Pinhole
Copyright© 2022 by Fanlon
Chapter 29
I was frozen in place and my eyes were locked on Adam’s. He wouldn’t, or maybe couldn’t, meet mine in return. Dana, who only a second before was as giddy as a young girl now had the look of someone ready to commit a heinous, bloody murder.
“What do you mean, there is something you have to tell me?” I asked, my voice clipped as if I bit off each word to keep from growling.
“Adam, if you say what I think you’re about to...” Dana dashed forward. She moved faster than I had ever seen her move before. Her posture screamed she was about to do something that she might regret. She leaned into Adam, her nose a hair’s width from his. He at least had the decency to flinch away. “I am going to kill you right here. Right now!”
“It wasn’t me; I didn’t do anything!” Adam frantically tried to explain but Dana was already moving, and I couldn’t stop her. Dana shoved Adam right in the chest and to my utter surprise, Adam was not only moved backwards, but fell flat on his ass on the floor. He didn’t try to get up, but instead held out his hands in an attempt to fend off Dana’s next attack crying, “Please, you have to believe me!”
Dana moved again, but this time she only stood over Adam. He turned his head and closed his eyes. The color in his face, his usual ruddiness was gone completely. He was already sweating profusely and somehow pale at the same time.
“You better start explaining right now!” Dana roared.
“It ... it, it wasn’t me!”
“Then who was it Adam?” Dana snarled.
“Jonathan, it was Jonathan!” Adam almost screamed. His voice was so full of panic that his words all seemed to bunch together.
“Jonathan who?” I asked, taking a couple steps closer to Adam.
I tried to keep my voice even, but I failed, and Adam’s eyes widened again when they met mine. It was only for an instant, but that was long enough to get him talking again. He tried to scoot away from Dana and me. Unfortunately for him though, he had nowhere to go. The darkroom wasn’t all that big, it wasn’t designed for people to be fighting in the middle of it.
“Claire’s little brother, it was him,” Adam offered. “His name is Jonathan.”
“That’s not good enough,” Dana snapped, and Adam flinched again. “Tell us everything, now!”
That last statement from Dana was a roar and the darkroom door spun open faster than I thought possible, and Mr. Watts stormed in, his eyes blazing with fury.
“What is the meaning of this?” Mr. Watts demanded, his voice low and dangerous. All he saw when he came in was Adam on the ground, nearly in tears with his hands up to fend off Dana and me. “You two, move back. Adam, let’s get you up.”
I had moved back several steps at Mr. Watts’ orders, but Dana had only moved one step, a very small step. I watched as Mr. Watts pulled Adam up to his feet, but Adam didn’t move once there. His eyes kept flicking back and forth between me and Dana.
“Mr. Watts, you don’t understand—”
“What I understand was you were bullying Adam,” Mr. Watts barked, cutting off Dana’s words. His gaze locked onto Dana’s. “Look at him. You have him shaking like a newborn.”
Mr. Watts and Dana’s eyes remained locked on to each other’s, unblinking. A battle of wills had just started and it looked like Dana had no intention of backing down to someone of authority, at least not in this situation.
“They weren’t bullying me...” Adam said. His voice was so quiet I wasn’t sure if I really heard it, but when Mr. Watts’ gaze left Dana’s and focused on Adam, I knew I wasn’t my imagination.
“What did you say?” Mr. Watts quickly turned to Adam, his intense face instantly softening before Adam.
“They weren’t bullying me, Mr. Watts,” Adam repeated, his voice only slightly louder than before.
“Are you sure?” Mr. Watts asked. “If they were attacking you, we will go straight to the principal. I won’t stand for my students bullying other students.”
“I’m sure ... I was just telling them about, uh...” Adam barely managed to say, because he stuttered when he realized that now Mr. Watts was going to hear his story as well, not just Dana and myself.
“About what?” Mr. Watts asked, his face still soft.
“About who started the rumor, I know who it was.”
