Thousand Words

by Jennifer Brown

  “Sure. I’m going to take another shower first. And maybe a nap.”

  She wrinkled her forehead and slipped the glasses off again. “You sure you’re fine?”

  “Frog fur, Mom. Totally.”

  In fact, I was better than frog fur. After the day I’d had with Kaleb, I was so much better.

  I trudged up the stairs to my room, my thighs aching from yesterday’s run, my whole body feeling wrung out and dehydrated, but I totally didn’t care. I kicked off my flip-flops as I shut the door, then fired up my laptop to check my email.

  I had a message from my friend Sarah, whose brother Nate was on Kaleb’s baseball team.

  It was one sentence.

  A sentence I would never forget, no matter how long I lived.

  HEY NATE SAID HE SAW A PIC OF YOU NAKED YESTERDAY.

  DAY 10

  COMMUNITY SERVICE

  “Tina wants you to meet with Kaleb,” Dad said by way of greeting when I slid into his car after school. I paused, one leg still hanging out the door.

  “What?” I hadn’t heard my lawyer’s name since my court date.

  Dad put the car into drive, and I pulled my leg in and shut the door, wrapping the seat belt around myself.

  “But I thought the judge wanted us all to stay away from each other,” I said. “I’m not supposed to have anything to do with him. Did something happen?”

  Dad checked his rearview mirror and pulled into traffic. “Apparently, there is an apology involved. I believe Kaleb’s attorney is looking to set it up. I don’t know if maybe he’s trying to work a plea in his case or something.”

  My heart thudded in my chest. I hadn’t seen Kaleb since the day I slammed his truck door and walked away. I hadn’t heard from him since that last, ugly phone call. I’d thought about him lots of times, about how his life had changed, about whether or not he’d decided if everything that had happened was worth it. I’d wondered if he was happy with the way this had all turned out.

  Happy.

  I remembered when Kaleb and I were happy. Before all the fighting, before all the… everything.

  I thought about us curling up against each other on the bus to and from meets. It didn’t matter then that he was two years older than I was. Nobody thought twice about it. We were happy. Even after everything that had happened, I still couldn’t look at those moments as something bad. Those moments between us were good no matter what. Surely he still saw them as good, too.

  “When?” I asked.

  “Well, I haven’t agreed to it yet,” Dad said. “I wanted to make sure you were okay with it. Certainly, I have my own opinions about what he owes you, but if you don’t want to see him, I would understand that.”

  I thought it over. After a day like today, cowering in the library during lunch, walking down the hallways alone while Vonnie and Cheyenne and Annie and all the people I’d once called my friends were joking and laughing and forgetting about me, knowing I would get crap from Kenzie and Angel while doing community service, did I really want to see him? Would an apology feel like enough? Or would I end up feeling sorry for him? I was so not ready to feel sorry for him.

  But I decided that he really did owe me an apology, and even if it was meant to help him reach some plea deal, I wanted to hear it. “Where?”

  Dad shrugged, turning into the Central Office parking lot. “I’m not sure. At the courthouse, I suppose. Or maybe at the police station. I’d have to talk to Tina about that.” He sounded tired of the subject. The media had continued to hound him over this. He’d been embarrassed, publicly, and I’d even read that some members of the community were going to be at the next board meeting, demanding he step down as superintendent or that the board fire him. He hadn’t mentioned any of this at home; I only knew about it from my own research, and I was afraid to bring it up with him.

  Mom, too, was tight-lipped about everything that was going on. She put on a smile every evening when I got home. We cooked dinner together, like always. She talked about her kids and about the owner of the preschool, who sometimes drove her nuts. But we never talked about what had happened with the photo. We never talked about what was still happening, with the community service and with Dad. And she never asked me if I was fine anymore. I guessed she already knew the answer to that question.

  Or maybe she didn’t care. Maybe she figured if I wasn’t fine, it was my own fault.

  “Would you go with me?” I asked Dad now.

