Left Behind

CARTER

I don’t know what it was about him that made me feel better, but he was sure doing a great job with helping me. I’d been hanging out with Bryce all weekend and it almost made me forget about everything. But when I couldn’t forget and I began to cry, he would be there.

It was Tuesday now and I was trying to get used to going to Aliyah’s house after school and not seeing Lucy’s face there instead. I tried to forget about everything, but it wasn’t that easy all the time. Sometimes, Lucy was all that I could think about. I missed her more than I had even missed my parents.

“Carter’s weird. I don’t even know why he would trade me for her,” I heard Kristen whispering to someone, that wasn’t Blaine, who was sitting in front of her. I was surprised when I saw Blaine roll her eyes.

“Will you hush? I’m trying to do my work,” Blaine interrupted. “When do you ever give up?”

“I’ll give up when you stop being fake, Blaine,” Kristen said loudly trying to catch everyone’s attention in the class.

“Kristen, we aren’t having this conversation right now. Everybody doesn’t need to know what goes on between the two of us. Just chill out.”

Kristen looked around and made sure everyone’s eyes were on her before talking next. “No, they’ll know whatever I let them know, Blaine! You want to know the reason why Blaine and I aren’t friends anymore? She wants to take up for that whore, Carter.” I saw Blaine shake her head then the entire class stared at me. Where was the teacher? I would’ve liked to know, because at that point I knew that if she told me one more thing…

“Kristen shut up!” Blaine yelled. “You’re making things up in your head right now. If you want to make a scene, then here goes!” Blaine stood up and sat on the top of her desk. “Okay, listen up everybody! Kristen Elizabeth Pistole is fucking mad because her boyfriend, Brycen, broke up with her. She wants to blame it on everybody but herself.”

“Blaine, no I don’t!”

“Shut up, Kristen. She wants everyone to think that I and Carter are the bad people in the situation when really, it’s her. Why? Because she’s a stuck up bitch that talks about everybody that passes her. And everybody’s sick of it. Including me.”

Kristen crossed her arms and stood up walking closer to Blaine’s desk. “Blaine, I’m not playing with you. I’ll hurt you and your BFF, Carter,” she said glaring over at me. I hope that wasn’t meant to scare me, because she did a poor job at it.

“Kristen, just sit down,” I heard Bryce say.

“Oh so you want to jump in when Carter’s being attacked? You never defended me, Bryce. I have every right to be pissed at you.”

“Kristen you’re really making a fool of yourself,” he informed her.

She walked over to me until she was sitting in the empty desk in front of me. She turned backwards until we were face to face. She must’ve been showing off in front of the class because all eyes were on us. “I’m not making a fool of myself, Bryce.” She took my pencil from my desk and flicked my hair with it.

“Stop.”

“Make me,” she said flicking my hair again.

“Somebody get her,” I said with my voice still calm. “This is so stupid.”

“Carter, I figured you out. You won’t do anything. You just think you’re a threat, but only I know that you're not.”

“Okay, Kristen. I won’t do anything.”

“Because you’re scared.”

“Yep,” I said agreeing so that maybe she would get out of my face.

“See?” she said pretending to fix my hair. “You know better than to mess with me. Who doesn’t though?” Before getting up she got a good grip on my hair and pulled it. “If you didn’t know before, well you do now.”

I stood up with a smile on my face, head cocked to the side, and I politely connected my hand to her face. It was just a slap, but it let out half of the anger that was stored. She scoffed and pushed me backward. There were clusters of unnecessary and childish ‘oohs’ and ‘ahhs’ amongst the classroom which only gave Kristen more confidence than what she already had.

“Kristen, don’t put your hands on me,” I emphasized as I put my hands in her face.

“She’s not worth it, Carter,” Blaine said knowingly.

“Or what?” Kristen flipped her hair and crossed her arms. “What are you gonna do? Get Lucy?”

I heard Bryce sigh. He knew what was about to happen.

I lunged over the desk before I even had the time to stop myself and I was on top of Kristen punching at whatever my hand connected to. She was kicking her feet and flailing her arms yelling at me to stop, but she had no business going there. How did she even know about Lucy in the first place?

