by Groves, B.
Gabby smelled alcohol. “Margo? Have you been drinking? You smell like it.”
“Yeah,” Margo then giggled. “I snuck out tonight.”
“Margo!” Gabby scolded in a loud whisper.
Gabby sat up and threw the covers off. She tiptoed to the door and opened it to peek into the hallway.
Satisfied, she quietly closed the door again and turned back to her sister.
“Why would you do that?” Gabby asked.
The first sign of surprise flickered across Margo’s eyes.
“What do you mean? You’ve snuck out before,” Margo answered. Her words came out clear this time.
Gabby wanted to take her sister by the shoulders and shake some sense into her.
Gabby had been caught sneaking out in the middle of the night by her parents the year before meeting Scott.
She remembered her punishment and realized it wasn’t worth getting in trouble over.
She decided after that school and her art would be her main focus. She was allowed to go out now but made sure she was always home by curfew. It caused her and Scott to break up, but Gabby wanted to move beyond Scott.
An image of Dean Walker flashed across her mind, and she blushed in the dark.
Pushing that thought aside Gabby turned her attention to her sister.
“Yeah and look what happened? I was grounded forever. I lost all my privileges, and I broke up with Scott. It wasn’t worth it,” Gabby explained. “You know this Margo.”
Gabby caught Margo rolling her eyes, and Gabby sighed at her sister.
Gabby put up her hands and said, “Fine. Do what you want, but don’t come crying to me when you get caught. They will catch you.”
Margo scoffed. “Oh my God, Gabby. Stop being little miss perfect. Have some goddamn fun for once.”
“I still have fun—”
“Okay, yeah. Going to Lisa Parker’s house. I heard about that boring party. What did you do there? Drink hot chocolate and watch a movie? Whoa, fun.”
Gabby’s anger built. Lisa was a good friend and one of her partners for the yearbook. Gabby wouldn’t take her being badmouthed by her idiot little sister.
“Get out of my room,” Gabby said in a low voice. “And, don’t talk about my friends that way.”
Margo stood up and huffed. “Fine. You’re so boring anymore.”
Margo then turned and left out of Gabby’s room. Gabby wanted to throw a pillow at her for the insults but held back because she didn’t want to get grounded again. They would ground her too. They would accuse her of helping Margo.
Gabby lay back against the pillows and violently turned them over until she relaxed. Was she really that boring anymore? Was she a little goody two shoes? Was Margo right?
Gabby turned and set her eyes on Margo’s portrait. She was so worried about being called boring instead of worrying about how her sister was putting her first foot over the inevitable cliff.
Gabby wished she had grabbed her sister to stop her fall.
Chapter 11
For the next two weeks, it was like playing a game of hide-and-seek. Dean often wondered during this time how two people could avoid each other so willingly or how both could play a child’s game as adults.
Hasn't this game been going on since they were twelve?
How could he blame it on Gabby, though? It wasn’t her fault. It was all him.
Again.
He was such a coward.
Dean’s anger and resentment were long gone. One thing he did, and he was proud of himself for reading most of the final report.
He admitted it was a spiritual and enlightening experience. The truth was in front of his face all along, but now all those old feelings of what he could talk to Gabby about were back.
When he saw her that night when she went out with that dumbass Jason McConnell he never thought he would have the feelings of jealousy course through his veins.
He thought he was an idiot on top of it. Her sister shot him. She fucking shot him. But, when he read the report a whole new light shined in front of his face. In fact, the feelings of guilt and regret flooded the darkest reaches of his soul.
Gabby held onto him, risking her own life. She tried to stop her sister by speaking with her as she held his shoulder to stop the bleeding.
It never occurred to him to find out what happened during that time and the time after. The visions he’d been having were all of her. He’d known that, but he lived in denial about it.
He remembered the guilt squeezing its heavy metal grip around his chest as he read the rest of the report. How they escorted Gabby out of the school the back way. How she was handcuffed in suspicion of being an accomplice of her sister’s rampage.
The detective’s observations of her as she sat in the police station in shock but unhurt.
She was covered in his blood and urinated on herself out of fear.
God, he thought. He had no idea what that must have been like for her in the hours following the shooting.
Dean found a new admiration for her as he read the statements.
She pulled her life together. How did she do it? How did she even get up in the morning?
He convinced himself that even though he was unconscious through most of the shooting, he could justify his feelings of resentment. He thought that was an accomplishment, but it was nothing compared to what Gabrielle went through since that day.
She looked beautiful that night he went to speak with her. Her blonde hair was pulled back in a simple loose bun at the nape of her neck. The skirt and blouse she wore hugged her curves in just the right places.
Then Jason McConnell pulled up. How that asshole dug his talons into her first, Dean would never know.
Jason was a fuck up in everything he did. If it weren’t for dear old dad, Jason would have ended up living on the beach in an old beater.
He knew Jason’s story after high school, and Dean was surprised that Pam didn’t talk Gabby out of going out with him. Pam was very protective of her best friend.
Speaking of fuck ups, it wasn’t like Dean had been sitting around feeling sorry for himself the last few weeks.
