“Veronica! Veronica!” Kevin called as he ran down the hallway, behind Veronica. Veronica turned around just as Kevin was close behind her. “What?!” she yelled. “I have the perfect picture you can take for the year book!”

Veronica was on the year book committee for school, she had to take pictures and edit the year book, along with the other year book editors. “Great! Wait.” Veronica said. “Wait, what?” Kevin asked. “What exactly is the picture? Last time you told me that, some guys were running around the girl’s locker room. What is it now?” Kevin started laughing, “Yeah, yeah. Man, now that was funny! I remember that!” Veronica shook her head and rolled her eyes. “That was not funny. It was embarrassing to all the girls!” Kevin was still laughing, then after 30 seconds, Veronica started laughing along with him. “Well, I guess it was kinda funny if you saw the faces on all those girls.” Kevin grabbed her hand and pulled her down the hallway running towards the cafeteria. He opened the double doors to the cafeteria. “Food fight.” He said. “Oh my gosh! Awesome! Leave it to the freshmen body to do something like this.” Veronica pulled out her camera and snapped a couple shots. One picture with a soda can flying across the cafeteria with coke spewing out of it. “Great. This is awesome. We’ve never gotten a picture of a food fight before.”

“Yeah,” Kevin said with a sigh. “Remember all those good times we had last year. Now we are only sophomores but we have to act so serious!”

“We still have fun! Just not at the times we have to be serious. If we had a food fight now, you know how much trouble we would be in?” Just then the dean was walking down the hallway and shouted, “Hey!” Kevin looked at Veronica making a face that said ‘what?’ “What’s going on in there? I heard it was a food fight. Put that camera away!” the dean said, walking down the hallway with an angry face. “It is. It’s going on now.” Kevin said laughing. “You think this is funny?” the dean asked as he stopped right in Kevin’s face. “Well, obviously.” Kevin answered. “Kevin!” Veronica shouted. “And, you. You must love it too since you decided to take pictures of it. How about you two help clean up the cafeteria along with the freshmen students.”

“But Mr. Jamison we didn’t,”

“No!” the dean said as he held his hand up to Veronica’s face. “I don’t want to hear it. It looks like you two were involved with this food fight. Now get in there and clean it up!”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa! I’m not going in there until it stops, big guy.” Kevin said as he patted Mr. Jamison’s big chest. Mr. Jamison was a large but short man with short dark hair and side burns that came down a little too far. “Get in there. Now.” He demanded. “Can you at least hold this for me please?” Veronica said as she handed her camera to Mr. Jamison.

Mr. Jamison took the camera and nodded his head towards the door as a signal for them to enter the cafeteria. Kevin and Veronica stood at the double doors and let out a big sigh. “Here we go.” Kevin said. They both walked into the cafeteria and instantly, two short freshman boys stopped throwing food and stared at them. “Are they stopping because they know they should with us in the room, or because they are waiting for us to get closer for a better target?” Veronica asked as she leaned her head closer to Kevin’s. As they walked further into the cafeteria, more and more students stopped throwing their food and stared at the two sophomore students. “Okay,” Kevin started. “I know yall are having fun but it’s time to stop. And thanks to yall, us two have to help clean up the cafeteria. Now I advise you to drop all the food in your hands and start cleaning!”

“Awww.” All the students said as they got off the tables and stood up from behind their ‘chair forts.’

After two and a half hours, the cafeteria was finally clean. For the most part. To Veronica’s surprise, she and Kevin didn’t have any food stains on them. Walking out of the cafeteria, 3 senior football players were walking down the hallways talking and laughing loud. One of them stared at Veronica the whole time, until they passed each other. “I don’t like the way he looked at you.” Kevin said loud enough for the senior guy to hear him. “And what was that, little Smitty?” All the seniors called Kevin that since his last name was Smith. “You heard me Mr. Cooper!” The senior, Nick Cooper, turned around walked towards Kevin and Veronica. The other two seniors followed behind him. Nick Cooper ran his fingers through his short brown hair. He looked at Veronica with his dark brown eyes, then back at Kevin. Nick stood taller then Kevin, and looked down on him. “Alright. I’ll let you go this time Smitty. I won’t embarrass you infront of your girl friend here. Just make sure it doesn’t happen again. Got that?” Nick said with over confidence. Kevin stepped up closer to Nick as if he wanted competition and said, “No, you make sure it doesn’t happen again Nick.” Nick looked to both sides of him to his friends with an angry face then looked back at Kevin with his strong jaw, as if he was about to knock Kevin out. Kevin didn’t back up, he just stood there staring at Nick the same way Nick was staring at him. For 1 minute the two just stared at each other, waiting for the other to make a move. Then the bell rang and Mr. Jamison came out into the hallways along with the other students, making their way out of the class rooms. “What now, Kevin?” he said, walking up to the boys facing each other. “Everything okay here?”

