Chapter Text
How did I thirteen year old bubbly, cheerful, and friendly seventh grade student Molly McGee wind up here, in a mildew scented girls locker room pinned up against the lockers by the meanest (and prettiest) girl in Brighton middle school Andrea Davenport her pretty face distorted by a nasty snarl?
Well, it all started last week when my father's job made us move, again, to a new town. Leaving behind the friends I'd made since we moved last time leaving behind more friends that I made when we moved the previous time leaving behind... well you get the picture. I'd left behind a lot of friends over the years. But this time we were moving into our forever home and that meant I could finally make some forever friends. Or so I thought. The town we moved to was Brighton, a miserable run down looking place. The first thing I saw when I got here was a man being dragged off by raccoons. I'd always thought they were cute but that just gave me the shivers and I wasn't sure I could look at a racoon the same way ever again.
But I did what I always did when things looked bad, I put on my patented Molly McGee smile and started looking for the bright side of things. If I was going to enhapify this new town I'd have to enhapify myself first. It didn't help when we pulled up to our new house that Dad called a real fixer upper and my brother Darryl later called "a dump" when our parents weren't listening. It was cool that we could fix this place up though, we could put in our own little personal touches right?
I immediately rushed off to my room in the attic trying to convince myself of that while I beat away loads of cobwebs I'd have thought the real estate company would have cleaned out before we got here. The emptiness of the place and the cobwebs combined to give the attic a somewhat spooky appearance, the kind of place where you might run into a ghost. That would give me something interesting to talk about in a couple days when I started my first day of school wouldn't it? It's always hard coming to a new school, even at the start of the year friend groups were often already established sometimes from kindergarten and it was hard for a brand new person to find a place to fit in. Being "the girl who lived in the haunted house" would make me more interesting I thought. It could help me get into one of cliques that had undoubtedly formed already before I'd moved here. And maybe the ghost could be my first friend in this new town. But I wasn't that lucky, no new ghost friend for me.
Other than the lack of ghosts everything was going fine until I woke up the next Monday for my first day of seventh grade in our new town. When I woke up I was practically in a panic about starting school. I didn't want my little brother teasing me or my parents worried about me so I tried to give myself one of my patented Molly McGee pep talks to cheer myself up. It didn't work as well as it usually did but at least I was able to put on my cheerful demeanor and greet the day with a smile. No one at breakfast noticed that my stomach was a churning ball of acid. Come on Molly, you know people usually warm up to you pretty quickly. Just don't come on too strong and let them get used your chipper charm!
My heart was beating quickly in my chest and my mouth super dry as I stood in front of the class to introduce myself. It didn't help that with everyone staring at me I got to stare at everyone else and notice there were a few cute boys in my class. And some cute girls too, especially a girl near the back of the class with long dark hair. Even more distracting was the stare, what felt like a very interested stare but I was probably reading too much into it, of the blue haired girl in the front row. She didn't need the hair dye or the absolutely perfect makeup straight out of a Metube tutorial to get attention, not in my opinion anyway. Sweet baby corn she was pretty! Even from where I was standing I could see the cute little freckles under her light brown eyes. The eyes I should probably stop staring into. God she probably thought I was a creep for staring at her too long. Why was she still staring at me and smiling?
It didn't matter. I was still too nervous to actually do anything about the knowledge that I liked girls, even more nervous that I was about boys really, but I'd gotten over denying that I did actually like girls last year. Gotten over it a bit too late really. I'd told my friend I didn't know what to say when she said she wanted us to be girlfriends not just girls who were friends. I think it hurt her when I took so long to figure out that I wanted to say yes, that I wanted that too and had just been too scared to admit it or I probably would have said it first. The day I realized that was the day Dad told us we were moving.
I needed to focus. I could worry about romance later, right now I had to worry about not making a fool out of myself or somehow becoming the school reject. I tore my gaze away from the girl in the front row and began the speech I'd been rehearsing all week end. I'd given the same speech at so many schools over the years that I probably didn't need to rehearse it but it helped me keep calm while I was waiting for the first day to start.
"If there's one thing you need to know about me it's that..." I announced boldly to the class, taking a dynamic step forward for a little pizazz intending to tell them how much I looked forward to making friends in class. Instead my foot landed on something slick and I started sliding across the floor. Attempting to keep my balance sent me all over the room nearly crashing into several students. I tried my best to recover.
"I like to dance?" I felt like that had come out quizzical but I think the spin I threw in when I came to a stop helped sell it. The class actually applauded me, I don't think they realized I'd messed up. The pretty girl in the front row hadn't taken her eyes off me yet. Obviously that didn't mean anything, right? Or maybe I had something on my face. But she started clapping slowly and dramatically.
