FicWad

I sat in history staring blankly at the whiteboard. I hated history, it was my worst subject. Every time I was in class I would stare blankly at the whiteboard wondering how the fuck learning about Adolf Hitler and Stalin would benefit my future. New holocaust maybe? I don’t think so.
I looked at the clock, 2.30pm. Another painful thirty minutes of torture. At least it’s not another full hour. My mind wandered off back into the events of Art Class today. Gerard and I decided that we are going to collaborate at the end of the year “Year Eleven Art Class” competition. It can only be one picture, painting or drawing of ONE picture. ONE scene. ONE line, that tells a thousand words. The winner gets their art printed on the cover of The Artist (British art magazine) and a $100 voucher at Panoramic 34, a very classy restaurant in Liverpool that I really can’t see myself fitting in and eating, but Gerard and I decided that we’d take it anyway, go dressed goth as hell and eat in just to piss everybody off anyway. We hadn't come up with a concept for our drawing, but we decided that I was going to do some sort of crime scene and Gerard was going to write the words to it; like a picture from a comic book.
I must have been day dreaming really intensely, because I didn't notice Mr. Wards talking to me until he was standing at my desk practically yelling at me.
“Earth to Rachel! Is anybody in there!?” He was waving his hand in my face. I turned red as everybody in the class laughed.
“Er, sorry. I was just thinking.” I said quietly.
“Of the answer, I hope.” He nodded.
“Sorry, what was the question again?” I sighed.
“Which extermination camp in what country was the only camp where half the population of prisoners managed to escape?” He folded his arms. “I hope you were paying attention, or you’ll be reading the Third Reich before you go home.”
I sighed and scratched my head. Come on, the answer’s got to be here somewhere. I know this one, we watched a documentary about it the other week. What is it… Come on! Think Rachel Think!
“Was it… Sabibor in Poland?” I answered shyly.
“Correct. Good to know that you can day dream AND learn at the same time.” He stared daggers at me. “In future, please keep day dreaming in your own time.”
“Yes sir,” I nodded. Thank God I got it right, or he really would have made me read the Third Reich before leaving.
I pretended to be paying attention through the rest of the class, when finally the bell rang. I grabbed my bag and I walked out. I got to my locker and opened it, a note fell out. It was from Bonnie:

Sup slutbag,
I wasn’t feeling well –cough cough- I went home
In case you were wondering, Frank isn’t feeling well either.
But there’s no one at his place to look after him,
So he came home with me.
-Cough cough-


I rolled my eyes. And she called me the slutbag. I grabbed my things and put them in my bag.
I headed for the front door not paying attention to anything around me, when someone grabbed me by the arm and pulled me into the cleaning closet. My heart sank; John Waller and his group of sheep.
“What do you want!?” I yelled, wriggling my arm out of John’s grip. A fist came flying at me from the right into the jaw, knocking me on the ground.
“You might wanna show some fucking respect you little scumbag!” John spat in my face.
I rubbed my jaw, did that really just happen?
John and his little followers began kicking me all over. The legs, my stomach, my back. John kicked me twice in the face. He grabbed me by the collar of my shirt and hauled me up and slammed me against the wall. My feet couldn’t touch the ground, I wrapped my hands around his wrists trying to fight him off. I kicked him in the groin. He punched me several times in the face and spat at me. He brought his face so close to mine I couldn’t see anything but John. He growled.
“Tell your drunk Daddy that that was a warning from my Dad. Don’t fuck with us again.” He dropped me and they left me in the closet, turning the light off on the way out. I scrambled around, trying to feel my way around the room, feeling like a lost puppy, I had absolutely no idea what was going on or what had just happened. John had got in my face a hundred times before, but never once laid a hand on me. What the hell did he do this to me for, what the hell could my Dad have anything to do with it?
I managed to find the door of the closet and stumbled out as I opened it, falling flat on my already hurting face. I winced as I sat up and put my hand to my face, it hurt just to gently touch it. I looked down at my hand, there was blood and a lot of it. I looked around the hallway, there was nobody there. How the hell does someone get jumped in the closet in a jam packed hallway full of alert teenagers and nobody notices? Maybe people did notice, but they didn’t care. How did the hallway get so empty so fast? Maybe they all left in a hurry when they saw what was happening so they didn’t have to be a witness to it. Like I’d ever dob John in, he’d only do it again.
