** All characters in this story are of legal age. **
"Are you gonna be okay son?"
"Yeah, I got this; you go have a nice day mom."
She insisted on driving me to school a few days after I'd parted ways with Faith. I did my best to look innocuous but knew I wasn't fooling anyone. Despite appearances, she drove off to work anyway leaving me on the curb in front of my high school.
I expected it to be some sort of big deal with lots of external peer pressure and self-flagellating intimidation on my part internally, but I felt barren and empty knowing there was really nothing left inside without Faith and my presumably former best friend Ricky Arias. I vaguely remembered Hope at my bedside emotionally wrought, confessing something that sounded like gibberish through my medicated haze. Faith later informed me that Ricky's distressed older sister found herself at my bedside so distraught in the belief that our mutual incidents were the direct result of her near-nonstop continuous trolling, that she was nearly hospitalized from the grief alone.
I'd wanted to call my friend after that fact, but Faith kept my phone away knowing the probable response. Hours after getting my phone back I found this eventuality to be truth. He'd blocked me cutting me out on social media as well. I didn't have the heart to call Hope figuring he'd take it wrong if he found out. So to that end, I was now going it alone without the support and safety net of a mutual friend. I was just numb at the prospect of navigating an unforgiving world on my own. I hung back looking at some videos on my phone when I felt the odd sensation you get from being watched.
"Uhm, oh right." I mumbled as I turned finding a familiar face walking by mixed in with a crowd of her peers. Kimberly Bivens caught my eye for a fleeting moment as she passed, mouthing "Good Morning" as she disappeared into the double doors leading up into the main lobby of our high school.
Just like that I had my first taste of the immediate past with the sight of Kimberly dredging up memories of the now exiled Jay Stello. Unfortunately for the star football player, football team and the rest of the campus; Jay had been caught on multiple camera phones assaulting me from various angles. More than a few amateur filmmakers arrived late to the scene as I lay unconscious on top of Faith catching the roided out heartthrob punting my head even though I was obviously unconscious.
To say things went viral would be an understatement.
Our one sided tango on the residential street was posted on a plethora of social media sites and Facebook leaving Jay Stello to fight an uphill battle against his own reimagining as a brutish monster. The resultant videos made local news which was a boon to the opposing team our school was facing for the state championship.
The decidedly privileged students were keen and media savvy mounting a social media campaign against Jay Stello that snowballed making things so bad our principal was actively dodging reporters camped out in front of our school. The district superintendent intervened reluctantly placing Jay in homeschooling via Zoom, banning him from participating in the game.
I'd like to say the championship game was competitive, but it honestly a landslide victory for the other school. It was the first year since Jay enrolled that we were without a championship.
I knew without a doubt that I might not be the most popular guy on campus because of this. Yet, I was still numb and disassociated entering the school.
The main corridor was bustling with students milling about and I welcomed the familiar invisibility of my station going to the main office to check back into campus with my doctor's statement. The lobby was filled with various booth from the school clubs for some student fundraising.
There were a number of letterman jacketed athletes intermingled in with the crowd keeping me away from that section of the lobby as I found a seat just inside the main office door. The cheerleaders were having a bake sale as I noticed Kimberly working the cash register, visually somnambulistic. She seemed to feel my eyes studying her finding me through the deluge of people.
She looked away after a few moments ringing up some of the homemade wares for sale on the two covered foldout tables holding a nice spread of pastries and other treats. If I had to guess, I'd say it was a look of shame upon her now beautifully serpentine features. My gaze drifted to her immediate left finding another unwelcomely familiar face, Treena the humanoid jackal.
Her eyes were as wide as saucers, prominent nose and thin lips forming the letter "O" before this expression melted away into a sleazy countenance, I knew all too well. She immediately began nudging the person behind her revealing Charmaine as well pointing in my direction. The old me would've, moved out of view, but I was lethargic to the bullshit at this point.
Charmaine stared pointedly at me; her mood visually undecipherable before swatting her cohort's hand away returning to her work. Treena did a doubletake giving me the opportunity to move to the other wooden bench just inside the office door. Treena resembled a humanoid rat and I was tired of looking at her. I didn't have long to wait finding that my counselor was just as disinterested in my progress hurriedly signing me back onto campus. I walked out hands in my pockets to my locker but glanced backward at Kimberly finding her handing a bag of treats to some guy I recognized from the baseball team before giving him a kiss on the cheek.
I just shrugged walking to the first class we shared.
"Welcome back Jaleel; I trust you are doing well?" Mr. Harvey was standing just outside the classroom. For some reason, I felt like flipping him the bird.
The first thing I noticed when I walked into class was a visible seating change in regards to my two female antagonists since the Kimberly Bivens ordeal began. Charmaine was sitting in the last row towards the back of the class adjacent to the badly painted brick walls. She glanced up at me quickly looking into her text book as I found jackal Treena sitting on the opposite side of the room grinning at me and waving. If I had a pistol, she would've been in serious trouble.
"Excuse me Jaleel." Kimberly walked in behind me, her tone meek and demure as I allowed her to pass. She retained her original seat placing a clear baggie of treats on my desk before taking her seat.
"Jaleel, take your seat; we're having a pop quiz in the last quarter of this module."
"Sure."
After that, Mr. Harvey's voice droned out sounding like the indecipherable voice used for adults on those old Charlie Brown cartoons. The plastic Ziploc baggie on the edge of my desk contained a chocolate cupcake topped with white frosting and raspberry accompanying three star shaped butter cookies inset with multi colored gummy stars. I found myself staring at it recalling a story from Greek mythology related to me by Faith as we sat nude watching the sun come up following a night of passion. The story of Persephone daughter of Mother Earth, the Goddess Demeter.
Persephone was regal, arrestingly beautiful with an inner light that enchanted all who beheld it. The demigoddess like to play and frolic in the endless fields where an eternal springtime reigned. Hades brother of Zeus, king of all the Greek Gods, himself God of the Underworld suddenly appeared snatching the ingenue down into the underworld. Her light and natural enchantment had so enthralled the smitten God that he tempted fate to have her to himself.
Demeter pleaded with Zeus to return her child, but Hades refused adamantly defying the ultimate authority in the person of his own brother. Thus denied, Demeter whaled and savaged the Earth creating a barren wasteland drawing away the lush vegetation, animals, and heat. Man cried out to the heavens, but Demeter wouldn't relent when approached by Zeus and Hades was in love to the detriment of all else. Persephone didn't initially reciprocate driving the besotted God of the Underworld to ply her with exotic gifts, treats and all manner of delicacies. Yet Persephone would give him nothing, no interaction of any kind.
Secretly she'd come to enjoy his overtures in regards to her person while the world withered and died above. Finally, Zeus had enough of the universal discord demanding Demeter heal the planet, but yet she refused prompting Zeus to decree to his brother that Persephone be returned to her mother untouched, but still Hades held fast.
Zeus brought Demeter and Hades together in celestial court proclaiming that Persephone would be returned under the condition that she had not partaken of anything in Hades underworld realm, less she be irretrievably intertwined with the Dark God. Distraught Hades was not to be undone returning to Persephone with the news imploring her to eat something before being returned to her mother. The secretly crestfallen demigoddess acquiesced partaking of six pomegranate seeds. After being returned, Hades made the case revealing that Persephone had eaten of his kingdom, those six seeds demanding her return. Demeter raged, but Zeus in his infinite wisdom, decreed that Persephone would be bound to Hades for six month out of the year.
