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Because just then the bell rings.
Fuck.
Rubi
I’M WALKING INTOthe lunchroom, which is way nicer than the public schools I have attended. The smell is even different. It smells like real food in here, and not frozen meat that looks like it was created in a lab somewhere. Although, it was still edible, it was better than what I had wherever I was staying. Growing up I became a creative culinary artist with the scraps I could find just to keep the hunger pangs away.
I take a seat at the long bench tables that are set up in rows of five. I notice the jocks with their letterman jackets sitting at one table. The cheerleaders are there and I know they are cheerleaders because one of them has a pin that says cheer captain on her school jacket, and at another are the emo kids to my right. Then I notice a guy sitting alone with no one around. His head is lowered as he eats in silence.
I take a seat after getting a tray of food and placing it in front of me, even though I’m not hungry. I don’t think I’ll be able to eat as I replay what happened in English class. I can’t believe I ran into him. Ky. I knew it was a possibility, but I wasn’t prepared for the sight of him. His dark eyes bore into my skin like the sun heating me up from the inside. I was nervous. My leg wouldn’t stop twitching at the sight of his muscled arms with random tattoos peeking out, or the fact that he practically didn’t fit in the chair with the wooden desk. I wonder how he talked his parents into allowing him to get the ink. Kids from where I’m from get them because they know a tattoo artist that could care less about how old you were as long as you had money. He has changed. He has changed a lot. All grown up into this dark, sexy badboy, but what had me holding my breath in class was the way he looked at me with pure hatred in that moment. I mean, it looked like hatred.
I knew he recognized me, and he noticed that I did too. I remember the letter I left him with the flower that had one last petal hanging on it that was dried up from keeping it flat in a book. It was the only way I could say goodbye. It was the only way I knew how to communicate with him so he wouldn’t forget me. I was hurt and scared. I didn’t want to lose him, but I knew I had to give him up. It never crossed my mind that he would get mad at me. Upset. Maybe. He was the only person in my life who knew me. He was the reason I kept going, never giving up, but how he treated me and looked at me back there in the classroom, I know his feelings toward me have changed.
People change for different reasons. Obviously, I’ve changed too. I just hope he has changed for the better. I hope he is happy. I saw the way the girl sitting next to him just stared at him. I felt a pang of jealousy, but I pushed it down. I have no right to be jealous. I haven’t seen or talked to him for so long, but in my mind, I guess Ky was always mine. When I had no choice but to leave, I kept the memories we shared inside of me like a silent whisper, constantly telling me to fight and hold on. To fight for another day. Because when you fight for another day, you hope there is something or someone waiting for you once you come out on the other side. Telling you they care. Telling you that everything will be alright. I kept fighting, but now I think I will never have anyone there waiting for me. Especially not Ky.
I scroll through the cellphone that was left on the nightstand in my room. I’ve never had a phone of my own before, so I distract myself by trying to get familiar with it. I’ll learn, though. I just know the basics of texting and calling.
Silence falls in the cafeteria as Ky enters with my half-brother, and another guy I noticed in algebra class who walked in with the stuck-up girls who were laughing at me. I see Ky, with his dark hair and tight polo shirt fitting his frame perfectly, greet the jocks, and notice Tyler has a letterman jacket on his arm. They must be on the football team, but I notice Ky doesn’t have one. Interesting. Maybe he doesn’t play football. He never told me he was interested in any sports, but that was a long time ago and interests change.
Me. I like dancing. Hip-hop, mostly. I found out I like it when I was sent to a family that fostered eight kids. They were of different ages—three boys and five girls, making me the eighth one of the group. They taught me dance moves for a year until the couple turned out to be shit. That was when I started stealing—I mean, borrowing. I had to. I couldn’t let the other kids go hungry.
My eyes look at my food and I start to eat like it’s my last meal. Some habits are hard to break. After I take my last bite, I glance around the cafeteria and see a paper ball with something on it fly across the room toward the guy who is sitting quietly to my left. It hits him in the forehead and falls on the plate and landing in his ketchup, causing it to splatter down the bridge of his nose. The cafeteria erupts into laughter. My head snaps around, and I see the jocks at the football table laugh. My eyes find Ky, and he is laughing along with them.
