Spiraling

by H. Karhoff

  “Whatever.” I rolled my eyes. “I get it. You don’t like him.”

  “This has nothing do with whether or not I like him. It’s has to do with you being fifteen. You’re supposed to be playing with Barbie dolls, not…that.”

  “You are so out of touch with reality right now. I’m not a little kid. I know what I’m doing.”

  “Obviously you don’t,” he snapped. “That guy is—”

  “Just stop.” I raised my voice. “You’ll say anything to stop me from going out with him, but it’s not going to work.”

  “I’m just trying to look out for you, Tori.”

  “I’d appreciate it if you’d just stay out of my business. I could really care less what you think. Devon’s a really great guy, even if he has done some stuff he isn’t proud of. I really like him and I’m not going to break up with him. If you can’t handle that then that’s your problem.”

  “Fine.” He huffed as he pulled into the parking lot. “Screw up your life. I don’t care. Just don’t whine to me about it.”

  “Trust me, I won’t.”

  As soon as he stopped the car, I threw the door open and got out. I was so irritated that I was ready to strangle him if he said another word. Stomping into the building, I tried to calm down before I got to my locker, but as luck would have it, my locker had other plans. I pulled the latch as hard as I could, but it refused to open even when I redid the combination. I got so annoyed that I kicked it as hard as I could.

  “Stupid thing!” I yelled. “I hate you!”

  “Whoa,” Devon said as he walked into the hall. “Take it easy there, Killer.”

  I looked at him about to cry from frustration. Then I noticed Carter was with him and did my best to regain my composure.

  “You all right?” Devon asked, putting his hand on my lower back.

  “I’m great,” I answered sarcastically.

  “I don’t think we can say the same for your locker.” Carter chuckled.

  I rolled my eyes at him, not really in the mood to be made fun of.

  “Try the combination again,” Devon said.

  “It’s hopeless.” I sighed. “I’ve tried it a million times. It’s broken.”

  “Try it.”

  I did the combination, though I was sure it still wasn’t going to open. Devon waited until I’d finished. Then he grabbed the latch and pulled it up. When it didn’t slide all the way, he pulled harder until it popped open.

  “Thank you.” I smiled. “I figured it was stuck for good this time.”

  “I wouldn’t close it again until it got fixed,” Carter said.

  “I can’t just leave it open,” I replied.

  Devon opened the door as far as it would go and squatted down to eye level with the lock. “It wouldn’t take that much to fix it.” He stood back up. “It’s just bent. That’s why it keeps getting stuck.”

  “I’ve been trying to get it fixed since school started.” I whined. “They keep saying it’s on the maintenance schedule, but…” I shrugged my shoulders.

  “Kind of makes you wonder how much of a death trap this place is if there are so many other things needing fixed that they can’t take five minutes to fix your locker.” Carter chuckled.

  “You can put your stuff in mine until it gets fixed,” Devon said.

  I looked at him, not sure if he was serious. We’d only been going out for a few weeks. Sharing a locker was something people did after they’d been dating for months.

  “Are you sure?” I asked.

  “Uh-huh.” He nodded, opening his locker.

  “Thanks,” I replied.

  Kennedy rushed up to us as I gave Devon my bag to put in his locker. She paused long enough to give Devon a dirty look before she pushed past him rudely, When she opened her locker, she made sure he noticed that she covered the dial to stop him from seeing her combination. After she’d tossed her backpack inside, she grabbed her algebra book and looked at Devon as she closed the door, spinning the dial three times and testing to make sure it was locked before she walked away. I started to say something about her heightened security measures, but decided it was best to wait until Devon and Carter weren’t listening.

  After she’d gone, I finished transferring my stuff into Devon’s locker, retrieved my civics book from my bag and sighed. With all the other things that had gone wrong that morning, I was going to look like an idiot in front of my civics class second hour if I didn’t come up with a topic. I hadn’t decided which case to research by the time I’d fallen asleep the night before, so I had no idea what I would say when Mr. Taylor asked about my paper.

