Life Of A Bitch

7

Aiden stares at me. "Really?"

Dammit dammit dammit. This is what I dreaded. I look around the table at the guys and the girls, their expressions plainly saying, "Why?"

It took me the whole length of the first half of school, that is, until lunchtime to clean Brandon's locker and scrub it till it shone. By the time I put the garbage back in the dustbins, people started appearing in the halls. And they stared at me like I had gone senile.

"Why is she cleaning Brandon's locker?" I heard many whisper.

Because I dirtied it, idiots.

And just as I expected, pictures of me with trash-bags flooded people's inboxes and the sentence, "Jennifer is cleaning Brandon's locker!!!" spread like wildfire. And walking into the cafeteria, to my lunch table and finding everyone looking at their phones and saying, "OMG what?!" is clearly what I pictured.

"When I got to know that you fucked up Lancaster's locker, I was impressed." Aiden says, checking his phone again, to confirm the girl in the picture is me. "Though, you did it by mistake, you did a good job."

"But you cleaned his locker?" Lana asks, mystified.

"This is just a rumour, probably started by Brandon to avenge his locker," Stephanie states, peering into her phone. "It can be any photo of yours, edited to make you look pouring trash into trash bags."

"The editing is too good to be real," Evan argues. "It looks like a real photo!"

"Lancaster has got many techie friends who are brilliant at this," Nathan counters. "Photoshop makes it quite easy to edit a photo."

"I don't find it that easy." Anita says, and starts kissing Isaac again.

"Because you are not a computer nerd." Stephanie barks.

"Calm down, babe." Nathan pats her back.

Just tell them it's you. You don't care what they think, so it shouldn't be a problem.

But I have to act I care and I will need a good reason as to why I did this.

"It is me." I say. I expect pin-drop silence around the table. Not quite.

"First of all, you guys are dumb," Stephanie snaps at Lana and Anita. "Photoshop is quite easy and I photoshop myself into the dress I am buying online every time to see if I look good."

"Yeah but every photoshopped picture leaves some trace- like, when you look at a photoshopped picture, you instantly think, 'Oh, it's photoshopped'." Anita roars.

"Anita, keep your voice down?" Lana whispers. "And yes, I agree with Anita?"

"Steph, calm down." Nathan begins. "It's okay-"

"It's me!" I yell. "Yes! I cleaned Lancaster's locker!"

Six faces stare at me. No, five, as Anita is huffing and exhaling as if to say, 'Told you!'. But unfortunately, it looks like she's having an asthma attack.

"But why?" Aiden asks, frowning.

Reason no. 1. Lancaster blackmailed me that he would complain to the principal and get me suspended if I don't clean his locker and so I cleaned it up. No way. Brandon and Aiden would get into a fight.

Reason no. 2. Lancaster muttered something in front of me about getting me suspended if I did not clean his locker and so, I got scared and cleaned it up. No. Aiden will still pick a fight with Brandon, considering that he loved fights, not me and would not listen to what I say.