O.J. Read online

  O.J.

  By Penny Hawking

  O.J... Copyright © 2015 by Penny Hawking

  All rights reserved.

  Cover design by Penny Hawking

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Penny Hawking

  Table of Contents

  Chapter one

  Chapter two

  Chapter three

  Chapter four

  Chapter five

  Chapter six

  Chapter seven

  Chapter eight

  Chapter nine

  Chapter ten

  Chapter eleven

  Chapter twelve

  Chapter thirteen

  Chapter fourteen

  Chapter fifteen

  Chapter sixteen

  Chapter seventeen

  Chapter eighteen

  Chapter nineteen

  Chapter twenty

  Chapter twenty-one

  Chapter twenty-two

  Chapter twenty-three

  Chapter twenty-four

  Chapter twenty-five

  Chapter twenty-six

  Chapter twenty-seven

  Epilogue

  Chapter one

  I propped my cheek on my hand as I stared at the clock. Come on baby 5 more minutes just give me five more minutes. I shifted my eyes to Dr. Mauzzio. The old guy looked like Santa Clause. Seriously, he had the white beard and the big belly thing going on, but he lacked hair. Dr. Mauzzio had the biggest bald spot in the history of bald spots. I could count about 3 strands of hair sticking up in the middle of his head, followed by a couple more strands converging by his temple to join his fellow compatriots to make a small little white ponytail in the back of his head.

  I blinked several times to try to stay focus, but my mind had other plans. I zeroed in on the big black mole on the side of his nose, and no matter how hard I tried I could not look away.

  “So what do you guys think Elizabeth felt like?” His monotone voice rang in the background. I smiled because when he talked his nose twitched which in turn made his mole move. That gave the rather unpleasant addition to his face a personality of its own.

  “Anybody have any idea what Elizabeth was feeling during this period?” Dr. Mauzzio pleaded desperately to the room of sleepy college seniors.

  Why no Mr. Mole, I haven’t the faintest idea what Elizabeth was doing but my you sure did get bigger today. I silent replied.

  I beg your pardon Ms. Jones, I did not get any bigger. The mole responded haughtily.

  No I’m pretty sure you did…maybe you’re pregnant and you don’t know it. I thought smiling to myself. Are you about to have little mole babies?

  Well to tell you the truth. The mole smirked proudly. I already have several kids.

  Oh wow that’s amazing. I thought looking across Dr. Mauzzio’s face. Would you mind pointing them out to me?

  The mole turned around. Right there next to the ear is Mary Sue…such a little darling I must say. And down by his neck is Peter…he always was a traveler. Next to the left eyebrow well that’s my beautiful wife Laura Anne…well we’re kind of separated at the moment.

  Oh no…what happened? Did she cheat? I inquired.

  The mole shrugged. Well actually she was a little too hairy and she refused to shave or trim, and I told her I refuse to go down on her if she insists on looking like a giant bush.

  I chuckled.

  The mole looked at me curiously. Ms. Jones?

  What?

  “Ms. Jones.”

  What?

  “Ms. Jones!” Dr. Mauzzio yelled hitting my desk with his book

  “Shit.” I squealed practically jumping out my seat. I hit my leg under my desk and cringed. Of course that garnered a few laugh from my immature colleagues. “I mean yes Dr. Mauzzio.” I said sweetly batting my eyelashes at him. I don’t know why I did that, I thought it looked absolutely ridiculous when girls did it and now look at me…following in their footsteps.

  Nico snickered and tried to cover his mouth. I smiled at Dr. Mauzzio while stretching my leg to kick Nico’s. That idiot always found something to laugh out.

  “Ms. Jones what have I told you about daydreaming in class?” Dr. Mauzzio asked.

  “Uh….” I said looking up at the ceiling. Are they ever going to fix that ugly brown spot? What the fuck. I dropped my eyes back to his mole.

  Yes what did I say about daydreaming in class? The mole smirked.

  I smiled and then quickly caught myself and erased the smile off my face. Dr. Mauzzio shook his head in despair and sighed. I’m sure halfway through the semester he either thought I was half way stupid or just high every time I entered his class. Which was none of the above mind you. I’ve never done drugs. None that you can prove. Also I’m a pretty smart girl…well when I want to be. But obviously I had trouble being smart in English 463.

  “I wasn’t daydreaming.” I said sitting up straight and showing him my beautiful pearly whites. Yeah lying always worked.

  Dr. Mauzzio fixed his short red tie and gave me an exasperated look. “Is that so?”

  “Absolutely sir…paying attention one hundred percent.” I said giving him two thumbs up. That response also opened the floor for a few snickers from the classroom and a full out bark of laughter from Nico.

  I cocked my head in his direction and glared at him. His beautiful chocolate face broke out into a gorgeous smile revealing the cutest dimples known to men. I rolled my eyes. Man if you weren’t so fucking gorgeous.

  “Ms. Jones.” Dr. Mauzzio said again.

