by Kelly Oram
I wasn’t surprised to see Becky at his side. She had taken up the habit of eating lunch in her car while Ryan was out on suspension, and I knew Ryan wouldn’t let her get away with that any longer, but it seemed to be a little surprising to everyone else.
Everyone watched and waited to see what they were going to do. They stood there a moment meeting all the curious gazes, and while Becky looked terrified, Ryan seemed outraged. Becky gulped, waiting for Ryan to do something first, so he took her hand and began dragging her in the opposite direction of the cool kids’ table. You wouldn’t think such an action would cause such a reaction from the student body, but when it was clear that Ryan was not going to sit with his friends, the silence was immediately replaced with murmurs of shock.
Paige, still bitter from rejection, watched wordlessly, but Mike suddenly jumped up from his chair, once again causing silence to sweep the cafeteria. “Miller!” he shouted, making his way to Ryan. “Come on, man, where are you going?”
Ryan ignored him so he addressed Becky. “Becky? Where are you going?”
“Drop dead, Mike!” she shouted.
Her outburst was so surprising that even Ryan was startled and stopped walking. He looked at her with the same concern he’d shown me when he learned of my past, and she was every bit as defiant as I was when he looked at me that way. “I’m fine,” she said coolly. “Keep going.”
Ryan started to walk again, but Mike stepped in his way. “Don’t be stupid,” Mike warned. “You’re still the king of this school. Don’t give it all up over a freak like Baker.”
I don’t know if anyone else saw the way Ryan’s face went flush with rage, and how his eyes seemed otherwise lifeless when he looked at his best friend, but I saw it, and I know Mike saw it. Ryan squeezed Becky’s hand and then began walking again, smacking his shoulder into Mike’s with force as he passed.
Everyone’s eyes seemed to follow Mike back to his seat. Even Becky and I were so captivated by the look of betrayal he displayed that neither of us noticed the direction Ryan was walking—my direction. We realized this at almost exactly the same moment and met each other’s murderous gaze momentarily.
“What are you doing?” Becky whispered to Ryan as soon as she looked away from me.
“I’m going to go sit by Jamie.”
“What?” Becky gasped, pulling Ryan to a halt. “You’re going to ditch me after you practically forced me to come in here?”
“Of course not. I’m going to introduce you.”
For once, Becky and I seemed to share the same opinion. “Are you crazy?” she said. “I am not going to eat lunch with Jamie Baker.”
“Just trust me on this. You don’t know her like I do.”
“I don’t have to know her! Look at what she’s done! She’s ruining your life. Stealing you away from all your friends, getting you suspended! She’s trouble, Ryan.”
I’d heard these types of things and worse all morning, and even though they’d grated on my nerves I could tolerate it, but it was different coming from Becky. I couldn’t chalk her speech up to a love of gossip and trash-talking the school outcast. Becky sincerely cared about Ryan more than any other person in this school, and she honestly believed what she was saying. She knew him better than anyone too. Way better than me. If she said I was ruining his life, who was I to say she was wrong? The look in her eyes was real—her concern for Ryan, her hatred for me. It made it impossible to hate her back.
Ryan had actually started to convince me that I didn’t have to be in self-exile. True, I couldn’t kiss him, and the practicing had to stop while he was present, but I was starting to think he could still be in my life. That he could still be my friend. Becky was taking that away from me and making it very hard not to see things her way.
The more I listened to the two of them argue, the more my feelings spun out of control. Within seconds, the lights in the cafeteria were flickering, and I didn’t even realize it until I heard Ryan whisper my name. He’d said it so quietly that not even Becky heard it.
He started toward me, but Becky tugged his hand. “Please don’t do this, Ryan,” she pleaded with tears in her eyes. “Please just trust me and stay away from her.”
Ryan suddenly went rigid. “Why should I trust you?” he snapped. “You won’t trust me! Jamie’s not the one ruining my friendships. Mike and Paige are doing that to themselves. I thought you might be different, but I guess not. After all the times you’ve told me I need a girlfriend, I finally find the perfect one, and you won’t even give her a chance. You won’t even say hello.”
