Over the Fence Box Set

by Aarons, Carrie

  I strain my body and will it to keep facing forward. I can’t look at him or I will dissolve into a puddle of tears. My body feels like it’s being sucked into the earth; my ears are filled with a whooshing sound and my stomach and heart keep doing that dipping thing like I’m on a roller coaster. I’m not shocked to find I might be sick in the back of Kelsey’s Jeep.

  I feel the engine come to life under my body and know that this is the last time I will see Owen if I can help it. As she slowly pulls out of the gravel parking lot, I turn my body to glimpse him one last time.

  Out the back window, he’s jogging now to keep up with Kelsey, who is laying her foot on the gas. I see his mouth shouting my name as he runs faster, waving his arms in exasperated movements. Tears leak down my face. I should have never gotten involved with him. I should have kept my walls up.

  The farther we get, the more he slows down until I watch him come to a dead stop. I can just make out the pained expression he wears and I feel the same hurt marring my own features.

  I watch Owen for as long as I can make him out until he disappears in the cloud of dust the tires kick up in their wake.

  26

  Minka

  It’s funny. Well, it isn’t actually funny. But in a way it is.

  It’s funny how history has a way of repeating itself.

  I told myself from day one of meeting Owen that I wouldn’t give in. Then I told myself I could be with him, but I wouldn’t get hurt. Then I told myself I wouldn’t fall. And after I’d fallen, I’d told myself that he would never let me down.

  I almost have to laugh. Almost. But that would require me to stop crying.

  A knock sounds on my door, the place I have scarcely left in five days. Ever since I left Owen at the fair.

  I look up from Jane Eyre as my dad enters the room. He’s home for dinner almost nightly now. At least one relationship in my life is looking up.

  “Are you … are you okay? You seem down this week. And your eyes … they’re red. Like you’ve been crying.” He joins me where I lie on my stomach in the middle of my bed.

  I haven’t completely filled him in on the implosion that was my relationship with Owen yet. I haven’t even wanted to process it, let alone go through the uncomfortable conversation of explaining it to my dad. But I guess here we are.

  “Owen and I … we ended things.”

  “That little prick …”

  “Dad!” I’m surprised by his sudden curse. Usually, my dad is a ball of pent-up temper, but he keeps a good lid on it.

  “What? I told that little asshole if he hurt you I’d break his neck. And now I’m going to have to go do that.” He makes a motion as if he’s about to spring from my bed.

  “Dad, stop it. You don’t have to kill anyone on my behalf.” He looks at me as if I am crazy to assume anything else. “Plus, I’m not angry. I’m just sad.”

  I look down at my book as another tear drops.

  “Oh, come on, don’t cry, sweetheart. Any guy who makes my daughter this upset is really not worth it anyway. He’s an idiot.”

  He pats my back like I remember him doing sometimes when I was a little girl. It helps ease the pain a bit, but the bite of reality still sinks deep.

  I’m telling him the truth. I’m not angry, because deep inside I knew something like this would eventually happen. I knew I was Icarus, flying too close to the sun. I was bound to disintegrate into ashes.

  I am just sad. So very sad. I always thought when they talked about broken hearts it was all bullshit. But now I know, you can actually ache in the middle of your chest so badly that all you want is whatever will ease that pressure.

  I understand the addicts now. Because as much as I hate myself and Owen for what I let him to do to me, the only thing I want is him. He’s the only thing that can alleviate this hurt.

  “I know he is. But I’m a bigger one. For getting involved with someone like him in the first place.”

  “Someone like him?” My dad wears a puzzled look.

  “You know, popular. Cool. Bright and gifted and athletic. Someone everyone looks up to and reveres. Someone who lights up every single room they walk into.”

  I thumb at the pages of the book. For as far as I’ve come in my self-confidence, part of me ia always going to be that naïve, wallflower sophomore who didn’t believe in herself.