  I turned back to the teacher with my undivided attention. See I learned something in kindergarten: “give me your undivided attention Ornelia”. Ms. Bell used to tell me every single day. Well you see Ms. Bell, I learned.

  “Since you’ve been paying attention this whole time, like the perfect student you are: What did Elizabeth tell Gary on page 497.” He asked smugly.

  Elizabeth? “Uh…who?” I swear I should know that name but my mind seriously just went blank for a minute.

  The class erupted into laughter. I turned around and glared at the few faces I made eye contact with. They immediate held back some of the laughter. Ah the joy of being somewhat popular.

  “Elizabeth, Ms. Jones…you know the main character.” Dr. Mauzzio repeated as though I was difficult of hearing.

  “Oh yeah…Elizabeth…her.” I said. I heard more chuckles. Seriously they must think I’m their entertainment for today or something. Was I really surround by a bunch of 20 something year olds or by a bunch of giggly 6 year old girls?

  “Ms. Jones, do you think this is funny? Do you come to my class every day to entertain your audience?” He asked. I could practically see the vein popping out his neck. His face was getting redder. Sort of like a tomato.

  “No sir…I honestly don’t know why they’re laughing. I don’t think it’s funny.” I said quickly. Please don’t kick me out again please please. I’m really a good student, just misunderstood. In all honesty I didn’t know if I could afford another absence in his class. He was strict with attendance and even if you’d been in class the whole time, the minute he kicked you out, it was as if you were never there.

  My teacher huffed but it looked like he wanted to chuck the marker at my face and hopefully blind me for life. “Well then answer the question.”

  “Actually Dr. Mau
zzio, class is over.” Nico said pointing to the clock.

  I smiled. 1:25. Thank you Jesus.

  “Mr. Howard, I don’t care if class is over. You have 20 minutes between classes, now we will sit here until this question is answered. Is that clear?”

  I erased my smile. I took a deep breath. “Um well on page 563…”

  “497.” Nico whispered.

  Dr. Mauzzio glared at him. Nico shrugged and slouched back in his chair.

  “497…what Elizabeth said to the dude was that she was …” pick a word, come on any word. “Lonely.” I said. Bullshit, complete bullshit.

  Dr. Mauzzio narrowed his eyes. “And.” The whole class seemed to let out a sigh of relief.

  And? Wait that meant I was right? Thank you God. “And…” I started, I searched for more words but my brain wasn’t functioning at the moment. “And…” fuck…

  “Depressed.” Dylan whispered on my opposite side.

  “Depressed.” I said. I gave Dylan a grateful look, he winked one of his beautiful green eyes at me. Oh yeah, he was a cutie. I should have taken him up on that date a couple weeks ago. But he was nice…too nice, you know that creepy nice that you don’t even know what to do with. Well he was a good kid…

  “And.” Dr. Mauzzio insisted.

  I sighed and slumped in my seat. Is this dude for real? Obviously I had no idea what I was talking about, shit give me a break. Come on mole help me out here…you got me in this mess in the first place. I crossed my arms across my chest. If he was going to keep me here till I answered then he was going to keep me for life because I was done answering. Yeah, I did have a tendency to think I was a badass. Even though that was far from the truth.

  Dr. Mauzzio smirked as he turned to the board. “Well Ms. Jones, I guess your classmates will have to thank you for another remarkable example of---”

  “Elizabeth Field told Gary Richards that she was lonely and depressed. She’d been through so much shit in her life, but it didn’t matter because nobody cared.” A low voice said in the back.

  I sat up straight. Who was that? I wondered as I turned my head and scanned the classroom. 23 other heads proceeded to do the same thing.

  “The world is too fucked up and always manages to screw people over. She didn’t want to have to put up with it anymore. Nothing good ever happened to her. That’s why she tried to commit suicide.” The voice finished.

  I craned my neck to the far corner of the room. Target has been spotted. My hero….wait what? He answered. I thought in shock as I realized who had spoken up. I didn’t even know this kid’s name. He never talked. Right now his left hand was scribbling in a cow journal. You know those black and white ones they made us get in elementary school, so we could do logs or daily reading assignments. Did those journals still exist…even in college? His head was down so all we saw was shoulder length black hair shielding his face from view. Whatever he was writing in his journal must have been pretty important.

  I turned to look at Nico, he shrugged at me and we turned back to the voice. That’s what I should call him, the voice. His voice was amazing, it was rich, low and just sexy. Even if the owner wasn’t. I looked the guy over. He was wearing black skinny jeans and big skater looking shoes. And when I say skinny jeans I mean skinny jeans. They looked tighter then my own. He had a silver chain hanging from somewhere in the back to hook into the front loop. He wore a black AC-DC shirt. His whole right arm covered in tattoos, I guess that’s called a sleeve tattoo right? On his wrist was a big spiky bracelet. You know that kind that badass dogs in cartoon wear around their neck as a collar. I moved my head over some more. Now only if I could see his face. His hair was blocking it.

