Saving Me

by Sadie Allen

  Mr. Goddard got our attention when he cleared his throat.

  “Allison, you may not have been charged with a crime today, but you still violated the district’s zero-tolerance policy, and I’m going to have to suspend you … for two weeks.”

  I sucked in a breath.

  “But they weren’t her pills,” my mom argued.

  Mr. Goddard just shook his head. “Doesn’t matter. They were in her possession. We can’t make an exception.”

  For the first time since I realized what was going on, I looked up at my mother and whispered, “Prom.” Not that I really cared, but it was something every girl anticipated since she was old enough to know what it was, and I had seen Pretty In Pink eleventy-billion times since I was eight.

  “No prom. Suspended students aren’t allowed to attend.” Mr. Goddard’s words were firm, yet they held a small amount of sympathy.

  I let my gaze fall to my hands. I didn’t know what to think about missing my first prom. Sterling and I were taking some time apart, so I didn’t know if that was something we would have attended, but I guessed at least one of the many questions I had been asking myself had been answered now. Was I sad to miss my first prom? Kind of.

  Mom and I walked into the house after our meeting and dismissal from school grounds. My suspension was effective immediately. A school representative would collect two weeks’ worth of my schoolwork, then call my mother to pick it up at the office. I was not, for any reason, to step foot on school property until my suspension was over.

  As we walked through the entryway, I felt as if I was a criminal walking to the gallows. It was time to confess, probably past time. I bellied up to the elevated bar at the kitchen counter as Mom rounded it toward the fridge.

  “Mom?”

  She held up a finger, opened the fridge, pulled out a bottle of white wine, and uncorked it. She then went to the cabinet that held the stemware and pulled a large bowled glass down. Once she was situated, one arm braced on the counter, and the other fiddling with the bottom of her glass, she lifted her eyes and asked, “Are you on drugs?”

  I swallowed and shook my head, examining the black veins that were ingrained throughout the sparkly white marble surface of the bar. Black and white. If only life was that simple.

  I wanted to explain, to come out with it, but my tongue felt too big for my mouth. Sweat drenched my hairline and the back of my top, and I couldn’t stop the tremor that ran through my limbs and practically vibrated my insides. I was not making a convincing case for being drug-free.

  “Then, tell me, Allison Marie Everly, why my back pills were in your car? Were they for your leg? You could have just asked.”

  Again, I just stood there, not meeting her eyes, and shook my head.

  My heart raced. I had the urge to flee. To take off running as fast as my body would allow. I wanted to be anywhere but here, explaining to my mom why I had stolen her pain medicine.

  An uncomfortable silence filled the room. I could hear the tick of the clock that hung on the living room wall. Then I heard her glass crash to the counter as she yelled, “Answer me, dammit!”

  She had finally lost it.

  My head shot up to see her glaring at me, red-faced.

  “Tell me why the police found prescription pills that did not belong to you in your car and you’re now suspended from school. Please, tell me why, because right now, it’s hard for me to believe that you’re not using drugs.”

  I should just let her think I was an addict. I mean, wouldn’t it be better for her to think that than for her to know the truth?

  “Well, if you’re not going to talk, I’ll call the doctor right now and set up a urine test. That will answer my question.”

  Panic seized me, and my heart beat so loud it had to be audible in the quietness. It was either tell her the truth now, or her learning the truth later, because those tests would all come up clean.

  I cleared my throat and settled my eyes back on those black veins. “I didn’t take any of your pills.” My voice was scratchy like I hadn’t used it in years.

  “Then, what were you doing with them?” she asked, exasperated.

  I focused on the little speckles of reflected light that made the white marble sparkle. “I tried …” I paused to take a deep breath, and confessed on the exhale, “Well, I was going to kill myself.”

  An unnatural quiet fell over the room. I continued my study of the bar top, cursing myself for being a coward. Shouldn’t I at least look into her eyes and apologize?

  Shame, an emotion that was my constant companion of late, burned in my gut.

  “Wh-what?” my mom finally asked brokenly.

