Part 8

“I’m not afraid of you, California. That *is* where you came from, right?”

Mr. Williams's tone became instantly lighter, and his angry expression had traded places with a shifty smile. Like that afternoon in the hallway, he was switching tactics again. Nicholas searched his face, trying to stay on stable ground. *Where are you going with this one, Jake?*

“California, right around LA. Isn’t that right?”

“How do you know this?”

“Oh, I have my ways.” His teeth flashed a blinding white as Mr. Williams’s lips pulled back in a sneer. “Your mom, your dad, and you. A real Leave it To Beaver kind of set up.”

For some reason, Roxanne got the notion that she should stop listening. Her heart joined her gut in ringing the panic alarm.

“You had a girlfriend too, right? Isabel…something or other.”

“Wait…stop. Don’t go any further.” The hard, sharp blue inside Nicholas’s eyes was strong. Strong and clear.

“At least, that’s what the newspapers said. After she died.”

*Touché, Nicholas.* Jake Williams felt the ball traveling back into his court. His plan was starting to work. It had taken a little longer then expected, but he was going to cut this boy straight down the middle. The man could already see, from Nicholas’s expression, that the knife was starting to draw blood.

“A terrible tragedy. Her and your father, both. You were driving, as I recall. Kinda hard to see the road when you’re fighting with a girlfriend, huh?” Mr. Williams let out a chuckle that could have frozen over Hell’s Inferno. “Too bad they hadn’t invented passenger side air bags, yet.”

“*Stop*."

The hardness in Nicholas’s eyes was shimmering in and out of focus. Another emotion was fighting to break his still features. His voice tried as hard as it could to stay even.

“And your dear old Dad, well, he wasn’t even wearing a *seatbelt* back there, was he? They both died a couple days later, in the same hospital. You, on the other hand, only had a few scratches and a broken wrist...isn’t that right?” The teacher rubbed his own wrist as he spoke, throwing Nicholas a mock miserable expression. “Mom said she never blamed you for hitting that tree, and so did the town. But they kind of lied, didn’t they?”

Roxanne felt something collapse inside her as Nicholas’s chin quivered. His teeth clenched together and his eyes gave one final effort at staying angry. But he had to blink, and when he did, a small drop of water slid down his cheek. It rested on his jawbone, sparkling in the florescent light.

Her White Knight’s eyebrows went up, giving an expression of such deep regret and pain that Roxanne felt her own set of tears threaten to break free.

His eyes were unguarded again, wide and open like a child who had just been slapped. The hardness was gone, replaced with nothing but an incredible ache. Nicholas closed them for a moment and swallowed. He flinched as he did and touched his throat. Even swallowing seemed to cause him pain.

“Please…”

“Please what?” Mr. Williams leaned back on his heels, crossing his arms over his chest and watching the boy’s pain with glee. “Please stop telling you the truth? About how you and Mom eventually had to move because no one trusted you anymore? How they pointed fingers, whispered behind your back, how Isabel What’s-her-name’s parents stopped talking to you?”

It seemed as though Nicholas’s energy was draining with every word Mr. Williams said. All he could do was swallow and take the mental beating.

“So after six months, you had to move. And where did you and Mom set up shop? Bernhide, New Hampshire. We’re about as far as you can get from LA, aren’t we? No one could possibly trace your past here. And that’s why Mom’s training to be a parametric, so the next time you crash that car of yours, she might be able to save the person you injure-“

“That’s not true…”

His voice was uncharacteristically soft, and at the end of the sentence Nicholas’s voice broke.

“But you couldn’t help sticking out, could you? Just *had* to get that silver convertible, just *had* to make friends with another girl, just *had* to drive her home…and you know what the next part to this cycle is? Just *have* to hit that tree.”

“I was going to trade it in…” Nicholas swallowed again, shutting his eyes until the sentence was finished. “I was going to get another car, one that didn’t…stick out.”

Roxanne sucked in her breath.

*“Red or black? Should I trade this baby in for another color?”

“Your car? No…I like it this way.”