  “What’s wrong?” Devon asked.

  “Nothing,” I answered. “I just have this stupid report in civics and I have no idea what I’m going to do it over.”

  “Are you talking about the court cases report?” Carter interjected.

  “Yeah,” I replied. “I can’t figure out which case to write about. All the ones in the book sound really boring.”

  “I remember that,” Carter said. “I did mine over the Scopes Monkey Trial.”

  “Monkey Trial?” I scrunched my brow, sure he was joking.

  “Yeah.” He nodded.

  “You’re not serious, are you?” I asked.

  “I’m absolutely serious,” he answered. “You’ve never heard of it?”

  I looked at Devon sure that Carter was trying to make me look like an idiot.

  “It’s a real case,” Devon said. “In nineteen twenty-five, a teacher in Tennessee was put on trial for teaching Darwin’s theory of evolution. It was a violation of the Butler Act, which prohibited the teaching of evolution in any state-funded classroom.”

  “How do you know all that?” I asked.

  Devon shrugged. “I remember things.”

  I stared at him, baffled by his ability to recount facts on command. I could barely recall if I’d eaten anything for breakfast.

  “There’s a movie about it,” Carter said.

  I turned to the smaller boy. “Thank, God. What’s it called?”

  “Inherit the Wind,” Carter answered.

  “I will definitely check that out,” I said.

  “Are you done in here?” Devon asked, grabbing his locker door.

  “No,” I answered. “I need my Spanish book.”

  I got the book out of his locker and stood back as he shut the door. He put his arm around me as we walked to the end of the hall. I wasn’t sure what class he had first hour because he never carried a book, but I knew it was on the other side of the school. When we got to the second of the two halls that ran the length of the school, I kissed him on the cheek and turned to go to Spanish while he and Carter went the other way.

  I wasn’t able to work on my civics report in class. On any other day, I could have gotten away with not paying attention, but Señora Turner had decided we were going to play a game. We broke up into teams and went over all the words we were supposed to have learned up to that point. I was terrible with Spanish, so every time it was my turn, I did little to help my team win points.

  As soon as I got to second hour, I flipped open my civics book and searched for anything I could find about the Scopes Trial, but there wasn’t much. When Mr. Taylor called my name, I wasn’t as prepared as I’d hoped.

  I took a deep breath and looked up. “I’m going to write about the Monkey Trial,” I stuttered. “Back in like the twenties or something, this teacher was put on trial for teaching evolution. I guess it was illegal back then.”

  “The Scopes Trial,” Mr. Taylor said as he wrote it down on the paper he was recording all of our paper topics on. “Have you done any research yet?”

  “Not really.” I shook my head.

  “All right,” he replied.

  I let out a sigh of relief as he moved on to the next person. After he finished asking about our paper topics, he lectured about making a bibliography page. I scribbled down most of what he said, but he talked too fast for me to catch every word.

&nbs
p; When the bell rang, I meandered back toward my locker. Carter stood outside the computer lab with one of his friends. I couldn’t remember the name of the movie he’d told me about, so I walked over to ask him.

  “Hey, Carter,” I said and the two boys looked at me. “What was the name of that movie you were talking about? The one about the Monkey Trial?”

  “Inherit the Wind,” he answered.

  “Do they have it at the video store?” I asked.

  “I’m not sure.” He shook his head. “I know they have it at the public library.”

  “Thank you.” I smiled at him before I headed back toward my locker.

  When I walked into the side hall, Kennedy was already there getting her stuff for third hour English. I didn’t say anything as I walked past her to Devon’s locker and started to turn the combination he’d written down for me. I was still irritated with her for the way she’d treated Devon that morning.

  “What are you doing?” Kennedy asked.

  “Putting my books away,” I answered as I opened Devon’s locker.

  “Don’t you have your own locker?”