  I sucked in a huge breath and lifted my eyes to look into hers. Her face was ghostly pale, and her eyes were filled with tears.

  She shook her head and denied, “Impossible. Why? Why would you want to do that?” She hiccupped a sob, her shoulders hunched, and brought a hand up to cover her mouth. “No.”

  My vision blurred, my nose stung, and my throat ached. I was crying yet again, but this time it wasn’t over a boy. It was a release borne of guilt and shame.

  “I was tired, Mom,” I explained, my voice cracking.

  “Tired of what? You’re seventeen years old, for goodness’ sake! You have your whole life ahead of you!”

  “You wouldn’t understand,” I muttered forlornly, feeling helpless. It felt like there was more than a kitchen counter that separated us; it might as well have been the Grand Canyon. She wouldn’t understand just how soul weary I had been for years. How I couldn’t take another day of being under someone’s thumb.

  Fat tears lazily rolled down my cheeks to drip off my jawline.

  “Explain it to me, because I really want to,” she implored, her eyes searching mine, her own tears falling.

  “I wanted to escape. I was just so tired of not having a choice. Everything …” I breathed in a shuddered breath and tried to compose my thoughts. When I actually took a moment to think about it, my reasons sounded petty and childlike.

  “Everything what?”

  “It sounds foolish now, but everything was decided for me without my input. Who my friends were, what I ate, what activities I was to participate in … I felt like I was in the passenger seat of my own life.” I slid my gaze to the side. “I just wanted it all to stop.”

  “Thank God you changed your mind! Honey …” She started to sob and went on brokenly, “I don’t know what I’d do without you. I love you, baby.” She came around the counter and crushed me to her. We both shook with the power of our sobs.

  I breathed the familiar clean scent of my mom’s perfume and mumbled, “I’m so sorry,” into the now damp fabric of her shirt.

  I felt her stroke my hair as she breathed out, “Oh, honey, I’m so sorry I wasn’t there for you. That I wasn’t the mom you needed. That I wasn’t strong enough to be. That’s going to change.”

  We stood there for a while, our tears waning, and for the first time since I was probably a kid, I felt safe in my mother’s arms.

  “I didn’t change my mind,” I whispered. If I was going to confess, I might as well confess it all.

  She pulled back and looked at me quizzically.

  “Sterling … he, ah … he saved me.”

  Her mouth formed an O, and as I went on to tell her about that evening at the football field and how he had knocked the pills from my hand, she moved back around the counter to her glass of wine and took a drink.

  “I’ll have to hug his neck the next time I see him,” she muttered as she wiped beneath each eye with a finger.

  My mom had met Sterling briefly when he had picked me up for weekend rehearsals, but she had never given an opinion on him. She knew we spent time together, but between my schedule and hers, we never had an in-depth conversation about him.

  I stayed silent, not wanting to tell her that Sterling and I weren’t exactly speaking at the moment and why.

  When Mom had gotten herself under control, the only evi
dence of her crying jag were the slight pink splotches around her eyes and on her cheeks.

  She lifted her glass to her lips and leveled me with her gaze. Once she had taken a drink and set the glass back on the counter, she asked, “So, do you still feel that way? You still having suicidal thoughts?”

  I shook my head. “No, Sterling helped me with that, too.”

  “Still, baby girl, you’re going to have to see someone. I’m grateful to Sterling—don’t get me wrong—but I’m not putting your mental health into the hands of a seventeen-year-old boy. He should have told someone.”

  I nodded my agreement. She was probably right—that was the smart move—especially since that seventeen-year-old boy kind of broke my heart over the weekend.

  “I’ll call the doctor here in a minute and get a recommendation,” she added, then took another long drink, and when she was done, her expression made the hair on my arms rise and a sense of foreboding stole over me.

  Her eyes dropped to her glass. “I have a confession, as well.”

  I gripped the edge of the marble as I waited, breath trapped in my lungs. I knew she was going to tell me what I had been suspecting for a while, but wouldn’t let myself think on.

