All things considered, I got off incredibly easy. It was a one-in-a-hundred break. I figured there must have been some angels on my side. As I’d learn just a little later, there were angels on my side, and they had the ear of the school superintendent.
Unfortunately, the same day brought frightening news about Kura.
Xan called to tell me Kura was in the hospital. She’d overdosed on Adderall the night before; her mom found her sweating and complaining of heart palpitations and called 911. When the paramedics got there, Kura was having difficulty breathing. They feared she was having a heart attack, and once they found out how much Adderall she’d ingested, they started treatment to counteract the overdose.
I started freaking out, but Xan had talked at length with Kura’s parents and broke it all down for me: Kura was expected to recover just fine from the overdose. Her mom and dad had suspected something for a while, but they weren’t sure whether to act or how far to push Kura to get the truth. (I could empathize with that.) They told Xan they’d get Kura into drug treatment right away.
I told Xan I’d plan to visit Kura whenever that was allowed. When I got off the phone, my head was spinning. I had to sit. Kura had gotten so bad she’d overdosed. My thoughts raced: I should have clubbed her over the head and made her stop that day. I should have gone straight to her house and told her parents. Something. Anything.
No matter what I’d been going through, I had a responsibility to help my friend. Thankfully Kura survived and would be getting help. She got lucky. But I promised myself I’d never let something like that happen again. I realized something that day: Sometimes the best thing you can do for a friend is the last thing they want you to do.
Meanwhile, Chris and I had spoken only twice, but he came over on the Friday of my suspension week. Grounded means you can’t leave, but thankfully they weren’t being so heartless that I couldn’t see my boyfriend—if he even was my boyfriend anymore.
I changed my outfit four times before he arrived—no idea why, at that point he’d seen me in all forms of clothing—but I just wanted to look my best in case he was on the fence about me. I hoped maybe if I looked cute, that could be my saving grace. Silly, I know.
I settled on denim Current/Elliott cutoff shorts and short motorcycle boots—both courtesy of Noel. She was wearing them the Friday before and I complimented her on how cute she looked, so she left the whole outfit behind for me. On purpose! Things really had changed. On top I wore a hippie-style blouse, gauzy white with blue embroidered flowers, and I wore my hair down but did two braids out of a couple pieces in the front and then secured them in back to fully achieve my bohemian look.
Chris showed up with Starbucks lattes for each of us. There were napkins and straws and sweeteners in the bag—he’d pretty much covered all the bases. I was surprised he didn’t throw in the glass bottles of chocolate and cinnamon while he was at it, but I was the criminal in the relationship—not him.
“It’s so good to see you,” I said.
“You too,” he replied with a genuine smile. “You look pretty. I like your hair.”
He noticed. “Thank you.” I was certain my smile was way too gummy at that moment but I was too happy to rein it in.
“How’s jail been?” he asked, referring to my house arrest.
“Eh,” I shrugged. “I finally feel like one of those tabloid stars—all I’m missing is the ankle bracelet. And the fame. And the talent.”
“Oh, you have the talent,” he said. “That mural was incredible.”
“Thank you,” I said, then pressed a little: “Incredible enough to earn some forgiveness?”
As we’d been sitting there, I’d taken my Starbucks napkin and torn it into a few pieces. I fashioned a heart out of it and slid it in his direction.
“I’m so sorry, Chris. I got so carried away and I totally abused your trust.”
“Yep,” he said. Not giving me much to go on.
“I hate that I did it. I promise you I hate me way more than you could ever hate me.”
“I don’t hate you,” he said. Thank everything that is holy. “That’s very cute, by the way,” he said, motioning to my creation.
“Everything got out of hand … and it was all from me being stupid and insecure and trying to be someone I wasn’t—acting like the people I thought were ‘cool.’ But the good news is that’s not the real me. I think you know that. I hope you know that.”
“I do,” he said. “I wouldn’t have cared so much if I didn’t.”
“I know,” I said. “I just got carried away. Like, way carried away.”
“Yeah, you did,” he agreed. “That was not the girl I fell in love with.”
He loves me? He said he loves me! He loves me!
“I’m so sorry. I hate that I screwed us up so bad.”
“I do too,” he said.
Ugh. That didn’t sound hopeful. Didn’t he just say he loved me? Did he mean that in past tense?
“Can we both hate how I acted but not hate me? Or let me hate me and you try to like me again?”
I think I confused myself with that one.
“I already told you I don’t hate you,” he said.
But you didn’t say we could be back together!
“I promise you it won’t happen again. Nothing like it. I will never betray your trust again. You could tell me what you had for dinner last night and I could be trapped in an enemy prison camp and they could waterboard me and beat me and tell me they’ll only let me go if I told them what you ate and I would never tell them.”
“That’s a little extreme.”
“Listen, a lot of people want to know what you had for dinner,” I said, hoping to lighten the mood. “And I won’t budge.”