There was Jason McConnell and then there was his father—Michael.
Ever since that morning that Dean caught Michael speaking to that young student, he’s been keeping an eye on both of them.
He hadn’t told anyone about his suspicions yet. If something was going on with Michael, then he needed facts, not suspicions.
Michael may not have been talking with the one girl Dean spotted in the woods that one morning, but he’d noticed him speaking with other young girls in the hallways when Dean had the time to watch and observe.
It looked like innocent banter between students and principal, but Dean took mental notes of Michael’s demeanor each time.
If he could catch him the act, he would gladly throw his ass in jail if he was screwing around with young girls.
Dean would never even think of looking at a student that way. A senior passed him a note one time about how much she wanted to “fuck” him, but he tossed it aside. It was nothing new, it happened, but he never gave them a second glance.
He dated another teacher named Jessica at one time. She was a biology teacher. They had a good relationship for about a year. She was smart, funny, and well rounded. Everything he could have wanted from a woman.
He couldn’t figure out what happened.
One day they were happy, and the next day she was breaking up with him and moving away.
She’d been offered a better position somewhere in California and accepted.
“Besides,” Jessica said. “I can’t live in the shadow of another woman.”
Dean had no clue what she meant. She smiled at him and said, “Don’t worry, Dean, you’ll figure it all out one day.”
Who was he kidding? He knew exactly what she meant.
Dean rubbed his goatee and waited for his next class to begin.
The students poured in when Michael came
in behind one of them.
What did he want? Dean thought with an inner groan.
“Can we talk for a minute?” Michael asked while saying hello to the students. “Guys, keep it down while I speak with Mister Walker for a few minutes.”
Dean followed the principal into the hallway wondering what Michael wanted. He thought maybe Michael had caught him spying him and would ask him about it.
Dean hoped not. He didn’t want to be on the blacklist as other teachers secretly called it. If you were on Michael’s blacklist, he made your life miserable until you either transferred to another school or outright quit.
Michael opened the door between the administration offices and the school hallway.
Dean stepped inside. His heart was beating hard.
Michael let the door swing shut. Dean turned around ready to get defensive when Michael said, “I wanted to make you an offer.”
Dean was startled by the sentence. “An offer? What do you mean?”
“Dean, I’m desperate here. I have the mayor breathing down my neck and—”
“Why?”
“Because if I don’t fill one more speaker position at the memorial, then Randy White is going to fucking talk, and you know how that’ll go, right? We don’t fucking need this with the families especially with Gabrielle Ryan back in town.”
Dean stiffened. He first thought was to defend Gabby, but he kept quiet for now.
Dean had to admit as much he despised Michael, he despised Randy even more so.
“Can I rely on you to fill the spot?” Michael’s eyes were desperate. His reputation was at stake.
Dean knew this wasn’t about anything else except Michael looking out for Michael. He didn’t give two fucks about the rest of the families.
Great. Awesome. What a guy. He was able to talk another victim into speaking at the event.
He’s a regular damn hero around here.
Dean sighed. Loudly. He knew he didn’t have much of a choice. He knew Randy all too well. Randy would be drunk. He would rant and rave about Jake being his only son. He would curse the Ryan family till he was about to pass out on the stage.
Dean was going to say yes. He knew why he was going to say yes, and it wasn’t for the betterment of the community.
He closed his eyes for a second. It was for her. She would be there, and she didn’t deserve that kind of hatred.
“I’ll do it,” Dean said.
Michael smiled. It was more like a smirk. He won. He won this battle.
“I knew you would. Thanks,” Michael answered shaking Dean’s hand. “I’ll call the mayor back right now. You’re a lifesaver, Dean.”
Michael walked down the hallway. Dean rolled his eyes. It wasn’t just Gabby he was doing the speech for. Jake deserved more dignity than his drunken father speaking at the memorial.
Dean headed back to class. He was busier than shit with baseball practice coming and now his speech.
***
Dean heard the hum of the motorized wheelchair enter his classroom after school let out for the day.
Robert Larson—Margo’s first victim. He was a social science teacher for the freshman class. He’d survived his wounds, but not without consequences. He was paralyzed from the waist down and suffered from painful nerve damage on a daily basis. He was a fighter and refused to give up teaching after the shooting.
He was coming out of class when Margo walked through the double doors in the side entrance after leaving to retrieve her guns from her backpack hidden in a bush outside the doors.
“I remember her having this strange look in her eyes. I didn’t see the guns at first,” he recalled one time. “I asked her if she was okay, and she never said a word. She pulled out the gun and shot me.”
“Hey Rob,” Dean said looking up from his laptop.
Robert smiled and said, “I heard the good news.”
Dean laughed. “Of course you did.”
Robert was in his early sixties with thin gray hair, a full gray beard, and his ties were never straight. He wore thick glasses with black rims, and his teeth were yellowed from years of heavy smoking. He tried to quit so many times, but he used the excuse of stress over his paralysis to keep smoking going against his doctor’s advice.
