Chapter 9
School was unbelievably boring for me. Not only was my only friend suspended for a week, but Mr. Franklin decided to give me detention for the incident yesterday because he felt as if being kicked out of class wasn't punishment enough.
So here I was, in detention with most of the football team and cheerleaders. I had no idea what they did to get detention, but I did not want to know.
"Looks like we have a full house here," Mr. Pierce said as he was, once again, the teacher in charge of detention. "There hasn't been one of these for a while. Just in case some of you don't know, the rules to detention are simple. No talking and no texting. If I catch any of you doing either, you will be here tomorrow. Understood?" Everyone nodded. "Good."
I had nothing to do in detention. I finished all my work in class and I had no upcoming tests. I was even more bored because of it.
I was sitting at the back of the class so I could easily see Devon glare at me. I didn't glare at him back, but I was starting to feel uncomfortable.
And to make things worse, Mr. Pierce announced there was a quick meeting in the staff lounge. He had to leave for five minutes, leaving me with the people who hated me the most in the school.
It was when Mr. Pierce left that Devon decided to bug me. "So, Poppy," she said. "Where's your bodyguard?"
"Grayson isn't my bodyguard," I corrected him. "And obviously, he's not here."
"And why exactly is that?" Devon asked.
"None of your business," I muttered as I looked away from him. I had a little bit less than an hour to survive in detention. I didn't even think I could survive.
Devon stood up from his chair and walked over to me, glaring down at me. "You should be worried that nobody's hear to protect you," he said in a threatening voice. "After all, everyone hates you after you ruined Belle's life."
I was getting so sick of everyone saying that I ruined Belle's life. I did no such thing. I was the one who was suffering from the incident. I was the one who had the horrible memories.
"I did not ruin her life," I said for what felt like the millionth time. "Why don't you ask her what happened?"
"Devon, sit down," Mr. Pierce said suddenly as he walked into the room. "And Poppy, your brother called saying you're needed at home. You're excused from detention. He's waiting for you in the parking lot."
I was a bit confused why I was needed at home. But I didn't question him as I grabbed my bag off of the floor.
I got outside of the school but I didn't see my brother's car. I thought he would have been late, but then Grayson's car parked by the curve I was on. "Hey, Flower!" he called. "Care to go for a ride?"
"My brother's coming to pick me up," I told him.
"No, he's not," Grayson said. "I'll explain it to you only if you get in the car."
I smiled as I got into the passenger seat of Grayson's car. "So, why is my brother not coming when Mr. Pierce told me he's here?"
Grayson drove out of the parking lot. "Simple. When you texted me saying you had detention, I didn't want you to be stuck in there, so I called your brother and asked if he could call the school to get you out."
"Well, thank you," I said. "Almost the whole football team and cheerleading squad was there. I doubt I would have survived in there."
"You're welcome," Grayson said. "So, where do you want to go?"
As much as I wanted to go somewhere, I couldn't. "Home," I said.
Grayson raised an eyebrow but kept his eyes on the road. "So I saved you from the hell hole called detention and you don't want to hang out with me?"
"Of course I want to hang out with you," I said, "but I'm still grounded. My mom just thinks I'm studying in the library for a biology test."
"There's still forty-five minutes until four," Grayson said. "I presume you told your mom that's when you'll be done in the library."
"I actually told her I'd be done at four thirty," I told him.
Grayson smiled. "Perfect. That gives us an hour and fifteen minutes. We are going to go to the beach and get some ice cream and you are not going to complain at all."
I sighed, knowing that nothing I would say would change Grayson's mind. He was quite stubborn at times.
Grayson started driving to the beach and I couldn't help thinking about how thankful I was to have him in my life. He defended me from Devon numerous of times, he made sure I didn't have to dissect a frog, and he got me out of detention. None of my friends, or ex-friends in my case, had ever done anything like that before.
"Lost in thought, Flower?" Grayson asked.
"Yeah," I said. "I was just thinking about things."
"Like what?" Grayson asked.
"Things," I replied simply. "It doesn't really matter. I have been wondering one thing, though. Why do you keep calling me Flower?"
Grayson shrugged. "I have my reasons. Very obvious reasons that I'm surprised you haven't figured out yet, Flower." His smile suddenly turned into a serious line. "I'm about to ask you something that I know you don't want to answer, but it's been bugging me since yesterday. Who's Ben?"
I sighed. He was right. I didn't want to answer, but Grayson did deserve to know. I didn't have to say what happened with Ben, only who he is. "Ben is Belle's older brother," I said. "Something happened and she hates me because of it." I looked down at my hands, once again having memories flood through my mind. I shook my head, trying to clear the memories.
"I'm sorry for asking," Grayson said, seeing how much it affected me.
"Don't be," I said. "You wanted to know who he was. That's it."
