by Lindy Zart
Retribution is a black taint on my world, something I am not proud of, but consider necessary. I am split in two. There is the me when I’m not at school, and there is the other me—the hard, unrelenting, vengeful one. The spiteful one.
I don’t think of Nick when I’m at school. Or, at least, I try not to. He’s separate from this. He’s my hope, and what I look forward to day after day. This school is my crux, the thing I endure until I am released from its talons. Until I can release myself from this pit I have to learn to scale.
I also think Nick might be able to understand. He had to have gone through something similar to be at the facility, right? Something inside his head couldn’t deal with something in his life, and I wonder what it was. I want him to tell me, but I haven’t told him my story either.
Of course, immediately upon entering the school, I see one of Melanie’s friends. Jocelyn Rodriguez. What can I say about Jocelyn? ‘Beauty is only skin deep’ is a statement that explains her perfectly. She smiles evilly, and her eyes show the darkness of her soul. She’s the kind of person who would watch a kitten die, and not feel anguished, or even the smallest amount of sadness. She’d probably be indifferent, above all. She’s the silent spectator who enjoys the outpour of decay from others’ minds.
Jocelyn looks at me, but she doesn’t really see me. I am one of many unimportant masses who happen to rotate around her world. She is blind to that which does not interest her. I would have been glad, months ago, but not now. One day in the hallway, she told me the lunch I brought from home looked like shit. I didn’t say anything. I gathered up my things and got away from her as fast as I could. I ran. My body temperature rises at the recollection. No more running.
As I watch, she dabs her index finger at the corner of her red mouth, like a vampire removing a drop of blood, and winks at Jeff Oliver as he walks by. Soul sucker. That’s what she is. How can she not feel my eyes glaring into her? I clench my hands, the urge to grab her long hair and swing her around by it, extremely hard to resist.
Jeff pauses beside her, and with a faint smile on his face, he keeps walking.
“See you later, Jeff,” she calls after him.
Without looking back, he lifts a hand.
When I first came to Enid High School, Jeff talked to me every day. It wasn’t anything major, usually just a hello. I thought it was sweet, but all it was, was him testing me out before determining whether or not I was worth his time. A game. When it was apparent that I wasn’t into sports, and was quiet, it stopped. I wasn’t anyone notable. No one that someone like him would want to know. It’s astonishing how quickly he turned from friendly to unresponsive. My fingers tighten on the straps of my backpack. I swear this school has been bathed in idiocy—not to mention all the regrettable aromas currently infiltrating the air.
I am mere feet from Jocelyn when Lucas Haskins becomes the object of her attention. Like a predator on the prowl, Jocelyn smells someone weaker than her. I only know who Lucas is because he’s in my gym class. He’s even more athletically challenged than I am. With messy blond hair that counterbalances his impeccable clothes, Lucas is the classic intelligent boy who is socially clueless.
Jocelyn smooths her hands down the tight pink top hugging her upper body, and approaches her prey. My nerves stiffen, and I stop where I am near the lockers. I can’t walk away; I can’t even quit watching. I am riveted. It is last fall all over again, except I’m observing the upcoming humiliation instead of living it.
“Lucas, nice shirt.” Jocelyn circles him, picking at the lavender fabric of his collared shirt.
His face turns pink, and Lucas fumbles with a book under his arm. “T-thank you.”
“Where did you buy it?” Half of her full mouth hitches. “Walmart?”
“Uh…I don’t know. My—my mom got it for me.” It’s clear from the confusion on his face that Lucas can’t figure out why Jocelyn is talking to him.
Her laughter is tinkling in the way I imagine death bells to be.
The hallway is crowded, boisterous, and no one sees what’s happening right before them. No one but me. I look around. Kids push at one another, tease, and laugh, but no one looks our way. Why doesn’t anyone care? Why am I the only one paying attention to this?
“Your mom shops for you?”
