She had toyed with the idea of skipping the second half of her day, but unlike where she used to attend before coming to Lakeview High School, she knew that the people in the front office would actually call her parents to find out why she wasn’t in class.
Instead, she decided that, if need be, she’d play the dead-relative card again. But none of her teachers seemed to notice—or maybe they didn’t actually care about—the way she had carried herself.
Reaching her locker, she dialed the combination, opened it, and began to exchange books that she didn’t need to take home for ones that she did. “Not that I’m actually going to crack open a single one,” she thought.
Seconds later, she heard heavy footsteps. They came to a stop behind her. Instinctively, she knew who it was.
Jason.
Brent knew that this was about to get ugly. He stood off to the left of Elizabeth’s locker so that he would be close to her throughout the encounter. He knew, though, that he could do nothing to interrupt what was about to happen. He had already tried, but Jason didn’t seem to have a conscience to which he could appeal. Brent was relegated to being a non-participant. An observer.
Elizabeth turned around, hoping to see something in his eyes that said ‘I want you back’ or that everything was going to be okay. Instead, she saw a hate-filled glare that startled her.
Jason moved toward her, causing Elizabeth to step away. Her back now against her open locker, Jason leaned in, placing the palm of his right hand on the locker beside hers.
With a voice just above a whisper, he let her have it. “Don’t you say a word. You’re going to just listen to me. You understand?”
Elizabeth was terrified. She glanced to her right, where she still had full view of the other students in the hallway, looking for someone—anyone—who might at least stop to see if she was okay. The hope was short lived.
“Look at me!” he growled. “No one cares about you enough to help. And guess what, I don’t care about you either, but I’m going to help things get fixed in our lives...”
In the split-second pause between sentences, Elizabeth tried to muddle through the confusion of Jason’s last sentence. “He doesn’t care, but he wants to fix things? Is there still a chance?”
“…and you had better fix things.” Jason stuck his left hand into his pants pocket and withdrew something. Lifting it before Elizabeth’s face, she saw that it was a wad of bills. “This money is for one thing, and one thing only. You are going to get rid of our problem.” He dropped his right hand from the locker, and, without breaking eye contact, grabbed her left wrist and turned her hand palm up. He forced the cash into it.
Elizabeth reluctantly closed her fingers around the pieces of green paper.
“That’s enough money to do the job. Now… You are not to call me. You are not to contact me at all. We’re finished, and this…” he emphasized, pointing at her belly, “…this had better be finished soon, too! I don’t need a slut like you messing up my chance at a scholarship.”
Jason moved in close again, his nose almost touching hers. She felt the heat of his breath against her cheeks as he continued. “If this gets out…if anyone finds out…you’re going to regret that you ever knew me. Do…you…under ... stand?”
Elizabeth was terrified. Tears were already cascading down her cheeks. She just stared, unable to move.
“Do you?!”
She gave him a barely-perceptible nod of her head.
“You’d better.” He stepped back from her, broke his stare, and began to walk toward the front of the school.
Elizabeth’s eyes remained forward, looking at, but not seeing, the lockers built into the opposite wall, not seeing the scores of students that passed in front of her, not seeing Kyle Russell standing behind Brent with hands balled into fists.
“Hey, Jason!” She heard someone call out down the hall to her left. With a slow turn of her head, she saw Jason lift his hand to receive a high-five from one of his teammates as they crossed paths at the intersection of hallways.
She dropped her gaze to the floor in front of her, now barely cognizant of all the other kids walking by. She composed herself as quickly as she could, then lifted her eyes to see multiple people eying her as they streamed past. She spun around and faced her locker, startled by the unwelcome attention.
She missed the compassion-filled gaze of one of those students who paused near the opposite bank of lockers: a boy—a budding young man—whose heart was bonding with hers even though he didn’t really know her.
Brent saw Kyle. But limited by his own sadness, he barely gave the boy a thought.
Elizabeth closed her eyes and let her chin drop toward her chest. She wrapped her arms around herself as more tears came and fell.
Brent stepped up to her, wishing that he could take hold of her and assure her that everything was going to be all right. In that moment, he did the only thing that he was able. He whispered words that he knew she wouldn’t hear.
“Elizabeth, I’m sorry.”
ELIZABETH WAS BOTH emotionally and physically exhausted. Even though she lived a good three miles from her high school, she had elected not to ride the bus. She needed a break from everybody and everything related to her horrific day.
The events in the courtyard and at her locker were two more broad steps toward a major breaking point. She perceived that she had very little emotional stability remaining, and now she needed some time alone so that she could try to regroup.
So, she walked.
The walk afforded her an opportunity to think things through. Thinking about what happened in the company of Tina and Colleen, and then with Jason, were the easy part. Slowing all of those thoughts down enough to formulate a solution was something different altogether.
Her heart ached. There were just too many things to contemplate, all of them a torture to her mind and emotions.
“I’m pregnant with the child of a guy who thinks I’m a slut. My two best friends won’t leave me alone about God. I’ve got two parents who will kill me if I do anything to damage their ‘upstanding’ reputations in the community. I…I can’t do this! Even if I wanted to be pregnant, I’m not allowed!” Elizabeth walked faster.