  “It’s broken. Devon said I could use his until it gets fixed.”

  “That’s nice.” She peeked into Devon’s locker and sighed. “There’s nothing in there.”

  “What did you think was going to be in it?”

  “I don’t know.” She shrugged. “What do druggies usually keep in their lockers?”

  “Don’t start, Kenn.” I glared at her.

  “What do you expect? It’s not like he’s a model citizen. I mean, look at the people he hangs out with. Jake is like the biggest pothead in school.”

  “That doesn’t mean Devon is.”

  “No, but—”

  “He’s not a pothead, Kenn,” I said.

  “Fine.” She relented, turning her attention back to Devon’s locker. “It is kind of weird that he doesn’t keep anything in his locker, though.”

  “I guess.” I shrugged.

  I looked at Devon’s locker. It was completely devoid of anything personal. Aside from my coat and backpack, the only things inside were four textbooks stacked neatly in the center of the shelf: American History, English, Math, and Physical Science. As I read the spines, the subjects caught my attention. Devon had told me he could do algebra and had taken biology twice, but he had textbooks for basic math and physical science. They were both lower level classes. It didn’t make sense that he’d take them after algebra and biology.

  My suspicion nagged at me for the rest of the day. I didn’t want to come right out and accuse Devon of lying, but I couldn’t think of any other explanation. The more I thought about it, the more it bothered me. I started thinking my brother was right to warn me. Devon had offered to come over to help me with my homework, but if he couldn’t really help me, then he’d had ulterior motives. Like an idiot, I had played right into them.

  Walking back to the side hall after seventh hour, I opened Devon’s locker and put my algebra book in my bag. I made sure I had everything else I needed for homework. It was going to be another long night. With everything else going on in my head, I was pretty sure that I wouldn’t be able to concentrate. As I started to shut the door, I felt Devon’s hand on the small of my back.

  “Hey,” he said softly.

  “Hey.” I forced a smile. “Do you need anything?”

  “Nope. You want me to get your bag?”

  “That’s all right, I got it.”

  “Is everything okay?”

  “Yeah,” I lied. “Why wouldn’t it be?”

  “I don’t know.”

  He closed his locker and we walked down the hall in silence. Normally, I would have been talking his ear off by the time we got to the commons, but I didn’t really feel like talking. When we got to the parking lot, I studied the cracks in the asphalt as we passed between the cars and thought about how he’d lied to me. In my periphery, I saw him reach into his pocket and pull out a pack of cigarettes. Suddenly, his disregard for the rules wasn’t as charming as it had been. I was annoyed that he couldn’t wait until we weren’t on school property. It wasn’t like it would take hours to get across the parking lot. The entire walk to my house was only fifteen minutes.

  “Got any plans for this weekend?” he asked when I hadn’t said anything by the time we reached the sidewalk on the other side of the lot.

  “Not that I know of,” I answered.

  “Jake was talking about taking his car to the drags on Saturday. If you aren’t doing anything, you’re welcome to come with us.”

  “Sure.” I sighed.

  “Did I do something wrong?” he asked.

  I looked at him. “Why would you think that?”

  “You’re being really quiet.”

  “I don’t have anything to say.”

  “You always have something to say.” He chuckled.

  “Not always.” I huffed. “Like now. I don’t have anything to say right now. Well, actually I do, but I’m pretty sure it’s going to make you mad, so I wasn’t going to.”

  “Just say it.”

  I took in a large breath of air. Then I stopped walking and turned toward him. He rested his weight on his right side, taking a drag from the cigarette as he waited for me to stoke up my nerve.

  “You lied to me,” I said.

  He shook his head. “I’ve never lied to you.”

  “You told me you could help me with my algebra homework, but you’re taking basic math. I saw the book in your locker.”

  “And you think that means I lied to you?”

  “Well, yeah. If you know algebra, why aren’t you in geometry or trig or something?”