  “Your father … well …” She looked to the side, as if something in the hallway would give her inspiration, then turned back to me. “He’s not on a business trip. He moved out.”

  I stilled, the words echoing in my head, and my grip on the bar became white-knuckled. “Are you getting a divorce?” I asked.

  She nodded then gave me a look that was so infinitely sad that it made my chest ache. “I don’t even know how to say this … but I know I won’t be able to shield you from it for much longer.” She looked away again, pain etched into her features. Then she turned back to me and confessed, “Your father had an affair with Tina … and she’s pregnant. He’s living with her.”

  My mouth dropped open, and my hands went lax. “Tina? His secretary, Tina?” I choked out.

  “Yep. Good ole Tina,” she muttered sarcastically then took a deep drink from her glass, finishing it off.

  Tina was a young blonde who had boobs the size of cantaloupes—the IQ of one, too. I had wondered how she had kept her job at Dad’s firm. Now I knew.

  “I’m going to be a big sister?” I asked in disbelief.

  I was both elated and horrified. I had always wanted brothers or sisters, but I wouldn’t want them to be subjected to the kind of parenting my father had practiced on me.

  Mom nodded. Her normally flawless face looked older, the lines around her eyes and mouth more noticeable, and the blueish-purple rings under her eyes testified to sleepless nights and worry.

  “So, how is this going to work? Don’t tell me I’m going to have to stay with him and Tina every other week or weekend!” The thought was horrifying.

  “Oh, goodness no!” she exclaimed, mirroring my abhorrence. “I’ve banned him from contacting either of us until we figure something out. I even threatened to take him to the cleaners if he didn’t give us time!” She sighed tiredly. “So, for now, we’re hammering out an agreement. You’ll have to see him, so there will be some visitation, but you won’t have to do any overnights or anything like that.”

  I blew out a relieved breath. Still, I felt disoriented and kind of numb. Things were changing too fast, and I felt like I was running to catch up.

  “So, what now?” I asked, still feeling a little lost.

  “Therapy,” she answered on a sigh then reached for her phone.

  Mom, who was one to never let the grass grow beneath her feet, had me in a therapist’s office the next day. It was decided that I would meet with Dr. Keller twice a week.

  Dr. Denise Keller was relatively young with dark brown hair pulled back into a bun at her nape and trendy, hot pink glasses perched on her nose. She was supposed to be one of the best therapists for children and teenagers in the county. I sure hoped so.

  Mom had also decided to start seeing someone. Her therapist was in the same building, so we would be carpooling. Most daughters had mani-pedi appointments with their mothers … I had therapy sessions. I felt like we had finally turned into the modern American family.

  It was also decided that my actions couldn’t go without consequences at home. Therefore, I was grounded. I hadn’t ever been grounded by my mother before. My dad? Lots of times. With him, I was grounded for just about everything, like a pound gained on weigh-in day or a bad track practice. Her taking my car keys, phone, and laptop was strange. It was also going to be a hellish two weeks.

  Worst of all … if Sterling did message me, I would never know.

  The next two weeks were the most boring, yet the most enlightening of my life. With nothing better to do than to think and watch television—I did a lot of both—I found out there was only so much cable television I could watch, so I switched to Netflix and had gone through all the seasons of Gilmore Girls, Stranger Things, and was currently working my way through Supernatural.

  Even when I was in front of the TV, I did nothing but think about my situation with Sterling and what I could have done differently. The conclusion was always the same: nothing.

  I missed him so much I ached with it. I felt like I was missing a limb. I couldn’t eat, and I couldn’t sleep. I lay awake at night and stared out the window in hopes he would come to me. He never did.

  I was eaten up with questions. Was he okay? Did he think about me? Was he missing me like I missed him? Or had he moved on? Was he reconnecting with Raven?

  My thoughts repeatedly spun with endless questions. I couldn’t even ask Blake or Elodie about him.

