The Crumbling Pyramid

Two weeks went by. The Crucible was cast, and Anette, Gerard and Mikey all ended up involved - Mikey, on light crew again, Gerard as John Proctor, and Anette as his wife, Elizabeth. There was much teasing of Frank from Gerard about how Gerard had married Anette and how she had "divorced" Frank, and it ended in Frank buying Anette a new Ring Pop, much to everyone’s amusement.

That week, they were due to start a swimming unit in gym. Everyone changed out into swim suits that Monday and met on the deck of the school's pool, most of them excited for the class to start. Coach Jordan had forbidden tiny bikinis, so almost half the girls in the class were now wearing brand new suits that covered all the essentials to Coach’s satisfaction. Coach split them up into teams for water polo, and just about everyone jumped in the water right away. Anette was one of few who simply slid into the water, not wishing to splash other people. She was just about to swim out by herself to her team's side when she noticed Mikey standing by the stairs into the pool, looking at the water with terror in his face.

She swam over to him, and said, "Hey Mikey, what's up?"

He squinted at her. "I..." He swallowed. "I hate the water."

"Hydrophobic?"

After a pause, he nodded his head.

"Well, here." Anette walked up the stairs until she was standing on the top one and held out a wet hand towards Mikey. "I'll be here with you. It's okay."

Hesitantly, he took her hand and she held fast as they walked down the steps together. Mikey shivered in the cool water and Anette blushed a little, grateful that he couldn't really see that she was turning red and trying not to study his bare chest or anything else for that matter.

"Fuck this is cold."

"Mikey, Anette! What's the hold up?" Coach Jordan asked from the deck.

"Mikey doesn't like the water," Anette explained, trying to keep her voice low.

From somewhere, they heard Andrew laughing, saying, "Stupid faggot pussy, scared of the water."

"Andrew, watch your mouth or you'll have detention!" Coach yelled at him, then turned back to Mikey and Anette. "Alright Mikey, you don't have to do anything too bad then. You can do some sort of lap swimming instead."

Mikey paled (which was hard to do, because he was already lacking in color), but said, "Thanks Coach."

"Alright then. Anette, get into the game. I'll look after Mikey."

"Yes, Ma'am," Anette said, and she gave Mikey's hand one last reassuring squeeze before swimming to her team.

-

After class and they were dry and changed, Anette accidentally met up with Mikey, who was going back to the deck to get his bag like she was.

"How was the game?" he asked.

"Okay. We lost 'cuz the other team had all the good people though. How were laps?"

"Well... shitty, 'cuz I can't really swim."

"I'm sorry."

"It's not your fault."

They came to the pile of bags and started looking for their own. "Thanks, by the way," Mikey said. "For... you know."

"No problem."

After a few moments, Mikey looked up at her and said, "Hey, do you see my bag?"

Anette frowned. "No. Do you see mine?"

"No. Fuck, they were here."

"Yeah, I wonder..."

They looked at each other again, and they both groaned. "Andrew," Mikey said.

So they left for the hallways, hoping to find Andrew and see what he had done. They found him just outside the boy's locker room, holding Mikey's bag in one hand and Anette's in the other.

"Look! Here comes Fag Boy and Slut Girl!" Andrew cried even though the three of them were alone in the hallway.

"Give us our shit, Andrew," Mikey growled.

"And what'll happen if I don't?"

"I'll fuck you up."

Andrew laughed. "In your dreams, faggot."

Mikey moved to hit Andrew, but Anette held him back. "Andrew, please, just give us our stuff," she said wearily. She really didn't want to have to deal with this.

"Only if you give me a kiss, Slut Girl," he replied, grinning wickedly.

Mikey gagged and Anette suppressed one of her own. "Come on Anette, this isn't worth it, we'll just find a teacher," Mikey muttered.

"I'm waiting."

"It's okay, Mikey," Anette said, even though it clearly wasn't. She faced Andrew with a bit of a disgusted look on her face and stepped towards him, stopping almost toe-to-toe.

"Still waiting."

She wrinkled her nose - his breath smelled. She considered leaving and going to find a teacher, but then again, she didn't want either her or Mikey's things in Andrew's possession any longer than they absolutely had to be. So, she stood on tiptoe, squeezed her eyes shut, and pressed her lips to Andrew's foul mouth for a brief second like she had done what seemed like so long ago.

Smirking, he handed her Mikey's bag, but not her own. "You'll have to do better than that, slut," he said, using his now free arm to pull her close to him. Repulsed, Anette went to push him away, but he kissed her hard and wouldn't let go. She prayed it would be over soon, and didn't struggle until he reached down and grabbed her ass. She pushed away and snatched her bag from his hands, stomping over to Mikey.