“She’s your what?” Becky gasped. Her voice seemed to crack like a whip over the buzz of the lunchroom.
“She’s my girlfriend!” Ryan yelled so angrily he could have given my dad, the grizzly, a run for his money.
The cafeteria went silent as the grave again. Forks were dropped, the lunch line stopped moving. Even Paul Warren, who’d been trying unsuccessfully to impress a couple of sophomores, froze mid-moonwalk. Then, of course, being Paul, he abruptly shattered the stillness by yelling, “Da-amn!” in a Not Another Teen Movie kind of way.
Ryan pulled his attention back to Becky, who was still speechless, and lowered his voice. “I’m not giving her up, so either get used to it or go back to Mike and Paige.”
Becky glared at me, and I glared right back until she finally turned around and stormed out the door she’d just walked in. Ryan looked at me expectantly, but I just continued to glare. I mean he’d just announced to the whole school that I was his girlfriend! I don’t know why that made me so angry, but I’d already been on such an emotional roller coaster that day that I simply didn’t have the will to try anymore. I let myself get angry. I let myself radiate. Then I let myself blow up each and every stupid fluorescent light in the room.
As the other kids ducked the raining shards of glass in confusion, Ryan frowned. I kept up my glare and then stomped out of the cafeteria. I didn’t look back to see if he was following me or not, but I didn’t have to. “Thanks for the support, Jamie,” he grumbled, knowing full well that I could still hear him.
I felt awful when I realized that Ryan was angry with me. Ryan doesn’t get angry with people unless he has a very good reason. It was very surprising, and it actually hurt. I froze when I heard the cafeteria door slam behind me. “It wouldn’t have killed you to come over and say hi to her either,” Ryan said when I didn’t turn around to face him. “They wouldn’t all hate you so much if you would just try.”
I heard him close the distance between us, and I took a deep breath before turning to face him. It was harder to look him in the eye than I’d expected, so I stared at his feet.
“You can’t be both people,” he said. “Either you’re the ice queen, or you’re Jamie Baker. And they’re right, you know—the ice queen isn’t worth it. But Jamie is, so you decide what you want, and then come talk to me.”
And then Ryan Miller walked away from me without looking back.
Nothing in the entire world could make me feel lousier than I felt for letting Ryan down. I went through the rest of my day like a zombie. I guess on the bright side, all the comments from the other students no longer bothered me. I was numb. At least I was until last period, when I had to see Ryan again.
I’d been sort of wandering aimlessly, but my body was on autopilot, so I still found my way to class, unfortunately, but I got there a little late.
“Ms. Baker! Thank you for joining us,” Mr. Edwards said as I took my seat. I don’t know what kind of look I gave him, but his voice sounded nervous when he said, “Since it’s your first offense, I’ll let it slide, but let’s try not to make a habit of it.”
I have no idea what we talked about in class that day, but I know that there were a lot of angry glances being thrown around the room and almost no talking. Not even when Mr. Edwards asked us questions. With only fifteen minutes left in the day, Mr. Edwards couldn’t take the suspense any longer.
“What is with you guys today? Huh? It’s a
little chilly in here.”
“I think you mean icy,” Becky grumbled.
I looked up just in time to see Ryan look at Becky. “What?” she snapped at him.
Mr. Edwards sighed and put down his dry erase marker since none of us was listening to him anyway. He looked around the room and then leaned against his desk with his arms folded across his chest. “All right, who died?”
It was an unfortunate choice of words. If possible, the room got a good ten degrees colder, and then Paige opened her big fat mouth. “Why don’t you ask Jamie?” she spat.
Everyone looked my way, and just as Mr. Edwards followed their gazes, big wet tears started streaming down my face. I couldn’t help it, I couldn’t stop it, and even though I knew I would regret it later, at the time I didn’t care.
They were all shocked to see me, cold-as-ice Jamie Baker, crying. Nobody said anything, nobody even breathed, except Paige, of course. “Well, what do you know?” she said. “The ice queen does have feelings.”