I was yanked off of Kristen who just looked distraught at that point. I bet she regretted everything that she’d said, but I didn’t regret beating her ass. “Let me go!” I yelled as I tried to push Bryce off of me. He was always the one to take me from a fight.

“No! You’re gonna get in so much trouble, Carter!”

“I don’t care! You heard what she said.” He was squeezing me now and talking softly to me in my ear trying to get me to calm down.

“It’s okay, just let it go. She doesn’t matter and she’s not worth it.” He repeated it over and over until my breathing went back to normal and I decided to sit back into my desk. Aliyah gave me a thumbs up. I had forgotten that she was even in my class as well.

Bryce kneeled in front of me still making sure I was calm while somebody else wiped Kristen’s face with a Kleenex and told her that it could’ve been worse. “Did you tell her?” I asked Bryce because that could be the only way that she knew about Lucy.

“No, I wouldn’t tell your business.”

“Who else would tell her then?” I said with an attitude.

He held his hands up. “I don’t know, but it wasn’t me… Look at your hand,” he said as he examined it. “It’s swelling.”

“Good. That means I did something right.” A couple teachers came running into the class probably from all of the noise.

“What happened in here?” one of them yelled. “Mrs. Perkins leaves you for a few minutes because of an emergency that she has and you go crazy! If I hear another sound, all of you will have Saturday detentions!” Then she stalked down the hallway with the other teacher by her side.

I saw Kristen fix her hair and wipe the tears from her eyes. I was laughing on the inside, but on the outside I sat and stared at her waiting to make eye contact. She did not, one time, look in my direction and I gave myself props for that. Blaine, in the desk beside Kristen, was turned to the boy behind her and was laughing.

That made my day.

“So, bully, do you want to sit with me at lunch?” Bryce laughed after he saw that I had calmed down.

I laughed. “Oh, I don’t know. I usually sit with Aliyah and Casey.”

“And Drake.”

“Yeah, him too.”

“Don’t you ever feel like they should have alone time… ever?”

“I guess,” I said. “But she asks me to sit with her.”

“I’m asking you to sit with me.”

***

“So you’re sitting with them?” Aliyah asked me with a disgusted look on her face. “Seriously?”
“Yeah? Bryce wants me to.”

“God, Carter. Don’t fall for his stupid tricks. Everybody knows what he does but you. Take it from somebody who knows; he’s a player and he’ll just hurt you in the end.”

“Aliyah… we’re only having lunch... in the school cafeteria.”

“Look, the dates are already cheap!” I rolled my eyes. “Fine, do what you want. But I’m warning you, okay?” She said staring at me.

“Yeah, of course.”

Lunch was pretty weird. I sat with Bryce and his two friends and Blaine along with her new friend Paris. It was almost like I was taking Kristen’s spot. I was actually wondering who she was with. The entire time Aliyah watched me from across the lunch room like I was her pet or something.

Blaine and Paris were talking about God knows what, but occasionally they tried too involve me in the conversations. Bryce tried to keep me interested as well, but my mind was fluttering in every other direction.

“Paris, you should have been there,” Blaine started. “Kristen started talking trash about me and Carter and got all up in Carter’s face. Then she pulled her hair, so carter jumped up and beat her to the floor. It was great,” she said laughing.

“Good job girl,” Paris said laughing. “She deserved it.”

“I didn’t mean to do it,” I explained. “That was trashy of me.”

“She needed it, though.”

Blake changed the subject. “Hey, Bryce, I can’t hang out tonight. I have somewhere important to go.”

“Again.” It was funny because it was simultaneously stated by everyone except Paris and me.

“We’ll all just hang out together this weekend,” Bryce said rising from the table. “I have something to do tonight.”

Out of the blue, the intercom of the office attracted the attention of the entire cafeteria. I knew the voice from the announcements every morning. It was the school's principal. "Sorry for the interruption, teachers and students. Carter Deville please report to the Principal's office, Carter Deville."

Then it cut off.

Shit.