I got up on my feet and limped back into the closet and grabbed my bag. My eyes were stinging, I could feel the blood trickling down my face. I limped down the hallway to the girls bathroom. The bathroom consisted of sixteen cubicles, eight on each side of the hall. There were two entrances to the bathroom, each on opposite ends, along the walls next to the entrances were mammoth-sized mirrors with basins. I stumbled over to them and spat blood into one of the sinks. I flicked the water on and washed it down. I looked up in the mirror. I have to admit, I don’t look as bad as I thought I would. There’s more blood than anything. I had a gash just above my left eyebrow where John punched me repeatedly, most of the blood was pouring from there. My nose was also bleeding from being kicked and punched by John, I hope he hasn’t broken it. I limped over into one of the cubicles and pulled out what seems like the entire toilet paper roll. I made my way slowly back to the basin and wiped the blood off my face. My face was stained from the blood, I couldn’t get rid of it without wiping it with water. The mere thought of even touching my face was enough to make me want to cry. I decided to leave it and just walk home and led the blood come off on it’s own. I limped back out into the hallway.
“There you are! I’ve been looking all over for you!” I heard Gerard call out from behind. Just when I thought this situation couldn’t get any worse.
I stood still, there was no way of avoiding this without looking like a complete bitch. So I just kept my eyes to the ground and let Gerard come to me.
“You okay Rachel?” He caught up. “Man gym class is shit, you ever seen me run? I look like an unco reta- What the fuck happened to you?” He was standing in front of me.
“What does it look like?” I looked up to him blankly. “I got my ass kicked. That’s what happened to me.”
Gerard stood there gawping like he had never seen anything like it before. “Wh.. Why?”
“I don’t know.” I wasn’t lying either, I really didn’t know what the fuck John was on about.
“Who?” He sounded angry now.
I didn’t want to say so I looked at the ground. Tears started flooding my eyes and felt a lump growing in my throat. Don’t cry in front of him, don’t do it. Just go home and cry as loud and for as long as you want but just don’t you DARE cry in front of Gerard!
“Rachel, tell me. Who did this?” He grabbed my hand. “You can tell me. I’ll sort the fuckers out.”
“You can’t!” I shouted pulling my hand away.
He looked at me all concerned, feeling helpless.
“I’m sorry I yelled,” I sighed, still fighting the urge to cry. “But you can’t sort this; you’ll get your ass kicked, too.” I limped towards the front door, getting nervous as I passed the cleaning closet. Last time I passed that place I ended up like this. Gerard stopped me, putting his hand on my shoulder.
“Please tell me who did this,” He looked at me. “Please.”
I sighed. I looked up at him, oh what the hell, John will kick my ass for telling him, but even if I don’t tell him John’s gonna find another reason to anyway, might as well let it be a legit reason.
“John.” I said.
“John who?”
“John Waller.” I sighed.
“Okay.” He nodded. “Let’s get you back to my place and get you cleaned up.”
He took my bag off me and helped me walk to the bus stop. He refused to let me walk home, even thought I had told him I didn't have any money for the bus. He said he’d pay, and I couldn't be bothered arguing.
“Will your Mum and Mikey be home?” I asked him on the bus.
“More than likely. Don’t worry though; I’ll sneak you into my room so you don’t have to talk to them.” He said. I smiled at him weakly.
“Thank you.”
“Don’t worry about it,” He sighed. “ I've had to help a friend out many times in situations like this.”
The rest of the bus trip to our street was in silence. He again, helped me limp my way to his house. I stopped at his front gate.
“My parent’s won’t be home till later,” I stated. “Why don’t I just go home and you grab what you need from yours and meet me there?”
Gerard thought about this. “Yeah, okay then. I’ll be over in like two minutes.”
I limped back home, I wouldn’t let Gerard help me, in fact I think my exact words were ‘fuck off I can walk across the road.’
I stepped inside and threw my bag on the staircase, Mum and Dad won’t be home for at least another three hours, fuck walking up the stairs when I don’t need to.
I limped into the kitchen, surprised to see the coffee jar filled with coffee. I opened up the fridge door, what the fuck? There’s food in here!
I grabbed out the milk and made Gerard and I coffee. I brought them over to the dining table one by one, I didn’t want to risk spilling it on the floor and getting down on my knees and wiping it up in pain, and knowing Gerard it wouldn’t have even gone down that way; he would have made me stay in my seat while he cleaned it up. I grinned at the thought.
