by Michelle Ray
Antonio Garcia Rojas Ben, it’s B. If you see this, I’m sorry. Okay? I’m sorry.
Beatriz
Antonio let me borrow his phone since mine had been confiscated so I could send Ben a message. I hoped he’d see what I had to say, and I wondered if he’d tried to contact me.
Ben
It was better when I didn’t care about anyone. My parents always treated me like an unexpected guest, which I guess I was since they once let it slip that I was an accident. As for relationships, most girls I knew were content with a few days of hook ups, which was easier than actually getting to know each other. Caring made me hurt. And hurting sucked.
Beatriz
Without Ben, school was a rather lonely place, which was ironic after all those months of wishing we didn’t have practically the same schedule. Spanish dragged and physics was dull with no one to berate for screwing up labs. Zoe, my temporary partner, was perfect and we finished the experiment before everyone else, but there was little pleasure in it since no one would talk to me. And I couldn’t blame them. I wouldn’t talk to me either.
It got worse the day the hearings started.
Ben
Every one of the people sitting behind the long wooden table hated me. The Board. The teachers. The administrators. They didn’t even pretend to hide it. Their curled lips, their chins slightly raised so they could literally look down their noses at me. I couldn’t stand it, so I looked up at the ceiling only to notice that the light fixture looked exactly like a giant eyeball with a dark pupil center. Was it intentional? If so, the architect of this hall was sick.
A side door opened, and Mr. Robertson came in. Everyone stood, but my legs were so weak that I had to grab the edge of the table to help myself up. I noticed Peter and Clay doing the same. John and Bryce, however, seemed cool and collected. In fact, John looked like he was enjoying the whole thing. I wanted to beat the crap out of him.
I tried to catch Peter’s eye, but he was staring intently at Mr. Robertson.
We all sat.
My father cleared his throat and a chill ran through me. I heard the squeal of van brakes outside the window. Every cameraperson and reporter in the city was hovering just off school grounds. They’d swarmed our car the second they spotted us. This kind of exposure was doing nothing to help my dad’s general feeling that I was the worst thing that ever happened to him. And considering what a drain Alex had been to our family, that was saying something.
“Gentlemen,” Mr. Robertson began, “we will be asking each of you individual questions. Your parents may be present if they so choose. This is not a legal proceeding, but to determine your fate here at Messina Prep. If Hope’s father chooses to press charges, that will be handled separately. We will begin with Clay’s statements.”
Beatriz
“Tío!” I exclaimed as my uncle walked into the headmaster’s office where I’d been told to wait.
I noticed how haggard he looked. Even worse than at Hope’s funeral, which was the last time I’d seen him. There was a sway to his step, and I wondered if he was tired or had come to the hearing drunk. I really hoped he hadn’t for a bunch of reasons. He’d been sober for a solid three years, and — God, is it awful to say this? — I would be embarrassed if he was.
My uncle’s head swiveled to me, and a small smile crept across his lips. “B.” But then he seemed to be overtaken by something I could not see, and watched agony play across his face.
My mother rose to put an arm around him. “Don’t worry, Leonardo. We will get those boys.”
I felt caught between sympathy and fear.
Ben
The hearing went on for hours. My stomach had been grumbling until it was my turn to answer their dozens of questions. Then I just felt sick.
“Ben,” Mr. Robertson said after a brief whispered conversation between board members, “you are suspended for the rest of the week. If there is further action, we will call the house.”
“What?” bellowed my father, and my mother was on her feet.
I, however, just sat there stunned. A week for what? Hadn’t they heard a word I’d said? Jesus. It was like they’d made a decision before listening to the story.
“Mr. and Mrs. Richardson,” Mr. Robertson said to my parents, “we have an honor code, and it must be followed.”
I muttered, “John and Bryce were never bothered much by it.”
“What was that?” asked Mr. Robertson, and all eyes were on me.
I took a deep breath and decided to be more like B who spoke her mind, consequences be damned if it was the right thing to do. “What amazes me is that the school never seems concerned by John and Bryce’s daily cruelty. Is it because their parents donate more money or because being a dick is only a problem if Messina ends up on the 5 o’clock news?”
A collective gasp from the adults in the room.
Mr. Robertson leaned forward and said slowly, “You may go, Benjamin. We will be touch.”
Beatriz
I heard Ben and his family coming out of the hearing, his father saying, “I hope you’re proud of yourself, Ben. You had to use that smart mouth of yours.”
“Smart my eye,” his mother said, pinning Ben against the wall with a manicured finger. “The college consultant and I spoke last night, and she said that elite schools — how did she put it? — don’t need to take students with ‘stains’ on their records. Stains! Goodbye not to only Harvard, but goodbye to all of the colleges you applied to.”
“And if you think,” injected his father, “that we’re giving you a free ride after graduation, you’ve got another thing coming.”
“You’ll have to go to work,” said his mother.
“Work? He wouldn’t know how,” snarled his father, who spun on his heels and marched down the stairs followed by Mrs. Richardson.