"You know, I really want to know what happened," Grayson said, "but I'll wait for you to be ready to tell me."
"Thanks for not pressuring me into telling you," I said. "Even though it happened a while ago, I'm still not ready to talk about it."
"I understand," Grayson said as he parked in the parking lot of the beach. "There's some things I don't want to talk about either. But soon, I'm probably going to have to tell you a few things about me." He turned off his car and faced me. "Some of those things might scare you a bit, but I hope that won't change your impression on me."
"Trust me, it won't," I said, but it did make me a bit curious. Things that can scare me? What could possibly scare me and change my mind about Grayson?
Grayson and I got out of the car and walked to the small ice cream stand. Grayson offered to pay for me, claiming that it was because he was the one who technically made me get detention. I got peanut butter ice cream and Grayson got the plain old vanilla.
While we were walking down the beach, something made me stop in my tracks. Well, more like someone.
"What is it?" Grayson asked.
I couldn't answer. The person who I wanted to stay away from, the one who ruined my life, was at the beach.
"Poppy?" Grayson asked. "Are you okay?"
"He's here," I said.
"Who?" Grayson asked.
I pointed to the people a few feet ahead of us, the people walking in our direction.
"Belle?" Grayson asked. "And... .who's that?"
"Ben," I told him. How was Ben here? "Can we... Can we leave?"
Grayson nodded. "Yeah." The only problem was that the parking lot was in the direction we were walking, which was the way Ben and Belle were coming from.
"What are you doing here?" Belle suddenly snapped once Grayson and I were by them.
Grayson must have known I couldn't speak in front of Ben because he answered for me. "It's not like you own the beach," he said.
"I wasn't talking to you," Belle said. "Stop defending her."
"I could defend her if I want," Grayson said. "Someone has to after you turned her life into a living hell."
"I turned her life into a living hell?" Belle asked, crossing her arms. "Really? Well then, how about you tell us what my brother had to go through? The pain he went through?!"
"I didn't do anything," I said quietly. I needed her to know that it wasn't my fault.
"Nothing?" Ben asked. "Funny. Real funny, Poppy."
Seeing Ben after all those months was bringing back the memories even more, as if I was re-living what happened.
"Then what did she do?" Grayson asked, standing between me and the other two.
"I thought she told you," Belle said.
"I lied," Grayson said. "I do that a lot."
"What a coincidence, so does Poppy," Belle said with a smirk.
Grayson seemed to be getting very irritated with Belle. "You are so lucky you're a girl and I don't hit girls," Grayson said.
"Are you threatening my sister?" Ben asked.
"No, not at all," Grayson said. "But I am threatening you. Stay away from Poppy. I don't know exactly what happened, but I do know that if you ever go near her again, you'll regret it."
"I'm not scared of some guy I never met before," Ben said. "What's the worst you can do?"
"Why don't you ask your sister's boyfriend?" Grayson asked before he gestured for us to leave. I was more than happy to leave the beach. I didn't want to see Ben and Belle ever again. Unfortunately, I knew that was never going to happen.
Chapter 10 A week later, I knew something was going on with Devon, Belle, and their friends. Grayson was back at school and they seemed to be everywhere Grayson was. At lunch, wherever Grayson and I ate, they were there too. After school, Grayson offered to give me a ride home. Since I was ungrounded, I had my cell phone back and I was able to call Mom to let her know. Usually, I had to use the phone in the office which took forever because there was always a huge line up. I hadn't seen Ben since the time at the beach, thankfully. I was also so worried about seeing him again. "Grayson," I said as he drove out of the parking lot. "Do you notice something weird going on with Devon and Belle?" "Kind of," Grayson said. "It is my first day back after my suspension so I have no idea if they were acting like that when I was gone." "Trust me, they weren't," I said. "It's kind of creeping me out." Grayson looked in his review mirror. "Speaking of creeping..." I turned a
Chapter 11Grayson After dropping Poppy at her house, I drove straight to mine. I was not in the mood to do anything after what happened. Poppy found out about what happened two years ago and I did not want her knowing quite yet. Then there was what she told me. She was assaulted by Belle's brother and was blamed for it. I swear, if I ever see that Ben's face again, I was going to personally send him to the hospital. "Grayson, there you are," Dad said when I walked inside. "Your sister called. She doesn't know your cell number and she wants to talk to you." I nodded as I went upstairs to my room for some privacy. Honestly, I loved talking to my sister, Gale. She was twenty-two and was in university. She was always there to support me, especially since Dad always looked down at me. I dialed Gale's number and held my cell phone up to my ear. "Hello?" she answered shortly after. "Gale, hi," I said. Gale squealed. "Grayson! I haven't talked to you in so long! So, how'
