by Elle Casey
“So?” I finally said. “Who cares?”
Yeah. That was my brilliant repartée. Now you know why I’m not involved in Debate Club activities.
“You will, eventually. Being invisible is not the same as being a pariah, you know.”
I didn’t respond because he was completely right, and obviously this was something that I’d already thought about. It kind of deflated my angry balloon a little. Being mad at Bobby made no sense, and being mad at the world made even less sense. I wasn’t going to change anyone else’s view of things, but I could control my own.
The fact that I was pretty much totally involved wouldn’t change, no matter what Bobby said, no matter how logical his arguments might be. It couldn’t change. I was fully committed to being Jason’s friend at this point, and there was no going back in my mind. No way could I not show up at Jason’s new home-away-from-home, especially now that I’d slapped him around. I had to see this thing through, for better or for worse.
I only gave a passing thought at that time to the fact that I was officially saying goodbye to my high-school life as I knew it. Looking back, I’ve wondered if I would have made a different decision, had I known what I was in for.
Chapter Thirteen
THE REST OF THE CAR ride to school passed with zero conversation and lots of loud music, mostly of the Katy Perry variety because Bobby is such a huge fan and my brain was too busy thinking about Jason’s fucked-up life to bitch about the lack of variety.
We parked in the farthest lot from the school, the place reserved for people who don’t have regular paid parking stickers. I was sweating and all the crankier for it, dripping wet by the time I reached the main sidewalk leading up to the closest building. I hate starting the day off with my shirt plastered to my body. Nothing good ever came of that in my experience.
It was terrible timing that we ended up walking just behind a group of football players talking in their normal, loud, nobody-matters-but-us kind of way.
“I’ll fucking kick his face in if I ever see it again,” said one of them, his swagger advertising to the world that he was just the man for the job.
“When’s the memorial for Coach?” another one asked. “This Wednesday, right?”
That’s when I knew they were talking about The Incident. The murder. Jason. My pulse quickened as did my pace.
“Yeah, it’s Wednesday,” said the future potential face-kicker.
“Did you guys hear that Jason might show up?” said a third guy. “That’s what Brittney said. She’s totally freaking out, poor girl.”
My jaw dropped open at that utter lie, and I was instantly fuming. Brittney seriously needed a boob punch in the worst way.
Bobby grabbed my arm when he noticed me speeding up even more. “Easy, sister. Just let it go,” he said in a quiet voice.
I yanked my arm away from him and ignored his advice completely. That was probably a stupid move, but I’d pretty much abandoned being circumspect at that point. I slap murderers around and then I stick up for them when they’re being maligned. Boom. That’s how I roll. Chaos? Yes, give me more of that, please.
“Hey, assholes!” I shouted, coming up behind the group of five football players. It was a little harder to breathe, the closer I got. I never talked to these types of guys if I could help it. Now I was calling a whole group of them out.
They kept going, in complete denial that I could be speaking to any of them.
Typical.
I could have stopped there and walked on with my head down, pretending like nothing had ever happened, and no one would have been the wiser except maybe Bobby, — who, for the record, looked like he was about to have an apoplectic fit — but instead I raised my voice and gave it another try.
“Hey, assholes on the football team! Yeah, I’m talking to you!”
Several people walking nearby slowed down and moved to get in a better position for spectating. I’d thrown down the gauntlet, and I could tell it was finally sinking into the group’s collective football brain that I meant it for them, as they slowed and looked at each other in confusion.
The biggest one, the guy who issued the threat to kick Jason’s face in, turned around first.
“Say what?” he asked, and then he laughed. “Check this,” he said, hitting his buddy on the arm and then pointing at me.
They all stopped and turned around, facing Bobby and me.
I kept going until I was just feet away, shifting so that I was in front of Bobby. This wasn’t his fight; no need for him to get pummeled.
I had to look up to meet their eyes since none of them were less than a foot taller than me. The big one was probably six and a half feet, so a full foot plus a few bonus inches bigger. Talk about David and Goliath. All I could think when I stared up at his giant, square-shaped head was that he had to be sprinkling steroid powder on his Lucky Charms in the morning. His neck was as thick as my waist.
“Jesus, how many years can they hold you back before you can’t compete anymore?” I muttered, my head cranked way back so I could still see his face.
“What’d you say?” one of the other guys asked. He sounded confused.
I decided to stick to my first line of attack. “I said, Hey assholes, but that’s not all I have to say.” I gripped the strap of my backpack really hard with both hands.
Expressions darkened. A couple of the footballers dropped their backpacks to the ground. It crossed my mind that I was about thirty seconds away from being killed, and boy, wouldn’t they be hypocrites if they did that to me? That tiny measure of satisfaction did nothing to cure the almost-heart attack I was suffering as they all stared me down.
I did find some courage in the fact that they didn’t want to be in jail next to their former teammate any more than I wanted to be buried in the same cemetery as their former coach. I wasn’t seriously worried about a throw-down, at least not with all these witnesses standing around. No, here I had the freedom to tell them all about themselves without fear of a premature death anytime soon. I’d worry about later, later. It was time they got a little dose of reality, served up fresh and hot, courtesy of little old me.
