I nodded and gestured for her to continue. She shook her head, pressing her lips tight together, then blew out a hot sigh. “But the only thing I hate worse than a lying-ass rich-ass pussy-ass bitch is a cowardly predator with a god complex. I’m not going to be her fucking friend, you can forget about that. But I’m not going to be part of this shit, either. I know you got her number. Tell her to skip lunch on Monday.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Damn, Sam. Are you softening up on me?”
“Shut the fuck up,” she growled, waving her butter knife threateningly. “I’ll deny everything.”
I grinned and bit into my cold burger. I was glad it wasn’t her, but part of me was also disappointed. I couldn’t quite figure out why, and I was in too good a mood to brood on it, so I stuck the feeling in a box in my brain with a large note-to-self to examine it later. Feelings had a way of biting me in the ass if I left them alone for too long.
15
My hands shook as I spread peanut butter across a thick piece of bread. Blayze’s cryptic text haunted me, playing over and over in my head. Skip the lunchroom. Eat in your car. Shit’s going down. I didn’t know if he meant forever or just for that day and I didn’t dare text him back. He’d been very clear about that. I didn’t know what Sam would do if she found out that Blayze and I were talking, and I really didn’t want to find out. She scared the ever living hell out of me.
I tried to work silently, but my frayed nerves and shaking hands betrayed me. I dropped the knife on the floor with a ridiculously loud clatter which shot my heart clear up into my throat. I froze in the dark, the kitchen lit only by the sickly yellow light over the stove, and waited. My heartbeat deafened me. When the kitchen light snapped on, I had to stifle a scream.
“What are you doing?” Mom asked, her voice still thick with sleep. “It’s not time for school, is it?”
“I couldn’t sleep,” I said truthfully. “So I’m making my lunch.”
She frowned at me. “Are you out of money? You should have told me. Here, I’ll move some into your account—”
“No,” I said quickly. “I’ve got money. I’m just—sick of cafeteria food.”
She narrowed her eyes at me and a part of me feared that she’d read my fears like they were lined in highlighter. “You don’t even like peanut butter,” she said.
She was right. Of course she was. But it was the only sandwich I could think of that wouldn’t go bad sitting in my glove box all day. I shrugged. I couldn’t meet her eyes, so I turned to get a new knife out of the drawer. “Tastes change,” I said.
My mother crossed her arms over her chest. “Mm-hm. Like a taste for ascots can suddenly change into a taste for tattered leather?”
I shot her a sharp glance, then forced my expression into a casual neutral. “I was never that into Lenny,” I said. “And Blayze isn’t that into me. So let’s stick to sandwiches, okay?”
She twisted her mouth and hummed in her throat. “I see. Well that explains a lot. You’ve been miserable lately. You’re losing weight, too. Come on, honey. Talk to me. Tell me about the stupid, stupid man who couldn’t see how wonderful you are.”
I glared at my sandwich, spreading the jelly like I was trying to kill it. “I’m fine,” I lied. “I’m not his type. I’m not anyone’s type around here. This whole freaking neighborhood hates me and I’m not real fond of it, either. Is Dad going to be done saving the world by the time I graduate?”
She blew out her cheeks with a long sigh and raked a hand through her brown hair, flashing a hint of a few silvery roots. “Doesn’t look like it,” she said. “They had to pull in the cyber crime unit to consult on the problem.”
“And what problem is that, exactly? Poverty? Homelessness? Directionless floating through a slow-moving toilet bowl?” I savagely shoved the sandwich into a plastic bag, squashing part of it in the process.
Mom blinked at me and hesitated for a long moment. “Well those are certainly problems, but they aren’t your father’s focus, or the Mayor’s. Drug use is skyrocketing around here, especially in minors. He doesn’t like to tell you these things because he still thinks of you as his baby girl, but I’ve got a better idea of what you can handle.”
