by Michelle Ray
16
Bexley Sambadi Promising rumors abound.
Beatriz
Ben showed up at school the following Monday, and I tried so hard not to look at him. I didn’t want him to see the worry and hurt in my own eyes and take it as an invitation to talk — something I couldn’t take. And I didn’t want to see the hurt I knew was in his eyes.
And yet, over and over, I glanced his way and saw the pain.
Ben
B kept looking at me like she wanted to say something. Not like back in the day when she wanted to say something that would sting. This was almost like she wanted to take it all back. I kept hoping. But she didn’t. She just turned away.
Beatriz
“Shame to see John and Bryce again,” Sula said. “I can’t understand how they got away with just suspension while Clay was expelled.”
I nodded vaguely.
Sula put her arm around me. “You gonna talk to him?”
“Who?”
Sula rolled her eyes. “Fine. Be that way. So . . . you wanna get frozen yogurt after school?”
I shook my head, my gaze still fixed on Ben and Peter and the crowd around them. “Student council.”
Sula pulled me toward the classroom building.
Ben
“I still don’t get it, Peter,” I said. “Clay keeps saying he didn’t hit share on that video. How did everyone get it?”
Peter tossed his backpack into his locker, shrugging. “He was upset. Maybe he made a mistake like B did with that text.”
I tensed.
The bell rang and Peter asked, “See you after school? We could run.”
“I have student council til 4, but then yeah.”
“Student council? I thought you hated that sh–”
“I have my reasons.”
“You think B will come around if you show your face at a meeting?”
The plan sounded better in my head. I shrugged half-heartedly and we went our separate ways.
Beatriz
“We should have a Valentine’s Day Dance!” I heard someone say. But who? I’d have to look up to find out and I just didn’t have the energy.
Ben spoke up. “Great idea.”
I slumped in my chair. The word ‘dance’ filled me with dread, and the thought of organizing anything made me want to cry. Why would Ben agree to it?
Ben
I thought B would be into my agreeing to help plan something. I didn’t even think about it being a dance and what happened at the last one. B was holding back tears. Damn. Why was I so stupid?
“Or not . . .” I said quietly, but the train had left the station. The female student council members were gabbing away about decorations and perfect playlists of romantic music while the males discussed which girls they could ask since they’d be the first ones to know about the event.
I leaned over to B. “We can still stop this.”
She looked out the window and shook her head. “They want it. It’ll be fine.”
God, I wished she would just tell me how she was feeling. Or did I? Come to think of it, I didn’t have to listen to her talk about her feelings ever again.
But I wanted to. How could she break up with me?
Beatriz
“We have to get the DJ and the decorations,” said another girl.
A pause.
“B,” I heard the first girl say, “what do you think?”
I felt like I was at the bottom of a hole. “I don’t care,” I said, feeling so distant from it all. “I’m sure you can figure it all out.”
“Um, okay,” said the second girl, who turned to her friends and to chatter excitedly about streamers and Mylar balloons.
Mr. Werner leaned forward and said low, “Everything all right?”
I looked down at my sketchpad, noticing that I’d scribbled B after B after B after B, entwined. Pathetic.
“Fine,” I said, keeping myself from looking at Ben.
“Well,” said the first girl, “I’ve been looking up quotes to put on banners and stuff, and here are some I came up with: ‘Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds.’”
Some girls oohed, but a boy said, “I don’t get it.”
The girl sat up imperiously, reminding me an awful lot of myself. And I wasn’t sure I liked it. She explained, “It means love shouldn’t change just because something changes — like how someone looks or how much money they have or whatever. If it does, then it wasn’t truly love.”
The boy groaned. “If you have to explain that much, it’s a crappy slogan.”
The girl sighed. “Fine. How about, ‘Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind.’”
The boy laughed. “Sounds like someone ugly wrote that to make herself feel better.”
“You’re a pig,” said the girl, and I thought the two of them were a lot like Ben and me back in the day. Before we’d fallen back in love. Before I’d killed what we had.
The boy grabbed her printed paper of quotes and read, “‘I had rather hear my dog bark at a crow than a man swear he loves me.’” He laughed. “Sounds like B.”
“Hey!” yelled Ben, but then he checked himself, his eyes flicking to me and then to his lap. “How about this? ‘It is only with the heart one can see rightly.’”
God, he was quoting The Little Prince.
Still looking down he continued, “Or, ‘To me, you are nothing more than a little boy who is like a hundred thousand other little boys. And I have no need of you.’”
“Dude, these slogans bite!” a boy said.
Hopping up, I said, “I have to go.”
Sula Blom My advice: steer clear of Ben and B.
Ben
I chased after her. “B, you’re not leaving.”
She spun on her heels. “I am. You’ve got everything under control and I’ve got homework to do.”
“You never would have let me leave a meeting,” I said.
“You would have had to have shown up to know!”
True. “You’re not going to help?”
“You wanted the dance. Have fun.”
“I didn’t want — I thought you would want it.”
“Don’t care about what I want Ben, okay?” She looked like wanted to say more, but she walked away.
I kicked the wall hard, then howled and grabbed my foot, hoping like hell I didn’t break a toe. On top of everything, I didn’t need to ruin the spring soccer season. If there was one.
