by Anne Hansen
It’s not her old school, but it’s better than Eastside for sure.
“What are you talking about?” Keira stares at me, her mouth tight. “I’m not using your aunt’s address so I can go to some other school. Eastside is my new school. Ridgedale is where I live now. You think it’s not hard for me to have left everything I know, Vin? But I’m here with you now. That’s all I could have asked for.”
“This place is a shithole, Keira,” I growl. When she backs away from me, I take a step in her direction and put my hands on her shoulders. “And I’m not...I’m not the guy you think you know. Not here.” I’ve never felt the kind of shame that fills me now.
She looks up at me, those gorgeous blue eyes fiery with accusation. “You’re not the guy who said he’d be there for me no matter what? Who’d love me no matter what?” she challenges.
“You have no idea how much I love you, Keira. And that holds. I consider it my fulltime job to look out for you. Which is why I need to get you out of Eastside as fast as possible. This isn’t where you need to be. And you don’t need to see me here, like this.”
I don’t really know how to explain it all to her.
How can I explain that the guy I was this summer, with her, doesn’t exist at Eastside? Because he can’t exist here.
She doesn’t realize I come with major baggage. And—while I never out and out lied to her—I sure as hell held back huge portions of the truth. I expected to have this entire year to figure it all out, to be a new man when we were ready to get together again this summer.
I need more time. She can’t see what a fuck-up I really am, or I’ll have zero chance of winning her for good. Keira is going to expect me to the be that guy I was this summer, and when she realizes I’m not…she’s going to walk.
“Like what, Vin?” she asks, her eyes brimming with tears. Her voice shakes so hard, and I try to touch her, but she jerks away from me. “I’m looking at you, and I see the same smart, funny, hardworking, sexy guy I fell in love with this summer. Are you trying to tell me that was a bunch of lies?”
I take a deep breath and try to calm the hell down as everything good in my life explodes in front of my eyes. “You saw the guy I wish I could be.”
“Wish you could be?” Her laugh sounds broken. “What are you saying? You can be whoever you want to be.”
“It’s not that easy,” I tell her, but she’s not hearing me.
She paces across the linoleum and looks out the dirty little window to the pitted asphalt of the basketball courts behind the school. Without facing me, she says, “I’m staying at Eastside, Vin. That’s not up for debate.” When she turns toward me, her eyes are bright. “What does that mean for us?”
It feels like there’s a football team on roids crashing through my brain. I try to take a breath, but I’m not sure there’s any air left in this shitty little stairwell. I’m looking at the only girl who’s ever meant anything to me and realizing the sick, hard truth.
I can’t have her.
And I never should have tricked myself into thinking it might be possible for a guy like me to have something real with a girl like her.
“Change your mind,” I beg, my voice desperate. “A couple of forms, you’ll be safe at Edison.”
She walks up to me, and I can see the confusion all over her face. It tears my heart out. “Are you telling me there’s anywhere in the world where I’d be safer than I am right here—with you?”
I’m a failure.
I’m a liar.
And I’m about to ruin the only good thing I ever had a chance at.
Because I may be an asshole, but I do love her. More than anything. And I’ll do whatever it takes to protect her.
I ball my hands into fists and swallow hard, staring down at the floor because I’m too much of a damn coward to look her in the eye. “If you don’t leave Eastside, we can’t be together, Keira.”
“You can’t be serious,” she says, her voice barely croaking out. She sinks back against the wall, her lips pressed together, and lets out a short, hard laugh. “So basically everything we had this summer was complete bullshit?”
“No,” I say, desperate to stumble across some last minute Hail Mary that will fix this. I wrack my brain, but no solution magically comes to my mind. “Keira, I love you more than anything, you have to believe me. But if you stay here, you can’t be with me. It’s bad enough you have to be at this shithole in the first place, but if you’re around me...I’ve spent a long time building a stupid, shitty reputation. It’s too late for me to change things, but I won’t let you get dragged under.”
She stands up straight and stares me down. “You can change, Vin. I know you can. If you love me the way you keep saying you do, you can do anything, we can do anything. I have no idea what your reputation is here, but I do know the real you. And if you let everyone else see that guy, you don’t have anything to worry about. I believe in you.”
For this one amazing second, I feel like I actually have a chance. If Keira believes in me, what else could I possibly need? For this tiny blip in time, I see myself with my arm around her, the two of us going ahead with every plan we made this summer, and I feel stronger than I’ve ever felt before.
I take two steps toward her when the door blows open and the principal rushes in, hands on his hips, eyes narrowed.
“Moretti. I wasn’t sure you’d bother showing up this year, considering you barely scraped by last year. You’re aware the homeroom bell rang seven minutes ago? Even your brother didn’t start his last year off…like this.” He casts a wary glance at Keira, and I know what he’s thinking.
That I’m a scumbag Moretti and this is some horny girl I got to rub up against me in the stairwell.
“Sir, you don’t understand. Vin was just—”
I interrupt before Keira can defend me. The fact that she believes in me, it’s more than I deserve. So much more. But that moment when I felt like anything could change has passed and reality kicks me in the gut.
