Grasping

Chapter One
Melina cursed under her breath as the itchy fabric of her lace thigh highs slid downward, widening the offensive space between her stockings and her very short paten leather skirt.

In the far back of the classroom, Hannah Foster sat all agape, examining the older girl. Though Hannah tended to carefully scrutinize every minute detail of Melina’s ensemble, today she hardly had to grasp for reasons to insult Melina.

“That’s really sexy,” Hannah whispered sarcastically to her lab partner, who was routinely ignoring every word she said.

Irritated, Hannah grabbed one of Rennie’s strawberry blonde pigtails to pull her away from her furious note taking. Rennie groaned, but looked up anyway. “Sorry,” she hissed, as quietly as possible. “But I kind of think passing Physics is more important than trying to determine whether or not some whore you don’t like is wearing underwear today.”

Hannah backed away in irritation, wordlessly mocking her friend. “You’ve got a B!” she shrieked. “That’s amazing.”

Rennie scrunched her nose as if she had just driven past the most rancid road killed skunk ever to brighten a highway. “Yeah,” Rennie spat. “I have a B! Do you know how hard I’ve worked to maintain a 4.0? And it’s all going to be ruined over this damn Physics class.”

“Yeah, but this is an honors class, don’t forget,” Hannah said. “B’s are weighted to be equal to…”

Rennie shook her head. “It’s not the same! Colleges don’t weight your grades.”

“You’re being way too hard on yourself,” Hannah said. “I mean, you shouldn’t even be in Physics, honors or not. You’re a sophomore!”

Rennie’s attention quickly returned to scribbling down the tiniest, most perfect handwritten notes in the most abnormally bulky notebook Hannah had ever seen.

Hannah rolled her eyes, obviously bored. “I can’t believe you took Chemistry over the summer! Don’t you have anything better to do? Like maybe sleep in? Or flirt a bit?”

Rennie sighed. “I don’t have time for those things,” she hissed. “Most men piss me off anyway.”

Hannah reached into her purse for a rubber band to tie back her messy, knotted hair into a ponytail. Her wide, cheek-heavy face was not much improved by the lack of hair to hide it. As the girls argued, Melina continued to slither in her front row seat. In a few more moments, her long red fingernails shot into the air.

“What, Melina?” the stout teacher demanded.

Melina’s voice was shrill, yet somehow a bit deeper than that of most girls her age. “May I be excused?” she asked, the sharpness of her voice drowning out any thought that dared to negate Melina’s attempts to remain the cynosure.

“Fine,” the teacher said. “Whatever.”

Melina slowly slid out of her seat, making sure to have a slight wardrobe malfunction involving her skirt. Her five-inch heels did very little to assist the situation.

“She really isn’t wearing underwear,” Rennie said, flinching under her breath.

Hannah shook her head. “There’s probably a thong in there somewhere.”

Shaking her head, Rennie glanced back up at the overhead to find that the slide had changed, and she no longer had any idea what was going on. Frustrated, she threw her pencil onto the table.

“You know, I didn’t take Honors Physics to listen to you ponder whether or not Melina’s wearing underwear,” Rennie hissed.

Rennie was still frantically scribbling down notes when the final bell rang, announcing the school day had ended. “Great,” she said.

Hannah shook her head. “Relax. I really don’t get why you worry so much about homework. You’re sixteen. You’re supposed to be blowing stuff like this off and worrying about important things like having an actual social life.”

The teacher stopped the two girls as they were making their way out the door. “I’m sorry you feel that way, Hannah,” she said. “I’m glad that attitude’s working for you. Your grade certainly shows it.”

Rennie sighed. “Hannah,” she practically snapped. “Everything I do is to get out of this part of the country. I want to be in a mature environment where parties are about more than how drunk you can get, and relationships are about more than whether or not you’ll blow a guy.”

Hannah shook her head. “Places like that don’t exist, Rennie,” she said seriously. “You’re dreaming.”

“Perhaps,” Rennie said. “Perhaps we all are, at this age. But when I wake up, I want to find myself doing something better than popping out my high school boyfriend’s children because I never bothered to find out if there was anything more to life.”

Hannah just rolled her eyes. “Honestly, Rennie. You make my head hurt.”

Rennie wanted to scream, but knew it would fall on deaf ears. “I’ll see you later,” she said, inwardly kicking herself.
In truth, Rennie wasn’t entirely sure that her interest in seeing Hannah later much exceeded her interest in the commitment she had made after school. After mulling over its reality in her head for quite some time, she decided she would rather blow off Melina and let the older girl say what she wanted than relive what had happened a few nights prior.

Assuming it would be business as usual with the inhabitants of the locker across the hallway from hers, Rennie wasted no time in retrieving her jacket and slamming the metal door shut, making a mad dash for her bus. If it hadn’t been for Hannah distracting her in Physics, she could have been to her locker and out of the building before the lesbian PDA ensued.

Rennie felt physically nauseous as Angela took Christine’s hands and gently started kissing her against some unsuspecting student’s locker. A sharp pain seared through Rennie’s chest as Christine ran her black nail polished fingers through Angela’s long, wavy, strawberry blonde hair. There was no way Rennie would be meeting Melina after school today.

