10: Introducing Her Second Life

Tulip High was one of the schools that had four restrooms in total inside the campus: one for female students, one for male students, one for female faculty, and one for male faculty. Years ago, when Tulip High was still one year old since it was built, two of the big issues in the campus was bribery and teacher-student sexual relationships. There weren’t plenty of students enrolled in that high school yet at that time so there were plenty of chances for students and teachers to be alone together in restrooms. One of the teachers involved in bribery was caught after a student snitched, then another teacher involved in a same-sex sexual relationship turned out to be a wife and a mother of three children.

Because of those issues, the president of Tulip High then decided to separate restrooms for students and teachers in order to avoid those issues from happening again even though they were unlikely to happen now that they became public.

Unfortunately, though, there were still disadvantages from separating lavatories for students and teachers. Since students had the restrooms to themselves, they were free to do anything without the teachers knowing as long as no one snitches—like how Olivia and the three girls were able to make a freshman suffer without anyone knowing about it.

“I-I’m sorry,” the freshman spoke with a quaver in her voice as she watched her tears drop down the water in the toilet bowl.

Erica, the student who just moved in Flyve City with hope to get away from all of the toxic people in her life, did not expect any of this to happen. She stepped in Tulip High as a freshman with a bright smile on her face—a smile with the expectation for her beginning high school life to be the opposite of her miserable school life from the previous years. With all the sufferings she endured for her whole life, it sounded ridiculous how she actually thought she would finally have a happy school life with true friends—and she only realized that when she accidentally bumped on three girls, which caused the popsicle of one of the girls to drop on the floor, on the first day of her freshman year.

A sigh left the lips of the blonde as she rolled her eyes before returning her eyes on the younger. “My god. I just don’t get how people think saying that word will change anything? Aside from your expectation to be the cool new kid, is your other fantasy to magically go back in time when you haven’t snitched on us just by saying ‘sorry’?”

The other three girls who were watching from outside the cubicle snickered.

“N-No, it’s just—” A muffled scream left Erica’s mouth before she could even finish her sentence.

“Jesus, Erica! Who the hell even said that you could talk?” Olivia replied as she tightened her grip on the back of the latter’s hair while covering her mouth with a handkerchief since she did not want to directly touch the latter’s mouth. “You know what? With all that crying, I bet you’re thirsty. So as a generous person, I shall let you quench your thirst.”

An evil grin appeared on her face as she slowly lowered the younger girl’s head in the toilet bowl when her hold on the freshman suddenly felt less heavy. Erica abruptly stopped struggling as it felt like Olivia was holding a corpse.

“What happened? Why did you stop?” Ashleigh asked in confusion when they saw Olivia suddenly raise the younger girl’s head instead of lowering it down the toilet bowl.

“This little bitch just passed out.” The blonde groaned in frustration as she released her and let her body lean on the cubicle. “She just had to ruin the fun.”

“What do we do now? People might think we murdered her,” Mia said as she placed her palm over her mouth in nervousness.

“Are you stupid?” Lana glared at her.

“Well…” The evil smirk returned on the blonde’s face as she stood up and faced them while dusting off her hands. “We shouldn’t let it have an anticlimactic ending, right?”

The four girls looked at each other in silence for a while before they finally understood what Olivia was trying to say.

The four girls then stepped out of the restroom after having their fun as Olivia told the three girls to go ahead without them since she needed to get her history textbook in her locker (their history teacher said that they would get detention if they don’t bring their textbooks in their next class). The blonde felt satisfaction as she took one last look in the restroom before walking away—before leaving the unconscious Erica seated on a toilet bowl with her shirt and pants soaked in the bowl beneath her.

Evil. That word was invented to perfectly describe Olivia Jean.

The blonde quietly hummed a song while opening her locker when she felt her phone vibrate in her pocket. She fished her phone out of her pocket when a wallet followed along, dropping on the floor. As she picked it up, it wasn’t hers. Olivia then remembered what happened four days ago—how Dakota’s wallet ended up in Olivia’s hands.

Four days ago, Olivia witnessed Dakota beat four men alone.

They could just hear the sound of rustling along with the noise from the streets as neither of them bothered uttering a word to each other before finishing what they were doing at that moment.

