Thousand Words

by Jennifer Brown

  I nodded. “We broke up.”

  Principal Adams got a deep furrow between his eyebrows when I said that. “He’s eighteen, I take it?”

  I nodded. I didn’t understand how Kaleb mattered at all, given that he no longer went to Chesterton High, but it must have mattered to them, because Principal Adams and Mrs. Westlie exchanged a look.

  “Ashleigh, how did he get this photo of you in the first place?” she asked, and I was sure my lips wouldn’t move around the words, I was so humiliated. I took a deep breath to abate the tears.

  “I took it,” I said. “I sent it to him.”

  “Do you know who else has the text?” she asked.

  Again I shook my head. “A lot of people,” I said, and Principal Adams got a pained expression on his face.

  He straightened up in his chair. “The parents who called me all have freshman students,” he said. “And this morning Mrs. Martinez said she had to confiscate the phones of three sophomores. She said they were passing around a text of a naked student. Some other teachers have complained about increased cell phone use in their classrooms as well. Do you realize, Ashleigh, how disruptive this text has been? And these parents aren’t going to go away. They want suspension.”

  I sat up straighter, alarmed. Parents had seen the photo. Teachers had seen it. Suspension. My dad would kill me. My mom would be so disappointed. She’d want to know what had happened. They both would. “Please don’t tell my parents,” I begged, and the tears started anew, because I couldn’t believe I was at the point of begging the principal to keep a secret this big from my parents. “Please. I’ll do Saturday school or something, but if you tell my parents… My dad is the superintendent.”

  “I know exactly who your dad is, Ashleigh, and I’m sorry, but it’s too late. I’ve already talked to him about this problem we’re having, and he asked me to forward the text. I had to warn him about what he was going to see. He already knows about your involvement.”

  At that moment, I could have sworn that the floor dropped about a thousand feet, my chair sailing down into a black hole. Things began to get grainy, and I must have swooned or something, because Mrs. Westlie reached over and put her hand on my shoulder.

  “Are you feeling ill?” she asked.

  I doubled over in my chair. My dad had seen the text. I wanted to die right then and there.

  “Ashleigh,” she said, shaking me a little. “Do you need to lie down in the nurse’s office for a minute?”

  I shook my head. I must have, because I saw the room sweep back and forth in front of my eyes, and my stomach was sinking, sinking, sinking, giving me a strange sense of vertigo.

  They talked to each other for a few minutes, and I could make out enough through my daze to understand that they were talking about the logistics of my suspension. They were making decisions about what to do with this “situation” that I had caused. But in my head all I heard was a buzzing, droning noise that must have been the numbness reaching my brain, and it sounded like a horde of cicadas calling out what a horrible person I was: Slut up for grabs! Slut up for grabs! Slut up for grabs!

  Finally, Principal Adams turned to me and said, “Right now we’re going to put you on an indefinite suspension, just until we get a hold on this situation. We’re going to get to the bottom of how this photo got passed around, too. Do you have any idea who might have sent it, other than your boyfriend?”

  “He’s my ex-boyfriend,” I said through cold and dry lips. “And Nate. Nate Chisolm sent it, too, I’m pretty sure.”

  “The sophomore?”

  “Yes. He played baseball with Kaleb.”

  And again they shared a look. Mrs. Westlie closed her eyes and shook her head pityingly.

  Principal Adams stood up. “Mrs. Westlie will take you to your locker to get your things. We’ve called your dad to come get you.”

  Tears started up again as I stood and followed her down the hall to my locker. I pulled out my jacket and a couple of books and pushed everything else inside. I hated not knowing how long I’d be gone, how behind I’d be when I got back. If I got back. Would it be possible that I’d be gone for the rest of the year? That I’d have to switch schools? Retake my junior year?

  “I need to get my cross-country things,” I said, and Mrs. Westlie walked me down to the field house, then stayed outside the locker room while I went in. I pulled my gym bag out and stuffed all of my laundry, and my extra pair of running shoes, into it.

