Derrick was working on his college admissions when the doorbell rang. The sound made him groan in annoyance. He was so close to finishing and finally getting all of his applications sent out. But since dad was out of town visiting his grandfather and his mom was having a girls night out, he was stuck with being the person who had to answer the door. With an annoyed groan he got out of his seat by the kitchen table and walked his way to the door and opened it. He was quite surprised once he did so to see Amanda Kirch on the other side of the door.
Derrick knew who Amanda was of course. Everyone at school did. She was the head cheerleader and undisputed queen bee of all the important social circles at school. Add to that the fact that she was the long term girlfriend of Jordan, the best quarterback this school had ever had and you had a girl who could either rocket someone's school standings, or ruthlessly destroy it however she liked. The fact that she had shown up here, at his house, was therefore a very bad sign. Especially since Derrick could guess why she was here. It was about what had happened in chemistry class.
The incident itself had occurred about a month ago. They'd all been working on the lab assignment that Ms. Heller had assigned them when Amanda and her best friend Sarah had had the idea that it'd be really funny if they poured the contents of their beaker on Derrick's head. Derrick at that moment had been carefully looking at his own beaker to make sure that all the ratios were correct when he suddenly felt a bunch of liquid pouring onto his head, followed by the laughter of Amanda and Sarah before a burning sensation caused him to start screaming.
The next thing he knew, Ms. Heller had grabbed his arm and ran him over to the chemical wash in what he could assume would have been a world record if anyone had actually timed it. After she'd poured who knew how much water over him, he'd spent the rest of the day in the school infirmary being checked out to make sure everything was okay.
Fortunately the chemicals themselves had been mostly benign, so ultimately no true harm had been done, though he'd discovered that it had bleached his hair, leaving patches of white along his normally black hair, a permanent reminder of his humiliation.
For their part, Amanda and Sarah had been suspended for a month. Ms. Heller of course had wanted them expelled, but Amanda's boyfriend Jordan had threatened to sit out the next game, which just so happened to be the big rivalry game with their longtime nemesis, the Central High Cougars. Since Jordan was literally the only chance they had of winning that game the principal had decided not to call his probable bluff. Instead he'd downgraded what Amanda had done to reckless carelessness. Since it was officially classified as an accident now, they could get away with only suspending the two of them for a month. And of course they didn't do anything to Jordan when he beat him up the next day for telling on his girlfriend, even though he hadn't had to say anything, since she'd done it right in front of the teacher.
So here he was a month later, Amanda's suspension about to end tomorrow, and here she is in front of his door.
He had to admit that she didn't look that great. Her blonde hair had been tied back in a ponytail that fell back to her neck. That was a new look for her, though hardly shocking. What was shocking was her face. She looked wrecked, with huge bags under her blue eyes that made it seem like she hadn't gotten much sleep in the last month. She'd applied some make-up to hide this, but with her being this close to him, he couldn't help but notice what she'd done.
Add to that her outfit. She was wearing a long sleeve sweater that was far too big for her, covering up her body and leaving her top half looking more frumpy than sexy. In addition, rather than one of the short skirts she generally went with, she'd instead gone with incredibly baggy jeans, The overall effect seemingly being to hide as much of her body as she possibly could. Of course the thing that Derrick noticed most of all was the fact that she looked absolutely pissed. She was staring at him with a look in her eyes of pure murder. Derrick had no idea exactly what she was pissed off about, but he knew it couldn't be good for him. "Umm, hi?" he said, not knowing what to say to not set her off.
Amanda just glared at him for a few more seconds before responding. "I told Jordan about what you did," she said, through clenched teeth.
Obviously this confused Derrick, since, while he'd had stuff done TO him, he himself hadn't done anything. "Wait wait," he replied while moving his hands up to his chest in a symbolic gesture.
Amanda however practically jumped backwards when she saw his hands move. It was then that Derrick saw it. It was only for a moment, but just as she finished jumping back, he saw it in her face. Amanda was terrified. But as quickly as that look appeared on her face, Amanda regained control of herself and it was gone. She looked back at him and shouted, "Just fix this or else!" Then she turned around and retreated back to her car as fast as she could without appearing to be running away from him and drove off. Derrick just watched this whole scene in stunned silence, before finally closing his door again and collapsing on the ground.
Okay, so this was very bad. Clearly someone had done SOMETHING to Amanda, either as revenge for what she did to him or, more likely, knowing that he'd take the blame for whatever they'd done. The worst part of this was that even if he could fix whatever it was that had been done to her, he had no idea what exactly it was. Logically, looking at this, Derrick could only come to one conclusion.
He was fucked.
Amanda was back in the chemistry room, reliving that day all over again. Her hands were on two of the vials of chemicals she was supposed to be using for their experiment. In front of her she could see Derrick standing there, carefully pouring his own chemicals into the beaker in front of him. He was always so careful in getting all the details right, it was just one of the many things she adored about him.
Amanda had always loved Derrick. Ever since she was a little girl when she and Sarah had decided to peek on the boys as they were changing for swim class and she'd happened to spot Derrick there, changing. She'd been mesmerized by the sight of him, so much so that she'd lost track of her surroundings and had almost gotten caught. Ever since then, when she'd gotten a tiny peek under Derricks clothes, she'd wanted more.
It hadn't helped that every part of his personality was seemingly tailor made to make her fall more and more in love with him. The only problem was his standing around everyone else. Derrick was little more than a geek, who was actively ignored whenever he wasn't being bullied. Amanda herself didn't care about any of that, but she knew that if she confessed her feelings to him, it would only end up with her being ostracized along with him. So she pretended she had no real interest in him, even going so far as dating Jordan in the hope that going out with the quarterback would somehow force her to come to her senses.
It didn't.
Instead her desire for him had just grown with every passing day. So she'd come to this, one last desperate ploy. She'd known that he was being bullied, but she'd never said anything about it, for fear not just of her own standing, but that if Jordan found out why she was protecting Derrick he'd go after him in a rage.
But, while she'd not stopped his bullying, she also hadn't taken part in it, at least, not till now. Maybe, she thought, if she pulled a little prank on him, this would be what it took to make her get over him. To forget him.
The moment she heard his scream, she knew she'd fucked up. The chemicals were supposed to be safe, but somehow they'd hurt him. She'd hurt him. Before she could come to grips with what she'd done, Miss Heller had grabbed him and rushed him to the chemical wash station.
The rest of the day had been a blur. She had been taken to the principal's office and he'd had some choice words to say to her, but she didn't hear any of it. All she could hear was the sound of Derrick, the man she loved more than anything, screaming out in pain from what she had done to him.
