Light (2 page)

Now for the past four weeks I’d had to endure their humiliation on a daily basis. First it was the posters on every locker with guys names crossed out. The entire baseball team from what it looked like, and the heading was
Chastity Blake’s To Do List
.

It was so lame, but coming from her, it hurt. It hurt a lot.

I thought everyone would forget about that in a week, but they didn’t and more rumors were added on.

Then came the exploding paint in my locker. I struggled to get the red paint out of my hair and had walked around with it for an entire week. My mom almost had a heart attack though, acting all strange and was ready to pack up and leave.

Today, they locked me in the girl’s bathroom. I crawled out the window, which wasn’t easy, and that was why I was late today.

Still, I tried to ignore it, even though it came from my best friend. Standing up to them would only cause more shit.

As I kept walking, the fork in the road came nearer. One path led through the city. Five traffic lights with many twist and turns flashed though my head. The other road led past the lake. No traffic lights and it was a shorter route, but my mother disliked me taking that one. Still today was the perfect day to make an exception.

I chose the lake and started to think about my crappy situation again and regret of telling Mom not to pick me up from ballet, really started to bite me in the ass. Literally. It was like a tiny stabbing jolts of pain on my bum that ached with every step I took.

The next couple of years of school would probably suck if there wasn’t an end to Clare’s pranks soon and my father, sorry, step-father, Tim “the military man” Swanson, wasn’t going to move just because of the social life epidemic I was experiencing.

I never understood why Mom had married him. There wasn’t a time that I couldn’t remember Tim not being in our lives, but she was so different from him. She was a free spirit, loved to paint and for some reason she had a thing about dreams. Since I was little, she’s always asked me what I dreamt about the night before. It was creepy to people that didn’t know my mom but it didn’t bother me much.

Tim was easy to sum up. It was always ‘YES SIR!’ and ‘NO SIR!’ although he didn’t like the ‘NO’ very much, and loved the ‘HOW HIGH DO YOU WANT ME TO FREAK’N JUMP’ type of thing. Our relationship never used to be like that, but the older I got, the harder he became on me. Mom stood up for me a lot though, but I hated that they ended up fighting over stupid things I didn’t really want to do.

So lately my relationship with the only dad I knew was everything except the relationship a father and daughter should have.

Other family, I don’t have them. It was always just Tim and her.

As I pondered my lack of family, something to the left caught my eye. It was parked right in front of the lake and my entire body felt as if someone had pulled a plug and let all the air out. It was Ty’s pick-up, and I knew who else would be with him inside it.

When noises from Derek Benson came, I knew it wasn’t just the two of them, but the entire freak’n football team. They sometimes came here after practice and right now, I wished that I’d taken the other stupid road.

I watched as Clare’s figure jumped off his truck. She wasn’t as tall or as lean as me, thanks to the 50 % Asian blood that flowed through me, but she was not chubby either. She was of medium build, not that there was anything wrong with it.

Here we go!

“Oh look, if it isn’t the baseball team’s slut,” Clare shouted loudly and everyone turned and laughed. If these were strangers that did this, it would’ve been different, but they weren’t; they used to be my friends. We used to laugh together, make jokes at the table and even pass notes around in class. Even Nicole, who used to make up the rest of our little trio, had her nose in a teen magazine and pretended that nothing was about to happen.

I knew I should’ve just walked away, but today was different. I was tired, I ached from head to toe, I was in my still in my darn tutu, I’d just pulled my pants over my leotard and exchanged my ballet shoes for sneakers. I really didn’t have the time for her little charades of insecurity.

“The baseball team? Really? Now we know who has all the intellectual stem cells between the two of us,” I said and carried on walking.

“And who has all the grace and beauty,” Clare chirped.

“And also a shallow mind.” I couldn’t help myself. This is what happened when I started. It was like my mouth had its own passageway straight to my brain and I couldn’t do anything to switch it off.

“Oh, yeah, shallow minded. At least I know what loyalty means, bitch.”

I laughed again. “Loyalty. Can you even spell it, Clare?” Instant regret jumped through my core. Hurt rose briefly in Clare’s eyes but vanished just as fast. She was dyslexic and I had been helping her with words ever since we were just tiny little things running around.

“I know how to spell slut, bitch, and skank.”

“Well, sorry to burst your bubble, sweetheart. I never did anything with Taylor, but wait, I tried to tell you that, and you still believed the son of a bitch.”

“That’s a lie, Chas,” Taylor said. “Seriously, you really expect people to buy that? I know what the guys in the locker rooms are saying. I’d never be with someone like you.”

Clare gloated as she looked with admiration at Taylor and the entire group laughed.

“Yes, Chas, why didn’t we ever get to see some of the action the baseball team got?” The blond guy with the dark eyes was inches from me, tugging at my tutu.

“I don’t know Jake,” I slapped his hand away, “probably because you’ve taken too many hits on the football field and can’t even multiply two and two anymore.”

Jake laughed.

Suddenly, I was shoved from behind, and I stumbled forward. My backpack flew from my shoulder and fell hard on the road. I got up and when I turned around, Clare’s face was inches from mine. “So what, the guys are below your standard, is that it?”

“Yes,” I said. “It’s exactly that. I’ve been trying to tell you that, but for some reason it doesn’t want to sink into that closed mind of yours.”

“Stop saying that. I’m not stupid,” Clare yelled and shoved me again.

“Then what are we doing, Clare?” I yelled back. “We’ve been friends for ten years, ten years and you go and believe biceps and abs.”

Clare shook her head with her arms folded across her chest and looked the other way.

“I would never do that to you, but it doesn’t matter what I say, your mind was made up the minute that idiot felt like a rat and crawled back to you.”