“What’s your fucking problem?” one of them asked, rocking side to side like a drunk rooster and flopping his hands around a little near his crotch. “You on the rag or something? Lost your mind with temporary insanity?”
Ugh. Where are all the metal chairs when you need one? I used to laugh at professional wrestling, but today would have been a good day for some chair-to-head bashing.
I smiled in a bitter, I-couldn’t-be-more-disappointed-in-the-male-gender way, shaking my head. “Typical. A girl tells you that you’re an asshole and it’s all on her. It couldn’t possibly be that you’re an actual, bona fide asshole, could it?”
“Get to the point,” the biggest one said. He was a lot less rooster-ish, but his steady calm made him more scary.
My heart was pounding so hard it was like it wanted to get out of my chest and run away on its own, abandon my stupid mouth to its fate. It was making my shirt quiver with every beat.
My voice came out high and reedy as my ears flamed hot red. “The point is that you guys are a bunch of disloyal, hypocritical assholes who aren’t fit to wipe Jason Bradley’s ass, let alone be on his team.” I hitched my backpack up higher on my shoulder because it was sliding down with the weight of my books. Taking a deep breath did nothing to calm my nerves.
They stared at me for a few seconds and then, frustratingly, started laughing.
“Check her out,” the smallest one said. “Shorty got her box all up on his kickstand, coming in here scolding us.” He shook his head at me like I was the one to be pitied. “Guy’s a murderer, yo. Killed a good man. He better not ever show his face to any of us ever again or he’s gonna find hisself buried too.” He looked at all his friends, nodding and getting encouragement before turning back to face me. “Balee dat.”
That was his grand finish, and they all kept nodding like a bunch of stupid bob
ble heads right along with him.
“Hisself? Hisself? Seriously? Do you not even hear yourself? Is grammar optional now?” I was disgusted with them being turncoats and on top of that, barely educated. Football players at our school always got a free pass, in part because of that stupid coach who did something to Jason that was bad enough he got smacked down for it.
I didn’t mean to be minimizing the seriousness of what had happened to the dude in my head, but this whole situation just felt horrifically, terribly wrong. I knew for a fact that these guys used to call Jason their brother, for shit’s sake.
“Come on, man, you’re wasting your time,” one of them said to the small guy. “She ain’t worth it and neither is he.”
But the small guy was not so easily dissuaded. He walked up to me and stopped when he was way too close. Putting his finger into my face, he leaned down so we were just inches apart. “You watch your mouth, bitch, or you’ll end up sorry, I can promise you that.”
I smacked his finger out of the way, my voice no longer all goofy. Something inside me took over and helped me sound all badass. I think I was channeling Zena the warrior princess.
“Get your dirty finger out of my face, asshole. God knows where that thing’s been. I don’t want to catch anything nasty.”
He turned partway around. “You saw her hit me, right? You all saw that. That’s assault and battery.”
“Yeah, we saw it,” said one of his friends. “Let’s go talk to Principal Lindberg.”
I started laughing, forced to bend over to the side a little to save my stomach muscles and not bump into the guy’s massive chest. I think it was the adrenaline that was pumping through my heart and veins that made the wrong emotion start emoting. When I should have been quaking in my Converse and crying, I was giggling like a loon.
“Yeah, go ahead, dick cheese. Tattle on me.” I stood up with a big old smile and waved all of them off with one big sweeping gesture of my arm. “Big bad fucking athletes? Pffff, right. Bunch of children is what you are. Good luck making it to State without Jason.” I shook my head, so ashamed of them. “Assholes.”
Bobby grabbed my backpack at that point and pulled me away from the group. “Iiiii think we’re done here,” he said under his breath. “Come on, sweetie pie. Off to class now.” He pushed me around the group of kids who’d gathered to watch the show, but I stared the players down the entire way past them.
“Fucking cowards,” I spat out, flipping them off at the same time.
The little guy leapt towards me like he was going to tackle me, but his friends held him back.
My responding laugh was fueled purely by the energy boost that surviving that mess gave me, because I was back to sweating bullets and shaking all over.
When we reached the school and stepped inside, Bobby grabbed me by the backpack, spun me around, and slapped me right across the face.
I stood there pressing my hand to my stinging cheek in stunned silence, all the fight in me fleeing for parts unknown. I could hear my heart beating in my ears. It was very possible I was smelling something not very nice from my armpit area too. Suffice to say, I was not in a good place.
“Don’t you ever do that again, do you hear me?!” Bobby’s voice had gone up to levels that I was pretty sure could damage a dog’s sensitive ears. He was crying too, obviously nearing the edge of a full-on panic attack. “You almost got yourself killed!” He grabbed me by the arm and dragged me down the hallway as the double-doors behind us opened and students started coming in.
“I had to say something,” I whined, my feet slapping on the linoleum as I unsuccessfully tried to slow him down.
“No, you didn’t. At least not that.” We turned several corners until we were in a back hallway not often frequented by anyone but smokers trying to hide from teachers.