Nothing ever changes at Eastside.
And all I’ve done is start the year off by giving Principal Miller the impression that Keira is just another one of the dozens of girls I’ve persuaded to skip classes so we could have a good time in some out-of-the-way corner at Eastside.
It makes me sick, that she’s guilty by association just being in my general vicinity. I’m not about to let that stand.
“Principal Miller, why don’t I save you the effort of writing out my detention slip and just agree to meet up after school with my scrub brush ready? I bet the south wall already has some graphic artwork courtesy of those sophomores and their Sharpies. As for her?” I nod at Keira. “This little honey is fresh meat, and I caught her wandering around lost, so I tricked her into coming into the stairwell with me.” I look at Keira, who’s staring at me like she got slapped across the face. I’ve never hated myself as much as I do now, but I keep going. “Sweetheart, in case you didn’t figure it out, this isn’t the office, and I’m not on the welcoming committee. Sorry for the confusion. I’ll get myself to homeroom now.”
I salute Miller, make a kissy face at Keira, and break through the doors, hating myself more with every cowardly step I take away from her.
“You’re new to Eastside?” Principal Miller’s voice breaks through the buzzing in my head. I put one hand on the cool bricks behind me to steady myself as my stomach cramps up.
I feel suckerpunched. I feel like I’m going to be sick. I feel stupid and angry and sapped of the last bit of energy I had in me. But somewhere, deep down, I dig and find just a little bit more. I stand straight on my shaky legs and give my new principal my best smile.
“Yes, I’m new here. My last school was very small. I guess I just got turned around.” I blink back tears.
Principal Miller’s suspicious glare fades. I look into his dark eyes and see actual sympathy. I get the feeling he’s so primed to deal with foul-mouthed smartasses, he’s just on guard as a natural defense mechanism.
“It can be overwhelming. What’s your name, dear?” Principal Miller’s smile is patient.
“Keira McCabe.” I clutch the straps of my backpack.
“Keira, it’s my pleasure to welcome you to Eastside.” He pauses. “Where was it you came from?”
“Mallory Academy. In Stony Brook.” I watch his eyebrows go up high into his salt and pepper hair.
“Mallory? That’s a wonderful school.” I can see from the way he claps his mouth shut that he was about to ask how I ended up here. I’m grateful he doesn’t. “Well, we’re lucky to have such a fine student transfer here. Mallory is well known for its competitive scholastics. And—I believe—it’s all girls. Am I right?”
The look of concern on his face makes me think of the way my father looks at me. Whenever he’s actually home, that is.
“Yes, it is.”
He nods. “You seem like a wonderful young lady, Keira. I know you’ll make friends and have a great experience here. But, if I can offer a word of advice?” He looks at me and waits until I nod. “There are some…unsavory elements here. It may be…different…than what you’ve been used to. This is a large public school, so, while many students try their best, there are always those who aren’t here because they want to be. Vin Moretti may not have been the best representative of our school. I’m sure he didn’t mean any real harm this morning,” Principal Miller says with a wry twist to his words. “But, you may want to steer clear of him and his crew.”
I hang my head, the full scope of how badly I’ve been duped finally hitting me. “Thank you,” I manage to mumble.
Principal Miller gives a sigh of relief and leads me to the office where several kind secretaries cluck over me and make sure I have my schedule and a good map of the school. By the time they’re done with me, it’s twenty minutes into first period, and I walk into my English classroom to find every single person staring.
I’m not prepared for the class size. There have to be thirty desks crowded in the small, bland room. At Mallory, I never had a class larger than twelve students. The teacher looks at me sternly.
“Are you Keira McCabe?” she asks. I nod and she points to a desk on in the middle row, third from the front. “I seat alphabetically. You’ll be right between Consuela LaVenta and Vin Moretti.”
Of course. My day is just getting better and better.
“Okay,” I murmur, tripping down the tight row and trying not to look at Vin.
How can I avoid looking? He dwarfs the tiny desk-and-chair combo, and his entire being radiates a furious energy. It’s like sitting in front of a live wire. I take my seat and pull out my notebook, but every nerve ending in my body feels electrified by his presence.
The teacher, Mrs. Delani, hands me a printout of the rules for the class and our reading schedule along with a tattered copy of The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. I run my fingers over the familiar cover before I look up at the board, where she’s written a quote. I read it slowly to myself:
“It is better to be hated for what you are than to be loved for what you are not.” - André Gide, Autumn Leaves
“We are going to be reading F. Scott Fitzgerald’s American classic, The Great Gatsby. As you begin your reading tonight,” she says, eyes lasering in on a few squirming students, like she’s giving them a warning, “I want you to keep this quote in mind. Let’s brainstorm about it a little bit right now.” She goes to the board and taps her chalk next to the words. “Well? Is Mr. Gide correct? It is better to be hated for what you are than loved for what you are not?”
A girl with a long blond hair and a shy smile raises her hand.
“Sunny?” Mrs. Delani nods and waits.
