by S. L. Naeole
I turned to face Robert, my arms folded across my chest, and cocked my head to the side. “Why didn’t you complain or argue or something when Stacy suggested that Graham take Lark home?”
“Ahh. What would be the point in complaining? If I had, Stacy and her family would have gotten the impression that I didn’t trust Graham around my sister, and vice versa, and that wouldn’t have helped Stacy out now would it? You saw how they looked at Graham. He’s popular in school, and pretty much what every parent hopes their daughter brings home to date. But…”
“Not with Stacy’s family,” I finished for him.
“Exactly. He’s not what they expect for her. If I had given them any reason to doubt him even more, it would have just made things harder for Stacy, and that’s not what she needs right now.”
I followed him as we walked out of the elevator, our hands still joined. “Thank you.”
He stopped and looked at me, his pewter eyes turning molten with pleasure. “You’re very welcome, although I don’t know what it was that I did.”
I stood up on my toes and pressed a quick kiss to his lips. “For at least pretending that Graham is trustworthy with your sister.”
He laughed softly, brushing the back of his fingers against my cheek. “I do trust him, Grace. Don’t think that I don’t. But…well, you saw how Stacy’s brothers were with him; I feel the same way, only I can read his thoughts,” he explained as he leaned down, his intent quite clear.
I laughed as comprehension finally sunk in. I lifted my head up to accept his kiss and far too quickly, we were once again walking towards his motorcycle. “What’s going to happen to Erica? And Lark?”
“Actually, I have a feeling that you’re going to be a part of that equation as well, so I’d start wondering what’s going to happen to you, too.”
He helped me climb onto the seat behind him as I allowed his words to sink in. “What do you mean, I’m part of the equation?”
Over the roar of the engine, his thoughts filled my mind, settling into every empty crevice. You’ve received part of the blame for Erica’s behavior. Your dad’s probably already received a phone call from Vice-Principal Kenner, so be prepared to tell them nothing but the truth when I get you home.
I gulped at that bit of news. After having a fairly boring and overall quiet high school career, my senior year was quickly turning into something that I wouldn’t have believed had someone predicted it just a few months ago. Dad had received not one, but two phone calls from the school this year about me. The first one because I had left school on the first day during lunch and hadn’t returned. Who knew what this one detailed.
As Robert pulled into my driveway, the front door flew open and Dad came rushing out. “Are you okay? What happened?” He reached his arms out and pulled me off the bike, his hug nearly squeezing all of the breath out of me.
“D-Dad…what’s the matter?”
He pulled away and looked me over, his eyes red from…crying? “The school called…they said that someone had been knocked unconscious and that she’d been taken to one of the emergency rooms. They didn’t tell me who, or where. I called every single one asking if you had been admitted, and they all said no. Janice is on the phone with one of her friends who’s a supervisor at the hospital in Licking; they were trying to find out if you had been admitted under a different name.”
I heard Robert walk up behind me, and I leaned back to put some distance between Dad and me. “Dad, I’m okay. Stacy was the one who was hurt.”
“Stacy? But…I don’t understand. The vice-principal called-”
I held up my hand to quiet him. “Dad, apparently Vice-Principal Kenner thinks that if Erica hates someone enough to hurt her, it must have been me. Erica pushed Stacy while she and Lark were coming back from the restroom; Stacy hit her head against the doorframe of the cafeteria.” I continued with describing the entire ordeal, finishing just as Graham arrived.
“Is this all true?” Dad asked Graham as he walked up.
“What happened today? Yeah, pretty much,” Graham replied.
Dad shook his head in disgust. “I don’t know what you saw in her, Graham. That’s some freakish behavior she displayed today. You should be glad you’re rid of her. You don’t need freaks like that in your life.”
I saw Graham’s mouth twitch, and I knew what he was thinking—it was my thought as well. Robert concurred. We waited until Dad announced he was going back inside to fill Janice in, and then we burst out into laughter.
“Can I tell her that your dad called her a freak?” Graham guffawed, his head thrown back in a full bodied laugh.
