Twleve Steps

by Veronica Bartles

  It’s no wonder she’s so skittish.

  “Of course not,” Jarod growls. “Do you think I’d let Matthews live if he’d raped her?”

  I heave a sigh of relief and collapse onto the bottom step. I should’ve known I was reading too much into everything. She would have told me if something like that happened. She wouldn’t have tried to suffer through it in silence. I always give Laina a hard time about her overactive imagination, but I’ve obviously seen too many TV dramas for my own good.

  “But he tried,” Jarod whispers.

  My blood chills as I look up to see the tortured look in his eyes. I reach for his hand and pull him down to sit on the steps with me.

  There are no words.

  The bell rings, and we ignore it. We sit silently on the steps as kids file past us on their way to class, waiting until the stairs are empty again before resuming our conversation. I lean against Jarod’s shoulder and squeeze his hand, and for once there’s no sexual tension charging the air between us.

  There’s nothing but Laina.

  Once we’re alone again, Jarod clears his throat. “Remember the State Marching Band competition last year?”

  I bury my face in my hands. I should have known that losing the competition wasn’t enough to make Laina lose herself. I should have forced her to talk to me sooner. “What happened?”

  A tear slips down Jarod’s cheek. “It’s my fault. I should have been there.”

  “What?”

  “Matthews was whining about Savannah dumping him, and Laina felt sorry for him. I should never have let them out of my sight.” He stares blankly at the wall, cringing as if he’s watching the whole thing again. “When they didn’t show up for the pre-show warm-ups, I went looking for Laina. I heard her screaming.”

  I squeeze his hand and wait for him to continue, even though I want to cover my ears. Pretending it didn’t happen won’t help Laina.

  Anthony had trapped her in an empty stairwell behind the marching arena, and by the time Jarod found them, Laina was hiding in a corner, using a large trash can as a shield. Her uniform top was torn open and the thin t-shirt she wore underneath was ripped. Jarod had knocked Anthony out with a few good punches, and he got Laina away from the creep, but she wouldn’t let him report it to Mrs. Harmony.

  Laina was afraid that, if anyone found out about the attack, they’d think she did something to encourage him. She was afraid people might talk about her or call her a slut. Or worse. And she was probably right.

  People are idiots.

  Jarod leans his head on my shoulder and hugs me just a little too tight. “I thought, since I stopped him before he could actually do anything to her, that she was okay. He didn’t actually rape her, so I hoped we could forget about it, like it never happened. And she’s never said a word about it.” He runs his fingers through his hair and stands up. “I screwed up.”

  “You didn’t know,” I say, scrambling to my feet. “You couldn’t have known what she was feeling. No one did.” I look at the chipped paint on the wall and suppress a shudder. Laina was attacked in an empty stairwell like this. In a crowded stadium, with thousands of people, Jarod was the only one who heard her call for help. If he hadn’t gone looking for her …

  I shiver. “But we know now. You need to report Anthony to Mrs. Gardner. I know it was last year, but this is serious. It can’t be too late for someone to do something.” I kick at a loose tile on the floor. “Or go to the police. I know he didn’t actually … I mean, you stopped it, right? But isn’t what he did still illegal?”

  “Could they even do anything without proof?”

  “Well, they have to investigate, right? They can’t just let him get away with it.”

  “I don’t think we can go to the police if Laina refuses to talk about it.” Jarod slumps against the wall. “You’re right, I should have said something last year. I didn’t want to make it worse by forcing her to face it when she wanted to forget. And I wouldn’t even know who to talk to now. We’re seniors now, so we can’t report him to the junior class counselor, right? And Ms. Cram wouldn’t be able to help, would she? Since it happened when we were juniors, not seniors?”

  “So talk to both counselors. They can work together.”

  He hits his head against the wall. “If Laina doesn’t want anyone to know, shouldn’t we respect her wishes?”

  “I won’t sit back and watch her entire world crumble, if I can do something about it. I don’t care if it’s not our story to tell.”