"Brava!" she exclaimed warmly. "Andrea Davenport. Social influencer, future disruptor, and Brighton Middle School's official good will ambassador." She offered her hand to shake but pulled it back to sweep her long beautiful hair back before I could take it. The applause for her was sudden and startling. Was she some kind of local celebrity? Now that I thought about it I had seen her face on a few signs around town.
She asked me to join her on the stage for the new school year celebration. And that's when I made possibly the worst mistake of my life. "Thanks, that would be incredible Andrea." Anne-drea I pronounced it. The way I'd usually heard the name pronounced. Not Ahn-drea as she had pronounced it. I was too absorbed in her eyes to think before I spoke.
The reaction in the class was super dramatic for what felt like such a small mistake. She giggled, a little tensely though, and corrected my pronunciation. Hoping to smooth it over I timidly asked "Isn't that what I said?"
"No." was the cold reply. "You said Anne-drea."
I apologized and she replied, her voice warm again, "Oh honey, it's fine. It's your first day. Forgive and forget."
"Thank you Andrea, that's really nice of you." I said, pronouncing it correctly this time. And that's when I got so nervous I put my foot in my mouth. I second guessed myself and took several attempts to get it right mispronouncing it a new way each time. I think I invented some of those new pronunciations.
Her pretty face twisted up in rage and she started grinding her teeth. I think if the teacher hadn't had me take my seat "Before I made anything worse." she might have hit me. The entire class turned against me at that point. A cute girl with red glasses even calling me a monster. A little extreme I felt, it had just been an accident and me overthinking myself trying to not make it again. I felt bad enough as it was.
My seat was next to the cute, somewhat sad looking, dark haired girl in the back row who whispered to me so the teacher wouldn't catch her talking in class that someone had made the same mistake as me back in first grade. A bright eyed girl full of hope named Libby. From then on that girl was "an outcast, shunned by respectable society."
Obviously I had to ask what had happened to the poor girl, only to discover that this sad looking girl was the Libby of her story. And that she didn't want me to get too close to her because she thought she was starting to wear Andrea down.
The rest of my day went downhill from there. I got Darryl to get me some quality cupcakes so I could hand them out and try to make friends - I don't know how he managed to get a bunch of store bought cupcakes on short notice without leaving the school and I knew better than to ask. If I don't know I'm not incriminated. Not making that mistake again. A few people took them because hey, free cupcakes! But as soon as Andrea walked by they spit them out and walked off. Andrea just smirked at me. She smirked! She knew she had this whole school in the palm of her hand and she enjoyed it.
At lunch I thought I'd found some people who would let me sit with them, but the second they saw Andrea walking by they all scooted away like they thought I might be contagious. And maybe I was, with the social plague known as being a loser. Again she smirked at the control she had over them, and through them over me.
In gym we played dodgeball and I thought things might be going my way after I avoided the entire other team focusing on me. Then Andrea gave another gosh danged smirk and I was pelted by a second barrage of dodgeballs. From my own team. And apparently even the teachers just do whatever Andrea wants because despite the obvious violation of the spirit of the sacred rules of the game of dodgeball the gym teacher Mr. Bates declared me out. Even my homeroom teacher Miss Lightfoot would turn around and walk the other way rather than risk Andrea seeing her with me.
I even got smacked in the face with a locker door. To be honest I think that was probably an accident. But the part where no one helped even though I'm pretty sure I lost consciousness for a few minutes wasn't. Or the fact that the money I had on me for snacks was gone when I woke up.
Just before the school assembly at the end of the day I found myself in the ladies room trying to give myself a pep talk. It wasn't easy after such a terrible day that was clearly going to end in me making zero friends. But no matter how I felt I couldn't try to make my family move away from our forever home. I didn't make any friends today but that didn't mean I couldn't make any tomorrow. Or the day after. Or the day after that. If I kept trying I was sure one day I'd be able to make a friend in Brighton. Like a girl I'd befriended when we lived for a few months in a little town in Connecticut called Gravesfield had told me "Nothing will work unless you make it work."
Needless to say after the way everything had gone I was not hosting the assembly with Andrea. I sat through it barely paying attention while I tried to think of new ways to make friends in town (and maybe spent too much time staring at Andrea again. She might have been the reason everyone in school was treating me the way they were but she was still so so pretty.). I still managed to catch that mixed in with the talk about what a great school year we were going to have she mixed in some vague comments that didn't name me but were clearly about me and how I was the worst of the worst. The day had been awful but that meant the next day and the days after that could only get better right?
