Ya Aburbee [Chapter Two]

It felt like a bad idea. It was a good bad idea, though. It would work. This little game we have set up for her would wreck my chances of ever getting on her good list, but it’s doubtful that I would ever get that way anyway.  The next day she was in the same stone position as usual, sleeping. She had no idea of what we were doing.
I couldn’t really help out much with it due to circumstances, but Josh thought it was a good idea to have me record it on his camera. I watched as Gabe, one of my more quiet peers, wore a cocky grin all the way over to Alexane’s desk.  He snatched her bag from under her desk just as swiftly as he does when he steals from grocery and drug stores.  It clunked onto Elize’s desk. She curiously snooped through it. She grabbed out Alexane’s extra uniform that we are all required to bring to school. She also took an unlabeled key. The key wasn’t a part of the plan; Elize thought it would be funny to take, though.
I recorded all of it and supplied my own uncertain smile and laughter as well. I didn’t really feel comfortable doing it, but this is high school; the strong prey on the weak. I didn’t want to blow this chance for myself. I kept pushing my conscience down my throat but it would resurface along with a chill of guilt down my spine.  I bit the inside of my cheek until it was bleeding and raw.
Gabe trotted over and returned the defaced bag to its original post. Elize threw the uniform into the garbage and hid it under some scrap paper. Everything was going perfectly. We all returned to a normal Advisory. We continued chatting and laughing like nothing had happened. My throat burned with dryness and guilt, but I hid it behind my bad-boy exterior. This is what cool kids did, after all.
Alexane had gym for 3rd hour. I learned this while we were all planning her destruction. I was to get a nurse pass from my teacher, and sneak the camera into the locker room. Which, or course, I did. Apparently if someone asks to go to the nurse, they can practically get away with anything. Nobody is responsible for them during that time since the nurse isn’t informed about their arrival. I was as clear as tape.
Everyone was running the track today, so the gym was empty. I snuck beneath the extended bleachers. The camera was clenched in my fist as I maneuvered around the supporting bars. I could only see the extent of what cracks of light in the bleachers could reach. My feet fumbled over litter a few times. As I reached the end of the bleachers, the door to the girls’ locker room was just a few feet away. I peered around the corners of the bleachers to see if anyone was watching. It looked like I was good to go. I sprinted through that door like it was my destiny.
I jogged down a staircase and through a row of lockers into the closest stall I could find. The silence I never broke impressed me. It smelled like perfume and mold.  Unlike the boys’ locker room, the girls put their clothes in their lockers during gym instead of all over the floor. I didn’t see anyone, so I scanned for the gym teacher’s office.
There was an open wooden door that I carelessly ran through without first analyzing. It was the office! Just as I thought that, it hit me that I was really doing this. I really snuck out of class, and I really intruded into the girls’ locker room during class. A chill went up my legs and through my teeth. I suddenly felt horrible and guilty. My throat burnt with dryness and my hands sweat. However, I was going to do this. I was going to pull through with what I started. While recording on the camera, I looked at the bulletin board and skimmed the list of which locker belonged to which girl.
-Houleway, Aexane: Locker #97-
There it is!
I searched for the locker with sweat in my eyes and my heart pounding in my throat. When I found it, I stole her only, last uniform. I lit a match, like Elize told me to, and I set it on fire. I watched Alexane’s clothes burn. They burnt until they were nearly unrecognizable and then I drowned them in a nearby sink. I punished her for doing absolutely nothing. I felt powerful and disgusting at the same time. I was a glorious, grotesque monster.
Reality hit me when I heard footsteps coming down the stairs. I ran and hid in the shadows of the office.  A body descended from the staircase. It was Alexane. I couldn’t bring myself to record her reaction.  She, alone, went to her locker. Nothing. She looked around her feet, and saw no sign of her uniform. Her expression grew from a paranoid confusion into a suspicious investigation. Reading her body language, I knew she had smelled the fire’s stench, and then she heard the running water. She walked over to the sink and, there, she found her uniform.
It was a shriveled black cloth dripping with watered down ash. I watched her ring the water out and carry it to a bench where she just sat down and waited.  My ears caught her muttering to herself with very faint moans. Then, silence. Pure silence…
“What is wrong with you?”
I was baffled. My entire body clenched. It clenched so much that it was painful. I squatted down and held my breath.  A tear ran down my cheek.
“Why won’t you leave me alone?”
She began sobbing, but I kept as quiet and still as possible.  Then, I heard her stand and stomp back up the staircase. Why did she come down so early anyways? I read the clock and it was at least five minutes too early for her to be changing back into her school uniform.  I waited for my boiling blood to settle.  When my mind was straight, I decided to evacuate the crime scene.
I shut off the camera and revealed myself from the shadows of the office. My eyes were glued to the floor in a mixture of regret and fear of consequences. Nonetheless, I bet that she was worse off than I. Quick, repeating flashbacks of her expression and voice fogged my thoughts. The sound of my footsteps broke the silence as I carelessly dragged myself up the staircase into the gym. Alexane watched me exit from the locker room door. My cover was blown. Her eyes, which I was seeing for the first time, were glowing amber and they watched my every move in disgust. She was sitting embarrassedly on the bleachers, still in the skimpy gym uniform, with her legs crossed and her back hunched. I felt her hatred melt into my pores as I froze in front of her.
My eyes darted around, and then back to her. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m so sorry.” I followed her eyes as they hovered down and stuck to the camera in my hands. “You… recorded it?” I instinctively hid the camera behind my back. Her eyebrows knitted. “Why?” Her lips curled down at the edges. She stood and zipped past me down into the locker room. Then, I left.
The bell rang after returning to class with the excuse, “The nurse gave me medicine and sent me back.” I sat in my next class moping about what I had done and wondering if it would ever come to bite back at me.  I hadn’t really noticed until now, but Alexane and I are in this same class together, but she was absent. My head stuck to my desk and I drifted in and out of sleep. I was exhausted from the adrenaline rush. Eventually, I remembered something. I could probably fix this.
I prayed the clock to hurry and end the class period. I waited and stared at it. My ambition pushed the hands into their next position seconds at a time. Then, finally, the bell rang. My legs went ahead of me and I tripped. My knee bashed into a desk, but I picked myself up and kept going. I weaved through the people walking in the halls. I was like a fish swimming upstream against the current. When I reached my locker, my hands fumbled as they picked open the lock. The door opened, and I grabbed out Alexane’s uniform. It was the uniform I didn’t burn; the uniform I took from the garbage when nobody was looking. I was stupid to forget about it, or maybe to not connect the two different incidences until now.
I also removed the memory chip from the camera. I took that, and the uniform, and I headed down to the gym where I expected Alexane to still be. Taking a cautionary step, I did the same as before by sneaking through the underbelly of the bleachers. I looked for bystanders at the edge, and continued down into the girls’ locker room.
There she was, and luckily, nobody else. She was sitting in the corner curled into a ball. I ran to her anxiously and tipped my head down. My arms released her clothes and the memory chip. They dropped to her feet. A few painful, awkward seconds passed which was enough time to decide to lock eyes with her. I wanted her to see my sincerity. To feel my empathy. Her long eyelashes fluttered around as her eyes bounced around from one place to the other. The yellow luminescence of her irises enchanted me.  
She sat straight and held my offerings in her pale boney fingers. Her expression hardened from that vulnerable look from before to an angry resentence. She stood without hesitance and glared into my soul. Then, I felt numb.