“Oh yeah, everything is fine. I was just uhh...” Nick said brushing off Kevin’s shoulder, “Telling him something.” He finished. Nick started walking off and the two senior guys followed him. One of them, named Vincent, with light red hair, and blonde high lights, and silver, blue eyes, stared at Veronica then as he passed Kevin; he bumped his shoulder and kept walking. Kevin looked mad at this point. To no surprise, Kevin turned around, ran infront of Vincent, and punched his arm as hard as he could. Vincent stopped walking and threw a punch back at Kevin. “HEY, HEY, HEY!” Mr. Jamison yelled. “Stop that now! Both of you, in my office now!” But Kevin and Vincent didn’t listen. They kept throwing punches and all the students in the hall started pulling out their cell phones and recorded it all, yelling “FIGHT, FIGHT, FIGHT, FIGHT!”

All Veronica could do was watch hopelessly on the side line. She leaned against some lockers and just watched with out saying a word. This is the 5th time Kevin got into a fight like this over nothing, and it was only October. The school year basically just started. After 7 minutes of fighting, Mr. Jamison finally stepped in and broke the two up. Kevin’s brown hair was a mess as he swished it to the side and got up like nothing just happened. Vincent opened his mouth to yell at Kevin but as soon as he did, he let out a huge yell. He held his jaw and turned around, then walked off. Kevin didn’t talk because he knew it would hurt him too. He barely moved his face. Surprisingly Mr. Jamison just let the boys go and the students just left the hallway. Kevin locked his arms around Veronica’s and started walking. He walked her to her locker on the 3^rd floor, to get her stuff then he got his books and back pack, shut his locker, and waited for Veronica to finish getting her things. Veronica looped her back pack around to her back and across her shoulder and started walking again. Neither one of them said a word until they got to Kevin’s truck. He unlocked it, opened Veronica’s door, then walked around to his side and hopped in the seat, and cranked up his truck. “Why do you always have to fight every one Kevin?” Veronica asked. Kevin turned to Veronica and just stared at her. “What?” she asked. Kevin grabbed her hand and said, “I do it for you. I just don’t like the way those guys treat you.”
“The way they treat me? How do they treat me Kevin? And you act as if we go out or something. Like, I’m all yours.”
“But you are all mine.” Veronica squinted her eyes and made a weird face at Kevin. “No Kevin. We are friends, just friends. Remember?” Kevin let go of her hand and moved straight in his seat. He backed out of the school parking lot and started driving down the road. He pulled over to an ice cream place, parked his truck, got out, opened Veronica’s door, and helped her out. “What are we doing here?” Kevin didn’t say a word; he just grabbed her hand and walked inside. He pointed to a booth and Veronica went to sit down as Kevin waited in line. He came back with two Oreo milkshakes and put one in front of Veronica. He sat across from her at the booth then took a sip of his milkshake. “Thanks Kevin.” Veronica said.

Kevin nodded and then said, “I know we aren’t dating but I don’t want you to get picked up by some guy, that I know will treat you wrong. Nick and Vincent are the type of guys I’m talking about. I fought them today because I want all the guys to know how much you mean to me. And if anyone tries to hurt you, I’ll kick their butt too.”

Veronica thought it was sweet but didn’t have anything else to say but,

“Aww, thanks Kevin. That means a lot.”

They stayed there for almost an hour, just talking. Then Kevin stood up, holding out his hand for Veronica to hold onto. She stood up as they made their way out to Kevin’s truck. He opened her door, then ran around to his side and hopped in his seat. He drove her home but took the long way just to spend more time with her. He pulled up in her drive way and ran to her side, opened the door and helped her out. He walked her to her door, then kissed her on her forehead, then went back to his truck and drove off once she went inside. Veronica’s mom and her mom’s new boy friend were sitting on the couch watching a movie. She went up to her room and just rested on her bed.

“Thanks Kevin.” She whispered to herself.