McKenzie returned to school with a cluttered mind and deep, mixed emotions about her situation. Comfortly, it was almost as if she never left school on that winding bus. Zach was being his asshole self and she was pelted with man-eating beasts of Quarter exams and projects, not armed with a shield or sword. She even had to give up her God-given right to a steamy, filling, replenishing lunch to make up her missed work. The only solitude McKenzie could scrape for herself was the privacy of the girls' bathroom.
McKenzie leaned against the sea green wall, wafting her limp hair from her eyes as they scowered the slapdash shape of the bathroom. Dirt deeply embedded the slight and usually white crevases between the tiles of the floor, displaying the poor workmanship of the school's scant janitors. Grafitti of love and hate scribbled across the tan doors, the collection of stories augmenting every passing period, a conclusion that the doors must have been left in the bathroom since the late 60's by the conversation of desperately squeaky hinges and moaning, warped walls. The mirror and sink combination hung by loose bolts to her left, sagging toward the ground like weeping willows. Cracks scaled across the mirrors like lightning bolts as a result of the release of fustration of overwhelmed students.
Lazy strides were executed toward the sink, her body internally breaking down faster than a virus chewing with a grin through a computer's brain. Her hands grasped the tarnished silver knobs and with all their strenght, turned them. With a look of disdain, diluted red wine sputtered from the faucet in coughing spasms, slowly running as clear as glass. Cool water flowed over her hands, pulsating sweet chills around them. In a cupped gesture, she doused the water greedily on her face, a few disobedient drops plummeting to a harsh confrentation with the grimy floor below.
"Touching up?" a booming voice called, bouncing from the far corners of the small bathroom and reverberating to her ears. McKenzie glanced up laggardly, not to check out her pale, pimple-splotted, fallen face in the disheveled mirror, but to see who had trespassed into her private domain, her few minuetes of tranquility, even though she knew the answer. There Zach was, his back supported by the wall, his cold, hazel eyes spearing through the wall straight ahead of him, a sardonic smile peeling through his frown.
"What a day," McKenzie moaned almost inaudiably, dropping her head with the weight of a thousand rocks and bracing her hands on the brittle edges of the white sink.
"Is that the kind of hello I get?" Zach asked comically, feign hurt trying to outrace his ironic tone in a conest that never ceased. He paced slowly toward her, every step he advanced forced McKenzie to steal a step backward, not wanting to cause more trouble between them. "I thought you would have missed me."
"I thought this was a stage, but being a compulsive depreciator must be in your genes," McKenzie belittled him, standing almost nose-to-nose with this time bomb that could blow any moment and tear her to pieces, her eyes sizzling with fustration.
"Flattery will get you nowhere," Zach informed her with a cheesy smile, batting his eyes like a young girl with a love-sick crush. A cocky chuckle bursted through his lips, but only fueled McKenzie's ever-growing fury.
McKenzie shook her head slightly, rattling her brain to get back on the subject at hand. "Is there a reason I'm not getting that you're in the girls' bathroom?" McKenzie enquired with a tint of annoyance. Fear suddenly gripped her heart and began to squeeze as she glanced around her surroundings fearfully; Zach had backed her up into an small unoccupied stall, a very vulnerable disposition.
"You know why I'm here," Zach sneered at her audacity, his upper lip taking on the guise of Elvis's famous smirk.
"No, please," McKenzie begged meekly, hoping her act of being tough as nails will surpass his expectations, clasping her hands together in mercy. "Tell me, I'm dying to hear this one!"
Zach's hazel eyes narrowed to a threatening size, his fists trying to push out of the stall like the stall was a wet cardboard box. "I think you remeber very well the promise I made."
"Sounded more like a threat to me," McKenzie challenged, linking her arms across her chest defiantley, a frown sinking on her face.
