Belle 2: Death Starts with Her Name

Well today starts the endless comments from Brody about Miranda. I road to school with Brody in his new Dodge truck. His sister, Breanne in the back seat with Brett and Brian. Brock sat in the bed of the truck. We picked up a few of our friends, Joe, Clayton, Andrew and Hunter, on the way to school along with Abigal since she was apparently dating one of the boys now, Tim, whom we picked up too.

Cops around here didn’t really come out that much and when they did they didn’t care what you did as along as we weren’t holding up traffic.

We went straight to the high school parking lot where Brody carelessly drove around to the country corner where all of them hung out. Harry, Dusty, Texas and Kyle were already there with their big trucks.

“Hey, there’s them sons of b*****s!”

I jumped out letting Breanne and the boys out. Brian and Brett went right across the street to the middle school. Breanne was a very quiet, depressed, selfish girl. And I say selfish because she milks it so she doesn’t have to do chores or get her way entirely.

“And let’s not forget about our Little Southern Belle,” Kyle lifted me up like I was a little kid. He was big guy like Andrew.

“I’m fine, Kyle.”

“Put her down man!” Brody said all worried. I was placed in the bed of the truck where Brody ended up sitting on this bed toolbox.

They started muttering in their normal southern drawl.

Abigal came and sat on the ledge of the bed of the truck, “I’m guessing Brody didn’t happen.”

“Nope.”

“Eh, ya got a few chances this year.”

“School dances?”

“Those and the old barn dances.”

“We’ll see, but he still has no idea.”

“Hey ladies!” Andrew called, “Y’all coming to the race this weekend?”

“Hell yeah! You kidding?” Abigal answered.

 “Good. We need our gals there.”

Harry, Hunter and Tim raced modified rally cars. We always went up there in the pits like we were a family.

The warning bell rang. Brody helped me out of the bed of his truck as the group of us headed up to the sidewalk. A black convertible pulled into the parking lot with the radio blasting something with a catchy rhythm.

“The princess is here,” Hunter stated making fun of her flashy self. Brody stood in front of her car, star struck.

“Hi, Miranda,” he said shyly.

“Hello,” she smiled getting out in her pink and white get-up along with her ladies in waiting, “No braces?”

“Yeah,” he blushed.

“Cute,” she smiled looking at me. He’d had his braces off for four years. I hate mentioning the fact that she hates me because it gets me so fired up I could take out a bull. I have no idea why she hates me so much, but she goes out of her way to make my life hell. Only when I’m around, does she ever acknowledge Brody, because she knows how close we are and she tries to get under my skin. But she’d try to run me over in the parking lot some times, bump me so my books fall out of my hands or trip me into a locker, or even try to make the answers that I give in class seem illogical. Actually she’s been held back twice and she still fails some classes. I don’t know if she has a learning disability �" you’d think she’d already have help for that with her daddy’s money �" but honestly it’s beyond me why she gets to hate on me.

I rolled my eyes at her trying not to let her have my attention that she so desperately craved like chocolate to a girl on a diet.

Thankfully Clayton pushed Brody back into our group walking into the school.

“Man, you’re one crazy son-b***h if you think she gives damn about you.”

“She’s just such a goddess. I’ll make her care.”

I dipped off knowing all he was going to do was go on about her, and I’d rather not hear what he has to say about her. It’d only remind me of what I wanted him to say about me. That one time in the fields was like a lead-on. I knew what she gets from him and that’s what I wanted. All Miranda would do is use it to make me mad. And Brody didn’t see how mean she was apparently. She would use him and hurt him. I wasn’t sure which killed me more: that he wanted her the way he wanted her or that she will only use that to hurt us both in the end. I couldn’t say anything about either because I didn’t know what his reaction would be and I didn’t want to lose him to this either. Right now I was stuck with dealing with it as a daily heart attack.

I went to my first few classes and lunch in the country corner with the boys. And to my shock (not) Miranda in my class. Of course. Miranda has to ruin the one class I love by sitting behind me with her valley-girl talking friends.

“Hey, would you mind putting your hair away? It looks too much like a big pimple I just wanna pop,” her jazz-hand motioned as she spoke, “Thank you!” she smiled.

I knew she’d keep bugging me about it in that same fashion if I didn’t put it away. I tied it in a side ponytail and threw on my camo cap.

“Nice black-head pizza face,” she giggled under breath to her friends. She started calling me pizza-face when I got my first zit in middle school. Haven’t had one since, but she continues to remind me.

As class started I was writing as if I was taking notes on the introduction to the class, reality being I could care less. Granted I had fairly bad dyslexia when it came to reading and order of operations in math and I should be lessoning, but I concurred one skill which is writing (which took years). Now I could crank out a short story, chapter book, or poem/song lyrics like it was breathing.

I cranked out a poem (wrote out song lyrics that were stuck in my head) before the class ended. Suddenly someone swiped it out from under me.

“Hey!” I look up. Miranda, “Give it back,” I demanded.

She started to read it out loud. Her friends stood between us.

 “She can’t see the way your eyes light up when you smile. She’ll never notice how you stop and stare whenever she walks by. And you can’t see me wanting you the way you want her, but you are everything to me. And I just wanna show you she don’t even know you. She’s never gonna love you like I want to. And you see right through me, but if you only knew me, we could be a beautiful miracle; unbelievable instead of just invisible . . . There’s a fire inside of you that can’t help but shine through. But she’s never gonna see the light no matter what you do. And all I think about is how to make you think of me, and everything that we could be . . . I just wanna show you she don’t even know you. Baby, let me love you, let me want you . . . she can’t see the way your eyes light up when you smile . . .” she smiled, “Awe how cute. Is this about that kid that hits on me?” Okay yes I was writing out Taylor Swift lyrics, but only because they came to mind.

I rolled my eyes. She was just mocking me.

“Well then, maybe I won’t keep it up. Maybe he’ll ask me to homecoming like he did last year. Maybe I’ll actually say yes. Who knows what’ll happen after that?” she tossed my notebook back at me.

I couldn’t contain how mad I was when she walked off like the B-I-T-C-H she was. Hurting the man I love just to screw me over knowing I couldn’t do a damn thing about it was a new low.

I flipped the desk, and ran out of the school. I didn’t care about going to last hour. I just wanted to get out of there.