“Yeah.”
“You’ve been accepted! All you have to do is send back the papers and register!”
“No.”
“But why?” Her voice had pitched upward sickeningly. Riley couldn’t help but chuckle.
“Why would I?”
“Because . . . because you need an education to get a job!”
“No. I need a diploma to get a job. A diploma isn’t a guarantee I learned anything. It just says I paid the money and passed some of the classes. It also doesn’t ensure aptitude. Look at the President. But don’t worry, if I want a job that requires a diploma, I’ll get the diploma.”
“That’s—”
“Correct. I don’t have money for this, which means loans. I’m sorry, but I am not going to sign away my soul as soon as I have a legally binding signature. Though I’m sure that would make everyone concerned very happy. Can’t have demons like me running around without controls!”
The woman’s face was pinching together in a slow-motion frown of increasing exasperation. “The longer you wait, the more difficult it will be to do.”
“Uh-huh, because all those forty-somethings getting their PhDs are a great example of why it’s important to stay in school for literally half their lives. I guess it is better to start young so that when you finish, you still have some life left!”
She crossed her arms. It wasn’t worth the effort. Her point was that the system was broken, that academia was built as a binary: either you did the bullshit classes to get a job that paid slightly better than McDonald’s, or you went full bore into some serious avenue of study that would theoretically pay more, if not for the crippling debt you incurred to get it. Even then, there was competition for funding, cutthroat admissions, finding a job in one’s field . . .
“School is essential, Riley.”
She understood that school taught things. She liked learning things, but no one should ever do something because it was easy, or less frightening, or just what one did. Especially getting an education, because if a person tried to get one in those circumstances, it wouldn’t end well. Education came from passion. If a person lacked passion, they needed to find it first or they’d burn out. Then they’d have the debt and the failure to crush them into the service job they’d have gotten anyway, even with their diploma.
“Ms. Sweet, what are the dropout rates in these schools?”
“I . . .” She looked at her hands and hurriedly shuffled papers. “I don’t know, I’d have to—”
“For the programs I’d want to attend it’s over half. Half of the freshman class drop out. Why? Same reason half of marriages split up. People see something new and shiny, society tells them to buy it to be complete, and they compromise everything to have it, only to realize it isn’t what they wanted, takes more stamina than they have, is way more complicated than they thought, and that they really aren’t the sort of person to live up to it.”
Her mouth was open, but everyone knew Ms. Sweet had been married three times, and was engaged to a fourth man who would probably go out like the previous three. Marriage was clearly not something that her personality could handle, but there she was, still trying to shove herself into that mold that everyone told her she should want. Four white dresses, each one more ironic than the last.
“I’ve just spent thirteen years in school because the law said I had to. I don’t want to be forced to take Music Theory to fulfill some stupid prerequisite because I need to be ‘well-rounded.’ I want to take a break, figure out what fits me, then I’ll get back into touch with one of the universities and see about the paperwork. I may figure out that I never want to go to college. I may decide on trade craft, which by the way, makes bank these days.”
There was a gasp. “But that is . . . You can’t! Your future depends on—”
“No. The future you want me to have depends on it. I know why you say that. I know you want me to be accomplished and successful, but there are other definitions of success, just like there are different ways to learn. I don’t know what I need to learn yet or how. I’ll figure that out.”
“This is about your father, isn’t it?”
The words pushed a pin through her buoyant mood. Why did everything have to come back to her father? She loved him with all her heart, but his past didn’t have to be the measure for her entire existence. It was like everyone wanted to rescue her from that, but she’d never felt more at home than in the workshop with him.
Truth was, they weren’t listening to her when she told them she was happy. To them, it was one more kid with promise succumbing to a lack of ambition, but Riley had ambition in every cell, right alongside her mitochondria, being tapped as a fuel source for any and everything she did. Yeah, she was still a “kid,” but if they were going to expect her to be an adult, hadn’t they better start honoring her decisions?
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Ms. Sweet shoved the papers away. “I know you’re thinking that if you leave, you’ll be hurting him, leaving him here. You’re worried he’ll fall back into old patterns, aren’t you?”
Riley could feel her face slackening until the apathy was suddenly leaking out of her ears. If there was one way to lose an argument with her, it was to suggest that any part of her identity was codependent.
“My dad can take care of himself.”
“I’m afraid for you, Riley. I’ll be blunt. You get bored too easily. If you don’t go to college, I’m terrified you’ll end up—”
“Like him?” She sat forward, elbows on her knees, insides boiling with fierce and sudden rage. “Was that what you were about to say?”
“Yes, frankly.”
She got to her feet, but her temper was not ready to leave. It took hold of her fist and bounced it lightly off the desk in an aggressive tattoo, as if knocking to be set free. “Like that man who was in the wrong place with the wrong people when someone got killed, lived every day with remorse, and then reformed despite the fact that his whole family and everyone he knew were sucking him back in? That man who went to a trade school, who owns his own business, who married an amazing woman, who single-handedly took care of her when she was dying, and who raised his daughter alone and in grief? Like that asshole? Yeah . . . I can see why that might fucking terrify you.”
