Spin the record darling
Inside of my mind
And let's just go-go-go
And lose track of time
Here we go, on this crazy ride
Here we go, in this crazy life
And oh-oh
'Cause, cause don't you know?
We're all a little insane sometimes

Anthony took a step back and felt his face. There were two fresh scratches with just a small amount of blood. I had lost my grip of my backpack—so it was halfway down the hallway. I was scared shitless but I was also filled with so much adrenaline that there was no fight or flight in me, only pure spite. I would go down fighting if I had to.

Anthony felt at the blood on his face and took another step back.
“I kind of expected that. That was a good hit. Nice.”
He walked down the hallway and picked up my backpack.
My first thought was that he would take everything out of it and throw various items all over the floor. My second was that he would take it hostage, holding it up and over his head so I could never reach it, while laughing all the way. The third thought was that he would do the same to me as I did to him.
Anthony extended the hand that held my backpack out and handed it to me.
“Sorry,” he whispered and then walked away.

A part of me felt very anti-climactic and the other felt that he had done it on purpose. Kind of a way to test my resolve, study my defenses, and—most likely, to socially gaslight me to the student body who had forgotten what had transpired years ago. Anthony would look like the innocent man who was assaulted by the bitch who had an axe to grind. I took a deep sigh as the on-lookers gawked and fingers pointed in the direction where Anthony walked away.
A few moments later, via the secretary opening the office window and yelling in my direction, I was “summoned” to the principal’s office.
I sat across the table from Anthony with Mr Cain standing at the side.
“Can I ask what the catalyst was?”
I only stared at Anthony’s face; he looked back at me, then at the table, and then to Mr. Cain.
“It’s my fault. I asked for it back in junior high. Joanna just delivered the justice she’s entitled to.”
“I’d love to do a lot more.”
“I’m sure you do,” he replied.
Again, I was engaged because my heart screamed to jump across the table and rip my nails into his face, but my brain overruled as I still thought Tony had an ulterior motive and I would have to weasel it out of him.
“My parents decided to move, I didn’t have much of a choice back then. What would you have had me do, write a long letter? Write an apology that you’d tear into little pieces as soon as you knew it was from me? So, the best thing, when I found out you were still here was to just approach you and accept the roll of the dice.”
I leaned back into the chair and crossed my arms.
“You ripped my dress in front of everyone.”
“It was stupid.”
“Stupid? You’re just so lucky that no one cared.”
“I cared, right after I did it,” Anthony replied and pointed to himself.
“Wow. Perhaps a rapist could use that defense.”
“I deserved that too.”
“Deserved? Yes, yeah you did deserve it, but you never had to live with it. You didn’t go to school the following Monday to everyone snickering, strangers laughing!”
“What would you have had me do, Jo?”
“My name is Joanna! Only my friends can call me Jo! And you are never going to be one, Anthony.” I turned to Mr. Cain. “Can I be excused for class, please?”
“You can, Miss Peterson. Thank you.”
Mr Cain walked to the door and opened it for me. I grabbed my purse and walked out of the office without looking back at Anthony.

I wanted to scream, but I also wanted to let everything slide and to not let the student body see and emotional display of Chernobyl proportions and insinuate something else occurred. It would be best to just let the rumor mill churn something out on its own.