  “Because I have really shitty grades on my transcript,” he said. “I didn’t lie to you. I can do algebra. It’s not hard.”

  I dropped my eyes and sighed. “It is for me. I suck at math.”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it that way.”

  “I know.” I looked back up. “It’s just… My mom gripes at me because of my grades, but it’s not like I’m not trying. I just don’t get it.”

  “I really don’t have a problem helping you, if you want.”

  “Yeah, because that worked so well yesterday.”

  “We did get a little distracted, didn’t we?” He smirked.

  “A little.” I laughed.

  “I’ll try not to let it happen again. But no promises.”

  He tossed the end of his cigarette into the street. Then he put his arm around me and we resumed walking. It was nice having the air cleared. I rattled on like a jack-in-the-box that had been wound way too far. All the gossip I normally relayed between classes popped out in one rapid burst of useless information. I was fully aware that he couldn’t have cared less about any of it, but I was excited to say it just the same. It felt wonderful to talk to him again.

  I was still in full chatterbox mode when we got to my house. My brother’s car was parked out front and I could sense Devon’s hesitation as we went inside. Luckily, Chris wasn’t waiting in the living room. I didn’t hear his stereo so I assumed he was hanging out with Becky again. He spent more time at the Phillips’ house than he did at home.

  Devon and I sat at the kitchen table. As I dug my homework out of my bag, I started feeling self-conscious. I didn’t want to look like an idiot in front of him. He put his arm across the back of my chair and leaned over to watch as I started the first algebra problem. Mrs. White had just started a new chapter in class. I had no idea what I was doing as I moved numbers from one side of the equal sign to the other, attempting to solve for the unknown variable without success.

  My inability to understand math was extremely frustrating. I might have had a chance if Mrs. White would go through the material slower. She lectured as if she were participating in a race to see who could cram the most information into the shortest amount of time. My notes were always a mess of fragmented problems, barely legible because I’d written them so fast.

  “Would you lik
e some help?” Devon asked.

  “Sure.” I nodded.

  “I think you’re supposed to be using the quadratic equation.”

  I looked at him. “What’s that?”

  He turned my spiral to the right and asked for my pencil. Without looking at my book, he wrote two equations across the top of the page before he explained the process. I tried to listen, but I found myself distracted by his voice. He made math sound sexy. Words like “exponent” and “divide” took on new meaning when they slid from his lips.

  When he had to leave for work at four-thirty, I was disappointed. I tried to convince him not to go as I walked him out to the porch, but he just smiled and said he’d call me later that night. Then he kissed me goodbye and left.

  Twelve

  Devon drove a few miles out of town to an old trailer situated in the middle of a fork in the road. The front yard looked like a chaotic parking lot. Cars were parked in different directions, stretching from one end of the trailer to the other. Devon pulled RJ’s car in between a large black truck and a red car that looked like it hadn’t moved in years. All the tires were flat and weeds had grown up to the windows.

  I looked around, leery about getting out. It was dark and creepy. Aside from the front parking lot, the trailer was surrounded by trees. The bare branches loomed ominously overhead. When Devon turned the headlights off, the only light was the faint glow coming from the sides of the trailer windows. My heartbeat sped up. It looked like we’d just driven into a scene from a horror movie.

  Devon reached over and put his hand on my leg. It startled me. I turned to look at him and he smiled softly. Then he opened his door and got out of the car. The dome light turned off when he shut the door and I lost sight of him. My heart sank a little. I took a deep breath to stoke my courage. When he opened my door and the light came on again, I felt a little better, but I still didn’t want to be there. It took determination to make my feet move to get out of the car. As I did, I took Devon’s hand before the door shut. I didn’t want to lose track of him again.

  I held his hand tightly as we walked toward the door. The yard was so dark I couldn’t see where my feet were stepping. I felt myself going into panic mode. As he led me up the porch steps, I clutched his hand as tightly as I could, terrified about going inside.