I’ve been in this situation before, actually, many times before. Being slammed up against the wall by a boy is supposed to be a good thing right? Well, this boy just so happened to want to punch my face in.
You see, there aren’t a lot of girls at our school. Most girls don’t want to go to a college where all they do is train and fight. Actually, most girls and boys don’t. Naturally, there are a lot more boys that want to get out there and beat up some bad guys than girls. The few girls that do attend the school tend to train with other girls. This is for a couple different reasons: for one, they don’t want the boys to hold back just because they are girls; number two, the boys don’t take it kindly when they get their a***s handed to them by a girl, a freshman girl at that.
And that’s why at the moment I was being surrounded by five boys, one of them pinning me up against the wall. They had cornered me as I was walking back from my last class in one of the less frequented hallways. The growling boy in front of me was Mike one of the best fighters in the new freshman class. He wasn’t very good looking; he had dirty blonde hair and his face was spotty and oily. All he really had going for him was brute force. He was a big guy, big boned he would tell you, not fat. He didn’t have much for brains; I still wasn’t sure how he found out my class schedule. He was in my training class and for the past couple of weeks, we had been working on memorizing defensive and offensive moves. Today, the trainer had actually let us go all out at each other using the moves we had been learning. Well, there were an odd number of girls, so I willingly became the odd one out. All the other girls were giving me sympathetic looks while I waited to see which of the boys was going to step up and be my partner. Well, Mike thought it would be funny to pair up with me. As he walked over to me, I could hear his friends yelling, “Don’t go easy on her, dude!” and then laughing like it was the funniest thing in the world.
The truth is I didn’t expect to beat him that badly or that quickly. As soon as the trainer blew the whistle, he turned and gave his friends thumbs up, giving me the opportunity to catch him off guard. As soon as he turned back around, I punched him as hard as I could in the stomach. We weren’t allowed to aim for the face because our trainer didn’t want us breaking each other’s noses. Mike fell backwards and started rolling around on the ground holding his stomach, causing his friends to laugh even harder.
The trainer walked over and pulled Mike up by his wrist.
“Stop your whining. It isn’t that bad.” He came over to me and patted me on the back, “Nice shot, Ava.”
“Thanks.” Mike stormed off to the locker rooms swearing he would get me back for it. But instead of coming on his own, he brought back up.
“Does it really take five of you to beat me up?” I’m not that good.
“Oh, I could take you on my own any day; they just wanted part of the action.” He laughed and waved his friends over. Trust me, five on one is not a fair match, I’m not that stupid. So as he turned his head I slipped underneath the arm that was pinning me in place. Running might not seem like the noblest of options but neither is standing around getting my face smashed in.
But just as I was making my escape, I ran into another problem. I literally ran into another boy around the corner. But boy didn’t adequately describe this guy, man was more like it. We were all over eighteen, but most of the male population hadn’t exactly earned the title of man, especially not if they were trying to beat up a girl five on one. This man had shoulder length dark brown, almost black, hair. He was tall, much taller than the boys in my class. He had to be a senior. He was wearing jeans and a black t-shirt that accentuated his lean muscles he had most likely gained from hours of training. He didn’t have any of the baby fat some of the freshman did; he had to have been training for years to gain the shape he had. But it was lean muscle, not big and bulgy like most guys aspire to have. He might have been lean, but I bet he could break every bone in Mike’s body if he wanted to.
I quickly scrambled up from my position on the floor. The new guy didn’t look phased one bit from being smashed into, just curious. I didn’t think twice about using him as a shield. I quickly jumped behind him as Mike came huffing around the corner, hoping that he didn’t belong in Mike’s makeshift crew. Mike leaned over with his hands on his knees trying to catch his breath from the short run down the hallway. His eyes widened as he realized who was standing in front of him. But they immediately narrowed and he growled.
“This is none of your business, Damon.”
“Do I know you?” Damon sighed, apparently we were boring him.
“Move.” Damon stood his ground. Mike was getting desperate and his minions didn’t know what to make of the situation. It seemed they didn’t know this guy any better than I did, but they could tell he wasn’t someone to mess with.
“Maybe we should just-” One of Mike’s friends, James I believe his name is, started to step back when Mike’s angry voice stopped him.
“Shut up!”
“What is all the commotion?” Another guy, who I assumed was also a senior, joined Damon’s side in front of me. He certainly wasn’t someone to mess with either; he also wore jeans and a t-shirt like Damon but had a baseball cap on top of his head with pieces of unruly red hair stick out the sides. He wasn’t as tall as Damon, but he had the muscles to make up for it. He wasn’t lean like Damon; he had obvious muscles bulging out of his t-shirt. He also happened to be carrying around a beer, which was forbidden at the school whether you were of age or not. He turned his head and winked at me.