Sensing someone as engrossed in the exchange as me, I look up and meet Casey’s worried eyes. She’s standing two lockers down from Lucas, as if she was in the process of approaching him. Suddenly, it all makes sense. Jocelyn knew her friend was nearby. She’s doing this to her, not Lucas. Her friend. Lucas is simply a casualty. What kind of domain do they live in—where friends are enemies, and enemies are anyone else? I don’t want to be in their atmosphere. But I am. Just for now.
“Um, well…” Lucas rubs the back of his neck, his knuckles white on the hand gripping his textbook. “Sometimes, yeah.”
Jocelyn crosses her arms and gives him a disappointed look. “Your shirt is purple, Lucas, and not a bold, strong purple, but a pathetic, girly purple.”
Dismay enters his expression. “Oh. I…”
I’m not trying to be a hero. I’m not going after my bullies for anyone but me. And knowing this, I still can’t continue to watch the two and not do something. I can’t be a Casey. Casey, who even now stares at Lucas and Jocelyn. I’ve seen her talking to Lucas. I’ve seen the way her cheeks flood with color when their eyes meet. She likes him. I can tell Jocelyn’s treatment of him bothers her, and she does nothing.
Striding toward the pair, I purposely ram my shoulder into Jocelyn as I come to a halt. She staggers to the side, banging her elbow against a locker. I hope it hurt. Daggers shoot from her eyes to me when I glance at her. Like I care. I’ve had my own eyes looking back at me through a mirror, and I’ve not recognized them. What could be worse than that?
“Hi.” I smile at Lucas as Jocelyn’s arm burns mine. I want to step back from her, but I won’t. She can retreat. “Don’t listen to Jocelyn. Her fashion style stinks. I mean, who wears a shirt three sizes too small? Hello, we’re juniors, not toddlers.”
She stiffens beside me.
I continue, my attention firmly locked on Lucas. “I happen to like your shirt, Lucas.”
“It’s effeminate,” Jocelyn says scornfully.
“Do you even know what that means?”
“Do you?”
“Maybe your face is effeminate.” My eyes don’t leave Lucas. His go back and forth between Jocelyn and me.
A sound of fury leaves Jocelyn, like a low growl. I hit a nerve that time. My arm is grabbed, and I am jerked around to find myself looking into dark, scary, fathomless eyes that make me think of black pits with pythons at the bottoms of them. I have to tip my head back to fully see her face. It’s ugly, but in an exquisite way. Carved with perfect, deadly care, her facial bones are slim and elegant. If only her soul could be on the outside. If only we all could see with our eyes how truly hideous she is.
“Get your claws off me.” I wrench my arm from her grasp, feeling the sting of her sharp nails in my skin as the limb is released from her clutches.
Vileness glows in her eyes, and I imagine it crawling out of her eye sockets to enter my brain. Annihilating me. My breathing quickens, and I steel myself against her wrath. I crossed a line I was not allowed. The best way to insult someone who is vain is by criticizing their looks, naturally. They can’t handle that. They live on the high of knowing their beauty. Take away the perception of it, and what are they left with?
Me. They’re left with me.
Stripped bare. Small. Fractured. Unable to hide. And with no one to protect them from the horror of reality. Most days I wish I could close my eyes to it.
“I am prettier than you’ll ever be.” Jocelyn’s voice is harsh. It reminds me of dead leaves crackling as they fall apart. I decide she’s scarier than Melanie. Melanie is selfish and petty, but Jocelyn is wicked.
“On the outside. The inside is a different matter,” I reply evenly.
“Insult my looks again, and I’ll rip your tongue from your mouth.” A deadly spoken promise.
I narrow my eyes, my head spinning with trepidation even as I glare at the taller, olive-toned girl. “That’s going to be hard, since you constantly give me new material.”
She steps closer.
I swallow, thinking she means to get physical.
“Jocelyn. Jocelyn, let’s go. The first bell rang,” Casey pleads, finally breaking her silence.
Coward, I think as I shift my gaze to the blond-haired girl with her doll-like attractiveness. She’s as fake as a Barbie doll too. Guilt bleaches the color from Casey’s face, and she quickly averts her eyes. She sees what I think of her. Casey is powerless, and do you know why? Because she made herself that way.