As I rocked back and forth trying to breathe away the pain, B walked back. Her voice scratchy, she said, “Ben, Mr. Werner has a folder for dances. It’s got everything you need to know.” A pause. “And I’ll answer questions if you have any.” Another pause. “Just tell me what you need.” She marched around the corner and then yelled, “God!” I wasn’t sure if she was annoyed with me or with herself.
Beatriz
Stupid. Stupid. Why did I go back to talk to him? I wasn’t going to help with the dance. I wasn’t going to it. I wasn’t going to keep looking at Ben like I loved him. Which I did. God. God. God!
Ben
The next day in Spanish, I sat with Kai, and spotted B across the room looking shell-shocked.
Bexley Sambadi was watching us, and I swear I spotted the second Bexley realized B and I weren’t together, and watched that realization turn into excitement. I wanted to slap Bexley. And I was afraid if she came over to talk to me, I just might do it.
Justine Nerlfi Dibs on Ben.
Amanda Phan No way. I saw him first.
Kara Grayson I’ve been waiting since freshman year.
Phyllis Palmer Try first grade. He’s mine.
Beatriz
On the fifth Friday of being Ben-less (not that I was counting), I decided to try to act normal at lunchtime and join my friends. I’d been hiding out in the yearbook room claiming work, but I was sick of being lonely. I could eat lunch at the same table as Ben. We were mature people. We had survived a week of classes and electives together, so what was a half
hour over sandwiches?
But as I neared, two junior girls approached Ben.
“Ben,” said the one with a fashionable bob, “how come you don’t have a date to the Valentine’s Day dance yet?”
Ben shrugged. “I have to work at the event. I’d have to keep, um, taking off to deal with stuff. Not a great date.”
“Still,” she said, resting her hand on his shoulder. (Oh, for a sword to hack off that hand!) “Any girl would understand if you had to leave during the dance and, you know, do something. Or do someone.” The girl locked eyes with her friend, whose mouth had dropped open.
“Are you volunteering?” he asked, flashing sparkling teeth.
The girl looked at him and then back at her friend, and the two girls dissolved into giggles. “Maybe.”
Then he caught me standing behind them and the smile faded from his eyes.
“I’ll let you know,” he said and waved coyly at them, which set off a new fit of giggles that stabbed my ears.
I didn’t want to make a scene, so I headed back inside.
Ben
I should have loved the attention, I guess. I was fair game and the girls were wasting no time making a play for me. But the game had lost its interest for me, and because I acted like I couldn’t care less, it made them try harder. Ironic.
Beatriz
Virgil Verges and Jeff Dogberry, two boys who were active in the A/V Club, walked into the yearbook room. Dogberry smoothed down the front of his greasy dark hair, and Verges fidgeted like he had an itch in a mighty uncomfortable place. I resisted the urge to wrinkle my nose.
“Ask her,” Verges whispered to Dogberry.
“No. We agreed you would,” Dogberry answered, his eyes bugging out behind his glasses.
The fidgeting intensified, and Verges asked, “Would you come to the A/V room with us?”
“Why?” I asked.
“We have something to show you,” Verges said.
I could only imagine. I was ready to decline as politely as I could when they said, “It’s video of Hope. We’re not sure if we should put it in the video yearbook.”
I followed them to the underbelly of the classroom building, and I hoped that Mr. Kerwin was in there setting up for class. The boys had a habit of staring at my chest, even when we were surrounded by others, so I wasn’t keen on alone time.
But as soon as we sat in front of the editing computers, I forgot all about everything but Hope.
“We were thinking of doing a tribute to her,” said Dogberry. “Like a chapter to click on called ‘In Memoriam.”
I swallowed hard and said, “That’s a nice idea.” How had my cousin ended up as an addendum?
“But,” said Verges, “we wanted your opinion on this one section.”
Video began to play. The dance. Hope looked beautiful and fresh faced. Expectant. First, she was standing with Clay and our friends when they’d come in from dinner. I hadn’t realized anyone was filming us. Then it was her with me and Ben. My stomach dropped. It was right before Clay came over and showed the video of her with Bryce.
“She looked really pretty,” Dogberry said, “but since it’s the dance, we thought maybe it would bring up bad memories. We don’t have a lot of footage of her, though, since she was new at school.”
“We haven’t cut it down enough,” said Verges with a nervous quake. “This part goes on too long, but—”
“Wait!” I shouted as he reached for the mouse. “What was that?” I pointed at Clay onscreen holding his phone out to Hope.
“That’s the part where the video gets sent to everyone,” said Dogberry, clicking pause.
“I know that!” I leaned looked closer. “That phone. That’s not Clay’s phone.”
“He’s holding it,” offered Verges.
“I know,” I said with exasperation. I looked again. “No. That’s not — Clay’s phone had the Liverpool Football Club logo on it.”
The one Clay held in the gym was for Manchester United, which I actually knew because I had once made the sinful error of mixing up the rival teams’ logos. Antonio, Ben, and Clay had heatedly schooled me about the finer points of a Liver bird versus the Manchester griffin — a conversation that I had found about as scintillating as the Periodic Table. But it was memorable.
