Backlash

by Sarah Littman

  “Your brother got roughed up in the bathroom at school yesterday,” Dad says. His knuckles are white around the handle of his coffee cup. “Four guys against one.”

  “Because of …”

  “Yes, Breanna — because of the situation that you and your mother created for this family. Because the two of you didn’t think about how the repercussions of your actions would affect all of us.”

  “Don’t start with that again —”

  “Quiet, Mary Jo.”

  My father doesn’t shout, but I almost wish he did, because his cold, precise anger is worse than my mother’s loud fire. I slump down in my seat.

  “I’m sorry, Dad.”

  “I know you’re sorry, Bree. But this is too big and it’s gone way too far for ‘I’m sorry’ to fix.”

  Dad tells me this like it’s something I don’t already know.

  But I do. When I begged him to stay home from school, he told me that actions have consequences and I have to learn to live with them. He doesn’t have to worry. I’m being taught a lesson again every single day.

  Marci and Jenny aren’t waiting for me out front like they usually do, so I have to walk into school alone. There’s a bunch of football players and cheerleaders sitting on the wall by the front door.

  Don’t let Ashley Trapasso be one of them.

  I walk past, hoping they don’t notice me, but they do.

  “It’s Bullying Bree,” Ashley calls out. “Who are you and Monster Mom planning to pick on next, Bree?”

  Don’t look. Just keep walking.

  “They better not pick on anyone.” It’s Tomas Garcia, the quarterback of the football team. “Otherwise we’re going to come over and pick on them.”

  Other voices saying, “Yeah,” “Too right,” and calling me and Mom curse words.

  Don’t look. Just keep on walking.

  Sticksandstoneswillbreakmybonesbutnameswillneverhurtme.

  Why do they even teach us that stupid rhyme? It’s such a lie. Names do hurt.

  I’m shaking by the time I get to my locker.

  No one says, Hi, Bree.

  No one says, What’s up, Bree?

  No one asks, Are you okay?

  It’s like I’ve become the Invisible Girl — unless people want to say something bad.

  I see Marci down the hallway and wave, but she turns away like she hasn’t seen me. Or maybe she has and she’s pretending she didn’t. Maybe the police finally went to her house and she’s mad at me for telling. The thought of Marci finding out makes me want to hurl.

  I start to wonder if I am invisible. But as I walk to my first class and hear the names people call me, I’m reminded that people can see me all too well.

  That’s when I start to wish I really were invisible.

  At lunch, I see Marci and Jenny sitting at a table with Diane Taylor and Liza Sanchez. I go over to sit with them, but when I get to the table, Marci looks at me and says, “Sorry, Bree, there’s no room.”

  She moves her chair to the side as if to emphasize the point.

  “It’s okay, I can move over if you find a chair,” Jenny says.

  Marci gives her a dirty look. But the look she gives me is even worse. That’s when I know without a doubt that the police went to her house. I realize this is the end. Marci’s decided the perks of being friends with the celebrity bully have lost their luster, and she’ll never forgive me for betraying her. She’s better off hating me like everyone else.

  Even though she did it, too.

  At least Marci didn’t make a scene. I just don’t think I can handle another person pointing out how awful I am. I turn away, trying not to cry in front of everyone in the middle of the cafeteria because that would be fatal. I walk with my lunch tray straight to the cafeteria door.

  “You can’t leave with that,” says Mr. D’Anastasio, the teacher on lunch duty.

  So I throw my lunch in the garbage, tray and all, and walk out of the cafeteria, ignoring Mr. D’Anastasio’s angry shout. Fighting the tears that threaten to cloud my vision, I head straight for the main office to call Mom to take me home.

  Dad thinks I should have consequences. Well, I’ve got them. I hope he’s happy.

  When Mom talks to the principal about what’s going on, he says there’s a zero-tolerance policy on bullying but then shrugs.

  “Look, I understand your concerns, Mrs. Connors, and obviously this isn’t kind behavior, but it’s not bullying as defined under the law … and under the circumstances I can’t say this is entirely unexpected.”