Robert scoffed. “I thought Mike was going to start masturbating when he told me in the break room.”
Robert was never known for tact either. He’d gotten in trouble with quite a few parents for his lack of couth, but his victimhood saved his job every year.
Dean chuckled. He liked Robert. Robert kept his strange sense of humor despite his disability.
“I had to. I’m doing this for Jake.”
A flash of sadness crossed Robert’s eyes. His personality may have been overbearing, but it didn’t mean the man didn’t suffer from his own demons.
“I’m happy you are. Jake deserves better than his asshole of a father.” Robert looked away, lost in his memories. “I tried so hard to help that kid. I know your family did too. He had so much potential, but everything going on at home held him back and he hid his problems behind a mask of acting like a clown.”
Dean never really got used to hearing Jake still being called a kid. It was hard to accept Jake’s fate sometimes, and the fact he was frozen at eighteen for eternity.
Dean placed a hand on the side of his face and leaned on the desk wallowing a bit in his grief. “Do you know the other news? I haven’t had the chance to ask you.”
Robert blinked for a second. “You mean Gabrielle Ryan? Yeah, the whole fucking town knows she’s back. That stupid local tabloid show was following her around a few weeks ago. Her picture was all over the place.”
“Fuck,” Dean muttered.
Dean leaned back in the chair and placed his hands behind his head. “I read the report finally.”
Robert looked surprised. “You did, huh? I’ve been waiting for you to read it.”
“Wanna hear another fun fact?”
“What?”
“She’s my neighbor.”
Robert did the Robert thing and burst out laughing.
“I’m go glad you find that funny,” Dean said with a smile as Robert continued to snicker.
Robert had an infectious laugh, and Dean couldn’t help but smile
Robert tried to hold back his laughter, and said, “Let me guess, Pamela—fucking—Monroe.”
It was Dean’s turn to act surprised. “Yeah, how’d you know?”
“She’s my casino host. She comps me and the missus free dinners and tickets to shows all the time,” Robert sat back and thought for a minute. “I know she’s been on maternity leave, but I need a good steak dinner soon. Anyway, she told me Gabrielle Ryan was moving back, but she didn’t say where.”
Dean rubbed his eyes but smiled. “Goddamn small towns.”
Robert leaned closer to Dean. “I’m sure you want to ask me how I feel about the Ryan family.”
“I’m curious. Yes.”
Robert rubbed his chin thought
“I remember Gabrielle very well. Very charming and sweet. She was one of my best students. Always polite, and I remember a certain boy who couldn’t stop staring at her.” He turned his eyes towards Dean knowingly.
Robert laughed again when Dean turned a deep red, and this time it was mixed with a cigarette cough. Long and phlegmy.
Dean made a face. Oh God, I need to quit smoking again, he thought while Robert gained his breath.
“You would bring that up,” Dean commented after Robert took a long swig of water from his bottle.
“Heh. I couldn’t resist. She was all those things. Margo started off that way…”
Robert trailed off for a minute while he thought about what he wanted to say.
“She was perfect like her sister. Polite and charming. Her first quarter was even better than her sister’s first quarter. I thought that’s one less kid I have to worry about.”
Dean nodded. “We all have those.”
Robert shook his head from
his memories. “Never in this world would I have even thought Margaret would go off the deep end. During the year her grades went down, and I worried for her. I tried to talk to her and even brought the parents in.” Robert took another sip of his water. “Some kids just run with the wrong crowd. Some grow out of it, some don’t. I thought she’d eventually grow out of it. Going through a phase. All that shit. Her parents were at their wit's end with her by the end of the year. I think I gave her a “C” just to get her the hell out of my classroom. She was disruptive, not paying attention, had an attitude, the works. It was fucking crazy. Something was seriously wrong with that girl, Dean.”
Dean listened intently. He heard the stories from other teachers about Margo, but never her first victim.
“What did you think?” Dean asked.
Robert took a deep breath. He took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes.
Dean could tell Robert was tired. He’d been talking about retiring for a while.
“I think they did everything and more to help their daughter. I saw it with my own eyes,” Robert said. Robert became sadly wistful. “I know because I have a son who’s been in and out of jail for years. My wife and I had to make the hard decision to cut him off. I know what it’s like to watch your kid spiral out of control. I just wish dad hid his guns better knowing Margo was going psycho.” Robert pointed at himself.
“That little girl signed my death warrant—or it could be the cigarettes, I don’t know. All I know is I’m one of her victims, but I’ll be number six a little later than the rest of them and way sooner than you.”
Dean frowned. “Don’t say that. You look good.”
Robert popped a cigarette in his mouth, but realized what he was doing and took it out.
“As far as Gabrielle is concerned. I don’t know how she functions,” Robert commented.
Dean let out a long breath. “She saved my life.”
“Wait. You didn’t know that already?” Robert asked.
“You knew I didn’t read the report!” Dean exclaimed.
“Yeah, but I thought…” Robert laughed. “You didn’t know?”
Robert laughed again. “Man, when you said you were horrible around her you weren’t kidding.”