by Vera Hollins
He tilted his head to the side. “You’re sorry for breaking my screen.”
“Yes.”
After several long seconds, he reached for the money, and I met his gaze, relieved but also surprised he wasn’t going to give me trouble. It seemed things would work out in my favor. I held my breath when our hands met and his touch lingered on my skin for a second longer than necessary before he pulled his hand away.
I expected him to put the bills into his pocket, but he didn’t do that.
Instead, he ripped them into pieces, his expression blank as he stared at me. My eyes widened as he dropped them to the floor. A couple of students stopped to see what was going on, and my face flared hot.
“You can go fuck yourself with your shitty apology.”
Those torn bills were the ripped pieces of my dignity, thrown to the floor to be stomped on and tarnished. My dignity would always be trampled. Tears collected in my eyes.
“Why do you have to be this way?” My voice was whiny—too whiny.
“Did you already forget what I said? You won’t get away with it that easily.”
A tear escaped my eye, and I brushed it off furiously, angry at myself for allowing him to see me shaken. He shut his locker with a bang and walked away.
I trembled hard as I stared at the bills on the floor. I. Hate. Him.
Hiding behind my hair, I ignored everyone’s stares and hauled myself to the classroom. A knot of nervousness in my stomach grew stronger when I stepped inside and reached my seat with my eyes fixed on the floor. I felt like I could erupt into tears at any moment, but it was out of the question, and I tried my best to smile back at Marcus when I sat down, pretending I was perfectly fine.
Blake’s proximity to me was torturous, but Marcus provided a good distraction as we messaged each other on Snapchat. This helped me forget about Blake at least for a little while.
When the class was over, Blake was the first to leave. He didn’t look at me even once, which was completely fine by me. I fiercely hoped he would skip detention and go somewhere far away. Like to the moon.
Ms. Gentry cast me a long glance that said loud and clear: Don’t even think about missing detention. I nodded at her, my stomach twisted in knots.
“Can I talk to you?” Marcus asked me in the hallway. “I need to tell you something.”
“I’d like to, but I have detention now.”
“It won’t take long.”
“Okay then.”
We stopped at the corner that coincidentally looked right at Blake’s locker across the hall. He was there, leaning against it as he talked to some girl, and my stomach churned with misplaced bitterness. I pulled my gaze away from them so he wouldn’t notice me looking and focused on Marcus. He seemed uncomfortable.
“What’s up?”
He scratched the back of his neck and ran his hand over his twist out. “I guess you’ve probably heard the rumors that I’m gay?”
I shifted on my feet. Okay, this was unexpected.
“Yes.”
“I thought you didn’t want to go out with me because of the rumors.”
“No, that’s not it. I just…”
My gaze darted to Blake, and my stomach somersaulted because his eyes were already on me. Aversion was written all over his face as he looked between Marcus and me, and once more, the world narrowed to the two of us. Anger flickered in me, reminding me of how degraded I was when he ripped my money into pieces.
He would never change. That simply wasn’t possible.
Blake’s stare became too intent, and I blushed profusely. He didn’t even pay attention to the girl talking to him, until he suddenly pulled her against him and made a great show of kissing her. His hands slid down from her shoulders and cupped her butt right in the middle of the half-empty school hallway. I dug my nails into my palms, pursing my lips as I tried to suppress the increasing anger.
“Jessica?” Marcus called out to me, and I forced my gaze back to him.
“I’m sorry, Marcus. I really don’t want to hurt you, but I don’t feel that way about you. I see you as a friend—”
He grinned. “That’s okay. It’s good that you see me only as a friend, because I lied to you.”
I eyed him carefully. “You lied to me?”
“Yes. I don’t actually like you.”
My heart contracted painfully because for a moment, I thought he was going to say he’d asked me out because of some stupid bet he’d made with his friends or something.
“Then why did you ask me out?”
