by H. D. Gordon
Depression is a funny thing. And I keep bringing it up because that’s what it does. It goes away sometimes, gives you moments to catch your breath, but then it just pops right back up, yanking the rug out from under you with no warning.
And bad thoughts like how alone you feel as a Halfling in a world not your own come flooding forth without preamble. I’ve been dealing with the affliction my whole life, though, so unlike some teenagers, I’m better equipped to handle it.
I worked at clearing my thoughts, and felt the dull peace meditation offered settling over me.
But by the time lunch rolled around, I was more than happy to see Sam in the cafeteria. We chose some food and took our trays outside to the courtyard again. It was a little cooler than it had been Friday, the promise of a coming autumn on the air, but still pleasant.
“You okay?” Sam asked as we sat with our backs to the building, munching on greasy pizza and french fries.
“Fine,” I said. “Why?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess sometimes it seems like a dark cloud passes behind your eyes. You turn inward, or something, and you don’t like what you see.”
I looked at her from the corner of my eye, shoving a ketchup-smeared fry into my mouth. “You say that like someone who knows.”
Sam looked down at her hands. “You know I do,” she said.
Then a shadow fell over us, followed by something ice cold and wet. I looked up to see a grinning Andrea Ramos, and felt a terrible, uncharacteristic anger boil up in my blood.
CHAPTER 21
Maybe it was the way she was grinning. Maybe it was the still-foaming and spraying two-liter Pepsi bottle she’d obviously shaken up to reach us without getting too close. Maybe it was the red in her aura, and the touches of bright blue that revealed to me how much she was enjoying this.
Whatever it was, I felt the ugly hatred bubble up in me the same as that cola in the plastic bottle clutched between Andrea Ramos’s fingers, and I was on my feet in a flash, my chest rising and falling as I teetered on the edge of murdering this bitch in front of a good portion of Grant City High School.
I’m not sure what my face looked like, but whatever was there made Andy take an uncertain step back. The entire courtyard was as silent as it had been on Friday, the only sound that of the blood rushing in my ears and the laughter of Andrea’s two mindless minions.
Before I realized what I was doing, or that I’d even moved forward, my hand was gripping Andy’s throat, having shot out like a coiled cobra, my fingers digging into the soft, warm skin of her neck.
“What’s your problem?” I heard myself say, my voice eerily even and calm. I stared into her brown eyes, which were wide with fear now, the amusement as absent as my apparent sanity.
When I saw the edges of her aura begin to darken, I released my hold, stepping back, stunned at what I had just done. Coming back to my senses, guilt washed over me instantly.
“I’m sorry,” I said, wiping at my face, which was dripping with soda. “I didn’t mean to.”
Andrea was clutching at her throat, her eyes full of hatred, her mouth working like a fish. She pushed away her two minions, who were fussing over her, asking if she was all right. They hadn’t interceded when I’d choked her, which was probably lucky for them, though I could tell Andy would not soon let them forget this.
She straightened herself up and spat at the ground between us. “You freak,” she hissed. Her burning eyes flipped between me and Sam. “Both of you. Loser lesbian freaks. You better not let me catch you slippin’. I’ll shank your ass if I do.”
With that threat, Andrea stalked away. Once she was gone, I noticed with a drop of my stomach that all the eyes in the courtyard were on me, and I let out a string of curses in my head.
Sam pulled on my arm, drawing me out of the terrible moment. “Come on,” she mumbled. She was just as soaked as I was. “Let’s go get cleaned up.”
I allowed her to pull me away, feeling a hollowness in my chest and a twinge in my heart. I’d really hurt Andrea just now, could have killed her. For the first time I could ever remember, my emotions had overrun my sensibility, and this scared me more than I cared to admit.
It turned out that Sam had some extra clothes shoved in her locker, and I didn’t have to ask her if this had happened before, because it was obvious it had. This didn’t make what I’d done to Andrea right, but I’d be lying to say it didn’t help to ease my guilt a tad.