“Yeah?”

“Why would you want to trade this in?”

“Just because…I think it kinda sticks out.”*

Out in the parking lot of the school…Nicholas had wanted to take his car back, get another one, one that wasn’t so flashy –

And she had convinced him not to.

*… “Just because…I think it kinda sticks out…”*

She was the reason Mr. Williams had found out about Nicholas’s past. If she had just let him think for himself he would have gotten that new car. Something normal, a car that wouldn’t be noticed and wouldn’t make it easy for a teacher to trace. She could have stopped this horrible thing…she could have…

“Do you know how easy it was to figure out whose car that was? Not many kids in this town on a silver convertible. You were asking for it, Nicholas.”

The boy swiped the tear away from his face and shut his eyes again, shaking his head from side to side, weakly. The pain had been pushed under the rug for so long that he hadn’t prepared for its intensity. Lost memories wrenched his soul, forgotten fear snatched his heart, and the emptiness of loss filled his entire body to the point where it nearly froze everything inside.

“So, I guess you could look at it like I’m protecting Roxanne. I mean, who’s to say that you won’t do it again?”

Nicholas opened his eyes. The hand moved away from his cheek and stayed suspended inches from his face.

“*What*?”

“I mean,” Jake Williams continued giddily, unaware of the change in Nicholas’s body language, “what if that wasn’t an accident? What if that little fight was more then a lover’s spat? What if you got so mad that all you could think of was driving that car straight into a tree?”

The hand slowly dropped to Nicholas’s side as he swallowed - this time - without flinching. “I would never hurt Isabel or my father.”

“Well, that’s what you say –“

“And I would never, *ever*, hurt Roxanne.”

With seven strong words, Roxanne’s White Knight finally jerked Mr. William’s mental sword from his heart. He threw it to the ground, ignoring the spilt blood. It was there, they both saw it, but now, Nicholas was ready to put it behind him. His injuries had to be overlooked in this battle, or he’d never win.

He understood that now. Mr. Williams had helped him. “I know what you’re trying to do” Nicholas locked eyes with his teacher, “and you almost did it, but it’s going to stop right here.”

“What am I trying to do, Nicholas?”

Jake Williams had been watching the movie of Nicholas’s emotions happily up till now. Four seconds ago it had been the best picture he had ever set eyes on, but all of a sudden, it was starting to change.

“You’re trying to distract me. You’re trying to hurt me so I’ll back down leave you alone.” The boy raised his shoulders without even thinking, shaking away the sadness and growing stronger by the minute. “You did pretty good with one. You hurt me.”

“Sometimes the truth does-“

“But,” the boy raised a finger and pointed it at Mr. Williams’s chin; “you didn’t finish the last one. I’m not backing down.” His mouth almost smiled as he lifted both palms up and sighed, “sorry.”

Through the thin crack in the door Roxanne could see Nicholas’s confident shoulders square up and that hint of a sparkle return to his eyes. She gave her own sigh and held her face between her hands, letting a tiny grin slide over it.

He was back.

In literally ten minutes man, boy, and girl had gone through more emotions then one person does a month. But they knew that if they gave up now, a terrible exhaustion would overtake their bodies and surrender the war. So each held on as best they could, bracing for the hardest part of the battle that was sure to come.

The choice of who would win, and who would lose.

“What are you saying, Nicholas?”

Jake Williams realized now that he had underestimated the blond kid. He had thought once the past was thrown at Nicholas, the boy would crumble. And he almost *had* too, *dammit, he almost had…!*

But, for some reason, Nicholas had skidded to a stop right before hitting the cliff. Why? What did he say? What had he miscalculated? Looking into Nicholas’s eyes, Mr. Willimas couldn’t understand what had gone wrong. *Shit*, he *hated* the way that kid never gave anything away. He was like one of those damn Magic Eye posters; just when you thought you saw the picture, it fuzzed out of focus and the only thing left was a brilliant confusion of color.

“I’m saying, either leave Roxanne alone, or I go to the principal and let him know how you run this class.”