  Shockingly the class had stayed silent the entire time he’d spoken and a while after. Even Dr. Mauzzio paused with his arm midair, mouth half open in shock.

  “That faggot emo kid talked.” Brian said garnering laughter from my very dumb classmates. I rolled my eyes at Brian. The thing with Brian is you couldn’t waste your time on him. He was your stereotypical big bulky football player with a pea for a brain. I know, I know, you’re thinking I should be one to talk but hey, I may zone out but this kid was completely dumb. Still had me wondering why he was in this high level English class. On second thought, why was I in this high level English class?

  The voice didn’t even budge or acknowledge Brian. I smiled. Well good for you.

  My hero closed his journal. He put it in his black book bag, which I would like to say had a broken strap and seemed to be holding on to dear life with safety pins. He got up and pushed his hair out his face. Even though I couldn’t see his eyes I saw that he had extremely long eyelashes for a boy. Man that lucky bastard, if he was a girl he would never know the meaning of the word mascara. My eyes trailed down…nice full lips…wait what’s that? A lip ring? What boy has a lip ring? He must be one of those Goth people or punk or whatever you call them.

  Without saying anything else he simply left his desk and walked out the door. Ignoring all the stares. Whoa…he’s skinny. If my mom saw him, she would feed him till he died of food overdose.

  As soon as he left the classroom, everybody started gathering their stuff and stumbled over to get to the door as quick as possible. He had definitely set things in motion

  Dr. Mauzzio looked around, but shook his head knowing he’d lost the fight. He looked so lost, I felt a little bad for him. I watched my teacher’s eyes travel across the classroom and slowly make its way to my location.

  Quickly I bowed my head so as not to make eye contact and grabbed my big purse. Escape plan…

  “Run.” Nico whispered.

  I couldn’t agree more. We shot out the desks and raced to the door as if our lives depended on it. As soon as we were out, I felt as though I could breath. Nico and I looked at each other and burst out laughing. He put his arm around my shoulder and kissed my cheek. “Saved by the freak.” He said

  I wrapped my arm around his waist as we walked down the hallway. “Who was that kid?” I asked.

  Nico laughed. “Aww my little Orange Juice.” He said teasingly. “You really don’t pay attention in class and that kid’s been there since the beginning. His name’s Andy something or whatever… but he doesn’t talk to anybody.”

  Have I told you how much I hate that nickname? Well I do, I absolutely detest it and Nico knows that but still continues to use it. That’s what happens when you have initials O.J... People take it and run with it. Let me not even get started on, “if the glove doesn’t fit, you must acquit” or whatever the fuck Cochran told the judge.

  “Well that was nice of him to answer for me.” I mused, my brain running a mile a minute.

  “I think he just wanted to get the fuck out of there, which he did, I gotta hand it to him.” Nico said approvingly. “That nigga answered the question and then up and dipped, that’s fucking genius.”

  “I should thank him.” I said looking up at Nico. I should…not many people have stuck up for me.

  Nico’s look of confusion let me know that couldn’t possibly be the best idea. “He doesn’t look like he’ll care.” Grabbing my arm, he tugged me towards the staircase. “Come on Orange Juice, let’s get something to eat.”

  “Stop calling me that.” I glared while hitting his arm teasingly, which only caused him to laugh. Seriously this kid was incorrigible. If he wasn’t one of my best friends, I would have had him killed.

  We laughed at some dumb joke he was telling me about his roommate as we went through the double doors. I took my time down the stairs as he sat on the railing and slid down.

  “One day you’re gonna bust your ass for doing that.” I said. But secretly I was jealous because I hadn’t done that since elementary school. Oh the joy of doing dumb shit and getting away with it.

  Nico grabbed my waist and turned me around. “And you’re gonna kiss it and make it all better.”

  “Boy please, you wish.” I rolled my eyes and pushed him away. He always found a way to bring up kissing some part
of him in almost every conversation. I giggled and ran down the stairs before he could catch me and burst through the doors.

  “Hey wait up!” He yelled, jumping down the rest of the stairs. Seriously he was like an oversized kid. I laughed as he barely got away with breaking his ankle and scrambled to catch up with me. His big goofy grin lit up his face as he looped arms with me and swung us down the back hallway of Crystal Hall.

  As we walked up to the doors of the school sandwich shop, FlamingSubs to be exact. Nico opened the door and did an exaggerated bow. His tall lanky frame never looked right stooping so low. “After you my lady.”

  “Why thank you young man.” I said grinning. I was about to step inside when I saw the voice. Or my savior, whatever I wanted to call him at the moment, but I saw him. He was walking towards me his head down, shoulder length black hair covering his face. Man would it be too much for me to see his face? Head nodding slight to the beat of unknown music through his humongous silver headphones, I just knew I had to interact with him. The voice stuck his hands in his two front pockets, How they fit into those tight ass jeans, I had no idea.