lose your hero; have great sex
It was the hottest day since winter, two days before my first regional track meet, and twenty minutes before I would pass out for the first time. It was one of those days you can predict the weather even before you step outside and squint into the blinding sun because, even with the windows of the classroom open and all the shades pulled down, you can smell the kid in front of you sweating through his uniform. It was one of those days where you could see the heat rising off the ground, and if you lost your focus for even a second, the track ahead of you began to look an awful lot like a lake full of blood.
I recited derivative rules and court cases those days, and prayed for rain.
I was halfway through spelling the Hail Mary backwards when I saw her leaning against the chain-link fence in a pretty, white sun dress with a lemonade in her hand. What a temptation, too. Each time I rounded the corner and saw her waiting there, fresh like a cool breeze, my steps would falter. I nearly veered out of my lane every time I passed her, ready to turn around and call it quits for the day, but it only took a few seconds to regain my spot in the Preamble to the Constitution and, with it, a count of my laps.
I was almost finished when I noticed her leaving out of the corner of my eye. She crumpled up her cup, tossed it in the trash, and disappeared under the bleachers. That was my cue.
I jogged one more lap, discarded my damp shirt after using it to wipe the sweat off my forehead, and sucked the last drops of hot water from the bottom of my plastic water bottle. Breathing hard, with my hands clasped behind my head, I walked slowly into the shade of the bleachers, but it wasn’t anything what I expected. There was no relief in the shade that day.
“How many laps does that make?” she asked tucking a blonde curl behind her ear as I continued to wonder, if not here, where I was meant to escape the oppressive heat. How could it be warmer here than on the track, anyway?
“Twenty,” I answered, trying to shake the fuzz from my brain as she moved forward. This wasn’t anything like it was all those other times. Something just wasn’t quite right.
“Does Coach know you’re working yourself this hard so close to Regionals?” she asked, and if she hadn’t been biting her lower lip, and if we hadn’t been below the bleachers, I would have thought this was some sort of pointless interrogation, a means to an ambiguous end. Did she normally talk this much before I got to feel her up?
“Listen, Olivia,” I said with a shrug, trying to swallow the awful feeling of nausea constricting my throat and making it hard to breathe, “I’ve got a lot of work to do still, so-”
“Shit, Earnie,” she erupted, and suddenly she wasn’t the picture of coolness I’d admired from the track. Up close, I could see where her hair was damp near her scalp and where little beads of sweat formed on the tops of her breasts, not to mention her face was a whole lot redder than I’d noticed before. “I come out here and brave this goddam heat when I could have just waited for Julie in front of the cafeteria freezer, and all you’ve got to say to me is that you have a lot of work?”
I didn’t think she wanted me to answer, so I didn’t bother. I didn’t know what I would have said, anyway, other than telling her to go wait for Mr. Orange in front of the goddam freezer because I was sick of being used to make him jealous. If I’d said that, though, I knew then I wouldn’t even get a kiss, and she’d piss in my soda everyday for a week. So I held my tongue and tried to keep the ground from moving too much.
“Shit, Earnie,” she repeated, throwing her hands angrily by her sides and stalking to the end of the bleachers and back, the soles of her sandals crunching loudly over the gravel. “If I wanted to hear somebody complain about work and too much to do I would have stayed inside with Jules. At least he appreciated my outfit, which is loads more than I can say about you. Maybe if I took it all off your eyes would bug, and-are you even listening to me? Shit!”
She almost spat the last swear in my face and I had to blink a few times before I could see straight again because there were little black dots invading the fringes of my vision like you get when you stand up too fast in the morning.
“It looks like you’re wearing underwear,” I replied blandly, pretending to appreciate the full effect of her sheer white ensemble. It really was genius of her, too. It hugged her curves in exactly the right way without being overtly offensive. Only if you looked really close like me did you notice that you could see shadows of the bow that rested between the cups of her lacy bra. I swallowed hard again and wiped my palms on my shorts.
“That’s exactly what he said,” she chuckled, seemingly pacified, “but he didn’t even look up from his grading before he sent me away. At least you’re looking.”
She grinned pleasantly, but I knew her well enough to know that’s exactly why she’d come to pick on me. She was a complete whore for attention if I’d ever seen one, and I’d seen plenty. I was halfway to apologizing for Mr. Orange’s decided lack of interest in her obviously wonderful endowments when she took another step forward and brought her soft lips to mine.
