by Seven Steps
I changed into my pajamas, climbed in bed and pulled the blanket up to my chin.
Before I fell asleep, I wished that time would turn back. That I could be what I was before I knew what Jake was doing. Before I knew who Cole really was. Before I had lied to everyone that I had ever cared about.
I wished that I was invisible.
44
I awoke the next morning with a pounding headache and a slew of text messages.
Jake: Meet me at eight tonight in front of your apartment. Wear something nice.
Ariel: Are you okay? I am in major trouble. At least I got to punch Stephanie in the face. I would do it again just for one more go at her.
Jasmine: I heard about what happened. Are you okay? I told Ariel that that party was bad news. Call me when you can.
Cole: Are you okay?
I texted Ariel first.
I’m okay. I am grounded and have to volunteer at the horse stables after school. It is totally going to suck.
Then Jasmine.
I’m okay. I’ll call you later.
And finally, the one person that I did not want to talk to. Jake.
Thanks for trying to give me alcohol poisoning. I’m grounded so no party tonight.
I got an immediate text back from Jake.
Can’t you sneak out like last night?
Me: I know that you don’t know what grounded means so let me spell it out for you. I cannot go anywhere again ever.
Jake: You have to go.
Me: I.AM.GROUNDED.
Jake: I am not asking you.
Jake: Give me your word that you are coming tonight or else I will personally call Ariel and tell her what you did. One hour. That’s all you have.
Me: I’ll see what I can do.
Jake: See. All you needed was a little persuasion. See you tonight.
I threw my phone across the room. Just when I thought that Jake was a human being, he pulled this crap. I had to find a way to get away from him. If not, he would hang this secret over my head forever. Maybe I should just call Detective Harding and tell him what little I knew and get it over with. Maybe I should just tell Ariel the truth. Maybe I should have done that from the beginning.
I got up, got dressed and called Jasmine. I begged her to come over tonight for a sleep over and she agreed.
I hated myself for that, too.
45
Jasmine watched in awe as Ariel and I recounted our crazy night filled with drinking, fighting and jail time. Well, technically we were in holding but it was close enough.
By the time we got to the train, our fight from before was forgotten in favor of our new legal troubles.
“So, how long are you grounded for?” Jasmine asked.
“‘Til I’m dead,” I replied.
“When my children become grandparents,” Ariel said.
Jasmine’s eyes went wide and she shook her head.
“That sounds absolutely insane! If I ever got arrested, my Dad would have a stroke.”
“My Dad did last night,” Ariel said. “Two of them, I think.”
“My Dad has officially banned me from all things Jake Winsted,” I said.
“Banned?” Jasmine asked. “As in, you can’t go out with him anymore?”
“Yes. I mean technically, he’d already banned me from going out with him but now he’s being super strict about it.”
I should have felt relief at such a ruling but I didn’t. Jake would never let me go over something so small as a parental decision. Sometimes, I feared that he’d never let me go at all. That I’d be dead and buried and still tied to him. It terrified me. Jake was a stone around my neck. Yes, a stone that came with pretty jewels, nice clothes and popularity but something inside of me still knew that it was all smoke and glass. That someone would hurl that millstone in to the sea and I’d go down with it.
The sound of crying greeted us as we walked up to the school doors. A crowd had gathered in the doorway, blocking anyone else from entering.
My stomach dropped to my shoes. Was this another locker incident? Or worse, some sort of terrorist attack? In the city of New York, one could never be too careful.
“It’s crazy, isn’t it?”
Margie Macintyre’s pale skin looked almost translucent today, as if the life had been drained out of her.
“What’s crazy?”
“Mel Pleasant’s in the hospital. They found her passed out at some party. I heard it was a drug overdose or something. Anyway, Dana, Stephanie and Ursula are inside losing it in front of Mel’s locker.”
Her words echoed in my mind. Mel overdosed last night?
My lungs clenched and I felt nauseous.
She’d left with Kenny last night. I should have stopped her. I should have said something to make her stay with me. Now she was in the hospital and deep down, I knew that it was all my fault.
“Are you okay?” Margie asked. “I mean, no one is okay today but you look like you’re going to throw up.”
My hand flew over my mouth. I did feel like I was going to throw up. This was all my fault. I should have done something. I should have-
“Hey.” Jake jogged up to me, looking completely unfazed by the sadness saturating the air around us.
“Mel’s in the hospital,” I choked out. “She overdosed last night.”
He shrugged, as if I had just told him that taxi cabs were yellow.
“Yeah. I heard.” He itched a spot beneath his football jersey. “It sucks.”
“That’s all you have to say? That it sucks? She might die!”
“Look, Mel did more than she could handle. It happens all the time.”
“How could you be so casual about this? I thought Mel was your friend.”
“I don’t make friends with clients,” he said. “So, party tonight?”
“That’s all you can think about? Partying?”
“Why not?”
“Because Mel is in the hospital.”
“Why should you care? You spoke to her, like what, once?”
