Falling For Amelia Manning - 13 Burned Bridges

The chaos of the second session lunch wasn’t quite as bad as the loads of students that had the privilege to eat right at eleven o’clock during the first session. Still, with dishes in their hands, soap on most of their clothes, and scowls on their faces, the three girls tasked with cleaning up after both circuses were brooding in the back where no one else could see them. All three had their hair pinned up so the nets would cover everything. Gloves up to their elbows and matching aprons so that the fronts of their clothes wouldn’t get too wet.

“You had to get caught, Edan,” Amelia finally spoke after giving the three of them the cold shoulder all lunch session. With her mouth agape, Phoebe glared at Amelia.

“You got caught too! This isn’t my fault, you started it!” She shouted back but closed her mouth tight when a lunchroom worker peeked over the dividing wall at them.

Turning back to the dirty trays still bobbing in the soapy water, Amelia turned her cold shoulder back on. With her, at the far end of the sink, there was plenty of room for James and Phoebe to whisper back and forth to each other while they sprayed the newly dirty trays before laying them in the sink. They had all been tasked with a part of the washing, but Phoebe tried to stay as far away from her duties as possible.

“Edan, you’re supposed to be wiping these down in the water before they get to me. How can I stack dirty trays in the sanitation rack?” Amelia’s tone was short and forceful. James nudged her further to the middle where she was supposed to stand and wipe down the trays before they headed to Amelia.

Angerly doing as she was demanded; Phoebe dunked the sprayed trays in the soapy water and ran a rag over them before handing them off to be sanitized with a little more force than needed. When a foamy puff of soap flew into Amelia’s eye, things deteriorated quickly.

“Amelia, I can see that you’re upset, but she didn’t mean it. Don’t start something we’re all going to regret.” James tried to talk her down while she saw her face getting redder and redder as she wiped the soap away from her eyes. “Why should I listen to you, Barbie, when she’s the one that just flung soap into my eyes!” Amelia was rightfully upset, and James couldn’t see a way to talk her down but when the head lunchroom attendant came around the dividing wall, all three of them froze.

“Session has let out, clean yourselves up and go through the line, it’s lunchtime for you three. Afterward, those tables need to shine.” The short and squat older lady directed them to their next task, even with a few trays left, they all threw their aprons on the counter and go into line before someone came back to tell them to do something else.

Phoebe and James took to the line quickly, Amelia held back a few minutes until they got to the cashier to pay before going through the line herself. They didn’t pay any mind to it, but she didn’t want them to see the card she had to use for her payment. She wished they didn’t have to make the free lunch cards a different color than everyone else’s. She hated knowing she had to take a handout just to eat lunch, that her family wasn’t doing as well as everyone else’s.

Taking her tray filled with chicken nuggets and green beans, she walked toward the table the furthest away from the two girls sitting near the middle.

“Amelia, sit with us,” James’ voice rang out in the empty cafeteria and what she said made Amelia stop in her tracks. Why did they want her sitting at the same table?

Turning around, she noticed Phoebe glaring at James, the girl that seemed to do no wrong in her eyes. Now she knew that it was an offer only extended by James, Phoebe had nothing to do with it which was oddly comforting for her. Slowly turning back to them, she walked to the table in the center of the cafeteria and sat at the end, with enough distance between the three of them for her liking.

Phoebe completely ignored what was going on at the table, it wasn’t until James kicked her in the shin that she finally said something.

“Manning, how do you get a goal from the thirty-yard line? I saw you throw one home last season and I’ve always wondered how you did it.” Phoebe talked about the only thing they could think of that they had in common. James rolled her eyes but stuck her fork in the mash potatoes on her tray instead of saying something.

“I’m good at the sport, something you wouldn’t know about, Edan,” she bit back making Phoebe throw her fork down on her tray. “I was just trying to make conversation, why can’t you be a normal person!” She shouted at her from down the table and was glad that even the lunchroom attendants were in there to witness her outburst.

The sound of plastic being snapped echoed in the cafeteria. When James looked over, she saw the broken fork still sitting in Amelia’s hand. James, scared for the life and pride of her best friend, said a silent prayer for her to find her common sense and shut up but she never gets what she prays for and this time would be no different.

Amelia stood up from the table and turned to Phoebe with rage painted on her face.

“Edan, I’m getting so sick of your attitude. If you would just stay out of my life and stay off my field, we wouldn’t have to be in each other’s faces like this!” She shouted, and all James could do was sit back and watch everything unfold before her eyes while eating the fries before they got cold.

