FortySixtyFour
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RE: Trailer Trash 59, 59 pt 6
🕑 Added 2024-09-06 17:57:39 +0000 UTCBecause Mrs. Clarke was standing at the doorway for Spanish II and watching students arrive, Olivia kept her goodbyes with Michael chaste and gave him a simple peck on the cheek and then a wave before hurrying on past her teacher’s smirk. Michael had class on the opposite side of campus from her after lunch but still he held hands with her and escorted her to her class first every day. As always it felt great showing off—not all that many in her grade had boyfriends, and those that did didn’t have ones that doted on her like Michael did.
Their Spanish class had started the second semester with a rather droll review of the previous semester, and just now were they starting to tackle preterite and imperfects. Foreign language wasn’t compulsory for high school graduation in Kentucky high schools, so although Spanish I was relatively popular, attendance thinned for Spanish II and then Spanish III wasn’t able to even fill all of the classroom seats. Though that meant less people to practice speaking Spanish with, it did start to give the courses more of an ‘elite’ feel, like Olivia was at the top of Springton academically.
Even the college track here only requires two foreign language credits, so a bunch of the people here will probably call a quits on Spanish before next year, Olivia surmised. Big mistake! If they try to pick it up again in college, after not having practice or kept up with it for a year or two? Yeah, good luck.
She was fortunate enough to be able to practice Spanish with her mother… although that often devolved into playful arguments over pronunciations and which was ‘right’ Spanish—Spain’s Spanish, or Mexican Spanish. Her mom’s grasp of the language was more ‘informal’ and hewed towards a casual spoken dialect made all the more colorful with liberal use of swear words. Olivia had joked about some of that with Mrs. Clarke, but didn’t dare to actually repeat a lot of what her mother had said word for word. Still, Spanish II was a great class; Olivia had advantages over her peers, quite a few of her friends and frenemies were seated near her, and she was always in a great mood after spending lunch with Michael.
Olivia found herself humming the bars from Jewel’s You Were Meant For Me to herself as she crossed the classroom and dropped down into her spot. Not that many other people had arrived yet, so she made herself comfortable the way all high schoolers did—putting her feet up on the book rack beneath the chair in front of her and slouching deep into her seat. The whiteboard at the front of the room had assignments written in Spanish, and it took her a minute to start puzzling through and translating some of the words that didn’t come to her naturally.
“Olivia! Olivia, oh my God,” Faith blurted out, rushing down her row of desks. “Did you hear? You must’ve already heard—I’m so sorry. Oh my God.”
Many small town religious parents gave their daughters virtue names like ‘Hope’ and ‘Charity,’ and Faith was, in Olivia’s opinion, a hellspawn who made it her life’s mission to rebel against her family’s expectations. She had been a bandwagon ‘country gal’ with a stuffed bra back in middle school, but when she filled out with enormous breasts during puberty Faith grew into the wrong kind of confidence. Now she was bleached blonde, a cheerleader, an infamously rotten bitch, and according to the fragrance of her breath she was an avid cigarette smoker at sixteen. She remained popular because there were dozens of girls just like her here, and those types were threaded through the echelons of Springton High with enough prevalence that few people wanted to provoke the whole bunch of them.
Faith and Olivia didn’t like each other and weren’t friends, but because they were often stuck together in classes and did have several mutual friends, they were friendly acquaintances with one another for the most part. They were able to be catty with each other, but there was an unspoken agreement to never dig too deep at each other and escalate petty grievances into actual drama for no real reason.
“What?” Olivia perked up with attention at word of something involving her. “About me? Heard what?”
“About Michael!” Faith dropped down into the seat behind Olivia—that was Jake’s seat, but Jake wasn’t here yet—and leaned in close so they could speak ‘privately.’
“That freshman slut Tabitha? The one everyone’s always talking about? So, she invited Michael to this birthday party she had, and. I heard they were making out. Like, ‘Livia I know you and him ‘broke up,’ but everyone knows you two aren’t really ‘broken up,’ like not for real. I can’t believe he would—”
“You heard that?” Olivia couldn’t help but grin in amusement. “...Wow.”
“I’m being so serious!” Faith seemed to regard Olivia’s nonchalance with disbelief. “Everyone’s talking about it. For some reason Tabitha invited him, and he went without you, and—”
“No he didn’t,” Olivia rolled her eyes and shook her head. “Not withou—”
“He did!” Faith hissed. “He did, though. I’m being so serious. My friend Liz, like, the second she heard, she asked him if he went. He said he did.”
“No, I’m not saying he didn’t go,” Olivia laughed. “I’m saying he didn’t go without me.”