Gerard let himself in and called out to me closing the door behind him.
“I’m in the dining room!” I had just put the second coffee down.
His face beamed when he saw the coffee. I smiled and sat down.
He brought over a first aid kit which made me grin like a motherfucker, and sat down. He took a massive gulp of his coffee and screwed his face up.
“Does it taste bad?” My eyes widened.
“No.” He managed to get out, still screwing his face up. “It burns”
I laughed. “Oh the irony, you bring over a first aid kit to fix me up and the first thing you do is incinerate your insides!”
He put his coffee down and let out a, WHOO! “Alright. Let’s get this started.”
He pulled his chair closer to mine and opened up the first aid kit. He grabbed a white lint-free cloth and drenched it in what looks like Dettol, and began to dab it into the cut above my brow. I winced.
“I’m sorry,” He said. “But there’s really no way to do this without hurting you. You’re just gonna have to stay as still as you can and I’ll be as gentle and quick as I can.” I nodded and screwed my face up.
“Fuck that John Waller! He can go jump in front of a bridge!” I yelled, Gerard gave me a funny look. “I mean bus! He can go jump in front of a bus!”
Gerard burst out laughing. “Now now, Rachel,” he said in a serious tone. “Jumping in front of bridges is never the answer.” He was trying to hold back his laughter.
“Get this clean up over and done with.” I glared at him.
He dabbed more Dettol onto the cloth and started wiping the cuts again. I held onto the sides of my chair so hard my knuckles turned white, and I bit my tongue. I clenched my leg muscles to stop myself from kicking Gerard, that wouldn’t be all that nice to do so.
“Hmmmm,” He wondered. “I don’t think you’ll need stitches. I’m not a doctor but it doesn’t look that deep. He got up and threw the cloth in the bin. “Did he get you anywhere else?”
“Yeah,” I sighed. “I got kicked in the legs and stomach but they’re not bleeding. He got my nose though.”
“Yeah, I can see that.” He sat down and looked horrified.
“Is it crooked?” I didn’t really wanna know the answer but it had to be asked.
“No, but I can see some dry blood and there’s a minor cut to the side of your nose. Here, I’ll clean that, too.” He started cleaning up the cut.
I braced myself for the sting, but it didn’t really happen; just a little itching feeling around the cut. He got up and threw the cloth in the bin and grabbed another cloth from the kit. He walked over to the kitchen sink and soaked it with water. He walked back over to his seat and sat down.
“Stay still for a minute.” He put his hand on the top of my head and concentrated on where the dried blood was, and began to wipe it away. “Did John not tell you why he decided to kick your ass?”
“No,” I sighed. “Well no, not exactly.”
“What do you mean?”
“He was saying something about my Dad,” I tried to remember what it was that he said. “Something about don’t fuck with us again, or something like that. I don’t really remember. It’s pretty hard to listen to someone when they're handing your ass to you.”
“I bet.” He leaned back, he was done wiping the blood off my face. “I’m gonna kick his ass when I see him next.”
“No please, just leave it.” I begged. “Seriously you don’t know John!”
“And John doesn’t know me,” He spat. “He’s gonna get it. Just accept that. I fucking hate guys that hit girls!”
I took a sip of my coffee, and looked at him. He looked down at his coffee and swirled it around in his cup. “When I was younger; maybe four maybe five. My Dad used to have a bit of a drink problem. He used to hit my Mum quite a bit. I still remember seeing it.”
I sat shocked, I didn’t know what to say.
“He’s not like that now, obviously. He got help after Mikey was born and Mum said she’d leave him.” He sighed. “But I haven’t forgotten those days, and I don’t think I will. And now when I see a guy hit a girl, all those feelings come back and I just get pissed off. I’m not dropping this.”
I nodded. “Fair enough.”
He grabbed the cloth and wiped a bit more blood off my face, “I missed a spot.”
He caught my eye and we just looked at each other for a little bit. He leaned forward and softly kissed me on the lips. I returned it, and held it there for a few seconds. Suddenly all background noise and the stinging cuts just disappeared. It was just us two in this empty room. He pulled back a little bit and just looked at me. Neither of us really knew what was happening, but we liked it.
“What the hell is going on?”
We both turned to the doorway.
It was my Mum.