"Next time you won't get off so easy," Andrew called after them as she handed Mikey his bag and they left for History.

"You should report him," Mikey said as they joined the crowd that flowed down the hallway. "For sexual harassment."

"Since when did reporting Andrew Callhart actually work?" Anette said pointedly.

"Yeah, you're right," he replied, though Anette thought she could sense that he didn't mean it. "Anyways, you didn't have to do that. I was gonna knock his lights out."

"Yeah, and then you'd be expelled like that," Anette retorted, snapping her fingers. "Besides, it's not like he raped me or anythi—crap." Her hand was feeling around her purse, and she frowned. "My iPod's gone."

Out of fear, Mikey felt around his own bag. "Fuck, mine too. That asshole, I'm gonna—"

"Hey, Anette."

Anette and Mikey both stopped, not ten feet from their next class, to see that it was Tyler who had talked to them, accompanied by Dawn. He glanced around to make sure no one important was paying attention to them, and then said, "Hey, so Andrew was trying to sell your stuff to underclassman, so I bought it off him."

"What?" Anette said, confused.

Tyler produced two iPods, two sets of headphones, and Mikey's music notebook from his backpack. "Dawn recognized your stuff, and so this must be yours, Mikey..." Tyler handed them their belongings. "Damn bastard charged me hard for it."

"You didn't have to do that," Anette pointed out. "Besides, won't you get in trouble with him if he finds out you've been helping us?"

"We don't care anymore," Tyler said, then glanced hesitantly at Dawn. "Well, at least I don't. That was a douche-y thing to do, even for him."

"Yeah," Dawn quietly agreed.

"Well... thanks Tyler. You too Dawn, I guess," Anette said. Mikey nodded in agreement, and they all walked in to History together.

-

A few days later, Anette and Ray sat in their hallway together. They were taking a break from Ray helping Anette learning her lines, and as such, Ray was writing in the My Chem song book and Anette was checking her email from her iPod. She hadn't been on in ages, not since Chase had broken up with her, in fact.

The second she got logged on, she immediately regretted it. She even dropped the iPod in shock. "What's wrong?" Ray frowned as Anette started to shake, and so he picked up the iPod and looked at the screen. He scrolled through her emails, getting more shocked by the second.

Her inbox was filled with about fifty emails of hate mail, all from blocked senders. He read through a couple, all of which were disgusting and had poor grammar and ranged from telling her about how everyone knew she had STD's from all the boys she slept with to asking which one of the guys was a better fuck to just calling her rude names to telling her how she should just kill herself and rid the world of her skankiness.

"Wh-what do they say?" Anette asked shakily, all color gone from her face.

"Anette, you don't-"

"Yes, I do Ray."

So he took a deep breath and started reading the one he had currently open.

"You should just go fucking die in a hole you whore. Everyone knows they only let you hang out with them because you suck their cocks nightly and probably daily in the bathrooms so they can give you even more AIDS. Chase is so much happier without you in fact he slept with Dawn the night he dumped you. Go cut yourself like the fucks you hang out with and die because no one loves you."

He looked up to see tears streaming down her face. "Well... this person's stupid. They used the wrong "hole" and put "u" instead of "you" and—"

"Ray, I d-don't care."

"Sorry." He deleted all the messages, logged her off, and then handed her back her iPod. She pulled a tissue out of her purse and started wiping away tears as he put an arm around her shoulders. "Just... just ignore them Anette."

"I... I can't," she said miserably. "I d-didn't think it was this bad."

"Well, you know none of that shit is true, right?"

"How do you know?"

"Anette, we hang out with you because you're nice and wonderful and witty, not to mention one of my best friends and Frank's wife," Ray said, trying to cheer her up. “And besides, even if you were sleeping with any of us, I don't think even Frank would want to be fucked in the bathroom - they're filthy."

Anette gave a small laugh, and Ray took the tissue from her and wiped her face clean.

"They probably only sent you hate mail to get on Andrew's good side, anyways."

"That's half of what's bothering me," she said, sniffling. "He has so much power in this school."

"Well, even if he does, it's weakening," Ray pointed out. "I mean, look at what Tyler and Dawn did the other day. Don't you think that they wouldn't have stood up to him unless they really hated what he was doing?"

"I... I guess."

"There. See? We're changing things. You are changing things."

"How so?"

Ray thought for a moment, and then said, "By just being you. You're starting to re-arrange this whole pyramid scheme."