She tasted like cherry lemonade, but before I could figure out exactly which candy bar she’d eaten before coming outside, I had to pull away because I was sure I was going to vomit. I took a few shaky breaths, which she obviously interpreted as my being turned on because a few seconds later I was looking cross-eyed down at the lightly-freckled bridge of her cute little nose.
“Look, Olivia,” I said after I pulled away a second time, not even trying to pretend everything was alright anymore, “I really feel like shit and I still gotta run a cool down, so…”
“No, don’t leave,” she whined as I turned my back to her and began to slowly walk away. There was so much emotion in those three words that I could almost hear the tears welling up in her deep, brown eyes. Olivia Vayne could have been everything you hated rolled up in a cute little dress and you still couldn’t find enough strength to deal the crushing blow. When she made it sound like that, even I faltered, and I found myself heading back to her against all better judgment.
Turns out, she could play the most convincing distress while smiling that awful little grin of hers-scary, because it was genuine to boot-that sometimes escaped when she knew she had you wrapped around her finger.
“I’ll cool you down,” she purred, bouncing up to me so close the toes of our shoes touched and I could feel her little breasts pushing up against my bare chest. The fabric of her dress was cool after all, and it felt so good. I didn’t push away again. I couldn’t push away again. Resistance was futile.
“I really did mean it when I said I felt like shit,” I warned quietly, tangling my fingers in her short, damp hair. “I could hurl any minute.”
“Then let’s not kiss again,” she agreed, reaching up to take my hand in hers. “Doesn’t matter. I’ve got something better to show you.”
“What?” I asked, vaguely. Her voice was getting further away now and my eyelids were becoming heavier as well as my limbs. It was a good thing she was guiding my arm somewhere. I didn’t think I could will it to move on its own.
“My underwear is in with the umbrellas.”
“What?” I repeated, louder this time. The words were clear enough, but… what?
“I ditched them on my way out the door this morning,” she clarified, and planted my palm straight on her ass. Smiling slightly, I closed my eyes and absently ran my hand up the gentle curve to the slope of her lower back and down again. Through the fuzz, I faintly observed and appreciated how smooth it all was. Some girls wear the sexiest underwear, but when it comes to grabbing their asses, I don’t want to feel the lace and ribbon all bunched up and-
“Earnie,” she whispered, her breath warm in my ear, and suddenly it became very clear, “I’m not wearing any underwear.”
---
The first thing I saw when I opened my eyes were those brown eyes of hers that, even though they weren’t the proper color, reminded me of when I used to cry at the beach. I used to be afraid of the ocean, you know, and her eyes were just like that. They could sparkle on the surface, and her lips could corroborate by turning up in a false grin that showed some of her perfect teeth, but if you looked for long enough, you began to see things. Pain, jealousy, sadness, hatred. If you looked for long enough, it felt like you’d drown in all that poisonous emotion, but, I’ll tell you, it was the hardest thing you’d ever do to look away from those eyes of hers.
“Earnie,” she said, gently combing my hair to the side. “Earnie, baby, can you hear me?”
“Yeah,” I croaked, and as I could see more and more clearly, I began to notice that her face didn’t look quite right. It was paler than before, nearly the color of her dress, but with little red splotches on her cheeks, and when she sniffed hard and wiped her nose with the back of her hand, I realized that she’d been crying. “Olivia, what’s wrong?”
“It doesn’t matter, honey,” she said, resting one of her hands on my cheek as she looked up and called with a beckoning gesture, “Julie, he’s awake!”
With each approaching footstep, I heard my heart banging louder in my ears. I groaned and closed my eyes and imagined myself running far, far away. Not Mr. Orange. She couldn’t have gone to him for help. I couldn’t have been out long enough for her to get him and come back. It couldn’t be Mr. Orange. This was our spot, somewhere he only existed as a complaint and a motive to push sexual boundaries. No, I tried to convince myself, it had to be Julie Tate from fourth period calculus. She sometimes stayed after school for help. I tutored her sometimes. Yeah, it was definitely not Mr. Orange.
“You know, for how smart you’re supposed to be, Allen, you’re a real dumb ass.”
Yeah, it was definitely Mr. Orange.
