Damaged Goods

by J. C. Hannigan

  “Oh.” My stomach rolled nervously at the thought. I had met her parents once before. They were nice enough, but Mr. Garcia could be very intimidating. I understood why she didn’t want to make them angry; I wouldn’t want to make my parents angry, either. Then again, I wasn’t completely afraid to talk to them about things. Of course, I kept many secrets. I thought about Grayson, almost blushing. There were things that I wouldn’t—and couldn’t—tell my parents, so I could understand where Alicia was coming from.

  She was also dealing with a lot more than me. Maybe I would have a different relationship with my parents if I was dealing with the same things that Alicia was dealing with. I couldn’t imagine the isolation she must have been feeling.

  “Alicia?” I asked, staring at her hands. She was picking apart fries, not eating a thing. “Could I talk to you about something?”

  Sensing it was serious, she looked up at me warily. “If it’s anything about that…I’d rather not. If you’ve got a problem, then sure. I’d like to focus on someone else’s problems instead of my own for a change.”

  “Well, it is a concern of mine,” I admitted, still watching as she tore apart yet another fry. I hesitated, not really knowing where to begin.

  “Go on. Is it Grayson?” Alicia’s eyes widened with concern. I shook my head, and the wariness returned to her eyes.

  “I’ve been worried about…your eating habits,” I finally said, almost wincing when the last word fell from my lips. Her expression went from wary to completely closed-off; her eyes narrowed at me and her lips all but disappeared into a thin line.

  “My eating habits?” she repeated dully, blinking.

  “It’s just…you haven’t really been eating lately, and you’ve lost a lot of weight. Aubrey and I are both worried.”

  “You and Aubrey need to lay off,” Alicia responded, her tone angry. “I’m fine. I’m just stressed out.”

  I nodded, biting my lip. I ignored her short, snappy tone. “If you need to talk about stuff, we are here…okay?”

  I instantly regretted dragging Aubrey into it, but it was the truth: Aubrey was also worried about Alicia. I knew she was even more worried after today; we both were. We had never seen Alicia get angry like that before. She was generally an easy-going, friendly person—or at least she had been.

  Recently, she was quiet, sullen and moody. I could only attribute her change of behavior to her confusing feelings for Lindsay.

  “Yeah, whatever. Thanks,” she muttered, standing up. She swept all her torn up French fries back into the carton, then walked purposely over to the garbage pail. She didn’t look back at me as she disappeared into the back.

  * * *

  The next day, there was no Grayson on my front porch. I begrudgingly headed to my bus stop, silently fuming about the fact that I hadn’t seen nor heard from Grayson since yesterday, when I watched him stomp off down the hallway after first period.

  I wasn’t mad at him per se, but I was anxiously over-analyzing what this meant. Maybe it was too soon for him to officially meet my parents. Maybe he was pulling his same old Grayson disappearing act again. Sure, last time he’d had a good excuse—a damn good one—but Grayson disappearing had been ongoing for as long as I’d known him.

  I stewed about it the entire bumpy bus ride to school. It was a cloudy, rainy day, which did nothing to improve my sullen outlook.

  Between a strained, almost unbearable shift with Alicia, the drama of the fight the day before, and Grayson’s total radio silence, I was not a very happy camper when the bus pulled up to the school. I followed the trail of students as they descended the bus, impatient and on edge.

  Only Aubrey was waiting for me in our usual spot. She looked just as happy as I did.

  “Well, good morning.” I raised my eyebrows in question. She smiled thinly in response. “What happened?” I demanded with a sigh.

  “Oh you know, Lindsay.” Aubrey shrugged, frowning slightly. She shook her head to clear her thoughts. “What about you?”

  “Alicia,” I replied, sighing again. “I saw her last night at work. I tried to talk to her about the food thing…”

  “And?”

  “And she was not very happy to talk about that. She insists she’s fine, that she is just stressed,” I answered, adjusting my bag as I stood. I ignored the bodies that occasionally jolted me from behind. The guilty culprits were mainly grade nines, too rushed to look where they were going.

  “Maybe she is,” Aubrey offered, looking doubtful.