I once felt powerless. I floated in it for a time, and then I sank, and I drowned. I will never allow myself to feel that way again. I will fight, even if I’m fighting myself.
“Hi, Casey,” Lucas greets.
Sliding her eyes to Lucas, Casey looks like she’s going to say something. Instead, her face goes blank, and she turns to her friend. I feel the dejection from Lucas. It’s thick, and heavy. “Jocelyn. Please.”
With a tiny smile, Jocelyn taps me on the nose once, and spins on her heel. “All right, all right. Let’s go, Case. We wouldn’t want to be late for English class because of a couple losers.”
Sucking air into my lungs as soon as she vanishes around the corner, I place a hand to the cool metal of a locker. I briefly close my eyes. I feel dizzy. Sweaty. Sick. Like I just ran ten miles on the tracks of a rollercoaster. Underneath it all, niggling at the base of my neck, I feel something else. Something great. Something heady, and addictive. Power. And I want more.
“I’m not all that certain I know what just happened,” Lucas says quietly from my right side. “But I think I need to thank you. So…thank you.”
Without looking at him, I nod. I slowly lift my head, step back from the row of lockers, and head to English class. Lucky for me, I get to spend it with some of my favorite people. I make it through the door as the last bell sounds. Jocelyn looks up as I walk by her desk, smiling haughtily. She thinks she’s won. She thinks she put me in my place, and all is right once more in the pecking order.
She’s wrong.
I’ve learned their game, and I’m going to crush it.
THE THING ABOUT THE BULLIES in this school is that, usually, they’re not obvious about their attacks. They’re subtle. I think that’s more vicious than if they were blatantly cruel. Maybe in the Enid School District, there’s a class on it in eighth grade—a prerequisite to entering high school. ‘How to be a Proper Bully – 101’. Once a target of them, you’re always unsure; you’re always second guessing the situation. It makes you helpless, and it’s lethal to your self-value, like a tiny chisel chipping away at what makes you, you.
You begin to doubt everything. Even actual kindness.
Anna Robertson waits by my locker at the end of the school day. My first instinct is to be suspicious. Why is she here? What does she want? Is she really as nice as she seems? Is Anna an actor like all the rest in this morbid play centered on a high school and the rude-ass kids within its walls? I don’t believe all that, but I can’t say for certain it isn’t true. And I hate that I can’t.
This school broke a part of me.
“Hello,” she says in her soft voice, giving me a faint smile.
I reach for the lock and Anna moves to the side. I think of her dad, and his role in saving me. It makes me feel embarrassed—that he witnessed my weakest moment. That his daughter, knowing about it, is standing near me and talking to me. Mental breakdowns aren’t usually something people want everyone to know about. I made it impossible for them to not know. Lucky for me, most of the people in this school can’t see past themselves. Handy.
Quickly working the combination, I have it open and my backpack in hand within the span of a minute. Kids are practically running for the door, excited for the weekend and all their plans. I remember having that in my old school, with my old friends. The weekends were spent together, doing nothing and everything. We didn’t know what we were doing, or where we were going, but we knew we’d be together. It was easy, the simplicity and sureness of knowing where you fit.
My eardrums sting at the volume of stomping feet and shouting voices. I glance at Anna as I sling the backpack over one shoulder and enter the mob aimed for freedom from the school. “Hey. What’s up?” I ask.
Looking small and unsure, Anna keeps to my side. Her brown eyes dart to me and the kids around us, but she remains quiet. I give her a sidelong look as we step outside to sunshine and a cool breeze. If she’s been in this town her whole life, what has it been like for her at this school? She’s the perfect candidate to be picked on. Silent and meek. Like I was. But I was like that because I suddenly found myself surrounded by strangers. I was vulnerable. Naïve.
“I wondered if, I don’t know…” Anna angles her head toward the sidewalk. “Maybe you’d want to do something sometime. Or…tonight.”
Shocked by the invitation—my first since I moved to Enid—it takes longer than it should for me to respond.
“Or—not,” she says hurriedly, lengthening the space from her to me. “That’s fine too.”
I open my mouth to tell her that it sounds like fun, and yes.