I moaned again, this time trying to push myself up so that I really could run myself into oblivion. I even called to the Virgin Mary to bring me strength, but there was a stronger force holding me down. Olivia was gripping my shoulders desperately, and it was enough to keep me from leaving her lap. Besides, something in her iron grasp reminded me of forbidden things and I quit struggling against it. No wonder she was sitting with her legs folded underneath her and my head resting on her thighs. Suddenly, I wondered how long she’d been sitting like that with the gravel pressing into her shins and my dead weight constricting her circulation. I certainly admired her determination. That girl could act through anything.
“Oh, quit exaggerating,” he demanded, and for how harsh his voice sounded, I was surprised to feel his hand lightly brush against my forehead. “You skipped lunch to study in the library and I doubt you had breakfast because you were in lifting weights when I walked past the gym this morning. You’re half-starved, overworked, and dehydrated, that’s all.”
“How very perceptive of you,” I coughed, pushing his hand away. I didn’t have a fever. I was actually quite cold, and, upon realizing this, let a chill take brief control of my body. The shaking dug the gravel into my back and I winced. Olivia winced, too, I noticed, because the more I began to move, the more she began to feel her legs again.
“Oh, Julie, he’s cold,” she said, stroking my hair even faster than before. “Quit yelling at him and help him! I don’t even know why I went to you. What help have you been, anyway? Insulting me, insulting him, acting like we’re-I don’t know-terrible people or something…”
She kept talking. I’d never seen her like this before, so I had no idea what to do. There’s no stopping her when she gets like this, when it’s real without cues and periods marked into a prewritten script. I even reached my hand up and put it over her mouth, but she only sat up straighter, over the confinement of my fingers, and spoke even louder. I prayed to God for silence, if not for Mr. Orange’s sake, then for my own, but the Lord hath no jurisdiction over Olivia Vayne.
“Drink this slowly,” Mr. Orange said over her ramblings, cupping one hand around the back of my head as he helped me sit up. It was a slow process, because I couldn’t rightly help, and Olivia was too busy trying to hide her lack of undergarments, and Jules had never been the strongest of men, but it was still too fast.
“I feel sick again,” I murmured, trying to stand up and get away from the two of them, to get anywhere where they couldn’t see it. There was a bathroom just around the corner. I could make it. “Shit, I’m gonna be sick.”
“Jules, we should call the hospital,” Olivia cried, wringing her hands, and I could tell she wanted to get up and pace. She worked best when she could move freely. Sitting down like this was killing her. “Should we call the hospital, Jules?”
“No,” said the teacher calmly, ignoring the drama that was erupting to his left and wrapping his jacket around my shoulders. He held a cup to my lips and instructed me to take a few sips. “Slowly, though,” he said. “If you drink like normal it won’t stay down. That’s right…”
Once Mr. Orange said he could see some color back in my face, he helped me up and we began to walk back towards the playground and the parking lot. Olivia called after us that she’d get my bag and my water bottle, but I knew she just said that so she could stand up without Mr. Orange looking over his shoulder and discovering our secret. When we’d made it to his car, I took off his jacket and thanked him for the first aid.
“Thanks,” I said, and it wasn’t my most eloquent moment as valedictorian, but it didn’t matter because Olivia would beat me in the end, and I wasn’t feeling all too well, either. “We weren’t doing anything…you know.”
“There’s no need to lie, Allen,” he responded, shrugging back into his jacket and straightening his tie. It was the first time I’d noticed it was crooked, and I would have been more surprised if I hadn’t been thinking through a migraine. Jules had always looked a little stressed and disheveled, but his ties were always straight when he was home. “You’re teenagers, and she’s… well, she’s Olivia. I’ve known her for five years, and I don’t know how you two ended up together, but-this is ridiculous. I’m a high school teacher, Allen, okay? I know everything.”
“Okay,” I said, looking down at my shoes as Olivia came running to meet us. It was funny, actually. I could have stuffed her in that bag, and here she was trying to run with it in a dress and sandals. I would have laughed, and maybe I did, but I didn’t want Mr. Orange to see. I was still stewing in shame, after all.
“Jesus, Yallen, this thing weighs a fucking ton,” she panted as she tossed it in the back seat and took hold of my hand. It was a subtle reminder of why she kept me around. I winced at the profanity, and I really would have pulled my hand away out of embarrassment if I had been able to stand up to her at all back then. “Alright, shall we?”
“Oh, no,” I said suddenly, shaking my head and gesturing behind me to the bike rack. “I rode my bike this morning because I missed the first bus. I’ll ride back.”
“No, you won’t.”