  “Where is Lindsay? Should I even ask what she did?” I glanced toward the clock mounted above the main hallway. We still had five minutes before first bell rang.

  “She wouldn’t stop laughing about the whole Zoe thing, and I asked her how Zoe knew,” Aubrey explained, a harsh look to her usually soft eyes. “She got defensive and snippy with me, then stormed off because she knew I didn’t exactly buy her innocence.”

  “How did you know she wasn’t innocent?” I questioned. It was common for Lindsay to get defensive and snippy.

  “I can smell bullshit from a mile away,” Aubrey winked. “Besides, I know when Lindsay lies. She can’t look at you; she looks anywhere but at you.”

  I opened my mouth to tell Aubrey that I thought Lindsay was behind it too, but the bell rang, drowning out my words.

  “Sorry, what?”

  Lindsay walked out of the cafeteria with Kyle, Marcus, and Cam. She caught sight of Aubrey and me and turned her nose up, heading straight toward the stairwell without waiting for me to catch up. Marcus, Kyle, Aubrey and I remained by the cafeteria door.

  “What crawled up her butt?” Marcus frowned, watching her stomp off.

  “Me, apparently.” Aubrey shrugged. Marcus looked at her with warmth, grinning with repressed laughter. He put his arms around her, pulling her toward him.

  “I’ll see you at lunch,” he said, kissing her quickly. “Don’t crawl up anyone else’s butt, okay?”

  “I’ll try!” she answered, saluting him with a mischievous grin. “Catch you guys later!”

  Aubrey took off in the opposite direction to her Math class, while Kyle, Marcus and I followed the long gone Lindsay to History. She was already sitting at her desk, her head down as she doodled on a piece of paper.

  I sat down beside her, pulling out my History text book. “Hello, Lindsay,” I said, purposely looking at her.

  “Hi,” she muttered back, avoiding eye contact. She kept her focus on the page in front of her. I sighed, shaking my head as Kyle and Marcus exchanged a look with one another. Kyle shrugged, sitting down easily as if there wasn’t an awkward tension between Lindsay and everyone else.

  “So, tonight then,” Kyle said to me, his voice making Lindsay stiffen further beside me. “You’ll be at Marcus’s, right?”

  “After eight, yeah. I have a thing first,” I answered, trying to keep the doubt from my voice. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw that Grayson’s desk was still empty. An overwhelming rush of disappointment and dread overcame me. The tiny voice in my head hissed my fears at me: he’s just not that into you. I didn’t want to think about it, so I pushed those negative thoughts away, instead thinking about band practice.

  “Let me know if you need a ride,” Kyle told me. “I’m just a text away.”

  “I appreciate it,” I said, smiling tightly.

  The second bell rang, signaling the beginning of class. Mr. Richardson got up to close the classroom door and the click as it shut seemed to echo. Stop it, Everly, I thought, bitterly blinking away the disappointment I felt over his absence.

  I was angry at myself for how gutted I felt over not seeing Grayson that morning. He wasn’t even gone for that long this time. Hell, I didn’t even know if he had gone. I was truly pathetic.

  It was as if I was addicted to his presence. I tried to assure myself that wasn’t it, but somehow, it made sense. The rush I felt when around him, the high. An euphoria, an airy happiness that made me feel as if I floated weightlessly about. Then when
he wasn’t around, the crash and burn came. I would feel the tsunami of insecurities that his absence always seemed to leave in its wake.

  I had never tried drugs before, and I didn’t need to in order to understand that I was definitely addicted to Grayson. I also didn’t have the slightest idea over what I should do about it.

  I wallowed for an additional ten minutes before a knock on the classroom door silenced Mr. Richardson mid-lecture. He opened it, and Grayson walked in with a late slip.

  The relief I felt as his eyes found mine was staggering. He didn’t seem angry or closed off; he looked at me with relish, his eyes warming the blood in my veins. He kept eye contact until he sat down at his desk.

  I smiled in response to Grayson’s eyes on me. For the rest of class, all I could think about was the Grayson affect.

  It was embarrassing how easily he could make or break my day; how quickly my moods changed from sullen and depressed to light and airy. He was definitely a drug—an addiction. It was easy to hate my own addiction to him when he wasn’t around, but when he was I relished it.

