Grace sighed. She’d been watching Kyle ever since he smiled at her during their freshman year. They’d had a few classes together, but she doubted he actually noticed her. But, with all of her observations she knew one undeniable fact: Kyle had no best friend.
Taking a deep breath, she thought about when she first met Delilah. It hadn’t been the bookworm to make the first move. Naturally that had fallen on the more outspoken Jennifer. During their freshmen year the outspoken tomboy had practically pulled Grace out of their shared class and into the lunchroom. Without a second thought the tomboy told Grace that she would be sitting with them from now on instead of over at the table where the obnoxious Taylor had been hogging most of the space with his display of textbooks and notebooks.
Nobody had volunteered to befriend the girl until Jennifer. Nobody dared. They had no desire to get on Amanda’s bad side. The problem was, even a year later, Grace had no idea what she had done to get on Amanda’s bad side. She hadn’t tripped into the now Senior on the first day on purpose. Somebody had tripped her.
But she remembered Jennifer making the introductions, of Delilah recognizing Grace from another class, and then the three girls settled in to eat and study.
Their dynamics changed the day that Amanda dumped lemonade on Grace’s head. Jennifer had fearlessly confronted Amanda while Delilah pulled a stunned Grace out of the line of fire and into a nearby locker room. “My sister has shampoo in her locker,” she assured the sticky girl. “We’ll wait for Jennifer in here and then I’ll go get it.”
After weeks of hiding in the shadows and avoiding her tormentors, Grace broke and told Delilah the entire story. How at home she was frequently helping her parents out with her multitude of siblings and often overlooked because she was capable of taking care of herself unlike her seven-year old youngest sibling. Sometimes she acted more like a parent than her own parents, but that wasn’t verbally acknowledged.
Even the car she would get on her sixteenth birthday would be used as sibling transport. No, quiet Grace was often overlooked and she was used to it. Hoped for it on occasion.
Except for the rare times when Kyle Goldman looked her way.
Finally, Grace started to write, I wish I could say that my best friends saved my life when I first met them. Instead, they saved my soul.
Closing her eyes, Kelly Johnson wondered why she was still friends with Aimee Kirkland. It made no sense. In only a couple of weeks Aimee had gone from blindly following her sister’s demands to creating some of her own.
Aimee was a force to be reckoned with and not in a good way. She was mean and Kelly was concerned what it would mean if she broke away from her friend.
Any time Kelly complained about one of Brady’s girlfriends, Aimee was already in action, had broken the lock on the locker – Kelly didn’t want to dig too deep and find out how – and would have destroyed some valuable assignment or item belonging to the girlfriend in question. It didn’t take much for the girlfriend to start looking in Kelly’s direction before breaking up with Brady.
Nobody wanted to deal with the crazy sister of their significant other. Even more so when the sister’s best friend was vying for the crown of Mean Girl with her own sister.
Kelly kept waiting for Brady to look in her direction, but she also knew that he was slightly overprotective of his sister. The feeling went both ways.
Every now and then she would have the same dream – more like a nightmare – of running across the road when she was thirteen. It was right before the end of her eighth grade year and one of the last games during Brady’s freshmen year. She had raced across the road after the game – a win – in celebration of the pizza that Brady had wanted after the game.
Somebody thought that ignoring the speed limit signs and speeding down the side street next to the school was a great idea. Kelly had looked both ways before running across the street, but this car had come out of nowhere.
The next thing she remembered, with a jolt as the impact of Brady’s body slamming into hers, was the cries of warning as people called out about the car. The crunch of Brady’s dominant arm echoed in her dreams as he had twisted to keep from landing completely on her. The broken bone had kept him from playing the rest of the season and had ruined most of his summer plans, including life guard training at the community pool.
Everybody there that day knew that Kelly would not have survived an impact with the car without Brady’s rescue.
Her hero worship made sense. She loved her brother, wanted him happy, but did not want him taken away from her. She just hoped she’d be able to stop Aimee if Brady ever found the right person.
“Earth to Kelly,” the sickeningly sweet voice next to her repeated. Aimee was seconds away from tapping her feet.
“Sorry,” Kelly automatically apologized. “I was thinking about a stupid English assignment Mr. Burns had assigned.” She knew exactly how they had become friends, but she was wondering why she was too scared to leave.
The lunch dismissal bell for the third lunch shift saved Kelly from having to answer Aimee’s question about what Kelly had written for the second period assignment.
Kyle’s saving grace when it came to the Best Friend assignment was when the lunch bell sounded. Mr. Burns was always in a hurry to get to lunch – having the last lunch shift was rough – and told them to finish up the assignment as homework.
Looking down at the blank page in front of him, Kyle let out a sigh. He could write about his father. The man was the closest thing to a friend he had, even if he acted like a drill sergeant.
Every morning starts off with a mile run, he reflected as he put his things away. Would that make a decent start to his paper? He’d have to get it started at lunch if he wanted to be able to reach the assigned word count. And every evening ends with me up way too late working on homework assignments that I couldn’t finish during lunch.
No, that wouldn’t make for a good paper, Kyle finally decided.