I nodded, too amused to do anything else.
SPEED BUMP
As with all things high school, the incident between Stacy, Lark and Erica turned into a she said, she said battle for supremacy. Erica’s crony Becca insisted that she had witnessed Stacy instigate the entire affair, although several people had already given statements that Erica had been completely alone when she pushed Stacy. It wasn’t until I was called into the office during lunch that I learned the truth of school politics.
“Well, Miss Shelly, I suppose you know why you’re here,” Vice-Principal Kenner told me as I sat down in front of his desk. He was a short man, slightly balding with a thin, wispy mustache situated off center, directly below his nose. He wore thin-framed glasses perched midway on his nose and though he smiled often, you just knew that it was out of habit and not from genuine happiness.
“It’s because of what happened yesterday,” I replied, watching as he brought out a folder from under a large pile on his desk. He opened it and pointed to a few things with one of his stubby fingers.
“Yes, it is. I’m afraid that there is some confusion as to what exactly started the whole mess, but your name was brought up by Miss Hamilton, and I’m going to need to hear your side of the story.”
“Okay…”
He started to read from the top sheet, a basic laundry list of incidents that led up to yesterday’s fight. “Basically I’m being told that Miss Hamilton’s intended target yesterday wasn’t Miss Kim, but rather you. It took much coaxing on my part for the truth, but Miss Hamilton seems to feel that you have wronged her in some way. I want to know what exactly it was that was said or done—from your own point of view—that could have triggered such an uncharacteristic outburst.”
I felt my jaw drop. “Erica’s blaming this on me?”
“Please, let’s not focus on that right now. I just want to hear your side of the story.”
Accepting this, I began. “Erica hates me. I don’t know why. I’ve only spoken to her twice. She used to date my best friend, but they broke up almost four months ago and now he’s dating Stacy. I thought that was why she went off on her.”
Vice-Principal Kenner leaned back in his chair and pressed his fingertips together, forming a pyramid beneath his chin. “That’s the same story that Miss Bellegarde and Miss Kim told me, as well as Mr. Hasselbeck. Unfortunately, Miss Hamilton’s version makes mention of your relationship with Mr. Bellegarde as one of the reasons she feels such ill will towards you.”
I frowned, the direction his tone had taken sounding more like an accusation. “Well, I certainly don’t know why. She made Graham end our friendship because she hates me; this was before school had even started, before I had even met Robert. Whatever her reasons, if Robert is one of them, it’s definitely not the main one.”
“Miss Shelley, certainly even you can see why she’d feel so…put off by your relationships.”
I shook my head, the reasoning completely lost on me. He smiled and turned the folder that was in front of him around, his fat finger pointing to an image printed in the bottom corner of the top page. It was of me. “Take a good look at this picture, Miss Shelley and-” he reached to the side and pulled out another folder and opened it up, revealing an identical sheet of paper, the image at the bottom now replaced with Erica’s “-look at this one. Do you see the difference between the two?”
I nodded. “Yes. One is of me and the other is of someone completely off her rocker.”
He clicked his tongue, shaking his head in a grandfatherly sort of way. Well…it would have been grandfatherly if it didn’t feel so condescending. “Grace—do you mind if I call you Grace? All this formality is wearing on me. Thank you. Grace, you’re an intelligent girl. Your grades are always top-notch, and your academic future is definitely promising. But that’s to be expected for girls like you.
“What do you mean, ‘girls like me’?” I asked as I felt my hands clenching against my knees.
“Don’t take this as an insult, Grace, because it’s not. You’re the kind of girl that has to do well in school because you’re just not cut out for other things that require the assets that someone like Miss Hamilton has. She’s popular, and attractive, her family is well-known, and her status in the community is above par, while you’re-”
“A freak,” I finished for him.
“I wasn’t going to say that,” he insisted, but I shook my head at his denial.
