Midnight Chat

by Jo Ramsey

  That didn’t make sense, though. Dad knew what Rob went through, and he knew I’d been bullied too. He couldn’t hold it against me. He wouldn’t be thrilled about having to leave work, but he couldn’t make it my fault.

  Hopefully his boss wasn’t too ticked off. If his boss was fairly reasonable, Dad would be too. That was the best I could expect. At least if he hadn’t had to fight with his boss, he might be a little calmer.

  After a few minutes, Lee-Anne and Mr. Shorey came back, with Rob trailing behind them. When he looked at me, his eyes were wide. His mouth moved as if he wanted to say something, but he made no sound. I tried to smile at him, but I didn’t feel much like smiling. Besides, I wasn’t sure he even saw me.

  “Mira, your father still isn’t here?” Mr. Shorey was really good at questions about the obvious.

  “He was at work,” I said. “Sometimes he works farther away than other times, so he might have had to drive a ways to get here.”

  “He said it would be a while,” Mrs. Thompson said.

  “Please buzz my office when he arrives.” Mr. Shorey led Rob and Lee-Anne to his office. Rob didn’t look at me again.

  I fidgeted with a broken piece of my fingernail. I should have been in there with Rob. At least then he wouldn’t have been alone. Rob needed someone on his side, and it was a pretty safe bet none of the adults would be. They would tell him all the reasons he was responsible for what the bullies did. All the things he should have been doing to stop it, when really, they were the ones who should have been helping him. Lee-Anne would probably argue about Seth and Craig being arrested, and she would find some way to guilt-trip Rob about it. He already felt bad enough. He didn’t need her help.

  From the waiting area, I heard the voices in Mr. Shorey’s office, but I couldn’t make out what they said. If I could have gotten away with it, I would have stood beside the door to listen, but Mrs. Thompson and Mrs. Chaffee would have seen me and I would have ended up in more trouble.

  Maybe Lee-Anne wouldn’t be as much of a jerk as Rob’s dad. This time, the bullies had gotten arrested, so Lee-Anne couldn’t deny something serious had happened. She couldn’t blame Rob for it, because Rob wasn’t in trouble. She and Rob’s dad never believed him or me when we tried to talk to them about what went on at school, but she would have to believe Ms. Cramer and Mr. Shorey.

  Mr. Shorey’s door flew open and banged against the wall. Rob stood in the doorway, back to me, shaking. “I’m not going anywhere. You don’t have the right.”

  “Rob, it’s to help you.” Ms. Cramer walked over to put her hand on his shoulder. “Please close the door. You don’t need everyone else to hear this.”

  Rob shook her off. “Why not? Why shouldn’t everyone hear you all want me to get locked up because someone else committed a crime against me?” He whirled around to face me. Tears streamed down his cheeks. “Mira, tell them. Tell them I’m fine as long as people leave me alone. If those guys can’t do anything to me anymore, I won’t have a problem.”

  “I….” My throat closed so much I couldn’t say a single word. I took a deep breath and realized I was shaking as much as Rob.

  I didn’t know what to say. What did he mean by getting locked up? They couldn’t be trying to put him in jail. He hadn’t broken any laws. He was the victim.

  I had to back him up. He needed me. But I couldn’t speak.

  “Rob, come back in here and close the door,” Lee-Anne snapped. “Now. Don’t make a scene.”

  “Seriously? I’m not the one making the scene!”

  The bell rang, and the hall outside the office almost immediately became one of the loudest places on the face of the planet. If Rob kept yelling, everyone would hear him, and they would have yet another thing to pick on him about. The adults were probably wrong to bring up whatever had upset him, but I had to make him listen to them, at least about going back into the office. I couldn’t let him make himself more of a target.

  I got up and went over to the counter. Looking him in the eye, I said, “It’ll be okay. Whatever they’re talking about, it’ll be okay. You’re right. You don’t need to be anywhere but here. But everyone’s out in the halls and lobby right now. Even if you aren’t making a scene, you’re kind of loud, and they’re all going to hear you.”

