Going Under (Going Under 1)

“How about you try to not jack around with Forbes today?” I pleaded.

“What would be the fun in that?” she said in a daring tone.

“Please don’t, Payton.”

“Ugh!” she groaned. “Okay, I won’t jack with him, but please know it goes against my better judgement to not take advantage of him because I might not get another opportunity anytime soon,” she said.

My best friend and my boyfriend hated each other and it stressed me to no end. “Yes, I am totally aware of how painful this must be for you. Maybe you should hook up with the new guy and then the two of you could both kick Forbes together while he’s down.”

“That almost sounds like a great plan since he’s hot as hell, but you know he’s totally not my type,” she said, like I should know better.

“You don’t even know him, so how do you know his type?”

“Umm…the poor type and besides that, I would never date a guy from Collinsville. You know that much about me.”

Was she serious? “He’s not from Collinsville anymore,” I argued.

She looked over at me with a raised eyebrow. “Well, he was at one point and that tells me all I need to know him. He’s not my kind of boyfriend material.”

“Wow, you really are a stuck up bitch, Payton.”

“Uh…no. It means my parents would have a total come apart if I brought a boy like that home with me. That big ass tattoo covers his whole upper arm and that would not fly with the parents because nothing less than a long sleeve is going to hide that.”

“So what? A tattoo doesn’t make him a bad person.”

“It speaks of his character, Claire. Seriously, what kind of high school kid has tattoos like that? He looks like he’s been in prison-maybe a prison for hot convicts-but you know I don’t do the tattooed bad boy thing.”

I couldn’t dare tell Payton I thought his tattoo sleeve was the sexiest thing I’d ever seen because she would think I was out of my mind. No one, including her, would fathom that the perfect Claire Elizabeth Deveraux could possibly find all that badness alluring. The problem was that I wasn’t the perfect Claire everyone thought I was. Payton knew my imperfections far better than anyone, but even she didn’t realize how badly I wanted to bust out of the protective cocoon placed around me.

3 The Untouchables

Jessie

Aside from Dane Wickham, I made no friends by walking onto the East Franklin football team as it’s new starting quarterback. Practice had been tense at best, but I wasn’t there to make friends and I preferred knowing where I stood rather than getting blindsided the way I had my whole life.

Today was my first day at East Franklin. I woke up two hours before my alarm was set to go off and began staring at my ceiling with a severe case of dread. On one hand, I would rather have my ass whipped than transfer to EFHS with that bunch of rich, snobby kids. On the other, it could quite possibly be my only chance at avoiding the hopeless path destined for my severely underprivileged life.

The droopy ceiling panels over my bed were another reminder of how different I was from the rich kids attending EFHS. I could guarantee that none of them were laying in bed looking at a ceiling threatening to cave at any minute, so it was very easy to refrain from misleading myself into believing I would fit in with any of them.

I forced myself out of bed and went to the kitchen to eat some breakfast while my grandmother, Rita, drank a cup of strong black coffee and smoked an equally strong cigarette at the dinky dining room table in her trailer’s tiny kitchen. I didn’t bother to offer Rita anything to eat because I recognized the look on her face-she was hungover. She and her buddies had partied here last night. I didn’t bother to look at the clock, but it was well into the morning when I heard the slam of car doors as they left to drive home wasted.

As I sat eating my breakfast, I noticed several plastic bags filled with marijuana on the table, so I knew what was coming. I ate in silence and avoided looking at the dope on the table as I waited for Rita to give me orders. As I ate, she alternated between slurping her steaming hot coffee and sucking on her filterless Camel cigarettes with her permanently puckered mouth.

We had an understanding, she and I. Speak only when necessary and our policy suited both of us just fine, but this morning she found it necessary to speak to me. She pointed toward the dope using her hand with the cigarette. “I want you to sell these today. Charge extra because those rich kids can afford to pay a little more.”

Dysfunctional didn’t begin to describe my family dynamics. Other kids’ grandmothers did grandmotherly things for them, whatever that might be, but mine used me as her own personal infiltration into selling dope in school just like my mother had me do before she died.

I didn’t want to do it, but it was our agreement because I didn’t have anywhere else to go. I’d sell her dope and she’d give me somewhere to live. I was a little surprised she wanted me to sell on my first day at a new school-not a smart move. “Don’t you think I should at least feel out the situation out first. I mean, find out who’s in the market. What if I asked a narc if he wanted some pot? I’d be up shit creek for sure because I’m eighteen now.”

“I don’t care where you sell it, just get me some money today if you want to keep staying here,” she threatened.

When I finished eating, I washed my dishes and put them away because we didn’t have the luxury of a dishwasher like everyone else. I didn’t mind though. It wouldn’t have felt right to have anything in my life that made it a little easier, anyway.

I put Rita’s dope in my backpack, then went to the bathroom to get a shower. It was incredible how Rita’s Camels made everything reek. The stench from her strong cigarettes was repulsive to me and I had been a smoker since I was 12. I tried to scrub it from my hair and skin because I didn’t want to go to school smelling like Camel’s ass, but I knew it was useless because I would still have the stench on my clothes.

I put on a fitted black tee and a new pair of stonewashed jeans because it was the best I had and all I could afford with the little bit of money left from my last paycheck after I paid for the work on my truck. Good thing worn out jeans were in style since that was all I had to wear the rest of the week.

I grabbed my dope filled backpack, the same one I had used for the past two years, and Rita offered no words of encouragement as I walked out the door to join a category of hell known all to itself as high school.