We found a bathroom and changed, the clothes fitting tighter than I preferred, but the only option. As we stood at the bathroom sinks, washing the sticky liquid off our faces and hair, I stared into the reflection in the mirror. My green eyes stared back at me. We were alone in the room, and I felt the mask I always wore slipping.
“I lost control,” I said to Sam, the words spoken quietly, as if I were afraid to hear them.
Sam stared at my reflection as well, not saying anything for what seemed like a long time. Finally, she released a long breath, drying her glasses with a piece of paper towel before replacing them on her face and pushing them up her nose in the characteristic way of hers.
“Can I be honest?” she asked.
I swallowed. “I wish you would.”
“I don’t feel bad for what you did to Andrea,” Sam admitted, and I didn’t have to read her aura to know she was telling the truth. “I get that it wasn’t right, and being who you are, why you’d feel bad about it, but I don’t. I don’t feel bad at all.”
I only looked at her, waited.
“For the past two years Andrea Ramos has made my life hell, Aria.” Sam’s blue eyes grew a touch moist, but she blinked and sniffed it away. “I’ve written all her papers, given her my lunch money, had soda poured on me more times than I can count. She even made me reach into the toilet once, just to see me cry.”
Sam met my eyes now. “So, no, I don’t feel bad at all. Andrea is a terrible, mean person, and whatever she gets, she deserves.”
Listening to this, I had to admit, my guilt felt assuaged. Not only had Sam lost her mother, and her father to the bottle thereafter, she’d had to come to school terrified everyday of a sadistic bully.
I realized my hands were clenched into fists, and calmed myself. I placed a hand on Sam’s shoulder. She was smaller than me, both in height and stature. I was a senior, and she a sophomore, and I wasn’t sure at what point exactly it had happened, but I thought that if I’d had a little sister, she would be something like Samantha Shy.
And damn if I’d let someone like Andrea Ramos torment her.
“All of that’s over,” I told Sam, my face set.
Tears filled her eyes and spilled over, and she fell into my arms so abruptly that I only stood there for a moment in shock. Though I’d had constant contact with my mother over the years (I didn’t know anything, nor did I care to, about my human father), primarily the Peace Brokers had raised me, and physical shows of affection were not really in the training schedule.
But as an Empath, I knew the affect something as simple as a hug could have on a person, and I rubbed Sam’s back as she cried on my shoulder.
When she regained control over herself, she pulled back and wiped at her eyes with her sleeves, her thick-rimmed glasses fogged up. “You must think I’m such a loser,” she said.
I waved a hand. “Nah,” I replied, and grinned. “You’re just human.”
She laughed at this. “Our teachers are probably looking for us. I guess we should go.”
I nodded. “I guess so. See you later?”
“Definitely.”
As it turned out, it was not that much later at all. Twenty minutes thereafter, I was sitting in class, having used the excuse of not being able to find the classroom to explain my tardiness, when the intercom in the room clicked on.
All the eyes went to the round speaker hanging on the wall above the whiteboard at the front of the room. A deep voice came over the system.
“Mr. Crowley?” the voice asked.
“Yes, Mr. Baxter?”
“Would you send Aria Fae to my office immediately?”
All the gazes in the room swung to me, and I felt an oven click on behind my cheeks.
“Certainly,” answered Mr. Crowley.
The intercom clicked off. Mr. Crowley gave me a somewhat sympathetic look, nodding for me to go. Standing from my seat, I swallowed hard and made it out the door. I knew where the office was because I’d been there on Friday when they’d given me my schedule.
When I got there, I saw that both Sam and Andrea were already there, waiting in the front office. Sam looked as surprised as I was, while Andrea sat looking as demure and innocent as a newborn deer. An old and tired-looking secretary sat behind a desk, paying us little mind.
I looked at Andrea, my eyebrows going up. “You tattled?” I said, dubious even as I said the words. “You seriously told on us?” I shook my head, taking a seat in the open chair beside Sam. Still looking at Andy, in a low voice, I added, “Who’s the loser now?”
