The good news is, despite all the sex I’m not pregnant.
For the first little while, I kept telling myself that each time was going to be the last. But then we’d get together and one thing always led to another. Finally, this one day, I gave up lying to myself and checked Wikipedia about menstrual cycles.
Talk about scary. I’m pretty good at math, and counting the days since my last period, I started imagining symptoms like crazy. At lunch, I ran out and got one of those tests from the pharmacy. I sat in my bathroom cubicle on the second floor and waited to see if the thingy’d turn color. Was I ever relieved!
That afternoon I told Jason we’d been lucky, but I’m at my peak and maybe he should use a condom.
He acted shocked. “You mean you’re not taking care of that?”
“I can’t go to my doctor. I’m too embarrassed. Anyway, a condom’s good for other things, too. You know, AIDS, STDs.”
“Are you accusing me of something?”
“No.”
“Good. So relax. I’m fine.”
But now I’m curious. “Have you been tested?”
“No.”
“Then how do you know you’re fine?”
“I know.” His fists clenched.
I tried to calm him down. “Look, I believe you. Sorry. But we can’t take chances. I’m only fifteen. If I get pregnant, they’re going to want to know who did it.”
“Who says they’d ever have to know you were pregnant? You’d just have to see somebody. My dad knows people.” I must’ve looked hurt because he got all sulky. “Fine. Be that way,” he said, and fished out a condom, like I was really inconveniencing him or something.
When he’s in one of those moods, I’ve learned not to mouth off. I just look at the floor and whisper, “Using a condom doesn’t make that much difference, does it?”
Then he gets all tender. He strokes my hair, cups my head in his hands and kisses me gently on the forehead. “It’s just that I want to be closer to you.”
I feel so guilty. “Me too,” I say and kiss him back. “I’ll figure something out.”
What I figure out is, I can steal pills from Mom for a couple of months. Sneaking them won’t be a problem. Mom had almost a year’s supply when Dad left and she hasn’t used them since. They’re at the back of a drawer beside the sink in the bathroom. She’s probably forgotten about them, for all I know. For sure she won’t remember how many she had. So that’s what I’ve been doing.
Taking the pill makes me less paranoid, but I’m still uncomfortable with the sex bit.
At the beginning, I worried his mom would catch us. I’d be like, “Jason, Jason please don’t,” and he’d be laughing, “Please don’t what? Please don’t stop?” As it turns out, though, he was right about her. She goes through so much “tomato juice” I hardly think she’d notice if she waltzed right in and sat down beside us.
What gets me is actually “doing it.” The kissing part is fine, but that only lasts a minute, and then he’s on top of me and I can’t even move. I can hardly breathe. A few times I tried to stop him, but I ended up with bruises, and once my blouse got ripped, which took a lot of explaining to Mom.
“I was climbing over a fence at school and it got caught.”
“What were you doing climbing over a fence?”
“What do you care?”
“Answer the question.”
“Okay, I wasn’t climbing over a fence.” I rolled my eyes, all sarcastic. “Jason wanted to have sex and he ripped my clothes off. Happy?”
“That isn’t funny,” Mom said and dropped the subject. It’s amazing, but sometimes if you tell the truth, people will act as though it’s a lie.
I guess it’s not that bad. At least it’s quick. I’m like, “Ow ow ow ow ow,” and then Jason groans like he’s constipated and says, “That was great,” and I go, “Yeah,” to keep him happy.
One time I guess I wasn’t enthusiastic enough. “All you can say is ‘Yeah’?”
That pissed me off. Before I could stop myself, I went, “What do you want? You want me to turn into the school marching band? Do a production number? Light up some fireworks, maybe? Blow the roof off?”
He slapped me.
“What was that for?”
“Watch your lip.”
That’s why I like it better when we get stoned first. Getting stoned doesn’t make me paranoid anymore. It lets me zone out. I can stare at a point on the ceiling, or the roof of the car, and pretend I’m not there till it’s over.