“We went to school together. Just because we weren’t super close doesn’t mean that I wanted her dead.”
“Would you relax about it? Mel doesn’t matter. I heard she’s practically a vegetable, anyway. What matters is that you are going to that party with me tonight, like it or not.”
I shook my head, shell shocked. Jake didn’t care about Mel. He didn’t care about anything but himself and getting Dana back.
I wrapped my arms around myself.
What had I gotten myself into? What monster had I gotten tangled up with?
Kenny appeared and Jake followed him through the crowd, toward the school doors. Kenny’s backpack bounced behind him.
A backpack filled with drugs.
Drugs that Jake supplied and Kenny distributed.
The same drugs that caused Mel to be lying in a hospital bed right now.
It suddenly became clear what I needed to do. This was bigger than Jake or my need to be noticed, even Ariel. This was about stopping an epidemic in my school before it was too late. This was about doing the right thing.
I squared my shoulders and made up my mind.
Jake’s reign over this school was over and I was going to be the one to end it. Tonight.
46
“It’s such a tragedy.”
Ms. Mitchell stood in front of my English class, hands folded in front of her, expression somber. It seemed as if the loss of Mel’s presence placed a gray cloud over my entire school. Even Ariel and Jasmine’s enthusiasm had dampened. “If anyone would like to talk about what happened, we have an excellent guidance program that includes our own Bella French, Student Guidance Counselor.” All eyes turned to me and I placed a weak smile on my face.
“I encourage all of you to take a moment and talk to someone that you trust about the devastating effects that drugs are having on our student body.”
My eyes rolled to Jake. A normal person would have cowered or shown some form of regret. Not Jake. His
back was strong, his hands folded in front of him as if he was a model student. As if the drugs didn’t come from his car.
How could he be so unaffected by all of this? He may not have thought of Mel as a friend, but she was a human being who he’d hurt. How could he not feel anything when the crushing weight of my inaction weighed on me?
I looked forward. I had to. If I looked at Jake for one more second, I’d scream, then our secret would be out.
That couldn’t happen.
The weight on me increased later on while I sat in Student Guidance Counseling. The line stretched in to the hallway with students, all clamoring for fifteen minutes to talk about how much they missed Mel. Or so they claimed.
Little by little, I came to understand that these kids weren’t coming in to mourn Mel’s overdose. They were coming in to either be seen or to get information.
“Have you seen her? Is she okay?”
“What did she overdose on?”
“Who sold her the drugs?’
“What was she wearing when they found her?”
I grew sicker and sicker the more they spoke. These kids didn’t care about Mel at all. They were leeches who just wanted something to gossip about later.
When the bell rang, I sprinted out of the room, past the line of bodies still waiting to speak to a guidance counselor. In the last forty-five minutes, I’d realized a very important truth.
Popularity didn’t make people love you. It made people jealous of you. It made you a target. Mel was right. She had a bullseye on her back and when she fell, the vultures came to pick at her remains.
Popularity was a lie.
The chorus of Black Balloon by the Goo Goo Dolls, one of my favorite 90s bands, played in my head as I walked to my next period. I closed my eyes and said a little prayer for Mel, though I knew that she never would have done the same for me.
I slid into my chair, waiting for Cole to teach me all the French he knew.
I felt him before I saw him slide in to the seat across from me.
“You’re chipper. Is Mr. Cogg getting deported?”
I rolled my eyes, pulled a piece of paper from my book bag and slapped it on the table.
“No, though that would be nice. Read it and weep.”
Cole picked up my French quiz and whistled.
“A one hundred. Nice.”
“My first hundred in French ever.”
“What can I say? I’m an excellent teacher.”
I raised an eyebrow.
“You may have helped … a little.” I smiled. “So, what are we going to go over today?”
Cole gazed at me, making my face hot. Being with Cole made me feel so light. Like my heart had sprouted wings. It was refreshing to be with a guy who actually listened when I spoke and who was interested in what I had to say. It made me feel cared about and secure.
His eyes dropped to the earbuds sitting on the table.
“Another quiz?” I asked.
“No. Today, we are going to improve our French pronunciation by listening to some French music.”
“What? Here in the library?”
“Sure. Why not?”
He stood, grabbed his bookbag and the headphones off the table and headed back to the digital library. It was a small, dark room in the back with big touchscreen TVs. Most people used it to download books from class.
Today, the TVs were dimmed and the room empty.
“Me and Mrs. Smalls had a little talk. She agreed to give us the room, as long as we were quiet and promised not to make out. I told her I could only speak for myself.”
I hit him with the back of my hand and smiled.
A vision of Cole kissing me sent the butterflies in my stomach into a panic. I was glad that the room was dark. I was sure that my face was red by now.
Cole led me to the back of the room, where he’d laid down a blanket.
“Where did you get the blanket?” I asked. It was blue and white checkerboard and looked threadbare.
“From the emergency kit in the storage room. I promised the custodian that I would return it later.”