“You blame everything on everyone else! Nothing is ever your fault! If you hadn’t put the paint in my locker then we wouldn’t be here!” Phoebe shouted just as loud as she did, but it appeared Amelia felt her words a little harder than Phoebe. She wasn’t sure if Phoebe noticed the look on Amelia’s face, but she could see a hint of regret behind her eyes.

James wanted to stand up and stop this before it went any further, but when she watched as Amelia picked up her bowl of green beans, she knew it was all over. James stood quickly and went for Phoebe’s shoulder, but Amelia’s throwing arm was no joke. The green beans soared across the distance between them and smacked Phoebe dead on in the face. James shielded herself when the beans made an impact but the fury she saw on Phoebe’s face, she knew things would get so much worse.

“You want a fight, Manning? I’ll give you one.”

Phoebe grabbed a wad of mash potatoes as soon as Amelia picked up a handful of the chicken nuggets. James dumped everything off her tray and used it as a shield while trying to stay out of range. Had Amelia not been extremely upset, she would have been impressed at the arm Phoebe had on her now. The mash potato bomb hit her in the throat, making her cough hard.

With each chicken nugget she threw, more potatoes and fries were thrown at her. James tried to stay out of it, but pieces of food were landing in her hair and she had had enough.

Throwing her own tray down, she picked up the fries that were getting cold and started hitting both as hard as she could. With the cafeteria being empty, they started running out of food, but their anger stayed present. When Phoebe turned to look at the lunchroom food line, she dashed after it just a little quicker than Amelia was able to.

Their hands dipped into vegetables, potatoes, and burger patties as the second wave of the battle commenced. James found herself in the middle of the two girls throwing food as she tried not to slip on the gravy that was covering the floor now. Catching herself, she found a pan of hamburger buns no one had touched yet and started to use that as her next set of bullets.

“I can’t get through a day of school without you messing something up for me!” Phoebe shouted over the battle between them.

“I don’t do shit to you, Edan. If you would just stay out of my life, I would be able to move on! You’re the one that ruined it! I had to practically threaten people to like me after what you told the whole school!” Amelia screamed back just as a sprinkling of carrots and peas hailed down on her face.

Phoebe readied herself with a handful of Jell-O just as she slipped in the gravy James was still battling on the floor. She was lucky enough to catch herself on the tray rail.

“I didn’t tell anyone anything! I swore to you then, but you wouldn’t believe me! How can I tell you any more plainly that I didn’t tell anyone what I heard that night!?” Phoebe screamed back at her while pelting her with the red Jell-O that stuck to her hands. James was trying to hold onto the counter for fear that she would fall into the gravy and get even messier. The only thought in her head was that she wore a skirt at the absolute worst time.

“You’re just trying to save yourself, that’s all you do! You didn’t care that everyone around me started talking about my father. You didn’t care that your words made all my other friends disappear! You especially didn’t care that I had to move to a crappy little house because my father took everything from us! We’re broke, destitute, at the bottom of the barrel and all I have left is Lacrosse. That’s the only way I will get into college and you had to ruin that by just showing your stupid face!” Amelia’s voice broke into sobs and the once vocal filled room was now still and empty of words.

“You push me away, Amelia. I tried to help you. I swore that I didn’t say a word to anyone, but you wouldn’t believe me. You needed an enemy to blame for taking your father away but that wasn’t me. I didn’t break your family up. He did.” The Jell-O dropped from Phoebe’s hand as she slowly turned around. She was careful not to slip in the mess on the floor as she walked back out to the main cafeteria. James pulled herself along the counter until she could stand up properly again.

“If it’s any consolation. She told me a little bit about what happened. Not enough to know everything, just that your father was a bad man. That he was hurting you. At that age, I wasn’t sure what to do with the information. I didn’t tell anyone anything, but I saw Josie whispering about your parents to a lot of other people. Wasn’t she supposed to be your best friend too?” James asked her with a raised eyebrow. Amelia just stood there letting the food fall to the ground.

“I don’t remember you getting upset with her.” She continued. “Phoebe may not have handled the situation very well, or any situation between the two of you since then, very well, but she cared about you back then. She thought you hung the stars. Now, your name sounds like a curse coming from her mouth. Both of you need to work this out before we have an actual fight with fists.” James declared just before carefully walking out of the food line to join Phoebe.

Amelia took a moment for herself. She was glad the food on her face would cover most of the tears she could feel falling from her eyes. She hated herself right now. She wanted to keep hating Phoebe because it was so natural, but James made a few good points she couldn’t ignore. After a few minutes, she finally turned and walked out of the food line and back into the cafeteria but stopped as soon as she saw the principal standing in front of Phoebe and James who were covered head to shoe in food just as she was.

If they weren’t in big trouble before, this was the last nail in the coffin.