I knew it was mean, and I regretted saying it immediately, felt childish and undisciplined for not holding my tongue, like I’d been taught. But this whole situation totally hit me out of the blue. Who would’ve guessed that the school bully would run straight to the principal to tattle-tell the moment she came up against someone she couldn’t conquer?
Andrea’s brown eyes flashed with a hatred as bright as I’d ever seen it, her aura pulsing deep red. She opened her mouth to respond, but at that moment, the door behind the old secretary’s desk opened, and out stepped a middle-aged African American man. He was tall with curly gray hair ringing his head and dark eyes that seemed to pin us where we sat.
He stood to the side of the door and waved a hand. “Let’s go, ladies,” he said.
We filed inside the small office, and I chastised myself for breaking the rules I’d been taught with the Brokers. They’d left me out in the cold, yes, but that didn’t make the principles and the lessons they’d taught me any less valuable.
If this situation in itself weren’t enough to get me to do some reflecting, the angry red marks on Andrea Ramos’s throat would have done the trick.
CHAPTER 22
“Three days? You can’t suspend my daughter for three days!” Burning eyes, the same brown as Andrea’s, flipped to me, and it was obvious from whom Andy had inherited her temper.
“This psychopath here tries to choke my daughter to death, and you’re suspending her for three days? How the hell does that make sense? I should press charges!”
I refused to shift under the stare, or the terrible awkwardness of the situation. The fact that I’d just been called a psychopath and threatened with legal action didn’t help, but I managed. I met Mrs. Ramos’s gaze with a level one of my own. Sam sat beside me, and her father, reeking of booze, stood beside her. Andy and her mom sat on the other side of Mr. Baxter’s small office. Mr. Baxter sat patiently behind his desk.
My “parents” were “out of town”, and unable to be here, or so I’d said.
“Mrs. Ramos,” Mr. Baxter began, “according to Samantha, your daughter has been bullying her for a long time now. I don’t agree with Aria’s actions, but let’s not act like Andrea is the only victim here.”
These words were like a flame to Mrs. Ramos’s fuse, and I watched in silence like the rest of the people present as she all but exploded. A little of that earlier guilt came back when I saw Andrea cringe, her aura going orange with embarrassment.
“You got no proof of that!” Mrs. Ramos yelled, and let out what we could only assume was a string of curses in Spanish. Andrea’s aura continued to pulse with orange.
She yanked abruptly at her daughter’s collar, forcing Andrea’s head to the side, gripping her daughter’s chin harshly with her long-nailed fingers. “Look at her damn neck,” she demanded. “There are red marks on her neck. That’s proof of assault.”
Sam spoke up for the first time, her blue eyes harder than I’d ever seen them. “Stop threatening Aria,” she said. “Your daughter won’t even graduate if I bring to light everything she’s done.”
There was something in the way Sam said this, maybe the absolute surety in the words, but Mrs. Ramos huffed and fell silent, which I could tell by Andrea’s surprised expression was not an easy feat. I looked over at Sam with new respect, touched by how she’d stood up for me, and impressed with her sudden boldness.
Mr. Baxter held up his hands. “Hold on, now. I don’t know what that means, but all three of you have a lot riding on this.” He looked first at Andrea. “You’ve got your wrestling scholarship to think about. This is your senior year, you really want to risk it all now?” His eyes went to Sam. “And you’ve got your advanced classes, a tech scholarship in your near future.”
His eyes settled on me. “And Miss Fae, you’ve only been at this school two days… Is this really how you wanted to start out? You’re also a senior. Graduation isn’t far off. Is that important to you?”
“Yes, sir,” I said, feeling sufficiently cowed. It was true. I was only half human, but having attended the schools all my life, graduating high school had always been assumed in my mind, just like every other normal teenager.
The small room was silent and tense. “Good,” said Mr. Baxter. “Then I think a three day suspension for each of you is a good answer. You can ask your teachers to give you your work so you won’t fall behind, but there will be no extra curricular for the rest of the month.”