Wrong. The ostracization and bullying got worse. And there was probably more that went over my head. I mean it took me hours to realize the guy who was loudly talking about wanting to "do some Molly" was making a drug reference and until the next day to catch the sexual innuendo and be creeped out. I'm sure there was more along those lines that I was maybe a little too innocent to catch. There wasn't a lot of innocence to go around at Brighton middle school other than me from what I could tell.
After the first week I'd settled on bringing a sack lunch to school every day, the lunch lady in the cafeteria would often serve me less than she did the other kids with Andrea giving her a warm smile and then smirking at me if she noticed it, and most days I couldn't make it to a table without someone tripping me and spilling my lunch on the floor anyway. Darryl noticed of course. It was impossible for him to not have. I'm not sure if he was convinced but I told him things weren't as bad as they looked and it was just taking some time for me to figure out how to fit in. He agreed to not tell our parents what was going on at school but said if I ever needed him to get revenge on any of the kids who were mean to me I just had to ask. I wasn't going to though. It was sweet of him to offer but if I took him up on it he would get in trouble (more trouble than usual I mean) and everyone would probably turn on him too and I couldn't do that to him.
A few more days later I gave up on trying to eat in the cafeteria with the other kids entirely. Even when I wasn't being physically bullied the other kids avoiding me stung. Maybe even worse than when they pushed or tripped me. It was almost the end of my second week when I was trying to find a quiet place to hide and eat my lunch where no one would see me that I ran into the eighth grade boy who'd commented about wanting to "do some Molly" in an empty stairwell where I had found a little alcove under the stairs I could sit in while eating my lunch.
He looked at me and grinned. Not a happy friendly I'd like to get to know you grin. The kind of grin you could imagine a wolf giving a lost little lamb.
"Molly!" He said, a false note of cheer in his voice. "I'm glad I ran into you." He looked behind him to make sure no one was coming our way that might see him chatting with me.
"You... you are?" Maybe I was being paranoid. Maybe I was just reading him wrong.
"Of course I am Molly." He said, walking towards the little alcove I was in. He was a good three, maybe four, inches taller than me with toned muscles. Someone had mentioned that he was on our schools wrestling team.
Each step he took closer to me left me feeling more like I was trapped in the little alcove. I probably could walk past him if I wanted to... but only if he didn't reach out and grab me if I tried. He... he wouldn't do something like that right? I mean it would look really bad and he would get in huge trouble and get kicked off the wrestling team wouldn't he? So I had nothing to worry about right?
"Schools been rough for you, hasn't it Moll?" I wasn't sure how I felt about him taking liberties with my name like that. Like we were friends and he had a nickname for me. I mean we didn't even know each other. I wasn't even sure what his name was. He took another step towards me.
"People here haven't really been fair to you have they?" No, not really. I agreed with him there so why did my stomach sink as he took another step my direction? "But you're such a pretty girl Moll that I was thinking I wanted to get to know you."
"Well, uh, that... that sounds like a great idea. We can get to know each other. I-I can meet up with you after school... with-with other people around... and we can get to know each other and..."
His grin shifted into a malicious looking smirk as he took another step forward, close enough now that he could reach up and brush his hand against my face. I was a very touchy feely person and when I was close with someone I loved little displays of physical affection like that, but I didn't even know this guys name and he was creeping me out.
"No need to be shy Moll. We can get to know each other right here. We've got the whole lunch period, that's enough time for me to get to know you real well."
His eyes slid over me as he said that, pausing too long at my chest where okay maybe my shirt was starting to get a little tight but it didn't seem to me like there was much there to attract attention.
"I-I'd love to..." And if he hadn't been acting the way he was and creeping me out that would have been true not just because I'm a generally friendly person but because sweet baby corn was this boy cute when he wasn't giving me that creepy little smirk and making me feel trapped in a stairwell. "But I-I've got to go. I need to... I need to find a teacher because..." I stepped past him trying to figure out how I could continue that sentence without implying (truthfully) that I was scared of him and was going to a teacher for help. Before I could take a second step he grabbed my arm and painfully yanked me back into the little alcove.
"Don't be a fucking bitch Moll." He said with a hard edge in his voice before letting the false cheerfulness creep back in. "I'm just trying to be friendly with you. You don't have a lot of friends right now, can you afford to just throw away my offer of friendship and getting to know each other?"
His free hand began to trace it's way gently up my stomach. In a different situation it could have felt pleasant, but my heart pounding in terror and his tight painful grip on my arm the sensations it sent through my body were just confusing.
"help." I'd tried to shout but it came out practically a whisper. In response he just laughed scornfully.