  “Who said you weren’t someone like that? Because from what I see, you are all of those things and more.” Dad pushes me over so that I sit up, face-to-face with him. “I’m not sure who along the way convinced you that your worth was less than anyone else’s, but they were dead wrong. You are the best kind of person, Minka. You are considerate and intelligent, beautiful, you have the wittiest sense of humor. And let me let you in on a little secret. You don’t just light up a room, you burn so bright that even the solar system is jealous.”

  I brush away the tears that are again dripping down my face. I don’t know how many years I’ve waited for someone to say these things to me. And I realize I haven’t even known that I’ve needed them.

  “Don’t you dare let anyone make you feel inferior again. You are perfect, exactly the way you are. Exactly the way your mother and I made you.”

  He pulls me into his chest, where I collapse in sobs. I cry for my mother, for not being able to grow up with her and hear her wisdom. I cry for the years I’ve wasted doubting myself and hiding from the world. And I cry for the love that I can’t seem to make go away, no matter how hard I try.

  But as I surface from wallowing in the pit of my grief, I feel something else.

  Beneath all the sadness and heartbreak, I feel empowered. I am finally sure of myself. Sure of my worth. And I’m not letting anyone strip me of that again.

  * * *

  The first three days of school passed without consequence. There wasn’t anything taped to my locker, no one harassed me with dirty notes in class and I even got to eat lunch peacefully with Kelsey.

  That is, until today.

  I’m unwrapping my roast beef on wheat when I hear her. Allison Renner.

  She’s two tables away from me, surrounded by her posse of popular-bots, drinking a green juice and filing her nails. Someone really needs to tell her this is high school in North Carolina.

  “So then, I heard that he took her down to the Banks just to bang her where no one could see. How pathetic is that? I mean how desperate can one person be …”

  Kelsey sees me freeze, listening to the entire conversation. “You want me to go over there and teach that slore a lesson?”

  It’s a sweet offer, but I am done having people fight my battles for me. “Nah, I think it’s high time I say something to her, don’t you?”

  And with that, I get up, smooth out my favorite teal button down-dress and head right for the girl I’ve let control my image for way too long.

  “Hi, Allison.” I stand over her where she sits, waiting for her to acknowledge me.

  She looks up, an expression of disgust clouding her perfect features. “Oh … hi … um, Maggie, is it?”

  Typical. “You know my name is Minka. Do you know how I know that? It might be the fact that you haven’t been able to keep it out of your mouth for the last half hour.”

  Her body recoils as if I’ve struck her. Two of her followers gasp in shock. I’ve never, and to my knowledge, no person has ever approached her in such a manner.

  “Excuse me? Who do you think you are?” At this point, her voice begins to reach dog-whistle level decibels and our classmates begin to stare.

  “I'm the girl you’ve tormented for the last year and a half. The girl you bullied until she was just a shell of her former self. Well, that stops. Today. You can’t hurt me anymore. I am stronger than any petty high school bullshit you have to throw at me.”

  I look up to see the entire lunchroom hanging on my every word. No one has ever done anything like this. That’s me, the trendsetter. Peeking at Kelsey, she gives me a thumbs-up and then slices her thumb across her neck. “Fin
ish her,” she mouths. Lovely.

  “I actually feel sorry for you, Allison. Sorry that you feel so badly about yourself that you need to bloody and bruise others to make yourself feel better. I feel sorry that you feel the need to create drama because you don’t have interests and hobbies in your life that you love. But I especially feel sorry for you because you’re going to be that girl, the one who peaked in high school. That girl who looks back ten years from now and sees that she wasted her time here with petty shit instead of learning and creating memories with great friends. So yes, I feel damn sorry for you. But do me a favor and leave me alone from now on.”

  With that, I spin on my heel and walk calmly back to my table. I don’t need to see her reaction, it was enough just to spit those words in her face.

  “My heart is beating so fast,” I whisper to Kelsey as I take a seat back at our table.

  “Boo, you just became a living legend.” She sports a smug smile.