“C’mon, Olivia,” I pleaded, glancing quickly at Mr. Orange who was tapping his foot impatiently as we argued. There was no way I was getting in that car with him. We just weren’t made to interact outside of his mother’s dinner parties and a class every now and again. A car was a definite no-no. “I can’t just leave it here overnight. Do you know how much mom would kill me?”
She didn’t say anything, just stared at me with her arms crossed intently across her chest, and she may have been pouting just a little bit. She looked like a petulant child, but I just raised my eyebrows. She really should have known better. I knew how to deal with this Olivia. I just ignored her.
“Listen, Livy, I’m not gonna argue with you, okay?” I said, reclaiming my bag and walking over to unlock my bike. I heard a really loud hiccup behind me, but I wasn’t about to turn around for her again. I had too much to concentrate on just putting one foot in front of the other in the right direction.
Anyway, I don’t think I made it very far with the weight of my bag before I felt my legs get all wobbly again because Mr. Orange came up behind me and started guiding me back to the goddam car. Every muscle in his body was tense with annoyance and I just wanted to melt away. I was angry at him for helping me and I was angry at Olivia for crying.
Yeah, she really was crying, I noticed. Who would have imagined. Her face was all buried in her hands and a piece of her hair was tangled and sticking out from between her fingers. It didn’t look practiced at all and I a little bad for being angry, but I felt even worse for making her look like that. I’d seen her all sorts of frustrated, naked, hungry, and playful, but I’d never seen her unrehearsed. Just that one piece of hair that had found its way where it was unwanted. It killed me.
I looked down at my shoes again as Mr. Orange berated me.
“Look, Allen,” he whispered harshly in my ear as we moved slowly so that I wouldn’t fall over again. “I really don’t like you. I think you’re a show-off, asshole, spoiled little brat, but your mother is my mother’s best friend, so until someone invents a way to go back in time and I can keep you at that goddam boarding school in Europe, you’re going to get in that car, and I’m going to drive you home.”
“Ladies and Gentlemen: Jules Orange,” I chuckled as Olivia opened the door and, despite her gasp of disapproval, I was shoved quite indecorously into the back seat. “I say, Jules, you’re quite the charmer. It’s a miracle you’re still single.”
“Alright, get out,” he said, tugging at my arm while I laughed even harder. I didn’t know what I thought was so funny, but I couldn’t stop laughing. I was laughing so hard my fingers started tingling. I would have fallen over if there was any way to fall over while sitting in a car wedged between your overweight gym bag and your distraught girlfriend. “Get out. I can tell you’re feeling loads better. I think he can bike home, Olivia, don’t you?”
“No!”
“Oh, that might be why,” I chided, shaking my head and tut-tutting loudly. “Look at this guy, Olivia, he’s got no clue what he wants in life. Ladies like a man with a plan, innit dat right?”
“Julie, please calm down,” Olivia said as she stroked my hand and tried to get me to lie down on her lap again. “He’s not making any sense. Listen to him, please? It’s like he’s drunk off himself or the heat or something. I just want to get him home. Please?”
“Fine.”
The driver’s side door was wrenched open and slammed shut and before I knew it, the key was in the ignition and the radio was blasting full volume. I started to feel sick again when the car was moving, and as I laid my head on Olivia’s lap and let her hold my hand, I thought about asking him to turn the music down, but I knew it was for the best. The better to not hear you at all, my darling.
The rest of the car ride was inconsequential. I fell asleep and woke up to Jules and Olivia arguing about how they would get me inside my house. She wanted him to carry me, but I doubted the skinny prick could have even lifted my bag. I told him as such, still angry with him, though I couldn’t remember why, and I kissed Olivia right in front of him.
“Thanks for the present, Livvy,” I said with a wink, slapped her ass, then jogged lightly to my door. I didn’t turn around, but I could feel Mr. Orange fuming and Olivia blushing like a good little virgin. Sometimes it bothered me to be the bad guy because I’d always looked up to Mr. Orange, practically since I was born, but I did owe Olivia something for taking such good care of me.
Yeah, I felt bad because I knew it wouldn’t do me or Olivia any good, and I’d always looked up to Mr. Orange. Only when I woke up the next morning, took a miserable calculus exam, and found out that someone had snitched to Coach about my episode, and exaggerated the condition no less, did I reconsider. Olivia liked me well enough, and I thought she was smoking hot, and Mr. Orange didn’t treat her the way she deserved. Plus, he lost me a spot on the Regionals team. I was done feeling bad.