“When I read it, I thought it was plain wrong,” Sunny says, shaking her head. “I mean, when is it ever better to be hated? And maybe the person who loves you sees—something you don’t see about yourself. For example, maybe you think you’re not a very smart person, so you’d say, ‘I’m not all that smart,’ but the person who loves you thinks you really are. So I guess I’m saying that it depends on who’s doing the loving and hating.”
Mrs. Delani stands up and writes on the board. I copy into my notebook as fast as she scrawls words with her chalk. She writes ‘self love/self hate vs love/hate from another’ and throws her hands out at her sides. “I think Sunny made a very good point. Anyone care to elaborate? Counter?”
Behind me, I hear Vin let out a long sigh and shift in his seat, making the legs of his chair scrape on the floor. It’s like nails on a chalkboard, and a shiver runs up and down my spine. I’m still trying to get a handle on my shock. Every time my mind plays back the way Vin talked to me and Principal Miller in the stairwell, a wave of conflicting emotions crashes through my body.
I look at the quote on the board again and try to think about it, but all my thoughts revolve around how my life is falling into a deep sinkhole, leaving me cold and hopeless.
The guy who was with Vin when I approached him in the hall calls out, “I guess I agree with what Sunny said, mostly. When I like somebody, I want them to like me back, and I’m not perfect. So, I guess I feel the opposite of this quote. I mean, I’m pretty lovable,” he says, and there are several laughs and calls of encouragement. “So, you know, love me for who I am. That’s what I say.”
Mrs. Delani rolls her eyes behind her thick-framed glasses, but she smiles. “Thank you, Leo. If the enthusiastic response of your classmates is any indication, you’re well-loved. And I think you’ve made a good point. Maybe we can take it a step further. What does love do for a person?”
She writes ‘love me as I am’ on the board, then the question ‘Do we grow from love?’, and I feel like I might throw-up.
A very pretty girl dressed like she’s going out clubbing raises her hand. When she’s called on, she looks back at Vin for one quick second, and I feel my stomach clench.
I know that look.
It’s the way I looked at him when I saw him in the hall this morning.
“I think we do, Mrs. Delani.” She throws an ugly look at Leo when he snorts, then squares her shoulders and faces forward. “I think even if we make mistakes and screw up, love teaches us things. And I think if people are just gonna hate on you for one mistake you made, they have a lot to learn about love. Because no one’s perfect. And love can make us all stronger, but people have to be open to forgiving. To seeing the good and the bad.”
I hear Vin shuffling again, and find my throat is all closed up, the way it always gets when I want to speak up but am afraid to.
“I like that point, Faline.” Mrs. Delani writes ‘love and forgiveness’ before she glances over the room, her eyes widening in shock. “Mr. Moretti? Do you need something?”
The whole class turns in their seats, like a meteor just ripped through the classroom ceiling. I turn my head almost automatically and see Vin, his arm raised, his green eyes trained right at me.
There’s a look on his face—it’s something between pain and defiance. Like his heart has been ripped out, but he’s willing to pummel anyone who attempts to pick it up and put it back in his chest.
I draw in a shaky breath before I swivel back around in my seat and stare at the words on the board, which now swim in front of my eyes.
He clears his throat. “I have something to say. About the quote.”
Mrs. Delani puts the chalk down on the edge of her desk and seems to steady herself, like this is a moment she’s been waiting for. “By all mean, Mr. Moretti. I’ve been waiting four years to hear your opinion on literature.”
“This isn’t about literature,” Vin says, and a bunch of the other students, led by Leo, snicker. “This is about life. About what I experienced myself, not something I just read in some book.”
Mrs. Delani’s mouth pulls to one side and she raises h
er eyebrows. “The authors of books are most often sharing what they lived. We’re never reading about experience that have happened in a vacuum.”
“I guess.” Vin’s voice has an aggressive defiance I never heard him use during the summer. “Here’s the thing. This Gide dude knows what he’s saying.” Even though I can’t see him, I can feel his stare burning into the back of my neck. “Sometimes you might get it into your head that you can be someone else, someone you’re not. But the scary thing isn’t being dumb enough to think you can change; it’s tricking someone else into believing it.”
Mrs. Delani walks slowly back to us, so she’s standing right by my desk. She takes her glasses off. “Explain, Vin.”
The room is so quiet, you could hear a pin drop.
“When someone thinks they love the person you’re only pretending to be, thinks they’re getting to know the real you, you’re not just lying to yourself. You’re lying to the person you claim you love. If you can do that, you’re the worst kind of scum.” I feel him lean forward, and my body tenses, hoping he’ll go a little further and touch me, even though I know I should never want him to lay a hand on me again. “I may be a loser, I may be a failure, but I’d never let someone risk caring about me just because she believes I’m something I’m not. I’d rather she knew the truth and hated me for it. For her own good.”
The girl who gave Vin the pointed looks before—Faline—is practically falling out of her chair, batting her eyelashes, and whispering to the girl next to her.
Mrs. Delani clears her throat. “Well.” She walks back to her desk slowly, picks up the chalk, and holds it up to the board. She puts it back down and looks at Vin with a worried crease between her brows. “That was very honest, Vin. But also very…heartbreaking.”