"Help? Do you think anybody in this fucking shithole of a school, anybody at all, gives enough of a shit about you to help you? No one here cares about you Moll. Except me. I just want to get to know you better." His free hand made its way to my chest, his thumb brushing over my nipple. "A lot better. Don't you want to get to know me?"
The gentle brush of his thumb over my nipple sent a rush of confusing sensations through my body. Most of me was terrified, things were escalating fast and completely out of my control. Other parts just saw a cute boy who was interested in me when no one else at school would speak to me and those parts wanted to get to know him very very well. As I was wrestling with what those parts might say about the kind of person I am the door to the stairwell opened and my homeroom teacher Miss Lightfoot walked in. Her eyes landed on us. "Hel..." I managed to get out at a volume obviously loud enough for her to hear before she turned on her heel and left. "p." I finished dispirited.
"What did I tell you Moll. Nobody. Fucking. Cares. I don't want to hurt you Moll. But if you don't play nice I will." I closed my eyes and felt a tear trickle down my cheek. They flew open again almost instantly as I heard the door open. Had Miss Lightfoot come back? Maybe she'd gone to get more help and come back with them...
Instead of my homeroom teacher I saw an attractive blonde girl about my age with a ponytail and green eyes. She looked at me and the boy nonchalantly. It was obvious I was sure what was happening here but if she cared you couldn't tell from her face. "Let her go Ben." She said calmly. Maybe I was wrong about her, she was here sticking up for me after all...
"What the fuck Penny?" The boy, Ben apparently, snarled at her. "What do you care? I'm just trying to get to know the new girl."
"I don't. But Andrea told me to get her and she wants her right now. You've got all year to 'get to know her', I'm sure you can wait a bit longer." And there went my hope of being saved. What Ben was doing to me apparently wasn't over, just postponed. Assuming Ben listened anyway.
"Come on Pen, can't you just tell Andrea you couldn't find her? Do you really have to blue ball me here?"
"You know Andrea Ben. She gets what she wants, do you want to deal with her not getting her way?" The girl, Penny, sighed. "Look, Andrea's making one of her special videos for her subscribers this weekend. The plan was for it to just be me in it solo but I bet I could talk her into it being me and you again. That video was really popular. I'll even let you put it there again and I won't complain this time."
I really really hoped I was misunderstanding what she was saying because I was pretty sure I kind of understood what she was talking about and I really didn't want to understand it if I was right.
"I don't know Pen, I kinda like it when you complain about it."
She rolled her eyes at him. "I'm sure you do. Pervert. So, does Andrea get what she wants or do we have to put up with a tantrum from the princess again?"
"Yeah, whatever." He let go of my arm as he answered. I thought about trying to run but I was pretty sure one or both (Penny looked kind of athletic herself) could catch me if I tried and then things would get even worse. At least it was getting me away from Ben, and I was being brought to another girl not a boy so what was the worst that could happen?
I rubbed my arm wondering if I was going to have a bruise where he grabbed me and followed along behind Penny who ignored me until we reached the door to the girls locker room and gestured for me to go in. I wasn't really sure why Andrea wanted to meet me in the girls locker room... a private place where she wouldn't be seen talking to me I guess... but I walked in. I didn't really feel like I had much of a choice.
When I walked in Andrea was pacing around like a caged animal. impatient, angry, frustrated, but I had no idea why. She looked up as I entered her face an unreadable mix of conflicting emotions. "An... Ahndrea?" I made sure of my pronunciation before continuing. "I'm sorry about what happened my first day, okay? I didn't mean to make you mad and I wasn't doing it on purpose but I'm sorry. I don't know what else I can do or... or say. I'm just, I'm really sorry... I"
"McGee." She cut me off angrily. "I don't want to hear it. You. Are. The. Worst. You're... you're infuriating. With your... your stupid optimism all the time! Your perkiness! Your 'I just want everyone to be happy!'" She mimicked my voice, not a bad impression actually. She grabbed me by the shoulders and shoved me into the locker, hard. I didn't bother to resist stunned by the unexpected tirade.
"I. Can't. Stand. You. McGee." She snarled at me, her face close to mine. Close enough that if she leaned in just a little bit more, or if I leaned forward, that we would be kissing. I held my head very still irrationally tempted to take that tiny step, that miniscule motion that would make our lips meet. There's no way on earth that could possibly help the crazy situation I was in right now no matter how much I wanted to do it.
The way she was staring into my eyes was not helping with the crazy ideas floating through my mind right now. The tirade over, for now it seemed, she said much more quietly, her voice so low I was sure I must have misheard her because what I'd heard didn't make any sense. "So why can't I get you out of my mind?"