SubscribeStar Story: Raven’s Fall, Chapter Two

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Chapter Two

Maxine

Another typical high school day.

Didn’t Raven have anything better to do with her life? For years, she had tormented me and others who ‘deserved’ such treatment. Her words, and/or the words of the cheerleaders flanking her. At first, I thought it was because of what I wrote for the school paper, an extracurricular I dropped shortly afterwards in the hopes that it would make Raven and her friends back off. Once they had a taste of what it was like making me blush and squirm, however, it was obvious to me that the only reason I continued to be a target was because they enjoyed it.

Why did some girls have to be like that? Physically, we weren’t even that different. Similar to some of the cheerleaders Raven surrounded herself with, I was slender

I wasn’t even that different from some of the cheerleaders. In fact, my proportions were similar to a handful of the girls Raven surrounded herself with. Slender, slightly tall for my age, and C cups that would be a lot more attractive if I actually dressed for my body type. Instead, I only saw my hourglass figure in the bathroom mirror at home, otherwise wearing hoodies and the occasional flannel. Part of it was because I wasn’t vain like my classmates who blatantly flaunted their bodies in tight crop tops and microskirts. But mostly, I didn’t want to draw attention to myself in general.

Unfortunately, it had been warm enough on this particular day that I had worn a pair of loose shorts. When Raven tripped me, my knees took a bit of a beating as I fell hard onto the rough pavement. The frustrating thing was, I was bigger than her. Theoretically, I should have been able to get up and fight back. Except choosing such a battle would only start a war I’d painfully lose; next time, she’d bring back-up.

Instead, I simply focused on keeping my cool. No crying, no emotional outburst of any kind. The less interesting I made things for her, the sooner she would move on. My compliance cost me my student ID and all the cash in my wallet, which meant I wouldn’t be able to buy lunch later. I’d still eat, knowing Chloe and Nikki and how they’d insist on sharing with me. I just hated feeling like a burden, even if they’d never view it like that.

Focusing on the present again, I collected my scattered belongings and headed to the nurse’s office to clean myself up. At least Raven hadn’t taken any of my schoolwork, though that might’ve been intentional on her part. She and her cohorts were careful about their bullying, pairing plausible deniability with special treatment due to their status. Even if there were cameras where she just tripped me, I could see her claiming that I fell, or that it was somehow an accident on her part. As for pilfering through my purse? No clue. She’d probably come up with something, and I’d end up with a target on my back after she merely got a slap on the wrist at worst.

Even without Raven around, I went with the story about how I simply tripped and fell when Nurse Tessa asked me what happened. It felt a little extra when she logged into her computer to note my visit, when I would have been happy being sent on my way with a few alcohol swabs and bandaids. Not that I could blame her. While Pacific Grove was a public school, it was located in an affluent part of the city and took its record keeping pretty seriously.

“Do you mind waiting here for a minute?” Tessa asked, “I can get you taken care of as soon as I prep the space in the other room.”

Again, not necessary. I would have been fine with sitting in one of the waiting chairs by her desk, rather than being taken to a separate room for something as simple as a few wipes and the application of whatever bandaids were necessary. The only reason I didn’t go to the bathroom to deal with the scrapes myself was because I didn’t want to be seen by any other girls like that first thing in the morning. I guess I couldn’t complain, when I was definitely getting the privacy I had been seeking. It was just a bit more excessive and time consuming than I had anticipated.

When Tessa stepped out of the main area, I noticed that her computer was just sitting there, completely open and accessible. Normally, I wouldn’t think twice about something like that. I was the kind of girl who tended to follow the rules and stay out of trouble, which was potentially why the young nurse hadn’t thought to lock her screen in the first place. If a student with a worse reputation were in my place, Tessa would probably be more careful. Or maybe I was overthinking things, and this was just an early morning oversight from someone who hadn’t had her coffee yet.

I wanted to look at Raven’s file. And, for once in my life, I actually gave into my impulses.

While I wasn’t brave enough to fight back directly, mostly since I was too nervous about the consequences, maybe there would be something in the school’s system that I could use against her. She was just so perfect. At least, that’s how she presented herself. If I could just find one embarrassing detail about her, I could . . . Honestly, I didn’t really have a plan. I wasn’t exactly the most popular girl, nor were my friends. But still. It would be satisfying to see Raven deal with a little teasing from the girls on her squad, if I could somehow anonymously get them the information about whatever I found.

Reaching over the desk and turning the monitor slightly towards me, I quickly typed Raven’s name into the search bar, all while fighting my urges to abandon this idea and step back before Nurse Tessa caught me violating the privacy of another student. I knew it was wrong. And I knew how much trouble I could get in. But bullying was also wrong, and Raven had gotten away with that for so long..

I was pretty good with computers. Whatever system the nurse’s office had wasn’t familiar to me, but it was designed fairly intuitively. A few clicks later, and I had Raven’s information pulled up. She wasn’t on any medication, nor did she have any creams or ointments that people could poke fun at her about. Disappointing.

Wait.

There was a note in another section that made my eyes light up. Bedwetting. As in, currently wetting the bed.

I rapidly scanned the page with notes detailing Raven’s situation. She was wearing pull-ups to bed, and Tessa had stocked diapers in case of a daytime need. There was also a log of both Raven’s nighttime accidents, as well as when she was using the bathroom during the day. That made sense. Tracking her body’s habits, to determine what might be causing the problem.

This was better than I could have ever imagined. Raven was a bedwetter! And wearing protective underwear appropriate for a girl who couldn’t make it through the night. That was such a bigger secret than what I had been looking for.