  “So what you’re saying is my daughter brought this on herself, is that what I’m hearing?” Mom says, her voice shaking with anger.

  “No, Mrs. Connors, I’m just saying that given your daughter’s actions toward Lara Kelley, I’m not surprised that there is backlash from other students,” the principal says. “It doesn’t make it right, but that’s the way it is.”

  “Well, if that’s your attitude, you better get my daughter transferred to another school, pronto, or you’re going to have a lawsuit on your hands,” Mom says. “Come on, Bree. I’m getting you out of this place.”

  For the first time in my life, I’m glad that my mother is a Great White Shark Mom, because maybe it means I won’t have to come back to this school.

  School isn’t the only problem. The death threats have kept on coming, even though we disconnected the landline and got an unlisted number. After Mom tells Dad about what happened at school, Dad makes Liam and me delete all our social media accounts — Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr, you name it. It upset me a little, but I could understand why Dad was making me do it, and to be honest, I hadn’t been checking them much because I was afraid to see what people were writing. Liam, on the other hand … I’ve never seen him so mad.

  “WHAT DID I DO?” he shouts. “Nothing. That’s what!”

  The nasty look he gives me is worse than the kids at school. Because he’s my brother, part of my family. He’s supposed to love me. That’s what families do.

  “This is all your fault, Bree. I hate you!”

  I guess “supposed to” doesn’t matter when our family is falling to pieces, and I’m the one to blame for pushing us all off the cliff.

  “Liam, we’re dealing with more than enough haters outside of these walls,” Dad says, his voice quiet but firm. “We don’t need them on the inside.”

  “Too bad you didn’t tell her that,” Liam spits out, gesturing to me angrily with his thumb. “Or Mom. Before they started hating on Lara. Before they made her try to kill herself.”

  I wrap my arms around my waist, as if they can offer a shield from his angry words. But nothing does. My brother’s disgust with me is like nuclear radiation; it seeps through all my feeble defenses.

  “People make mistakes,” Dad says, sighing heavily. “You can’t hate your sister forever because she made one bad decision.”

  “Try me,” Liam argues, his eyes cold and narrowed. “Not all mistakes end up with death threats and people leaving dog crap in our mailbox.”

  “Okay, so I made the Biggest Mistake in the History of the Universe,” I say, feeling like I’m going to cry for the zillionth time since I heard those messages on my cell phone. “I’m sorry, all right?”

  “Are you, Bree? Really?” Liam asks. “You didn’t seem that sorry when Lara tried to kill herself. It’s like you’re just sorry ’cause you got caught.”

  Maybe it’s because he hurt me so badly when he said that. Maybe it’s because he fired an arrow, and it hit a bull’s-eye in a truly dark place. Maybe it’s because, deep down, I know in some small way he’s right. Maybe it’s because it hurts so much that my brother seems to hate me, and that just makes me want to hurt him back.

  “Well, what are you doing hanging around with Sydney Kelley?” I ask. “I saw you two coming down from the tree fort together last night. How sick is that when Mom had to call the cops on her dad, and her parents want to put Mom and me in jail?”

  I know this ca
me as a total shock to Dad based on his expression as he turns to my brother and asks, “Is this true, Liam? Have you been hanging out with Sydney? Do you realize how inappropriate that is?”

  If I thought Liam was mad before, that was just the warm-up. Dad’s question is the spark that ignites the serious fireworks.

  “I’m the one making things inappropriate? Because I’m hanging out with Sydney?” he shouts at Dad, and it’s gross because he’s literally spitting with rage. “I didn’t ask to be part of this freak show. But I had no choice. I am stuck smack in the middle of it.”

  “It’s not easy for anyone right now —” Dad says, but Liam’s not in the mood for excuses.