Why am I always complaining? Why am I such a bitch? Jason loves me, I know it, he says so. Why am I always so negative? I should think of the good stuff— riding on his motorcycle, my charm bracelet.
The other girls tell me how lucky I am. Except for Ashley. Last week, as per usual, she said juniors who date seniors are sex toys, like I’m a slut or something.
“You’d go out with Jason in a flash,” I said. “Except he’d never ask you.”
“Oh please,” she sniffed. “I’m not boy-crazy like you.”
“Bullshit,” I snapped. “The only reason you’re a virgin is because you’ve never had a date.”
“Well, the only reason you’re not pregnant is because you’re lucky.”
“Liar.”
“Skank.”
I pushed her.
“Girls.” It was Mr. Manley. “Is there a problem?”
“No, sir,” Ashley said.
“Then get to class. Leslie, I’d like a word with you in my office.”
What else is new? I glanced at Katie. She was looking at the floor; you’d think someone had died. My insides heaved.
Why does everything go wrong? Why am I such a failure?
Right now I’m looking at Ms. Graham. I’ll bet she asks the same things. I wonder if she’s ever been in love. I wonder if she’s lonely. I wonder if maybe being lonely is better. All I know is, since falling in love with Jason I’ve been the loneliest of all.
Sixteen
Ms. Graham’s gone berserk, and it’s only the end of October. Nicky Wicks is lucky he’s alive. Mr. Manley is supervising us right now, and for the first time in history, this room is quiet as a morgue.
The class started out pretty ordinary—a lot of bad readers and paper airplanes. We were at the part in the book where Tom is about to get lynched and Scout has the guts to stand up in front of the whole mob—and she’s way younger than me!
Anyway, Ms. Graham was going on about how this was one of her favorite scenes, and if everybody would just settle down and listen they’d really enjoy it. Her face was alive, like she meant it, like it mattered—and all of a sudden I got this flash of why she wanted to be a teacher. She actually cares about this stuff.
When I think that, I feel really bad. Caring about something so much it hurts and having everybody laugh at you—talk about brutal. I pictured Ms. Graham as a teenager with her nose in some book, and the whole school teasing her and being mean. Well, it’s thirty years later and nothing’s changed. How does she get out of bed in the morning?
My head filled with this crazy idea that I should stand on my desk and yell at everyone to shut up. Of course I didn’t. I’m not suicidal. But I had the idea.
As per usual, Nicky Wicks was the ringleader. He’s discovered he can make himself cross-eyed by touching his tongue to his nose, and he kept turning around to show the card players at the back, who found it majorly hilarious.
“Nicky!” Ms. Graham said. Nicky stopped. Two seconds later he was doing it again. “Nicky!!” Nicky stopped. Two seconds later, the same thing. “Nicky!!!” This went on until nobody was paying any attention to Ms. Graham’s favorite scene at all. They were just laughing at Nicky, who was basically daring her to do something.
She did.
Out of the blue, she wheeled to the blackboard, grabbed a yardstick, charged at Nicky and smashed it down. He leaned back just in time. The yardstick broke across his desk. Everyone froze. She could have cracked his head open.
Ms. Graham went white as chalk. The end of the yardstick fell out of her hand. She teetered there looking around the room at the silent faces. It was as if she wasn’t sure where she was or what had happened. And then this tear slid down her cheek and onto her neck. She didn’t say anything, just turned and wobbled out of the room slowly, like a robot.
Things stayed quiet for a long time. Then someone whispered, “Are you all right?” to Nicky. He nodded. In a few minutes, the talking was wild. Mr. Manley came in, and everything went silent again. He glared at us: “Get to work, people.” Everyone opened their binders and kept their heads down.
Poor Ms. Graham. She didn’t mean to lose it. If you ask me, it’s a miracle she hasn’t attacked someone before. Also a miracle that Nicky’s brains aren’t splattered all over the ceiling. If they were, there’d have been TV crews all over the place, and her picture would have been plastered everywhere. Now this’ll all be forgotten, except by our class. And Ms. Graham. I bet it haunts her till the day she dies.