“Back there!” I said, pointing at two figures off to the side. “Can you zoom in on them?”
“Sure,” said Verges, stepping forward and clicking around a few times. Bryce and John came into view, and sure enough, John was holding a Liverpool Football Club phone and pushing buttons.
“Clay never sent the video to anyone!” I exclaimed. “He didn’t share it. John used Clay’s phone to do it.”
“So then the griffin one is John’s?” Verges asked.
“Yes!” I said.
“Oh, then there’s something really important we should show—” began Verges, but Dogberry nudged him.
“What?” I asked.
“We—” began Verges again, but Dogberry pinched him and hissed.
“You’d better tell me right now,” I insisted.
Verges stepped out of Dogberry’s reach, and said, “We thought Clay had dropped his phone after the expulsion hearings, but I guess it was John’s. We still have it.”
“So give it back to John,” I said, hating the idea of helping him at all.
“Well, um, we should show you something first.”
Verges grabbed the phone and turned it on, typing a passcode that mysteriously worked. I must have looked surprised because Verges explained, “There are numbers people who are dumb or lazy use for passwords. 1234. Batman. 69696.” He snorted, but I threw him a look of impatience. “Anyway, people also do a favorite sport. His was soccer.” He held out the phone.
An image popped up — Maggie’s long red hair was barely covering the fact that she was half clothed. I gasped, but then said, “Don’t show me this!” It just wasn’t my business what Maggie and Bryce did. On John’s phone.
I tossed it back angrily, and Verges, flustered, tried to explain that they didn’t mean to see my friend naked. As he gestured, his finger pushed rewind, and the video began running back. Then, as the images whirred, something clicked and I figured out what I was looking at.
“Give me that again,” I said, and hit play.
Hope’s face came into view. She had a Messina baseball cap on backward. She was giggling and telling Bryce to stop filming her. When he asked her to come sit on his lap, she rolled her eyes and, though laughing, walked right up to the camera and the scene went black. Dogberry fast-forwarded through some little kid puking birthday cake. Then Maggie came on screen, sitting coyly on Bryce’s bed. A sweatshirt and a baseball cap flew into the frame. Bryce’s voice could be heard telling her to put both on, but to make sure the hat was on backwards. She looked quizzical, but did as she was told. He walked to her and told her to kneel, which she did. The image flipped to night vision. From the back, you couldn’t tell which girl she was.
I screamed, “Oh my God! Who have you told?”
“No one,” Verges sputtered, his little eyes welling up. “We didn’t even know what was on it!”
“Get Mr. Kerwin. Or Ms. Crouse. Someone. Holy crap!”
Verges sprinted out, as much as his uncoordinated legs sprinted, while Dogberry stayed with me.
I pulled out my phone, which had been restored to me once my mother had found out Ben and I had broken up, and dialed Ben.
“What, B?” he said impatiently.
“Can you come to the A/V room?”
“Why?”
“It’s about Clay.” Then I dialed Clay. He’d been released on bail and had transferred to Arden Prep.
“B?”
“Clay, come to Messina right now.”
“B, I can’t ditch class at my new school. The headmaster is a—”
“Just do it. You’re not gonna believe — Just come, okay?”
While we waited, Dogberry and I scanned the video from the dance, finding mor
e incriminating evidence. As Clay ran toward the exit of the gym, Bryce had pushed Maggie into him and Clay had dropped John’s phone. John reached down like he was helping, but he actually switched phones. Maggie watched the whole thing and turned to Bryce with a frown, but as soon as Bryce kissed her, her expression changed they walked out together.
“I don’t believe it,” I whispered.
Ms. Crouse came through the doorway with Verges, who was puffing heavily behind the dean.
“What’s the emergency?” asked Ms. Crouse, her eyes on Dogberry.
Dogberry looked completely freaked out to be confronted by an administrator, and stammered, “You see, ma’am, John and Bryce are liars. Moreover, they have said things that aren’t true. Secondarily, they are slanderers; sixth and lastly, they ruined a girl’s reputation; thirdly they have verified unjust things; and, to conclude, they are lying bullies.”
I spoke before he had to again. “What he means to say is, Clay and Hope were innocent.”
John Crotalus Just got called to office.
Bryce Krunk Me too.
John Crotalus Who cares?
Bryce Krunk Me.
Ben
Within the hour, a giant crowd had assembled in the relatively small waiting room of the headmaster’s office. Mr. Robertson’s secretary’s eyes darted around the room and she kept adjusting little piles of papers on her desk. There had never been an actual fistfight between parents in the history of Messina, but if there were going to be a first time, this might be the event to bring one on. Parents were huddled by faction in various corners, and the whole thing had a kind of gladiator vibe going.
I was standing next to Peter and Clay. B was across the room, leaning against the shuttered window to the admin building hallway. Students had gathered to be near the scandal and I could hear them buzzing on the other side of the thin pane. Dogberry and Verges were in Mr. Robertson’s office with Ms. Crouse, and John and Bryce were leaning against the secretary’s desk. She looked like she wanted them to move, but with tempers so high I bet she was afraid to make a peep.