  “Yeah.” He glanced past me at the large glass wall that separated the office from the lobby. “They’re all going to hear and know I’m the crazy kid the school wants to lock up.”

  “They want to put you in the hospital?” That made more sense than putting him in jail, and the way he was acting, I didn’t blame Ms. Cramer and Mr. Shorey for recommending it. I didn’t agree with them, but I understood why they wanted to do it. And for all I knew, a hospital would be able to help him deal with his depression or whatever it was. Maybe they’d get him to the point where he wouldn’t keep making comments about wanting to “take care of” the bullies or say things that sounded like he wanted to kill himself.

  “Yep. Lock up the crazy and the school won’t have any more problems to deal with.” He made a noise that was part growl, part wail. “My father’s wife told them no way. I’m not going anywhere. They had my father on speaker. He’s pissed. He thinks I’m just doing this for drama again. But that’s good, because now I won’t have to go anywhere.”

  “Rob, you need to come back in.” Ms. Cramer touched Rob’s shoulder again. “We wanted you to be part of this discussion because you’re sixteen, which means you’re old enough to have some say in your life. The way you’re acting is giving us reason to think we might have made a mistake.”

  “Go in with them and hear the rest of what they have to say,” I said. “Even if you don’t listen to them, you won’t have to worry about anyone else hearing you. I’ll be right out here, at least until my dad shows up. It’ll be okay.”

  The fury drained out of his expression, leaving fear and confusion. He looked down at the floor. “Fine. I’ll go back in. I don’t know if they’ll let me talk to you later, Mira, so I hope your dad doesn’t get too mad at you.”

  “Thanks.” I started to tell him we could text later, the way we always did, but if they actually put him in the hospital he might not be allowed to keep his phone. And if he went home, his father might ground him again. “Someone will let me know what’s going on.”

  “They’d better.” He turned to Ms. Cramer. “I don’t care about confidentiality or whatever. If I don’t get to go home, someone had better tell Mira where I am.”

  “We will.” Ms. Cramer looked at me. “Mira, sit down, please.”

  I didn’t have much choice, so I followed directions. Ms. Cramer guided Rob back into Mr. Shorey’s office and closed the door.

  I glanced at the secretaries. Both of them were doing paperwork and trying to act as if nothing had happened.

  I couldn’t believe Mr. Shorey and Ms. Cramer were trying to put Rob in the hospital. The way he’d talked, they meant something psychiatric. He didn’t need something that extreme. What he really needed was for the school to stop the bullying. Most of his problems would have been solved if people left him alone.

  Then again, a lot of the things he’d been saying and doing lately worried me. He was depressed all the time, and then there were those times I’d been afraid of him because of the way he acted. And the way he’d flipped out in Ms. Cramer’s office was kind of scary too. He needed some kind of help. Even he knew that. He’d asked his parents for help, and they kept brushing him off.

  If he went to the hospital, maybe his parents would finally realize Rob wasn’t the problem. They wouldn’t be able to tell the doctors Rob didn’t need help. My best friend might go back to being the guy I’d known in ninth grade instead of the always angry, threatening person he’d become.

  Of course, if he went, someone would find out. We didn’t exactly live in a huge city. People always knew each other’s business in Dayfield. Word would spread about Rob going into treatment, and it would give everyone one more reason to be assholes to him.<
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  Maybe it would be worth it, though. No matter how much I wanted to be there for Rob, I couldn’t do as much as he needed. All our midnight chats didn’t help except by reminding him I cared, and obviously that wasn’t enough.

  His parents probably wouldn’t agree to put him in the hospital, though. They would say what they always did: if only he would man up, stop whining, and defend himself, everything would be fine. They would say he wanted attention, and they refused to give it to him. The school wouldn’t be able to do anything, because they couldn’t go against Rob’s parents. Meanwhile, Rob’s parents would probably look for someone else to blame.

  After the way Lee-Anne had looked at me when she showed up, they might blame me. They might even tell Rob he wasn’t allowed to talk to me anymore.

