Filed to story: Brace Face Betty Drama Story
“You’re not going to tell me your name?”
“Maybe if you asked for it properly, like a normal fucking person and not some sergeant major asshole handing out an order, I would tell you.”
This earns me a swift bark of laughter. “All right, fine. Please, Oh Angry One, would you do me the honor of telling me your name?”
Mercifully, Professor Cline enters through the door and not a moment too soon. The towering stack of texts books in his hands wobbles, threatening to fall any moment. He curses under his breath, then curses again when he sees that two of his students have already arrived. “Sorry, guys. Sorry. Here, Betty, grab this for me, would you? I’m gonna lose it in a sec-woah!” The top book in his pile clatters to the floor. Looks like the rest of them are going to go any second, too. I lunge forward, rushing to help him.
Students file in while I help him unload the textbooks onto his desk, and the tension in the room ramps up; the guy sitting in the corner might as well be dressed as a circus clown with a face full of makeup for all the attention he’s getting.
Marjorie Chen’s looking at me like I’ve grown another head. David Moss-a guy who once told me I was breathtaking and begged me to go to spring formal with him, is now wrinkling his nose at me like I’m an apple he’s bitten into and discovered to be rotten. Everyone else is casually glancing at the stranger in the corner, though, whispering furiously to each other behind the backs of their hands.
“All right, thank you, Betty. You can take your seat.” Professor Cline extends his hand, about to touch me between my shoulder blades-a casual gesture to usher me toward a desk-but he stops himself at the last second, apparently thinking better of it. He gives me a tight-lipped, uncomfortable smile, then quickly looks away. In a louder voice, he addresses the rest of the room. “Yes, yes, I’m glad to see all of you are still mentally alert for this highly anticipated last session of the day. You are indeed correct. We have a new student amongst us this afternoon. Yes, he looks quite imposing. Yes, he rides a motorcycle. Please, get your behinds in your seats, or we’re going to be here all day. Betty Branson, where are you going? Take the desk next to our new friend. You’re holding up traffic.”
God damn it.
I had just retrieved my bag, eyes firmly glued to the floor, and was attempting to weave my way over to the other side of the room, but now I’m fucked. Now I have to sit right next to New Boy, two feet away from him; I can feel his intense eyes glide over me, inspecting me distractedly as the chorus of chatter around us slowly begins to die down. Professor Cline removes his grey blazer and hangs it from a hook on the wall behind his desk. I’ve never been a great judge of age, but I’d say Cline’s in his mid-forties. I overheard Karen, Principle Darhower’s assistant, on the phone once, telling someone that Cline used to teach at UCLA. That he’d been involved in some sort of scandal and had been relegated to teaching high school physics here at Ravenshire because of it.
“All right. Let’s get it all out of the way,” he says, splaying his fingers in a supplicating gesture toward the group. Cline’s gaze lands on the guy sitting next to me, and he sends an apologetic smile his way. “Marcusandro Moretti. I said that right, yes? I’m guessing you’d rather poke both your own eyes out than stand at the front of the class and tell us all a little bit about yourself?”
My skin feels like it’s on fire; my neck is prickling like crazy as I cautiously look to my right. The guy-Marcusandro Moretti-clears his throat. For one eternally long second, I can’t seem to rip my eyes away from the sight of his Adam’s apple shifting in his throat. “Marcus,” he says. “And no. If it’s all the same to you.” The timbre of his voice is a lot like the rumble of his motorcycle’s engine-deep, rich and resonant.
“Fair enough. Marcus it is. We’ll do a seated quick-fire round and move on, then. Guessing you’re seventeen?”
Marcus’s dark eyes rove over the wall next to him, picking over the posters and the notices with mild disinterest. “Yes,” he answers.
“You’re built like you bench more than my body weight. Are you a linebacker?”
“No.”
“Did you burn down your last school?”
I wouldn’t call Marcus’s expression surprised, but he does look away from the wall; Cline’s managed to snare his attention at least. “No.”
“Married?”
“No.”
“Kids?”
The suggestion of a smile pulls at Marcus’s mouth. “Not that I’m aware of.”
“Ooh, careful, ladies,” Cline says, laughing. “This one’s got game. Are you planning on causing trouble in my classroom, Mr. Moretti?”
Marcus seems to really consider his answer. After a moment’s pause, he answers, “No.”
“Fantastic. That’s all I needed to hear. Okay, class, you have the rest of the academic year to piece together the mysterious, bad boy puzzle that is our friend Marcus Moretti. Quiz him on your own time. For now, let’s focus on Sir Isaac Newton. Fun fact. According to the Julian calendar in use in England at the time of old Ike’s birth, he was officially born on Christmas Day. Unlucky, right? Probably hated only getting one gift at the holidays. And, Isaac Newton lived until he was eighty-five. People were dropping like flies in their late thirties back then, so in the grand scheme of things, Isaac was basically a million years old when he kicked the bucket…”
I sit through the rest of class, numb. I don’t raise my hand to answer questions, but then again, I never do. Why draw attention to myself when I can just blend into the background? Cline doesn’t call on me once and doesn’t call on Marcus, either. Fifty minutes crawl by, and my neck actually grows stiff thanks to the fact that I’m staring straight ahead so rigidly. When the bell rings, Cline blocks the doorway, holding out his hands. “Test at the end of the week, guys. It’s a doozy, so study everything. I mean it. Everything. You are welcome. See you all on Friday.”
A chorus of groaning floods the room, but I don’t participate. My books are already packed up in my bag, and I’m ducking around Cline, bolting from the classroom like I’m fleeing a crime scene. The doors to all the other rooms are only just opening as I fly down the hall, making a break for the exit.
Once I’m in my car, I lean my forehead against the steering wheel, relief soothing my frayed nerves; I made it out unscathed. Today was just one day, though. I pull out my cell phone and open up the calendar, doing the math. It takes a while to factor in all of the public and school holidays, but time is something I have right now. Since Mom and Dad still think I’m on the cheer squad, I have a full ninety minutes to kill before I can show up at home without raising any red flags. Eventually, I come up with a number-a large, soul-destroying number that makes me want to weep. One hundred and sixty-nine days. That’s how many school days there are left between now and graduation. Reaching my car without mishap just now felt like a victory, but in the grand scheme of things, it was nothing. I’m going to have to repeat this whole, shitty, frustrating process another one hundred and sixty-nine times before I can walk away from this place for good.
I almost drop my phone, jumping at the sound of the deep rumble across the other side of the parking lot; it can only be Marcusandro Moretti’s motorcycle, roaring to life. Two weeks ago, I started off this academic year, determined to make it through the other side in a dignified manner, with a straight back and a defiant ‘fuck you’ in my eyes.
What a joke. I’ve been in detention once already, and the arrival of some jumped up bad boy wannabe has sent me down some weird helter-skelter of anxiety for absolutely no goddamn reason. I need to be stronger than this. I am fucking stronger than this. I need to remember who I am, the girl I used to be before one terrible night changed everything and my life disintegrated before my eyes. The old Betty would never have sulked in her car, hiding from the world, feeling sorry for herself. She would have grabbed today by the balls and forced it into submission. And if it hadn’t obeyed? The old Betty would have forced it to conform, or there would have been dire consequences.
It’s strange to me now that I used to be so confident. I remember feeling that way-self-assured, poised and assertive-as I stalked the halls of Ravenshire High like some kind of apex predator, comfortable in the knowledge that I was untouchable. Those days feel like another lifetime. They feel like a very vivid dream I had once upon a time, real for a time during the hours I was asleep but gone the moment I awoke and found myself here, wearing the skin of someone deeply and profoundly crippled by self-doubt.