“Who knows, now I’ve got a headache from all this yelling.” Damon scrunched his eyes shut and started rubbing his left temple with his left hand.
“You guys are in my way; that’s the problem.” Mike actually had the guts to take a step toward Damon. The new guy put his hand out in front of him, stopping Mike in his tracks.
“Nah-uh, we can’t have you beating up on innocent girls now can we Damon?” Damon opened his eyes and looked at me out of the corner of his eye.
“Whatever. Nathan, if you’re going to start another fight at least know what you’re fighting for.” Damon sighed, apparently this was a normal occurrence. Nathan laughed.
“Alright. Boys, why are we chasing after this lovely lady over here?” He pointed his non-beer filled hand back at me.
When Mike wouldn’t speak up, the minion that wanted to leave did.
“Ava beat him in training today.” He crossed his arms over his chest, glaring at Mike. Nathan started laughing, a real, gut busting laugh.
“That’s it? Wow Dude, have some dignity.”
Mike snapped. He started swinging his arms around, and surprisingly, it was Damon who reacted. Damon grabbed Mike’s fist out of the air and twisted behind his back.
“I would suggest you leave before my headache gets worse.” Damon pushed him into his other friends who had frozen.
Mike regained his footing but instead of attacking again grabbed one of his friend’s arms, Andrew, and flung him forward. “Do something or I’ll beat you myself!” Not sure whether or not they should fear the newcomers or Mike more, Mike’s four friends stepped forward.
“Yes!” Nathan nudged Damon with his free hand, “Damon, let’s make a bet, you owe me a hundred dollars if I can beat up my two guys without spilling a drop of my beer.”
“No.”
“What? You’re no fun. How about fifty?” The four guys exchanged glances and started advancing on Damon and Nathan hoping to catch them off guard. Andrew stepped up and took a swing at Nathan’s right shoulder as he turned to talk to Damon. The other three stood back, waiting to see what happened.
But without even looking Nathan flawlessly turned the right side of his body back, leaving Andrew stumbling forward giving Nathan the opportunity to stick his foot out, causing Andrew to fall hard on his face in front of me. This seemed to anger them all the more so the other three decided to all attack at the same time.
It was fast, very fast. Andrew had taken the opportunity to flee and all it took for Nathan to take out his second attacker was a well placed punch to the side of his attackers face, splitting the skin beside the attacker’s eye. He was definitely going to have a black eye in the morning.
Damon’s fight took a little longer, but not much. Damon stood there with his hands in his pockets while the two went on either side of him. The one on the right struck out first, aiming a punch to the side of Damon’s head. I barely saw Damon’s hand move, that’s how fast he was. He reached up and stopped the punch by grabbing James’ fist in mid-air and then leaning back to avoid his second attacker’s punch from the left, causing him to punch James. Realizing what he just did, Alex leaned over james to check if he was okay. Damon took the opportunity to grab him by the shoulders and knee him in the stomach.
Mike just stood there glaring as his friends continued to flee. If they go down that easily I hope they don’t end up on my team.
Nathan started stepping towards Mike but Damon held him back. Nathan was about to question him but Damon just shook his head and nodded towards me. Nathan smiled and turned toward me.
“Ava, right?”
“Yeah…” Where was this going?
He smiled. “It looks like this is your fight to finish.” And he grabbed my arm and pulled me forward to face Mike.
I’d beaten him before and I’d do it again. I just had to read his moves just as Damon and Nathan had. I got in my stance, left foot forward, right foot back. Mike started laughing.
“That isn’t going to help you.” And he swung at me. I wasn’t fast enough to catch his fist as Damon had but I used my left arm to deflect his punch and then shifted my weight to try to get my own punch in. I missed the first time. He leaned his head away just in time but with my left hand I aimed for his stomach and just as I had the first time I beat him, I caught him off guard by using my non-dominant hand. But this time he didn’t go down immediately, so to make sure he didn’t get up any time soon, I spun around and caught the side of his face with my foot.
He fell down and stayed down.
I turned around to see Nathan clapping and Damon walking away.
“Who was that guy?” I whispered to myself more than to Nathan, but he heard me anyway.
“You aren’t going to fall in love with him too now are you? Damn he gets all the girls.” He laughed that hearty laugh of his.
I continued to stare after the man I knew nothing about and laughed back.
I just might.