My mind was racing. I reminded myself that Nurse Tessa could be back any second, and settled on snapping a few quick photos of Raven’s file. Printing the page would have been ideal, but that would require actually going behind the desk. I had already risked a lot just by using the computer for a minute or two. After making sure I put things back exactly like I had found them, I returned to where I had been standing before. I took a deep breath to calm my nerves, practically shaking from the thought of what might have happened if I had been caught. Snooping like that was so unlike me, yet it had absolutely been worth it.

Tessa returned a minute or two later, and gestured for me to join her in the private room. I was basically on autopilot as she sat me down and cleaned my legs of the debris and the bit of blood from where I had been scraped up. My thoughts were solely on Raven, and how to use this humiliating information against her.

The simplest approach would be to simply share the photo with some throwaway email or social media account or something. It wouldn’t take much. One gossip-y girl, and the news would spread like wildfire. Our classmates would do the work for me, and I could safely and anonymously sit back and enjoy watching Raven dealing with her little problem becoming public knowledge. The best part? She would still be a bedwetter. A cheerleader who wore pull-ups to bed, and everyone would know it.

That just felt like . . . not enough? I wasn’t sure how to describe it. Unlike Raven, I wasn’t casually cruel, needlessly malicious, or anything like that. But cheerleaders practically made an art form out of saving face when necessary. I only had one shot at using this secret against her, and it would be such a letdown if she somehow downplayed it. Scoffing and claiming photoshop, spinning some story that shifted the attention in a more positive direction, etc. It was difficult to get into the mind of a cheerleader, when I would have a much worse time defending myself from such an embarrassing allegation.

By the time I left the nurse’s office, I had two potential ideas floating around in my mind. Both of them involved using the leverage on Raven directly, since the threat of people learning about her bedwetting and padded underwear was more powerful than simply sharing her secret with the world. Either I could set something up to message her anonymously, or I could confront her face to face. The latter was daunting, of course, since it required standing my ground against the girl I was used to caving to every single time. But I could always take a page out of Raven’s book, and bring Chloe and Nikki with me. Raven had gotten comfortable picking on me without her friends in tow, which is how she first went after me. Though she was smaller, we both knew that I wouldn’t dare push back when I’d just pay for it later. Until now.

With my size advantage, and using what I had just discovered as leverage, Raven wouldn’t be able to intimidate me as much. And if I hesitated, thanks to years of bullying making that my instinct, my friends would be there to have my back.

It still wasn’t necessarily a plan, but it was something. Provided I could get Chloe and Nikki on board, and convince myself to take such an approach, this could happen as soon as I figured out what exactly I wanted beyond seeing the look on Raven’s face when I informed her I knew about what she had most likely been hiding from literally everyone. Something told me that the kinds of friendships she had weren’t as real as the ones that I had; she wouldn’t dare trust a girl on her squad with anything like that.

For the first time in my life, I was struggling to pay attention in class; I was too focused on brainstorming. The more I lived with the idea of making Raven squirm, the more I affirmed with myself that I wanted to do it face to face. She needed to realize there were consequences for her mean girl actions, and that she couldn’t keep strutting around the school as if it were her kingdom. That, and I selfishly enjoyed the thought of flipping the script on her after all this time.

By the time school was over, I had a vague plan. A lot of it was contingent on how Raven reacted to her embarrassing little secret being used against her, so I didn’t go too deep into scheming beyond what I had in mind for the first day. Chloe and Nikki were going to come over to my place, as I still hadn’t told them anything; while I trusted them, it made more sense to share my discovery in a private setting, where there was no chance of anyone overhearing the conversation.

Chloe and Nikki were identical twins, though most people wouldn’t be able to guess at first glance. They had completely different hairstyles, and their outfits were night and day. While they got along well with each other as sisters, they had outgrown the match-y thing forever ago, and went out of their way to not be viewed as a set of twins.

The two of them were intelligent, but tended to be quiet around those they didn’t know very well. I was hoping their strong grades would translate to devious ideas once they heard what I had planned for Raven. At the very least, I knew I could count on them to help me later when standing up to the bitchy cheerleader.

At first, they thought I was kidding. As if I had ever told a joke so outlandish and elaborate. Once I showed them the photos of Raven’s file, and said that I had seen the information with my own eyes, they believed me. We shared a bit of laughter at the thought of Raven putting on pull-ups before bed, since it was pretty amusing. One of the most popular girls in school, wearing the kind of protection the average girl hadn’t needed since childhood.

Eventually, we settled down and got to work. Inspired by my initial concern about Raven claiming photoshop to defend herself, I decided to go on the offense with that very program. It was easy to find her social media accounts, which had no privacy settings whatsoever. Chloe and Nikki divided and conquered, looking through her various photos for something that worked for the idea that I had in mind.

Meanwhile, I buried myself in the online research required for some of the potential branches for how things would ideally play out with Raven. The only experience I had with pull-ups was a handful of babysitting jobs, and that had been before high school. What I needed to give Raven what she deserved was a bit more involved than what she was currently dealing with at night, and it would be amazing if it ended up working out the way I hoped.

By the time we decided to take a break for dinner, I had decided that I didn’t want to wait. All I needed for the first stage of my loose plan was to swing by a pharmacy on the way to school. The sooner Raven was dealt with, the sooner all the girls like me would be free of her nonsense.

I didn’t feel so nervous about the confrontation any more, either. Tomorrow morning, Raven was going to be the one flinching. And, if I played my cards right, she was going to have to hide a lot more than just the pull-ups she wore to bed.

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