  He eased the car into his parking spot and turned it off. “It might be best if Mom went with you to this one, Ash,” he said. He didn’t sound angry or upset, just weary and afraid. “I’m not sure how close I should be to this now. And I don’t know if I could trust myself to be in the same room with him.”

  I understood where he was coming from. He probably wanted to beat the crap out of Kaleb, and the last thing he needed was the media breaking yet another story involving the Chesterton Public Schools superintendent, this time about him assaulting someone in a courthouse. Especially someone who was trying to apologize. Dad didn’t need to look like he was coming unhinged on top of everything else.

  We opened our doors, letting the fresh fall air tumble in on us. I took a deep breath, readying myself for another session of community service. “Okay,” I said. “Tell her I’ll meet with him. It might be good to hear him admit what he did.”

  And I realized how true that statement really was. How much I wanted, after months of denials and lies, to finally hear Kaleb admit that he’d betrayed me. In some ways, that was all I’d ever wanted from him.

  It was too little, too late, but it was something.

  The first thing I noticed when I walked into room 104 was that we’d gotten a new kid in Teens Talking. It didn’t take long for Kenzie to let everyone know that his name was Cord and that he was there for drugs.

  “Total bullshit, though,” she whispered to Angel, loudly enough for everyone in the room to hear her. “His principal said he was selling in the parking lot, but nobody ever actually caught him doing it. They searched his locker and everything. Finally, like the third time they searched his car, they found a plastic Baggie and they all starting crying dope on him. I mean, he’s been selling since seventh grade, but they didn’t have no proof, because he’s that good at hiding it.”

  “Shit, how do you know, anyway?” Darrell said, taking a really long time at Mrs. Mosely’s desk with the stapler. Mrs. Mosely had stepped out, leaving all of us alone, including Cord, who was sitting a couple of computers down from me, listening to his iPod. “You don’t know nothing.”

  “Bullshit I don’t know nothing,” Kenzie shot back. I turned in my chair and could see that the backs of her ears had gone scarlet and she was waving a pair of scissors idly in the air in front of her. Not a threat, but close enough for Darrell to get the hint. “My friend goes to that school and she bought from him all the time.” At this point, Kenzie was no longer whispering, and I shot a glance at Cord, who seemed to be oblivious. Which was probably a good thing. I didn’t know what they’d do to you if you got in a fight in community service on your first day, but it couldn’t be good.

  Darrell chuckled. “Your ‘friend,’ ” he said, making quote marks with his fingers. “Right, whatever.”

  “Yeah, whatever,” Kenzie said.

  “Why don’t you lay off, Darrell?” Angel said, but she said it quietly. Everybody knew Angel and Darrell were friends and had been for a long time. “It ain’t about you, anyways.”

  He glanced at Angel and shook his head. “Kenzie, you’re always so full of it. You think you know everything about everything,” he said, but he finally snapped the stapler shut on his papers and ambled back to his computer. “Don’t know shit,” he mumbled as he scooted his chair in.

  “That’s right, keep talking, Darrell,” Kenzie said, then added something under her breath, and she and Angel cracked up.

  I went back to my computer, glad nobody had tried to drag me into this. I’d had my share of exchanges with Ke
nzie—she was always calling me Supermodel and making little comments about getting texts about me. I wished she would finish up that pamphlet or have her baby so she would leave and we could all get some peace.

  Mrs. Mosely came back into the room and checked her watch. “Anyone need a restroom break?”

  We all got up, like we did every day. Whether you had to use the restroom or not, sometimes the break was needed simply to rest your eyes from the computer or your ears from Kenzie.

  We headed down the hallway en masse. Kenzie and Angel made a beeline for the women’s restroom, and Darrell ducked into the men’s room. Cord stood over by a bulletin board, staring up at it as if it was the most interesting thing he’d ever seen in his life. And Mack went for the candy machine back under the stairs, as he always did.

