Tame Chapter 1

On Friday I decided to put Dan’s plan into action. I was sitting in my Art class when the perfect opportunity arrived for me to use his idea. Mr. Richwood had instructed for the class to work on some sketches that would be turned in on Monday. Heather had abandoned her seat next to me to sit at the front of the classroom next to Ann Windslow, Ashley, and Lydia.

They were sitting in the front row at the desks that were closed toward Mr. Richwood’s desk and managing to hold a conversation with him while he graded some papers. I had to admit that I felt a small speck of jealousy seeing them hovering around his desk. I couldn’t quite hear what they were saying since I was sitting in the far back of the classroom and with the other student’s chattering combined together it made anything toward the front of the room inaudible.

I was watching Mr. Richwood like a hawk with my eyes shifting from him and toward Heather who was leaning over his desk, twirling her hair while giggling an unnecessary amount of times. Seeing her talking to, or probably flirting with, him probably shouldn’t have evoked any jealousy inside of me, but it did. After everything I’ve ever heard her say about him and having knowledge about her intentions I couldn’t help feeling angry with her.

Mr. Richwood combined two stacks of papers together he handed graded and then interrupted his conversation with the girls to ask if anyone in the class would mind returning the papers back to their owners. Without thinking, my hand shot up making me the first person to volunteer to do it.

I had a feeling that Heather or someone in her group was responsible for the notes I found in my locker. If I could check some of their handwriting, then I could figure out which one of them was responsible for them. Having some papers with their signature on it was the perfect opportunity for me to do this.

I made my way to the front of the room. Mr. Richwood thanked me and then was lured back into whatever conversation he was having with the girls when Heather asked him a question about lifting heavy objects.

I walked down the rows, trying to appear as if I was passing out papers, but I was really flipping through them trying to find Heather’s. It took me a minute, but I found her paper in the pile along with the other girls in her group since their papers were right under each other, probably because they had turned them in together.

No one was paying me any attention because they were either absorbed in their work or in some kind of conversation. I made my way to my desk and found the first note I had found in my locker. I studied the handwriting on the note and then their signatures on their papers. I was surprised to find that it wasn’t Heather’s handwriting. Her handwriting was smaller than the handwriting on the note.

It wasn’t Ann Windslow’s, it wasn’t Ashley’s, and it wasn‘t… I paused for a moment and checked a second time. It was Lydia’ s!

I studied the signature and the handwriting for several minutes still surprised that they were a stunning match. I stared at the front of the class room catching a glimpse of Lydia sitting at one of the desks, appearing bored as her head was resting on the palm of her hand while watching Mr. Richwood.

Why did she write those notes? It could have been the work of Heather, forcing Lydia to do it, but what if it wasn’t. What if Lydia put the note in my locker at her own free will? I would have to confront Lydia, alone, about this later. The problem was that Lydia was always with Heather and the others. I knew that it was going to hard to talk to her alone.

_________

Later on in Biology I spoke to Dan about his plan to speak to Heather. Biology was the only class that the two of us shared together. Our teacher gave us a worksheet to work on and granted us permission to work with a partner. Dan and I partnered up together, not so much for intellectual support, but instead to discuss his plan to talk to Heather.

We were sitting toward the back of the classroom out of the earshot of our peers and teacher. Before we could discuss Heather I told Dan about how I figured out that Lydia was the one responsible for putting the notes in my locker.

“I matched the handwriting up earlier. I think I‘m going to talk to her about it later.”

“Try not to make a scene,” Dan said without looking up from his work. “I don’t want to look on Youtube and find a video where you and Lydia are getting into an argument.”

“Believe me you won’t,” I then changed the subject to Heather. “Are you nervous?”

“No, not really,” he said calmly.

“How do you plan to talk to her?”

“It’s easy, I’m just going to approach her in lunch when she’s alone and start talking to her.”

“I’m glad that you’re finally being confident. Let’s hope that all those lessons pay off.”