“Watch out, it’s the leader of the Dork Patrol. Accidentally touch her and you become a lifetime member.”
My shoulders shoot up at the familiar voice and I glance over my shoulder. Clint Burns looks at Anna with a smile on his face, like his words are said in harmless fun. He wore a similar smile on his face when he made fun of me during the first part of the school year. He’s ugly. Ugly personality, ugly face. All of him—ugly. He’s flanked on either side by a grinning goon. Frown in place, I look at Anna as well. She almost looks apologetic as our eyes clash, like it’s her fault Clint is a jerk.
“Who would want to touch that?” Cruel brown eyes look Anna up and down, the gleam in them degrading and wrong.
Although she doesn’t move, I swear Anna escapes into herself. She becomes translucent, almost unnoticeable. I want to tell her to stick up for herself, but then, did I?
My hands clench as fire explodes in my veins. I unconsciously take a step closer to the boy who spoke. I don’t know who he is, but I know he deserves a fist to his face. As if powered by my anger, by this present injustice to an undeserving girl, the breeze grows stronger. “I’m sorry, are you talking about yourself? Because you’re one person I would never touch, personally.”
His face goes red, and he looks around to see who’s watching us. “As if I’d want you to.”
“As if I ever would.” My face is hard; my voice is hard. I am wrapped in a granite shield that cannot be weakened.
The other unknown boy grins. “You can touch me if you want. I bet your sassy mouth knows all kinds of tricks.”
My stomach lurches. The sexual comment—that’s new, and somehow fouler than the simple putdowns. “Leave her alone,” I tell Clint. “Leave everyone alone.”
“Or what?” Clint taunts, crossing his arms over the forest green shirt he wears. He’s skinny with toothpick arms and legs, knobby and gangly.
I lean down and pick up a rock, studying the sharp points aligned with smooth edges. I think of Nick, and how he’d say something earthshattering about this small gray rock, see it in some way I never would. How he makes everything better. How he isn’t here. How he can’t make this better. But I can. I look up, the rock locked tightly inside my hand.
“Lexie, it’s okay,” Anna whispers in a voice without hope.
“Actually, it’s not.” I don’t look away from the three boys. I want to smite them with my eyes; I want to send them to a place where they feel how wretched they make others feel.
Recognition lightens Clint’s eyes. “You’re in my English class.”
Except for my stay at Live, I’ve been in your English class all year
, you unobservant prick.
“Talking back only makes it worse,” Anna beseeches.
The pleading is what does it. She’s begging me to let them get away with their mistreatment of her. They’re the wrong ones, and everyone thinks it’s okay. It’s not okay. It’s not okay to treat other people like crap. My face turns to fire, and I snap. The rock goes flying from my hand before I am fully aware I threw it.
“Ow! You just hit me in the head, you crazy bitch,” Clint shouts as he claps a hand to his face, his voice a shade higher than normal. Good.
“That’s right.” I take a step closer to him.
I am not me. I am a better me. Stronger. Unforgiving. I will not pardon his insensitive and cruel actions. No one should. I can smell his sweat, and it stings my nostrils. But I like that he’s scared of me.
He careens back. Wariness covers his face.
I smile faintly, and I know it’s twisted into something fearsome. “I am crazy. Remember that.”
“Let’s go,” he commands to his thug friends. I keep my eyes on Clint as he walks backward, his attention trained on me in case I decide to throw another rock at him.
My smile widens as my pulse thrums, and my heart pounds. I watch a bully who was temporarily conquered by a bullied scurry away. As soon as they’re gone from the school grounds, the smile drops from my face. The words aren’t enough anymore. I can fight back with them, but what are they accomplishing? Nothing. They have no lasting mark, not on these kids.
I look at Anna. She’s wide-eyed and pale. “Is it just the junior class, or is the whole school made up of imbeciles?”
“Mainly the junior class.”
“Maybe their parents were all on some heavy drugs when they were conceived.”
She doesn’t say anything.
“Not yours,” I add.
Anna steps in front of me as I begin to walk. “You didn’t need to do that.”
“I know.”