But that day something changed for Kyle as he settled into an empty lunch table. With his lunch tray on one side and a notebook on his other side, he looked up when he noticed another tray being set next to his.
“Hi!” the new guy started, “Name’s Wesley Pitts. You look like you need a friend.”
“Kyle Goldman,” he responded, “and I think you might have perfect timing.”
During most lunch shifts the Geography teacher/football coach would send a note to the other football coach who was monitoring the cafeteria.
This time he sent Aimee. Catching her attention and causing her to hesitate for the first time since her mother’s announcement the night before was her half-brother. Textbooks surrounded him while the new kid sat down in the seat next to him.
Carefully, she looked for similarities between the two of them. She looked over at where Amanda was sitting with the senior cheerleaders and looked for similarities between her and her sister.
Aimee saw the blonde and brown hair, the shape of the eyes, the athletic ability of her half-brother. She saw what she had gained from her jerk of a father and from her home-wrecking mother. Several past rumors that previously didn’t make sense suddenly did.
Nothing, not an understanding of her new reality, helped damper her anger.
David stared at his blank piece of paper. He wondered where Mr. Burns had gotten the idea from for this writing assignment.
Who was he supposed to write about: his best friend by appearances or his best friend in actuality?
Nobody really knew what he was going through every time he circumvented Aimee’s attempts at punishing his girlfriends. It was the main reason he stayed away from the one girl that actually meant something to him.
It was a great thing that Delilah spent more time hiding away in the library or in the company of Grace and Jennifer. Sometimes he even saw Penny Dryer hanging around them. By hiding out or hiding in a crowd, Delilah was able to slip past Aimee’s attention. It was the girls that David tried to date that faced her wrath.
>
My best friend is also my best enemy, he wanted to write. In order to protect my next door neighbor I have to play by some of Aimee Kirkland’s rules.
Without another thought he marked through those lines.
I met my current best friend, Will, when my former best friend was going through a rough period of time. Delilah spent most of her time pushing me way in favor of a certain book or was silent whenever we were together. Expressing her emotions has always been one of her strong suits until her mother left.
That’s when Will was able to enter my life. He was everything I thought high school should be and wanted. In front of me was the choice of more isolation or popularity. I picked popularity.
Eventually I had to pick between keeping Delilah out of a certain mean girl’s grasp and my own happiness.
David stared at what he had started writing. A quick count told him that he still needed one hundred and ninety words to go. Maybe it would be better to start over. There was no telling who would end up peer-reviewing his paper.
Junior Year
Chapter Eleven
The jar on the kitchen counter stared at her. It was called the “Broken Rule Jar,” but Penny knew that her father called it the Swear Jar. It was the rule he frequently broke the most. It was the rule that had paid for the trip to the beach one summer.
She couldn’t recall how often her allowance money had disappeared in the jar for whatever rule she had broken that week. It was annoying how the jar had instilled in her the desire to please her mother. Or to not break the rules.
“I hate that jar,” Martin Dryer mumbled as he dropped some change inside. His daydreaming daughter never even noticed her father entering and leaving the room.
It was difficult to recall exactly how long the jar had been on that counter. Penny had no idea where her mother had gotten the idea. She could remember that it had been sitting there at least as long as she could see over the counter.
The next day she decided to make the suggestion, even to the point of pulling out a quart mason jar with a blue screw top lid.
Jennifer had just gotten finished mumbling some choice cuss words while throwing a pen down on the lunch table. “Why do these damn pens always stop working in the middle of a project?” A few more muffled choice words punctuated her frustration.
Seizing her opportunity, Penny pulled the jar from her bag. “I have an idea.”
“Don’t tell me that’s a damn swear jar,” Jennifer whispered, aware that a teacher was circling nearby but unable to resist the pull of letting out another cuss word.
Staring amazed at the jar, Delilah and Grace wondered what they should say.
“I think it’s a great idea,” Penny stated. “Every time any of us cusses we put a quarter in the jar. Once it’s full we can do something fun with the money!”
Even Wesley, sitting at a nearby table, looked at her as if she had gone crazy.
“That’s a bad idea,” Delilah pointed out. “Jennifer would be putting something in the jar every five minutes.”
Thinking about all of the words she’d used at lunch alone, Jennifer mentally did the math. “I’d have to put two dollars in the jar just from the last five minutes alone!”
Pouting, “It was just an idea,” Penny conceded.
The idea would have been dropped and forgotten if her friends hadn’t seen the jar a few weeks later in Penny’s locker.
Chapter Twelve
David had been watching a particular lunch table on occasion. His gaze would drift over there often enough that a few people from other tables noticed his drifting focus.
He saw the day of the infamous swear jar from a distance.
He witnessed the day that Delilah and Hannah Stanfield were walking the halls discussing some project that they were assigned in Theatre II. Nobody could miss the glare that Aimee had bestowed on him or on the other girls.
“Look, we’ll take the video camera with us to the park,” Hannah stated where David could overhear her. “The other girls and I can get a few of the Theatre guys who aren’t in the class to help us out.” Smiling, she didn’t notice when she bumped into Aimee.
