Going Under (Going Under 1)

“It’s okay, Griffin.”

Old lady Jenson made a spectacle of looking down her nose at me as I crossed the classroom to sit in the desk next to my friend and fellow cheerleader, Allie Bumphis. I pretended I didn’t notice Jenson’s eyes following me, but I perceived her stare for what it was; a nonverbal warning daring me to be late.

Allie leaned toward me slightly and whispered, “I saw you talking to the new quarterback in the parking lot. Do you know him?”

“Nope,” I said, popping the p, then added, “Sure don’t.”

Mrs. Jenson cleared her throat and asked, “Ladies…do you have something you’d like to discuss with the class?”

Is she serious? We’re seniors, not kindergarteners. Who doesn’t let their students talk in homeroom on the first day of school? That’s unheard of.

“No, ma’am. I don’t have a thing I’d like to share.”

Man, I was a glad I didn’t have her for a class other than homeroom because that would suck. I put my elbow on my desk and propped my face in my palm. I glanced to my right and saw Trevor McMillin. He smiled at me like he was thrilled I noticed he was alive and I saw a big, white pimple on his forehead, so I took my hand away from my face when his zit reminded why I shouldn’t put my hands on my face. The last thing I needed was a big zit on my face.

After hearing the announcements and serving my sentence in homeroom with Jenson, the bell rang and I raced down the hall toward my locker where I knew I would find Payton. At our neighboring lockers, I found her glossing her lips with Perfect Peach, her signature color, while she looked into the small magnetic mirror mounted inside her locker.

She ran her index finger along her bottom lip to perfect the line she had drawn with the wand, then reached into her long, blond hair and gave it a quick fluff. She smiled as though she liked what she saw and she should because she was beautiful.

She turned to me as I reached for my locker handle. “Have you forgiven me, Claire Bear?”

I had a poor running record for staying mad at Payton and she knew I wouldn’t still be mad. “No. I could never stay mad at you.”

“Good, because I have to tell you about my crappy luck. I had to sit next to The Ladies’ Man in homeroom. Ugh!”

Marcus Lee had earned the title of The Ladies’ Man from Leon Phelps, the horny talk show host on classic Saturday Night Live. He was such a tool he actually thought the nickname was a compliment.

She snarled her nose and shook with a rigor as she recalled her close encounter with Marcus. “He is such a creep. He gave me that up and down look with those weird grunting and moaning sounds he makes. I feel like I need a morning after pill and a dose of strong antibiotics.”

The boy knew how to violate a girl with his eyes alone and I was glad I wouldn’t have to face him first thing every morning. I was painfully tormented with his daily bump and grind routine during my sophomore year, so I had my turn with him two years ago.

It was too bad Payton faced being visually and verbally molested by Marcus every morning. “Sorry, been there and done that and it’s not pretty, but I wish you the best of luck with that horn dog. I got stuck with the tardy nazi for homeroom. She’ll send me to detention when I exceed my tardy limit and I’ll end up being stuck with him, too.”

Suddenly, I was grabbed from behind and as I was spun around, I briefly made eye contact with the sexy badass’ beautiful pale blues before he made a face of disgust and entered Miss Dulaney’s Calculus class. Good. That meant I didn’t have first period with him.

After my feet returned to the floor, I felt a kiss being planted on the back of my neck and I whirled around to face my assailant. I frogged Forbes on the arm with my fist as I said, “You better cut that out before Mr. Grisham sees us. You know he doesn’t tolerate any form of PDA.”

He was unharmed by my weak attempt to loosen his hold on me. “Claire, you worry too much. He’s not gonna say anything because we’re seniors now.”

Forbes’ best friend, Cooper, was standing next to us and spoke up to agree with me. “She’s right, Forbes. He’s a real hard ass on that PDA stuff. He busted me and Caitlyn Johnson when we were dating for holding hands in the hall.”

Forbes didn’t loosen his hold as he said, “Jeez, do I look like I care what he says?” He pulled me tighter and pushed my hair to the side to plant another kiss on my neck and I felt a surge of chill bumps run down my body.

“Come on, Forbes, I don’t want to get in trouble on the first day of school,” I pleaded as I looked around the hall nervously for Mr. Grisham. The last thing I needed was my parents getting a call from the school for inappropriate physical contact at school. My mom was already convinced that Forbes and I were going at it every given opportunity we had and if things went his way, my mom wouldn’t far off the mark.

He had definitely started pressing me harder to go all the way with him since this whole quarterback thing started and he was quite clear about his growing impatience, but I wasn’t ready and I refused to give it up just because we had dated for a year and a half.

The first bell rang and I was relieved when I was finally released without being discovered by Grisham. “What do you have second period, babe?”

“I have Mrs. Tanner for my AP Humanities class in the building where the freshmen classes are.”

Forbes shook his head as he complained, “That’s just ridiculous. It’s an AP class stuck in the middle of the lower classmen building. Does it even make sense to put smarter, older students in with little punks that just left junior high school?”

“It’s not a big deal because it’s the first room on the right as I walk in and it’s my favorite class. I’m excited about being in Mrs. Tanner’s class again. She lets us do some really cool stuff.”

He frowned and said, “Well, I don’t like it because it causes me to miss seeing you between first and second period.”

“You’re such a baby. I promise, you’ll get over not seeing me.” I looked at my watch and said, “I gotta go learn some Spanish. Adios.”

I entered Mrs. Santiago’s Spanish II class and sat in front of Cooper.

“Hey, Claire, I didn’t know we had Spanish together. You gonna let me cheat off you or what?” Coop laughed.

“Spanish probably isn’t the class you want to choose to try cheating off of me because it’s my worst subject,” I warned.