  I loved how I felt when he was around, but I hated how I felt when he was gone…or when I thought he was gone. I didn’t want to be one of those girls who were so absorbed in someone else that she couldn’t function when he wasn’t near. I could function…just on a different level. Everything seemed brighter when he was around.

  At the end of class, Grayson stopped at our desk. He nodded curtly at Kyle and Marcus, then his eyes landed on me again as he waited for me to pack up.

  Lindsay had barely spoken all period. She didn’t make her usual, offhanded remarks. In fact, she wasn’t even looking like herself. The perpetually self-centered glow she usually had was gone. She seemed quiet. Agitated, even.

  “Are you okay?” I asked, momentarily ignoring Grayson.

  “I’m fine,” she replied, tossing her hair over her shoulder. She stood up, grabbed her books and sauntered off.

  I watched after her, stupefied by her behavior. I didn’t understand why Aubrey’s simple question could set her off so much. Unless she was guilty of telling Zoe, and now felt bad about it. Regardless, I’d have to find out later.

  “Tonight, okay?” Marcus reminded me, catching my eye before I left with Grayson. I nodded.

  “What’s tonight?” Grayson asked, his gravelly voice evoking further response from my body. My pulse increased and my palms grew damp.

  “Well, aside from me hoping that we could hang out for a bit, there’s a band practice at eight,” I replied, trying to keep my voice relaxed.

  Grayson nodded, inhaling deeply.

  “Unless you have other plans…” I trailed off, trying to quiet the frantic anxiety that bubbled in my chest at the less than thrilled expression on Grayson’s face. Was he less than thrilled about me wanting to hang out…or about band practice?

  “I don’t have any other plans,” Grayson promised me, his eyes narrowing at the tone of my voice.

  “Oh…good,” I said. We were standing across the hall from our History classroom, pretty much right in front of our lockers. Grayson was facing me, but a foot separated us.

  “I heard some interesting rumors,” Grayson told me, almost smiling. “Apparently, you got into a fight and kicked Zoe March’s ass.”

  “Not true.” I raised my finger. “Alicia got into a fight, and she slapped the smug, bitchy look right off Zoe’s face. I did no fighting.”

  “Didn’t think you would,” Grayson replied, shaking his head. “Why did Alicia slap her?”

  “Zoe was saying some cruel things,” I answered. Grayson raised an eyebrow, waiting for me to continue. “I’ll tell you later,” I said, pointedly looking around. He nodded.

  I could tell that Grayson wanted to kiss me from the way he was looking at my lips, but I knew he wouldn’t give in…not with the hallways as congested as they were.

  “I’ll see you after school?” I asked, breaking his gaze. He looked up and nodded, a small smile on his lips. “Maybe we could go to your place for a bit…” I added, smiling sensually.

  “Yeah, we’ll do that.” Grayson smirked, sending me another one of his coveted looks.

  * * *

  I kept one ear toward the rumors of what happened between Alicia and Zoe, waiting to hear the real reason come forth, but it never did. By the end of the day, interest in the whole situation had completely faded, to my relief.

  Lindsay, however, was a different story. She ignored us at lunch time, choosing to sit with Zoe and Kaylee. The significance of that was not lost on either Aubrey or me. Zoe and Kaylee kept glancing over to our table in the cafeteria, sneering. Lindsay completely avoided looking in our direction.

  I was relieved when the final bell rang; I was pretty much over Lindsay’s attitude. Grayson was waiting for me at my locker, but I had an errand to run first.

  The hallways were packed with students getting ready to leave for the day, but it didn’t stop me from stomping up to Lindsay as she stood at her locker, putting her jacket on. “What is your deal?” I demanded, my eye twitching with aggravation. I wasn’t good with confrontation; my hands were shaking as Lindsay’s narrow eyes met mine with a defensive determination.

  “My deal?” she repeated. “My deal is that my so-called friends think I would spill their pointless, lame secrets.”

  “It wasn’t pointless! And someone had to have told them, and it wasn’t Aubrey or me,” I replied. “Besides, nobody actually blamed you. Seems like you’ve got a little case of guilt.”