“That is not what you said that night at the party.” Taylor had that smirk plastered on his face. “The night you decided to try and have all this.” His hands ran up and down his body as if we needed direction.

“Seriously?” I started to laugh. “It just shows you how well you really knew me if you think I was going to fall for a tool like you. Screw you, asshole.”

“In your dreams.”

“Lame comeback,” I said as I pulled my backpack over my shoulder and walked on.

As I started to walk, it seemed like today might just be my lucky day, that they were going to leave me alone and let me pass, but as I walked past the second tree, Derek and Jake, both linemen, blocked my view.

My heart beat slightly rose but now wasn’t the time to show them a hint of fear. They were like a pack of wolves, looked like animals and thrived on fear. “Get out of my way Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum.”

They laughed. “Make us,” Derek sneered. Now I’d heard some rumors about him, and none of them were any good. Stealing his mother’s pills and drugging girls to have his way with them was the highest on that list.

“C’mon guys, let the skank go,” Clare said.

“They won’t do anything, sweetheart. They’re just messing with her a bit,” Taylor said softly but not softly enough. I could hear the giggling coming from Clare.
How could she enjoy this so much?

“Fine, just don’t do anything I wouldn’t,” Clare yelled.

“Then it looks like I’m screwed.”
Seriously, keep your freak’n mouth shut.

Derek and Jake started circling me as if I was a piece of meat. I closed my eyes as my heart started to thump inside my chest. Run and their fun would begin, and I was no animal.

I opened my eyes and more members of the team joined in. Some of these guys had really been my friends, or so I’d thought. One of Derek’s wing men, Mark, a guy with really short hair that looked like he had giant’s DNA flowing through his veins, came close and sniffed my hair like someone that had to be locked up. I turned around and glared at him. He just laughed and backed a bit off.

“That is enough!” Nicole finally said as she put her magazine down and came closer.

Tommy, a red head who was an extra on the football team, grabbed her.

“Let me go, you idiot,” Nicole yelled at him and he laughed. “Clare, make them stop for crying out loud. It’s Chastity.”

“Good, maybe it will teach her to stay away from her best friend’s boyfriends.”

“She didn’t do it,” Nicole said. “Taylor is a douche.”

“Stay out of this Nicole!” Taylor yelled. “Before I tell Clare about your little schemes.”

“What schemes?” Clare asked, but I blocked out the rest as the ogres were really starting to freak me out. Would they really do that, and if they did, would Clare and Nicole really watch as they took their turns?

“Ooh, look, I wonder what the little ballet princess is hiding underneath those slacks of hers.” Derek touched the hem of my slacks. I slapped his hand hard, and more of the guys started to touch me.

“Get the hell away from me.”

“Clare, make them stop!” Nicole yelled again.

“No, she deserves it.”

Those words angered me as my heart beat faster. I thought I was close to passing out as my head started to spin, instead I felt loose, soft grit inside my hand, and there was a lot of it. As I rolled the material around my fingers, it felt as if the entire world stopped for a second, or just slowed down.

I could smell Derek’s smoke breath close to me, it stank and I felt the soft warm breath of Sam, another idiot on my face.

A mixture of cologne overpowered me as the four guys stood really close to me. Their hands touching my arms and clothes.

Then I saw the grit in my hands again. It was soft, not like sand, and it had a light golden color to it.

At once the slow motion stopped and I threw a handful of the stuff, hitting Mark full in the face. He crouched and tried to get it out his eyes. I felt more sand in my hand and Jake was next. I didn’t know where it came from or how any of this was even possible, but right now that didn’t matter. As I threw a handful at each and every one of them, a refill was waiting patiently in my palm.

Derek was next and before I knew it, all the boys were coughing and crouching down. Then one by one they fell over, in a fetus position with eyes closed and soft snores coming from their lips.

Clare and Ty ran to the guys and crouched down. Ty felt for a heartbeat, but from the sound coming from their lips I knew they were still alive. I waited for men with cameras to jump out from behind the trees, yelling GOT YOU or something but it didn’t happened.

The fear on both Ty and Clare’s faces were real.

“What did you do?” Ty yelled.

“Nothing they didn’t deserve!” I yelled back hoping he would just back the hell off.

“You’re a freak!” Clare yelled, and stormed at me. More sand accumulated in my hand, but to me, she was still my best friend, one whose mind had been closed by the idiot that was busy running away.

I opened my palm and let the grit fall to the floor. A breeze picked it up and blew it softly into Clare’s face.

She stopped in her tracks, give a huge yawn and lay down on the ground.

Was she sleeping?

I looked at my hands. The grit was gone, there weren’t even traces of it inside my palm, nothing made sense.

“Just go,” Nicole said as she crouched down next to Clare to investigate.

I stood still as a statue trying to process what was happening to me.

“Chastity!” Nicole yelled again. “Go!”
I looked down at Nicole. My legs finally started to move into the direction of home, and grabbed my backpack that had fallen on the turf.

I reached the city of Chicago fast and almost ran into a police officer that was chatting to one of the waiters. Guilt over what I’d just done was evident on my face so I ran in another direction.

“Hey, you there, stop!” He yelled.

I didn’t listen and he chased me for a couple of blocks but he had probably had one too many donuts on a daily basis and couldn’t keep up. I took so many turns down back alleys that when I finally stopped I had no idea where I was.

I breathed hard, trying to catch my breath and looked back at my hands. The was still no trace of the grit. It had just vanished. My heart beat fast again and cold sweat dripped from my temple as flashes of ogre-like bodies, almost the entire football team, falling down right after I threw the grit at them came to mind. Coach was not going to like this, and how was I going to explain any of it to anybody?