FicWad

I sat in the large group room during sixth period, the last period of the school day. My eyes wandered from the white walls to the rows of mustard yellow tables to the students occupying the collection of chairs in various colors. I glanced up at the clock and groaned when I saw that I still had twenty-five minutes to kill, as my history homework didn't take me very long to finish. Something hit the side of my backpack, and I looked down to see a crumpled up piece of paper. Smoothing it out, I saw that it was a message from Mikey, as I had come to recognizing his handwriting.

"Something tells me you're bored as hell in here."

I laughed to myself and looked over at Mikey, who smiled and waved. "LOL, you got that right. At least I'm in here with you and not at gym, I hate that class. You guys get signed up for the Coffee House yet?" I wrote and tossed it back to him.

"Yep, just this morning. It's gonna be scary, considering nobody here has ever heard us before, except for you and Katie, of course."

"If we thought you guys are amazing, chances are other people here will too." I drew a smiley at the end for emphasis.

"Thanks." Mikey also put a smiley at the end of his response.

"What songs are you guys going to play?" I continued. Neither of us really had anything better to do at that point, so we were just killing time.

"We've been working on some new songs, and we've decided that starting a new school would be the best time to start playing them for people."

"Well, I can't wait to hear your new stuff."

The teacher keeping an eye on our study hall gave us the last fifteen minutes to talk amongst ourselves, which was good because every time I looked over at Mikey it looked like something was bothering him. I sat down in the empty chair next to him. "Mikey, am I right in thinking that there's something else bothering you?"

"Yeah. As of right now I'm known as the resident loser of the sophomore class because I'm skinny and they always see me hanging out with Gerard. I'm scared that they'll give me a hard time if they see me in the band, too."

I thought about what he said, and then it hit me. "The other sophomores think that you have to be friends with your brother because you don't have any other friends here, and that Gerard's only letting you hang out with him out of pity?"

"Exactly. I just don't want them to think that they let me play bass in My Chemical Romance out of pity, either. I joined the band because Gerard and the guys wanted me to. But there's nothing wrong with being close to an older sibling, is there?"

"Not in the least." I smiled. "And you're not a loser. It's like I've been told, those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind."

Mikey hugged me. "Thanks, Val."

"Any time, Mikey. Any time."

*

I changed into my gym clothes in the girls' locker room two days later with the same sense of dread that came over me whenever I had gym class. I've said it before and I'll say it again, I absolutely hated gym. I'm not a very competitive person, and I wore sweatpants and T-shirts while the other girls wore tank tops and shorts that went to the middle of their thighs. The fact that I wasn't exactly stick thin didn't help either. Even though I didn't want to be stick thin and most of the time I was just fine with having the healthy weight that I did, I couldn't help but feel out of place with the other girls in my class because they were all the stick thin cheerleader types. And this was all topped off by the fact that Bianca and I had gym class together.

Walking into the gym I saw Bianca and her crowd standing in a clump talking to each other. As I finished tying my shoelaces Bianca strutted over to me, but I pretended not to notice her coming until she was a foot away from me.

"So Valerie, I see you're friends with the new emos." Bianca said in that annoying preppy girl voice of hers. "What do you all do, meet up at some random place and slit your wrists together?"

I rolled my eyes. "There's more to them than you think, Bianca. Gerard, Frank, Mikey, Ray and Bob are five of the nicest guys out there and they're not emo, but of course you wouldn't know."

"Why would I want to know them? I wouldn't talk to them even if you paid me. You and that Katie girl must be pretty desperate for friends if you talk to those guys."

"Maybe we look beneath the surface when we choose our friends. And you know what? They wouldn't talk to you if they were paid, either."

"Good, I don't want them anywhere near me." She smirked. "You know, I was going to say how the emo boys always hook up with the ugly girls such as yourself, but then I remembered that you can't get a guy and that you'll never be able to."

I jumped up. Bianca had crossed the line. "Don't you talk about my friends and I like that! You don't even know any of us!" I yelled, running toward her.

"Get away from me, you freak!" Bianca grabbed my shoulders and threw me against the wall, the impact making me fall to the floor.

"What the hell are you doing?! Get away from her, now!"

My eyes managed to focus on a slightly blurred image of a slightly muscular guy with blonde hair. "Bob?" I asked, hardly able to believe it. He and I had gym class during the same period, but his class was being held outside that day. What was he doing here?

"What's going on here?" I heard a pair of feet running towards us, and hearing their owner's voice I could tell it belonged to my coach.

"I saw Bianca shove Valerie against the wall just now." Bob explained.

My coach nodded. "Bob, take Valerie to the nurse. Bianca, my office, now."

Bob gently helped me up and draped my arm over his shoulders so that I wouldn't fall over. Fortunately the nurse's office was just across the hall, and I was told immediately to lie down after the nurse determined that there was a bruise forming and I was feeling the beginning of what was sure to be a painful headache.

"I can't go home, both of my parents have to work until after five." I objected when the nurse told me that I should be taken home.

"Val, I have a dentist appointment that I was leaving early for. My mom and I could drive you home."

"Won't she object to doing this?"

"I called her just now, and she said she wouldn't mind bringing you home. I told her you live about ten minutes away from school, and she said we'd be able to take you home and I'd still make it to the dentist in time." He looked at me right in the eye. "Val, you need to go home and rest. I'm not going to let you take the bus because you could pass out at any minute and your headache could get worse."

"But how will my parents know why I came home early and how I got there?"

"I'll give them a call." The nurse went into her office to do just that after I gave her my dad's work phone number.

Bob's mom arrived exactly when she'd promised, and she and Bob both made sure I was okay before they got into the car themselves. Soon enough, with the help of my directions, we arrived at my house.

"Thank you so much for driving me home, Mrs. Bryar." I said just before I shut the car door. "I'm sorry that I had to be so much trouble."

"Don't worry about it, Valerie, you're fine." She smiled. "I've done this before, so it's nothing unusual for me."

"Okay. Bob, if there's anything I can do to thank you for doing this, just say so."

"How about coming to see MCR play at the Coffee House?" Bob grinned.

I laughed. "Deal."

I eventually crawled into bed and thought about what had happened. As grateful as I was to Bob and Mrs. Bryar, I couldn't ignore the worry that was starting to build up. Something told me that this was only the beginning of the battle that was now raging between Bianca and I.