“Give her a break—her boyfriend died.”
I looked up in shock because it wasn’t Ryan who’d come to my defense. It was Amy Jones, and she shrugged at me apologetically.
I think everyone in the room was as surprised as I was, but before I had time to react her friend Allysa Madsen followed her lead. “Yeah, Paige, don’t be so cruel.”
“Yeah!” This time it was Scott Cole, and he was actually smiling. “And you wonder why Ryan dogged you so hard last week. Good show, Miller.”
Paige was now beyond angry. Becky was still staring in shock at Allysa and Amy, and Ryan just sat there looking at me expectantly. I’m not sure what he wanted, but I couldn’t have done whatever it was he seemed to be waiting for me to do anyway. My head was spinning.
I looked back at Allysa and Amy. I didn’t know if they were defending me, or if it was more about putting Paige in her place, but either way it was a bit overwhelming. Everyone was staring at me, and I was still crying. I was scared, confused, and humiliated. My emotions were all over the charts, and I was starting to lose a grip on my power, so it’s a good thing Mr. Edwards has a heart. It was obvious I needed a break, so he let class go a full ten minutes early.
“Okay, people, that’s enough for today. Everyone except Jamie get out of here. Paige, you work on your manners or we’ll practice them in detention.”
No one hesitated to escape the awkward situation except Ryan. He was the last to leave the room. When he sort of lingered by the door, waiting for me, Mr. Edwards cleared his throat suggestively and said, “Have a good day, Mr. Miller.”
I was relieved when Ryan obeyed Mr. E.’s subtle command and left me alone, but when the door clicked shut behind him the silence in the room became suffocating. Mr. E. finally said something after I was forced to break the quiet with a loud sniffle.
“How are you holding up?”
“How does it look like I’m holding up?”
The lights in the room flickered when I snapped, scaring me calm. Mr. E. looked up curiously for a moment but didn’t let himself get distracted from his golden opportunity to give me the lecture he’d been dying to give me since his first day teaching here. He handed me a box of tissues and waited for a minute longer to speak.
“It’s okay to cry, you know.”
“Not in front of them,” I sniffled. “Never in front of them.” I surprised us both with my unintentional honesty.
“Afraid they’ll figure out that you’re a normal girl with real feelings?”
I scoffed bitterly at the word “normal.”
“What, you don’t think you’re a normal girl? At the very least on the inside?”
“Especially not on the inside,” I grumbled, more to myself than anything.
Mr. Edwards was intrigued by my comment and studied me for a minute. No doubt he was trying to figure out how to get me to open up to him or agree to seek professional help. He finally went with the question “Why do you say that?”
“You wouldn’t understand.”
“Try me.”
Yeah, right. “It’s nothing, Mr. E. Forget about it.”
“You lost a loved one, you have survivor’s guilt, and you feel responsible for Derek’s death. That is not nothing.”
I was shocked at the mention of Derek’s name, as I always am when I’m not expecting to hear it. Mr. Edwards raised the box of tissues my direction again when I was hit with a new wave of tears.
“All of those feelings,” he continued, “are the most normal feelings anyone could have after being involved in an accident like yours.”
“How… How do you know about…” I couldn’t say Derek’s name out loud this time. “About my accident?”
“It only took me ten minutes that first day of class to see that you weren’t exactly like my other students. I was concerned, so I read your school file. It’s all in there.”
“I’ll bet. Right along with my old guidance counselor’s assessment of my mental stability. Did you enjoy that part too?”
“Jamie.”
“You really think you’re going to be able to fix me any more than she could?”
Mr. Edwards shrugged sheepishly but managed a sincere smile. “I’m not interested in fixing you, Jamie. I actually think you’re doing remarkably well, considering.”
No push for counseling? That was surprising. And hard to believe. “Then what’s with all the Afterschool Special?”
“I just don’t want to see you take any steps backward. Don’t let them hurt you.”
“Easy for you to say.”
“It should be easy for you too. You’re special now, Jamie. Powerful. Don’t be afraid to use that power.”