“There but for the grace of God go I.” Katie’s started to say that a lot. It’s weird hearing it come from somebody under forty, but Katie says she doesn’t care. Her church told her it’s good to say it when you see somebody homeless or really sick. From now on I’m going to say it whenever I think of Ms. Graham.
Seventeen
Things happening with or without a reason, things we regret—maybe that’s why old people lose their minds. Their heads get too full of things they’d rather forget.
I know mine will. It’s packed already. There are so many things I’ve done that make me ashamed. Like never standing up for Ms. Graham. She may be a lousy teacher, but she tries. And how have I thanked her? By bad-mouthing her behind her back and sleeping in the middle of her lessons.
Mom wouldn’t do that. She sticks up for people. I remember buying groceries with her a couple of years back. At the checkout counter, there was a little boy ahead of us with his mother. He took a candy bar from the lowest rack by the cash register. His mother yelled, and he cried, and she started hitting him.
Mom said in a loud voice, “Stop it! What do you think you’re doing?” The woman said it was none of Mom’s business. Mom said, “Children being hit is everyone’s business.” The whole line was staring at us. I was so embarrassed. But the woman stopped beating on her kid, and afterwards I was proud of Mom for doing it.
That’s another thing I feel ashamed about: being so horrible to Mom. I love her. But I sure don’t act like I do. I slam my door in her face. I rub it in about Dad leaving. Sometimes I feel like I’m mean to everybody who cares about me.
I was worrying about all this when Katie came up to me before school. It’s like she has mental telepathy or something.
“I’ve been thinking over what you said a few weeks back, out by the bleachers,” she goes, all serious.
“Katie, please. I didn’t mean it.”
“No. You’re right. I’ve been so wrapped up in things I’ve ignored you. I’m sorry.”
I don’t know what to say, so I nod.
“Anyway,” she continues, “I have to get some new tops and I wondered if maybe you want to go shopping with me.”
“When?”
“I don’t know. Some day after school.”
I hesitate. What would I say to Jason? If I don’t see him every day, he gets in one of his moods. Then I remember he has a dentist appointment tomorrow. “What about tomorrow afternoon?”
“I have choir practice.”
“Oh, right.”
I guess I look disappointed, because Katie takes a deep breath. “Okay. Tomorrow. Missing one practice won’t hurt.”
I’m amazed. For Katie, missing choir is almost worse than murder. I’m even more amazed next day when Ashley lays on this guilt trip and Katie says, “Look, Ashley, God’s hardly going to strike me dead or anything.”
Our trip starts out great: we’re playing spy up and down the mall, laughing at all the sales clerks who go on Red Alert when they see a teenager come near their store. We put on accents, pretending to be rich people. It’s pretty stupid, but it gives us the giggles all the same.
The fun stops when we start trying on tops. Lots of girls are embarrassed about getting undressed—after gym, some even change with a towel wrapped around them—but me and Katie have seen each other naked so many times we don’t care. So anyway, we’re squashed together in this tiny changeroom tossing stuff on and off when all of a sudden Katie goes, “Oh my god! What’s that on your back?”
I get really scared. I imagine I have this malignant growth or something. But when I look in the mirror, all I see is a bruise. It’s not hurting. I’d even forgotten I had it.
“Oh, that,” I say. “It’s nothing.”
“It’s huge. How did you get it?”
“Who knows?”
Katie goes really quiet. “It was Jason, wasn’t it?”
“No! Look, just because you don’t like him doesn’t mean he’s a wife beater or anything.”
“How did it happen, then? It’s all big and purple and brown. Don’t tell me you can’t remember.”
“Okay, if it makes you happier, I fell backwards and hit my back on a doorknob.”
“Nobody falls backwards unless they’re pushed.”
“Quit with the social worker crap.”
“I’ll quit when you tell me who pushed you.”
“It wasn’t a push. Anyway, it was my fault. I was being mouthy and Jason just accidentally sort of bumped into me.”
“Oh my god! What if you’d hit your spine? What if you’d broken your back?”