I doubt that, I thought bitterly. Mom stepped forward, hugging her elbows. “The emergency rooms around here are always at capacity. Mostly from drug overdoses. It’s so bad that the city has started setting up stations all over town with rapid-response teams equipped to deal with overdoses. This outreach has been tried before, but it always gets run out before it can catch hold.”
“Run out?” I asked slowly.
She nodded. “Yep. Gangs and pimps and pushers take their territories very seriously around here. Plus, there’s the fact that no one wants to accept the help that’s trying to be given. That’s why your dad is working so hard to get those people off the streets and have this place cleaned up. Doctors can’t reach the people who need them if the people who are making them sick refuse to give ground. But that’s not the worst of it, Arlena.”
I swallowed hard. Everything I knew about Eddie and his parties was filling my head, threatening to spill out of my mouth. I kept it inside. Maybe if I’d been a little more heroic, a little more sure of myself, I wouldn’t have bitten my tongue as hard as I did—but I was terrified. I didn’t want to die fighting a war I didn’t even understand.
Mom moved closer and spoke so softly that it was almost hard to hear her words. “Eighty-five percent of the overdoses are happening in minors,” she said and paused, but only for a second. “Children. Sixty percent of those kids are fifteen years old or younger. Someone is deliberately targeting young kids—very young kids—and getting them hooked on what they’re selling. These kids all come from broken families, poor families. Getting these kids addicted will mean that they’ll do everything to find a way to feed their addiction. Maybe they’ve got a bit of pocket money, maybe they’re good at slipping a few bucks out of their parent’s wallets. But eventually, Arlena…eventually the time will come where they can’t pay for the drugs anymore. That’s where the pimps come in.”
I squeezed my eyes shut and shook my head. How is this even a part of the world? And how have I existed in a shell for so long, never even imagining that something like this could be possible. That people could be this evil.
“I don’t want to hear anymore,” I said, forcing the words past the ache in my heart.
She nodded, her eyes downcast. “Maybe I shouldn’t have told you,” she said. “I blame the lack of sleep. I just wanted to give you a little perspective, Arlena. Out-of-place isn’t the worst way to feel, and single isn’t the worst way to be. I know this whole exercise hasn’t been much fun for you, but it’s important. Vitally important. Those kids? They’re just as full of life and potential as you are. The difference between you and them is that they don’t have anyone to protect them.”
Miserable tears splashed down my face as I struggled to suppress the overwhelming urge to tell her everything. I hated myself in that moment because I knew she was right. People were hurting and dying because of the ghetto powers—powers which my so-called friend claimed to be close to. Close enough to be safe on any block. The city was rotting, and there was a good chance that Blayze was just as rotten. But was it even his fault? That was the problem, wasn’t it? All everyone here was doing was trying to survive and sometimes the thing you hate, the thing you want to get away from the most, is also the only lifeline you have.
Mom pulled me into a hug and I wrapped my arms tight around her waist and let my helplessness flow into a puddle on her shoulder. She rocked me, whispering soothing things into my hair. When I finally pulled away to wash my face, the sky was going yellow-grey in the early light of dawn. I checked the time. I had sixteen minutes to get to school. Mom saw that too, and smiled at me.
“It’s all going to be okay,” she promised. “As long as good people keep trying, everything will eventually turn out okay.”
For who, though? I thought the question
, but I didn’t dare to ask it. I smiled back at my mother as well as I could, gathered up my things, and left. There was an envelope on my step. Because…well…of course there was. Instinct had me bending down, but it only took a short moment for me to shake it. With vengeance, I kicked the letter into the bushes and kept walking. Not today, Satan. Not today.
I tried to put Mom’s lecture out of my head as I drove. It was just one more heavy thing weighing on me in a whole clusterfuck of heavy things, but I couldn’t do it. It was as if she’d pulled a soft filter off of my vision, leaving me with a clear, hard view of the world around me. The freshmen girls waiting at the bus stop, all of them too skinny, were not dressed for the weather at all. They never are, I reminded myself. Freshmen are stupid and trying to impress. But as I looked a little closer, I saw details I’d always missed before.