“It was fine,” I said, trying to reassure him and myself at the same time. “I’m fine, see?” I held up my hands and let him assess my totally unscathed body parts. I was only trembling a little by then. He probably didn’t even notice.
Bobby folded his arms across his scrawny chest. “Listen … I get it that you have some sort of bond with Jason or that you feel some sort of responsibility, okay? I get that.” His arms came apart and his hands started flying all around his head next. “What I don’t get is the death wish. Do you think that you’ll somehow start a fight, get arrested, and be able to share a cell with him or something?”
“No. Don’t be ridiculous.” The very idea made my face burn red. Would people really think that about me? That I could be that stupid and naive? How humiliating.
“Okay then. Think. Think about what you’re doing before you do it.” He started tapping his toe then, hands on hips.
“You heard what they were saying, Bobby. I couldn’t just let it go.”
“Of course you can. It’s just talk.” He grabbed me by the upper arms and shook me a couple times. “You make me so crazy sometimes! Assholes like that talk all the time. Talk means nothing. But letting yourself get kicked out of school or worse is something. Something bad. Very bad.” He finally quit shaking me, which was a good thing because I was starting to get a headache. “Do you think your parents will let you visit Jason if you’re suspended? Or expelled?”
I dropped my gaze to the floor, fully chagrined and feeling about as smart as a kindergartner. “They don’t know I’m visiting, so maybe it wouldn’t matter.”
“If you get yourself kicked out of school, I’ll tell them. I totally will.”
I lifted my head in a hurry at that. “What? Are you serious?”
“Yes, I’m serious. I will tattle and tattle and tattle. ’Til my tongue falls out, I will tattle like a tattling mofo b-word.”
“Why would you do that?” The loyalty argument was rising to my lips as he answered.
“Because I love you. And when you see someone you care about making bad decisions, when they need you, you intervene, even when it means you can get hurt in the process and they might even hate you for it.”
I could not stay mad at him after that little speech. It was like the sun burst out from behind some dark clouds and shined warm rays right onto my cold face, thawing me out. He made total sense in a world I was starting to think would never make sense again.
Instead of arguing like I’d planned to, I turned him sideways, laced my arm through his, and guided him back to the main part of school. “I agree with you completely.” It felt so good to say that. To know that one other person and I were on the same wavelength. “And now when anyone asks me why I’m standing by Jason during this debacle I’ll have the perfect answer.”
He eyed me suspiciously. “So you’ll stop trying to take on the football team single-handedly?”
“Yes. I think.” I shook my head, ridding it of my vigilante visions. “No, I know I will. I’ll stop, I promise.”
“And you’ll stop looking for trouble when none of that crap matters?”
“Yes. And thank you for putting things into perspective for me.”
He smiled big and the bounce came back into his step. “Wow. That was way easier than I thought it would be. And you’re very welcome, by the way. I’ll send you my bill later. Lucky for you I’m running a special on perspective re-calibration this week, otherwise I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t be able to afford me.”
“I look forward to getting it.” I was trying not to laugh at the way Bobby was swishing again. At the very least, I could always count on him for entertainment, but today, he’d shown me he was worth his weight in gold. Friends like Bobby are really hard to come by, and as much as I didn’t really like what he was saying, I knew he was right.
If I was going to be helpful to Jason, it wouldn’t be by fighting wars that had no good outcome. It would be by just being there. Being a friend like Bobby always was to me. Maybe the best I’d be able to do would be that, and I’d just have to pray that it would be good enough. What everybody else thought didn’t matter. If they were the type to turn their backs on
a friend when he needed them most, they weren’t worth my time anyway.
I floated to my first class of the day, hanging on the arm of my BFF. The euphoria didn’t last that long, though. Unfortunately, my newfound perspective did not come with an automatic erasure of what I’d started out in the parking lot. I had one good period of classes before the foo doo really hit the fan.
Chapter Fourteen
I WAS WALKING DOWN THE hall to my Algebra II class when something hit me really hard in the middle of my back, sending me flying.
It was not pretty. One minute I was upright, the next I was bent in half backwards, my head whiplashing in reverse and my pelvis charging forward.
My knees hit the linoleum first and the rest of me went down like a really bad version of a break-dancing worm. My backpack was the last to succumb to gravity, landing on my neck, the full force of thirty pounds of books denting my spine.
There were several gasps of surprised horror and then some evil laughs. Once I could breathe again, I rolled over to find Brittney standing behind me.
“God, you’re clumsy, aren’t you?” Standing on one side of her was her evil twin Tiffany and on the other was one of the football players I saw her with earlier.
I was overwhelmed by a mixture of both extreme humiliation and a fury I’d never known in my seventeen years of life. For just a moment, I pictured myself leaping up and choking the life out of Brittney, and it was very satisfying for the nanosecond my brain forgot that murder is wrong.
It took me a while to get on my feet. Everything ached. Bobby’s wise words echoed in my brain and cooled my fury just enough to take the edge off.
“You did that,” I said once I was steady.
Yes, master of the obvious, that’s me.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. A little friendly advice, though? Watch your back.”
“Literally,” I said, my sense of humor overriding my ability to come up with tough, witty comebacks.