  I wandered near the stairwell, mostly wasting time, but also looking in toward the candy machine. Other than telling Kenzie and Angel to leave me alone, I had never heard Mack utter a word. Day after day, he sat quietly in his chair, clicking, clicking, clicking his mouse, earbuds in his ears. Mrs. Mosely never asked how his project was going. She never offered to read his work. She never gave him any advice. Not even when she was standing at my computer, her shoulder literally rubbing up against his.

  I wondered about Mack. A lot. I wondered what his story was, and how come his was pretty much the only story Kenzie didn’t seem to know. Or at least the only story she didn’t blab around to everyone else, if she did know.

  I watched his shadow as he put coins into the machine and punched some buttons. The denim of his jacket had worn away at one elbow, and his skin, white and pasty, poked through. His pants rode low and were filthy and torn up at the cuffs.

  “Want some Hot Tamales?” he asked, and at first I didn’t realize he was talking to me.

  “Huh?”

  He didn’t turn around, but repeated, “Want some Hot Tamales?” and then added, “I’ve got extra quarters if you want something.”

  “Oh.” I took a couple of steps forward, pushing my hair behind my ears. “Okay. Sure.”

  He plugged a couple of quarters into the machine and pressed buttons. A box of Hot Tamales rattled to the bottom, and he bent to retrieve it. He held it out to me, doing all of this without ever making eye contact.

  “Thanks.” I took the box and tore it open.

  “No problem.” He ripped into his box and tossed his chin up, pouring a few candies right into his mouth. I could smell the cinnamon.

  I wasn’t sure what to say to him. I knew so little about him, it seemed impossible to start a sentence. I was curious, but I didn’t want to start prying into his life, asking him a bunch of questions. I liked my anonymity, such as it was, and hated it when Kenzie took it upon herself to talk about my business, so who was I to dig into someone else’s personal life?

  But I felt like an idiot standing there eating candy and saying nothing, so I asked the least invasive question I could think of.

  “You go to Chesterton?”

  “Not anymore.”

  “Oh.”

  The bathroom doors swished open, and I heard conversation bubbling in the background. In a way, it felt like Mack and I were in a little hiding place in the shadows under the stairs, away from everyone, away from all the drama.

  “You used to, though?” I asked.

  He nodded, chewing. “Until a few months ago. We had domestic arts together in ninth grade. You were partners with that Vonnie girl.”

  “She’s my best friend. Well… sort of,” I corrected. I’d seen Vonnie in the hallway earlier that day. She’d been walking with Will Mabry and he’d had his arm around her. I’d waved to her, wondering when that had happened, when she’d gotten so close to Will, and why she hadn’t called me to tell me about it, but she didn’t see me wave—or at least I didn’t think she saw me—and had walked right on by.

  “She’s kind of a snot,” Mack said. “You should get a better best friend.”

  I wanted to defend Vonnie, to tell him that she was a great best friend. But at the moment I couldn’t do it. I didn’t know where Vonnie and I stood. I didn’t know if she was mad at me, or if I should be mad at her, and I didn’t know if she was still friends with Rachel, which seemed like an impossible barrier between us, even if I could understand that Vonnie felt torn between the two of us after what had happened. It was weird the way Vonnie and I weren’t hanging out together anymore. It was like after everything had gone down, she’d moved on without me. She didn’t seem mad; she just seemed uninterested.

  “We probably should get back before Mosely freaks out on us,” I said.

  He chuckled. “Mosely’s all right,” he mumbled, and with that he slid past me and out into the hallway, holding his box of Hot Tamales casually in one hand and completely ignoring Darrell when he tried to get some from him.

  I stood in the shadows for a minute longer. What did he mean, I should get a better best friend? And why couldn’t I remember this guy if we’d been in the same high school together? Especially if we’d been in the same class together?

  But by the time I unrooted my feet and followed him, Mack was already at his computer, earbuds in place.

  AUGUST

  Message 73

  Hey girl I don’t know if you know this or

  whatever but a whole bunch of people are talking

  about you. Something about a picture…?

  You know what’s going on?

  I called Kaleb as soon as I read Sarah’s email about her brother seeing the picture I’d sent the night before. My hands shook around the phone. What if it got out? Kaleb had asked at the lake. Was he asking because he knew it already had?