  Jarod kicks the bottom step. “I know. But we need her to speak up for herself. Without Laina, it’ll be our word against his, and you weren’t even there.” He sits on the bottom step and pulls me down beside him. “What if she refuses to talk about it? What if she says we’re making it all up? Not only will that slime ball get away with everything, but we’ll be causing Laina pain for no reason. There has to be a better way.”

  I consider going to the counselor on my own, but I don’t even know enough of the details to make anyone listen to me. I can’t do this without Jarod, and he won’t do it without Laina. So we spend the next thirty-five minutes trying to come up with a plan to help Laina take control over her life.

  And we’ve got nothing.

  When the bell rings to end second period, Jarod stands and brushes the dirt off his pants. “I have to get to class,” he says. “I can’t miss this test.”

  I nod and stand up as well. He reaches for the door to the stairs, but I grab his arm to stop him. “Jarod? One last thing.” I don’t want to say it, but he has a right to know. “Laina didn’t choose Shane on Saturday night. She’s afraid to choose anyone. She won’t let anyone in because of this.” I look away. “So if we can help her get past the thing with Anthony, I guess you still have a chance.”

  He hugs me and his lips brush my forehead. “Thanks,” he says. And then he runs off to class.

  I watch him go and wonder if I did the right thing. Dave doesn’t want me anymore, and I may have destroyed every chance I have with Jarod, but I meant what I said on prom night.

  I’m done with secrets and manipulation.

  Mom’s waiting in the living room when I get home from school. She waves a folded piece of paper at me and frowns. “We need to talk.”

  Unfortunately, I recognize that frown. I see the Andi-isn’t-living-up-to-her-full-potential frown way more than I want to admit. I take a deep breath and sit on the couch, waiting for the lecture I know is coming.

  Mom waves the paper at me again. “I got your midterm progress report. I thought you said you were going to bring up your biology grade.” She hands the paper to me, and her frown deepens. “Why are you failing?”

  I groan and open the page. I still have As and Bs in all of my other classes, but my biology grade is even worse.

  Fifty-seven percent.

  It’s not like I’m not trying. I do my homework, most of the time, and I’ve been trying to pay attention in class. But biology is so boring. And Mr. Keeler has the kind of voice that no amount of caffeine can combat. It takes every ounce of my concentration not to fall asleep in class. I can’t help it if his lectures are too mind-numbing to listen to.

  “I’m afraid, until you bring your grade up to at least a C, you’ll have to forego any and all extracurricular activities.” Mom takes the report card back and shakes her head. “That includes acting. You’ll need to call Mrs. Mason to let her know that you will no longer be participating in Cinderella.”

  “What? No!” I grab Mom’s hands and give her my best “sad puppy dog” eyes. “I can’t quit now. Opening night is next Friday. And I’ve worked so hard. Please don’t take this away from me.”

  Mom sighs. “I’m sorry, sweetheart. I know how much this play means to you. I’m so proud of you, and I don’t want to be the bad guy here, but your academics have to come first. No arguments.”

  I bite my lip and blink back tears. Crying never works with Mom. Especially not when she’s already made up her mind. My only hope is to
calmly give her another option. One that will let her feel like she’s doing the motherly discipline thing right while still giving me what I want.

  “What if I get a tutor?” I ask. “I promise I’ll work really hard to pull up my grade, but please let me stick with Cinderella.”

  Mom shakes her head. “Sorry, sweetie, but until I see actual proof of improvement, I can’t agree. Acting may be a fun, creative outlet, but your biology grade will have a real impact on your future. Failing a class won’t look good on your transcripts, and colleges pay attention to things like this, even if you don’t plan on majoring in science.” She holds out the phone. “Call Mrs. Mason. Let her know you won’t be at tonight’s practice. She’ll need time to get your understudy ready for the part.”

  I take the phone and hold it in my lap. “I have a quiz on Wednesday. Can I have until then to prove myself? I’ll call a tutor right now. Two days won’t make much of a difference, will it?” I bite my lip and clasp my hands together, pleading for her to understand. “Can I please keep going to rehearsals until then? I promise, I’ll let Mrs. Mason know that I’m on academic probation, so she can start working with the understudy. And if I don’t get at least a B on Wednesday’s quiz, I’ll quit. No questions asked. And you can ground me for the rest of the year. Or make me clean out the attic. Whatever. Just give me one more chance. I can do this, I swear.”