“Excuse me?” I didn’t mean to sound panicked all of a sudden, but come on. You know you’d freak out a little too.
Mr. Edwards studied me again, considering the sudden edge in my voice. He seemed to proceed with caution. “You have the upper hand here, Jamie. You’re so much more ahead of the game than Paige or any other kid here at Rocklin High. You know what it’s like to be them. Only sophomore to make the varsity cheer squad, dating the prom king, most popular girl in your old school… a beauty queen?”
“All that in my file too?” I grumbled, feeling a little embarrassed.
Mr. Edwards chuckled this time. “Mr. Miller’s biography was very enlightening.”
I blushed, strangely ready to murder Ryan, while Mr. E. continued with his lecture. “You know what it’s like to be them,” he repeated, “but they have no idea what it’s like to be you. You’ve endured far too much real pain to let mere words hurt you. You’re too strong for that now.”
Oh, okay. Metaphorical power. I get it. Oh, the irony. “That was quite the speech, Mr. E.” Oddly enough, though, it made me feel a little better.
“Sorry.” Mr. Edwards chuckled. “One of the downfalls to studying literature. Everything always has to be dramatic.”
It’s no wonder I felt comfortable with him then. My mom doesn’t call me a drama queen for nothing. “I must be destined to be a lit professor someday,” I mumbled under my breath. Mr. Edwards heard me and laughed.
I wiped away the last of my tears and even managed to return his grin with a small smile. The smile seemed to placate him for the time being, and he headed back to his desk with his box of tissues. “Good night, Ms. Baker,” he said before I left the room. “And remember, you’re the one with all the power.”
You have no idea, I thought as I pulled the door shut behind me.
* * * * *
CHAPTER 18
Mr. Edwards’s speech had actually given me a lot to think about, so instead of going home, I headed for the hilltop that overlooks the football field. I sat down just about the time the football team started trickling onto the field in their practice clothes.
I couldn’t take my eyes off Ryan as he ran out onto the field. There was no spring in his step, no smile on his face. He looked as miserable as I felt. He was having a really bad day too, and not only was it
not over for him, I seriously doubted Coach Pelton was as understanding as Mr. Edwards. He was obviously still not happy about two of his star players’ suspensions. Barely able to speak without yelling, he just choked out the word, “Laps!” and pointed his finger at the track.
Ryan started running, and as soon as Mike showed up, he was ordered to the same punishment. Mike hit the track and quickly caught up to Ryan, but the minute he tried to speak to him, Ryan picked up his pace. “Miller!” Mike yelled, catching up to Ryan again. “Come on, dude. This is stupid.”
Ryan suddenly stopped running and whirled around to get in Mike’s face. “Get out of my face, Driscoll, before I pound yours!”
“Fine. If that’s how it’s gonna be.”
For the rest of practice, Mike was stone cold to Ryan and pounded him into the ground every chance he got. More than once, the coach had to pull him off Ryan before they started a brawl.
I hated watching Mike use Ryan as a tackle dummy, but it was even more depressing to see Ryan so upset. It was so unlike him to be yelling and threatening to pound people’s faces. I missed that happy-go-lucky guy who made everyone around him smile. I wanted him back, and I realized that there was only one way that was going to happen.
Mr. Edwards was absolutely right about me having all the power. I was the only one who could fix the rift between Ryan and his friends. I had to prove to people that he wasn’t being brainwashed by the freak. I had to make an effort. I had to be nice. It was true that I couldn’t be both the ice queen and Jamie. I had to choose. Right here. Right now. And thanks to Mr. Edwards, I was sure I was strong enough to make the right decision.
Well, pretty sure.
Okay, I wasn’t sure at all, I was terrified. But I had to. For Ryan.
My eyes fell on Mike and I cringed. There was just no possible way I could ever play nice with him, but then I looked across the field at the small group of cheerleaders doing cartwheels and toe touches. I fell into a moment of nostalgia as I watched their routine. I used to love cheering so much. Once upon a time I even wanted to cheer for the Chicago Bulls professionally.
