Spelling Bee
Warning to readers:
This story may contain references to sex
Also, if you have a problem with gay characters, then I suggest that now is your cue to leave because we don’t need your homophobic energy here xx
This story is
Chase POV“I’m going to annihilate you!” Blaze shouted, scratching at my face as I pinned him to the table.
Blaze Nightshade was my mortal enemy. Although we were not always looking for a fight, we still found ourselves at each other’s throats once in a while.
“Spell annihilate and I’ll believe you.” I said loosening my grip for a second which gave him enough time to roll us off the table causing us to crash onto the floor with him on top of me.
“A-N-N-I-H-I-L-A-T-E, there.” Blaze said jumping off me.
He let me get to my feet before lunging again, shoving me into the wall, “Can you spell daddy issues?”
Blaze had blood dripping from his nose and I had scratches running down my face. All the Year 12 students stood around us gawking, cheering, and making bets on who would win this fight. Even the teachers stood aside curious about the win, and I wanted to keep my winning streak of 2.
I forced him off me, causing him to stumble back a little, but he was lightning fast (Which was why we called him Blaze). He then stepped on a chair to boost him up, giving him the upper hand as he dug his fingers into my shoulders, and we both fell back to the floor.
“D-A-D-D-Y I-S-S-U-E-S.” I replied, “Wait, speaking of fathers, has yours come back from the shop yet?”
Although I would have preferred no father as opposed to my current one, Blaze didn’t have to know that.
I drove my knee up quickly to get Blaze off me, causing him to fall to the floor and giving me the perfect opportunity to shove him, but I realised he wasn’t moving.
“Blaze?” I said shaking his shoulder.
Nothing.
“Blaze? Stop it, it’s not funny.” I said shaking him again.
The teachers stopped rolling their eyes and pretending not to notice. All the other students started murmuring amongst themselves.
“Y’all playing us.” One girl shouted.
“We’re not, the fight’s over.” I said, “Blaze? Cut it out, I know you’re kidding.”
I knew it was a trick, but I still fell for it. The second I tried to brush the black hair away from Blaze’s face to check if he was still breathing, he came back to life, pushing me away with his hands to my chest and stood up grinning like a maniac.
“I win, you said the fight was over, you conceded, so I win.” He said.
Manipulative little annoying thing. Ryder and Wild came over as the other students started filtering out, groaning and celebrating losing or winning their bet.
“That wasn’t fair.” Ryder said, “You can’t play dirty.”
Ryder June has been my best friend since we were 7. His parents treated me more as their son than my own ever had, and I probably spent more time at his house than mine. He was born in Texas and had lived there till he was 6, so he still had a bit of the accent which became more pronounced when he was angry or excited.
“That’s the problem with Ravenwoods, they just can’t handle losing.” Wild smiled elegantly.
Wild Jackson was Blaze’s best friend. She hadn’t always been popular, in fact when she first started high-school most people disliked her because she was too confident and outspoken.
But they had come to realise that having her in your corner was the best thing ever, Blaze was pretty lucky. And she’d had a major glow-up because apparently stuff like that mattered in the shallow teenage-mind.
“Yeah, it’s not my fault Ravenwoods are rule-following dickheads.” Blaze said, wiping the blood off his face with his jacket.
“As if you Blackthorns are any better, no wonder you burned your school down.” I said.
For the past year, Blackthorn High students had been studying here, at Ravenwood High, after an incident that caused a fire at their school. It wouldn’t have been such a big deal if the schools weren’t complete opposites.
Ravenwood High was a private school, so most of the kids here had either super-rich parents or were good at academics and had a scholarship like I did. It also meant that we were a lot better behaved than the Blackthorns.
Blackthorn High was one of the best schools in the country grades wise, most of the kids who went there knew education was the only way out of their current living situation. But whilst they excelled in academia and sports, 28% of their students had been incarcerated before they turned 18, and a further 21% of graduates were arrested within a year of graduation.
Even our uniforms were symbolic. The Ravenwood students had white shirts, navy trousers and navy blazers with a small rainbow circle crest. Blackthorn students genuinely looked like murderers with their black polo shirts, black trousers and letterman-style black and red jackets with golden wings as the crest.
Ryder and I were from Ravenwood, while both Blaze and Wild were from Blackthorn. I had tried to get along with Blaze, but it just didn’t work out.
“What were you two fighting about this time?” Headmaster Walker sighed approaching us.
“Who has a bigger dick, clearly.” Blaze said.
