled a man's.

Her cheeks and chin sagged, as did her hands and arms with a billion wrinkles. Round horn-rimmed glasses sat atop her pointy nose and her salt and peppered hair was always up in a 80's looking do.

Basically you'd say she looked like a grandma, though she always dressed like she was going to a funeral. But no, never could Ms. Robbins be confused for a sweet old grandma that bakes homemade chocolate chip cookies and secretly hits on the mailman twenty years younger than her.

Never, because Ms. Robbins always stared at you with those cold dark eyes like she knew exactly all the sins you'd ever committed and was about to say you were going straight to hell. She looked like the type of woman that had a secret hit list.

Yeah, that's how scary she is. So I just looked at her knowing she was pissed of at me, more than she'd ever been (which is saying something), and wanting to know why.

But she didn't speak, she just stared back at me, looking straight into my eyes and I suddenly got a flashback of me cutting off Jessica Whiler's brand new doll's head back in second grade when everybody was at recess.

I shook that thought away, (besides she'd deserved it, she'd taunted me about not having a mommy and not being normal, and what had the teacher done? She'd barely even gave Jessica a slap on the wrist but she'd called my dad! Not fair!) and narrowed my gaze at Ms. Robbins.

"So why am i here? What'd i do?" I asked warily over Brittany's dry sobs.

Ms. Robbins glared at me, for some reason annoyed that I'd spoke over Brittany's fake crying, and offered her some tissues, "We're waiting for Damian James."

I gulped, holy shytt, what HAD i done??

Almost three nerve-racking hours later (all of which Brittany didn't stop falsely crying and Ms. Robbins never stopped glaring at me) said boy showed up. Damian looked disheveled, but cute, "You wanted to see me, Ma'am? I'm sorry for being late, I had an emergency at home"

Aw, 'Ma'am'...Wait, no! Focus, Andy!

"Take a seat, Damian" Ms. Robbins replied smiling pointedly at the seat next to Brittany but instead D sat next to me looking cautious of Brittany's crying not even getting lectured for his tardiness; which I knew wasn't because an 'emergency at home'.

The principle looked at me annoyed, as if I had forced Damian to sit next to me then spoke, "I've received concerns from some of my students and a problem has occurred than needs to be fixed."

She looked at me before I'd even spoken, "What problem?" she always started her little lectures like this, a problem that needed fixing.

Ms. Robbins ignored my question and looked back to Lara and Brittany, "My Dears, please re-account what you just told me"

I watched as Lara nodded, "Well, when I was helping Mr. Martins clean out his storage closet this past Friday" (yeah i bet that wasn't all she was doing) "I found something really frightening. I became so scared that I had nightmares all weekend"

I rolled my eyes, Lara didn't even have the brain capacity to remember her dreams, much less the brain power to even have dreams in the first place.

"Pandora, do you recognize this?" Ms. Robbins asked handing me a written on packet of post-its.

I gulped, i could already tell it was my handwriting (being that it was messy as hell) and I searched my mind for any memory of writing "Robbins is an old hag from Hell" on anything but came up short with nothing.

I took it the packet gingerly and realized it was one of those flip things that we drew in Art.

"Go on" coaxed Mr. Robbins.

I flipped through the post-its and an animation played. There were two figures on a really high cliff with pointy boulders at the bottom. One was labeled 'Me', the other 'Damian'. Basically 'Me' pushed 'Damian' off the cliff and sent him spiraling down to the boulders below.

The End.

"I have feeling this Damian character's gonna magically turn into a penguin at the end" I said with false interest, Why did my drawing even matter?

Damian chuckled slightly but was interrupted by Brittany letting out a strangled choke of a sob and Ms. Robbins slammed her withered old clawlike hands on her desk, "This is not a laughing matter, Pandora!"

"Well, what of it then?" I asked shrugging.

Her nostrils flared, "Ms. Night, this could get you charged with conspiracy to commit murder, or, at the very least, expelled from Lincoln High!"

"What?!" I exclaimed incredulously, "You cant be serious?!"

