Get Down

This story contains strong profanity. 

"Get down!!" Those two words are all I have heard since starting at a new school again. I'm constantly picked on by this sophomore girl named Haley. The fear of all things unknown hits me like liquid lead when her voice shoves past everyone in the hall. I'm a senior, for crying out loud; this girl should be scared of me by my place on the food chain alone! It doesn't help that I'm not the tallest of my class. Being just under five feet seems to give her an added advantage. Everyone who has some sort of self respect obeys and scatters for the red-faced bitch. It's clear to me I don't have any self respect. I don't have anything to offer the world save my odd opinions and voices I flesh out on paper in the comfort of my bedroom. Oh, did I mention the kids in the hallway are all freshmen? 

My cowardliness is so pathetic it's almost funny. "HEY!" Haley shouts, intentionally standing five feet away from me. "What is it noww?" I mumble, turning slightly towards her. "What did you tell Mr. Jensen just now? Two minutes ago?" Hands on her hips, chest out, proudly displaying her 'I AM A CHRISTIAN' T-shirt, she waits for my response. I shrug and give a rehearsed answer; pleading inwardly it sounds convincing, "I just asked him when the essays would be graded, no big deal." Suddenly, the jacked up hinge on my locker seems real interesting. "Why?" I recall asking her back in January of the new year. It was as cold as a witch's tit out, and all I wanted was to get to Jensen's class, help myself to some tea he puts out for us AP students, and continue working on my short story, which was going to be the class's final at the end of the year. "Why the hell do you pick on me? Aside from the obvious?" The obvious being my immense love for literature, as well as my unconventionally attractive appearance and tendency to, as Mr. Jensen calls it, "dead accuracy when it comes to analyzing pieces of literature and poetry." "You think you’re better than everyone. Now one likes a show off. It doesn’t get you anywhere. What I’m doing is taking a stand for everyone else, that's all." She had stated. Numerous times, we were often put together during activities in class that required two or more people. Jensen put us together because he had confided in me that Haley needed a little extra kick to get going on anything that required her having to use her brain for more than just fake Instagram captions and that sickening "holier than thou" persona. Though he worded it more... politely. As he continued to state over the first half of the year about how intelligent I was, and how I had a knack for taking words apart and "reading their DNA '' he thought it a brilliant idea that my routine would hopefully rub off on her. That ship never set sail at all. All she did was continue to make fun of me and harass me outside of class. "Are you deaf of something??" Ah shit, I dug myself deeper. "What?" "I saaid, what did you tell Jensen about me? I bet you didn't tell him my idea for the prompt and just told him yours, huh?" You'd think being the creator of quick-witted characters, I'm already equipped to snap back at her, but nope. Life's a bitch that way.

In retrospect, she had no ideas at all. I'd offered my help in the beginning, but she never accepted it, so I ceased and relayed what happened that hour to Mr. J. at the end of class. I honestly never discussed her behavior with him because I wanted to get back at her, no. I only wanted this shit to stop. I had waited all three years of high school along with putting in the hours of effort to pass J's summer school course so I could not only take the class, but enjoy it. "Hello? I need an answer Jolene...!" Motherfucker. This bitch purposely called me by my full name because she knows I hate it. "It doesn't matter what I tell you, you're not gonna listen." I mutter, hoping my phone rings or a text message from my mom pops up so I can leave. Haley loved to get me real good at the end of every day. All day in fact. At lunch it was the typical act of asking to sit with me and chat. Soon her friends would come around and it would turn into a full-fledged sermon about how God wants to reach me and my dark, lost mind. Their rebuttal was all the free lance prompts and shit I showed Jensen. I had no control over the fact he decided to read my work aloud in class to everyone. It was and is always well received by everyone except for you know who. "God shows us the wicked ways of your "characters". He says you're not spreading light with the stuff you write." I don't write for a god. I write because I enjoy it, and I write for myself. They act like I slap an Ao3 erotica on the teacher's desk and call it a day. If there is a god, then he's not all that loving and kind as they profess he is; I have to sit in math with her and two other girls she has an unofficial school bible study with. Oh my lanta, they let me know how inefficient I am when it comes to formulas, square roots, and equations. "You do realize withholding the truth is a form of a lie, right? I thought you were a writer, don't you know all that?" Miss Love God, Love People advocate grinned. It was a long day. Hell, it was a long year. I decided to really think about why this lower classman picked on me. I thought back to what Jensen told me about how Haley might have difficulty understanding and enjoying reading higher level books and analyzing them. I forced myself to imagine being in her position. I most definitely seem like the haughty know-it-all student everyone feels they have to measure up to. It was also possible that Jensen was playing favorites, which would make it harder for her to ask for help. Mulling over all the possibilities opened my eyes more and more. “If you’d gone about asking me for help instead of harassing me every day, I honestly would’ve helped you out.” She blinked twice, trying to decide if I was being genuine or not. “But why didn’t you make a move first!” “I got a list,” I say, looking her square in the eye. “Since I got here, you’ve teased me about my clothes, constantly make fun of my writing, make shitty ass remarks to everyone who listens, yell at me, follow me around, try to get me in trouble-.” “Because you won’t help me-.” “Be quiet, I'm not finished!” She gasped. “I can go on ALL day about how you think your Mother Teresa, pretending to act on behalf of God’s love, spreading lies about who I am, but that’s all shit, Haley!! If anything, you’re the liar! You’re the problem!” Those last three words hit home for her. In that instant, I read her like a book. Her behavior was cause for something deeper than me. I almost took it back, but what was said was true regardless if it stung. She stung me for a while. Out of nowhere but somewhere, she screamed and rushed toward me with fists raised. Whoaaa. ‘Get down’. Her words from earlier bloomed to life in my brain. I ducked, and near shat myself at the sound of her tripping over me, the momentum sending her forehead first into my locker.