______________

It was lunch time when I found an opportunity to talk to Lydia alone. It wasn’t easy throughout the course of the day trying to get close to her because where ever Lydia went Heather, Ann Windslow, or Ashley were nearby.

After my fourth period class I had made my way toward my locker. Lydia had walked by amongst the crowd her of her friends. I closed my locker and began to lag behind them. I wasn’t close enough to them to draw attention to myself, but anyone who noticed me would be under the impression that I was following them. I wasn’t sure what it was I had intended to do, but I really wanted to talk to Lydia and asked her about those notes.

I watched Heather turn around and stack some books she was carrying into Lydia’s arms. Ann and Ashley piled their own books into her arms as well giving Lydia a large pile to carry.

“Put them in our locker,” I heard Ann say.

The three of them then hurried down the hallway leaving Lydia to carry their books. I thought it was kind of cruel for them to make Lydia have to put their books in their lockers, while they hurried off to lunch. I watched Lydia’s arms tremble as she carried the books that were stack up to her chin.

A few students walking by snickered at her calling her a freshman, despite the fact that she was a Sophomore. It was a common stereotype for freshmen to carry around a lot of books since they were still adjusting to the high school concept of switching classes and diving their time between going to their locker and getting to class.

I decided that now was the perfect time to talk to Lydia since she was alone. I slowly approached her just as a red notebook was falling from the large pile she was holding. It fell to the floor and Lydia tried to use one hand to pick it up, but all the books fell from her hands and scattered across the floor.

I quickly raced over and helped her pick the books up.

“Thanks,” she said without looking up.

The late bell rang and the hallways were suddenly absent of any students. I didn’t have to worry about being tardy because I went to lunch around this time at Mr. Richwood’s class.

Together we gathered the many books into two piles. When Lydia did look up at me I saw a confused expression cross her face. Her facial expression said that she was suspicious of why I was helping her out.

“Here, let me help you carry these.” I said.

“I don’t need your-,” she paused in the middle of her sentence as if reconsidering her own words, then she agreed to accept my assistance. “Fine, you can help.”

Together I followed Lydia toward the first locker she was suppose to head toward which was Ashley’s. She obviously didn’t trust me since she told me to look away while she entered Ashley’s combination.

Once the locker was open, she sorted through the piles of books until she found Ashley’s books and then she shoved them into her locker. We then walked with her to Ann Windslow’s locker and ten toward Heather’s, which was on the opposite side of the school.

I wanted to talk to her about the notes before it was too late, but I wasn’t sure how to do it. I couldn’t just come out and say it. I had to casually lead into it. I thought for a moment then decided to start a random conversation. I was hopping that I could casually lead into asking her about the notes.

“Do they make you do this everyday?” I asked.

“Do what?” Lydia asked as she shoved Heather’s belongings into her locker.

“Put away their books for them while they go to lunch.”

We were already ten minutes late to lunch and I was certain that if any teachers saw us in the hallway they would begin to question why were weren’t in class. Lydia appeared calm about the whole situation as if she had done this so many times that she no longer felt any anxiety about being caught.

“Yeah, I do this every day,” she said closing the locker and spinning the lock so the combination was cleared out.

“That’s kind of unfair.” I heard myself say. “Why do they make you do all their dirty work like you’re their slave?”

“Yeah…,” Lydia said slowly as if preparing to agree with me, but then quickly recalled who I was in high school status, which was a nobody, and who her so called friends were, the cool kids, then began to jump to their defense. “No wait, I don’t mind doing this. Besides, we’re friends.”

“Friends?” I repeated.

“Yeah,” said Lydia as she rose her head above me in a condescending way that the rich something do when in the presence of an impoverished person. “You wouldn’t know anything about it since you don’t have any friends.”

I felt slightly insulted by her remark, but quickly dismissed it from my mind. The only reason Lydia was insulting me was because she knew that I was correct. She was trying to make me feel bad about myself so that she wouldn’t have to feel bad about the truth.

“I think I’d rather not have friends,” I said directly. “Then have friends that are like yours.”