“Uhh—what?” Faith blinked in confusion. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, I was there,” Olivia explained. “Duh. Tabitha didn’t invite just him. She invited both of us. Movie and then off to a skating rink.”
“But, Michael and Tabitha were making out?” Faith said. “Everyone’s—”
“No,” Olivia shot that strange assertion down. “They weren’t. I was making out with Michael for like, the whole movie. Tabitha was sitting down the row with her freshman friends. They didn’t ride to the skating thing together. And, once we were there? I was either with Michael the whole time, and for like the forty or so minutes I wasn’t? I was sitting with Tabitha. So, no. They did not make out ever, at any point. Someone made that the fuck up.”
“O-oh,” Faith let out a small laugh. “Wow, then. Well—I guess—you’re really sure?”
“Yee-up,” Olivia’s eyebrows rose.
“She’s still a slut, though,” Faith said. “From what I’ve heard—”
“Nah,” Olivia pursed her lips. “S’all BS.”
“No, I’m serious,” Faith insisted. “I just went up with Desiree during lunch and tried to talk to her. She’s so full of herself. She’s trying to force Coach Baylor to kick Desiree off the cheer team, so her and her weirdo friend can get in. She’s psychotic.”
“Who did what, now?” Nicole asked, slipping into the desk beside them.
“Tabitha,” Faith muttered under her breath. “The freshman slut. She—”
“I wouldn’t believe anything you hear about her,” Olivia cut Faith off with a shrug. “Bitches are just making up stories about her to stir up drama. Again. Faith here was just trying to tell me Tabitha and Michael were making out at some party—except, I was there, and that didn’t happen. One hundred percent just someone spreading bullshit to try an’ cause trouble.”
“S’not what I heard,” Faith mumbled under her breath, shaking her head in faux dismay as if pitying Olivia’s ignorance on the matter. “My friend said that this girl Ashlee was there, and that she saw them making out. It was when they were all at a movie together, I think?”
“Yeah—didn’t happen,” Olivia shrugged. “Ashlee’s one of the Taylor sisters, she didn’t even see the movie with us, she showed up late and was all fuming about it the whole night. Some kind of grudge, there. So, don’t believe a word she says.”
“You went to Tabitha’s party?” Nicole asked, eyes lighting up with interest. “How was it? What’s she really like?”
“She’s a dumb slut,” Faith made a face. “She’s so freakin’ full of herself.”
“Nah,” Olivia chuckled. “She’s cool. Quiet and calm, seems really like—I don’t know. Put together. Like you know that freshman spaz energy where they’re all spastic and just kind of talking to hear themselves talk? Nothing like that. She’s more like, uhh. Like Janaye, you know Janaye? Calm, collected. Thinks before she speaks.”
“Yeah?” Nicole remarked with interest. “Huh.”
“She totally is not,” Faith scowled. “She thinks she’s all that, but really she’s this total loser.”
“If you say so,” Olivia smirked.
“She’s trying to get Desiree kicked off the team,” Faith growled. “For practically like, no reason. Just because she didn’t like the way she apologized. As if that’s even—”
“Apologized… for what?” Olivia gave Faith a knowing look. “What’d she do?”
“Nothing, basically,” Faith scoffed. “It’s this total bull. Coach Baylor’s making us apologize, even though we didn’t do anything wrong! It was a total accident.”
“What was a total accident?” Nicole asked with a grin.
“I asked Desiree to grab my towel and take it home, but she grabbed the wrong one,” Faith spread out her hands in a gesture of disbelief. “Totally and completely not a big deal. At all. Since when—”
“You guys stole her towel?” Olivia burst out laughing, turned to sit forward, and then twisted back again to give Faith a look of mirth. “Are you friggin serious? Her towel, now?”
“We didn’t steal anything, it was an accident!” Faith hissed. “She just grabbed the wrong one. It’s not even any kind of big deal or something to apologize for.”
“Yeah, okay,” Olivia snorted. “It’s, what, the third day of the new semester, barely anyone even brought their towels in, yet! But, somehow, you guys are trying to take one home? Yeah, right, Faith. I smell bullshit.”
“It was just an accident!” Faith was blushing, now. “Stop it. We didn’t freakin—”
“You’re gonna get a five-day suspension for sure,” Olivia teased. “Some other freshman girl took Tabitha’s notebook, yeah, ‘by accident’ just like that last semester. Called up to the office; five day suspension. The deans are super jumpy about anything to do with bullying Tabitha now, after the whole Chris Thompson thing. The whole Erica Taylor thing. That girl spreading shit about Tabitha messing around with a teacher? She got a suspension, too.”