He slumped his shoulders, avoiding my eyes. “Er, the rumors are true. I’m gay.” I was only able to stare at him, confounded. “And I asked you out because I thought if I got closer to you, I’d also get closer to Kevin.”
I tipped my head to the side. “You asked me out because of Kevin?”
“Yes. I…I like Kevin.”
I couldn’t find the words right away as I processed this latest piece of information. Seeing how vulnerable he looked, I didn’t think it was the right moment to tell him his “strategy” was absolutely not the way to get anyone. It was beyond me how he could’ve thought that by asking me out he could be with Kevin one day, but I didn’t have it in me to get angry.
Now that I thought about it, Marcus and Kevin would look so cute together. I could already imagine them walking together holding hands. So cute.
“Then you should talk to him and tell him that.”
“Er, I don’t know.” He rubbed his neck. “It’s not easy to say that. And what if he’s not into guys?” Aww. The blush that covered his light brown face was adorable.
“You won’t know that unless you talk to him.”
“How about you talk to him?”
“Me?”
“Yes. Please. I’ll owe you forever. Just tell him I like him and want to ask him out.”
I wasn’t sure that was a good idea. “Marcus…”
He looked away. “Look…I’m sorry.” His quiet words were dripping with shame. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Blake coming in our direction, and I grew very still.
“Why are you sorry?” I asked Marcus. Please don’t stop. Just go somewhere far, far away.
“Because it sounds like I wanted to use you. Okay, I did want to use you, but I didn’t have any bad intentions. I swear.” He looked at the floor. “Now I see how stupid it was. It was so, so stupid.”
Blake was only a few feet away from us, and I tried my hardest to ignore him…
“Don’t worry. I’m not angry. I—”
“Whore,” Blake spat out without stopping. The word was so harsh and demeaning it felt like a slap on my cheek, and I recoiled in shock. I flexed my hand into a fist.
Ugly. Fat. Stupid. Disgusting. Whore. All those powerful insults…they only produced more pain and insecurity until I was reduced to an unworthy being. Until I believed them.
The words were burning in my throat, echoing in my mind louder and louder as my anger rose. First my money, now this. I was tired.
I was tired of him, and I was tired of fear and shame.
Of his continuous insults.
Of waiting for him to change.
Of my heart going against my logic.
Screw this.
“You’re a whore!” I exploded loud enough for the whole hallway to hear it. “You’re the only whore here, Blake Jones!”
He stopped mid-step, and I was sure I was done for if he got his hands on me. I grabbed Marcus’s hand and ran, leading us away from that hallway. I didn’t stop until we reached the foyer and I was sure he hadn’t followed us.
I supported myself against my knees to catch my breath. I was astounded by the courage I’d had to talk back to him like that.
Marcus burst out laughing. “You’re amazing. His face when you said that was priceless! He totally deserved it.”
I let out a short chuckle, but I wasn’t actually amused. It was just to hide how awful I felt.
With Blake, I couldn’t expect anything
but an infinite loop of embarrassments and insults. I’d gotten back at him now, but the bullying wasn’t going to end. There would always be another day filled with his hatred. Always and always.
I cast Marcus a fake smile to mask my pain. “I guess you think I’m a freak because of the way he treats me.”
“Why would I think that? You’re not weird at all.”
“But Blake keeps saying nasty things to me. It’s too much.”
“It’s not your fault he’s too stupid to realize what a great person you are.”
Everything in me warmed, and a real smile broke out on my face. “You really think that?”
“Yeah, and it’s not just because you’re Kevin’s friend and you might help me with…” He smiled sheepishly. “You know.”
“Right, Kevin—you want me to talk to Kevin about you. Sneaky.” He shrugged his shoulders, chuckling. “I can’t promise anything, but I’ll try to talk to him.”
Marcus didn’t need to know how bad his chances were, seeing that Kevin crushed on Hayden and me.
“Thank you! I said this, but I’ll say it again—you’re amazing!”