“Riley, that’s not—”
“Ms. Sweet, hear what I am saying to you. This is my life. Officially. I’m taking it from all you assholes. It’s mine now. I am going to find my own way through it. If I feel like college is going to be good for me, I’ll go, but there’s a hell of a lot of self-analysis I need to do to find the university that will fit me, and it’s going to happen on my terms.” The counselor made to interrupt her, but she was pretty much finished with the part of her life that involved swallowing her tongue because the adult in the room didn’t want to acknowledge her. “I’d appreciate it if you’d mind your own business and not bring up my father, ever again. You do that, and I won’t tell you why I think you should have gone back to college for a different credential. Agreed?”
She didn’t wait to be dismissed. If the woman wanted to hit her with a referral for detention, she could do that without Riley standing there to take it. It wasn’t as if calling her father would do a damn thing, as they’d learned in her first few weeks there. One week left of school, and she couldn't really care less what they did, but the day was ruined, regardless. She had a PE class full of pricks, a period of something they called Civics that was really an exploration of the War of Northern Aggression, and a shift of Russel the Cowardly Bastard to look forward to. Luckily, it was football day, which promised to make getting her aggression out a hell of a lot easier.
Walking toward her locker, her ear caught a shriek among the usual noise of the crowded corridors. It was a sound so incongruous that it poisoned the air and muffled all else. As Riley rounded the corner, a clump of teens obscured the unfolding drama. She was about to walk away, but there was a more insistent and frightened call.
&nbs
p; “Stop it! Let me go!”
It was El’s voice, and all at once, Riley’s body was a mass of quivering action contained in a girlish shape. Dividing the crowd with two elbows, she forced the scene to open for her. El was pinned against the lockers, her bag on the floor. Jay was grasping each of her wrists in a white-knuckled hand. His shoulders were vibrating with the force and he was so furious he spit as he talked.
“You fucking cunt! Is that how you think this is gonna go? You don’t break up with me. That’s not how this works.”
In a glance, Riley assured herself that there was not a person in the circle who was as prepared to bleed and draw blood as she.
With all her strength, she swung her heavy book bag at the spot right between Jay’s shoulder blades. As he was thrown forward, she did a flying leap at his back, knees raised, slamming him face first into the metal, smashing his already flattened nose. Blood spattered out from his face in a halo as Riley snaked her arms around his neck and clamped down. Jay spun in a wide arc, arms flailing, but as he did, Riley got her legs around his waist, and hung on like a vicious rabid koala. He clawed at her head, tried to dislodge her by crushing her against the lockers, but she was an immovable object, about to choke out this varsity wrestler with all the hell-fury she had been storing in her uterus.
Spinning, she was aware of only one thing: that El was leaning against the wall, her face covered in tears and her mouth hanging open in reverence.
Riley grinned and squeezed even harder.
The boy’s neck was ropey, but she had her right hand hooked firmly around her left elbow, utilizing an entire life of nerves and muscles tuned to the throttle of her bike. His struggle began to weaken. He slumped against the wall, slapping it with his hand as if there were an umpire, but Riley didn’t fight to win.
She fought to end shit, because that’s what it took.
Jay hit his knees, probably intending to roll her like a crocodile, but she unwrapped her legs and wedged a boot against the ground. Finally, Jay fell forward onto his face. Only then did she release. He drew air with a loud, sucking gasp, his face mottled. Riley undid her belt in one move and gathered his hands behind his back. Drawing them together, she snared them with a loop and then pulled up an ankle. Securing the belt end through the buckle had this pig fully hog-tied, for her fleeting glory, his eternal shame, and El’s immediate safety.
The crowd had grown and was heckling. Riley pressed her knee into the boy’s back and put her mouth to his ear. “Touch her like that again and see what happens.”
He coughed. “Bitch.”
“Uh-huh. Tell me you’re gonna press your luck.” She dug her knee in farther and tugged up on his arms. He let out a whimper. “I’ve already been pushed to my limit by you fucking rejects, but now I catch you slapping up a girl. That’s a hurricane in a bottle, Jay, and you just dropped it from the third floor.”
“Get off me.”
She sat up with a laugh. Looking at all the smug, cackling faces. “But you told me you liked being tied up!”
“I did not!”
“You mean you didn’t try to hit on me last year for like two months? You didn’t tell me all these sexually explicit secrets about yourself? I’m pretty sure you did. I think I even still have the text messages!” She drew her phone out of her coat pocket and scrolled through. Her seat humped up and down like a whale, but Riley had been waiting for the right moment for almost a year, and she was positive it wouldn’t get much better than this. If she was right, the teachers were in the lounge on the other side of the school, and they wouldn’t know to come unless someone went to get them. Who would do that, considering what Jay was, and how hilarious she was about to make this?
She had all the time she needed to ruin him forever.
Holding up the phone, she began to read through the old text messages. “Hey there sexy. Lemme lick your twat.”
The teens let out catcalls. Riley rode the struggle beneath her as if sitting on her bike on a mountain trail, grin as hard as armor.
“‘Who the fuck is this?’ ‘I’m your hard daddy, gonna show you what it feels like to be with a man.’ Lemme scroll down here. There’s a lot of text about . . . you know . . . the kinky stuff he likes—”
“Fuck you, that’s not true!”