  Coach Igo was in her office when I passed by to leave.

  “I understand you won’t be participating in this week’s meet,” she called out. I stopped, stepped inside. The glare of the locker room lights hurt my irritated eyes, made them feel puffy.

  “No, I guess not.”

  “You have your lock?”

  “I left it on my locker. I’m taking everything home to wash while I’m”—I couldn’t make myself say it, couldn’t say suspended—“gone.”

  She looked back down to the book she was notating. “Go get it,” she said.

  “Coach?”

  She looked up. “Go get your lock and bring it to me.” I stood there trying to make sense of what she was saying. “Playing a sport is a privilege, not a right. You lost that privilege. You’re off the team.”

  For a moment, this seemed so surreal, there was no possible way it was actually happening to me. Surely I hadn’t been suspended indefinitely and kicked off the cross-country team all in the space of ten minutes. It wasn’t possible.

  Coach stood up, her chair making an awful metallic screeching sound on the floor, and checked her watch. “Hurry, I’ve got a class starting in ten minutes.”

  I marched back through the locker room and dialed the combination on the lock I’d been given by the school my freshman year, when I first made the team. I pulled it off, for the last time, and handed it to Coach. She gave me a semisympathetic look.

  “I’ve known you for a while now, Ashleigh, and something tells me this whole thing was an accident or somehow got out of your control.”

  I nodded.

  “But that doesn’t change the fact that you made the poor decision that set it all in motion.”

  “I know.” Boy, did I ever know. And know and know and know.

  “And you know the rules of play. If your grades drop or you get into any trouble in the classroom, you’re off the team. No exceptions. I have to do it.”

  She bounced the lock in her palm a few times, and if I hadn’t known better, I would have thought she almost felt kind of bad about kicking me off the team.

  Mrs. Westlie appeared, the clack of her heels echoing off the lockers. She poked her head around the corner. “Ashleigh? You ready? Your dad is here. He’s in the office waiting for you.”

  Hell no, I wasn’t ready. I would never be ready to face him. I still had no idea how I would do it. But I knew I couldn’t stand here in the girls’ locker room forever, hoping he’d go away. Eventually he’d come in here and find me. And then he’d be super-pissed—like he wasn’t super-pissed already.

  “I’m sorry, Coach,” I said.

  “I’m sorry, too, Ashleigh. You’re a good runner.” She shook her head sadly, which only made me feel worse.

  I followed Mrs. Westlie out of the locker room. There were several boys in the gym, bouncing basketballs, and some of them stopped and watched me as I walked out. Somehow this was worse than the name-calling—the silent, curious stares. I knew what they were thinking now—they were glad it wasn’t them being escorted out of the school, and they couldn’t wait to gossip to their friends that they’d seen it happen to me.

  Dad didn’t say anything to me on the way home. We sat in complete and utter silence, which was somehow worse than if he’d been lecturing me. What had started out as a way to get Kaleb’s attention now loomed between us in the front seat of Dad’s car, big and ugly and dense.

  When we got home, Dad got out of the car and disappeared into the house, leaving me behind. I sat in silence for a few m
inutes, listening to the ticking and clicking of the engine cooling off, then gathered my things and went inside, racing straight to my room and locking the door. I half-expected Dad to come storming in at any moment, ready to rage at me, but he never did. I sat on my bed, miserably deleting texts and watching the sun get lower in the sky as the afternoon wore on.

  My phone rang. It was Vonnie. I could hear the squeak of shoes on the gym floor as her teammates warmed up. “I told Coach I have cramps, so she’s letting me take five,” she whispered into the phone. “But I heard you got suspended so I wanted to make sure you’re okay.”

  “I guess.”

  “Did your dad freak out?”

  “Not yet,” I said. “He’s going to kill me.”

  I heard a whistle, and Vonnie’s voice went lower. “He’ll get over it. It’s not like you’re the first person to ever get in trouble. He’ll be mad, probably yell at you for a while, and then he’ll forget about it.”

  “I doubt that,” I said, then paused. “I’m sorry. About the fight. I was acting like a jerk.”