Ms. Robbins nodded showing fierce determination in her frightening eyes, "I'm afraid so, I'll have to involve the police with a situation like this"

Me and Damian both gasped whilst Brittany quieted down obviously entranced in what my punishment was gonna be.

"Wait?! What?!" I shook my head in disbelief, "It's not fair to punish me for releasing some pent up anger through drawings! That's what they're there for! Expressing yourself and all that crap!"

"It is a cause for punishment when you've already shown violent tendencies at school" contradicted Ms. Robbins.

"What?? How? I'm not a bully!" I protested.

Ms. Robbins tutted disapprovingly, "Ms. Night you have countless referrals from previous years where you and Brittany have been in fights. I always gave you the benefit of the doubt, but now I know who's fault it is"

"What?!?!" I exclaimed outraged, "It was not!!"

But I was cut off by Brittany speaking up, "She-she attacked m-me a couple w-weeks ago at th-the mall.. Employees w-w-witnessed" then she threw herself into Lara's arms again and sobbed so falsely that I wanted to give her something real to cry about.

But I guessed it really wasn't gonna help me right now.

My jaw dropped, "You provoked me!!" I screamed at her.

"Just because she gave you advice on how if you asked people, they'd help" Lara said in fake earnest while patting Brittany's shoulder again.

"Not true! She told me charity would probably make an exception for me since I am charity" I screwed up and said it in a way that didn't really help me at this point. Brittany grinned but went back to sobbing and Ms. Robbins looked reproachfully at me.

I shook my head again knowing I looked in denial and guilty but not caring, it wasn't fair, I was the one always standing up for people that got bullied, why was I being framed for bullying?! "They're lying through their teeth!!" I yelled at Ms. Robbins, "Why the fudge would I attempt to hurt Damian or Brittany without a reason to?!"

"Because you're jealous!" Lara suddenly exclaimed looking at me like she'd won.

And she had if she was about to say what i thought she was; everything would come together, my denial would further be ignored and I'd probably be arrested on the spot.

"Don't..Lara..please don't" I begged with a soft voice as my heart hammered against my ribs.

She gave me a cold smirk and said loudly and tauntingly, "Andy's had a crush on Damian for years, haven't you, Andy?"

I sat still staring at the floor, completely mortified.

"You've been completely obsessed with him since seventh grade, doesn't it make sense that after all these years you'd finally run out of patience waiting for him to come to you and, excuse the melodramatic saying, simply decided that if you cant have him no one else can, right?"

Damn she was good, I hadn't known she was smart enough to create this whole plot. Probably Brittany had helped, but it didn't matter, not even when I measly exclaimed, "You're blowing things way out of proportion!". I already knew Ms. Robbins had made up her mind, who knows, she could have already called the cops for all I knew.

I could already picture myself in rags banging a metal cup against the bars begging for scraps of food. I wanted to cry, suddenly. My once sort-of-close friend had back stabbed me, lied to get me kicked out, and outed me to my crush just to get my guy best friend.

How sick is that?

I briefly wondered that if my dad was ready to beat me with maple syrup for getting detention, what would he do if I was sent to jail. Then Damian spoke "But, Ms. Robbins" he objected, "Andy wouldn't do that, it has to be a misunderstanding or something"

But she waved his words away, "It's okay deary, you don't have to feel threatened anymore by Ms. Night."

Damian shook his head and some part of me liked that he was defending me but I was still shocked with all that had happened in the last three and a half hours. How'd I go from being an A honor-roll student with some behavior issues to a criminal??

Then without warning Damian grabbed the back of my neck forcing my head towards his.

What are you doing?! I screamed with my eyes too afraid to speak out loud.

Trust me! His seemed to yell back.

And then quite suddenly his lips were on mine. Blankness fell upon my mind, Damian James was kissing me!! His lips were warm and helpful, almost like a tutor for mine and I gratefully let them guide me. The hand that was at the back of my head traveled softly towards my cheek and made me relax, nearly sighing into the kiss.

That's when i realized; Damian James was kissing me!!