  One day, it hit me like a bolt of lightning while I was watching Gilmore Girls. I loved Sterling. Like, I really loved him. It wasn’t infatuation or puppy love. I loved him. I would love him even if he was going to be Raven’s baby’s daddy. You just didn’t give up on the people you loved.

  My dad had given up on me. He didn’t have to say it. He hadn’t been here in over a month, and he hadn’t called. I didn’t know if it was that he had screwed up so royally, or if it was because he couldn’t live vicariously through me on the track anymore. It was probably both. Derek Everly hated mistakes, especially his own, so he pretended like they never happened. I guessed I had ceased to exist in his world.

  What else was I supposed to think? He wasn’t trying to make it right with me or Mom, so he must have just cut his losses.

  One thing I knew for certain, I wasn’t going to give up on my relationship with Sterling. We would figure this out. I was willing to try. I just hoped he hadn’t quit on me. The thought made my heart clench, but I had to hold on to what he had told me that night—that he would wait for me and loved me.

  I wanted to tell him all this, but unfortunately, I was without a phone, a car, and a computer. Unless he could read smoke signals, I wouldn’t be able to tell him until my punishment was over in a couple days.

  I stood in the hall and stared at row after row of gray metal lockers, a veritable sea of them, each one representing a classmate. It was Saturday, my suspension would end on Monday, but Mom had gotten a text from Laura—yes, I know, shocking. She had gotten special permission for me to help decorate for prom since they needed all the help they could get. Despite not being able to attend, I was still on the prom committee.

  I figured this was Laura’s way of rubbing salt in the wound. I still wasn’t allowed to attend, yet I had to come up here and decorate for it. I didn’t want to, but Mom had given me the look and a lecture about honoring my commitments.

  So, that was how I ended up in the hall, staring at lockers. I was hiding. I had snuck away from the insanity that was Laura and her minions in prom perfection mode.

  Some of the lockers had footballs pinned to the front or pom-poms. Mine had a track shoe, a gavel for Student Council, and a newly added drama mask. So boring. So plain. However, it made me think … The outside of the lockers was a superficial representation of our role or who we were in school. The
y touted our extracurricular activities, but weren’t we more than that?

  I thought of all the kids who could be struggling with the same issues I had. Who yearned for an escape or a reprieve from the life they had been shoved into without their consent. The kids who were told who they were or who they were going to be by their parents, their friends, or even by society. My life had been a tragedy averted, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t another one in the making.

  Sterling stood in the gap. He had been my intercessory, the person who stopped me from making a decision I could not unmake. He had also guided me back to myself and helped me discover who Ally Everly was outside of all the external influences that had been battering me my entire life.

  I worried for those who didn’t have a Sterling, a person who would come into their lives at the right moment, at the right time. And that was when it came to me. I could be that person … Or, well, try to be.

  A trip to the teachers’ supply closet and a sharpie later, I was walking up and down the rows, writing notes on multicolored squares of sticky notes. If I knew the person, I wrote something I liked about them. I did this with everyone, even my old crew. Laura, her strength; Sarah, her outgoingness; and Ariel, her ability to have fun doing anything. I even left a sticky note for Miles, telling him that his charm was lethal. If the locker wasn’t marked, or if I didn’t know the person that well, I just left “You matter,” or “You are important,” or “You are loved.”

  My favorite notes were the ones I left for the friends I had made over the past couple months. I told Elodie she had a good heart, because she genuinely did. I also wrote that her freckles were my favorite feature, and her innate goodness was a thing of beauty. I wrote on Blake’s sticky note that his artistic eye was beyond compare, and that his shoe collection was legendary. I also left one for him that said, “Savage AF.” They were easily the bestest friends I had ever had.

  When I neared Sterling’s locker, the song “It’s Raining on Prom Night” came to mind, and I started singing it under my breath. How fitting. And Sterling’s note? Well, Sterling didn’t get just one; he got several. I couldn’t tell him about my revelations in the conventional methods, so I improvised. I plastered his locker door until the metal was no longer visible. The most important one, I placed right in the middle, and it was the only neon pink note up there.