Untouchable

Chapter 24: Controversial

Warning: Adult themes and violence. Mention of physical and sexual assault. Language.

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Chapter Twenty-four: Controversial

"Leave me alone, Will," I repeated for the fifth time. He'd been trying to talk to me all through lunch and now Biology class, and I was having none of it. I'd thought it through and I was done. He'd been trying to talk to me for the last week, but I'd been dodging his calls and emails. I didn't know how he even got a hold of a phone because he'd been eternally grounded. That fortunately kept him from trying to see me at home.

"Cate, please just let me explain," Will pleaded.

I refused to look at him. "There's nothing to explain. You said it all before. I'm a royal screw-up. But if you don't mind, I'll be a screw-up all on my own."

I could hear him ravaging his hair in frustration. "I didn't mean it. You know I didn't. It was an accident. You punched me for goodness sake. I overreacted."

"You were choking Doug! What else was I supposed to do?" I snorted. "Overreacted, yeah."

Mr. Pykare called the class to order looking warily over at our table. I didn't know whether he was scared of Will or me. I'd been giving him the death-glare for a week for blaming the fight on me. He'd been skirting around me, but so had everyone else.

"Please, Cate. Please, forgive me. I promise, I'll make it up to you," Will whispered.

I spoke out of the corner of my mouth. "Make it up to me? Can you make the last week of torture up to me? I'm the psycho pregnant chick who witches people into fighting over her, and that's just the nicest of the rumors." I turned to look at him. "Did you know some people think I was discharged from a mental institution because I seduced one of my doctors, and my mother refused to take me in, which is why I moved here?"

Will let out a small groan. "I'm so sorry."

"Mr. Burnett, Ms. Oliver, is there something you would like to share with the class?" Mr. Pykare interjected.

"Nothing, sir," Will replied swiftly. I shook my head.

He raised an eyebrow at us, trying unconvincingly to intimidate. "Then if I can continue?" He began to explain the inner workings of the colon, his eyes still on us. I pulled out my notes and began writing copiously. Will kept twitching at my side like he was dying to say something more. At this point he could die of it.

This last week had been a living hell. Jack, Ali, Eliot, and Lizzie could only shield me from so much of it.

Will had spent the entire week at home due to his out of school suspension. I'd found out from Ali that because of some stuff last year he was on behavioral watch. He'd almost been expelled at the end of the year, but due to some major groveling from both Will and his parents he was allowed to continue.

This incident could have been worse than it was, but surprisingly Doug had covered for him, taking some of the blame. I didn't know why Doug was that afraid of him, but he took the beating surprisingly well. He'd even come up and apologized to me, with Jack's permission of course.

But Will didn't get off as scot-free as I'd thought before. He'd been suspended from school for a week and he had two months of community service. Ali implied that the community service was an agreement between the school and his parents to prevent him from being possibly expelled again.

Ali was the one who filled me in on his probationary past. Supposedly he'd spent the summer in anger management classes as a condition to his return to school. I wasn't convinced that it worked.