  “Miss me already?” He was still in his truck, driving.

  “Oh my God, Kaleb, how did Nate see my picture?”

  Silence, except for the rattle of the truck hitting bumps on the road. “Huh? What do you mean?”

  “Sarah sent me an email saying Nate saw a picture of me naked. Did you show it to him?”

  “No. He didn’t see it. There’s no way. I didn’t show anybody.”

  “Did you tell him about it?”

  “Well, yeah, but… I swear I didn’t show it to anybody.”

  My eyes burned. “You told him about it? Did you tell all the guys?”

  Another beat of silence. I heard the distant sound of brakes squeaking, the ambient noise of the truck movement fading away. He was stopping. “Don’t make a huge deal out of it, Ash.”

  “It is a huge deal to me. I didn’t send that picture to you so you could show it around.”

  “I didn’t show it around. I already told you that.”

  “Then how come Nate says he saw it? God, Kaleb, we had such a fun day, too.”

  “I don’t know why he’s saying that. I have no idea, really.” He paused, and it sounded like he’d started moving again. “Listen, I’ve got to go. Don’t make a big deal about it. I’ll talk to Nate and figure out what’s going on. Call you later, okay?”

  I closed my eyes and rubbed my temple with my fingers. I didn’t believe him. And I’d never had that feeling with Kaleb before. I’d never not trusted him. But somehow I knew he was lying. And I hated that I was now feeling so angry at him after having such a good day together.

  “Okay,” I said.

  “I love you, Ash. I’m the only one who saw that picture.”

  “Okay,” I repeated again, unable to wrap my mouth around the words “I love you,” because the only word that my lips wanted to form was “bull.”

  I hung up and sat on my bed for a while, my eyes glued to Sarah’s email.

  HEY NATE SAID HE SAW A PIC OF YOU NAKED YESTERDAY.

  I stared at those words hard, hoping they would mix and jumble and move around and spell out something different. That they wouldn’t be saying what I was afraid of: Your boyfriend’s a liar who betrayed you.

  I heard the front door open and close, the muffled tones of my parents’ voices. Dad was home and Mom had probably ambushed him
from the den. Soon the smell of dinner would be wafting up to my room and they’d be expecting me to come down.

  The scent of the lake water in my hair was suddenly making me nauseous. I groaned and forced myself to get up and take a shower. Only this time I avoided looking in the mirror.

  Nate was still at Chesterton. So were two other guys on Kaleb’s team. What if they really had seen the picture? I would die every time I saw them in the hallway.

  I leaned into the steaming shower spray and willed myself to believe Kaleb. Forced myself to trust that this was no big deal. That Kaleb had bragged to the team about what I’d sent him, and Nate was just being a guy about it. Guys lied about sex all the time. Why wouldn’t Nate lie about this? He was probably jealous. He was totally the type to get all envious and then act like he had a part in it somehow.

  By the time I got out of the shower, the water was running cold and I’d mostly convinced myself that everything was okay. It would all be fine.

  I dressed and headed downstairs, where the smell of chicken curry was so strong it practically singed my nose hairs.

  “There she is,” my dad said from his spot at the table, his forehead barely peeking out above the top of an open newspaper. It was his evening ritual. Come home, talk Mom down from whatever preschool crisis had her worked up, change into a pair of what he called lounge pants, although they were just a pair of soft, worn khakis, sit down at the kitchen table with the newspaper, and gripe to Mom about the articles while she cooked dinner.

  “Hi, Dad.” I leaned over the newspaper and kissed his cheek, trying to shrug off the embarrassed feeling that was edging its way in, as if he knew about the photo, too. I knew it wasn’t possible, but a few hours ago, I would have said it was impossible that Nate knew about it.

  “What did you do today?” Dad asked.

  I thought about Kaleb and me making out on his uncle’s boat, and my embarrassment deepened. I looked down, afraid I was blushing. “Lake” was all I answered.

  “With Vonnie?”