  My stomach churned. Even when Rob scared me with the things he said and kept me awake all night, he was my best friend. I didn’t want to think about not having him anymore.

  Finally, Dad walked through the office door. He glanced around and came over to sit beside me. “What happened? All they told me was you were part of a fight. Are you okay?”

  “Mr. MacDonald?” Mrs. Thompson called. “Under the circumstances this is probably unnecessary, but I need you to sign the visitor log.”

  Dad sighed and got up. “Sure.”

  He signed the top page in the dark blue binder the school used to keep track of who came in other than students. “Are Ms. Cramer and Mr. Shorey free?”

  “Not yet, but they said to let them know when you got here.” Yet again, Mrs. Thompson picked up the phone. “Have a seat, and one of them will be out as soon as they can.”

  Dad nodded and sat in the chair next to mine again. “So what happened?”

  I didn’t want to go through the whole story again, but I started talking anyway. “Rob and I were on the way to second block. A couple of guys in our class grabbed him. They got suspended the other day for fighting with him, and they were after revenge or something, I guess. I tried to stop them, but they wouldn’t let up until Talia and a couple of her friends came along. One of her friends grabbed one of the other guys, and then Mr. Shorey showed up and brought us all down here.”

  I spewed it out so fast I could barely keep track of what I was saying. Dad looked pretty confused. “So were you in a fight or not?”

  “I don’t think it was really a fight. I mean, no one exactly hit anyone.” I paused. I’d been sitting there so long everything had started to feel like a weird dream. “They would have probably beaten Rob up if I hadn’t been there. But they didn’t hit him, and they got arrested.”

  Dad’s eyes widened. “Someone finally did something?”

  “Yeah. Ms. Cramer said Officer Stanley’s been keeping track of all the bullying complaints or whatever, and I guess he filed a report after they broke Rob’s nose the other day. So now the guys are under arrest. It’s about time.”

  “Yes, it is.” Dad folded his arms. “I’m glad they did something this time, but it would have been nice if they’d taken care of it sooner. You’re okay, though?”

  “I guess.” I didn’t feel okay. I was shaky, and my mind raced so fast it made me dizzy. Or maybe that was hunger and thirst. It was probably close to lunchtime, and I didn’t want to sit in the damn office anymore. I just wanted to somehow get through the rest of the day.

  Ms. Cramer came out of Mr. Shorey’s office. Her lips were pressed together, and the lines on her forehead were deeper than usual. She walked over to the chairs. “Mr. MacDonald, thank you for coming in. I’m sorry we had to call you out of work, but we needed to talk to you about Mira’s safety.”

  “Safety from who?” Dad sat up straighter. “It doesn’t sound to me like the school’s been too interested in her safety until now, so what’s changing?”

  “Please come into my office.” Ms. Cramer stepped back. “Mr. Shorey is finishing up with Rob and his stepmother, and then he’ll join us.”

  “What’s going to happen to Rob?” I asked.

  “Come inside, please.”

  Once we settled in her office, she took a deep breath and opened a folder on her desk. “Mira’s never been in trouble here. She’s been on the receiving end of bullying, but that hasn’t happened in a while, unless you count the times she’s intervened for Rob.”

  “Rob’s my best friend,” I said. “I’m going to stick up for him if I see someone hurting him. I can’t just stand there.”

  “I wouldn’t expect you to.” She frowned. “The boys who were involved today have been arrested for assault and bullying, which is a criminal offense.”

  “If it’s a criminal offense, how come it’s been going on so long?” Dad demanded.

  “Our resource officer has been compiling information, but we didn’t have proof of some of the incidents Mira and Rob reported.” Ms. Cramer’s voice got quieter as she spoke. She knew the school had screwed up, no matter what excuses they made. “Even in a circumstance like this, no one can be arrested or charged without proof.”

  “You should have tried harder,” Dad said. “Then my daughter and I wouldn’t be sitting here when she should be in class and I should be at work.”

