Mickey’s POV:

When I walked out of that janitor’s closet, I was ready to get on with my life. It was Alex’s loss. I never needed him in my life, I never even wanted him in my life, but he had to go force his way in. Honestly, if he thought that pissing me off would make me want to be around him, then he did not know how I worked. Really, he did not know how anybody worked. It was like it was his mission to see how far he could push me until I snapped back. He hadn’t seen the worst yet; he only saw the soft side of me. It didn’t take much for me to go from zero to one hundred.

Unfortunately, there was somebody else who was going to find that out.

I thought I had had enough school for that day and was fully intending on leaving to go have some actual fun with Devon and his friends, but something else got in my way. Before reaching the school’s doors, the bell went. It was only natural for the halls to fill right after, it would only help cover me.

But, no, I happened to run into a ‘friend’ I had made just a little while before. They immediately put on a smirk and flicked their long wavy brown hair off their shoulder. I would have completely ignored it if it weren’t for the fact that they were deliberately trying to block my way.

“I thought I told you to stay away from Alex,” Heather, Alex’s ex-girlfriend who had ‘threatened’ me before stated.

“I actually just left him in the janitor’s closet, so I do believe I just technically went away from him.” I rolled my eyes and tried to push past her. A whiny girl like her wasn’t worth my time. I could be wasting my time on fucking Devon while his friends were in the next room.

Heather, however, look a step in the direction I was trying to pass. “Oh, sweetie, you don’t want to mess with me. Really, just stay away from him, you don’t want to find out what I’m capable of.”

“No, sweetie, you’re wrong there. You don’t want to mess with me.” I glared back at her, having an advantage over her of a couple of inches. So, since I was trying to hold myself back, I once again tried to walk away and past her to leave this hellhole.

“Listen up here, bitch,” she seethed and gripped my wrist just as I was beside her, “you will do what I tell you.”

“No, I won’t.” I shook my head and couldn’t help but laugh a little at her pathetic attempts at trying to scare me. I had had to deal with more than her before, I could take her easily.

“Oh, right, yeah, I forgot that sluts can’t stay away from their guys.” Her tone changed completely, following a cutesy babyish sound. “Poor mommy has to deal with how much of a whore you are.”

Ok, that was it. Not only was I the only one allowed to call me those words--or guys if they were into that during sex--but nobody could use my mom against me. She could mess with me all she wanted, but bring in my mother, and it was done. Like I had always said, one wrong move and you’re out.

I took a step back and raised my fist to punch right in that pretty little face of hers. The impact didn’t even hurt my knuckles, but she let out a blood curling scream. Everybody around us turned to look what was going on and crowded around when they realized that a fight was about to go down or had even already started.

Heather was holding the side of her face that I had hit, her makeup now smudged and her skin bright red. But she wasn’t going to give up that easily. She had to show that she was stronger than me; that even the fact that I could dislocate her jaw if I wanted didn’t faze her. Whatever I did, she would be able to one up it.

Of course, she couldn’t. She immediately went for my hair, taking a chunk and pulling on it as hard as she could. All it did was make my head jerk in one direction, but it barely even hurt. Everybody knew that if you wanted to cause pain with pulling hair, you had to take small sections. Well, obviously she didn’t fit into that ‘everybody’.

My instincts kicked in and I didn’t even have to think about my actions anymore. Some might have said I let my temper get the best of me, but I thought it was more along the lines of survival. It was only natural for me to grab her arm, twist it, throw her down on the floor and keep my knee on the small of her back so she couldn’t move anymore.

Heather was trying to fidget away, whining at the pain I was causing in her arm. I couldn’t let her go just yet, though. She needed to know that whatever she would threaten me with, it wasn’t going to work. There was a reason why I had been expelled from schools before, she just happened to find out the worst way possible.

“Mickey!” Somebody yelled from the crowd, but I didn’t look up.

For all I cared, it could have been a teacher to tell me off, thinking their lectures would come through to me, only to bring me to the principal which would then lead to me being expelled. It wasn’t anything that hadn't happened before. If anything, I was pretty glad to leave this place, I needed something new in my life.