One girl scratched her arm with absent obsession, scraping old scabs off, spreading small streaks of blood over her skin. Another one couldn’t have been older than fourteen, but she watched the world go by through the sad, wizened eyes of someone eight times her age. One girl kept looking over her shoulder at a middle-aged man who stood in the shadow of a tall building. He waved furtively at her and she blew him a kiss. A rehearsed, practiced, dead kiss.
I turned my eyes forward and kept them there for the rest of the drive. My stomach flipped and curled sickeningly and my skin was clammy and cold, though somehow I was sweating through my shirt. Dad saw all this, I realized. Saw it and interpreted it in ways I couldn’t have. He followed the stench of corruption as far as he could, then decided that drugs and their pushers were the core of the problem.
I hadn’t decided whether or not I agreed with his assessment by the time I reached campus. Not that it mattered. My opinion didn’t mean much to him when it came to “real world” issues. He thought he knew exactly how sheltered I was. If I really had been as sheltered as he thought, I wouldn’t have had a damn thing to contribute. Any opinions I might have had would’ve all been shots in the dark.
“Not that sheltered anymore,” I breathed as I threaded my car carefully through the crowd. The back of my neck prickled as students packed closer and tighter around my car, making it impossible for me to move without hitting somebody. A horn blared loudly behind me. My car was blocking the road and a line was building up behind me, but the students didn’t seem to care. Hard-eyed stares pierced through my windshield, wilting me in place.
“I see,” I breathed. “Thanks for the heads up, Blayze.” I rolled my window down just a crack and spoke to the person nearest me, who was so close that his backpack thumped against my car with every step.
“Excuse me,” I said. “Nobody can get in the parking lot until I move. Could you guys move over, please?”
There was no expression in his cold eyes. Chills shot down my spine. “Make us,” he said.
Another horn blared, then another and another. I whipped my head over my shoulder and screamed. “I’m trying, okay?!”
Of course they didn’t hear me. The horns kept blaring and the students kept trudging. I felt something snap inside of me and I stomped down hard on the brake with my left foot, then stomped down just as hard on the gas with my right. My powerful engine revved, roaring like a tiger, making the students in front of me dive for cover. I let go of the brake and shot forward a couple of feet. That was all I could do before they swarmed the car again, dead-faced and determined to ruin my morning.
The first bell rang. The crowd didn’t thin at all and the noise behind me got louder as people started panicking. Shouted curses rang between blaring horns, ramping up the furious energy another few notches. It was infectious. Heavy thumps rained over my car as the trudging mass began to morph into a riot, with my car as the target for their displeasure. I revved my engine again and someone jumped onto the hood of my car. He raised his fist, aiming at my windshield. I slammed the shifter in reverse without thinking, but before I could hit the gas and quite possibly kill a bunch of people, a shrill whistle cut through the chaos.
“You are all truant!” An artificially amplified voice bellowed. “I will be locking the doors in exactly five minutes! Anyone left outside will be arrested and charged with trespassing, truancy, destruction of property, and will be permanently expelled!”
That got them moving. Fucking finally. Shaking and sweating, I pulled into the nearest available spot. Five minutes didn’t seem like enough time. I waited, catching my breath and bringing my nerves under control, for three of those. By then, the parking lot was very nearly empty of students. I grabbed my bag and raced for the door, one of the last few still outside. I made it through with more than a minute to spare. I was woefully late for first period, but I couldn’t find it in me to care. At that point, I figured just surviving the year would be a big win for me.
I opened the door to my class and walked into a sea of surly faces, each with a bright pink detention slip on their desks. They glared and snarled at me as if it were my fault that they all decided to be jackasses at the same time. I couldn’t help but wonder if they’d planned it in advance. Or if they’d all woken up having the same nightmare that involved me as their enemy. Either way, there was a part of me that wasn’t exactly mad about them getting detention. Chances are, not all of them would skip it. Which lessened the targets on my back. I didn’t dare to let them see the smile that almost stretched my lips thin.