He looked at me with those gorgeous eyes. I wanted to dive into his eyes and swim around—which would be gross and probably all squishy with eye matter and veins and would probably be the consistency of a hard-boiled egg if I were to take a guess. Enough about that, though.
“Hailey,” he said, “everyone makes mistakes. Yours were, you know, kinda huge.”
“I know,” I said, bowing my head.
He sighed. “When you say never ever, it’s gotta be—”
“Never! Ever! Never ever ever!” I must have sounded like a mental patient. “Chris, I swear.”
He sighed. Then he cocked his head to the side and smirked at me. “You make it hard to stay mad at you.”
“Go with that,” I said, and he laughed, which seemed like a good sign.
“Can we just start over? You don’t have to trust me completely and I’ll just work really hard to prove that I’m not a complete and utter jerk?”
“Yes,” he said, hitting me with one more flash of those killer eyes. “We can do that.”
* * *
Anya was another story. I couldn’t wear cute clothes or bat my eyelashes or kiss our relationship back together. She had already suggested an ass-kicking, so when I saw her on Instant Messenger that Saturday, I offered myself up.
ME: hey. anytime you wanna kick my ass, i’m just across the street you know. i’d bring it over for you to take the opportunity but I’m still on lockdown
ANYA: uh huh
ME: can we make up please?
ANYA: not mad anymore
ME: lie. total lie
ANYA: swear. i’m not. we all have our asshole moments. mine was most of freshman year when i was one of skyler’s skanks
ME: and then i tried to turn us all into hailey’s hater tots
ANYA: like i said, we all have our moments we’re not proud of. i was a total bitch and I got knocked up freshman year. u didn’t top that
ME: what’s up with you and andy these days?
ANYA: why, so u can tell emily?
ME: okay that’s deserved. but no. because ur my friend. and i care. & i miss you. i really really miss you
The silence was deafening. I watched my blinking cursor and I watched to see the words “Anya is typing a message to you” in t
iny lettering.
ME: are you still my friend? can we please be friends again?
Aaaaaaand nothing.
My heart sank but I knew we had built enough of a friendship that eventually it could be salvaged. At least, I hoped so.
I tried again the next day via text:
Anya, I’m SORRY. I said some terrible things and I don’t have an excuse. I was awful. Please can we just talk? Please? I’m begging. I wouldn’t beg for just anybody.
No response. I stared at my phone for about twenty minutes, literally trying to will her to write back. Nothing.
Then the doorbell rang. I walked over to answer and saw Anya through the window, flipping me off. I laughed and opened the door.
“Hey, asshole,” she said.
“Hi,” I said sheepishly, stepping aside. “Come on in.”
“Don’t mind if I do,” she said.
Screw the small talk, I thought. Let’s get right at it.
“Can we please move on?” I asked. “I’m sorry. I’ve said so every way I can think of with the exception of skywriting and that’s expensive and my allowance is basically docked until the end of time so—”
“What are you sorry for?” she asked.
I thought about it. I was sorry for the things I said in the bathroom obviously, the names I called her, the way I’d behaved. “For everything,” I said.
“Be specific,” she said.
I knew she cared and there was a chance that we were going to be friends or she wouldn’t even be here—at least I hoped—but she was being hard-core. Not letting me off the hook.
I took a breath and started over, thinking back to everything I could apologize for. I wanted to get it right.
“Every shitty thing I said to you. Calling you … what I called you in the bathroom. I didn’t mean it. And you and Andy had such a major history that it was completely unfair for me to judge you or say anything about you guys reconnecting. It was stupid. I don’t and can’t even pretend to know what it’s really like between you guys, but it wasn’t my place to say anything at all. I was just in my own little world—”
“Ding ding ding!” she interrupted. “Therrrrre you go.”
“Yeah?” I perked up.
“Well … getting warmer.”
I got it. It was what I tried to apologize for in my mural, but that may have been a little too, you know, “macro.”
I swallowed as the words found their way out. “I was a bitch.”
“Yup.”
“I became everything we hated.”
“Pretty much,” she said. “I believe dictionary-dot-com refers to your behavior as becoming a grade-A Skyler-esque bitch.”
“Is that the technical term now?” I couldn’t help but smile. She was tough but she was real and that was what drew me to her in the first place. She made me be better.
“It is,” she said. “I don’t think they’ve updated it but I haven’t checked lately. Hopefully it hasn’t become ‘Hailey-esque bitch’ yet. That would suck.”
“Well, if they used a flattering photo of me next to the definition, I suppose it could be considered a certain brand of achievement.”
“I’d see to it they didn’t,” she said. “You’d look like Zach Galifianakis.”
“Beard and everything?” I asked.
“Yup.”
“I guess I deserve that.”
Anya nodded.
I sighed. “Well, I think technically one has to remain bitchy for a more prolonged period of time to make it into the dictionary. If, say, one were bitten by the bitch bug and suffered symptoms for just a brief period of time but then realized the error of her ways, perhaps her friends—and the dictionary—could give her another chance before condemning her to official bitch infamy. Not to mention looking like Zach Galifianakis.”