Chapter 12 I got to school the next day, only to be extremely confused. I thought it was just any regular day. Until I talked to Grayson. Actually, rephrase: Until I tried talking to Grayson. But he just walked away as if I didn't say anything. What if he didn't want to talk to me anymore because of my past? No, that couldn't be it. He promised Ben and Belle wouldn't hurt me anymore. There was no point of promising that if he wasn't going to talk to me. After school, I was putting my books away when Grayson went to his locker. Right beside mine. I decided to just give him space just in case he needed it. I had no idea why he wasn't talking to me, but I hoped it didn't last. It felt a bit weird, though. Whenever I was at my locker and Grayson went to his, he always said, "Hey, Flower." He didn't even do that. "Poppy," Belle snapped suddenly. I turned to her, once again not in the mood to talk. "How was finding out that your friend nearly killed my boyfriend?" She had a s
Chapter 13 One of the sports I hated the most had to be volleyball. Then again, I hate basically every single sport. But out of all of them, volleyball was definitely the worse, especially if Belle is in my gym class and was on the opposing team. I wasn't that skilled in volleyball. I could do the simple underhand serve and volley, but other than that, I was not good at all. When my gym teacher, Miss North, told us we were going to play volleyball, I silently groaned. Why did we have to play the sport I hated the most? When Miss North started dividing up the teams, I honestly hoped Belle would be on my team. As much as I hated her, it would be better to have her on my team as opposed to the opposing team. That didn't happen. On the bright side, Grayson was on my team. Well, if you considered your only friend ignoring you and is one your team a 'bright side'. But then it was ruined when one of Belle's friends, Loni, was put on my team. There were four teams and two di
Chapter 14Grayson "Grayson!" Dad called from the kitchen. "Your sister will be here soon!" I didn't reply as I continued slaughtering zombies in the video game. I had to get my anger out somehow because beating the crap out of Devon yesterday didn't do the trick. And quite frankly, killing graphical zombies wasn't making me feel any better as well. Shocker. "Grayson!" Dad called again. "Did you hear me?!" When I still didn't reply, Dad stormed into the gaming room and turned off the TV. "Hey!" I exclaimed. "I was in the middle of a game!" "You didn't reply," Dad said. "I didn't know that I had to," I told him, dropping my controller on the table beside the couch and crossing my arms. Dad sighed and shook his head. "Gale called and said she'll be here in less than ten minutes. Graeme and I are going to head out now to get a few things from the store. Don't make a mess." "Sure thing," I muttered as Dad left the room. Seeing how I lost the game since Dad turned i
Chapter 15On Monday, I was surprisingly excited for school. Since Spring Break was next week, the grade elevens and twelve's were heading to the beach all day for a field trip. Normally, I hated anything that had to do with school but since I didn't have to be near anyone, I was excited.I got to school and immediately had to go on one of the two buses. Luckily, I was one of the first few people to arrive so I sat in the back.Slowly, everyone else began to arrive. Grayson, being Grayson, showed up just as the bus was about to leave. I instantly looked away, not wanting to look at him. I was still mad that he randomly started ignoring me and didn't help me when I got knocked out in gym class.We finally began driving to the beach and I couldn't wait to get there. I really needed to relax and since it was Monday morning, it was even better.When we arrived at the beach, we all piled out of the buses and waited for instructions from Mrs. Goth. "I suppose you're all happy about being at
Chapter 16School the next day was, well, interesting. A fight almost broke out and Belle was acting way worse than she had ever been.Tony dropped me off at school that morning and I was not that happy. I mean, we went to the beach the day before and now, I had to be in school. Boring.When I walked into the school, Belle marched up to me. "I heard something very interesting," she said."That's nice," I said as I attempted to walk pass her.However, she took a step to the side to block me. "I wasn't finished," Belle snapped, crossing her arms."Well I didn't know that I had to stay to listen," I said. "Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to my locker."I walked passed her, but stopped when Belle said, "You think you can just do whatever you want to whoever you want, don't you?"I turned towards her. "What are you talking about?""I'm talking about Ben," Belle said. "You lied about what happened and got him thrown in jail.""How many times do I have to tell you that I didn't lie about
Chapter 17After school on Friday, my family and Grayson's family were going to have yet another family dinner, but this time, we were going to a fancy restaurant.Mom expected me to dress up. I didn't really want to, but I was too tired to object. So, Mom grabbed a simple black dress out of my closet and handed it to me."First impressions are important," Mom told me.I raised an eyebrow. "First impression? Mom, we've had dinner with them many times." Not to mention one of them is my boyfriend.My family didn't exactly know about Grayson and I. I did tell Tony but made him promise to not tell Mom and Dad. Dad would just be worried because of what happened with Ben and Mom didn't really like Grayson."Yes, but Gary's daughter will be there since she's on spring break," Mom said before leaving my bedroom. I wanted to ask her what that had to do with anything, but I decided to just leave it and get changed. After I was changed into the dress, I went down the stairs where the rest of my