Keeping my head down, I took my usual seat in the corner, where I had a wall at my back and another on my right. Mr. Morris watched silently as I settled into my seat, then scanned the room as every eye in it turned to look at me.
“Arlena, glad you could join us. Do you have an excuse for being tardy?”
The expressions around me changed almost instantly. Angry glares hardened into open threats or softened into silent pleas. What the hell were they afraid of? The whole school saw their stunt, it wasn’t a secret. The only thing the administration might not know is who was driving the car, though it should have been obvious. That didn’t stop them from trying to shut me up, though. Some stared so hard they started to sweat.
I’m not sure what happened in my head then. It was all so much, so over-the-top ridiculous, and now people were actually mouthing shut up, shut up, please shut up at me. I caught one kid praying. That was the last straw. I opened my mouth to talk, but a helpless wave of laughter burst through me instead. It was wild, uncontrollable. I couldn’t breathe, but I couldn’t stop either. I laughed until I cried, until I developed a stitch in my side. Mr. Morris’ expression changed from studied patience to annoyance to real concern, and every transition only made me laugh harder. Finally, after a hundred false stops, I was able to speak once more.
“Heavy foot traffic this morning,” I squeaked.
Someone snorted and it set me off again. Mr. Morris covered his eyes with his hand and hung his head. For some reason, that alone was completely hilarious. I howled like a wolf and cackled like a witch until I wheezed. This is it, this is my life now, I thought. They’ve finally done it. They’ve finally driven me completely insane.
“Bitch, shut the fuck up!” The shouting voice was accompanied by two massive, meaty hands slamming down on my desk. Choking on laughter, tears streaming down my face, I looked up into a face full of panic and fury.
“I—want to—” I gasped. “But I—can’t!”
He couldn’t decide whether to punch me or run away. I threw my head back and laughed. He stomped back to his seat and slumped down, then gestured at Mr. Morris. “You’re the teacher, you deal with her.”
Mr. Morris stood up straight and wiped every expression from his face. He crossed his hands in front of him and gazed at me patiently. He breathed deeply, steadily. I locked my eyes on his and matched his breath, breaking into panicked giggles every few seconds. Eventually they subsided, but I could still feel them just under my sternum, a hair trigger away from another outburst. I kept breathing, anchoring myself to Morris’ utter lack of expression. When the spasms finally ended, I
put my head down on my desk and took a long, deep breath.
Morris waited twelve seconds, then moved right into the lesson as though nothing had happened.
“As you recall—perhaps, if I’m lucky—last week we discussed brain chemistry and hormones as they relate to the standard day-to-day processes of life and living. This week we are going to touch on irregularities in brain chemistry and hormones, and the stressors which cause them—both internal stressors and external stressors.”
I allowed myself a small, soft smile in the dark embrace of my own arms. I’d read the syllabus and that lesson wasn’t due to come up until the end of the year. Bless you, Morris. Maybe these assholes will learn why they really shouldn’t go out of their way to make a person crazy.
I don’t know if they learned anything or not. I think I did, but anything I learned was out of my head the second I stepped out of the classroom. Surly-faced students spilled out of every room and most of them looked at me like they wanted to rip my head right off of my shoulders. I spotted pink detention slips wherever I looked, and realized belatedly that Mr. Morris hadn’t given me detention even though I’d been the last one in the door. That wouldn’t do me any favors later.
The general sense of fury had died down to a thick sullen cloud by second period. Nobody looked at me, which was preferable to the alternative. I was pretty sure that I would crack a rib if I had another fit. Half an hour into class, a runner came with a message for me to go to the office. A hail of chewed gum and spitballs fell around me as I moved through the classroom, but I’d kinda gotten so used to all that that it affected me no more than a light showering of rain would have.
“Knock it off or I’ll suspend all of you,” Ms. Holmes said flatly. “You’re all on thin ice today, you really want to push it?”
Manic: A Dark High School Bully Romance Page 11