2 – Parents.
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"I'm sorry, am I reading this right?" Dinner cooking on the stove, Mrs. Martin shook her head at the paper. "You punched a girl in the face?"

Randy scratched the back of his head. "She started it."

Once again, Randy had to tell the story of what happened. And, same as last time, he kept out the part about staring at Nikki Slater's butt. His mom was pretty mad about it, but only because she thought he should've hit her earlier.

"If she's picking on you all the time," she said, putting out a steaming serving of rice and stew for his younger sister Quinn. "Then you should be punching her all the time!"

He was glad she understood, even if she was being a bit too enthusiastic about hitting people. But that's just how his mom was: she was in the Army for a few years, and Randy was pretty sure something happened there to drive her a little crazy. As he sat down at the table to eat, Quinn glanced at the paper in his hand.

"Nicole Slater?" she asked, tapping her fork against the rim of her plate. "Like, Nikki Slater? The girl who pantsed you?"

Mrs. Martin, who had poured herself a margarita, nearly spat it out. Putting the paper aside, Randy rubbed the crease between his eyes.

"How'd you hear about that?" he asked plainly, looking Quinn in the eye.

"All the teachers in middle school still talk about it." she laughed.

Randy generally avoided telling his parents about Nikki's bullying - Mom, because he was afraid of her stomping up to the school and demanding that heads roll, and Dad, because... well, because he'd just tell him to quit being a pussy, then hang the phone up and not call for another month.

"If I were you, Randy," Mrs. Martin said. "I'd have pantsed her right back."

"I probably would've been put on the sex offender registry or something." said Randy, picking at his food. The woman gave him the evil eye and pointed her fork at him.

"You need to stand up for yourself more." she said. Too frustrated to say anything back, Randy just nodded along and spooned some stew into his mouth.

"So, did you get expelled or anything?" Quinn asked. "Or, like, suspended?"

"No." he said while he chewed. "Two weeks morning detention, and I have to write a five page paper on Nikki."

The more he thought about it, the happier he was about the punishment. In any other school he'd have been suspended for a few days, and his mom would've actually been mad about that. Plus, there was no way Nikki would do her paper, which meant that she wasn't gonna graduate. Icing on the cake, they called it.

His mother raised an eyebrow. "Wait, morning detention? I'm assuming the bus isn't gonna come early for that?"

He gulped. Crap. She was right, how was he gonna make it to school at that hour? He looked at his mom hopefully.

"No, I'm not driving you!"


After dinner, Randy was up in his room. He had managed to dig out the old student directory from the furthest reaches of the junk drawer: back when his mom was in PTA, she was handed this little pamphlet that had the home phone numbers of all the students in his grade. Sitting at his desk, he flicked through it until he got to the S's.

"Let's see here... Savino... Shiermeyer... Slater."

He flipped it over and folded it so it would stay on that page, then took out his cellphone and typed in the number under her name. As it rung, he really hoped this would work - this was from elementary school, so it was entirely possible the Slaters had gotten a new phone by then. Thankfully though, someone picked up.

"Uh, hello?" He was greeted by a tired male voice. Nikki's dad, he figured.

"Hi." Randy said. "Is Nikki there?"

"Yeah." The man on the other end sniffed. "Who is this?"

"My name's Randy Martin." He said. "I'm calling about... homework."

"Randy, okay. Yeah, hold on a minute." Randy heard the man put the phone down, then walk off. It was distant, but he could hear him talking to Nikki. Soon enough she came over and took the line.

"Hi Randy." Nikki said. She was chewing on something as she spoke, it sounded like gum. "What's up?"

"Yeah, uh, hi." Randy always stumbled over himself when he talked to girls - well, minus his friends. Nikki was usually exempt from that too, but when she was just a kinda cute voice over the phone, he could nearly forget that it was the bitch who always tormented him. "Soo... you said you didn't live too far from my house?"

"Yeah?"

"Well, I was wondering if... well, I figured you'd already be up in the morning, so... well, if it wouldn't be a hassle..."

Nikki kept chewing. "Are you asking for rides?" she asked casually.

"Well, yeah."

"Sure. I'll be there at six on Monday. Does that work?"

Six... Randy slapped himself on the forehead. Jesus, getting up at seven was hard enough.

"Yeah, I'll... I'll try to be awake."

There was a brief pause.

"Alright, well, see you Monday." she said. "What's your number?"

Randy never thought he'd hear a girl ask him that, especially Nikki of all people. "Uh, why do you want it?"

"So I can call you when I get there?" She said it as if it were obvious, which, yeah, it kind of was.

"Oh, oh... yeah." Randy read it off to her from memory, and he could hear her typing it into her cellphone over the line.

"Got that?" He asked when he was done.

"Yes." She said. "Thanks."

There was another brief pause.

"Are you gonna hang up?" Nikki asked.

"Oh, uh, yeah. See you... Nikki."

In a rush, Randy pressed the button to end the call, then threw his phone on his bed.

He wiped his palms off on his jeans - they had gotten all sweaty. "What the hell was that?"


"What the hell was that?" Nikki hung up the old landline. She had never heard Randy so nervous before... well, whatever. She just figured his parents had yelled at him, or he was anxious about the paper, or whatever. She liked to eavesdrop on his conversations a lot in the classes they had together, and he always seemed to have a dozen different things on his mind.

Leaving the phone, she made for her bedroom. But before she could go upstairs, her dad stepped in. He had a stern look on his face.

"So who's Randy?" He asked. Nikki rolled her eyes.

"Just a guy from my class." She budged past him, but he caught her arm and pulled her back.

"Anything you want to tell me about Randy?" Her dad looked her right in the eye, and she saw his face scrunch up in confusion. She moved a hand to cover her bruise. "Where'd you get that?"

"No, there isn't anything," she said. "And... a basketball hit me."

"A basketball?" He raised an eyebrow. Nikki blew a bubble with the gum in her mouth, and let it pop in his face.

"Yep." She wrenched her arm out from his grip and stomped upstairs. "I'm gonna take a shower."

As she opened the bathroom door, Nikki could hear him grumble from downstairs.

"You're always taking showers..." 

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