And, you know, losing a childhood hero didn’t feel half as miserable as I thought it would.
It only made the sex that much better.
I recited derivative rules and court cases those days, and prayed for rain.
I was halfway through spelling the Hail Mary backwards when I saw her leaning against the chain-link fence in a pretty, white sun dress with a lemonade in her hand. What a temptation, too. Each time I rounded the corner and saw her waiting there, fresh like a cool breeze, my steps would falter. I nearly veered out of my lane every time I passed her, ready to turn around and call it quits for the day, but it only took a few seconds to regain my spot in the Preamble to the Constitution and, with it, a count of my laps.
I was almost finished when I noticed her leaving out of the corner of my eye. She crumpled up her cup, tossed it in the trash, and disappeared under the bleachers. That was my cue.
I jogged one more lap, discarded my damp shirt after using it to wipe the sweat off my forehead, and sucked the last drops of hot water from the bottom of my plastic water bottle. Breathing hard, with my hands clasped behind my head, I walked slowly into the shade of the bleachers, but it wasn’t anything what I expected. There was no relief in the shade that day.
“How many laps does that make?” she asked tucking a blonde curl behind her ear as I continued to wonder, if not here, where I was meant to escape the oppressive heat. How could it be warmer here than on the track, anyway?
“Twenty,” I answered, trying to shake the fuzz from my brain as she moved forward. This wasn’t anything like it was all those other times. Something just wasn’t quite right.
“Does Coach know you’re working yourself this hard so close to Regionals?” she asked, and if she hadn’t been biting her lower lip, and if we hadn’t been below the bleachers, I would have thought this was some sort of pointless interrogation, a means to an ambiguous end. Did she normally talk this much before I got to feel her up?
“Listen, Olivia,” I said with a shrug, trying to swallow the awful feeling of nausea constricting my throat and making it hard to breathe, “I’ve got a lot of work to do still, so-”
“Shit, Earnie,” she erupted, and suddenly she wasn’t the picture of coolness I’d admired from the track. Up close, I could see where her hair was damp near her scalp and where little beads of sweat formed on the tops of her breasts, not to mention her face was a whole lot redder than I’d noticed before. “I come out here and brave this goddam heat when I could have just waited for Julie in front of the cafeteria freezer, and all you’ve got to say to me is that you have a lot of work?”
I didn’t think she wanted me to answer, so I didn’t bother. I didn’t know what I would have said, anyway, other than telling her to go wait for Mr. Orange in front of the goddam freezer because I was sick of being used to make him jealous. If I’d said that, though, I knew then I wouldn’t even get a kiss, and she’d piss in my soda everyday for a week. So I held my tongue and tried to keep the ground from moving too much.
“Shit, Earnie,” she repeated, throwing her hands angrily by her sides and stalking to the end of the bleachers and back, the soles of her sandals crunching loudly over the gravel. “If I wanted to hear somebody complain about work and too much to do I would have stayed inside with Jules. At least he appreciated my outfit, which is loads more than I can say about you. Maybe if I took it all off your eyes would bug, and-are you even listening to me? Shit!”
She almost spat the last swear in my face and I had to blink a few times before I could see straight again because there were little black dots invading the fringes of my vision like you get when you stand up too fast in the morning.
“It looks like you’re wearing underwear,” I replied blandly, pretending to appreciate the full effect of her sheer white ensemble. It really was genius of her, too. It hugged her curves in exactly the right way without being overtly offensive. Only if you looked really close like me did you notice that you could see shadows of the bow that rested between the cups of her lacy bra. I swallowed hard again and wiped my palms on my shorts.
“That’s exactly what he said,” she chuckled, seemingly pacified, “but he didn’t even look up from his grading before he sent me away. At least you’re looking.”
She grinned pleasantly, but I knew her well enough to know that’s exactly why she’d come to pick on me. She was a complete whore for attention if I’d ever seen one, and I’d seen plenty. I was halfway to apologizing for Mr. Orange’s decided lack of interest in her obviously wonderful endowments when she took another step forward and brought her soft lips to mine.
She tasted like cherry lemonade, but before I could figure out exactly which candy bar she’d eaten before coming outside, I had to pull away because I was sure I was going to vomit. I took a few shaky breaths, which she obviously interpreted as my being turned on because a few seconds later I was looking cross-eyed down at the lightly-freckled bridge of her cute little nose.