But it wasn’t a teacher. My name was shouted once again, only this time accompanied by somebody pulling on the arm that wasn’t making sure that Heather could not move. They tried to pull me away from the body, which after a few good tugs got me to stand up. However, when they tried to remove me from the scene, it wasn’t as easy.

“I will fuck you up as well.” I turned to said person and wasn’t surprised to see that it was Alex trying to get me to leave.

“I don’t doubt that.” Alex rolled his eyes at my threat and started walking through the crowd, still having a tight grip on my arm as he dragged me along. I didn’t know that that boy was capable of such a strong hold; it was nearly enough to give me a horrible bruise.

Once we had gone through the entire crowd, he brought me towards a place in the hallway where it was fairly quiet. Most people were bunched where Heather was probably only now getting off the floor. Did I care? No. Did I want to go back and throw another couple of punches? Definitely. If people weren’t careful around me, were they going to be punched instead? Again, definitely.

“Holy shit, what happened there?!” Jack gasped as he strolled over to the exact point Alex was bringing me to ‘calm down’.

“I don’t know,” I mocked and glared at him, getting him to purse his lips and stare back at me with fear, “do you want to experience it yourself?”

“Mickey…” Alex warned, still holding my arm so I couldn’t think of punching Jack or walking away. He knew that either could happen in a heartbeat.

“Oh, maybe you do.” I retorted, moving my threat away from Jack and directing it towards Alex instead.

Alex still seemed unfazed, not even showing a hint of being afraid of what I could do to him. It was almost like he thought I would never hurt him, that I was only hurling empty threats his way. “What happened?”

“Take a guess. Maybe something about Heather being a bitch.”

Jack decided to speak up again despite knowing I was not afraid to hurt him if he said the wrong thing. He was so close to that point. “I thought you weren’t ‘afraid’ of her.”

“Well, obviously I’m not.” I raised the arm Alex was holding rapidly in the direction of where the crowd was slowly dispersing, also using it as an attempt to break free. But Alex’s hand only went along with my every movement. “She can say what she wants about me. She can even spread lies about me, but as soon as she brings in people I care about, it’s going down. She crossed a line.”

“People you care about?” Alex asked, nearly dumbfounded, his grip becoming a little looser.

“What?” I snapped back, offended that he thought that was such a strange and weird thing. “Don’t you have family too?”

He sighed, shaking his head a little. Once he let go of my arm, I realized I was already standing with my back against the lockers behind me. I was practically being caged in by Alex and Jack, but I knew exactly how to go past them. However, it seemed like Alex’s plan wasn’t to let me go just yet. His hand lightly went up to my upper arm instead, trying to give me a comforting touch. It only made me want to stare at his limb in confusion, but something told me he was waiting for me to do that, so I resisted.

“Look, I know you’ll probably hate me for saying this, but you have to calm down a little bit, ok? I get that Heather can be the most annoying bitch there is, but she is not worth you getting expelled from school.” He took a view steps closer, the thumb on his hand slowly stroking my skin. “She says all kinds of crazy shit, trust me, I’ve been hit with it countless times as well when she refused to accept me breaking up with her. Don’t let her get to your head like that. She is not worth it.”

His breath was hitting my face softly and constantly as he was just inches away and we were staring right at each other. It was like a stare off to battle who was right in this case, and just like always, I was not going to lose. But then I saw his eyes repeatedly flicker down to my lips. I wasn’t sure if he was trying to trick me into letting him win, but I was not going to let that happen.

I pushed him away and growled, “the fuck do you think you’re doing?”

He opened and closed his mouth a few times, no words coming out. It was like the wise and all knowing Alex from before had disappeared completely. Well, I was going to disappear as well, but in a more literal way. For some reason, I did not skip school that day anymore.

----

Later, in Math class, I couldn’t even be bothered to pay attention. It wasn’t like I ever paid attention or even showed up for that matter, though. Alex was in the same class, but since he did show up more often he had a permanent spot somewhere in the back. Since I was an even worse student than he was, I didn’t have a seat I could claim as my own and instead had to sit at the very front.