Ben’s eyes met mine. I rose and stepped forward, but my father yanked me back in my seat. In Spanish, he said, “Use your head! Leave that boy be.”
Ben
&$*&%$#@!(*&+#%:”>*<|%*&^!
Beatriz
I watched him go and it was like a piece of my heart had been removed.
Sitting the next two hours as the hearing continued for Clay and the other guys, I meditated on that sensation, of its impossibility and whether it was a cliché if it was true, and tried not to look at my uncle and think of Hope buried and rotting in the ground thousands of miles away. My beautiful cousin whose last words had been so full of hurt.
Ben
I sat in my room for over an hour and was driven by boredom and restless anger to go downstairs. I spotted my mother the kitchen. Her head was in her hands as she leaned on the counter, my father having slammed his way back out of the house cursing her. She looked so small. Not the puffed up dragon of a lady who had poked my chest and humiliated me in front of B and her family at school.
How many times had I seen her like this — collapsed, thinking about my brother’s latest relapse or arrest, sitting in that very spot where a talk show had recently interviewed her about her enviable life as the spouse of an A-lister? I should have left her alone, but I couldn’t.
I walked in and she didn’t look up. I asked, “Why do you fight for Alex and not for me?”
“I don’t know, Ben. You always seem like you can handle yourself.”
“I can’t,” I admitted, and she met my gaze. “Sometimes I need help, and it would be nice to feel like someone was on my side. Especially in a case like this when I didn’t actually do anything wrong.”
She exhaled slowly. “Everyone’s hurting, Ben. They want someone to blame. It doesn’t make it right, but I would want the same if someone hurt you.” She reached into a drawer next to her thigh and held out my cell phone. The one my father had taken. “I’m on your side, Ben,” she said as she he crossed and put it in my palm, kissing my temple like she did when I was little. “Your father is, too. In his own way.”
I thought she was going to leave, but she added, “Clay was arrested as soon as h
e left school grounds.”
“What? Why?”
“Hope was under 18 and he sent that . . . that video to everyone. It’s pornography, dear, so . . . I thought you should know.”
Beatriz
Everyone was talking about the arrest at school and watching the scene repeat and repeat on their phones, their eyes turning accusatorily to me. I ran for my car after the final bell and watched Clay’s arrest again on TV, horrified at the fake concern with which the newscasters spoke about “a girl harmed by boys at this elite private school.”
I ran into our backyard, not expecting to see my uncle sitting under a tree, staring up at the branches.
“I called the police on Clay,” he said, his voice hazy. “And we’ll go after the other boys in the press. Colleges are going to take notice and we’ll see what kind of a future they have then.”
He sounded eerily like my mother. Probably he was repeating her promises. “Tío, don’t you think they’ve been punished enough?”
“My baby is dead. Nothing’s enough.”
I swallowed my own grief, “I know but not everyone was involved in the same way, and—”
“You just want to protect your boyfriend,” he said with disgust.
“No, that’s not—”
“You wonder why he was suddenly so interested in you? So you’d protect him.”
“That’s not true!” I exclaimed, but it planted a seed of doubt in my mind. Was that why Ben had come on the trip? Why he had been so patient and kind? No. That couldn’t be it. Things were good before everything went to shit at that dance. “Tío, going after the boys won’t bring Hope back.”
At the mention of Hope’s name, agony shot across his face, but he reset it to angry calm. “No, but they should feel some of this pain, Béa.”
“They do feel pain. Every one of them is hurting. Clay has felt guilty from the beginning, the others are sorry they didn’t stop it. Even Bryce, or so I hear. I don’t know about John, but the rest are upset.”
“Not like me.”
I squatted beside him. “No, not like you. Not like me either. We’re family. We’re supposed to hurt more. But none of us could have stopped that car. It was an accident. You were the one who chased her into the street.”
He sat up straight. “It was not my fault!”
“No, but — Tío, if you love me, you won’t keep trying to hurt my friends.”
He reached for my face and I could smell the whiskey on his breath as he said, “I love you, but I don’t care at all about your friends.”
“But why go after Ben?”
“My sister will never forgive Ben for what he did to you.”
I stood again, crossing my arms across my chest. “He didn’t do anything to me that I didn’t want done.” I paused. “Is that what all this is? A way to get at Ben?”
“No. You left the funeral. You broke your mother’s heart.”
I pressed my fingertips to my eyes until I saw stars, willing myself to keep my cool so I didn’t say anything I would regret. Finally I asked, “So this is about me?” I couldn’t believe it. And yet I could.
Why were the adults in my life being more irrational and hurtful than the teens? A punch at a party or a slight in the halls or even a video at a dance couldn’t do as much damage as a lawyer mom and a soccer coach uncle calling the right people. And the decisions they were making out of anger were going to do long-term damage.
I leaned against the tree trunk. “What will it take for you to leave Ben alone?”
“Break up with him. That will make your mother happy. After all she’s done for me, I can at least help her with this.”
The only sound between us was my jagged breath. “If I do,” I said, unable to believe that I was considering it, will you leave Peter alone, too? He didn’t do anything either.”