  “I am not guilty.” Lindsay laughed with disdain.

  “Really? You seem pretty chummy with Zoe and Kaylee for someone who hates them. I can’t believe you’d sit with them after what they said to Alicia,” I shot back, my anger surging.

  “I don’t even know what they said to Alicia because nobody will tell me!” Lindsay retorted, her fists clenched at her sides. Aggravated tears filled her eyes, and she turned away quickly.

  I took a deep breath, trying to calm and center myself. “The things that Zoe said were cruel, but I can’t repeat them because Alicia asked that we not. So I suggest that if you want to know and don’t already—although I can’t imagine Zoe not bragging about it—then go directly to Alicia and talk to her about it. You’re pretty much the only one that she’d let in, anyway,” I advised, thinking about Alicia’s strong feelings for Lindsay.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” she asked, her watery eyes flashing at me.

  “It means that she looks up to you and your opinion is important to her. It means that you’re Alicia’s best friend so act like her best friend. Go over, talk to her. Lindsay, you live right next door to her and you’re completely blind to what she’s going through. You act like you don’t even care!”

  “I am not completely blind to what she’s going through,” she said, sniffling. She dropped her gaze, her shoulders slumping in defeat. “And I do care…I’ll go over and talk to her tonight.”

  “Maybe invite her over,” I suggested, trying to be helpful. “She doesn’t like talking when her parents are around.”

  “Isn’t she grounded? She hasn’t texted me back. I thought she was grounded,” Lindsay asked, using her coat sleeve to wipe her nose. Out of my peripheral vision, I saw Grayson waiting against his locker with an entertained smile. My heartbeat increased again, this time not from anger at my friend.

  “I’m not sure her parents didn’t know last night, but they may now. Try stopping by after school,” I said. “I’ll see you tomorrow…and Lindsay?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Don’t flake out on Alicia. She really needs you, okay? So be her friend,” I told her.

  She nodded, wiping her eyes, careful to not smear her makeup. “Okay. See you later,” she muttered, keeping her eyes downcast.

  I walked up to Grayson, my pulse increasing with every step. He looked so alluring, leaning causally with one foot on the ground and the other foot resting on the locker for balance.

  “Hey.” his
simple one-worded greeting made the butterflies explode in my stomach, wings fluttering haplessly.

  “Hi.” I smiled, looking away from his intense gaze. I quickly disposed of my books and grabbed my jacket. I slipped into it as we joined the massive cluster of students using the stairwell.

  “What was that about?” he asked, his hands in his coat pockets as we walked through the parking lot toward his truck. My boots sloshed through the slush and muck, and I took a moment to collect my thoughts before answering.

  “Quite a few things.” I sighed, side-stepping a massive puddle to get at the passenger door. I climbed in, watching as Grayson did the same.

  “Such as?” he coaxed, a playful half smile on his lips. He fished his key out of his coat and started the truck with one seemingly fluid movement. He gave the truck a couple of moments to heat up.

  “Well, friend drama,” I replied, suppressing the urge to sigh again.

  “Yeah, I got that much, at least. Are you going to tell me about it?” Grayson asked, frowning as he slowly urged his truck out of the parking space and into the lineup of student cars. I could see Kyle’s car a few vehicles ahead, but I made no mention of it.

  “Zoe said some really cruel things to Alicia about semi-formal.” I bit my lip, debating on telling Grayson. In my heart, I knew I could trust him to keep it a secret. After all, he was the master secret keeper. “She said she had a ‘dyke cousin’ that Alicia could take to semi-formal.” Grayson’s eyes leaped to my face and he waited in silence for me to continue. “Alicia just…snapped. She flew at Zoe, and before I could even blink she slapped her hard in the face. Then they were fighting and pulling hair. It was intense.”

  “Sounds like it,” he remarked. He cleared his throat, his fingers flexing against the steering wheel.

  “Yeah. I’m sorry, I guess you don’t want to hear about my friends,” I said, my heart sinking a little at his expression.

  “No, it’s not that.” He said slowly, looking at me. “I just didn’t want to say something stupid.”