We Won't Back Down

Chapter Twenty

Athena

I woke up to the sound of my phone going off, warning me that someone had texted me right on time in order to just almost make me late for school. I groaned and rolled over, blindly grabbing my phone and cracked my eyes open. The screen displayed Craig’s name on a bright orange and white background. It read:

Hey ‘Thena. Wakey wakey sleeping beauty. I know you have trouble with turning off your alarm and falling back asleep in the mornings, sometimes making yourself late. Thought I’d help you out and shoot you a text to make sure you’re awake. I’ll wait for you in the commons. Don’t be late! ;P

I blinked and rubbed my eyes a few times staring at the text. Why the hell was Craig being so… mushy lately? I mean don’t get me wrong, I would take the mushiness over the douchiness any day of the week. It’s just that he seemed… different somehow. It was like that after he woke out of his coma, he had significantly changed. It was almost as if he had transformed back into the old Craig that I used to be crazy about. He was being thoughtful, and caring, and kind, and sweet, not to mention funny, and well… he was always hot. I mean… what? Did I just call Mabbitt hot? Ughhh, not even going to go there. Of course… there was that kiss the other day.

Hey Craig, I’m awake. And I have no such trouble so sush yo mouth! >.< Meet ya there. Oh and thanks for the concern meathead but I am capable of taking care of myself :P I managed to send a text back before jumping up to throw on some clothes and attempt to make myself look human again.

I managed to squirm into a pair of old faded jeans and an Avenged Sevenfold band tee. Catching a glimpse of my troll hair, I decided to pull into a tight messy bun, reverting back to my middle school hair style. It was weird, but as I stared into the reflection at the mirror after drawing on a thin line of eyeliner, it was like looking into the past, but at the future at the same time. I was dressed in my old style of appearance, but I had still changed. I mean of course there was the physical maturing of my body that enhanced my image, but there was still a certain look in my eyes that was present among the last few times I dressed like this. Whatever it was, it was almost an alarming change.
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I sat in the lunch room with my sisters, picking at my food because the burden of the big move was invading my mind like a mother that day. Dahlia was eyeing Sheila because she had barely touched her food either. Dahlia was kind of like the mother hen out of the three of us.
“Sheila? Why haven’t you eaten your lunch? You skipped breakfast AND dinner last night. You need to eat before you make yourself sick kiddo.” Dahlia lectured and I knew it was just going to go in one ear and out the other because that was the Sheila way. She was stubborn. Very stubborn.

“I’ll be fine Dahlia. Just haven’t had much of an appetite lately. You know with the ridiculous move and all, it’s a little nerve wracking.” Sheila spoke for the first time in a few days and my mouth almost dropped open. Since she had gotten back from the outing with Max, she had shut herself up in her room and hadn’t spoken a word to either of us since. She roamed around like a zombie and gave small nods every now and again, but that was all the reaction we had managed to milk out of her.

“Oh dear mother of Jehova, she speaks!” I exclaimed, raising up my arms and looking toward the sky to imitate a mock ‘praise allah’ position. Sheila just continued to stare down at her untouched lunch tray.

“Sheila… Athena’s right. You haven’t talked to us in days. What’s wrong ,hun?” Dahlia reached over the table and grabbed her hand, forcing her to look at her. We were outcasts so we were pretty isolated, with a table all to ourselves because no one wanted to mingle with weirdoes of the school. So we could usually get away with talking about whatever at lunchtime without having to worry about it being overheard or repeated unless one of guys decided to bug us briefly. Speaking of which, the guys were at a different table laughing a goofing off, all of them except for Max who seemed off-puttish and antisocial. Something was wrong, something between them.

“More importantly, what did Max do?” I asked intently, looking at her and using my best ‘don’t bullshit me’ voice. She let her gaze fall to ground and I noticed her face twist into an expression that insinuated that she was holding back tears. Gosh, what on earth DID he do?