Melina and I will never be like that, Rennie thought, disgusted. “Gay” didn’t happen to nice girls, girls who dressed in designer clothes and styled their hair before they came to school, Rennie decided as she started to walk away. Angela and Christine seemed like the type of girls who would do anything for attention. After a while, decent men would surely come along to claim them both.

Determined, Rennie pulled her cell phone out of her purse to cancel her plans with Melina. But just as she started to dial Melina’s number, she noticed that the older girl was standing a few feet away Rennie’s locker, pretending to be looking for something in her purse. The two girls had developed a sort of routine for speaking to each other, in which Rennie would go about her business, completely ignoring Melina, until Melina found an indiscreet reason to stop Rennie in her tracks. Sometimes Melina “needed” something simple like homework help or a dollar or two for cookies at lunch. On increasingly rare occasions, she needed something more substantial. Though Rennie didn’t quite comprehend the need for such theatrics, the two girls had reached a sort of unspoken understanding that if one of them stopped playing along, they would both be screwed over by some mysterious force that had been judging them long before they even acted on the thoughts they shared.

Starting to get impatient, Rennie dropped her backpack onto the fake tile floor to facilitate donning a heavy winter coat, black and white gloves, and a rather dorky matching hat. How long was Melina going to make her stand there?

For as much grief as Rennie wished upon Angela and Christine, she would almost have preferred to have Melina pounce on her, right in the middle of the hallway, and finish whatever it was she had meant to start, rather than stand at the far end of the hallway, giving Rennie that intense stare that never failed to make her feel a bit more vulnerable than she appreciated.

Rennie shook her head, and decided to leave without speaking to the older girl. Melina had no right to keep her hanging like this, and Rennie had no reason to stick around. But just as her gloved hand reached for the doorknob leading to the student parking lot, Melina finally caught up to her.
“Where are you going?” Melina practically spat.

A giant cyst of stress, anger, and hurt exploded within Rennie’s small, skinny body, wreaking havoc on her nerves. Reluctantly, she turned to face Melina, her heart pounding fear, dread, craving, and lustful nausea through her lanky frame. “Wh…what?” Rennie choked, barely able to breathe.
Melina’s thick black eyelashes lowered slightly over her eyes as her darkly painted lips pouted in frustration. “You were supposed to meet me after school,” she snapped.

Drawing in a breath, Rennie’s eyes frantically spun anywhere they could, as if she expected a hero to jump out of nowhere and rescue her from this awkward situation. “I would have,” Rennie lied, “but I’m really not doing so hot in Physics.”

Placing one hand on her hip, Melina laughed almost villainously. “You’re so young, darling,” she said softly.
Irritated, Rennie made her way out the door. “I’m going to miss my bus,” she said sharply, as if this had any importance to Melina.

Looking out the door revealed the irrelevance of this statement. “Too late,” Melina said. “Come on,” she said, cocking her head toward the door. “I’ll give you a ride.”

Rennie wanted to scream, but her throat became a desert as she made her way out the door. Had she been rational, she would have made it clear to Melina that there was no way in Hell she was going anywhere with her. But what exactly were Rennie’s options? She lived twenty minutes away from the school, and her parents weren’t likely to be home until late. There was no way she was sitting on the curb like a lost puppy until six or seven p.m. for her parents to rescue her and lecture me about missing the bus. She supposed she would have to brave whatever abuse Melina planned to deliver.

“You so did that on purpose,” Rennie said bitterly.

“Would you rather walk?” Melina asked.

Deciding this was not the better option, Rennie nervously climbed into the older girl’s beat up ’88 Toyota.

After several minutes of sitting in silence with her arms folded at her chest, Rennie finally spoke. “I don’t like what we’re doing,” she said frankly.

Melina shrugged. “Okay.”

“Is that all you’re going to say?” Rennie asked. “I don’t want to do it anymore. It was bad enough being your underclassman make-out buddy, and I definitely don’t want to be your sex toy.”

Melina smiled cruelly. “Then why did you sign up for musical after I did?” she demanded. “Why did you keep showing up after I made you stay late at a crew meeting and kissed you? Why did you go with me into the props closet all those times and let me feel you up?”

Rennie sighed, unable to look up at the older girl. “I always thought I could stop anytime I wanted to,” she said. “But I think after last Saturday, I really can’t believe that anymore.”

Melina shook her head. “For someone who uses you for sex, I really do put your needs before my own, wouldn’t you say?”

Rennie blushed angrily, not wanting to remember what had happened last Saturday. “I never said it was okay for you to do it,” she said irately.

“You didn’t have to,” Melina said softly. “You let me do it, and when I tried to stop you begged me.”

“Fine,” Rennie said hotly. “I did,” she admitted. “I was stupid, and I’m sorry. I don’t want to do it anymore. Even if no one ever finds out, I don’t want to be the girl who sneaks off with a girl she barely knows, gets fucked, and goes right back to putting makeup on actors as if nothing happened. You’re the first person to ever kiss me, let alone touch me there and I’m better friends with the lunch ladies than I am with you.”

Melina shrugged and shook her head. “Call me when you grow up,” she said coldly, as she finally pulled into Rennie's driveway. “I’ll be waiting.”