Without warning, a cold, clammy hand leeched onto McKenzie's mouth, the pressure placed on her fragile face overhanging. "Now this is a threatening situation, is it not?" Zach asked becalmly, his eyes glittered with joyful authority. McKenzie nodded mechanically, her brain unable to compute fast enough to save her skin. He rested his free hand a little too far south for McKenzie's taste, burning her khaki capris becoming a must now. "Now if I let go, you will promise not to scream, right?" Zach asked in a low tone, his face looming closer to hers like in a bad dream. McKenzie desperately nodded, the tears beginning to crawl from the flesh of her heart. One by one, he pryed his large fingers from McKenzie's mouth, a gasp of releif swirving his last finger away from her prescense. She rubbed gently at her mouth, trying unconspicuiously to wipe Zach's corrosive touch away from her skin.
"Back to the matter and hand," Zach presented cooly, backing off immeasurably, tucking his thumbs in his khaki shorts' belt loops and shifting his weight arrogantly. "I'm sick and tired of seeing you and that girl, Tricia is it? You strut around here like you're hot shit, holding hands, sneaking kisses, whispering. That's not acceptable here. Never has been, never will. This school is for the elite; not the trash."
A surge of uncredited confidence shot from her voice box. "You mean the crude, arrogant, disrespectful, closed-minded, intolerant, unmotivated..." Zach's cocky smirk was punched into one of shock. "I'm sorry," McKenzie aplogiesed, "Do you want me to use less syllables? Smaller words?" Her voice floated into the stale silence, Zach's bewildered expression sending her into muted fright. His expression resembled one of a young boy, finding out Santa Claus didn't come down the chimey to give him presents because he was a good boy the whole year, didn't have 7 friendly reindeer on his red sleigh, a look of betrayal, sadness and slight disguist. The only innuendo of unjuvenile resentment was the veiny, raw hands lowering toward her like mechanical cranes.
Suddenly, his hand met with her neck, not a very pleasurable sensation, constricting her neck in the passion. He knew one swift movement of his wrist would snap her neck like a dry twig; but the thought never entered his mind; he was too enraged to care. McKenzie gasped involuntarily, her hands not making any valid attempt to claw away from his poisonious touch. "Listen, you little bitch," Zach began furiously, purple veins protruding from his red neck and the spit spewing through the air and on McKenzie's face. "You're going to regret the day you came here. Your life will become a fucking living hell around here because of me. You won't even be able to walk the streets. We don't like you at all, none of your kind. You've made a grave mistake turning down my generous offers, Girly. Don't mess with me, Mac, you're going to get hurt..." He deliberated with this inner thoughts, his eyes fixed on McKenzie, dragging her into a abyss of dangerous suspense. "And you're not going to tell anyone about this little encounter, right?"
McKenzie was immoble at Zach's violent threats and explosive composure; she could respond if she tried. She thanked her lucky stars at the sound of footsteps approaching the bathroom stall rapidly. Her eyes fearfully crawled over Zach's shoulder to catch the view of a redhead sophmore. She was Hailey Patterson, a short, shy girl in McKenzie's gym class. Earth Science and Math textbooks clung to her light purple baby tee like newborns yearning for mother's milk as she peered at the awkward situation curiously. Zach scortched his gazed through McKenzie's heart one last prolonged moment, then roughly released her and stormed out of the bathroom into the sea of students heading to 7th hour classes. McKenzie slid down in absolute relief, tears finally fighting through her rough gate of pride and screaming down her cheeks as Hailey eyed the doorway to assure Zach wouldn't be coming back for a second round.
"Are you..." she started, dropping her textbooks to the gritty ground and kneeling on her jean skirt next to her fallen classmate. Hailey stroked McKenzie's arm with the touch of a mother, goosebumps invisably cutting Hailey's palm to shreads. "Are you OK?"
McKenzie sniffed a final curtain of shaken nerves back into her body for later use. She glanced up at Hailey, her frightened face softening at the kindness of this random student. "Yeah," McKenzie finally replied softly, running her arm over her itchy noise. "I'll be fine. I'm stronger than he is."