“He uh… nothing. It’s nothing.” She lied to us and put a firm hand on her shoulder and gave her that
‘you better tell me, or I’ll get it out one way or another’ look. She nodded and spoke again, “Well… the other day when he took me off, he brought me to our old spot. Then he cried and told me he didn't want me to go and I comforted him. Then Robert came along and I left briefly, only to return to overhear Max telling Robert that I was just another scratch on his bedpost and would fuck and dump me in a heartbeat. Those were his own words, I heard him! He doesn’t give a damn about me. Of course, why would he? I’m nothing special…” her voiced cracked and the tears that had been welling up in her dazzling gray-blue eyes spilled over and began to stream down one side of her face.

“Well that is definitely not nothing Sheila.” Dahlia spoke with ease and calming control, rubbing soothing circles on top of her hand with her thumb, which seemed to lurking before I stood up suddenly and grabbed my freshly opened chocolate milk, pacing quickly over to the guys table with a soul full of rage. Since I couldn’t’ start a fight in school and simply beat the shit out of Maxwell, I decided to find a nice loophole. Positioning myself directly behind max, I lifted my milk over his head doused him in all the diary glory he damn well deserved. An uproar erupted from the rest of the guys and Robert was laughing his ass off. Monte’s eyes were enlarged and round, and Craig was biting his knuckle in shock. Then I leaned down and murmured in his ear “Choke on karma Green!” Fucks I gave that day? Zero to none.
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Craig sat next to me in Finance Math later that day and I wasn’t sure if he was doing in to try to just hang out with me, or if he was going to yell at me for what I did to Max earlier. Fucking bastard, lecturing me and making me feel responsible for the accident that almost killed his best friend but I can’t take action against an asshat playing my sister like she’s a Hollywood whore. I think so Bitch! There were two things you never fucked with concerning an Elwell sister. That was our music, and one of our own.

The teacher, Mrs. Gifford, a skinny looking broad with pointy nose and beady eyes started the lecture for the day and right after she threw the warm up problems on the overhead, I felt something pelt me in the head from the left and I turned my gaze of Craig. He looked like he was stifling a laugh while trying to maintain an innocent appearance. I looked down at the weapon of choice sitting on top of my desk and picked it up. It was folded into the shape of a paper football and I unfolded it to see if he had written anything inside. He had, it read,

Yo ‘Thena,
Hey, are you okay? I noticed the lash out you had at lunch. Is there something wrong?
-Craig

I sat there staring at his note, trying to figure out if I should tell him what I knew about his asshat of a friend. Then my mind wandered over to him. What if he had just been trying to ‘change’ how he treated me in order to accomplish what Max was attempting with Sheila? Fuck that! There was no way I was going to let him make a fool of me a second time. Thank you, Max for opening up my eyes to the potential truth of the matter. But I had no proof of any of that. What if Craig had changed for the better and I was accusing him of being a shitty dick? I suppose I was just going to have to let it play out, but I was definitely going to keep my eyes peeled. I wasn’t to be so easy to get to again. I was going to make sure of it. So I wrote him back.

Hey Craig,
Yeah I’m fine. He just pissed me off. He upset my sister and I couldn’t exactly punch him in the face, so I settled for crowning him the brown king of Moo Kingdom. Just trust me, he deserved it. You know Max can be an idgit sometimes.
-Athena

I passed the note back to him and he read it quickly. I saw him roll his eyes and write a sentence or two down on the sheet before he folded it back up and waited for the teacher to pass his row as she was passing out worksheets. He flicked it at me like a little paper football and I swear I got a paper cut on my left eyeball from it. Dick. I unfolded it to read:

What the hell did he do this time? Gah I swear, he better not be into drugs again...I'll kill him. The conversation carried on pretty much like this for the next ten minutes in between doing our school work and making sure the teacher wasn’t watching. I wrote him a reply.

No, not that I know of. He just... well he said Sheila was nothing more than another potential fuck buddy. That shit don't fly. And neither do brown cows.

I watched him take a moment to draw something on the page They could if they really tried! Don't smush their dreams! Yes these are flying brown cows...on a serious note, that is fucked up...like beyond fucked up. Is that all that is wrong with you today?