“Is that a promise, or a threat?”

Nicholas backed away a little, holding out one open palm. “Take it anyway you want.”

“I’ll take it as a threat.”

“Fine.”

The boy crossed his arms over his chest and tipped his head a little, letting his blond hair cover some of his face. He was about an arm’s distance from his enemy, leaning against a wall and watching the man with a steady gaze. “So, what’ll it be? Do you leave Roxanne alone, I do I make you?”

“*Make* me?” Jake spit the words out, “make me? How are you going to make me?”

“I just told-“

“No, I mean,” the man walked up to Nicholas, “how are *you*, going to make *me*?”

The plan came to him quickly, chiming loudly inside his head. One last choice. One last attempt to win the battle. Jake knew it was a messy, chancy, and stupid option, but it was all he had left.

He was just so *sick* of Nicholas’s ability to always come out on top. The way the boy made him look inferior with just a simple smile. He hated how Nicholas had gained Roxanne’s trust so quickly, how he seemed to attract people wherever he went. How he never stopped grinning, how his strength never seemed to wear out…

But most of all, he hated how Nicholas made him feel.

Jake Williams would never tell anyone, but during the week Nicholas was in his life, he was plagued with a terrible self-loathing. The boy was the first one to show him consequences of thoughtless actions.

Before, he had never really thought about why he treated Roxanne the way he did. It was so much easier to just do it, have a little fun, forget about everything else and tell his conscience that he was Boss. When a little tingle of guilt *did* arise, the man would dismiss it quickly, shaking his head and pretending he hadn’t heard a thing.

Then blond, righteous Nicholas showed up and spoiled everything.

Watching himself doing the things he did, being forced to *understand* them, was something Jake wasn’t prepared to handle. Each day he would wake up hating himself a little more, and then hate Nicholas a little more for making him feel that way.

That’s why he really had to get rid of him. Not because the class liked him better, not because he was stronger, not even because Roxanne cared about him. It was because once Nicholas disappeared, so would the self-repugnance. He would be able to sleep again.

Would be able to look in the mirror. He missed looking himself in the eye. It was a luxury Jake wanted back, and he was prepared to do anything for it. Even this.

“You’re threatening me now.”

“So I am.”

The familiar scent of mind erasing cologne momentarily clogged Nicholas’s senses. The teacher was practically on top of him.

“Listen, you’d better back up…”

“Or what? You gonna punch me?”

“What if I did? Would it be a fair fight? Or would you get McEnzie and three of his friends to do your dirty work?”

Mr. Williams let his tongue settle on the side of his cheek. He half-sneered and slightly shook his raven-haired head. “You think I told those idiots to hurt David?”

“I know you did. Because he knew too much about me and you.”

“Well, if it makes any difference,” the sneer grew wider, “I only asked one.”

Nicholas was forced to back up a step. The man was too close. His heel hit the back of a chair leg and he stopped, fists clenched and ready. After Isabel’s death, there had been enough fights for Nicholas to know this was exactly how one started.

“I probably should have done it myself, though.” Jake lifted his hand and inspected it, turning it slowly. “I would have done a better job. Don’t you *think*?”

The punch came before Nicholas had a chance to move.

It hit him square in the face; blinding him for a minute and slamming a thudding pain across his entire head. The force of the blow knocked him backwards, and his foot became tangled in a chair. Nicholas tripped over it and hit the ground with his shoulder, holding his throbbing face in his hands.

“*Nicholas*!”

She threw open the door without even thinking, her hiding place revealed. Pushing past chairs and desks, Roxanne ran over to the fallen boy. She fell to her knees and grabbed his shoulders, sliding arm under his back to help him up.

“God…Roxanne…get out of here.”

He pushed himself up on one elbow, still holding the side of his face with one hand. Blinking, Nicholas lifted it and touched his nose, mouth and eyes lightly. Wincing at each stroke, the boy quickly looked at his fingers. No blood.