“Yes you were; don’t try to insult the intelligence that you just said I was expected to have, Mr. Kenner. I’m not conventionally beautiful—I already know that. The whole school knows that. I’m different, but you know what? I’m okay with that now. I wasn’t before, I admit it, but I am now, and so are my friends.
“I don’t have to be beautiful to warrant the same kind of admiration that you seem all too eager to give to Erica, but if that’s what it takes then I don’t want it. Yes, Erica is beautiful and popular, but she’s also mean and spiteful. She’s a vindictive person who cannot accept that she cannot get everything she wants.”
“And you know what she wants then, Grace?” he asked, leaning in this time, anxious to hear my answer.
“Of course I do. She wants Robert.”
He smiled. It was one of satisfaction; I recognized it right away. “And are you willing to give her what she wants?”
I snorted at his question, the notion too ridiculous to even consider. He didn’t approve. “Grace, I’m almost certain that you’ve spent quite a deal of time questioning why someone like Mr. Bellegarde would be with someone like you in the first place. I know that I certainly have, as has pretty much everyone else here at Heath. It’s not that you don’t deserve to be happy, it’s just he’s out of your league, and-”
I’d had enough. “And what? Where are you going with this, Mr. Kenner? What does any of this have to do with Erica attacking Stacy?”
He seemed pleased that I had cut through the unnecessary conversational filler and got right down to the point. “Erica has agreed to take a suggested suspension for her—error in judgment if you agree to break things off with Robert. If you don’t, she’s going to sue the school for discrimination.”
Reflexively I pounded my fist onto the desk. Mr. Kenner didn’t even flinch. “I’m being blackmailed by proxy? On what grounds does she have to sue?”
“Her father’s attorney mentioned the fact that both you and Stacy are of Asian descent and that your actions haven’t received any form of punishment, while hers has. That screams discrimination, don’t you think?”
I heard my voice rise, and I knew that anyone outside of the office would hear everything that I was saying, but I didn’t care. “I have done absolutely nothing to Erica. From the moment this year has started, she’s had it out for me. She attacked Stacy because of me, and now you’re telling me that she’s blackmailing the school, too? Whatever it is that she’s accused me of, whatever truth you think you’ve received from her, it’s all a lie and I refuse to sit here and allow you and Erica try and dictate who I can and cannot date. I’m through.”
I stood up, prepared to storm out of the office when he mentioned something that left me unable to move. “Grace, are you aware that two days after the start of the school year, Mr. Hasselbeck and Miss Hamilton both filed a complaint against you?”
I couldn’t say anything. I simply stared at him mutely. “They both insisted that you had made threats against Miss Hamilton, that you were so distraught over your friendship ending with Mr. Hasselbeck that you had cornered Miss Hamilton in the restroom and threatened her with bodily harm. Miss Rebecca Muniz corroborated their story, stating that she had been in the bathroom during this incident.
“It seemed so uncharacteristic of you, and I was willing to dismiss it. But then I remembered how you left school on the first day without authorization,” he said as he lifted the top sheet from the folder containing my school record and pointed to the date that I could never have forgotten.
“Have you asked Graham about that so-called incident recently? I’m fairly certain that he’ll tell you he was simply doing it because Erica wanted him to, and that nothing like that happened at all,” I argued.
“And what does that say about him if that were true, Grace? That he’s weak, and susceptible to the charms of a beautiful woman, that’s what. Either way, it’s not going to help you out. You’ve got a decision to make. What’s it going to be?”
“Tell Erica to sue the school. I’m not breaking up with Robert because she doesn’t want to accept responsibility for assaulting Stacy. And,” I paused as I walked towards the door to leave, “I’d be more concerned about Stacy suing the school for discrimination.
“She was physically attacked to the point of needing to be hospitalized by a student on campus, and instead of punishing the person responsible for it, you’re telling me to break up with my boyfriend. I hope you’re camera ready, Mr. Kenner, because I have a knack for getting other people into the paper, and that’s exactly where you’ll see your name if you go through with this.”