  “I’m sorry you had to leave in the middle of your workday.” Ms. Cramer closed the folder. “Mira isn’t in any trouble, but when I spoke with her and Rob earlier about the consequences the other boys are facing, Rob brought up a good point. Apparently today’s incident was retaliation against Rob by the other boys for their suspension a few days ago. It’s possible they or their friends might try to retaliate again, and since Mira was involved, she might be as much of a target as Rob.”

  Ms. Cramer was probably right. Craig and Seth hated Rob and me. The way they’d looked at us was pretty close to homicidal. If they couldn’t get to us themselves, they might talk someone else into doing it. I wouldn’t put much past them.

  At the same time, listening to Ms. Cramer talk about retaliation didn’t feel real. She had to be talking about other people. Or a TV show or something. School wasn’t a safe place. It never had been. But this sounded a whole lot more serious than what we’d dealt with in the past, and my brain couldn’t quite wrap around it all.

  Dad narrowed his eyes. “So you asked me to come in because…?”

  “We wanted you to be aware of the potential for this situation to escalate,” Ms. Cramer said. “You might consider taking out a restraining order against the boys, for one thing. Today’s incident, and therefore their arrest, involved Rob more than Mira. The court might impose an order to keep them away from Rob, but you would need to do one yourself to protect Mira. At least that’s the way I understand it, though I might be wrong.”

  “Restraining orders don’t necessarily stop anything.” Dad rubbed his forehead. “Yeah. I’ll look into it. What about here at school?”

  “Those boys won’t be here. Since they’ve been arrested, there will be much harsher disciplinary consequences. Possibly expulsion.” She paused. “They have friends here, though. We might have to have a staff member escort Mira to classes for a while.”

  Both of them looked at me. It took a few seconds for Ms. Cramer’s words to sink in, and when they did, I didn’t want to believe what she was saying. The adults at this stupid school didn’t have a clue how to do anything except make the situation worse. “You want someone walking me to class? That’s stupid! Maybe no one will touch me if a teacher’s right beside me, but they’ll say stuff. It’ll look like I’m some tattletale baby who’s too afraid to walk alone. I’m better off being on my own out there.”

  “Mira, this is about your safety,” Ms. Cramer said. “Craig and Seth’s friends will probably realize they would face the same consequences if they try anything, but they might not. It’s our job to ensure your safety in school.”

  “What about outside school? Are you going to make a teacher follow me around town too?” My voice got louder, but I didn’t care. No matter what they did to supposedly help me, it was only going to make things worse.

>   “The restraining order—”

  I didn’t even let Ms. Cramer finish that sentence. “We would have to get restraining orders against half the guys in eleventh grade, and probably some of the girls. We can’t do that, because I’m pretty sure you have to have a reason besides ‘they might do something but we don’t know for sure’ to get a restraining order. So that isn’t going to help.”

  “Mira, calm down.” Dad took my hand. “Yelling isn’t going to solve anything. Ms. Cramer, I understand your concern, but I also see where Mira’s coming from. If you have someone walking her to her classes, she’ll be even more of a target, because you’ll be calling attention to her. I think it would be best to let her go back to the normal routine and have your staff pay more attention, so if something does happen, you can address it before it goes too far.”

  Ms. Cramer just stared at him for a few seconds. She’d probably expected him to agree with her. After all, parents were supposed to want to keep their kids safe. She didn’t know Dad very well. He’d gone to this same high school, and he remembered what it was like. He knew how people would act.

  “I see,” Ms. Cramer said finally. “Mr. MacDonald, do you understand it’s our job to keep our students safe? Having someone with Mira—”

  “Will have exactly the opposite effect of keeping her safe,” Dad said. “Repeating yourself isn’t going to change my mind. I would prefer you not give her an escort. It isn’t going to solve the problem. What will solve the problem is you and your staff being more alert in the halls in general, and maybe actually listening when students report bullying instead of taking the word of the bullies over what the victims tell you.”

  He kept his voice completely calm and even. Someone who didn’t know him might not even have realized how furious he was. His hand was trembling, though. That was one sure sign he was trying to hold onto his temper.