  “You know what they call me at school? Son of Monster Mom. Bullying Bree’s Brother. I hate every … single … minute. If I had enough money …”

  He gives a bitter laugh, which ends up sounding like a sob. “Forget that — if I had the courage, I’d run away and change my name so no one would know I was related to you.”

  He says the last part looking straight at me, with such disgust and loathing that I can’t believe he’s the little brother I’ve grown up with and lived with my whole life.

  I can’t face him anymore. I can’t face the world anymore. It’s bad enough that everyone at school hates me. It’s bad enough that all these people who don’t even know me hate me.

  I run to my room and throw myself on the bed, crying, wondering if this is all I can look forward to in the future — if I’ll always be hated because I’m Bullying Bree, the Monster Spawn of Monster Mom, pariah of Lake Hills.

  “Didn’t you ever stop, for just one minute, to think about the consequences of what you were doing?” Dad had asked me last night when he came to kiss me good night and found me crying.

  “I d-don’t k-know,” I sniffed.

  “It’s a simple yes or no question, Breanna,” he said, smoothing the hair back from my hot, damp cheek.

  What Dad doesn’t get is that nothing is “simple” anymore. Especially not that.

  “Did you ask Mom that?” I asked him. “Because she did it, too.”

  I’ve been thinking about that a lot.

  What would have happened if Mom had acted differently when she caught me pretending to be Christian?

  What if she had punished me instead of joining in?

  What if she hadn’t just grounded me, but she’d called Mrs. Kelley and told her what was going on and made sure they broke things to Lara gently because of her history?

  Would Lara have tried to kill herself?

  Would we be getting death threats?

  Would Liam hate me?

  Would I hate myself?

  But here’s the question I ask myself most of all, especially at night when I stare up at the ceiling, trying to get to sleep: Should I have been the one to take all those pills instead of Lara?

  MOM WON reelection to the city council by a “comfortable margin” despite Dad’s televised pajama rant. Her opponent tried to bring up her parenting skills in a debate and was booed down by the audience. Over a celebratory dinner at home tonight, Mom says that even if he hadn’t been, she’d been prepared. After discussing it with her campaign manager, she’d decided that the best way to deal with the issue was to face it head-on so she could “frame” it to her advantage. Lara and I secretly roll our eyes at each other.

  After dinner, I follow Lara to her room and ask her how she feels about being an “issue” to be “framed.”

  To my amazement, she actually puts her hands around her face like she’s making a picture frame and laughs.

  “It’s just never-ending fun and giggles,” she says in a comically bright voice.

  But then she puts her hands down and shrugs, the smile fading from her eyes. “Whatever … it’s Mom. She deals with life her way. I have to learn how to deal with it in mine.”

  “But … what if her way makes your way … I mean, what if she makes you crazy?”

  “I have to try to talk to her about it. Like I’m doing about this Lara Laws thing. I get that passing a law is her way of trying to help. But we’re trying to get her to understand that naming it after me is going to stop me from moving on.”

  “Who’s ‘we’?” I ask.

  “Linda,” Lara says. “She’s not as bad I as thought she was in the beginning. She says I can go back to school soon.”

  “Wow. That’ll make Mom happy,” I say. Mom has made no secret of how difficult it was making it for her to campaign when she had to babysit Lara all day. She’d started dragging Lara around with her when she went door-to-door. “But what about you?”

  “I don’t know,” Lara replies. “Part of me is relieved I won’t be stuck at home with Mom watching my every move anymore.”

  “At least you can pee and shower with the door closed now,” I remind her. She’d been allowed that privilege back the previous week.

  “Oh yeah! And I won’t miss having to go door-to-door canvassing with Mom,” Lara says. “Although, I have to admit, it made me see a different side of her.”

  “What do you mean?” I ask.

  “I guess to me it always seemed like this political stuff was all about her, because of the way it affects our lives,” Lara says.

  “What, like having to pretend we’re the Perfect Family of Perfect Town all the time?” I say with a heavy dose of snark.