“Look, Olivia,” I said after I pulled away a second time, not even trying to pretend everything was alright anymore, “I really feel like shit and I still gotta run a cool down, so…”
“No, don’t leave,” she whined as I turned my back to her and began to slowly walk away. There was so much emotion in those three words that I could almost hear the tears welling up in her deep, brown eyes. Olivia Vayne could have been everything you hated rolled up in a cute little dress and you still couldn’t find enough strength to deal the crushing blow. When she made it sound like that, even I faltered, and I found myself heading back to her against all better judgment.
Turns out, she could play the most convincing distress while smiling that awful little grin of hers-scary, because it was genuine to boot-that sometimes escaped when she knew she had you wrapped around her finger.
“I’ll cool you down,” she purred, bouncing up to me so close the toes of our shoes touched and I could feel her little breasts pushing up against my bare chest. The fabric of her dress was cool after all, and it felt so good. I didn’t push away again. I couldn’t push away again. Resistance was futile.
“I really did mean it when I said I felt like shit,” I warned quietly, tangling my fingers in her short, damp hair. “I could hurl any minute.”
“Then let’s not kiss again,” she agreed, reaching up to take my hand in hers. “Doesn’t matter. I’ve got something better to show you.”
“What?” I asked, vaguely. Her voice was getting further away now and my eyelids were becoming heavier as well as my limbs. It was a good thing she was guiding my arm somewhere. I didn’t think I could will it to move on its own.
“My underwear is in with the umbrellas.”
“What?” I repeated, louder this time. The words were clear enough, but… what?
“I ditched them on my way out the door this morning,” she clarified, and planted my palm straight on her ass. Smiling slightly, I closed my eyes and absently ran my hand up the gentle curve to the slope of her lower back and down again. Through the fuzz, I faintly observed and appreciated how smooth it all was. Some girls wear the sexiest underwear, but when it comes to grabbing their asses, I don’t want to feel the lace and ribbon all bunched up and-
“Earnie,” she whispered, her breath warm in my ear, and suddenly it became very clear, “I’m not wearing any underwear.”
---
The first thing I saw when I opened my eyes were those brown eyes of hers that, even though they weren’t the proper color, reminded me of when I used to cry at the beach. I used to be afraid of the ocean, you know, and her eyes were just like that. They could sparkle on the surface, and her lips could corroborate by turning up in a false grin that showed some of her perfect teeth, but if you looked for long enough, you began to see things. Pain, jealousy, sadness, hatred. If you looked for long enough, it felt like you’d drown in all that poisonous emotion, but, I’ll tell you, it was the hardest thing you’d ever do to look away from those eyes of hers.
“Earnie,” she said, gently combing my hair to the side. “Earnie, baby, can you hear me?”
“Yeah,” I croaked, and as I could see more and more clearly, I began to notice that her face didn’t look quite right. It was paler than before, nearly the color of her dress, but with little red splotches on her cheeks, and when she sniffed hard and wiped her nose with the back of her hand, I realized that she’d been crying. “Olivia, what’s wrong?”
“It doesn’t matter, honey,” she said, resting one of her hands on my cheek as she looked up and called with a beckoning gesture, “Julie, he’s awake!”
With each approaching footstep, I heard my heart banging louder in my ears. I groaned and closed my eyes and imagined myself running far, far away. Not Mr. Orange. She couldn’t have gone to him for help. I couldn’t have been out long enough for her to get him and come back. It couldn’t be Mr. Orange. This was our spot, somewhere he only existed as a complaint and a motive to push sexual boundaries. No, I tried to convince myself, it had to be Julie Tate from fourth period calculus. She sometimes stayed after school for help. I tutored her sometimes. Yeah, it was definitely not Mr. Orange.
“You know, for how smart you’re supposed to be, Allen, you’re a real dumb ass.”
Yeah, it was definitely Mr. Orange.
I moaned again, this time trying to push myself up so that I really could run myself into oblivion. I even called to the Virgin Mary to bring me strength, but there was a stronger force holding me down. Olivia was gripping my shoulders desperately, and it was enough to keep me from leaving her lap. Besides, something in her iron grasp reminded me of forbidden things and I quit struggling against it. No wonder she was sitting with her legs folded underneath her and my head resting on her thighs. Suddenly, I wondered how long she’d been sitting like that with the gravel pressing into her shins and my dead weight constricting her circulation. I certainly admired her determination. That girl could act through anything.