  Mom frowns, but I can tell she’s weakening.

  “Please, Mommy, I love you.” I blink my sad, puppy-dog eyes at her. “You’re the best Mommy in the whole expanding universe.” I stick out my bottom lip in a totally exaggerated pout. “And I will be so sad if you say no.”

  I snuggle up to her, like I did when I was five. “And I’ll make dinner for you, while you relax in a bubble bath, if you say yes.”

  Mom laughs and throws her hands in the air. “All right. Fine. You win. But I’ll take a rain check on dinner and that bubble bath. I already have dinner in the crock pot for tonight, and you have to study. Call a tutor right now, because you need to put in at least forty-five minutes of true study time before dinner, or you will not be going to rehearsal tonight.”

  “Thank you, thank you, thank you!” I tackle her with a massive hug. Then, I grab the phone and punch in Dave’s number. He aced advanced biology last year, so I know he can help. I only hope he’ll talk to me.

  It takes less than I expected to convince Dave. After only five minutes’ worth of begging, and the promise of Mom’s homemade beef stew for dinner, he agrees to come over before rehearsal. And he’s standing on the doorstep, books in hand, almost before I can hang up the phone.

  “But if I’m going to tutor you,” he says, “I expect your full attention. No Andi mind games or manipulation. I’m not wasting my time if you’re not serious.”

  “Yeah, of course. I need to pass this class. I’ll do whatever you say. Whatever it takes. I’m yours.” I cringe as soon as the words are out of my mouth. I expect him to throw out some cheesy line about how he could think of a lot of things for me to do or something stupid like that, but he just smiles and settles in at the kitchen table with his books.

  ***

  “So if parent A has blue eyes and parent B has brown eyes, what is the probability that their child will be born with blue eyes?”

  I blink. “Um … fifty percent, I guess?” We’ve been studying for an hour, but I still have no idea what he’s talking about.

  “Why do you guess that answer?”

  I stare at the chart in the text book, with the list of dominant and recessive traits. “I don’t know. I don’t understand any of this.” I toss my pencil onto the table, and it rolls over the edge and bounces on its eraser before settling next to Dave’s scuffed cowboy boot. “I don’t see how the information you gave me is enough to figure it out.”

  Dave grins and retrieves my pencil. “Correct.” He turns the page in the textbook and points to a table printed on the bottom corner of the paper. “Because of recessive and dominant genes, you need at least two generations’ data, or an analysis of the parent DNA, to begin to accurately predict something like eye color.” He looks into my eyes and smiles. “Why is that?”

  I know I should be getting this by now, and Dave is definitely more interesting than Mr. Keeler. But I can’t focus. I need to stop getting distracted by Dave’s dimples.

  “Okay, let’s go back to the basics.” Dave smiles again and taps my page of scribbled notes. “How many genes for a specific trait does each person have?”

  “Two?”

  He nods. “Correct. A baby gets one gene from his father and one from his mother. So if his father and his mother both give him a brown-eyes gene, then his eyes will be?”

  “Brown.”

  “See? It’s simple. So, if both parents give the baby a blue-eyes gene, what color will his eyes be?”

  “Blue.” I shrug. “It’s easy when there’s no mixing involved. But all of the dominant, recessive, who-has-what-gene stuff gets confusing.”

  “Nah, it’s easy. You’re only making it harder than it has to be.” Dave glances at his watch, and I bite my lip. Is he going to declare me a lost cause? He takes a deep breath and taps my forehead. “Okay, you can do this. I want you to take your time and really think about it. What happens if the dad gives the baby a blue-eyes gene and the mom gives him a brown-eyes gene? What color will the baby’s eyes be?”

  “Brown?”

  “Why?”

  “Because brown is dominant and blue is recessive?”