  “No big. I mean, I don’t love that you think this was all my fault, but it’s okay. You’re stressed. I get it.”

  “I don’t think it’s all your fault, Von.”

  “I probably didn’t help things with the shaving cream,” she said.

  “Probably not,” I agreed. “By the way, I got kicked off cross-country, too.”

  “Nuh-uh!”

  “Yep. My life is basically over. I have nothing. No Kaleb—not that I want him, anyway—no school, no cross-country. I’ll be grounded for life, I’m sure. I don’t even have my dignity anymore.”

  “I’m sorry, Buttercup.” She paused. “But you’ve got great boobs. Everyone knows that.” She chuckled, her breath making a whoosh into the phone, and when I didn’t laugh, she asked, “Too soon?”

  “Maybe a little.” But I smiled in spite of myself. Somehow joking about it made it feel the tiniest bit like it was not the end of the world.

  There was some muffled talking in the background and Vonnie’s voice, also muffled as if she was covering the phone with her hand, answered. “I know something that might make you feel better. Or worse. I don’t know. And then I’ve gotta go.”

  “What?”

  “Some other people got suspended today, too.”

  “Who?”

  “Nate Chisolm,” she said. “And that Silas kid, because they were the ones who started the whole thing. They’re saying Kaleb sent it to Nate and told him to have fun and do whatever he wanted with it. They’re in big trouble.”

  “Good,” I said.

  Vonnie paused. “And Rachel.”

  “Rachel who?”

  “Wellby.”

  I couldn’t believe my ears. Rachel, the one who was so offended that I’d said she was partially to blame for talking me into taking the picture? Rachel, the one who thought it was no big deal because her brother’s slutty freshman girlfriend did it all the time? Rachel, the one who was so traumatized by being asked if we were lovers?

  “What for?”

  “You sure you want to know?”

  “I don’t know—do I?”

  “Probably not.” Vonnie paused again and I could hear the slam of a bathroom stall door. “She’s the one who attached your name and phone number to the text.”

  “What? Are you kidding me?”

  “I wish I was. And don’t be mad at me… but I kinda guessed it was her all along, because she sent it to me when she did it. She’s such a twit to think I wouldn’t mind. But she says she wasn’t trying to be mean or anything. It was supposed to be a joke.”

  “You knew? When we were talking about it at lunch, you knew and didn’t say anything?”

  “I know. I’m a horrible friend. If it makes you feel any better, I didn’t know for sure then. But someone turned her in to Principal Adams. She’s in deep shit.”

  I was so angry, I didn’t have any words. My lips were pressed tightly together and my ears felt hot. Quickly, her voice echoing off the locker room walls, Vonnie filled me in on all the details about how, during sixth period, Principal Adams got on the intercom and told the teachers to confiscate any cell phones that were out, and how Mrs. Blankenship took like half the class’s cell phones. And how people were seriously pissed and were threatening that their parents were going to call and complain about it, because they paid for those cell phones and they weren’t the school’s property to take.

  “Oh, and a woman was hanging around the front doors of the school talking to Principal Adams after school let out, and people were saying she’s a reporter,” Vonnie finished.

  My mind whirled. I tried to take it all in, but it was too much. On one hand, it felt good to not be the only one in trouble anymore. But on the other hand, I was still humiliated and would still have to face my parents. I would still have to face everyone at school again eventually. I would still have to face Rachel, and would Vonnie expect me to play nice with her? Probably. She says she wasn’t trying to be mean or anything, Vonnie had been quick to point out, which sounded to me like she was defending her friend. But who would defend me? Vonnie? The longer this went on, the less likely that looked. And even if she did, if you’re the kind of person who defends everyone, does your defense really mean anything?

  Vonnie went back to practice and I hung up, flopping on my bed and staring at the ceiling, my phone clutched to my chest. If there ever was a situation that had gotten out of control, this was it. People were going down fast, and I wondered how much worse it would get before it got any better. Finally, my mom called for me. I was about to find out how much worse it would get in my house, anyway.