“All right. Done!” Olivia heaved out a heavy sigh in satisfaction as she dusted off her hands and stood up straight while looking at the unconscious men who were leaning on the corners.

Obviously, they could not just leave them unconscious on the center since that could make possibly have the police involved if ever someone finds them. Seeing Dakota knock out four men all at once should be enough to make Olivia terrified of her and stay away from her for good.

But no. In fact, Olivia volunteered herself to help her in moving their heavy bodies.

“Can you tell me why you just moved those men with me?” Dakota spoke, almost panting.

“Because we’re partners.” Olivia rolled her eyes when the latter gave her a bored look as she corrected herself, “Okay, fine. Soon-to-be partners.”

“We are not soon-to-be partners.” The girl with red highlights took handkerchiefs from her pockets as she wrapped them around her slightly bloody hands.

“Why do you carry more than one handkerchief?” The blonde raised an eyebrow as she watched her.

“Stop following me around,” Dakota responded instead of answering her question.

“We literally only met twice, but no.” Olivia then remembered what she had been training for the past week. “Right. Did you know I’ve been stealing around to practice my thievery skills after we first met last week?”

Dakota furrowed her eyebrows in confusion as she threw her a glance. “Why the hell would you do that?”

“What else?” Olivia walked toward her until she was standing one meter away from her. “To impress you. To prove that I would be a worthy partner.”

“Why are you so obsessed in being my partner?” the latter calmly replied while continuing to wrap her hands with her handkerchiefs which she also just stole from a small thrift shop. “If you’re doing this to rebel against your parents or something, you can stop here. I don’t know your story nor do I give a shit. I just wanna say that I have no interest in being involved with you in any way.”

Olivia stared at the latter for seconds that Dakota had to look up to glance at her because of the abrupt silence. The delinquent started to think if she hurt the latter’s feelings with her words though she quickly stopped—to send her away was what she needed to do, after all.

But she was wrong.

“Actually…” Dakota almost immediately raised her head to give the latter her attention when she started to speak after a long silence. “Back at home—no, it’s not my home anymore. The house where my parents live, it’s a living hell there.

“Neither of them actually cared for me. It was like they blame the government every day for not making abortion legal in this country—because of them, my mother had to give birth to me. I also had to be the one they take out their anger on whenever they fight, which is like on a daily basis,” Olivia spoke as she let out a slight chuckle. When she felt tears forming around her eyes, she immediately fanned her face and looked away from the latter. “Oh, crap. I’m sorry you had to see me like this.”

Dakota did not move from her spot as she stared at the shorter girl in surprise because of how she suddenly opened up and started becoming emotional. Seeing the blonde wipe her tears while facing the other way made her feel a pang of guilt in her chest as she remembered what she just literally said to her two minutes ago. Dakota knew that she was an asshole for her whole life, but it was her first time to hate herself for being one at that moment.

“Here.”

Olivia turned back around as she saw Dakota handing her a clean handkerchief. She looked at her face and saw how the latter refused to hold eye contact, which made the blonde feel amused. Even though Dakota was not looking at her in the eye, Olivia could see a glimpse of sympathy and guilt in her eyes.

“Thanks.” Olivia accepted the handkerchief and bit her bottom lip to resist from grinning. “I only have one uncle in this city. I’m broke and homeless so I had no choice but to stay with him since my parents have stopped keeping in touch with him.”

“Is he, uh, treating you well?” Dakota asked while still staring at the unconscious men on the corners.

Olivia smiled a bit at the question before answering, “No. He’s broke as well. I don’t think he even knows I’m sleeping at his place.”

“Oh.” Dakota nodded.

“So, yeah. You know how my life is now. It sucks.” Olivia let out a small chuckle.

“It’s good you’re still trying to live.” Dakota cleared her throat as she finally turned to look at her.

“Yeah.” The blonde grinned.

Olivia went back to telling Dakota about how she should accept her as her partner in crime while checking the pockets of the unconscious men for anything to steal such as wallets.

“If you agreed to be partners, we would’ve been—” Olivia blinked multiple times as she looked around after standing up. “—unstoppable.”

Dakota, once again, left her there alone.