chapter twenty-six-2

I glanced over my shoulder at the speaker, recognizing him as Xander James, one of the lacrosse players. He was spinning the combination of his locker, almost as if, despite his comment, he was completely oblivious to me. I felt a twinge of self-consciousness, my exposed skin tingling and suddenly cold, and I thought about maybe changing into my gym shirt before I remembered ocean blue. Ocean blue observing me, controlling me, following me. Ocean-blue waters had surrounded me, nearly drowned me, and then left me scrambling for breath. A mumbled comment wasn't going to leave me breathless and afraid again. "You think you can just joke about something like that?" I whirled around at the sound of the voice coming from behind me. Kolby. Xander stared at him as if he wasn't sure he was serious. "Just relax, man." "I heard what you said. She," Kolby told him, pointing to me, "heard what you said." He shrugged, still looking incredulous. "Okay, fine, whatever. I made a joke, so what? When you're dressed like that, you're asking for it. You can't complain when a guy acted on it." "Are you hearing yourself right now?" Regardless of whether Xander was listening, everyone else could certainly hear Kolby, his voice echoing against the lockers as he yelled. "Kolby, it's fine," I muttered as the other students in the hallway started to stare. He shook his head, shooting me a look. "No, it's not fine! Morons like him can't just say whatever they want—" "Oh, so now I'm a moron?" Xander asked. "Geez, man. I thought he was supposed to be your friend. Why are you taking this slut's word?" "What did you call her?" I caught a glimpse of pink rounding the corner down the hall, and I turned to her, confused and almost scared. Talk to him, calm him down, Aniston mouthed to me. I looked back at Kolby, anger contorting and coloring his skin. I felt my own sense of anger. He'd left me, stranded at a bus stop with Mrs. Tomlin, and now I needed to talk him down. "Kolby, seriously. It doesn't matter. Let's just go." He ignored me. "What did you call her?" When he didn't listen, I reached into my backpack and grabbed one of my textbooks, smacking it against the back of his head. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Aniston jump as Kolby paused, in the middle of a sentence I hadn't understood. He brought his hand to the back of his head as he looked at me, bewildered. And then, over his shoulder, the history teacher headed toward us. We had been left sitting in the chairs outside the principal's office, the receptionist turning to glance over at us every few seconds while our parents talked inside. Xander was on the last chair, closest to the principal's door, occasionally casting a look over at Kolby that he either missed or ignored from where he sat in the middle. I hadn't seen or spoken to him since he'd left me at the bus stop two days ago, but I almost wondered if he was trying to be a wall of flesh and bone between me and Xander or if he'd just randomly sat there. Sometimes I thought I could feel him glancing at me, but I never looked over at him to see if he was. Xander's mother emerged first, apparently frustrated and exasperated as she threw open the principal's door and sharply told her son, "Get up right now." As they were leaving, I leaned back to look at the principal's door, hoping to see my mother come out next. When it was obvious that our parents were still going to be in there for another few minutes, I couldn't help flicking my gaze over to Kolby for a split second. "What were you trying to do?" I finally asked. He let out a sigh, tilting his head back, a reluctance already tensing his shoulders. "Did you really think that getting into a fight at school was a good idea?" "It wasn't really a fight. I never touched him. And anyway, he said something stupid," he muttered. "I'd take that over someone doing something stupid any day." I turned away from him, crossing my arms over my chest and slouching in the chair—even though it felt juvenile, I wanted to look as irate as I felt, a rebelliousness stirring that needed to be visible to him, to anyone.