  They hadn’t turned on the lights yet, and it was getting close to evening outside, making the whole den shadowy and frightening. At least in a darkened room I wouldn’t have to face the humiliation of meeting their eyes.

  I walked in and sat down in the chair closest to the door without them even asking.

  “You are in so much trouble,” my dad started, and the tone of his voice was downright scary. I didn’t think I had ever heard his voice sound so slithery in my entire life. I didn’t answer him. I felt like silence was the right move.

  “Ashleigh, what on earth?” my mom chimed in, and her voice sounded much closer to tears. For some reason, that scared me even more.

  “I’m sorry, Mom,” I said.

  “Sorry?” Dad boomed. “You’re sorry? You think saying you’re sorry is going to fix this? This is no minor thing, Ashleigh. This is going to stick to you like glue for a long, long time. Did you know a reporter came to the school today? She already knew that you were my daughter. Someone had told her. For God’s sake, Ashleigh, are you trying to ruin me?”

  “No, Dad, I didn’t ever mean for any of this to happen.” Even though I tried to stay silent, and even though I didn’t think there were any more tears left, words and tears spilled out of me. I knew it would only enrage him more, but I couldn’t help myself.

  “I’ve got this pain-in-the-ass board president up in my face all the time,” he was saying, “and as if that’s not enough, now I’ve got a sexting scandal in my school district.”

  Mom made a whimpering noise at the word “sexting.”

  “And as if that isn’t enough, the person whose naked picture is causing parents to breathe fire down my neck is my own daughter!”

  The last three words boomed out of his mouth so loudly I thought I heard pictures rattle against the walls around me. I winced.

  “Well, if it makes you feel any better, my life sucks right now, too, Dad. Everyone is making fun of me and calling me names. This has been the worst day of my life, do you even care?”

  “You brought that on yourself!” he shouted. “So I have little sympathy.”

  “Roy, calm down. Shouting at her isn’t going to make anything better,” Mom said in that same weird, wavery voice.

  “I know that. You know how I know that? Because nothing… nothing is going to make this
better,” he said. “I’ve already gotten a dozen phone calls today, wanting to know what I’m going to do about this. And I can’t tell them, because all I can think about is that photograph that I will never be able to get out of my head, Ashleigh. I will never be able to unsee it. Thank you for that.” He paced in the small space between Mom’s desk and the doorway.

  “I’m sorry, Dad. It was a stupid mistake. What more do you want me to say? I only meant for Kaleb to see it.”

  “Don’t say his name,” Dad said, his teeth clenched. “Don’t even say that little son of a bitch’s name.”

  “Were you two having sex?” Mom interjected.

  “No, I swear, we never did.”

  “Of course they were,” Dad answered. “You can’t believe her, Dana, after what she’s done.”

  “Give her a chance,” Mom said. “She’s never lied to us before.”

  “That we know of.”

  “I’m not lying,” I said.

  But Dad wasn’t having any of it. He was so angry, all he could do was yell and seethe. “I don’t care. I don’t care about that right now. I care about what’s going to happen next. What do you think I should do, Ashleigh? I’d love to hear your thoughts, since this is your mess.”

  “What do you mean? I got suspended.”

  “That’s not going to be enough. These people are really angry. We’ve got a major problem on our hands, and I don’t think you understand how major. There’s going to have to be more. They’re going to call for more. Publicly. That reporter isn’t going away.”

  More? How was suspending me and three other people not enough? How was kicking me off the cross-country team and taking me away from my friends and from school not enough? I hadn’t killed anybody. I hadn’t even hurt anybody. I’d made a stupid mistake and it had gotten out of hand, and I was already so mortified. How could people want more? And what kind of more would they want, anyway?

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t know what you mean by more.”

  “Well, for one thing, we’ll start by taking your cell phone,” Mom added, and the shadows had gotten so deep at this point, I really couldn’t even see her face back there behind her computer monitor. “Clearly, you can’t use texts appropriately.”