I saw a hurt look cross Lydia’s face, but a moment later she replaced it with a snobby look and then she began to snicker loudly. I watched her as she began to twirl one of her long pony tails around in her hand..

“You’re an idiot Amanda,” she commented. “That’s something lonely, friendless, desperate people say to feel better about themselves since they have no friends.”

I could tell that this conversation was taking a turn in a direction that I hadn’t intended for it to. I was simply trying to make some small talk wit Lydia so that I could work up the courage to talk to her about those notes, yet here we were insulting one another. I decided that it was better to just come out and say what I was thinking because if I didn’t Lydia was going to get away from before I could ask her about them.

“Listen Lydia, I know you put those notes in my locker,”

Lydia had been laughing, but when I came out and said this she became silent. She stared at me for a moment, trying to read my mind, but was unsure of what I was thinking. From the look on her face I knew that she was guilty of the crime I was accusing her of.

“No, I didn’t,” she said unusually loud. “I don’t even know what you’re talking about. I have to go,”

Lydia tried to walk around me, but I held my arm in front her like a cross guard, blocking her way.

“I know that it was you. I compared your signature on your paper to the handwriting on the note. What I want to know is why you put them in my locker and what you meant by them?”

Lydia was silent, either trying to think of another way to escape or possibly trying to conjure up another lie.

“Please Lydia,” I said eagerly. “I won’t tell anyone. I just want to know what it is you found out about Mr. Richwood.”

She looked away hesitantly, but I could tell from her facial expressions that she was considering telling me.

“Listen,” Lydia said, her tone now switching to a serious one. “You can’t tell Heather or the others about this. They’ll be mad I kept this a secret from them.”

“I won’t tell them, I promise.”

I was so desperate to learn what Lydia had figured out that I think I would have promised to just about anything that she wanted. Lydia looked at me for a moment, hesitating over whether or not she should reveal the content of what she had learned to me. She scanned the hallways to confirm again that they were empty, since half the students and teachers were either in class or at lunch.

She stared at her feet for a moment, then lifted her eyes onto me as she began to address me.

“It was like a week ago when I went into his classroom after school to talk to him…,“ she said this next part quietly, more to herself than to me. “…since I like him so much…I wanted to talk to him.” She rose a voice a bit so that I could hear her. ’That was all I wanted to do. I just wanted to talk to him…but he wasn’t there.”

“What happened?” I asked allowing my eyes scanning her face trying to read what was in her mind.

“Well…I went in anyway then I heard someone coming, so I was afraid that I was going to be caught ad get in trouble, so I hid and…I sort of heard something.” she then quickly added. “It’s nothing insanely bad so don’t think that it is. I just figured out something that Heather might be angry about since she’s been trying to win his heart.”

I felt my impatient heart shaking waiting for Lydia to spill out whatever it was that she had heard. I couldn’t take the suspense and just needed to know what on Earth it was that she had heard. I wasn’t sure if Lydia was beating about around the bush or if she was literally trying to spill what was on her mind to me since she had been holding it in for so long.

I was under the impression that I was the first person she had told her feelings to in a long time. If she had to keep secrets from Heather and the others, then there was a good chance that she couldn’t go to them and confess her true feelings.

“It’s just…I really, really, really like him and Heather…she’s doing this for fun.” I could see tears building behind Lydia’s eyes as she began to reveal her feelings, but they were too shy to fall from her eyes. She grimaced. “And I just hate how she…I hate how she is! It’s more like a game to her and I…I…I can’t stand her!”

I reached over and embraced Lydia because I could identify with the way that she was feeling. It was an awful feeling to be so close to someone and then have someone who doesn’t really care for them to come in and sweep the person that you love off their feet, ruining everything that you’ve worked for. Lydia looked as though she had been searching for someone to confide in for a long time.

“I know how you feel,” I said.