She finally reached the entrance to her family’s housing development, Glen Meadow Estates. When she and her family had moved into the community the previous year, she had been enamored by the name. Glen Meadow had sounded so peaceful and inviting. And as her feet had delivered her to the neighborhood, she did feel a slight calm.
Brent was glad of his invisibility. Especially right now. His decision to just walk alongside her and listen allowed him to get a feel for where Elizabeth was headed mentally. It was her map—her path—that he had to navigate with her until he could find the proper way to veer her off onto a route that was safer for her and her baby. Unfortunately, however, in the span of just a few painful moments, Jason Foy had made a course correction for Elizabeth a much more difficult proposition.
There was a solution, though, and Brent knew that it was Joshua—Jesus. He was the very one who had put a human spirit into the tiny individual that Elizabeth was carrying within her.
More than once, Brent found himself shaking his head while thinking about the girl’s hard-headed resistance to the Gospel that Tina and Colleen had shared. They had done it with such love and concern. He thought for sure she’d finally stop fighting and give the Lord her life, with all of its bad circumstances, and allow him to love her and rescue her. In the end, though, she only went so far as to tell her friends that she sincerely appreciated their words of support and their promises to keep everything quiet.
She was still not buying the whole ‘God thing.’
The success-filled lives of her parents, who didn’t give much—if any—regard to spiritual things, let Elizabeth know that people could succeed in life without him, even if he really did exist.
Throughout her whole life, she had been taught self-reliance. Her dad had said to her on more than one occ
asion, “Do not let others do for you what you can do for yourself.”
So, there she was, the teenage girl who had been channeled into a life of lonely self-sufficiency by words that, under loving and supportive circumstances, could have provided positive motivation to succeed in life. It was no wonder that Brent and her friends were making so little headway; Elizabeth had fallen for a half truth.
While Elizabeth walked, lost in her cataclysm of thoughts, Brent had to deal with his own turbulent reflections. He had turned off all tags except for Elizabeth’s. Needing far less random conversation rattling around in his head and far more concentrated focus, he tried to figure out his own next steps.
The two approached the Franklin home. When they got to the driveway, Brent stopped and allowed Elizabeth to enter in alone. He just needed a moment to himself. And to that end, he went so far as to even turn off Elizabeth’s tag.
Okay. Which events from today might be important as we move forward in all of this? Well, Jason isn’t going to be of any help; that’s for sure. Tina and Colleen now know that she’s pregnant, and there’s no doubt in my mind that they will be praying for her even more now. And then there is Kyle Russell…
Brent imagined that this kid could play an interesting role in her life. He hadn’t thought to tag him again to see where his thoughts had gone after seeing her in the school courtyard. He was obviously attracted to her, and he was a Christian. Should I maybe stir up a little romance between the two of them?
The idea was immediately struck down. Brent knew, instead, that he should fan the flames of concern that were already burning within Kyle so that he would keep praying.
Can never have too many people praying.
Joshua may not be guiding the events surrounding Elizabeth’s life, but Brent knew that if she were to accept Christ as her Savior, the Holy Spirit couldn’t help but be involved somehow.
Brent was on the verge of an idea when he was distracted by Elizabeth walking past the picture window in the living room. She, again, had her arms wrapped tightly around herself.
Tag.
“…going to know there is something wrong with me, too.”
Who? wondered Brent.
“Dad’s going to be home in…” She looked at her watch. “…about three hours.”
Brent transported himself into the house to sit at the bottom of the main staircase so that he could watch Elizabeth as she paced the living room.
“Elizabeth? Is that you, Hon?”
Elizabeth was startled by her mom’s call from upstairs. “Yes, Mom. It’s only me.”
“Good. I’m glad you’re not one of those mid-afternoon, daylight cat burglars.”
Brent could hear the woman let out a short laugh, congratulating herself on such a witty comment.
Elizabeth shook her head and called back, “I am, too! Thank goodness, huh?”
“I’ve got to keep things light,” Elizabeth determined. “Got to keep everyone’s thoughts totally away from the idea that something’s wrong with me.”
“Sweetheart, do me a favor and take the chops out of the fridge. They’re probably still a little frozen. I forgot about them. They need be thawed by the time your dad gets home.”
“I’m on it!”
Elizabeth left the living room for the kitchen.
Brent was mystified by her mom’s terms of endearment. “Hon” and “Sweetheart” were insincere platitudes that fell flat in the life of the woman’s daughter each time they were uttered.
FIFTEEN MINUTES LATER, as Elizabeth sat curled-up on the sofa in the living room with a closed phone book on her lap, Laura Franklin came down the stairs and made for the kitchen through a walkway below the second-story landing.
Both Brent—who was by this time sitting on the love seat across from the sofa—and Elizabeth could hear the woman as she started removing various pots and pans from the cabinets below the kitchen counter. “Hope you’re hungry sooner than normal, Sweetheart. Your dad’s coming home early so that we can go with the Prestons to a wine tasting event this evening. It’s an hour-and-a-half drive to get there. We probably won’t be home until late.”