I stormed out of his office, out of the office period, and entered the hallway where an anxious group awaited my return. Lark and Robert were both trying to mask the anger they felt—they had heard every single word—while Stacy and Graham held nervous expressions, the verdict still unknown.
I focused my attention on Graham, the fresh knowledge that he had actually filed a complaint with the vice-principal against me tattooing my mind with the latent betrayal. “How could you?” I whispered, unable to say anything else.
Robert placed a comforting hand at the small of my back and I felt I could lean fully against it and never fall. I needed that support right now. “It’s going to be okay,” he said to me softly, his hand moving in small circles.
Lark spoke up then. “Come on, let’s go somewhere else other than the hallway. People are staring.”
“They’re always staring,” I muttered but allowed Robert to push me forward as we walked towards the front entrance of the school. The crisp winter air was a welcome change to the stifling warmth of the school’s hallway.
“Now, tell us what happened,” Stacy insisted as she sat on one of the outdoor tables, patting the space beside her.
“I don’t know where to start,” I grumbled, my eyes glued to Graham’s. He couldn’t have known what I was about to reveal. Good. Let everyone be shocked. “Erica’s trying to blackmail me into breaking up with Robert. She told Mr. Kenner that if I didn’t, she’d sue the school for discrimination.”
Robert and Lark remained quiet while Stacy managed to muffle a very nasty expletive. Graham never took his eyes off me. “I told him that I wasn’t going to be blackmailed, not by Erica, and definitely not by him. And that’s when he told me that Erica had filed a complaint against me at the beginning of the school year.”
“For what?” Stacy hissed.
“For threatening her. She had a co-complainant.”
“Who?”
I looked at Graham. His face already spoke volumes. “Your boyfriend.”
Stacy turned accusatory eyes towards him, her mouth open with shock. I felt my own eyes start to burn at the confirmation I could see written in his face, the guilt that could not be hidden.
“Grace…you had been acting so strangely after—well, you know. When you ran off that first day, it wasn’t like you. You don’t run. I knew
something was wrong, so when Erica told me that you had threatened her in the bathroom…Grace I didn’t do it to hurt you, I swear.
“I thought that if I filed that complaint someone would talk to you. You needed someone to talk to and I couldn’t be that person for you. Not then, anyway. Please, please say you believe me,” Graham said imploringly, his eyes full of hurt that mirrored my own.
Stacy reacted before I could.
“Ow!”
“That’s what you get for being such a simpering, stupid jerk!” she shouted at him while rubbing her fist, her knuckles sore from the angry punch she gave to Graham’s chest. “She was your best friend, you idiot.”
“I know. God, don’t you think I know? I feel like a complete jerk; I deserve to be punched—but not by you, Stacy…not again anyway—Grace, say something. Here-” he lowered his head to mine and turned his face to the side, his finger pointing to his cheek “-hit me. Punch me right here, blackout my eye.”
I could feel the fingers of my hand twitch, itching to do just that. Instead, the cool hand of someone slid between them. I looked up and saw Robert holding my hand against his chest, a smile on his face. “You’ll regret it later if you do. You know you will.”
I returned my focus to Graham’s cheekbone, and envisioned my fist making solid contact with it. I could do it: I had resumed my Tae Kwon Do lessons with Stacy and could land a fairly decent hit. “Grace…”
“Fine!” I cried, throwing up my free hand in exasperated disappointment. “Graham, stand up straight. I’m not going to hit you. Robert’s right. I’d end up regretting it later. But only because my hand would hurt.”
“Thank you.”
“Can I hit him?”
I turned to the voice that asked, and felt a smirk pull at my mouth. “Sure, Lark,” Robert said from beside me. Even Stacy held her arms up, her posture like that of a prize presenter on a game show. I watched as Lark slowly walked up to Graham, her face absolute deadpan, and swing her arm behind her.
“No!” I cried out, leaping in front of the flying fist, knowing what it was that was hurtling towards Graham, and knowing that he had no clue. The pain didn’t set in at first, and for that I was grateful.