“Adam, if you know what started the stupid rumor, you need to tell me.” Mr. Watts put his hands on Adam’s upper arms, locking their gazes together.
“It was Jonathan, Claire’s little brother.”
“How do you know this?” Mr. Watts asked and now Dana and I were on either side of him.
“Because ... because ... he showed me the picture...”
“He what?” Dana shrieked and tried to step right up to Adam, but Mr. Watts’ arm came out and stopped her.
“Dana! Settle down now, or you’re going to have to leave,” Mr. Watts demanded.
Holy shit, Adam had seen the pictures I took of the sluts. Jesus fucking Christ!
“He started the rumor!” Dana cried, her face red with barely restrained rage.
“No, I didn’t!” Adam spat back, but not daring to move closer to Dana and I didn’t blame him on that one bit. “I told you; it was Jonathan. He started it.”
“How did Jonathan know about the pictures in the first place?” Dana questioned.
“He umm ... I might have...” Adam looked terrified now, truly, and honestly terrified.
“You might have?” Now it wasn’t just Dana and my anger Adam was facing, Mr. Watts looked like he was about to join our cause.
“I told him his sister was here, at lunch getting pictures from you. He went home after school and found it and showed it to me. That’s all, I swear. I never said anything to anyone else about it.”
“Are you sure, Adam? This is serious.” Mr. Watts said, his voice level and even but there was a hint of force there as well that was unmistakable.
“I swear it, Mr. Watts,” Adam whined.
“Why didn’t you say something earlier?” Mr. Watts asked seriously. “You heard me talking about rumors. What that does to artists when people lie or don’t understand what they are seeing.”
“I don’t know...” Adam’s head fell, and he kept his eyes on his toes.
“Adam!” Dana growled, obviously she couldn’t hold back anymore. “Do you realize what you did? You almost ruined Josh’s chance at the art competition at the university for fuck sakes.”
“I didn’t know about that!” Adam’s backbone suddenly straightened. “You, Laura, and Josh wouldn’t talk to me.”
“Yes, we did!” Dana fired back.
We had started talking to him. In fact, he was now a full member of our little lunch gang in Mr. Watts’ classroom. He was even supposed to be helping us figure out the rumor. The one he was apparently a part of.
“Adam, if you knew at the beginning, why didn’t you say anything?” Mr. Watts asked. “Do you realize how much trouble everyone could have gotten into, including me?”
“Because they were being assholes!” Adam snapped.
“Adam!” Mr. Watts scolded Adam for his choice of words.
“I mean, I asked Josh to show me...” Adam’s face suddenly blushed furiously. Everyone could see the minute Adam stuck his foot in his mouth and no one seemed impressed. Least of all Mr. Watts.
“Are you telling me you didn’t stop that whole thing because Josh wasn’t sharing the pictures he was taking with you?”
Adam didn’t have the balls to answer him with words. Instead, he just nodded pathetically. Adam knew he messed up; it was obvious by the way he was standing now that Mr. Watts had called him out. Now that the secret was out, Mr. Watts told us to get out of the darkroom and get ready for class. Dana left but told me she was going to find Claire and would meet me after school. I didn’t know if going straight to Claire was the best idea, but I didn’t blame her in the slightest.
It wasn’t until between sixth and seventh period, my last of the day when Claire and Jennifer confronted me. I was frankly surprised Stephanie wasn’t there as well, but Claire and Jennifer were more than enough to overwhelm me if something was going to happen.
“Josh,” Jennifer said as she strategically stopped right in my path down the hallway.
“Hey,” I replied and tried to move around her, but she side-stepped in the same direction.
“We need to talk to you, come on,” Jennifer pointedly told me.
She didn’t give me a chance to argue or politely excuse myself from their company. Jennifer grabbed my arm and pulled me along behind her. I glanced at Claire, and she looked to be just as embarrassed as I was. Claire and I followed Jennifer into one of the classrooms with the lights off.
“We can’t be in here,” I protested and looked around worried I was about to get in trouble from trespassing. “This is someone’s classroom.”
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