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Chapter 10: To Kiss Or Not To Kiss?

            If I didn’t know better, it sounded like, ‘come Marshall, let me behead you at the guillotine next’ though of course, Marshall seemed completely unaware of the undertone in my dad’s voice. His expression showed confusion before his eyes lit up and he eagerly followed my dad’s lead. “Cool,” he said. “Guns!”

            Sometimes I’m not sure if he’s faking it. There’re times when maturity hits him and some good stuff actually comes out of his mouth, and then there’re times I get the overwhelming urge to slap him across the face until one, he smartens up or two, he ends up in the hospital.

            Right now was one of those times, but I refrained from submitting to my cravings and stepped in before my dad led him downstairs to a secret chamber of torture. Marshall did help me out today – whether I asked for it or not – and I always paid back in full. I hate owing people things. 

            “We’re not in that kind of relationship dad.” I stepped out into the open and lifted an eyebrow at the both of them. “It’s strictly platonic.”

            “That’s what you think,” my dad argued. “But that’s not what boys think! Don’t they teach you math at school anymore? Boy plus girl equals sex!”

            “Oh I didn’t know!” I grumbled, rolling my eyes. “Is that what happened with you and Principal Hoskins?!”

            “Whoa! What?!” Marshall quickly interrupted, his gaze shifting from me to my dad. “Principal Hoskins?! Damn Mr. Jones. You’ve still got it going on!”

            My dad threw him a glare before turning back to me. “I just want to warn you beforehand so you don’t end up getting pregnant.”

            “How ironic,” I muttered. “I don’t think you’re in any situation to give out advice on how not to get pregnant right now.”

            My dad glared at me before biting his lower lip and giving me a pout. “Daughters!” He screamed before storming out. “What good are daughters!”

            “I think you’ve pissed him off,” Marshall murmured a moment after he left. 

            I tossed him the spare change of clothes. “He’ll get over it.”

            On Tuesday morning, I left for school a bit earlier than I would have normally. My dad was determined to keep me at home for the rest of my life or to ship me off to another school, but I wasn’t someone that ran away at the first sight of an obstacle and more than anything, I felt the absolute need to go to school today – to show them that I was still standing, that I was okay.

            I got the first text message from Todd right after I hopped on the city bus that went near my house.

          Todd: Where are you?! You can’t go to school today!

          Camila: Why not?

          Todd: Just where are you?!

            I sighed, frustrated at how unreasonable Todd was being so early in the morning before texting him back.

          Camila: Bus.

          Todd: The one near your house? Get off a block before school. Meet you there.

            When my bus arrived at the stop Todd wanted me to get off at, he was already sitting on the bench outside eagerly waiting for me with an unsettled expression plastered across his face. “We have to turn around,” he said. “It’s all over. Facebook. Twitter. There’s even a video of it on Youtube!”

            I sighed, since Diana had called late last night and told me the same thing – that the school would work diligently to remove all forms of what happened yesterday off the internet. “I don’t care,” I murmured, and started the last block towards the school before Todd jumped in front of me and blocked my path.

            “Have you seen the video?” He didn’t wait for my reply and quickly pushed me to have a seat on the bus bench before taking out his laptop and showing me the clip he had previously loaded from Youtube. “So? It was obviously Marshall that ran to you yesterday, wasn’t it? I didn’t even go and I could tell! What do you think of it now?”

            “I think it’s BS,” I muttered. “The video makes me look like some weak, helpless damsel and Marshall some kind of godly saviour. That’s bull. I’m obviously the better one of the two.”

            “Camila!”

            “What!”

            “That’s not the point!” Todd grabbed a tuff of his hair off the side of his head and gently yanked to show his frustration. “The point is that it shows Marshall clearly inside the video. How do you think Marshall’s multiple girlfriends are going to take this?”

            I stood up, finally getting his train of thought for the first time this morning. “Don’t worry. If they want trouble, I’ll just have to give it right back to them.”

            Of course, when I said that, I thought my enemy would be a bunch of individual jealous girls that Marshall’s had the pleasure of fooling around with, but apparently I was wrong. There were no individual girlfriends, but an organization of girlfriends, and at 7:15 in the morning, they were fired and ready, waiting for me in front of the main entrance to the school. They even had headbands and T-shirts made: GIVE US MARSHALL BACK!!!

            “Do you guys have mugs too?” I asked. “I broke mine last week so I’ll buy one if it’s under ten bucks. You know, for the cause.”

            The leader, a snappy looking blonde – though I guess that wasn’t saying much since the majority of them were blonde – rolled her eyes at me. “Get out of the way,” she snapped. “We’re waiting for a slut named Camila Jones!”

            “Oh,” Todd said and then we just stood there for another few seconds.

            “Do you know what she looks like?” I asked.

            “Oh yeah,” Blondie’s friend, Blondie Number 2, murmured. “We’ve heard tons about her, but she doesn’t have Facebook so like, I have no idea what she looks like. What does she look like?”

            Blondie tipped her head to the side and widened her eyes in alarm – as if she finally realized she was missing a crucial part to her plan. “She’s about my height,” I told them. “Strawberry blonde hair, probably ends a couple inches below her shoulders. Has these weird fish lips and–”

            “Penciled in eyebrows,” Todd interrupted.

            I nodded. “Yes, penciled in eyebrows. They make her look really evil.”

            “And penciled in eyebrows,” Blondie repeated, as if she was trying to memorize everything right before a big exam. “Oh my gosh, thanks! We’re so lucky we met you and it’s still early in the morning so we couldn’t have missed her!” The girls around her all cooed similar remarks or flashed me their sweetest smile – though for what it’s worth, there were a few that gave me suspicious looks, but were too nervous to go against the crowd.