  Looking up, the entire cafeteria seems to be swinging their gazes between Allison and me.

  Glancing at Allison, her entire table is still frozen in place. Then, as if something snaps inside of her, she screeches and leaps up from the table.

  “Ugh!” She flips her silky blond hair over her shoulder and runs for the exit of the lunchroom.

  “You are my hero,” I hear and turn to see Bethany Coolidge staring at me in awe. Bethany has endured Allison’s wrath far longer than me. It’s in this moment that I realize my little diatribe might have done more for my peers than I anticipated.

  The bell rings. Thank God, I need to get out of here. People have started giving me curious looks like they might come over and talk to me. God, no. I might not want to be a pariah, but I definitely do not want to be the center of attention. I accomplished my mission and now it’s time to leave.

  “I need to stop by my locker before Physics.” I sling my backpack over my shoulder and make my way toward the south hallway that leads down to the student parking lot and athletic fields.

  27

  Owen

  I throw my baseball bag into the corner of our living room that also houses a massive pile of shoes and throw my hat on one of the hooks above it. The place is a dump ever since we’ve moved back in, not that it was ever really clean. Our house is good for one thing. Partying.

  Which is one thing I haven’t felt like doing any of recently.

  I walk into our spacious kitchen and crack open the fridge. A leftover chicken wrap, that I have no idea how long has been here. Moldy spaghetti and something else that smells suspicious. Jesus, I really do live with a bunch of cavemen. I spot eggs. I can do something with those.

  Pulling them out, I begin to crack them into the pan. A huge after-practice omelet sounds good.

  I hear the front door slam as I place the carton back into the fridge. Farris walks in noisily, heading for the fridge. He pulls out a beer, cracks it open and takes a huge swig. It’s a sight I’m disappointedly all too familiar with these days.

  “Isn’t it a little early, man?” Glancing at the clock, it’s only noon. We had a mid-morning Thursday practice, no one on the team has classes today as a scheduling fix. All I want is to eat and get back into bed.

  “What’re you, my old man now? I’ve already been up for like five hours, anything goes. Plus, it’s only the second week of school. I have to catch up for all the lost time I spent fucking sober, taking Olivia on dates and shit last semester.”

  Yeah, he still isn’t over her.

  “Whatever, bro. It’s your liver. And education.” I flip one side of my omelet. Well, there is still something I know how to do well.

  It has been almost two weeks since Minka left me, literally, in her dust. I have no fucking clue what I did. I’ve gone by her house. Called her. Texted her. I almost decided to wait outside her house for her to go for a run, but then thought she might flip and call her fucking police chief father on me.

  After that, I resigned myself. I don’t need to chase after a dramatic chick. I don’t put up with crazy.

  But that doesn’t mean I don’t love crazy. Because I do. I love Minka. I love her. For the past two weeks, it’s felt like I’ve been in an autopsy. My chest cracked open from the inside and my heart a dead husk just taking up space in there.

  I almost told her too, when I took her to the fair, up on that Ferris wheel. But I thought it was too soon. With her past and all, I thought it might freak her out.

  And then she did freak out. She’d gone fucking nuclear as I was trying to show her off, introduce her to my buddy Gregory.

  “You still being a little bitch about your breakup, buddy? Get over it, we all screw and get screwed by these chicks.”

  “Don’t talk about her like that,” I immediately snap at Farris.

  “I don’t understand why you’re still defending her.” He plops onto the couch as I make my way over to the table. Our house is an open concept, everything just flows right into everything else. Farris picked it because you could play beer pong in the dining room while watching TV.

  “I don’t understand fucking anything about this. I don’t know what happened. One minute I was making out with her on top of the Ferris wheel, the next I'm trying to introduce her to Gregory …”

  “Gregory Stamkos? Fuck, that dude is the worst.”

  “Huh?” I never realized Farris even knew who he was.

  “I mean, I have been known to be a classless asshole sometimes and I love one-night stands, but the girls always know what they’re signing up for.”