“It’s good to know at least someone thinks I’m amazing,” I muttered to my chin. “I need to go now.”
“Sure. See you tomorrow.”
“See you.”
I waved at him and headed to Mr. Maynard’s office. Each step that took me closer felt heavier. I expected Blake to retaliate, so I figured this would be a good time for him to skip detention. Or have sudden amnesia and forget about my outburst.
Tugging at my shirt so it wouldn’t show my stomach flab, I knocked on the door and entered Mr. Maynard’s extremely small office. Blake was already here, sitting on the only chair in the room beside Mr. Maynard’s. His jaw was set hard as he glared at me, and I hoped for a miracle that would allow me to get out of this detention unscathed.
There was barely a place for me to stand in the room illuminated by a weak light bulb hanging from a cord. I had to be squeezed between the janitor’s desk and his small drawer cabinet. The desk was loaded with an old computer and stacks of folders and papers, which threatened to tip over to the ground.
“Miss Metts, you’re here. Good,” Mr. Maynard said with a smile. He was a kind man in his fifties, and I found it easy to return his smile. I glanced at his receding hairline and wondered if he was dying his hair black because I couldn’t spot even a single gray hair.
Blake shifted on his chair, and I sucked in my breath. He was too close, his appealing scent drifting up to my nose. If I moved only a little, the hand he had resting on his thigh would touch my leg.
“So will you finally spill what this is all about?” Blake asked gruffly, but Mr. Maynard—always so nice—didn’t take offense.
He smiled and nodded. “Of course. Now that Miss Metts is here, I can tell you what’s expected of you this week. There are a few rooms in the basement that need to be refurbished.”
I sensed Blake tense, and I glanced at him. He had an expression that was completely unexpected. It was terror.
“You’re not going to refurbish those rooms, if that’s what worries you,” he joked with a chuckle, but Blake wasn’t amused. He wasn’t amused at all, staring at him completely frozen.
“In order to refurbish the rooms, we need to remove the things that are in there. It’s some old school equipment that hasn’t been used for more than a decade now. All you need to do is pack them into boxes and throw them into dumpsters.”
“Did you say a basement?” Blake asked slowly through clenched teeth. It was as if he’d ignored everything Mr. Maynard said except for that one word.
“Yes, Mr. Jones. They are in the basement.” Blake fisted his hand on his thigh, his artery pumping furiously in his neck, but he didn’t say anything. “Those old rooms were used as storage, but we have a serious mold problem, so we need to renovate them as soon as possible. You will work for one hour after school each day, and you’ll start with one room. If you finish cleaning it before Thursday, you will go to the next one, and so on. The boxes are already down there. Now, do you have any questions?”
He looked between Blake and me, but neither of us said a word. I glanced at Blake and saw him staring at the ground with a vacant gaze, like he was out of it. His breathing grew ragged.
“Mr. Jones?” he asked him, but Blake didn’t move an inch, let alone acknowledge the question. His gaze never moved from the floor.
“No,” I answered, staring at Blake in confusion. “No questions.”
Mr. Maynard clasped his hands together and cast us another one of his warm smiles. “Good! Then I’ll take you there and leave you to it. Come with me.”
I was the first to step out, wanting to put as much space between Blake and me as possible. The school was mostly empty now, and our steps echoed in the long hallways. I glanced at Blake over my shoulder. I didn’t miss his heavy steps or stiff posture as he stared at the ground with scrunched-up eyebrows. He was rubbing his left hand incessantly.
“Here we are,” Mr. Maynard said, opening the double doors that led downstairs. He turned the light switches on and continued down the slippery-looking steps. I followed closely behind him.
I’d never been down there, and after hearing Mr. Maynard talk about dilapidated rooms with mold, I expected a long, dark corridor out of a horror movie with eerie sounds and shadows looming higher with every step.
The real thing was less dreary than my imagination, but it could make a person feel claustrophobic or uneasy with its low ceiling covered with mold, poor ventilation, stale smell, and rusty pipes that ran along the ceiling and white brick walls.
