Becoming Beautiful

Chapter 8

The following Monday, I was exhausted. Although I racked up about twelve hours of sleep on Saturday night, I was still tired after my eight hours of sleep on Sunday night. I entered the school building with my bag hoisted on my shoulder. I was a bit on edge because I’d received a call from Marissa about how Noah stormed into the house enraged after I’d left. She said that he refused to tell her what I did. After I explained what I had done, she proceeded to inform me that she can’t save me from this one because it wasn’t accidental. So there is a maniac on the loose and he’s after me.

When the first period bell rang, I rushed to gym. I need to be in the eye of the public and the hallway isn’t as filled as it could be. Once I reached the gymnasium, I sighed in relief until I realized that I have this class with him. I shuffled towards the girl’s locker room and hastily changed, exiting the room and leaning against the wall.

“What are we playing today?” one of the boys asked the coach.

“Volleyball," the coach replied, shrugging off the groans of the students. I felt my stomach flip. There is no way I’m playing volleyball again. If I’m on the team facing the bleachers, I might hit Noah again and if I’m on the side that isn’t facing him, my back is turned and he can throw his high tech camera at my back and paralyze me.

“Same teams as last time, same sides, as well,” I groaned aloud and the coach looked at me. “Is there a problem, Ms. West?”

I knew that I wasn’t supposed to answer him but I nodded, taking him by surprise. Although I’m quiet, it doesn’t mean that I don’t harbor my own opinions because I can assure you that I do. “Yes, I don’t want to play.”

“You can take the zero and it’ll drop your grade from a C- to a D. Take your pick.” He walked away, going to sit on the bleachers. Who knew participation was such a huge percentage of a gym grade? Obviously not the kids splayed out on the bleachers.

I sluggishly walked towards Ronnie’s side of the net, not taking my eyes off of Noah. He was drawing something; his eyebrows were knit together as he lightly stroked the paper, his lip curled into his mouth as his teeth pressed down lightly on the skin. “You, girl!”

That’s me, isn’t it? Ronnie groaned. “Can you pay attention? I said you’re serving.” He motioned for me to walk towards the back of the rectangle towards the spot where I’m supposed to serve. I shook my head, struggling to create words to express my feelings of total discomfort. “Can you speak?”

“I don’t want to serve,” I told him.

“We’re getting all of the bad servers out of the way, now hurry up," he told me, grabbing my shoulders and placing me in the small section with the ball in my arms. I stared at it, last time I had one of these, I chucked it at Noah’s head. I closed my eyes and exhaled before raising the ball and hitting it. It soared over the net and I held back a cheer and instead, tried to keep my eyes on the ball.

The ball came to me again and I hit it but instead of going over the net, it slammed into the back of Ronnie’s head, causing a cheer of ‘oh!’ to chorus throughout the gymnasium. My eyes were wide as Ronnie turned around and glared at me, the ball dropping to the ground, creating a soft thud. I opened and closed my mouth like a fish, struggling to make words come out of it. He quickly began advancing towards me and I took a few steps back, turning and sprinting away from him as he chased me around, screaming obscenities at me. I´m guessing Ronnie doesn’t like me very much, either.

A moment later, two people managed to restrain Ronnie while I stood there panting heavily even though I only ran for a mere twenty six seconds. Ronnie stood there angrily, his arms crossed over his chest as he glared at me. He refused to go to the nurse’s office and I sheepishly joined the team once again, denying the server’s job. Everyone on my team seemed grateful for my smart decision. If only they’d listened to me sooner.

I looked around and saw Noah shaking his head while he stared at his notebook, his earbuds now plugged into his ears. I’m glad he’s having a good time. At least one of us is.

>>

“Any questions?” Ms. Knightly asked, her eyes skimming the classroom. I wanted to reach my hand into the air and ask why we were studying this. It was totally irrelevant and if it wasn’t going to be on the test, like she previously stated, then what’s the point of even learning this?

She nodded and lifted up a pile of papers. “This will be your homework.” She glanced at the clock. “Since we have ten minutes left, you can start to work on it now.”

I looked at the paper as it touched my desk and suppressed a groan. It was a bunch of questions about stupid things. I sighed before lifting my pen and circling answers. When the bell rang, I was halfway finished. I might as well finish the rest at lunch or during my free period, which I have right after lunch.

Scuttling towards American Literature, I stuffed my paper into my bag, trying to keep it unscathed as it was shoved between two text books. I failed. Ignoring the urge to fix it, I began picking up the pace. I needed to get to class quickly. Glancing back over my shoulder every few seconds, I rammed into a petite yet tall figure. My head whipped around to see Marissa staring at me with furrowed eyebrows, laughing lightly as I offered her my hand, a panicked look on my face. I kept glancing behind me and jumping nervously at every sudden noise. “Paranoid?”

I nodded, looking around anxiously. “I don’t know if this will help you but he won’t cause you physical pain.” I didn’t miss the quieter, ‘I think,’ at the end of her sentence.

“Thank you, that makes me feel ten times better than I previously felt,” I muttered sarcastically.

“You know, I wouldn’t have pegged you as the sarcastic type if we wouldn’t have talked in that bathroom. I always thought you were just another quiet, shy girl,” she told me, dusting off the back of her pants.

I nervously nodded before glancing over my shoulder. “That’s a common misconception. Well, I have to get to American Literature, I’ll see you later.”

“Wait. I wanted to know if you want to sit next to me today at lunch.” She grabbed my elbow but released it when I turned to look at her.

I bit my lip. “I’m not sure… the other volleyball players probably won’t like me. Besides, I do play the game terribly.”

She laughed. “Well, if you want to- there’s always an open seat. They’ll like you, trust me.”

I highly doubt that but I smiled and nodded before sprinting towards my next class. Okay, so maybe I didn’t sprint- but I walked at a pretty daring speed in a half filled hallway. I was going to be late if I didn’t get to class in about 30 seconds. I sighed as I sat down in my usual seat, glancing around casually before my eyes caught sight of someone. All this time, I wasn’t running from him- I was running to him!