I wanted to tell her that I felt just like her. I knew how it felt to love someone, but you couldn’t tell them. I wanted to tell her that I understood why she disliked Heather so much and how much it hurt that Heather could easily sway someone’s affection toward her even though she thought of it all like it was some kind of game.

I slowly released her from my embrace and she began to wipe her face dry.

“You can’t tell anyone,” she said seriously.

“I already said that I won’t,” I said placidly.

“He was on the phone…,” Lydia began. “Mr. Richwood, he didn’t see me. I heard him say-,”

“LYDIA!”

We turned and down the hallway I spotted Ashley walking toward us with her texting. Lydia stared at me nervously. Ashley paused a short distance away from us where she was standing, appearing far too oblivious to notice that we were in the middle of a serious conversation and she had interrupted it.

“What are you doing?” Ashley asked as if her tone said that there was something weird about Lydia and me standing together. “Ann’s been looking for you.”

“Coming,”

Lydia turned to look at me, her eyes apologizing for running out on me, and then she darted down the hallway to do Ashley’s bidding.

_______

My body was on it’s way toward Mr. Richwood’s classroom for lunch, but my mind was still in the hallway thinking about everything Lydia had said to me. I didn’t know that she had resented Heather’s so much .When all four of them were together they looked like the best of friends. This was obviously a falsified perception that they created since Lydia confessed to hating Heather.

I began to wonder if Ann Windslow or Ashley covertly disliked Heather too. I doubted Ann didn’t like her because Ann was the most popular girl in school. She wouldn’t keep Heather around if she didn’t like her. There was a possibility Ashley might not like her either, but this was a long shot. I was simply guessing based off what I had learned from Lydia.

I was feeling a little disappointed that I hadn’t been able to figure out the meaning of those notes, but I decided that I could always approach Lydia later and ask her about them. I was just hoping she would be willing to open up to me again the way she had a few minutes ago when we were in the hallway together.

When I reached Mr. Richwood’s classroom, I spotted a clock in the hall that informed me I was fifteen minutes late for lunch. I opened his classroom door and found him sitting at his desk reading a magazine.

“Hey, Amanda,” he greeted me when I walked in.

His voice was so calm and sweet that I had to turned my back, pretending to close the door behind me, so that he wouldn’t see me blush. I then walked over and took a seat at the desk that was sitting closest toward his.

Mr. Richwood had his feet on top of his desk and was reading a magazine. I didn’t unwrap my lunch right away because I wanted to have some kind of conversation with Mr. Richwood that would distract me while I ate. He appeared occupied with his magazine so I silently began to eat my lunch.

After five minutes elapsed, he placed his magazine on his desk. I kept my eyes on my empty lunch bag, becoming frozen when I felt his eyes lift onto me. I didn’t move. I didn’t have the courage to look up at him because I feared that I would start blushing again. That was the last thing I wanted him to see me doing.

“I’m bored,” he confessed, probably hopping his confession would draw my attention towards him.

I lifted my eyes and spotted him leaning back in his chair staring at me.

“Maybe you…maybe you could draw something.” I suggested hopefully.

“Great idea,” he sat upright in his chair, lifting his feet off his desk. “I feel like painting. Do you want to paint something with me?”

This caught me off guard at first since I hadn’t been expecting to do anything with Mr. Richwood. I stared him and decided that if Mr. Richwood wanted to spend time with me I couldn’t dismiss this opportunity to get close to him. I made a mistake of looking over at the clock, since I was due to report to study hall in five minutes. Mr. Richwood read my mind.

“I could write you a pass so that you wouldn’t have to go to study hall.”

“Sure,” I said. “I’d love to paint something with you.”

“Great,”

Mr., Richwood rose form his chair and began to open drawls in his desk. He tossed me a small pair of keys.

“Could you grab the paint out the back closet, while I grab the art paper?” asked Mr. Richwood.

“Sure,”

I made my way toward the back of the classroom and found the Art closet. I unlocked the closet with the keys, swung the large door open, and then stepped inside the walk in sized closet. The interior of the closet had walls that were covered with racks that lined from the middle of the wall to the ceiling. There was various different types of art supplies that were hanging from these racks. The way it was designed reminded me of the racks that are in gas stations.