“Here we go. This is me, ‘But don’t worry about it, asshole, I’ve already run this number through an online reverse directory.’ Oh look, here! It’s his dick! He sent me a picture of his wrinkly penis just before I called him out!”
With a flourish, she swiped the phone through the air, allowing every young lady to take a giggling gander as every boy dove backward in guffaws.
“Oh my god, that is his phone number!” a spectator sang with glee.
Her adversary went still. There was no point in fighting anymore. The tiny high school pond had just run out of oxygen for this big-ass fish.
Most importantly, Riley was now his first target, not El.
She got up and for good measure, kicked him in the side, hard enough to wind him. “You’re a coward and a sleaze, Jay, and now everyone knows it. Now everyone knows, especially these girls, that when you want sex and the girl says no, you treat her like shit. You throw her out of a moving car, you follow her through school and attack her, or you call her a dyke and tell her you can make her straight, when honestly, you’ve basically made me glad to be a lesbian. You’re a disgrace, and if you argue with me, I will send every girl in this school that picture of your shriveled little pinky prick, you disgusting psychopath.”
She turned her back on him to a chorus of low whistles and mockery. The onlookers parted for her, giving her a wide berth as she retrieved her bag and El’s. As delicately but quickly as possible, Riley ushered the girl out the front door to the parking lot. Under her favorite tree, she could finally stop to assess the damage.
El was staring into space as she had been that night in the woods, but her pupils were tracking movement and reacting to the light. Riley gently touched her chin, turning the face this way and that. She could see no marks. The wrists were different, though. They were already turning purple.
As Riley watched the bruises form, she expected her anger to melt away, but it didn’t. Why hadn’t El fought back? Why had she just stood there and let that piece of shit . . .
She took a deep breath. “Did he hit you?”
El’s voice was husky and garbled. “No. He just shoved me.”
“Okay.”
“I asked him to give me back my bag, but then he tried to kiss me. I told him no. I made him angry.”
It was all Riley could do to keep from punching the tree. She succeeded by telling herself it would frighten El and hurt one of her favorite life forms. Instead, she shoved her fists into her coat pockets and controlled her breathing.
“You didn’t make him angry, El. He got angry because he has no concept of empathy and is a classic narcissist. Don’t ever apologize for saying no. You’re allowed to, even if you’re a girl, even if he was your boyfriend, even if the rest of the fucking world wants to argue with you on it. You’re always allowed to say no.”
El stared at the ground, eyes the color of a swimming pool and just as refreshing. She sniffled, but she wasn’t crying. In fact, it seemed as if the entire experience had settled something for her. A more resolute expression was lifted.
“After school today . . . will you do me a favor?”
Running her hands through her hair, Riley took a step back. Whatever tension there was now was easing back, as if the warm breeze and a good sigh could blow it all away. “Of course! What do you need?”
“Help shopping for camping stuff. Do you know about that . . . camping?”
Crossing her arms, Riley examined the girl more closely for signs of shock. She looked fine—calm, composed, her tears drying and her gaze steady. It seemed like a non sequitur, but to El, the odd request was apparently natural.
“Seriously? Your ex just tried to beat you up in front of a crowd of people who w
ere going to let him, and you want to go shopping?”
El looked away, for a moment shivering as if all her focus and energy were almost spent, and at any second, she’d spit out a gear or something. “Camp starts soon. I need supplies, but I don’t know what to get.”
Suddenly, it clicked. Of course El would want to look for tents and sleeping bags! She wanted the hell out of this fucking town! She probably found it comforting, thinking she was about to be far away from everyone she knew so that it could all spend a few months cooling off. And here she was asking for Riley to participate.
That was . . . like a compliment.
“I know about that stuff. I can help you.”
“Thank you.”
“Why don’t we go now? I could use a break from this bullshit.”
El blinked at her. “That would be ditching.”
“Yeah, so?”
“If Mama found out—”
“If anyone asks where you were, just tell them you were freaked out by Jay and sat in the bathroom the rest of the day. There are about fifty witnesses.”
“Mama would blame me, anyway.”
Riley scowled involuntarily. “She’d blame you for him beating you up?”
El seemed to swallow her pride and chased it with a nod. “I’m f . . . fucked either way.”
“Your mom . . . is a piece of work. You really going to let her teach you to be afraid, to roll over, to just let people kick you constantly? If you’re fucked either way, why not have a little fun?”
El shook her dark head. “You’d get into trouble too.”
“I don’t really care. Jay can sic a lawyer on me, but then he’d have to tell everyone how the fight started. And I don’t think he wants to do that. Especially after the dick pics get sent to his mother.”
She won a tremulous smile. El closed her eyes on it and relaxed against the tree. “I meant with the school.”
Riley waved a hand. “Naw! They don’t care about me. I’ve ditched like twenty times this year, and I sorta just called Ms. Sweet an idiotic, nosy bitch. They just shake their heads and say, ‘There goes Riley Vanator the delinquent who’ll end up just like her daddy.’ And I just flip them off and move on.”
Love Under Glasse Page 8