“Is there anyone you didn’t make a promise to today?” I asked.
“Besides you?”
I stuck out my tongue at him.
We laid down on the itchy blanket, his phone between us.
“Just one pair of headphones?” I asked.
“Don’t be so hoity-toity. It will be more than enough.”
“Did you just call me hoity-toity? What is this, 1932?”
“Shut up and put in the headphones.”
I complied, and put one earbud in to my right ear while he put one in to his left.
“Any particular song?” I asked.
“That’s part of your homework. You will give me the name of the songs you hear as well as a translation of the chorus. What’s the rule?”
I rolled my eyes in the darkness, though he couldn’t see me.
“No Googling.”
“That’s right.”
He pressed play and for forty-five minutes, the most beautiful music floated through my ears. I didn’t understand all the words but I did recognize a few things. Talk of love, hope and happiness. A tear ran down my cheek at the beauty of it all.
I thanked God again for the dark.
I closed my eyes and let the music overtake me. Somewhere along the way, Cole’s hand entwined with mine. I gave it a squeeze. He squeezed it back.
And somewhere deep within my heart, I fell for him a little more.
The warmth in my heart from French tutoring carried me right through to my English project. Cole knocked on the door and stood there, waiting for me to take Mojo’s leash and walk him.
I had already walked Mojo but there was something about walking with Cole that felt so nice. So natural. I gave Mojo a treat and we started on our way.
I was proud of Mojo’s accomplishments. He had stopped pooping in the house and only occasionally did he pee on one of the pee pads. He walked on his own and had stopped scowling at me. I’d say that I was becoming a pretty good dog mother.
“So,” Cole said, walking next to me at a relaxed pace. “I happened to come across two tickets to a certain Broadway play and I was wondering if you might be free in two weeks.”
A Broadway play? I’d cut my arm off to see a Broadway play.
I didn’t hide my enthusiasm for his offer.
“I’d love to see a play. Which one is it?”
He shrugged. “A good one. But, I only have two tickets. Do you think your boyfriend will have an issue with us going out together alone?”
“I don’t know. Technically, you are kind of my brother-in-law so I think it’s okay.”
He put up his hands. “Whoa, whoa, whoa! No one is getting married. Especially not to Jake.”
“Would you have a problem with that?”
“Yes. A huge one. My brother is a pig. If you even thought about marrying him, I’d have to kidnap you and lock you away in a cottage somewhere. For your own good, of course.”
I scoffed. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
“Ugh. You can’t marry Jake.”
I laughed out loud. “No one is marrying anybody. Now, let’s do a music quiz before you barf.”
He shook his head. “We should change it up a bit. How are you with movies?”
I shrugged.
“I can hold my own.” It was a massive understatement. I loved movies almost as much as I loved music.
“Favorite movie?” he asked.
“The Princess Bride.”
He looked at me for a long time. That Cole gaze that warmed my cheeks and made my heart pound.
“What?”
He smiled and shook his head.
“Nothing.”
“Are you making fun of my movie choices?”
“No. Never.”
“Fine. What’s your favorite movie?”
“How about you guess?”
“Fine.”
He cleared his throat and took
a deep breath. His legs spread apart and he put his hand up in front of him, like he was about to stab someone with a sword.
“My name is Inigo Montoya, you killed my father, prepare to die!”
My eyes went wide.
“No.”
“Yes.”
“No way!”
“I have the shirt to prove it. I believe that you do, too.”
My heart exploded with a joy that I knew I couldn’t keep. I turned toward Cole, ignoring Mojo as he pulled me forward.
“Why?” I asked.
“What?”
“Why tell me all of the things we have in common now? Why didn’t you tell me years ago?”
He shrugged.
“You hated me then.”
“I didn’t hate you.”
“Didn’t you?” He raised an eyebrow and I started walking again.
“I may have but that was because you teased me all the time.”
“Just banter. You took it too seriously.”
“You could have stopped.”
“And miss speaking to you every day?” He stopped walking and turned to me. Every time Cole looked at me, my whole body seemed to come alive. As if he plugged himself directly into my soul, electrifying me from the inside out.
Captivated, I stood and allowed him to run his thumb down my cheek. I felt it all the way down in to my toes. My entire body blushed and he grinned at me, dropping his hand.
“You’re an odd duck, French. A real odd duck.”
I gave him my best fake glare.
“Shut up, Cole.”
I took another step but my dog sat tight. He’d apparently found a new place to poop. A patch of dirt with a wooden tub full of flowers. Even the sharp smell of the small pine bushes couldn’t hide the gross scent that emitted from Mojo’s butt.
I handed Cole the blue bag that I carried for just such an occasion.
“You’re on poop duty,” I said.
He wrinkled his nose.
“Why me? It’s your dog.”
Mojo emerged from his bathroom, ready to head home again.
“I don’t have hands, remember. I’m a duck.” I smiled, did a quack quack and walked back toward the apartment. Cole followed closely behind, a new, warm package in his hands.