“Jeez, Hailes,” Anya said. “Haven’t you ever heard that when the buyer says yes, stop making the pitch?”
“I honestly have no idea what that means,” I said. (I really didn’t.)
“It means I’ve bought your line of bullshit,” she said, smiling as she said the last word. “I’m sick of fighting. But … you’re on probation.”
“Really?” I sighed, relieved. “Oh, thank God. I know it’s hard for you to trust people and I promise I won’t screw up again.”
“Good. Because I don’t give third chances.”
“I won’t need one.”
“You better not.”
“Should we hug?” I asked.
“Why?” she replied. “Chris won’t take you back? I’ve told you before, you’re not my type. But if you really need to cop a feel, do it fast and don’t latch on like one of those needy baby monkeys because they’re cute. You? Meh.”
I grabbed her and hugged her anyway, probably for longer than she wanted, but I didn’t care.
* * *
When I returned to school the following Monday, I was feeling pretty chipper. My mural was the talk of the Internet—well, Internet users around West Hollywood, at least—and somehow I’d gotten through it without a criminal record, expulsion or an uncontrollable addiction to huffing spray paint. My friends were talking to me again. Chris was talking to me again. More than talking to me. He loved me! Well, he did say it once.
But first, I had to report to Mr. Muñez’s office, where I knew nothing but bad news was waiting. It was time to get the bad news—the official bad news, at least—about the CalArts internship.
There are other internships, I told myself as I meekly knocked on his door. You did the right thing. Everything comes at a price. This just had a big price tag.
“Hi, Hailey,” he said. “Please sit down.”
I did.
“So,” he said, “paint anything lately?”
I let out a little groan. “I don’t think I’m even allowed to paint my nails right now.”
He smiled. “Yeah, probably not. So I have a question for you.”
“Okay?”
“Where were you when school opened Monday morning?”
Shit. “Um, is this, like, ‘on the record’? Because it didn’t come up with Principal Dash and I—”
“Hailey, don’t worry. You’re not in trouble. Well, not in any more trouble, anyway.”
“Okay,” I said. “I was at Starbucks, following all the hullabaloo on my iPad.”
“Wow,” he said. “Saw it all, huh?”
“Yeah, most of it. Why?”
“How did you feel to see all those kids admiring your work?”
“It felt … great,” I said. “But it was more important that my friends saw. I wanted to show them how I felt, that I was sorry for the dumb stuff I did.”
“Which you apologized for by breaking into and defacing the school,” he said.
I hung my head a little. “Yeah. But … sometimes you have to make a big impression, you know?”
“I do,” he said. “And here’s the thing … I’d be remiss if I didn’t tell you how impressed I was with what you did.”
What?!
“Really?” I sputtered.
“Anyone who couldn’t recognize the unique genius of your hallway strip would have to be blind,” he said.
“Wow,” I said. “Thank you.”
“You’re very welcome. And I wasn’t the only one who was impressed.”
“What do you mean, the Facebook page?”
“That and other things. Just in the first couple of hours after school opened, I’d already heard from a number of influential art instructors in Southern California. You were the talk of cyberspace. And I have to tell you, it was one of the most amazing things I’ve ever seen. I know why you did it, and I think it might have taught some people an important lesson.”
“So what are you saying?”
“A lot of people wanted you kicked out of this school after that,” he said. “I thought that would be the worst idea ever. I’m not saying you can ever do something like that again—believe me, there is no second chance, you will end up in Juvenile
Hall—but I was able to speak up for you when we debated what to do last Monday morning. And later last week, I was able to present emails I’d received supporting you from the various art instructors who had expressed interest. You made quite a splash. Even a local news producer reached out.”
“Wow!” I said. “Does Principal Dash know you’re telling me this?”
“Well, it’s all in your student file now, Hailey. You were going to know eventually. And you should also know that the superintendent’s formal decision makes it crystal clear that, let’s see, ‘if you ever commit another criminal act on school property again, you will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.’”
He held the paper up so I could see it. Yep, that’s what it said, all right.
“Got it,” I said, my mind pretty well blown. “Thanks so much for sticking up for me, Mr. Muñez. You’re really cool. I’m just sorry I let you down about the CalArts thing.”
“Yes, the internship,” he said. “So you don’t want it anymore?”
“What?” I exclaimed. “What do you mean? I just figured—”
“Hailey,” he said, “you’re going to be a model student from now on. I don’t have any question about that. Because you’re smart, and you’re smart enough to know that you can’t screw around with the school superintendent, right?”
“Right.”
“So I know you’re going to bust your butt at detention, you’re never going to have so much as a single unexcused absence and you’re going to work hard at school. And because you’re going to promise me right now that you’ll do all that, I will personally call the director at CalArts and recommend you fully.”
“Oh my God, seriously?” I squealed. “You’ll really do that?”
“I can’t guarantee anything, Hailey, but I like your odds,” he said. “I know a few people there. I was an art major, you know.”
Confessions of a Hater Page 30