I tried to pull away, aghast that he'd do this and in front of the principle! But Damian shushed me by placing his hand on my thigh. My eyes widened but my lips reluctantly stayed molded to his, it wasn't exactly how I'd pictured it (try the whole Romeo&Juliet scene; I was a dramatic romantic when I was thirteen), specifically not like this.

When Ms. Robbins and Lara let out a gasp and Brittany choked on a real strangled sob, Damian pulled away from me.

"Never in all my years---!!" The flabbergasted principle had started to exclaim and I was totally sure I'd be expelled now but Damian cut her off.

"I was trying to show you why Andy wouldn't hurt me; we're together" Damian said like it was the most obvious thing in the world but I nearly fell off my chair and Lara and Brittany started to have breathing problems.

"Mr. James" Ms. Robbins said in a tight voice, "I already told you, you needn't be afraid of Ms. Night. We can take her away" She said the last part like she'd deeply wanted that for the last six years (she used to be the Junior High principle when I was there).

But Damian shook his head and laughed, "Ms. Robbins,why would I be scared of my own girlfriend?" (My stomach fluttered) "She drew that picture because I ran over her cat Dino, whom she'd had since childhood." He shrugged, "And those fights weren't her fault. Brittany really did provoke her."

I stared, my jaw dropped once more, Damn, he was a good persuader, if I did have a cat I probably would've named it that!

Ms. Robbins' nostrils flared again, "Fine, Pandora you're not in trouble but I'll be watching you two closely from now on. If I so much as smell a whiff of foul play you'll be in my office again"

I opened my mouth to reply sarcastically how she can't smell foul play when it wasn't an odor but Damian elbowed me knowingly.

Then she looked at the dumbstruck blondes next to us with a contemptuous glare, "And you two, we're going to have a long discussion of how to fix this new predicament.

Then three things happened; Lara's face turned into ray of sunshine almost, sending a triumphant smirk my way (What the hell??), Brittany lunged at me, clearly meaning to hurt me if she was willing to break her newly manicured nails, and I jumped sideways into Damian's lap.

That made it worse, Brittany screamed an ear throbbing scream and clawed the air in front of me but not being able to reach because Ms. Robbins was holding her back.

"Go!" she screamed at us and without hesitation we did, hearing the words "Counselor", "Parents", and "Anger management courses".

As soon as I made it halfway to the end of the hall I sighed the biggest sigh of relief, "Thank you so much" I told Damian who'd been quiet since getting out of the office.

He was starring ahead, "So you've liked me for almost five years?"

"Nice to know you can count" I said sarcastically but I knew that wasn't gonna save me from having to answer, "Yeah, I guess I have.."

"How did I not notice?" He asked me in disbelief.

I rolled my eyes, "Damian, you aren't the brightest crayon in the box and besides your Mr. Popular and I'm Ms. Bite me, we aren't exactly the closest of friends, 'specially not in middle school, I don't think you even knew I existed"

I just wanted to put this behind me, it felt weird telling Damian all this, something churned in my empty stomach and it wasn't butterflies.

D laughed, "I do remember you" he objected, "Andy Night," he repeated my name like he was trying to remember something from a long time ago, "You were the freakazoid always protesting the cafeteria's no-sweets-or-carbonated-beverages rule"

I rolled me eyes, "'Freakazoid? Who says that anymore? I suppose I should just be glad you know how to say 'Carbonated'"

"Brittany always called you that.." Damian kept on, "She made people hate you.."

He still stared on like seeing a different time period in front instead of just an empty hallway, "Did you..?" I asked not knowing how that thought had gone from my mind to vocal cords.

And I sounded so vulnerable! oh god.. but Damian shook his head looking understanding, "Nah, I always knew Brittany was a hateful bitch. 'sides I love soda. Thank God you brought it back eight grade year"

I laughed, "Yeah, I think I went around getting a hundred signatures or something. They had no choice, I'd sue"

"Would you have?" he asked looking at me skeptically with his warm brown eyes.

I grinned, "Nope"