Mr. Maynard stopped in front of the first discolored door and turned to face us, but then his gaze fell on Blake. “Mr. Jones? What’s wrong?”
I looked at him over my shoulder. He was unusually still on the last step of the staircase, his hand gripping the banister. Even with the distance separating us, I could see how pale he looked. His eyes were wide and terrified as they darted all over the long passageway.
“Mr. Jones? Are you all right?”
“I can’t do this,” Blake said breathlessly, and before Mr. Maynard could even say anything, he rushed up the stairs and got out.
“You’ll choke if you eat that fast,” my mom said with a chuckle as she poured coffee in her cup. She wore her business suit, ready to go to work.
I swallowed a big bite of my toast with peanut butter, savoring its rich taste, which was to die for. I loved peanut butter so much I wanted to own a gigantic warehouse with an unlimited supply so I could eat it every day for the rest of my life.
“I can’t help myself. You know I can’t resist this sweet, sweet peanut butter.” I took another bite. Mmm, so good.
As I chewed, I scrolled on my phone through the comments on “The Chains of Fears.” I already had loads of positive reactions. Many people complimented my distinctive voice and the way I was able to pour my soul out and make them feel my pain and helplessness. This gave me a huge boost.
“My new song is getting positive reactions,” I told Mom.
She leaned against the kitchen island as she took a sip of her coffee. “I told you people would like it. It’s such an emotional song. Although, it’s very sad and a bit on the dark side.”
“Yeah. It is.”
She placed her finger on her chin. “‘You shackled me to yourself and led me to tears. You’re nothing but the chains of fears,’” she said softly, reciting lines from the chorus. “Is this coming from your personal experience?”
I cast my eyes down and bit into the toast to buy some time. The blush on my cheeks didn’t help.
“No,” I said between swallows. “It’s just random.”
“I see.”
I returned my attention to my phone, but I didn’t see anything, my mind drifting to the previous day. Since Blake had skipped our detention, I was forced to work alone, which was ten times better than sharing that rundown space with him, but it meant I was all alon
e with my thoughts. Whenever I thought I was done with him, I witnessed something that touched the hidden corners of my heart, and a new cycle of want, doubt, and pain would start.
I wasn’t supposed to feel sorry for him. I wasn’t supposed to care about his problems, let alone feel the need to help him in any way, but I couldn’t help the way I felt.
As I filled the box with the dusty equipment, I mulled over his unusual behavior in Mr. Maynard’s office and on those stairs, and I came to the conclusion that he must be afraid of basements. His fear was evident when Mr. Maynard mentioned the basement, as well as when we got there and he was rooted to the last stair, as if the basement was lava and he was terrified of taking even one more step.
His inexplicable fear only added to the mystery of him and gave me more proof that he wasn’t as invulnerable as he’d seemed when I met him. As much as I despised him, I wanted to push through his layers of poison and anger and see what made him tick. I wanted to see the real him.
“Owen spoke to your principal yesterday.”
“He did?”
“Yes. He guaranteed the school was working on a new program that imposes stricter punishments for problematic kids.”
I rolled my eyes. It was typical of Principal Anders to try to save face after the tabloids had labeled our school as “The Lair of Bullies.”
“He even confirmed that all personnel will go through extensive training to learn to deal with bullies more effectively.”
“Wow. It’s a real utopia in there. I’ll give up cheeseburgers forever if that actually happens.”
“Only time will tell, but in the meantime, make sure you stay out of trouble, okay? If anyone harasses you, report them.”
I rolled my eyes again. “Sure.”
She sipped her coffee and glanced at her watch. “I need to hurry because we have an important meeting today.”
I giggled. “You always have some important meeting.” I took a huge swallow of the toast.
“That’s how it is when you have a drunk local singer who doesn’t know when to shut it on a podcast. So now I have to do damage control.”