“Oh, quit exaggerating,” he demanded, and for how harsh his voice sounded, I was surprised to feel his hand lightly brush against my forehead. “You skipped lunch to study in the library and I doubt you had breakfast because you were in lifting weights when I walked past the gym this morning. You’re half-starved, overworked, and dehydrated, that’s all.”
“How very perceptive of you,” I coughed, pushing his hand away. I didn’t have a fever. I was actually quite cold, and, upon realizing this, let a chill take brief control of my body. The shaking dug the gravel into my back and I winced. Olivia winced, too, I noticed, because the more I began to move, the more she began to feel her legs again.
“Oh, Julie, he’s cold,” she said, stroking my hair even faster than before. “Quit yelling at him and help him! I don’t even know why I went to you. What help have you been, anyway? Insulting me, insulting him, acting like we’re-I don’t know-terrible people or something…”
She kept talking. I’d never seen her like this before, so I had no idea what to do. There’s no stopping her when she gets like this, when it’s real without cues and periods marked into a prewritten script. I even reached my hand up and put it over her mouth, but she only sat up straighter, over the confinement of my fingers, and spoke even louder. I prayed to God for silence, if not for Mr. Orange’s sake, then for my own, but the Lord hath no jurisdiction over Olivia Vayne.
“Drink this slowly,” Mr. Orange said over her ramblings, cupping one hand around the back of my head as he helped me sit up. It was a slow process, because I couldn’t rightly help, and Olivia was too busy trying to hide her lack of undergarments, and Jules had never been the strongest of men, but it was still too fast.
“I feel sick again,” I murmured, trying to stand up and get away from the two of them, to get anywhere where they couldn’t see it. There was a bathroom just around the corner. I could make it. “Shit, I’m gonna be sick.”
“Jules, we should call the hospital,” Olivia cried, wringing her hands, and I could tell she wanted to get up and pace. She worked best when she could move freely. Sitting down like this was killing her. “Should we call the hospital, Jules?”
“No,” said the teacher calmly, ignoring the drama that was erupting to his left and wrapping his jacket around my shoulders. He held a cup to my lips and instructed me to take a few sips. “Slowly, though,” he said. “If you drink like normal it won’t stay down. That’s right…”
Once Mr. Orange said he could see some color back in my face, he helped me up and we began to walk back towards the playground and the parking lot. Olivia called after us that she’d get my bag and my water bottle, but I knew she just said that so she could stand up without Mr. Orange looking over his shoulder and discovering our secret. When we’d made it to his car, I took off his jacket and thanked him for the first aid.
“Thanks,” I said, and it wasn’t my most eloquent moment as valedictorian, but it didn’t matter because Olivia would beat me in the end, and I wasn’t feeling all too well, either. “We weren’t doing anything…you know.”
“There’s no need to lie, Allen,” he responded, shrugging back into his jacket and straightening his tie. It was the first time I’d noticed it was crooked, and I would have been more surprised if I hadn’t been thinking through a migraine. Jules had always looked a little stressed and disheveled, but his ties were always straight when he was home. “You’re teenagers, and she’s… well, she’s Olivia. I’ve known her for five years, and I don’t know how you two ended up together, but-this is ridiculous. I’m a high school teacher, Allen, okay? I know everything.”
“Okay,” I said, looking down at my shoes as Olivia came running to meet us. It was funny, actually. I could have stuffed her in that bag, and here she was trying to run with it in a dress and sandals. I would have laughed, and maybe I did, but I didn’t want Mr. Orange to see. I was still stewing in shame, after all.
“Jesus, Yallen, this thing weighs a fucking ton,” she panted as she tossed it in the back seat and took hold of my hand. It was a subtle reminder of why she kept me around. I winced at the profanity, and I really would have pulled my hand away out of embarrassment if I had been able to stand up to her at all back then. “Alright, shall we?”
“Oh, no,” I said suddenly, shaking my head and gesturing behind me to the bike rack. “I rode my bike this morning because I missed the first bus. I’ll ride back.”
“No, you won’t.”
“C’mon, Olivia,” I pleaded, glancing quickly at Mr. Orange who was tapping his foot impatiently as we argued. There was no way I was getting in that car with him. We just weren’t made to interact outside of his mother’s dinner parties and a class every now and again. A car was a definite no-no. “I can’t just leave it here overnight. Do you know how much mom would kill me?”