Just as he said, Frank was absent at lunch. We weren’t at the hip or anything but he’d either come back from the store with a few other guys with a bag in his hand or return from the lunchroom with a carton of milk and perch on the side of one of the walls near the library. I felt okay about it. Frank was my friend, not a lover, not a significant other and not a potential boyfriend. However, unlike other friends, which should be enclosed by a huge set of air quotes, Frank was the only one who openly accepted me. The others kept their distance and either ignored me or were the ones whispering things in the darkness.
Of course, our parents ceased letting either of us stay overnight at each other’s house. We could hang around—unattended—during the day but it was like after sundown some magical event would occur and I would be considered a girl and we would be a danger to each other or something. I would have to wonder what Frank’s parents would think about April.
I laid my head against my locker with my knees close to my chest—in order to avoid tripping anyone—and closed my eyes for a bit. I didn’t feel depressed, not at the moment, but I kind of felt abandoned or maybe a bit jealous over April. She was the non auburn-tressed Jolene in my life. Again, Frank was not a boyfriend, but he was a boy who was my friend. A stupid boy at times, but still my friend and with April telling me about her, I guess now, former, boyfriend a few days ago and then, suddenly accepting Frank’s invitation.
I made the decision that if they turned down the corner holding hands with April has a bottle of Dr. Pepper in one hand, and if Frank had a bag with remains of a burrito then I would call her out in front of the student body and ask her about this boyfriend in Medical Lake. I opened my eyes to see the two of them walking close together, but each of their hands holding a bottle of Cherry Coke and a bag with a box of Twix bars sticking out.
April tossed the apparently bottle into the trash and then grabbed onto Frank’s hand.
“Hey, Joanna. Do you want a Twix?” Frank bent down and handed the bag with the box of chocolates to me.
“Thank you.”
April looked at me for a second and then turned back to Frank. “Can you help me with my books?”
“Of course,” Frank replied as he stood back up.
“I’ll put the others in your locker.”
“Thanks, Jo! “ Frank called back.
Perhaps, I’d let her have until the end of the day.

Not that I was jealous of April, not in the slightest. I was thinking about how I would pick up the pieces once again and so wanted to avoid another ‘Erica’ moment.
The Erica in question was a supposed Miss Erica Johnson from Lewis and Clark High School in Spokane. Frank met her at the mall downtown and they talked the entire afternoon. They even went so far as to go to the carousel at Riverfront Park. A few hours later, Frank stomped down the street with his head down and his jacket was missing.

“Where have you been?”
“Can we leave?”
“Sure,” I replied as Frank turned back to the park. “Want to tell me what happened?”
“Not really.”
I nodded as we walked to the parking garage in relative silence…except for Frank grumbling every few seconds.
“I got robbed,” he finally blurted out as we got onto the parking garage elevator. Luckily, no one else was in there.
“At gunpoint?”
“I wish.”
“Then what happened? Knife? Gang?”
“Gang, a gang of three, maybe four.”
“That’s horrible. Do you want to call the police?”
“No, I do not. It’s just a jacket. They wanted my wallet, but it was empty, so they took my jacket instead.”
“What happened to Erica?”
“Erica,” he snorted as the elevator door opened, “I don’t think that was her real name.”
“Wait, Erica robbed you?”
“Yep. She distracted me and three others came up.” Frank replied as he stared blankly ahead.
“Where are your socks?”
“Don’t ask.”
“Too late.”
The elevators door opened, and we walked to the car.
“Kind of wish you were there.”
I nodded as we got into the car.
Frank made a motion to hit the dashboard but stopped short.
“Thank you for not destroying my car.” Frank brooded. One could feel his anger. “Do you want to go back and try to find them? Rough them up a bit?”
“If I ever meet someone like, whoever ‘Erica’ said she was, please do everything you can to make me see the light.”
“That said girl’s a bitch?”
“Yeah. Yeah, that will do,” he replied with a small smile.
“You bring the nunchucks.”

The remains of the school day brought a few looks from members of the student body as they passed by the crime scene from earlier that day with what was either a few drops of blood or ketchup, courtesy of that day’s hamburgers for hot lunch. I looked at the scene out of the corner of my eye and envisioned what I could have done differently. Maybe I could have ignored him…after a full-frontal fingernail assault, of course.
Anthony wasn’t in any of my afternoon classes, but I spent the first five minutes of each period quietly freaking out for the dreadful moment he would walk into the room. There were a few quiet whispers of his name followed by some laughter. I wanted to ignore it. Everything the crowd said behind my back were not always about me..at least that’s what my doctor kept telling me:
“Everyone is not out to get you, Joanna. Think of Anthony Roche as a memory, but not your present. Leave him in your history and go on.” Dr. London stated form across her desk.
She was an older woman, maybe in her late 40’s, and she always a cardigan sweater to her office. I used to think she must hum the theme to ‘Mister Roger’s Neighborhood’ every morning.
“What happens if he comes back?”
“You’ll be ready to face him, if you are ready to face yourself.”

"Insane Sometimes" by Grace VanderWaal