Page 11 of Never Forever

I’d been punched in the eye by the school bully and I was going to be punished by my dad, for sure. Maybe about to get suspended too.

But I had the beginning of a boner.

Carrie Piedmont was magic.

I shifted away from her, making sure she couldn’t see my eye or my boner.

“Who was he picking on?” she asked.

Shit.

I mean…she’d probably find out sooner or later. The high school and the middle school shared the practice field. Ryan loved going over to the middle school to pick on younger kids.

“Annie.”

“What?” She stood up. Her face was flushed and her eyes were steely, like she was ready to go punch Ryan in the eye.

“She was just reading during lunch, and he must have been bored-”

“Did he touch her?” she asked, her hands in fists.

“No. He just grabbed the book out of her hands. Honestly, she’s fine.”

“That asshole,” she muttered, and charged for the office door.

I grabbed her hand. “Hey, where are you going?”

“To beat up Ryan Blantz.”

“I already did that,” I told her.

“Yeah, but you lost.”

“Who says?” I smiled, briefly. It hurt. “He’s in the nurse’s office.”

She gaped at me for a second and then sat back down. A small satisfied smile on her face. She looked at me out of the corner of her eyes and tucked her hair behind her ears the way girls did at lunch when they talked to football players. “Oh.” She said. “Okay, then.”

“What are you doing here anyway?” I asked her. “In the principal’s office.”

Her face flushed and a scowl replaced that flirty smile.

“Braiden was sitting behind me and he was messing with my hair. Asking me if I dyed it. He wouldn’t stop so I turned around and told him to stop touching me.”

“Andyougot kicked out of class?”

She shrugged. “I might have said…stop touching me, you dickless asshole.”

I laughed and kept laughing. She joined in until we were doubled over in our chairs. Shoulders pressed against each other. Her breath against my cheek, her hand clutching mine. I barely felt my aching eye and I didn’t care what my dad was going to do to me or if I was going to get kicked out of school.

I could have stayed there, laughing with Carrie Piedmont for the rest of my life.

“You knowI don’t like violence,” Dad said in his serious voice when he picked me up from school. “It never solves anything.”

He seemed so big when he was serious. Never scary. Not ever. But imposing. More substantial. He was a tall man with a big barrel chest and when he was serious, he was eight feet tall with a voice like thunder.

“I know, Dad.”

“And suspended!” He cried.

---