That didn’t stop me from doing the old trick of pulling my earphone through the sleeve of my hoodie and bringing the earbud to my ear as if I were leaning on my hand. I just stared at the board, not caring about the equations and calculations that the teacher was writing on it. I didn’t even have a notebook or at least a pen out to suggest that I was thinking of taking notes. Of course I didn’t want to be there, and of course I regretted not skipping school while I still could. Math was probably the most boring class there was. I could swear that I could just fall asleep.

“Mickey!” The teacher was suddenly stood in front of me, staring me down.

I lamely looked up at her, slowly lowering the hand that was holding the earbud to my ear. “What?”

“Your answer please.” She gave me a forced smile and walked back to the board, pointing towards an equation she had written down without any method or answer underneath it.

“You see, that would be a problem. I don’t like answering questions, so I don’t feel like answering this one either.” I gave her the same bitchy smile back, my unemotional eyes drilling into her.

I was waiting for her to get mad at me, allowing me to speak back which would get me sent out. However, she just stared right back at me, still pointing towards the equation written in blue. Teachers usually lost their shit with me without me having to try, but this one seemed to be just as stubborn as I was. I actually respected that.

I quickly scanned over the board once again, feeling everybody’s eyes on me as if waiting for me to snap something back, but I surprised them all by uttering out an answer, “three.”

The teacher’s smile fell as she double checked the piece of paper in front of her, almost not believing that I had actually given the right answer. She nodded, telling herself to accept it. “Lucky guess. Try this one.”

She wrote another equation down, similar to the one I had already answered but slightly different. About five seconds after she had written it down for me, I was already coming back with what made sense in my mind. “Three or minus two.”

She frowned, staring at me as if it would show that I was cheating or something. But the students around me were completely confused and my earbud wasn’t even close to my ear. However, she still wasn’t done. She put her paper back down and reached out for one of the side wings of the board, flipping it closed. There was something completely different on there. Her face turned from devious to intrigued, “how about this one?”

All the students around me were muttering things along the lines of ‘what the fuck?’ and ‘what is this shit?’ while I just took in the new information like it was nothing. I shrugged and leaned back in my chair. “Seven over eight, so I’m guessing it’s close to zero point nine… like zero point eight something… eight seven five?”

Her mouth was slightly agape as her eyes nearly popped out of her skull. “My AP calculus students can’t even do this question in under five minutes.”

“Well, sucks to be them. Must be pretty embarrassing to have this lower level math class be smarter than them.” I snorted and crossed my arms, not even realizing the consequences of my actions. To me, I thought it was the simplest thing ever and expected the people around me to feel the same way.

“Umm,” she looked around for something on her desk and eventually pulled out a piece of paper from the bottom of a folder before putting it on my desk, “can you fill this out?”

I looked down at what she had given me and laughed. “I think the hell not! I’m not going to answer a fucking worksheet.”

“If you do this, you don’t have to pay attention to what I’m saying for the rest of the class and you get to keep your earphones in without having to hide them.” She tried to convince me, pointing at the hand with the earphone dangling from it.

I thought for a little while, contemplating which of my options was the best. “Deal.”

“Great.” She smiled and went back to teaching the class.

I put in both my earbuds and shook my legs along with the music as I pulled a pen out of my bag and started answering the questions. I zoomed through them, answering them as quickly as I had done with the one she made me do out loud. If she really wanted to keep me preoccupied the entire lesson, she should have given me something way more difficult, because I was done in no time.

When I had finished completely, I scribbled my name in the corner and threw my pen back in my bag. Once I had closed it, I got up from my seat and hung it from my shoulder. I walked past her desk and put the worksheet on it, going straight for the door.

“Where do you think you’re going?” She stopped me, making me freeze in place before turning around slowly.

“I finished, there’s no point for me to stay longer. It’s my last class of the day, so I’m out of here.” I pointed finger guns at her to annoy her and started backing up until I knew I was nearly at the door.

Before actually leaving, I took one last look at the other people and saw Alex staring at me in bewilderment.

Notes

So, I'm finally going on holiday next Saturday for two weeks. Still have two days of school to go now (get me out of here). Just telling you guys because it means I'll probably not update for at least three weeks. We'll see when I'll start writing again once I come back.