That’s the other thing that I hated about Blaze, with his messy black hair and sparkly grey eyes, he could get away with almost anything. I wouldn’t be surprised if he had been the one to set his school on fire out of pure boredom.
“Mr Lopez? Anything to add?” He said looking at me.
“We both got the same score in English; it was a spelling test thing.” I mumbled.
I never liked getting told off.
“In that case I’d like to see both of you in my office.” He said sternly, “Mr June, Miss Jackson, get to class.”
I glared at Blaze wiping blood off my face and wincing at the hard material of my blazer irritating the cuts on my face. I looked down at Blaze’s nails, they weren’t that long. Not like Wild’s, but they were sharp as hell.
“Year 12 started two weeks ago, this is your fifth fight this year boys, I am not impressed.” Headmaster Walker said.
Blaze scowled. For someone so good-looking he spent a lot of time trying to disfigure his face with anger. Not that it made him look any less attractive.
“I really should have you both suspended. Chase, need I remind you that you’re on a scholarship? This kind of violence will not be tolerated.” Headmaster Walker said firmly, “Fortunately, I have spoken with Ryder, June, and Wild Jackson, both of them insist that this is nothing more than friendly competition.”
Friendly competition? Didn’t you have to be friends to call it that? At least he wasn’t suspending me. Ryan wouldn’t be thrilled.
“Boys, I like you both very much. You’re two of our highest achieving students. I’d hate for something like a school suspension to get in the way of a promising future. Especially not over something as juvenile as fighting.”
“I never started it.” Blaze said sourly.
I was so close to punching him again.
“Tonight, I’m calling both your parents and you will both write out apology letters to each other, the fighting stops here.” He said.
Calling my parents? More specifically, calling Ryan? Blaze seemed to have noticed the visible terror on my face.
“Is that really necessary?” Blaze asked.
As much as I’d like to think that he was trying to help, almost anything that came out of Blaze’s mouth could be counted as being either sarcastic or disrespectful.
“I’ve warned you before, now I need to take action.”
Ryan was going to kill me; I could already see it. Should I go with a closed or open casket funeral?
“Why apology letters though? What are we 12?”
I’d get everyone to wear black obviously, maybe I should start writing my will now, not that I had much stuff that I cared about. But I promised Ryder that he could have my laptop.
“You were acting like 12-year-olds earlier.”
Would Ryan go to jail for killing me? Or would he make it look like a suicide?
“Alright then, are you both in Mr Owens’ Humanity class?”
“Yeah, why?”
Would people think I had killed myself? Ryder wouldn’t, he would know it was Ryan, then he’d have an epic legal battle about it and win and become a hugely successful lawyer.
“Tell you what, Mr Nightshade, you’ve given me an incredible idea…” Headmaster Walker said.
Blaze would probably be a suspect for my death, do they take mugshots of suspects? Although Blaze would probably still look good even in prison, then again, I’d never seen him in orange.
Wait, what did Headmaster Walker just say?
“What?” I asked, snapping out of my internal monologue.
“I said, you will be partnered up with each other in Mr Owens’ Humanity project on sex and relationships.”
Yeah, no. That wasn’t happening. Because that always works, doesn’t it? Putting the two enemies together to work on a school project and they end up becoming best friends or start making out. Well, that wasn’t going to happen. No way.
“Both of you are among our best students and I know what happens in these corridors. There’s too much aggression between the Blackthorns and Ravenwoods and I believe if you two can get along, the rest of the school will follow suit.”
“That’s only because the Ravenwoods are all snobbish and look down at us because we don’t have blazers or trust funds.”
“Maybe if you stopped trying to attack us all the time we’d stop.” I snapped.
“Maybe if you stopped being such a dickhead all the time.”
“Maybe if you grew up a little...”
“Boys, stop it. I’m not expecting you to fall in love, even though in my experience students tend to fall in love over this project, I think it has something to do with the sexual reproduction asp…” Mr Walker started.
We put our hands over our heads, it was weird enough talking about sex with parents and siblings, but teachers? That was another level of awkward which I didn’t want to experience ever again.
“Alright, I won’t call your parents tonight but I look forward to seeing how you are getting along tomorrow.” Mr Walker smiled.
“Whatever.” Blaze huffed.
“One last thing, if I see one more fight between the two of you, not only will I be calling your parents for a meeting, I will also suspend both of you until the end of the year, and Chase, you can forget your scholarship.”
Great. Blaze was being annoying, and I was the one being punished. This whole school could go to hell.