He paused a moment, and when no one interjected, he said, “Should this happen again, however, the punishment will be much worse, the consequences more lasting. Is that understood?”
Everyone in the room agreed that it was, and Andrea and her mother left, shooting looks of hatred at me before exiting. Sam and her father retreated as well, Sam giving me a sympathetic look as they filed out.
I was almost out the door when Mr. Baxter spoke. “Aria?” he said.
Turning back around and adjusting my backpack on my shoulders, I suppressed a sigh. “Yes, sir?” I said.
He gestured toward a seat, and I reluctantly followed orders.
Once I was seated, he said, “You’re a fighter, huh? I can see it in the way you carry yourself, in your eyes.”
I didn’t know what to say to this, so I said nothing. I was more than a little uncomfortable, but my poker face was stronger than today had made it seem.
“I used to be a boxer,” he told me. He chuckled, the sound deep and chocolaty, like his skin. “In fact, it was Andrea’s father who trained me. I was good, too. Knocked down more than a few good fighters in my day.”
“That’s… uh… interesting,” I said, feeling like I should say something to this seemingly random admission.
He laughed at this. “No, it’s not,” he said, “but I have a point, anyway. And the point is, when you’re a good fighter, you have to be extra careful. Especially concerning when to use your talents, and who to use them on. Does that make sense?”
“Sir,” I said, feeling the need to defend myself. “With all due respect, Andrea’s a fighter, too. And she’s a bully. I hurt her today, and I am sorry about it, but I’m not a bully.”
Mr. Baxter studied me a moment through his glasses, his dark eyes holding mine. “We wouldn’t be having this conversation if I thought you were a bully, Aria,” he said at last. “I know you’re not, just the same as I pinned you for a fighter as soon as I set eyes on you… but you’re troubled. I know this because I was also troubled at your age.”
Again, I said nothing. I was used to reading people, not having them read me, and it didn’t help that Mr. Baxter was dead-on in his observations. In fact, ‘troubled’ was mild way of putting it.
“All I’m saying is, be careful whom you choose to throw down with,” he said. “At some point, you’re going to come up against someone stronger than you, and then things will end badly.” He paused. “Andrea learned that lesson today the hard way. I just wanted to give you the opportunity to take the easier route.”
I stood and moved toward the doorway, pausing when I got there. “Thank you, Mr. Baxter,” I said.
He nodded and shooed me away. I had no idea at the time how true his words would turn out to be.
Like Andrea Ramos, it would seem I had to learn things the hard way.
CHAPTER 23
When I stepped outside onto the front steps of the school building, I saw that Andrea and her mother were on the curb, waiting for me.
Sighing, I started down the steps, wondering if the day’s misfortunes would ever let up. I wanted nothing more than to go back to my apartment and do a good workout, have a good shower, and read a good book.
But it seemed life had other ideas. I reached the bottom of the steps and waited with my hands in my pockets as Mrs. Ramos stormed up to me. From her aura, it would not have surprised me if she’d taken a swing. Instead, she got in my face, standing nose-to-nose with me and speaking lowly with cigarette-scented breath.
“You ever lay your dirty hands on my daughter again,” Mrs. Ramos said, her eyes locked on mine, “and I’ll beat your ass into the pavement myself, like your own momma shoulda did.”
These words twisted my gut, and I felt that sudden anger that had been taking me over as of late rise. With some effort, I was able to push it down again. I held Mrs. Ramos’s stare for a moment before leaning around her and looking at Andrea.
“I’m sorry,” I said, and meant it.
Andrea stood behind her mother, trying to look tough, but I could see in her aura that she was insecure, still embarrassed, and even sympathizing with me as I dealt with her mother’s wrath. I really was sorry, because as an Empath, I knew people like Andrea Ramos were made, not born. I knew, but had let myself forget, that bullies like her hurt others because they were hurting themselves.
Her mother’s behavior today and in the current situation was testament to that… and so I meant the apology. Thought I deserved one, too, but understood that it took more strength than Andrea had acquired to apologize.