            “It’s alright. Glad to help,” I murmured as Todd and I walked causally passed them. “And oh, do let me know about those mugs if you get them.”

            “Definitely!” She giggled.

            When we were safely out of hearing range, Todd let out a long sigh of relief. “Wow. Marshall really knows how to pick them! I mean, sure the video wasn’t that great quality so it didn’t show your face that well, but they could have at least seen that you had long, black hair.”

            I frowned. “That’s what really irks me about some blondes. They give the rest of us really bad reputations.”

            Todd laughed. “I guess that’s why you dyed you hair black.”

            “Precisely.”

            The rest of the day turned out relatively smooth compared to what Todd had imagined, but the reason might have been a lot of my enemies were suspended for the next 3 days. It would have been longer, Diana explained when I went to see her at lunch, but since so many students were involved, they only suspended the ones at the top of the hierarchy and gave out detentions to the rest.

            Brooklynn was, of course, the main suspect, but since the tomatoes came from the local supermarket owned by Sienna Madore’s parents, Brooklynn’s loyal best friend took the fall and guaranteed Brooklynn’s complete innocence in the matter. She even came up to talk to me at the end of Psychology, batting her eyelashes with a look of concern.

            “Oh Camila!” Brooklynn cooed. “You’re okay!”

            “Why? You’re hoping I’m not?”

            Her eyes widened as if she was shocked I would even think of her in that kind of way. “Of course not! I came to talk to you because of that. I think it was absolutely horrible what they did to you yesterday and I apologize on Sienna’s behalf. She’s a sweetie, but sometimes she acts a bit impulsively. They just thought it would be funny – a little prank – I’m sure they didn’t mean for it to get so out of control.”

            “I’m sure.”

            She beamed at me even though I wasn’t smiling. “Good. I’m so happy you’re such an outgoing person. Also, since the crowd reacted in such a way to your performance yesterday, I think the results are quite clear so just to let you know, I’ll be taking the crown. The first rehearsal will be held today after school in the auditorium. I’ll be posting everybody’s roles up on the student bulletin broad today at lunch so make sure to check that out. There’s no bad feelings between us right?”

            I didn’t answer her, not that it mattered since Brooklynn wasn’t that big on receiving answers, and as soon as she finished speaking, brushed passed me with what was left of her posse trailing behind her.

            I had no intentions of attending Brooklynn’s idiotic call for attention and Marriah must have deduced that much because she waited for me outside my last class that day with every intention of dragging me to the auditorium even if she had to knock me out with a brick before bringing me there. It wasn’t like her normally to get so excited over anything and truthfully, she was a bit creepy when she smiled, but she had gotten the exact part that she’d wanted and I could genuinely relate.

            “I can’t imagine Brooklynn giving you a good role though,” I murmured, out of slight curiosity. “What did you want to be?”

            “The queen, but not the fancy parts, which worked out because that’s Sienna Plasticface’s role.” She paused for a moment before adding, “after she comes back from suspension that is.”

            “So basically, you’re the hag – the ugly, old woman that sells Snow White poison apples.” I watched Marriah’s expression melt into something dreamlike and rolled my eyes. “Well, if that’s what you want, but why do I have to go?”

            “Nobody would understand the art in my acting,” she countered, but I gathered she was just lonely and wanted companionship.

            When we arrived at the auditorium, Brooklynn was already getting ready with the students who had shown up for rehearsal. I took a seat on one of the chairs below the stage since my presence was completely unnecessary and watched Mr. Hudson get the group ready and hand out all the scripts. “Okay, so as you know there was an unfortunate circumstance after school yesterday so a couple of students are not in school today, but we’ll try our best to do the parts we can do while they’re gone. So from the first scene–”

            “Excuse me Mr. Hudson,” Brooklynn interrupted, “but I think it would be smarter to practice more on the harder scenes and leave the rest till when the others are all here.” Mr. Hudson contemplated, but then gave Brooklynn full command. “Okay, so I think, because there’s a kiss scene in Snow White, that’s the most important part. I, for one, am too nervous to do the scene on stage in front of a billion of people so–”

            Tyler, who was standing nearby highlighting his lines, dropped everything on the floor and just stared at Brooklynn as she continued flapping her lips. “What are you saying?” He murmured after.

            “I’m saying we should rehearse the scene where Snow White is ‘dead’ and I bend down to kiss her and bring her back to life. It is the climax of the play after all.” Brooklynn smiled at him and then took his hand and led him to center stage. “On the day of the play, we’ll scatter flowers all over this spot and you’ll be sleeping on top of it, but right now just imagine it’s there, lie down and I’ll come and kiss you.”

            Tyler, who’s uselessly tall, just stood there and stared at me from where he was standing on stage. I have no idea why he picked me to stare at of all things, and more importantly, why his expression looked like he was asking me if it was okay for him to kiss her. It has nothing to do with me, and I wanted no part in his relationship with Brooklynn. “I... have to go to the washroom,” he mumbled, when he realized my face only came with one expression.

            Brooklynn hesitated, but then smiled. “Sure,” she giggled. “Take your time to freshen up.”

            Keeping his eyes glued to the floor, Tyler gave her a quick nod before leaving the room. After his exit, some of the students chitchatted, some asked questions about the play, Brooklynn applied 15 layers of lip gloss, but the majority of us just waited. And waited. And waited.

            Tyler of course, never came back.