Tea For Two

26

Disclaimer: This is part of an original piece of fiction. Don't steal it, because I work really hard on this.

~~~

One thing they definitely don't tell you seriously in movies is how hurting someone else hurts you. I don't mean emotionally; to be honest, I could insult Sellers all day and not care at all. But physically, punching someone really hurts your hands. Every movie where I've seen someone walk away from a fist fight with their knuckles messed up like mine, I assumed it was because at least once, they swung too wide and hit a wall or something.

No, it's the repeated contact made in between the unpadded skin of my fist and a likewise built body part like a forehead or a jaw that causes the skin to split open and leak blood all over one of my favorite pairs of shorts. And it's how the nurse in the office chuckled about how she's never had to use this many butterfly bandages on a girl after a fight before, and how I must really be quite the scrapper.

For the last fifteen minutes, I have been sitting on a bench outside the principal's office. On the end farthest from me, Sellers sits jiggling his knee, his wrists attached with a zip-tie, identical to mine. In between us is Officer Harris, the police officer appointed to hold the fort here at the high school for moments just like this.

I know I should be focusing on the issue at hand- such as the butterfly bandages holding together the skin on my knuckles and bottom lip, or how my ribs are really starting to ache, or how Aiden and Mr. Paulsen are in the office right now explaining how they helped stop Sellers and I from killing each other- but it's really hard for me.

All I can think about are the still damp splotches of blood on my shorts and my shirt. They're plain shorts, just plain dark grey shorts and an old shirt from the Sundance film festival- and they're covered in spots and smears and dribbles of mine and Sellers' blood. It doesn't make that much sense, for it all to be there, but you'd be surprised how much blood can come out when you break someone's nose.

Across the hall, I can see my reflection in the glass of the trophy case. I don't look that bad.

My mother will disagree.

My hair is stringy and hanging down in my face, helping to hide my swollen lip from the world. I'm slumped down on the bench so that my tailbone almost meets the edge of the seat. My Vans-clad feet are planted as far away from each other as I can manage.

Forget her. I look like a bad ass.

~~~

There are some people who just look old when they are tired or stressed. Our principal, a balding man of middle age and height, is certainly affected by this. He is sweating and keeps rubbing his temples. I'm sure he really didn't need this today.

He is sitting at his big desk with our files laid out in front of him. Sellers and I are situated across from each other on opposite walls of the office, which isn't so big. We are both avoiding each other's eye, choosing instead to stare at our feet or zip-tied wrists or around the office.

Or at the sweat running down the much-rubbed temples of the man in between us.

"Mr. Jake Sellers and Miss August Shoemaker, yes?"

Neither of us say anything, but I nod mildly, which stirs him on.

"Good. Just thought I'd make sure I have the right pair of degenerates in my visitors' chairs."

If I wasn't in trouble, I think I'd like this man. I've never really interacted with him before, and I feel like this isn't the greatest way to begin.

"So. Which one of you wants to explain to me why you both thought the commons area of my school would be a great place for a boxing match?" he asks, looking first at Sellers, then at me.