Until There Was You

The target

I tried to ignore her but she persisted. I could feel the air struggling to enter my lungs as the oxygen around me thinned.
"I'm sure if you ask him, he'll give you one."
Her tone was laced with malice. I knew she wouldn't back down. That wasn't her style. She awaited my response as if she were waiting in line for a coffee; complacent yet amused.
"What do you want Janey?" I bit out. My knuckles began to turn white as I tried to displace my growing anxiety by squeezing the sides of my backpack has hard as I could. A reaction I know Janey did not discount.
"Nothing," she continued, "I'm just saying. He's super sweet like that. I'm sure if you asked him for one of his pictures he would give you one. I mean not because he should and not because he wants one of yours. I mean frankly I think that's a waste but..."
She leaned back in her chair, folding her arms across her chest and stared at me, waiting for a response she knew I wouldn't have.
An ominous pit began to form in my stomach. I felt my heart beating faster as if it were trying to escape the confines of my ribs. My face flushed as I stared at her trying desperately to think of something to say that would put that little wench her in her place. But nothing came out. Not one single word. I just stared back at her, my mind suffocated with humiliation as people tuned in to the drama. I knew what she was getting at.
"I mean, it's not like what happened with Tommy last year would happen again. Cam would never do that."

Gasps erupted from the onlookers.

And there it was. The pit that had been slowly forming in my stomach imploded in on itself, tears stinging the brim of eyes. She steadied her glare, the corner of her mouth curling up at me knowing full-well that what she just said would break me. Before a tear could make its way down my cheek I spun around in my chair. My breathes were heavy and labored and my stomach warned it was about to reproduce this mornings breakfast. How could she?
You know damn well how the voice in my head taunted.
Because Janey was the most ruthless tyrant I had ever encountered. And she was damn proud of it.
Mrs. Driscoll's voice faded into the background as if standing on stage without a microphone and I was sitting in the nosebleeds. Her mouth continued to move but her words were lost in thickness of the air around me. My mind flashed back to that horrific day the memory so fresh as if it happened yesterday. Me, standing in the 6th grade boys bathroom staring at the school picture I had given Tommy that year. My eyes punched through with pencil and scratched out with black sharpie. The word "ugly" etched across my face, dripping with their urine, as it clung to the wall across from the sinks. I remember just standing there staring at it in absolute horror, unable to look away. Like a bad car accident, you want to look away but you're frozen in place, eyes unable to divert themselves and unsee the atrocity in front of you. My gaze shifted back and forth between the mutilated, degrading photo and the bathroom mirror.
Look at you. They're right. You're hideous. Repulsive. Reprehensible. No one could possibly love such a complete waste of space.
In that moment my world had shattered. The light I once felt had been snuffed out in one cruel, audacious act. Their laughter carried down the hall  just outside the bathroom as they waited for me to come out. My body shook with anguish as I buried my tear laden face in my hands and ran from the bathroom the taunting sound of their exuberant laughs chasing after me.
My eyes betrayed me in holding back the tears, the corners of my mouth catching their saltiness. I tried to wipe them off without anyone noticing. Most of all Janey. But I knew she saw and that she took pleasure in every drop that fell. I looked over at Rachel who was busy doodling on the top of her notebook. I glanced at the clock praying that class was just about over. 8:30! We still had half an hour before class was over. I wiped away another tear making its way down my damp cheek with the back of my hand.
I can do this. 30 more minutes then second period.
I swore I could feel her eyes burning a hole into my back, brimming with satisfaction and hate. I didn't so much as shift in my seat, my eyes glued to the board as Mrs. Driscoll continued to drone on about superlatives.
30. More. Minutes.