Elizabeth considered that for a moment. “They’ll be gone. I’ll have the house to myself.” “What time are you and Dad leaving?”
“We have to leave here by four thirty to pick up Mr. And Mrs. Preston. Why? Starting to plan a party?” Another self-appreciating laugh.
“Ha, ha,” Elizabeth responded, hoping to sound upbeat.
“Four thirty. They should still be open at that time. Right?”
Brent was grieved. Elizabeth was determined to call abortion providers in the area to find out what she needed to do to “take care” of her situation.
Jason had said that the money he forced into her hand would be enough. Having only a hundred dollars of her own, she could only hope that he had been right.
“Getting an abor— …Getting rid of the bab— …the fetus…will be the answer for two problems: Mine and Jason’s.”
Stop.”
Tara looked at me with pleading eyes.
“Please, if you’re not going to tell me the outcome of her situation, at least reassure me that this is just a story. This didn’t really take place. Right? Because I can take any outcome as long as I know that this is just some sort of life parable from Joshua.”
At the outset of telling my wife this story, I knew that she would become attached to the girl whose life I was relating.
I understood why Tara was needing my reassurance at this point, but as for bringing the subject up, I believed that I needed to leave that to her.
She wants me to tell her that none of this actually happened, but…
I sighed.
What I hadn’t counted on was getting into this much depth, making it all seem so real.
After more than twenty years since the events surrounding my mamaw’s death had taken place, it made no sense that I should remember so many specifics, all of the emotional and mental complexity. In fact, until Tara had told me to stop, I was just as lost in the vivid memories as she was—and more so, since I could actually remember so much more than I was telling: the smells, the temperatures, the way a person’s hair would catch in the breeze.
“I can’t tell you that it’s only a story, Tara. Even now I can remember the smell of the pork chops being baked in Laura Franklin’s oven. I can remember how thick the carpeting was on the stairs that I had been sitting on. There was a brick on the left side of their fireplace that seemed mismatched with the rest.” I dropped my head for a moment, then looked back into Tara’s eyes. “I just don’t know, Hon. This isn’t just a story to me. Somehow—somewhere—I actually lived what I’m telling you.
“Even though I was never able to physically touch any of the people, I was able to touch and feel structures and the ground and even feel the sunshine on my face.
“I’ve often thought back, trying to remember the state name on the license plates and telephone area codes, but to no avail.” I shook my head. “Even now I’m trying to think of that one thing that could lead me to know where everything took place.”
Tara, a little more comfortable in the midst of this little interruption she had created in my story, became even more inquisitive.
“What about the name of the high school?” asked Tara. “Lakeview?”
There was no way that I could hold back a chuckle. “Forgive me—I don’t mean to laugh—but that search drove me nuts, too. Do you have any idea how many Lakeview High Schools are out there? There must be at least one city in every state that has the name Lakeview in it. Lakeview Heights, Lakeview Terrace, Lacy Lakeview… Then you’ve got all the high schools that are called Lakeview that aren’t even related to a city name. Good grief, I found a ton of Lakeview High Schools that aren’t even near a lake!”
Even Tara had to laugh at that.
“Team mascot?”
“For whatever reason…don’t remember.”
“Okay,” she said, “how about the
names of students? Or the name of that retired principal?”
“Yep. Tried that, too. Either I can’t find the names of these people because the events took place so far back—before posting information on the Internet became the thing to do—or I run into the same challenge with the popularity of names. Facebook was no help, either. I can’t just assume that the people I met ended up on social media sites. And even if they had, names and appearances change.
“The long and the short of it, Babe, is that I simply don’t know.”
Tara took in a deep breath and let it out. “Well, at least this tiny discussion allowed me to mentally decompress a little bit. If the rest of the story is as emotional as it has been up to this point, I’m just going to continue telling myself that it’s all fiction.”
“Yeah, that’s worked real well for you so far,” I said with a smirk.
“Careful, Chief Lawton. I know where you keep your billy club.”
ELIZABETH CHEWED A piece of her pork chop. She really didn’t want to eat, but she was expected to sit at the dinner table with her parents.
Tony and Laura Franklin sat at opposite ends of an elegant formal dinner table. Elizabeth thought it a bit ostentatious considering the life from which they had come. The table, the house—it all felt as though she and her parents were working overtime to convince themselves to be happy with expensive creature comforts and social status.
Her dad had worked hard pursuing this dream, but now that they had arrived at this latest level of success, the endless maintenance of remaining popular among the other people in their ‘price range’ was always at the forefront of his mind.
As for her mom, she found a new popularity that she had never experienced while having to ‘endure’ the lower-middle class of society. These days her ‘gossip groups,’ as Elizabeth had come to label them, allowed her to have afternoons out with the girls while Elizabeth was in school.
They appeared so happy most of the time, but Elizabeth felt that there was something just below the horizon—something that wasn’t right. It was all too “surfacey” to allow her to be completely comfortable.
Behind the Darkness Page 17