He narrowed his eyes. “Yes.”
Sadness crashed over me as I realized what I was going to have to do. Ben had defended and protected me, bent to my will and whim, and been what I needed. Now, to protect him, I was going to have to crush him.
“I will . . . break up with Ben i-if—” I stopped. My jaw felt frozen, but I was going to get my uncle to say the words. “You have to admit th-that Hope was responsible for her own death. She ran into that street. That wasn’t anyone else’s fault.”
He slumped and nodded slowly. “Running into the street was her fault.” His wet eyes narrowed. “Now call Ben.”
I look a long breath. “I don’t have my phone.”
He held out his own. I had to get this over with. Like ripping off a bandage. No. Like ripping out my heart.
It took a few seconds to remember Ben’s number. Once I did, my finger hovered over ‘send.’ Could I do this? I knew I had no choice.
The phone rang once, and Ben picked up. “It’s B.”
“Hey!” His thrill at talking to me just made it worse.
“Speaker phone,” my uncle whispered, but I shook my head. No way I was letting him hear. Bad enough he would listen to my side. I kept my eyes locked to a root sticking out of the dirt.
“Hi,” I said, my voice weak.
“I tried to call a bunch of times.”
“My phone’s been taken away.”
“Mine, too. But my mom gave it back. I was afraid you weren’t speaking to me, B. I miss you.”
“Don’t,” I blurted out. “Don’t miss me. Don’t anything.”
He hesitated. “What’s wrong?”
“We need to talk.”
With a half-hearted laugh, he said, “Worst phrase in the world. Break up words.” But he was kidding. He didn’t think this was coming because there was no reason for it. Not really.
I swallowed hard and said, “Yes.”
“What?” he snapped. I didn’t say anything more, so he asked, “This is a joke, right, B?”
“No.” My hands started to tremble. “I think . . . I think . . . we need to stop seeing each other.”
He exploded. “Who thinks we need to break up, B? Your mom? Cuz we’ve been through this and—”
“Stop,” I said, turning so I didn’t have to see my uncle while I hurt Ben. “It’s me. I don’t want to go out with you anymore.” The lie stuck in my throat, and it was hard for me to continue. “You kept secrets from me, Ben.”
“One. Only one, and I explained—”
“I know! I know. But I can’t live with it.” The lump of lie was growing larger and larger, and tears were in my eyes and I couldn’t let that happen because then I would crumble. “You were part of something that hurt every member of my family, and I can’t get past it. I can’t. Seeing my uncle so messed up at the hearings today, I — Every — We have to end things.”
“B, come on. We can get past anything. We love each other and—”
“No,” I said, my stomach twisting. “I don’t love you.”
Silence.
“Not anymore,” I said. “I can’t. Not after everything—” I couldn’t finish. How could I do this to him? How? All I wanted was to say it was a lie and run to my car and drive to his house and throw my arms around him and kiss him and kiss him and — But I couldn’t. Because if I tried, my uncle would find a way to crush him worse than this.
A few more seconds of silence, and then, so quietly, he said, “You don’t mean that, B.”
“I do.”
A sniff on the other end. God, he was crying? So was I, but hearing his hurt was much worse.
“I just can’t believe—” His voice broke.
With my last ounce of strength, I squeaked, “I don’t love you, Ben.”
He screamed a string of curses and I heard banging and more cursing then a shout and a clatter. Then nothing. The phone had gone dead.
When I put the phone back in my uncle’s hand, he said, “Good,” and stumbled away.
Ben
The screen of my phone was shattered and I’d put a hole in the wall of my bedroom. About right. Wreckage.
How could I have been that st
upid? I thought she meant it when she said she loved me. She had looked so sincere, had allowed us to be together in a way I didn’t think she ever would, had gotten me to open up and think of love as something real. Bitch.
No. No, she wasn’t a bitch. She wasn’t. That was the thing. So how had this happened? Did B even mean what she just said? She’d sounded so . . . so . . . what? Not herself. Not like the B I’d gotten to know. It had to have been her mom’s influence.
Beatriz
I couldn’t move. My body was so tense my muscles ached, and I felt drained of all energy. How could I have done it? How?
Suddenly, a line from The Little Prince popped into my head:
You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed.
Had I tamed Ben? In a way, yes. And he had tamed me. Yes. We had made each other better people, smoothed out each other’s edges.
I had broken my promises and I had broken his heart. I would never forgive myself.
Ben
My father walked into my room. “Mr. Robertson called. They’re not calling colleges about you, and they’re not seeking expulsion.”
He waited in the doorway, looking like he expected me to thank him or be happy or something, but I wasn’t happy. I was miserable. There was no point to any of it.
“And your brother—” his lips curled around his teeth. “Alex, has been indicted for grand theft auto,” he said wearily. “The press is at our gate. Don’t go out if you don’t have to.”
* * *
“I think teenagers today just don’t understand the consequences of their online behavior,” a female reporter says.
“That’s the truth,” the male reporter responds. “Up next, a child psychologist offers tips on Internet safety, and how you can avoid having your child be the next Hope Garcia.”