  “Wait. Backup. What are you talking about?” My fork has now dropped carelessly onto the plate, my appetite all but vanished. What is he talking about?

  “Dude, you never heard the story about what that asshat and his friends did our senior year?” Miles finishes his beer and crushes the can, tossing it into the growing pile next to the pile of shoes. We have to make a chore list or something.

  “No?” My stomach starts to turn as if it subconsciously knows whatever he tells me next is not going to be good.

  “Jesus, you really didn’t do anything that year but bang Allison, did you? The whole school, shit the whole town heard about this. Well, he and some of those dickhead lacrosse players made a bet at the beginning of the year. They all picked out one sophomore girl and whoever could get their sophomore to sleep with them first won the bet.” Nausea begins to roll up into my throat at this point. “Well, Gregory, he led this girl on so bad. He took her on dates around town, held her hand at school and brought her to parties. Meanwhile, like the entire school knew exactly what was going on, except the girls they were using. So, after winter formal, he brings her to one of Hinkley’s parties and convinces her to lose her virginity to him in one of the upstairs bedrooms. He wins the bet. Then Monday he dumps her in front of the whole school by pinning the underwear she’d worn, special for him, to her locker. Fucking prick. I shoulda knocked his teeth in then.”

  My stomach is at the bottom of my feet. I can feel myself drenched in a cold sweat, but I’m locked in this position. I can’t move. I can barely breathe. I feel like I might blow chunks any second now, but the unshed tears in my eyes are causing me to blink so rapidly that I can’t think much about anything else.

  He fucking used her.

  He took her most cherished gift, stole it, and then threw her away like a filthy groupie.

  He threw away my beautiful, passionate, smart, breathtaking girl.

  Gregory ruined Minka.

  I don’t even realize I’ve picked up the plate until it smashes into the wall next to the front door.

  “WHAT THE FUCK?” Miles scrambles up off the couch like someone just came into our apartment spraying bullets. Looking around with panicked eyes, he zeroes in on me. “Axel, what the fuck are you doing?”

  I don’t think I’ll be able to speak past the bile rising in my throat and sheer fury in my veins, but I manage to. “It was her.”

  “What was her … oh. Fuck. Oh, shit. Jesus. Minka. That sop
homore was Minka?” He runs his hands through his hair as if he’s just playing this new scenario out in his head. “Dude, I swear I didn’t know it was her.”

  That I believe. “I know. I would castrate you for not telling me if you knew it was her.”

  Fuck. What the fuck do I do now? Then it dawns on me. I didn’t believe her.

  “I didn’t … I didn’t believe her.” My voice feels like shards of glass coming out of my windpipe.

  I grab the closest thing, my glass of OJ and throw it at the wall. A bright yellowish-orange stain coats the white paint, glass pieces clattering to the floor.

  “Okay! Enough throwing.” Farris moves over to me cautiously, as if I might pull a ninja move on him at any moment.

  He pushes me down onto the couch. I think I must still be in shock, because I can’t seem to move myself.

  “Now, start from the beginning.” Miles stares at me like I have three heads.

  “At the fair. Gregory showed up. I wanted to introduce Minka as my girlfriend. Show how proud I was. When she saw him, she freaked out. She froze and then broke into a run toward the parking lot.” My voice sounds hoarse as I recount that night. Fuck, I am such an idiot. “She told me this story when I took her to the beach. About how sophomore year she’d been led on by this guy and he’d humiliated her in front of the whole school. She didn’t go into all of the specifics. And apparently, I had my fucking head up my ass that year that I didn’t put two and two together. When I caught up with her in the parking lot, she told me the guy was Greg.”

  I have to pause. My omelet was coming back up. I thought I was about to lose it all over the coffee table.

  “And … I. Fuck. I told her it couldn’t have been him. I told her she’d made a mistake.”

  I ball my hands into fists. I want to punch myself in the fucking nuts right now.