  “Yeah, that,” Lara says. “But when I was campaigning with her, I heard people thanking her for the things she’d done to help them and their families. I realized she really does want to try to make people’s lives better. I mean, it doesn’t make it any less annoying about the Perfect Family stuff, but at least I started to see something good that comes from all her politicking instead of hating every single thing about it.”

  “Or maybe you’re just starting to understand where all Mom’s crazy stuff comes from,” I say.

  Lara laughs for a second time. Which makes me think she’s finding herself again, gradually, but a stronger, better version. I’ve missed that Lara.

  “Definitely,” she says. “But maybe understanding where the crazy comes from makes it a little easier to deal with.”

  I pick up Hedwig and make her pretend fly around my knees. “So are you scared? About going back to school?”

  “Of course I am,” Lara says, looking at me like I’m an idiot. “I’m terrified. Scared to face the stares and the whispers. You know, That’s the girl who tried to kill herself over some guy who turned out to be her next-door neighbor pretending. Wouldn’t you be?”

  “Totally. But at least you won’t have to face Bree now that she’s transferred.”

  “I know. That’s a big relief. It would be even harder to go to school if she were still there.” Lara wraps her arms around her knees. “It’s going to be hard enough facing everyone else.”

  “Do you wish you could go to a different school, instead of going back to Lake Hills High?”

  “We talked about that,” Lara says. “But even though there are bad things about going back to Lake Hills — like dealing with the people who I thought were friends and weren’t — at least I’ll still be with the people who really are friends, rather than starting over totally.”

  She sighs. “Do you want to know the worst part of going back to Lake Hills?”

  “What?” I ask.

  “Dad,” she says, grimacing.

  “Don’t tell me he’s still on you about The Spreadsheet.”

  “He’s totally insane!” Lara exclaims. “You need to know who these jerks are so you can be wary of them when you go back to school.”

  Lara’s imitation of Dad makes me giggle, but her expression sobers me up quickly.

  “I take it you still don’t want to look at it,” I say, remembering the scene that night in the hospital when Dad tried to force her to do it.

  Lara shakes her head no. “It’s too painful. I remember a few names of people who liked Christian’s post from that night before I took the pills, but believe me, it’s not becaus
e I want to.”

  I don’t want to disagree with her now that we’re finally getting along and she seems to be doing so much better. But I kind of agree with Dad on the list thing.

  “But if you don’t … like, if you just try to forget it all, then how will you know who to trust?” I ask her. “I mean, if they were that mean to you once, what’s to stop them from doing it again?”

  “I know, I know,” Lara says, dropping her head to her knees. “I’ve heard it all a million times from Dad. Forewarned is forearmed, Lara. You need to know to protect yourself.”

  She raises her head and looks me in the eye. “Syd — the names I do remember … they might not have been my best friends, but they were people who I thought at least liked me. Why would they do something like that? Why?”

  I don’t have an answer for Lara then. None of us do. And that’s what’s so hard for everyone — especially my sister.

  Liam and I keep meeting up in the tree fort, despite the objections of our parents.

  “It makes me feel like we’re Romeo and Juliet,” I tell Liam as we snuggle together in the candlelight.

  “That’s cool — as long as I don’t end up poisoned and you don’t stab yourself,” Liam says with a wry smile.

  “Okay, like Romeo and Juliet but with a happy ending,” I say.

  “That would be a story with a different title, I think,” Liam says.

  “Liam and Sydney, then.”

  “I hope that one has a happy ending.” Liam sighs.

  “Is everything okay?” I ask him. “I mean, I know everything isn’t okay, but … you seem upset.”

  He runs the hand that isn’t around my shoulder through his hair. “I’m just sick of taking crap for what Bree did. How much more of this do I have to put up with?”

  I don’t have any more answers for him than I do for Lara.

  “Haven’t a clue.” I sigh.

  “I wish I had a Time-Turner or a TARDIS so I could go back in time and tell Bree to think it through before she made that stupid profile,” Liam says. “Dad says I have to find a way to forgive her, but I’m still way too mad.”