She didn’t say anything, just stared at me with her arms crossed intently across her chest, and she may have been pouting just a little bit. She looked like a petulant child, but I just raised my eyebrows. She really should have known better. I knew how to deal with this Olivia. I just ignored her.
“Listen, Livy, I’m not gonna argue with you, okay?” I said, reclaiming my bag and walking over to unlock my bike. I heard a really loud hiccup behind me, but I wasn’t about to turn around for her again. I had too much to concentrate on just putting one foot in front of the other in the right direction.
Anyway, I don’t think I made it very far with the weight of my bag before I felt my legs get all wobbly again because Mr. Orange came up behind me and started guiding me back to the goddam car. Every muscle in his body was tense with annoyance and I just wanted to melt away. I was angry at him for helping me and I was angry at Olivia for crying.
Yeah, she really was crying, I noticed. Who would have imagined. Her face was all buried in her hands and a piece of her hair was tangled and sticking out from between her fingers. It didn’t look practiced at all and I a little bad for being angry, but I felt even worse for making her look like that. I’d seen her all sorts of frustrated, naked, hungry, and playful, but I’d never seen her unrehearsed. Just that one piece of hair that had found its way where it was unwanted. It killed me.
I looked down at my shoes again as Mr. Orange berated me.
“Look, Allen,” he whispered harshly in my ear as we moved slowly so that I wouldn’t fall over again. “I really don’t like you. I think you’re a show-off, asshole, spoiled little brat, but your mother is my mother’s best friend, so until someone invents a way to go back in time and I can keep you at that goddam boarding school in Europe, you’re going to get in that car, and I’m going to drive you home.”
“Ladies and Gentlemen: Jules Orange,” I chuckled as Olivia opened the door and, despite her gasp of disapproval, I was shoved quite indecorously into the back seat. “I say, Jules, you’re quite the charmer. It’s a miracle you’re still single.”
“Alright, get out,” he said, tugging at my arm while I laughed even harder. I didn’t know what I thought was so funny, but I couldn’t stop laughing. I was laughing so hard my fingers started tingling. I would have fallen over if there was any way to fall over while sitting in a car wedged between your overweight gym bag and your distraught girlfriend. “Get out. I can tell you’re feeling loads better. I think he can bike home, Olivia, don’t you?”
“No!”
“Oh, that might be why,” I chided, shaking my head and tut-tutting loudly. “Look at this guy, Olivia, he’s got no clue what he wants in life. Ladies like a man with a plan, innit dat right?”
“Julie, please calm down,” Olivia said as she stroked my hand and tried to get me to lie down on her lap again. “He’s not making any sense. Listen to him, please? It’s like he’s drunk off himself or the heat or something. I just want to get him home. Please?”
“Fine.”
The driver’s side door was wrenched open and slammed shut and before I knew it, the key was in the ignition and the radio was blasting full volume. I started to feel sick again when the car was moving, and as I laid my head on Olivia’s lap and let her hold my hand, I thought about asking him to turn the music down, but I knew it was for the best. The better to not hear you at all, my darling.
The rest of the car ride was inconsequential. I fell asleep and woke up to Jules and Olivia arguing about how they would get me inside my house. She wanted him to carry me, but I doubted the skinny prick could have even lifted my bag. I told him as such, still angry with him, though I couldn’t remember why, and I kissed Olivia right in front of him.
“Thanks for the present, Livvy,” I said with a wink, slapped her ass, then jogged lightly to my door. I didn’t turn around, but I could feel Mr. Orange fuming and Olivia blushing like a good little virgin. Sometimes it bothered me to be the bad guy because I’d always looked up to Mr. Orange, practically since I was born, but I did owe Olivia something for taking such good care of me.
Yeah, I felt bad because I knew it wouldn’t do me or Olivia any good, and I’d always looked up to Mr. Orange. Only when I woke up the next morning, took a miserable calculus exam, and found out that someone had snitched to Coach about my episode, and exaggerated the condition no less, did I reconsider. Olivia liked me well enough, and I thought she was smoking hot, and Mr. Orange didn’t treat her the way she deserved. Plus, he lost me a spot on the Regionals team. I was done feeling bad.
And, you know, losing a childhood hero didn’t feel half as miserable as I thought it would.
It only made the sex that much better.