I replied,Lmao Craig! what the fuck? xD And well.. there may be a few other things... >.>
When I got it back it said,Tell me Thena

I sighed in defeat and reluctantly opened myself up to him a little. It felt odd to talk to Craig about stuff again. Why? Well mainly because it was like the last few years never happened and we were just as close as we had ever been. It was like a switch flipped when Craig got hit by that car. I’ve heard that people have been known to change in some way after a drastic accident. Perhaps that same thing had happened to Craig? Well…it’s just this whole moving thing. I'm not sure if I want to leave just yet, ya know.

So wait…it's really going to happen?

More than likely. And it sucks.

Athena you really can't let them control your life, I mean I understand that they are your parents and all, but you have a life here and you are so close to graduating. That would just ruin everything for you and your sisters and some credits don't transfer over. Fight the power...please... Everything he said seemed ritualistic of him… except for the please at the end. It seemed liked he was either hiding something or that car hit him harder than I thought.

I get what you mean Craig, I do. It's just... I know my parents. No amount of arguing is going to persuade them to let us stay. It'll just piss them off if we "question their authority" to rule over us like a bunch of peasants. And why the please?... Craig read my reply and began to scratch his pen to the paper and after a few moments the teacher finally caught eye of our shenanigans. Mrs. Gifford snatched it up and held it up and began to skim over it. When she was done she looked at Craig and then her gaze slid over to me. Her eyes narrowed and she I knew she was going to demand that I stay after class.

“Miss. Elwell, would you mind staying after class? I’d like to talk to you about this situation.” She said, but she didn’t sound angry. I nodded and glared at Craig and he stuck his tongue out at me. It was kind of cute actually. I hated it when he did that. It made ten times harder to stay mad at him.
After the bell rang ending the period, I packed up my stuff and waited for the classroom to clear out before slinging my bag over my shoulder and approaching Mrs. Gifford’s desk. She looked at me and
proceeded to sit down in her rolly chair.

“So Miss Elwell, how have you been?” She asked me. I cocked my head to the side and rose my eyebrow at her, pausing before I said “Fine?”

“Well, I can’t help but to overhear all the rumors about you and your sisters. Word in the halls is that your parents are shipping you half way across the globe. What’s the word on that?” She asked me, concern laced in her voice.

“It’s true.” I answered her, my gaze falling to my feet. “We leave at the end of the week.”

“Oh? And so close to graduation? That doesn’t seem to add up.” She said and she was right. It didn’t add up. Our parents just wanted some leverage on us, so in not allowing us to graduate, we’d have to go through the schooling system in Austrailia, and who knew how many years that could add on to our education pathway. It was just our parents lashing out and throwing a power fit.

“Well, perhaps I could talk to your parents, maybe they could be persuaded to let you girls stay a little longer so you could graduate. I know your parents like to shift you around to different places in the summer with them, but you girls have grown up in this school system and I’m sure everyone wants to see you graduate with your class.” Her words were very kind and generous, but I knew it would do absolutely no good to attempt talking to my parents. Sadly, I would have to shoot down her offer.

“I’m sure they would, as would my sisters and I. But Mrs. Gifford, I’m afraid it wouldn’t do much good to talk to my parents. They have their minds set on shipping us off, so thank you for the kind offer but I’m going to have to humbly decline.” I told her and she nodded and handed me the note Craig and I were passing back and forth.

“Alright. Well if you change your mind, I’m sure Mr. Mabbitt would be grateful for the favor.” I nodded and left the classroom. I unfolded the note and read his interrupted message.

Isn't that obvious by now? Athena we are just getting fixed to the way we used to be and I can’t lose that because your parents are douchesnozzles...I think I...

He thinks he what? HE WHAT? What was he going to say? It was going to bother me for the rest of the day. Maybe that’s what Mrs. Gifford meant. Could Craig actually care for me like he used to? I was so confused and had so many mixed emotions. I felt like I was going to burst into an emotional mess, and I kind of wanted to avoid a melt-down. There was so much built emotions that I had been gunny sacking for years and I just needed to get it all out.

I decided that I might want to try that whole writing your feelings down in a letter and then burning it. I heard that helps some clinically depressed individuals. I wasn’t clinically depressed, but maybe it might make me feel better. I needed to spew my emotions out, and I knew exactly who I was going to address that non-sendable letter to.