“Yeah, and Chris and Erica got expelled,” Nicole laughed. “I never liked Chris, he was a douchebag.”
“It was an accident, so they can’t do anything,” Faith sniffed. “Besides, like—Olivia I thought you’d be on our side. Especially with what everyone’s saying about Tabitha and Micheal. I was totally trying to be supportive and—”
“Except, durr-hurr-hurr all of that was made up,” Olivia arched an eyebrow. “Someone trying to turn people against Tabitha, just made it the fuck up. Probably the Taylor sisters.”
“Yeah, probably,” Nicole nodded along. “Brittney Taylor’s always talking bad about her. Or like saying that the thing with Erica wasn’t even that big of a deal, or like Tabitha and them were just trying to exaggerate it.”
“I was there, too,” Olivia laughed. “S’the reason Michael and I got invited to Tabitha’s birthday thing. He was the one who tackled Erica off of her when she was beating the shit out of her with a bat. I know I told you guys.”
“Yeah,” Nicole said. “Can’t believe she’d snap like that, though. She was always cool here in school.”
“I can,” Olivia shrugged. “Ton of people here in each of the grades are just full of crazy. Full of crazy that’s just looking for some way to burst out. Right, Faith?”
“We didn’t even do anything wrong,” Faith repeated with a sour look. “Psh. I’m not apologizing to her. She can’t even be on the team in the first place—she’s got a broken freaking arm.”
“Exactly, so—why are y’all going out of your way to hassle her and start trouble?” Olivia smirked. “Even if the school just lets you off with a slap on the wrist, you know Coach Baylor won’t.”
( Previous, 59 pt 5 | RE: Trailer Trash | Next, To be Continued... )
/// Might still change some of the names, I've flip-flopped back and forth on which I like best for who a couple times already. I do like "Faith" for bitchy cheerleader, but then also I prob shouldn't dig at virtue names when I have Grace shaping up to be a great supporting character for Tabitha.
Comments
Bradley Weyers
For names you can also remember that certain names get popular - think Ashley from the recess cartoon - for around time that characters were born Jessica, Ashley, Amanda, and Jennifer were extremely popular and even in small towns you would have Jen Jennifer and Jenny or Ashley A and Ashley B
Sean
I like Olivia's calm rebuttal, but man I can't see someone spreading shit like that and not feeling upset about it.
Jojiro
Sometimes in real life, muddying the waters is enough to cause immense tragedy. I'm glad we're not seeing it here, but like, man do I still get nervous when I see that tactic.
Cano Mendez
The Tabitha Coalition grows stronger. First, a few friends; Soon, the high school; Then, the world. I'm absolutely eating up the rumor mill getting ground to a halt as more of Tabitha's agents take action. I know it's a hassle for you, but growing the roster and networking the characters' actions with more causal chains is absolutely wonderful to read. I wanna see every ripple our pseudo time traveler makes.
Undead Writer
Thanks for the chapter!
James Skinner
TFTC!
Nikolaus Sheehan
I love this story. It's great seeing some of these alternate perspectives giving more context to the overhaul situation going on. Glad to see Tabs having a friend sticking up for her. Thank you for the chapter!
Jeanie6754
Thanks for the update 🙂
benjamin shropshire
Nothing wrong with using the same type of name for polar opposites. It can even be fun. OTOH, if you want to go with the "names mean something" trope; yeah, be consistent.
Cat Cat
Fun chapter!! Fwiw; I think the virtue names thing was funny; my mom always said the same thing about kids in her class (and of course it’s a stereotype; it doesn’t apply to everyone!) Thanks for posting!
benjamin shropshire
Yeah, as soon as there's more than one group trying to push conflicting narratives, everyone with a brain (and who hadn't already chosen a side) knows *somebody* is making shit up. She might be able to muddy the waters, but that just makes it so nobody knows the truth, not that they believe the lies.
Haydn Nitzsche
Thanks for the chapter! Love to see Olivia as a voice in Tabithas corner among the upperclassmen and so effectively partying all of the rumors.
WarStrider72
Thanks for the update boss!
Jojiro
Jesus Christ. It's like, she's trying the Firehose of Falsehood strategy, but she's doing it at the high school level and Tabitha is becoming too hot to touch as a topic, so it isn't working. She just keeps repeating the same untrue things in the hope that it sticks. And the sad thing is, in real life, sometimes it does stick.
Stuart Thwaites
I literally just picked up my tablet for something to read and (buzz buzz) patron tells me Forty gives us a present.
