Page 80 of Losing the Rhythm
“I can’t believe they’re going this far, and why? Because you’re friends with other boys? I didn’t realize we were back in elementary. Do you think I have cooties too?” Micah answered.
“If you did, you infected me a long time ago,” I tried to joke.
Micah only frowned harder as he opened the door into the cafeteria for me. We ignored all the tables and slipped out into the large courtyard, finding the guys instantly.
Bryan was the first to speak when I got close enough. “Give me your fucking phone now.”
I almost said no as a reaction, but managed to stop myself. Another thing I talked to Dr. Arason about—my instinct to say no first when people only wanted to help me. We only brushed upon the topic, but now that I was aware, it made it easier to not respond instantly. To take a moment to really process the request, and then go from there. In this case, it was a justified request.
All the guys were clearly worried for me. And pissed at everyone else. I dug my phone out and handed it over to Bryan after unlocking it.
Bryan was swearing, no doubt because my phone was going crazy with notifications. Then he began pressing buttons and I left it to him. It only took him a short amount of time though and he was already handing my phone back to me.
“There, done.”
“Already?” I asked, looking down at my phone. All the messages were gone, missed phone calls cleared.
“If you gave it to me when I originally asked, we could have saved you from all this.”
“What did you do exactly?” I asked.
“Only those who are in your contacts list can reach out to you. Anyone else will be blocked.”
“You can do that?” I asked.
“Seriously, Cadence?” Bryan looked confused. “It’s the easiest thing to do. I didn’t pull any hackery shit. I just fixed your settings since you seemed so determined not to do it yourself.”
“Oh.”
“You really didn’t know.”
“No. I don’t really play around with my phone much.”
Bryan mumbled as he glared down at his breakfast sandwich.
“How are we going to handle this?” Toby asked. “All the bathrooms had it on every stall. And her number is being passed around.”
“We can’t leave her alone,” Paxon said. He looked over at me with an unfamiliar hardness in his gaze. “Any guy who approaches her will obviously have bad intentions at this point.”
“After that assembly, do you really think they’ll blatantly harass me?” I asked.
“Boys are disgusting,” Toby said. “Of course they would.”
“You’re a boy.”
“Point proven,” Bryan grumbled.
“Even if they aren’t brave enough to touch you, it’s easier to say things,” Paxon said. “We don’t want that to happen.”
Toby gave a dramatic shudder. “Boys can say very dirty things.”
“Again, you’re a boy,” I said.
“Point proven!” Toby said this time. “I’m a boy. I know.” He glanced away from me, his cheeks turning red. I almost wanted to ask what he was thinking about, but considering what we were talking about, it probably was better that I didn’t.
The guys ended up taking their new job rather seriously. If I had thought I’d been surrounded by them before, it was even tighter now, with clear communications on who was ‘picking Cadence up’ and ‘dropping Cadence off.’
The only weakness really was after British lit class. I had study hall by myself. As soon as the bell rang, I got up with Paxon and headed for the door.