She must be new, then.
“Fuck you. We have things to do,” I said, and Merit smacked my back as I walked past Peter with my shoulders square, ready to hammer him if he started his bullshit. I made sure to walk close enough that he had to move out of my way, and he glared at me. “Nice fucking knowing you. Go crawl in a hole and die.”
Creed glanced back nervously as we passed, though I refused to allow myself to do the same. “Shit, Peter’s got those assholes who think they’re a gang with him,” he murmured.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Merit muttered. He picked up his pace until he was beside me. I didn’t miss the way Merit snagged Creed’s hand and tugged him closer so that he had his arm firmly around Creed’s waist. Merit glanced at me, and I wasn’t sure what I looked like but he gave me a lopsided grin. “Fuck everyone, right? Hiding hasn’t kept us out of a single fight the way we thought it would. So what the hell?”
Nodding, I smiled as Creed leaned against Merit’s side. They’d been my best friends for a long time, and I was happy for them. It seemed like they had the perfect fairytale relationship, and they’d be together forever. We’d all been so scared and busy trying to survive high school that I hadn’t managed to meet anyone at all yet. But college was coming. I grinned. And hopefully I would be, too.
“Let’s cut through the baseball field to your house,” Creed said. “It’ll be faster.”
“Sure.”
We turned left at the parking lot. We all lived so close by that even though I had a car we never bothered to drive. Once we hit the baseball field I realized we’d made a critical error. There was a huddle of guys who I’d seen with Peter before, but didn’t go to our school, smoking around the home-field dugout.
“Fuck,” I grunted, but a whistle from behind us had those guys jerking their heads up. We’d been spotted. Fuck, we walked home this way a lot. Was this a set up?
“Hey, Jolly Green jackass!” someone yelled from the pack of assholes near the dugout. “Get the fuck over here. I got something to say to you!”
“No,” Creed muttered. He grabbed my wrist. “No, don’t. They’re just trying to get you to fight, Casey. You know it, I know it—”
“Yeah, well, I’m fucking sick of it,” I growled.
“Fuck it. Let’s go wreck them,” Merit said. He let go of Creed and stretched his arms over his head.
“This is a bad idea,” Creed grumbled, but he didn’t run away or back down. Even though he’d hit a growth spurt, he still wasn’t as big as Merit, and was nowhere near as built. In a pinch, he could swing his fists. I’d seen him walk home to my house to wash his cracked knuckles at the sink while my sisters fawned over him and acted like he was a wounded kitten. Of course, I was a monster for not keeping Creed out of “my problems.”
“You said we needed to stick up for ourselves and lay a few people out,” I reminded Creed.
“We’ve done that,” he hissed. “Now we just need to walk away. This was the last day. We’re through.”
We were too close to the dugout to back out now. I did a quick headcount and it seemed like Merit was doing the same. There were thirteen guys total, and Peter Gaffin jogged over with the rest of his rat-mean friends and a nasty smirk. His girl walked along after him and tucked herself under his arm again, almost like she was worried she’d lose her place if she didn’t. He puffed up and took off his shirt when I got nearer. He peeled the thin material off and tossed the shirt at his girl like it was some fucking prize. She simpered in his direction.Gross.Peter wasn’t big. The thing about him, though, was that he had no fat. His body was corded muscle held together by hate.
“Let’s do this. Like fight club,” he called to me. “I want to knock you the fuck out, big man. I’ve never really had my chance, and I know you’re a fucking pussy. I can tell.” He glanced at Creed and Merit, and anger boiled in me. I was so tired of people in this fucking school.
Shrugging, I took my T-shirt off and shoved it in Creed’s direction. He snorted. “I’m so not the girl,” he grumbled, and Merit barked out a laugh.
Knowing it was a bad idea, we went into the dugout along with Peter and his boys, and there was shouting like we were heroes going into the final scene in a bad action movie. With everyone trying to pack into the dugout this went from a bad idea to a fucking horrible one. Guys stood on the bench to get a better view. Creed and Merit were behind me, and the rest of the boys must have been scared of them because they stayed well on the other side of the dugout away from us.
I was surprised, but not really, when Peter stood back, and two bigger jerks from his crew—one played football—came at me swinging their fists. I wasn’t trained to fight beyond punching a bag in my garage, but neither were they. I connected with the first guy, and Merit shoved the football player who tried to play dirty and jump me too. He landed on his ass, and my adrenaline spiked.
Then another guy stepped in, and I smashed him in the face. My shoulder ached because I put too much into the punch. He clutched his nose and groaned as blood seeped through his fingers.
Peter whistled and had his hand behind his back as he stepped on his friend on the ground to get to me. There was laughter and screaming from his side of the dugout and my ears hurt. Sweat stung my eyes. Peter got within punching distance and pulled out the weapon from behind him that he’d been doing a piss poor job of hiding. He swung a baseball bat in my direction.
I flinched, but when I opened my eyes Creed was there, struggling with Peter, his face redder than I’d ever seen it. He kicked at Peter and managed to take the bat from him, and I winced as he used it to crack hard across Peter’s chest. “Even when you say you’re fighting fair, you fuckers never do!”
Peter fell, and I took the bat from Creed when he tried to swing it again, but then Peter laughed. His face was flushed and he wheezed where he held his chest. I was so fucking sick of people like him, people who did things like this. Peter had been fucking with our lockers and our lives for far too long. I saw red and swung the bat up over my head. He saw it coming and rolled. I cracked it down hard in the middle of his back. The sound was awful, like a tree branch snapping.
And then there was dead silence, except for Peter sobbing. I had no idea how much time passed as I breathed too fast and my head spun, but the next thing I noticed was the noise of feet pounding the cement floor of the dugout as Peter’s so-called friends scattered. Even his girlfriend ran away, tossing his shirt down behind her.
“I can’t move,” Peter sobbed. “It hurts.”
Creed’s eyes were too wide and his lips trembled. He glanced at me. Merit took his hand and dragged Creed back to hold him against his chest, and then he took my hand too.
“We have to go.”
“We need to help him,” Creed said, and tears ran down his face underneath his glasses.