“You’re hurt…Nicholas…“

“You’ve got to get out of here before-“

Cringing, Nicholas jerked in pain as Mr. Williams kicked him in the back of his knee. “*Shit*...!” His teeth clenched in anguish and his eyes squeezed shut.

“Stop it! Stop hurting him!”

Roxanne raised her head and screamed at her teacher. Holding Nicholas in her arms, she could feel him breathe hurriedly. She could feel the tension in his neck and the thud of his chest and he tried to control the pain.

“Roxanne, stay out of this.”

The man didn’t even look at her as he bent down and grabbed Nicholas’s shirt from the back, yanking it upwards and causing the fabric to cut across the boy’s neck. Nicholas grabbed his collar and tried to pry it from his skin, gasping for air.

“Fuck *you*!”

She scrambled up, threw her hands onto his chest, and shoved Mr. Williams with all her strength.

He wasn’t ready for that.

The man lost hold of Nicholas’s shirt and fell backwards, tripping over his own feet. He hit his long, wooden desk back first, scattering paper and books everywhere as he sprawled across it. Roxanne fell with him.

“Fuck you…I hate you! *I hate you*!”

Immediately Roxanne pushed herself off the man, swiping her hair from her eyes and breathing heavily. Tears of rage mirrored her vision as she continued to scream, picking books from the floor and throwing them at Mr. Williams.

“Goddamn it!” A book hit him square in the mouth. His lip split and salty, warm blood slid onto his tongue. Swinging his legs over to the opposite side of the desk, Jake Williams jumped off, holding his mouth. He backed up to the chalkboard, put one arm over his head to shield himself and then lowered his hand so he could see how bad the damage was.

Blood soaked his fingers.

“Aw, you *bitch*! Come ‘mere…!”

The Vegas lights that had minutes before flashed a message of violence towards Nicholas suddenly turned their amps up at Roxanne. *She had split his lip!* It was time to put a stop to this defiance of him. These past couple of days she had changed - she was stronger, and he hated that. He didn’t like her anymore, didn’t like who his shy little Roxanne had become. *Fuck you too, Roxy…*

She could go to hell with Nicholas now for all he cared.

Roxanne backed up quickly, using her hands as a guide to get her through the jungle of desks and chairs. She watched the man as he started to advance toward her, mouth running red and eyes blazing the same color. He pushed his desk over to the left and went after her, throwing chairs out of his way like they were made of styrofoam. In the fall, his shirt had gotten tangled and three buttons had popped off, throwing open the white garment to the top part of his stomach. His pitch hair, always expertly gelled back, hung in strands around his face, sticking to his ears with sweat.

To Roxanne, he looked exactly like Mr. Hyde. Mr. Hyde with one thing on his monstrous mind; *punishment*.

The thought frightened her to the core.

Nicholas heaved himself up as quickly as he could, hanging onto a chair leg for support and pushing on a desk to get his bruised body in a standing position. His neck felt raw and his jaw was aching, but that didn’t matter as much as the scene he saw before him.

Roxanne was going to be hurt.

“Don’t touch me-“

“Shut up, *shut up*! I’m so sick of you saying that all the time!”

The man had backed Roxanne up against the rear wall and had his hands on her shoulders. He was gripping them hard enough to practically stop the blood flow. The girl shut her eyes and struggled, sobbing in fear and pain. Mr. Williams had a foot and about sixty pounds on her, and was using all that to his advantage. He leaned in, pushing the girl even harder into the concrete wall. Bending down a little he shoved his face right in her tear soaked one.

“How do you like it, huh? How do you like not being in control?”

She didn’t reply. Couldn’t reply. Her body was shaking with terror and the only thing her lips uttered was painful sobs. Her hair draped around her eyes, slicked to her cheeks with tears. Her clothes sagged against her skin with sweat and her knees threatened to give way. Her arms were numb.

“Get off her!”

Two strong hands grabbed Jake Williams’s shoulders and tore him off the girl, spinning him sideways into a small table. The man caught himself seconds before another fall and looked up.