“Hey!” the other girl hissed.
Smiling, “I’m sorry,” Hannah responded while Delilah remained silent. “I didn’t see you there.”
Thrown off by the smiling Hannah, “Well, watch it next time,” Aimee hissed, glaring more at Delilah than at Hannah.
It was moments like this one where David was always in the background, watching when Aimee wasn’t aware of his observations. He acknowledged that she wasn’t the nicest, or easiest, of people to deal with, but she wasn’t starting any rumors about Delilah or her friends and in a way she was honoring their agreement from Freshman Year.
He knew what rumors had been started and they swirled around why Aimee was obsessed with him. A few of the rumors he didn’t bother fighting, like how good he was in bed. They were nearly impossible to stop. One ex-girlfriend had gotten into an argument with Aimee, ending the ordeal with, “It’s not like you’ll ever find out what David’s like in bed,” even though he’d never given up his virginity. The next ex-girlfriend, and a few girls he hadn’t even dated, repeated the sentiments to get Aimee to go away.
Truthfully, he hadn’t even gone on a serious date in weeks. He didn’t want to deal with Aimee’s jealousy and the constant neediness from the other girls. The problem with not dating meant that Aimee had begun to notice his lack of dates.
He couldn’t understand her obsession. It felt as if somebody told her to go after David and she was checking off blocks on a list.
Become Popular.
Get a tutor.
Become a Mean Girl to maintain Popular status.
Date Class Favorite (David).
Scare off all the other girls who want to or have dated David.
He wasn’t exactly certain how he felt about being part of a list.
There was one thing that nobody expected to start bringing everything to a head. Nobody expected a major change in Brady Johnson’s life to have a far reaching impact.
Chapter Thirteen
For years he’d watch as Kelly somehow chased away his girlfriends. It didn’t fully matter; his sister’s actions managed to help him break up with several girlfriends. If he really wanted to he could have put his foot down and stopped Kelly and Aimee.
He just hadn’t found somebody worth it yet. Brady loved his sister and knew that she felt some protectiveness over him. He’d saved her life and she tried her best to make certain he was happy.
Brady thought back on his ex-girlfriends.
There was Wendy…
“Mom,” he sighed for the millionth time, “Kelly really needs to go see a therapist.”
Without glancing at her son, Mary Johnson dismissed his concerns. “Kelly is fine.”
“She is not fine! She’s blindly following Aimee Kirkland’s mandates without question when I’m not around. If I am around she’s constantly asking if she can do something for me or inserting herself between me and my girlfriends.”
Sighing, “Who did she chase off this time?”
“Wendy.”
Turning to face Brady for the first time, she looked surprised. “I liked Wendy.”
“So did I,” he lied. He didn’t want to tell his mother that his ex-girlfriend had threatened to kick the dog if Ms. Peaches jumped on her one more time.
Pausing, Brady wondered if Kelly had seen that.
There was Collette…
“Dad,” Brady ventured into his father’s home office, “I’m worried about Kelly.”
“What did she do this time?” his father resignedly asked.
“She and Aimee spread a rumor that Collette cheated on her U.S. History Test.”
Father looked at son as if he was wondering what he expected him to do about it.
“Kelly heard our argument and break up and decided to take matters into her own hands. Kelly needs to see somebody about her coping strategies.”
He thought about Anissa…
“Kelly!” he calmly opened his sister’s door. “What did Anissa do?”
“She told me to stop hanging out with you guys when you were doing homework.” Kelly looked up from her Chemistry notes. “Can you help me with this?”
“Why did you break into her locker, steal her Economics notes, and light them on fire in the girl’s restroom?”
Kelly looked up at her older brother, “I didn’t do that.”
“Aimee then.” Everybody knew that Aimee was adept at cracking locker combinations, even if nobody could ever prove or witness it.
“They were supposed to be put in the sink and then have water run over them. I didn’t know Aimee had a test she wanted to get out of.” Kelly shrugged her shoulders.
Rolling his eyes, they both knew Aimee would never get caught. She was too smart for that. “Look, stop attacking my girlfriends. I need to be able to break up with them in peace.”
Then he thought about Savannah Blake, who was sitting right in front of him. “Listen, I need to tell you about my sister.”
Chapter Fourteen
There were a few things that Hannah Stanfield was certain about.
She knew that her father wished that she had been born a son instead of a daughter. That he wanted more kids and regretted that due to complications from her birth her mother was incapable of having any more children.
She knew that he disliked Pastor Samuel; his sermons didn’t have enough fire and brimstone to make him happy.
She knew that she was more than happy with her theatre friends. This group was semi-protected from the wrath of Aimee Kirkland and none of them were concerned about her breaking into their lockers and destroying valuable assignments. Hannah suspected that the one time Heather Freeman, Megan Young, and Chris Dawson broke out in song when Aimee had tried to go after Megan – for dating David – that the Mean Girl wasn’t quite certain how to deal with her shady dealings being front and center.
The Bookworm Next Door: The Expanded and Revised Edition Page 4