  “Yes!” Dave hugs me and I breathe in the musky scent of his aftershave. The combination of old leather and some kind of spice makes my head swim, and I hold onto him a little bit longer than I probably should. He pulls back, and the way he looks at me makes the butterflies in my stomach kick into high gear. I suddenly feel all light-headed and tingly, and I lean forward, silently giving him permission to kiss me. But before our lips meet, he stands up and slams the textbook shut.

  “See? This is the easy stuff. It’s all repetition of the same thing. You’ll be fine for your quiz, as long as you take the time to really think through your answers.” He glances at his watch again. “We’d better get going, or we’ll be late for rehearsal.” He grabs his keys and stacks the books on the edge of the table. “I’ll leave these here for you, in case you want to study them tonight.”

  I stand and grab my coat. “Yeah, I’ll go tell Mom we’re leaving.”

  I get one hundred percent on my biology quiz, but Mom says I have to keep up my tutoring sessions with Dave if I want to continue with Cinderella. I don’t mind, actually. Biology isn’t so hard when Dave explains it. He gets so excited that it’s even kind of fun.

  Even better, all of the weird awkwardness that cropped up around the prom is gone, and we’re back to our easy friendship. It’s a good thing I didn’t kiss him when I wanted to last week. I would have screwed everything up again.

  Dave always insisted that it’s impossible for guys and girls to be just friends, but “just friends” is the only relationship that works for us. When we started spending too much time with each other, and everyone thought we were together, when I thought I was falling in love with him, that’s when everything got weird and fell apart.

  “Good job on that quiz,” Dave says, pulling out a notebook and pen. He grabs an Oreo from my plate and dunks it in my milk. “Now, let’s keep it up for the actual unit test, okay?”

  “Hey! Get your own.” I pull my cookies and milk out of his reach.

  He pops the Oreo into his mouth, and then he grins, showing off his gross, cookie coated teeth.

  “Ewww. That’s disgusting, and these are mine. Don’t you have any sense of boundaries?”

  He leans across the table and snatches another Oreo off of my plate. “It’s not my fault you’re a bad hostess. You could offer me some cookies and milk, and then I wouldn’t have to take yours.”

  “I did offer, when you got here, remember? You said you don’t like Oreos. So keep your paws off.�
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  He smiles and takes another cookie. “Well, you should have offered me something else. It’s rude to eat in front of your empty-handed guests. I’m trying to help you be polite.”

  I grab the package of Oreos out of the cupboard. Then, I pour another glass of milk for myself and slide the cup he’s been sneaking sips from across the table to Dave. “There, now leave my snack alone. You’re here to help with my biology, not to binge on junk food.”

  He laughs again and drains his cup of milk. He reaches for mine next, but I pull it out of the way and shoot him a dirty look.

  “Okay, okay,” he says. “Man, you’re cranky today.” He opens my textbook to the chapter about genetics and smiles. “Are we gonna study, or are you planning on playing around all afternoon?”

  I punch him in the arm.

  “Ouch!” He flips through pages in the textbook as he rubs his arm. “Someone got the aggressive, hot-girl gene. Is that a dominant or recessive trait?”

  I laugh. “Well, amazing hotness does run in my family. But the aggressiveness is only a reaction to your super-jerk gene.”

  “Oh, really?” Dave jumps up and lunges at me. He grabs me around the waist, and when he starts tickling, I shriek and squirm away. I grab the towel that’s hanging on the handle of the refrigerator and snap it at him.

  “Stay back,” I warn. “I know how to use this.”

  “Oh, I think I can handle it.” He advances on me slowly, hands outstretched.

  I flick the towel at him furiously, but I’m laughing so hard that my aim is terrible, and I miss him every time.

  Dad walks into the kitchen and stands in the middle of the room with his hands on his hips and a giant frown on his face. “I don’t see much studying going on in here,” he says. “Dave, is this what we’re paying you for?”

  “No, sir.” Dave drops his hands to his sides and returns to his seat at the kitchen table. He consults the study sheet Mr. Keeler gave us. “Who was the father of modern genetics?”