Nicholas was next to Roxanne, holding her shaking body tightly against his and watching the teacher with eyes of fire. His shirt was stretched out of shape, hanging loosely across his chest. His hair was flipped to one side and his mouth worked back and forth, pure hatred harboring his ability to speak.

“Righteous Nicholas.” Jake stood up again, facing the boy and smiling strangely. The blood from his lip was smeared across his chin and a smudge of ink covered one cheek. “Always doing the right thing, aren’t you, kid? Always saving the girl without violence…is that how you work?”

“Sometimes I make *exceptions*.”

Later, Roxanne would only be able to remember it in slow motion. The door opening slowly, Nicholas’s fist rearing back, a man’s face sticking into the ransacked classroom, the collision of the boy’s hand against Mr. Williams’s mouth, the door flinging open, her teacher leaning and then falling backwards, a man’s angry voice shouting, Nicholas letting his arm fall and turning towards the yells…

And the soundtrack to this underwater film? The deafening, rapid beating of her heart against her ribs and the nauseating pounding of blood inside her temples.

“Yes, I realize that, but when Mr. Pinkel walked in there, he saw your boy throw the punch-”

Paul leaned over his desk, balancing the phone between his neck and shoulder. His hands shook slightly as he tentatively set the last of the little white creamers on top of the pyramid. The milk tower was now about a foot high, each individual cylinder balancing on top of another, and the liquid inside them swishing every time Paul Maroose touched one.

“I *realize* that, but the janitor said he *saw* Nicholas hit Jake Williams. I can’t just ignore the fact –“

The principal exhaled slowly, raising his eyes to the sky at the woman on the other line who never seemed to let him finish a sentence. As she rattled on he turned his attention back to the creamer tower, now only one space at the top vacant.

Biting his tongue in concentration, the man picked up the last white cylinder lightly between his thumb and pointer. Breathing as shallowly as he could manage, Paul lifted it towards its final destination. *Steady, man…steady…almost there –*

“What? No, certainly not – whoa…*dammit*!”

The phone slipped from his neck and tumbled off his shoulder, thumping down hard on the mahogany desk. His perfectly crafted tower of individually packaged cream servings crumbled, toppling off one another and falling onto the wooden table. Some rolled sideways, hitting books and spinning to a stop. Some swiveled over the edge and hit the ground with tiny thumps. Others, the ones that were higher up, actually split open when they came into contact with solid ground. Paul Maroose watched, helpless, as his entire lunch hour’s work spilled over papers and calendars, their light tops springing leaks and dripping over everything.

Sighing heavily, the aging man picked the phone from his desk. He clamped it against his ear and settled back into the comforting leather of his black chair.

“Mrs. H? I’m sorry, the phone…the phone slipped.”

Paul watched the cream drip onto his books as he listened to the aggravated voice on the other end. Closing his eyes, the man massaged his forehead and kicked himself for getting out of bed that morning.

“Yes, I under – I under*stand*. I know how little time you have during the day… since Nicholas *is* eighteen; you’re not really required to be there when we have the initial discussion. The only thing –“ Paul rubbed his temples, squeezing his eyes shut. *Damn, he hated talking on the phone…it gave him headaches.* “The only thing, is if Jake presses charges. If he does, things could get complicated.”

The woman talked for a while after that, fretting and frowning over the possibility of her son getting suspended or even expelled. Paul Maroose half-listened, chiming in whenever she stopped to breathe with the occasional ‘yes’ or ‘I understand’. In truth, he could really care less about this woman and her son - especially if her kid was in the habit of assaulting teachers.

“Well, I can’t guarantee he won’t be suspended…I can’t guarantee he won’t be asked to leave, either. Jake Williams is a highly respected teacher, and it’s very unlikely he did something to provoke your boy to the point of violence. But,” he quickly added, before the woman could spout off another homily, “that’s why we have the opening discussion. We like to have each person give their side of the story.”

She seemed satisfied with that reasoning, finally losing the shrill urgency to her words. The tone became softer and the woman’s sentences finally slow enough to understand as she gave a polite good-bye.

