Unfortunately for me, Colton was too much of a dick to not gloat about him treating Karla like shit.
When he walked past my locker around lunchtime, my gut tightened. He glanced my way with a smirk. I wanted to punch the look off his face.
“Where’s your hunchback girlfriend, Ash?” Colton mocked. “Did she crawl back under some bridge or something?”
Now, my parents would’ve hated it if I hit Colton. They would’ve told me I was better than that—that we were a family who used our words instead of our fists. They would’ve wanted me to be the bigger person.
Unfortunately for them, I swore if I had a chance, I’d bash his face in.
So I did exactly that.
I took my chance.
Without thought, I tackled him to the floor and startedswinging on him. He went down quickly but recovered even faster, tossing me backward against the lockers.
Ouch.
My back ached from the slam, but my inner rage was bigger than my exterior pain. I dove right back at him and started slamming my fist into his face. Again. And again. And again. It wasn’t until I felt arms pulling me off Colton that I realized Mrs.Rivers and another teacher were yelling at me to stop.
I didn’t stop, though. I kept kicking and swinging at the asshole, getting in any hit that I could.
The moment I was no longer able to reach Colton, reality settled in. I looked around at all the students who were staring at me. My heart pounded against my chest as I locked eyes with Missy and Brian and all the people who used to be her friends.
“She wanted to kill herself!” I shouted at her, at the teachers, at everyone. “She wanted to fucking kill herself because of you assholes! All because she fucking loved you and wanted to be your friend again. But she’s so much better,” I choked out as tears burned at the backs of my eyes. “She’s so much better than all of you fucking dicks!”
“Ash, that’s enough,” Mrs.Rivers said, making me turn to look her way. The tears began to fall down my face as I looked into her eyes. She touched my shoulder and squeezed it. “It’s enough.”
***
Dad was called to the principal’s office.
He sat there with a stern look on his face as the principal told them how disappointed they were in me and how they had an absolute-zero-tolerance policy when it came to fighting. You fight, you leave.
They were going to kick me out of school.
I saw the heaviness in Dad’s eyes, the disappointment.
He thanked the principal, and then the two of us walked through the hallway to get my stuff from my locker. After I gathered my things, I slammed the locker shut and turned around to find Missy standing in front of me.
“Is Karla OK?” she asked with haste.
“As if you give a damn,” I murmured as I walked past her. My dad was standing by the exit doors.
Missy quickened her steps. “Listen, I broke up with Colton. He’s a jerk. And I didn’t know he was going to do that to her at the party, OK? I didn’t know.”
“But when he did it, did you try to stop him? Did you help her?” I barked as I paused my steps to look at Missy.
Tears flooded her eyes.
She remained quiet.
“She loved you,” I murmured. “She would’ve done anything to get back in your life. And you left her to drown.” I walked away, leaving Missy standing there alone with her tears. I didn’t care about her tears. All I cared about were the ones she made Karla cry.
Dad drove us home in complete silence.
I knew I made his and Maa’s lives harder by getting kicked out of school. They were already going through enough. The last thing they needed was for me to add more stress to their world.
When Dad pulled into the driveway, he put the car in park, but he didn’t unbuckle his seat belt. His hands stayed on the steering wheel. He gripped it tightly.
