Under My Skin - 15. Part II, chapter 5

- V -

The next morning Christy firmly told Sam and me that if either one of us said anything to anyone, she would kill herself. I knew that she was serious, and grudgingly agreed to keep my mouth shut. Sam did the same. Christy made up some wild story about mugging, and to my enormous surprise, everyone believed it, including Matt.

On Monday morning, I drove to school, thinking about an upcoming calculus test and how I was hoping that I wouldn’t fail it. I didn’t like math in general. I was okay at it, but I did not like it. I got out of my car, and was walking across the parking lot, when someone grabbed my shoulder. I turned around, and then all my reasoning and common sense went out of the window.

“Jake,” Landon said quickly. “I really need to talk to...”

I guess the last word of that sentence would’ve been ‘you,’ but I never let him finish. I hit him so hard in the face that he staggered backwards, tripped on something, and fell down. He sat up and slowly shook his head, blood trickling down from his nose that was positioned at a strange angle now. I didn’t care if I would get suspended or even if I would get expelled by that point. I just wanted to hurt him. I wanted to hurt him so bad that my entire body was shaking. I threw my backpack on the ground and lunged at him.

“What the fuck, dude...” he growled when I got closer.

I kicked him in the ribs and went down myself, pushing my knee into his chest, forcing him to stay on the ground. The irony of the situation touched my hazed mind with a shadow of a smirk. “Well,” someone whispered in my head. “You are mounting him, just like you wanted...” Yeah, except now I wanted a different thing. I didn’t want to fuck him. I wanted to kill him. A minute or two later, he finally managed to push me away. He hit me in the stomach and it hurt so much that I couldn’t breathe for a few seconds, but I didn’t care.

We started fighting, and I was amazed at how much strength my hatred gave me. I mean, I am not a tiny guy; I am fairly tall and well-built. It’s just I never got into such violent fights before. I would get into a fight now and then, especially when I was around fifteen or so, and my father would always beat the living crap out of me when I came back home with a black eye or a busted lip. I knew how to take care of myself when it came to fighting, but I had never beat anyone before with a single thought in my head shrieking: “Murder!”

Landon could hold his own pretty well also, and after a while, we both looked like two rejects from The Gladiator show. I couldn’t even feel any pain. Every time he would hit me, it was like I was injected with something that numbed me so much that my skin felt as if it was made out of vinyl. I think I probably would end up messing him up enough to get expelled, when someone pulled us apart.

I almost laughed when I realized that I was held by three guys.

“I’m gonna kill you!” Landon was screaming at me, and my rage turned from brilliant-red into blinding-white.

I growled and tried lunging at him again, but those three guys held me back. Landon tried to do the same, but he was dragged away by our gym teacher who used to be a heavy weights lifter. I shook my head, trying to get blood and my long by now hair, out of my eyes.

“Let go!” I growled. “Let me go!!”

“Are you going to go on a rampage?” one of the guys asked me, and I recognized his voice.

It was Mike Barton from my class. I shook my head again.

“No,” I said in a calmer voice. “Let go of me... I’ve got blood in my eyes...”

They hesitantly let me go. All three of them looked like they were ready to grab me the minute I did anything even remotely funny. I wiped my face with a back of my hand, and brushed my hair off my forehead.

“Jesus, Jake...” Mike said quietly. “What the hell happened?”

“Nothing,” I muttered and winced when I saw our principal almost flying towards me like a Valkyrie. I could hear Wagner’s music start playing in my head.

She looked like she was about to kill me herself.

“In my office,” she hissed, her green eyes nothing but mad slits behind her glasses. “My office, Summers! Now!!”

She slammed the door of her office so hard that several pictures on the wall shook in fear.

“Sit!” she barked and marched to her desk.

I sat in the chair and carefully touched my cheek. Yeah, it’s going to hurt for a while now. Oh, well, was totally worth it. The principal sat in her chair and looked at me. I could see that she was fuming.

“Summers,” she said in a very dangerous voice. “What was that?!”

I shrugged indifferently and her face became paler. Some people become really red in the face when they are mad. Mrs. Hailey became pale. If she got to the point when she looked paper-white, the best thing anyone could do, was run and hide, because Hailey could get vicious.

“Jake,” she said evenly. “You got completely out of control. Landon did too. What happened?!”

I sighed. If I shrug again, she’d probably hit me with her stapler. I looked at it. It seemed really heavy.

“He...” I hesitated. I was really tempted to tell her what he did to Christy, but I knew that Chris would do something drastic if I did. “He hurt Christy,” I finally said.

“Hurt Christy?” Hailey frowned. “Physically?”

(“Yes! The son of a bitch raped her on Friday night, and all I want to do is to rip his head off right now!!”)

“No,” I said forcefully. “She walked in on him while he was screwing Danetta Ray...”

Hailey’s face became paler and I realized that ‘screwing’ probably wasn’t the best word choice. She took a deep breath as if to keep herself from doing me bodily harm.

“So you decided to kill him?” she asked, and I shrugged again. “Summers... Do you realize that I can expel you for this?”

“Yes, ma’am,” I answered almost cheerfully, and she closed her eyes.

(“Okay, shut up, Jake! Just shut up! If she gets any paler, she will expel you. And then she will probably beat the crap out of you with that damn stapler...”)

“Summers,” she breathed without opening her eyes. “I am going to give you a full week suspension. And I need to see your parents.”

I coughed at that and she opened her eyes.

“I am afraid that won’t be possible,” I said in a very respectful tone of voice. “I moved out of my parents’ house back in September.”

She stared at me silently, and I was surprised when I was able to keep my eyes linked to hers without looking away. Finally, she sighed and her cheeks got just slightly pinker. I was relieved.

“I see,” she said evenly. “Summers, if something like this happens again...” she leaned forward. “...I will expel you. And the same goes for Landon. I will tell him later. Got it?”

“Yes, ma’am,” I nodded.

“Good,” she said and sat up straight. “Now get the hell out of my office and I don’t want to see you until next Monday!”

I looked at her with respect. Not many principals would talk like this, but she was always very straightforward. Sometimes I thought of her as if she was made out of steel.

“Yes, ma’am,” I said again and got up.

“Go clean your face,” she said sharply. “You look like a bad horror movie character!”

I grinned at that, and she immediately barked, “Go!!”

****

Christy called me as soon as the school day was over.

“Jake!” she almost screamed on the phone. “Where are you?! What the hell happened? Everybody keeps talking about you beating the shit out of Landon!!”

“Oh yeah?” I said with interest. “Cool.”

“Cool?!” she reminded me of Hailey right now. “Where are you?”

“Home,” I sighed.

“Stay put!” she barked and hung up the phone.

She rang my doorbell fifteen minutes later, and when I opened the door, anger in her eyes evaporated immediately and her jaw literally dropped.

“Oh my God...” she said softly. “Jake! Your face...!”

“I’ve had worse,” I grinned and stepped aside to let her in.

Her face started to look really funny and I frowned.

“Bailey,” I said with a warning. “If you start crying, I’ll shove you back in your car and you will go home, go it?”

Christy sniffled but didn’t cry.

“Come on,” I laughed. “Let’s go get ice cream. If someone gawks at me, I’ll just tell them that you beat me up.”

That got her smile.