The principal did the same and hung up, grateful for the moments of silence that followed. If his head hadn’t been pounding, he might have given that lady some credit. She really seemed to want to protect her son.

That was nice, but -

There was cream all over his stuff.

So Paul Maroose quickly forgot about the worried woman, pushed her and her son out of his head and focused on cleaning his desk. As he picked up the tiny white creamers and wiped off his paper, the man shook his head. He had expected so much more from this principal deal then spending his lunch hours constructing pyramids of Half’n’Half and solving boxing matches between teachers and students.

Bending down to pick up the last of the broken creamers, the man sighed.

The magic was gone.

Roxanne stared up at her ceiling, tracing the circular designs with her eyes. Her bed was hot and uncomfortable, but she had no energy to move. She had used it all up crying.

The clock on her end table red 12:03 in loud, glowing red letters. Roxanne had gone to bed hours ago, but hadn’t been able to do anything except watch the numbers click by. Her hair felt heavy on the pillow and her brown eyes were sticky from tears. The delicate skin on the girl’s face was stained with water, and her usually smiling lips quivered with each breath.

The voices of her parents floated through her closed door. They were still arguing. Arguing about Roxanne’s ‘after school adventure’ and her appointment with the principal tomorrow.

“…that boy…never anything like this before…punched him right in the mouth…”

Her mother’s tone was accusing; Roxanne could hear its attitude up the stairs and through the wood.

She had called them from the Mr. Maroose’s office, been forced to. The principal had separated her from Nicholas and Mr. Williams after the janitor led him to English 204. They had all been dragged to the office and put into different rooms, Roxanne and Nicholas instructed to call their parents.

During the walk to the downstairs lobby, Roxanne had held onto Nicholas. She had wrapped her two hands around one of his, holding it tightly, needing his strength. He had squeezed back, looking at her quickly and venturing a small smile. His lips had turned up just enough, just enough to give her the vigor to keep walking. Mr. Williams had marched on the other side of Mr. Maroose, holding a washcloth to his nose and jaw and staring straight ahead. His expression was undetectable – not that either Roxanne or Nicholas was looking.

Right before they were thrown into the isolated rooms, the phone had rung in Mr. Maroose’s office. He had quickly excused himself for just ‘a short second’ and stepped through his glass doors.

Nicholas took that ‘short second’ to turn to Roxanne. Getting down on his heels, the boy had looked into her eyes. His hands ran up and down her shoulders softly, easing her frightened muscles, and he had gazed at her with the soothing, healing eyes of a calm sea. His shirt had hung loosely around his neck, revealing a tan chest that most certainly housed a heart of gold.

“Roxy, are you alright?”

She had nodded, wanting nothing more then to collapse against him and let him hold her tight. She had never felt safety before like Nicholas’s arms, and right then, could think of nothing else.

“I can’t believe you –“

The boy paused for a minute as Jake Williams noisily lowered himself into a chair, pressing the cloth against his nose and starting straight ahead.

“I can’t believe you actually pushed him over a desk…”

Then he had smiled. It had been so good to see that dimple again, those Crest-whitened teeth. The only thing wrong with the picture had been the dark bruise forming on one side of the boy’s cheek. And his neck. A red line snaked around the shirt line, giving evidence that Mr. Williams had caused him more pain then he was letting on.

Before she could reply, the principal had walked out of his office and motioned for Roxanne to follow him down the hall.

The last thing she had seen before the door of her isolated room closed was Nicholas, leaning on one knee, watching her and smiling.

But her parents hadn’t witnessed that. They didn’t know he had saved her from Mr. Williams that afternoon, had been saving her all week. They didn’t know he possessed a heart of gold, and hair to match. Eyes that soothed any mood, a smile that lit up the room and courage enough for the whole town. They didn’t know any of that. All they knew was that he was the reason their daughter was meeting with the principal tomorrow. And the reason a teacher had a bloody lip.

That was why Roxanne was crying in her bed, tears rolling silently down her cheeks.

They were blaming her White Knight of treason.

Part 9