Asshole.
The poor kid doesn’t have a napkin, and he is stiff like a statue. His brown hair is covering his eyes, and I can’t see him properly because he refuses to look up. I can’t blame him. As a foster kid, I understand getting bullied all the time. We are used to it, but we also make alliances with the misfits. The ones who don’t give a fuck anymore. The ones who end up in gangs. They aren’t bad. They just don’t have a choice. The system fails kids like us all the time. You can’t even blame the system because where would that leave the parents. The ones who brought you into the world.
“I hate them. Every year is the same,” the kid mumbles to himself, loud enough that I can hear him.
I feel bad and know what it’s like. I hand him the clean napkin from my tray across from me. He looks up and takes it.
“T-thank you, “he says, wiping the ketchup off the best he can.
“Hey, Patty! I told you to stop leaving your tampons in the bathroom, you dirty fuck.”
My head turns, and I see a blonde prick seated at the jocks’ table, laughing and smirking. I roll my eyes at his crude remarks. Prick. My eyes dart over to see Tyler watching me from where he is sitting, doing nothing to stop the idiot. What a bunch of immature, rich assholes.
“What are you looking at, Street Rat? I heard all about you showing up for a free meal ticket. I’m not surprised you sat over there with P-p-patty,” the blonde prick mocks.
Motherfucker. I turn my head around and glare at Tyler. If I had any doubt of how he felt about me, this is all the proof I need. I’m not stupid enough not to believe he is one of the popular ones, he obviously is with where he is seated. The girls hang around him and Ky like they are waiting for scraps. I’m already public enemy number one on my first day. But I won’t let it get to me. If there is one thing I have experienced plenty of, it is to be the unwanted and the outcast. A bunch of rich pricks won’t ever get to me. Especially a stuck-up half-brother who is quick to talk shit about a situation I have no control over. He doesn’t know me, and I don’t want to know him. He can kiss my ass. They can all kiss my ass.
He thinks I want to be here. If he only knew I preferred to stay where I was. At least in the foster system I knew to never expect much. I wasn’t required to act a certain way for the benefit of others either. I was real. I was me. Rubiana. The difficult teenager with a juvenile record who has been through enough shit in her short life to make any psychotherapist wealthy from the weekly visits alone. Who are they to think allowing my sperm donor the right to bring me here would fix my inner turmoil from the abuse I have suffered? They have zero idea of what I’ve endured.
“D-d-don’t let them get to you.”
My head spins back around to the poor kid they called Patty. He is looking at me, and I can see that his eyes are actually a soft brown. Almost a honey color. He has attractive features, and could easily pass as a good-looking guy if he had a dose of confidence. I wonder what his story is, being at this school among these elitists.
“Let who get to me?” I ask, playing it off.
I know he means the assholes sitting at the table, including Ky. I want to glance over in his direction but don’t want to make it obvious, so I stay with my back turned, facing Pat.
“What’s your name? And why do you let them get to you?” I volley back the last part, even though I obviously know his name.
He slides his long hair that’s covering his eyes to the side as he studies me for a second before he answers. “My n-n-name is Patrick.” He takes a deep breath before he continues. I feel something hit me on my back but I remain still, not giving anyone the satisfaction, facing Patrick and waiting for him to continue. I have no choice but to Ignore the fact that they are throwing things, trying to intimidate and make fun of me. It’s a test. When bullies push, it’s to see how far you let them go, and they gauge it based on how you react. Sometimes ignoring it works, but other times it just gives them the right to keep doing it.
Confronting them and standing up for yourself is necessary, but right now I want to hear what poor Patrick has to say. I get why he doesn’t have confidence and allows these assholes to make fun of him and put him down is because he stutters. People who are trying to hide their own insecurities sometimes prey on others to make themselves feel better, and in this case, it’s Patrick who is the victim because of his speech impediment. It’s not like he wants to stutter. He just does. As a decent human being, you can choose to ignore it and not make it obvious that he has the disability, but people are not nice. They love to focus on the negative.
In my case, it’s because I’m not from here and come from the other side of the tracks. The poor side, and let’s not forget that I also trespassed into Tyler’s idyllic life and caused ripples in the water for his family.
