As I tried to remember the combination to my locker, I felt like slamming my hand on it as hard as possible, if only to give my brain something else to focus on instead of the incessant pounding coupled with my stomach being in knots. I knelt to rummage in my bag for the paper the school had given me with the combination I’d been sure was so easy to recall I’d barely paid attention to it the day before.

“He is such a piece of shit!” I heard a girl say.

“Maybe he just forgot,” another girl added.

I turned to get a quick glance at three girls, all seemingly the same age and looking like replicas of one another, walking in my direction. Their long, blonde hair waved from side to side as they moved.

“You forget to pick up laundry; standing someone up is being a shit,” the angriest of the three said.

They came to a full stop to my right, then opened their respective lockers and started taking books from them.

“Did he at least give you a reason?”

“Barely. He just said something came up.”

“See? Total shit.” The angriest girl closed her locker door with a bang.

“Maybe something did come up though.”

“Lucy Bell, I don’t get why you’re always making excuses for this guy.”

“I am not!” she said defensively. “I’m just saying it’s a possibility—”

“I think there’s a possibility he’s full of shit.”

“Stop saying shit!” Lucy said loudly, frustrated.

They all closed their lockers just as I found the piece of paper I was looking for. The one called Lucy, however, decided she had to open hers once more to fetch something from it at the very instant I stood up. And she did so with such force I’d rarely witnessed. Needless to say, she slammed the metal door onto the side of my face.

“Fuck me!” I yelled as a sharp pain ran from my right eyebrow all the way down to my chin.

“Oh my God!” she said, both hands to her face covering her mouth, her eyes wide. “I’m so sorry.”

I could barely hear her. “What the fuck?” I covered the bump instantly forming over my eye with my hand.

“What did you do, Lucy?” one of the girls asked, walking up to me and standing two inches away as she tried to assess the damage.

“I didn’t do anything, Sara. I was opening my locker—”

“—when his face got in the way?”

“Shut up, Lisa!” Lucy turned to me. “I’m so, so sorry.”

“Is that blood?” Lisa asked.

“Does this hurt?” Sara—I assumed—asked me, gently touching my forehead.

“No,” I lied.

“We should get you to the infirmary—” Sara said.

“No, that’s okay,” I said quickly.

“But you’re bleeding,” Lucy said.