She took a deep breath. “Now don’t be mad…”
“I’m mad that I’m standing here waiting for some irrelevant news when I could be smoking.”
“Mark Houston.”
My eyes opened wide.
“Yeah… see this is what I was afraid of.”
I regained my composure and moved forward. “It’s fine as long as he doesn’t hurt you or come anywhere near me.”
“Jason I’ve been dating him for a few weeks now and I didn’t know how to tell you.” She caught up to me. “He knows what he did to you when you guys were young was wrong and he feels really guilty about it…”
“MY ASS HE DOES. L O L JENNA YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME” We were finally out of sight of the school so I lit my cigarette and tossed her the pack.
“Jason…” she touched my arm with her unoccupied hand trying to comfort me.
“Jenna stop. It’s fine that you’re dating the guy that sent me into psychotic fits in school. I’m being completely serious too don’t feel guilty about it. That doesn’t change my opinion of him however and I will never forgive him for what he did to me.”
She took a drag and sighed. “It’s just shitty is all.”
“Life’s shit then you die.”
“Always the positive one.”
“Piss off bitch.”
“Ok hun, thanks for taking the news better than I thought you would. Meet you here for lunch?”
“Yeah sure, just don’t bring any unwanted guests.” I glared at her making sure it was perfectly clear I didn’t want that meathead anywhere near me.
“Alright no problem.” She came over and hugged me again. “Need anything just text me.”
She waved goodbye and she ran back to school. It wasn’t a secret she was running to catch her boyfriend before class and I made sure when she looked back at me that I wasn’t angry. That all changed as soon as she was out of sight and in the building.
“GOD FUCKING DAMNIT.” I’m pretty sure kids on the other side of the school could heard me shouting. “ARE YOU FUCKING SERIOUS?” I punched a tree while smoking another cigarette.
Houston was my main bully throughout my childhood. It all started in 4th grade, he befriended me and we hung out on a regular basis for a few weeks. He frequented my house and we would just play video games all day. That all changed on the night of June 15th, he invited me to “hang out with all his other friends”. Little did I know that was all a ruse to humiliate me.
“Jason get over here!” We were in the woods by his place just throwing around rocks and sticks.
I ran over confused. “Whats up?” I was just a stupid naive kid wondering what was going on.
“Do me a favor and grab my hoodie. Jack tossed it over there for no reason.” He pointed to a gray sweatshirt hanging on a low branch a ways away.
“No problem.” I jumped over some logs and reached over for it.
“GET HIM!”
As soon as I turned around to see what was going on I found myself being pelted with water balloons left and right. I shielded my face and waited out what seemed like an hour of people laughing and chucking water balloons at me. When it finally ended I looked up at Houston ready to cry.
“Yeah cry you stupid baby, that’s all you know how to do. Wahh Wahhh.” He turned around with all his friends and they all just walked away laughing, leaving me there to process what had just happened.
I ran home crying the entire way. I couldn’t believe someone I had made my best friend had just thrown me away to be a victim of a prank. The next day it all became clear when once again I was the victim of their non-stop insults. Houston had quickly turned from being nice and understanding into a coldhearted bully. This abuse kept up throughout middle school, it’s the main reason I became such a terrible person.
I threw away my cig and walked back to my locker to look at my schedule. First period was English with Ms. Cantera, a nice way to start my day. I sprayed some body spray on myself to mask the tobacco and walked to room 205.
“Jason why are you late? It’s the first day for crying out loud.”
“Problems.” I was still clearly hung over as I talked to my English teacher of 4 years.
She sighed knowing talking about it any further would be a waste of her time. “Row 3 seat 5. Please be quick so I can talk about the upcoming year.”
I wandered over to my seat and put my head down. I didn’t really care what she had to say about the upcoming school year, I would get the minimum work done for a C and that was that. I didn’t care enough about high school, my parents were loaded and I could get into any college I wanted if they threw enough money the college’s way. This was all just filler.
“Hey Andrews.”
I turned my head and there was stupid Houston. “Piss off Jenna told me and I want nothing to do with you.”
“Come on man it’s pretty serious between us and I need to clear the air with you.”
“Fuck off.”
“Just give me 5 minutes I swear that’s all I want.”
“FUCK OFF OK?”
“Jason and Mark is there anything you want to share with the rest of the class?”
Houston turned his head away shutting up.
“Yes Judy, Mark over here wants to apologize to me for tormenting me throughout middle school and going as far as to put me into suicide watch a couple of times!” I laughed a bit.
“Jason you know better to not call me by my first name and you definitely know that isn’t the place or time for something like that. Disrespect me again and we can have a nice conversation together after school today.”
“Sorry Ms. Cantera…” Houston mumbled