The Whale - 24. Part III, chapter 8

- VIII -

I knew that it was almost midnight and I didn't give a damn. I rang the doorbell without even lifting my finger off the button, and finally, some woman opened the door very carefully. I guess it was the whale's mother. She saw my wild hair and insane eyes, and immediately tried shutting the door. I pushed it open, but not enough to freak her out so she'd scream bloody murder.

"Please," I said quietly. "I know how late this is...It's an emergency. I need to talk to A..." Crap, I almost said Annie again. "Amy."

The woman blinked, and then said very carefully:

"Who are you?"

"We are in the same class," I said evenly. "This is a true emergency, please... I just need to talk to her..."

"Mom? What is it?"

I almost lost it when I saw her behind her mother, in her stupid white nightgown that covered her all the way to her heels. I started to shake and immediately closed my eyes. "Stop it," I thought. "Her mother will call the cops... Stop it!"

"This young man said it's an emergency," her mother said without looking away from me, as if she was afraid that if she did, I'd break down the door. "He said you were in the same class?"

The whale got closer, and when she saw me, her eyelid twitched. And then she smiled. I couldn't freaking believe it. She was smiling!

"I need to talk to you," I said in a low voice.

"No need," she said lightly. "What's done is done, Luke."

"Do you even realize what you did?" I asked.

I didn't care that her mother was listening. I mean, if the whale decided to do the dirty laundry right here in front of her, so be it.

"Yes," the whale nodded. "It's called justice, Luke!"

"Justice?!" I repeated. "You are out of your freaking mind! If you hate me so much, why didn't you just do something to me? Poison me, shoot me... Hell, I don't know... Anything! Why did you do this to Faith?!"

Her mother blinked in confusion.

"Who is Faith?" she asked with a frown.

"Faith is..." the whale stepped closer to us. "Faith is our math teacher," and she gave me another poisonous smile that made me feel like breaking her fat neck.

"Faith is our math teacher, mom. Her and Mr. Russell here are fucking each other's brains out!"

"Amy!"

"Yes, mother?"

"Watch your mouth," her mother hissed.

"Yes, mother," the whale almost sang.

I looked at her in astonishment.

"Jesus," I said. "Why the hell... Why?!"

The whale's mother looked at me.

"What are you talking about?" she asked.

"Nothing," the whale said sharply. "It's a school thing, mom!"

"Oh, you mean, you didn't tell your mother about what you did?" I started to laugh.

"Russell," the whale hissed. "Shut up and get out of my house!!"

"Nah," I laughed. "See here, Amy's mom..." I looked at her mother. "I am sorry, I don't remember the last name... Never pay attention to stuff like that... But anyway, I am madly in love with my freaking math teacher, and I don't give a damn about ethics, or morals, or whatever..."

She didn't say anything, she just stared at me, her eyes intense.

"And Faith is in love with me," I continued. "So we figured it's nobody's damn business, right? All we needed was for me to graduate finally, so we could breathe freely... But then Amy here..." I nodded at the whale. "...decides to entertain herself last week... She sent an e-mail to every single person in the entire goddamn school about Faith and me... And since it's Spring Break, I never even bothered checking my school e-mail, until someone called me. So yeah, I'd say it is a rather interesting story, don't you think?"

The whale's mother blinked and looked at her daughter.

"Amy," she said quietly. "Is it true? Did you do that?"

The whale snorted.

"Yes, I did," she said with dignity. "The whole story is, like, beyond disgusting...!"

"Oh, will you just shut the hell up!!" I yelled. "Roxy told me that you knew about Faith and me since bloody November! And you never said anything until last week?! Could it be because I told you to get lost and get your hands out of my pants?"

The whale's mother went pale.

"What?" she said quietly and looked at me, blinking rapidly.

I barked a mad laughter.

"Yeah... She never mentioned to you that..."

"Shut up!!" the whale screamed, and I ignored her.

"...never mentioned to you that she drugged me last Friday, and was pulling my pants off, when I called her Faith and she flipped?!"

"Shut up!! Mom! I am calling the cops!"

"Amy," the whale's mother said it really quietly, but it sounded like a gunshot somehow. "Amy, is this true? What he just said... Is it true? You drugged him?"

"He is lying!!" the whale screamed, and suddenly, I was really tired.

"I am not lying," I said almost indifferently. "And I seriously couldn't care less if you did something to me... At least, I deserve it. I am a dick, I know that. But why the hell did you do it to Faith?"

"Because I hated her the minute you smiled at her!!" the whale screamed, and her hands immediately flew up and covered her mouth.

Her mother turned even paler.

"Oh my God," she said in disbelief. "It is true... Amy, my God... Why?"

The whale looked extremely pissed off right now, and it would be really funny under different circumstances, even though she wasn't fat anymore. Yeah, would be funny, except now, I didn't have any sense of humor left.

"The entire story is sick!" she spat out. "Sick and disgusting! I couldn't stand even thinking about it! Someone had to do something!"

"Oh, get off your fucking horse," I muttered. "Look, the only reason you did it, was to get back at me after I told you that I didn't care about you... I don't even know why the hell I came here tonight. Faith is right -- the cat is out of the bag..." I shook my head. "I am going to leave now, but before I do..."

I looked at her and felt my old sarcastic smile resurrecting itself in the corners of my mouth. The whale was crying silently.

"I don't care about the way you look," I said. "You can be five hundred pounds or you can be ninety. Makes no difference to me. It's still you. When you first came to school, I started calling you the whale. I still call you that..." I laughed. "Hell, I will probably call you that until the day I get Alzheimer's... So yeah, you are the whale, and it will not change even you'll look like the worst case of anorexia. You will always be the whale to me. See you in school on Monday," and I walked away without looking at her.