“Well, I didn’t. Don’t be so dramatic. It’s only been once, anyway, and if you tell anyone—”
“What about those marks on your arms?”
“No big deal.”
“Is this why you haven’t been coming to gym?”
She’s got me. I don’t like getting hit, even if it’s only been a couple of times and even if it’s to teach me a lesson, like Jason says. But even worse than getting hit is the idea that other people might find out about it. They wouldn’t understand. So I’ve been hiding my bruises with long-sleeved sweaters and jeans, which I’ve started to wear anyhow, on account of Jason doesn’t like other guys staring at me. And I’ve also stopped going to gym. (Apparently Ms. Patrick thinks cramps can go on forever. Personal experience, no doubt.)
“I just bruise easy,” I shrug.
“You do not. Leslie, you’ve got to stop going out with him.”
I grab her by the elbows. “Mind your own business. Stuff between me and Jason is private. Okay?”
“You’re getting beat up.”
“Shut up!” I give her my hardest, hardest look. “Besides, aren’t you supposed to be the big Christian? Whatever happened to forgive and forget?”
“This is different.”
“It is not. Now swear you’ll never blab.” Her eyes are big and pleading, but no way I’m taking no for an answer. “Katie, if you don’t swear, I’ll never speak to you again. I mean it.”
She bites her lip. “Okay,” she says softly. She’s almost crying. “But is it all right if I pray for you?”
“Fine. If it makes you feel better. Just don’t tell me about it or I’ll barf.”
For the next few days, Katie keeps coming up to me all soulful and whispering, “Are you okay?”
Of course I’m not okay. I’ve never been okay. What’s okay, anyway?
Life sucks. I want it to end.
Eighteen
It’s one in the morning. I’m in my room writing this down, cuz if I don’t I’ll never sleep.
I am in unbelievably deep shit. It’s about my journal. I should maybe just kill myself.
Breathe. Breathe.
Okay. To start at the beginning. Ms. Tracey James.
Ms. James arrived a week ago, last week of October. She’s taking over from Ms. Graham, who won’t be back until after Christmas. (Make that Christmas a couple of hundred years from now.)
&nbs
p; Ms. James is under thirty. Real skinny, organized and scary. Like, when she introduced herself, Nicky Wicks made a fart sound with his armpit. Ms. Graham would’ve gotten flustered and the card players would’ve gone berserk. Ms. James just glanced at the seating plan and eyeballed him with a glare that’d stop a truck.
“Nicky,” she said with this thin, crisp voice, “we’re going to be seeing a lot of each other over the next few months. This experience can be pleasant or unpleasant. Your choice. What’s it to be?”
Nicky shrunk into his desk.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Pleasant,” he whispered.
Ms. James eyeballed him for another five seconds, then looked at the rest of us. “Are we all understood?” We stared at our desks, except for the card players, who quietly hid their decks.
“As for your mid-term reports,” Ms. James said, “they’re due at the end of next week. I’ll be entering your grades for English once I receive a copy of your marks from Ms. Graham.” Nobody’s talking, but we’re shifting in our seats. “What seems to be the problem?”
Cindy Williams flapped her arm like a wounded seagull. “Ms. James, we don’t have any marks.”
“What do you mean, you don’t have any marks?”
“Ms. Graham never gave any tests or essays or anything, except for a content quiz and these question and answer sheets she never collected.” Here Cindy showed off her binder, knowing the rest of ours were empty.
“If that’s the case,” Ms. James said, “tomorrow we’ll have a test on Mockingbird, followed by an in-class essay, with automatic zeros for anyone missing without a doctor’s note.”
“But we haven’t finished reading it,” someone cried from the back.
“Then you’ll have a busy night.”
She got our tests and essays back to us within a day, which should put her in the Guinness Book of World Records. All the same, I only realized how big a marking maniac she is this afternoon. At the end of the period, she says she’d like to see me privately. Once we’re alone, she tells me it’s no secret she needs marks for our reports, so she’s started to grade our journals.
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