The lower area of the closet, around the floor, was full of baskets that were stuffed with larger Art supplies. I glanced through the baskets and spotted the paint bottles in one of the baskets. I reached inside grabbing out a few of them and I then made my way out of the closet.

As soon as I stepped out of the closet, I spotted Miss Daniels walking in. She hadn’t spotted me and walked over to Mr. Richwood, embracing him in her arms. Mr. Richwood appeared caught off guard by her presence.

“Are we still scheduled for dinner tonight?”

I felt my heart drop so suddenly when I saw her plant a kiss on his cheek that I dropped the paint bottles causing a loud clatter that drew their attention toward me.

Their eyes darted toward me and Miss Daniels followed his gaze as she noticed me in the classroom for the first time. When she saw me, she quickly pulled away from Mr. Richwood and a troubled look crossed her face.

There was a long silence that followed as my eyes darted between Mr. Richwood and Miss Daniels and as they stared at me with trouble expressions on their face. I wasn’t sure how long the silence lasted, but it felt like it was an eternity. Miss Daniels broke it with a simple greeting.

“Hi…Amanda,”

I couldn’t say anything because my heart was racing from the anger that I was suddenly feeling after what I had just seen her do. Did she just ask Mr. Richwood if they were scheduled for dinner?

“Emily,” Mr. Richwood said turning toward Miss Daniels. “You can go, I’ll talk to you later.”

Miss Daniels stared at him hesitantly as if she wanted to stay and fix the damage she had caused, but then probably decided that it was better that she leave. She turned and walked out of the classroom.

Mr. Richwood stared at me for a moment with a look in his eyes that said he was debating over whether or not there was any harm in what I had seen. It appeared to be an almost guilty look sitting in his eyes. I couldn’t stand that look in his eyes, so to avoid looking at him I reached down and picked up the plastic paint bottles I had dropped..

“Amanda,” I heard him say. “Can I trust you to keep what you saw and heard here today a secret?”

I wasn’t looking at him because I feared that if he saw my face I would cry. I spent an unusually long time picking up the paint bottles, pretending that they slipped out of my hand every time I grabbed one so that I wouldn’t have to look at him right away. I was trying to buy myself some time.

“We’re not sure if the school board will approve of us dating, since we work together. Can I trust you not to tell anyone about this?”

I felt my heart ripping in two. If Mr. Richwood was dating Miss Daniels, then there was no way that he could love me too. My heart was racing beating so fast that I didn’t understand why Mr. Richwood couldn’t hear it. I felt like the room was spinning and suddenly developed an unnatural hatred toward Miss Daniels from stealing the heart of someone I loved long before she had even knew him.

I was calmly rose to my feet trying to appear calm. I couldn’t look at Mr. Richwood because I knew that one glance at him was going to make tears fall down my face.

I knew that Mr. Richwood was staring at me waiting for me to answer his question. Even though he was with Miss Daniels, I couldn’t turn my back on him. He had been there for me so many times that it would be the ultimate form of betrayal. He was the only person I could talk to about my family. I loved him too much to betray him like this.

“I won’t tell anyone,” I heard my weak voice say. I looked up at him and said. “I promise,”

“Thank you Amanda,” he said sounding and looking relived.

I looked down in my hands at the paint bottles that suddenly felt very heavy. I wasn’t sure if Mr. Richwood felt it, but there was sudden tension in the room. I couldn’t stay in here because my thoughts were going to make me cry. I didn’t want Mr. Richwood to see me cry.

I walked over to his desk and placed the paint bottles on top.

“I just remembered,” I heard myself say. “I have to go talk to my English teacher about something. I can’t paint. I’m sorry,”

“Are you sure?” I heard Mr. Richwood say as I quickly gathered my belongings.

“Yeah,”

I then hurried out of the classroom hoping that no one in the hallway would catch me crying.