by Leigh, T. K.
“You did get help, Marley Jane,” my uncle said in his pacifying voice. “All the help you’ve ever needed is right in front of you. There’s no greater healing than the power of God.”
My gaze narrowed on him. “There is no God.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
BEFORE
“HEY, MAR,” I SAID, climbing onto the roof later that Monday after doing some damage control on her behalf with Aunt Terryn and Uncle Graham.
She glanced in my direction and nodded slightly. “Hey, Cam.”
Sighing, I lowered myself to the roof and lay back to stare at the sky over Myrtle Beach at dusk. “Did you really mean what you said before?”
Turning her head, she asked, “What part?”
“About God. Do you really not believe in God?”
She exhaled loudly as she considered my question. “I don’t know, Cam. Some days I do. I don’t know if it’s God, but some days I do feel as if there is a higher power of some sort up there, making sure that I’m on the right path. Other days, I feel completely alone and without direction. I always hear Uncle Graham talking about how important it is to look to God for guidance when we’re troubled. But when I’m troubled, that’s when I feel nothing, Cam. I don’t feel God or any other higher being at those times. Isn’t that when He should be there? When I need Him or Her most?”
“Maybe God’s busy doing other things at those times. Maybe you’re on His list and He’s trying to get to you, but He has bigger fish to fry at the moment. Did you ever think about that?”
She raised her eyebrows. “Do you believe in God?”
“I wouldn’t say I believe in God, but I do know there is some higher power, some driving force out there, some sort of light in a world that would otherwise be dark. So I guess you could say that I’m a firm believer in the light.”
A streak of lightening flashed on the horizon followed by a loud clap of thunder, startling me. Marley, however, remained unmoving.
“You’re a good person, Cam. You’re so level-headed. It seems like nothing ever gets to you.”
“Shit gets to me. I guess I’ve learned to process everything over the years.” It was silent for a moment before I spoke again. “Have you been writing in your journal like I recommended?”
“Yeah. I started right after Grams died. It helps. In a way, it feels like I’m writing to her, but I definitely put a little more in there than what I would tell her. I’m pretty sure she doesn’t want to hear about the size of Doug’s junk.”
“Marley Jane!” I exclaimed, playfully pinching her arm. “Neither does your brother!”
She giggled and I could tell she was slowly returning to me after her outburst that morning. I had gotten used to things over the years. Marley’s emotions always took you on a wild roller coaster ride, the ebb and flow often unexpected and sometimes tumultuous. But during those moments that things flattened out, and the ups and downs of her life were on an even keel, even if for just an instant, those were the times that I treasured. I wouldn’t trade those rare memories for anything in the world. Those were the times that I saw the real Marley…the girl that forced me to play Barbie’s with her, the girl that convinced me the mud pie she made for me was really chocolate. The way her eyes brimmed with enthusiasm and mischief at the same time, you couldn’t help but believe her, knowing that she would squeal with excitement and delight when you pretended to take a bite of her ‘chocolate’ pie.
“Remember the tree house?” she asked, bringing me back from my own memories. I could hear the lump in her throat.
“How could I forget? You hounded Dad for months to build you one.”
“Remember going out there after he died, but before Mama lost the house?”
I nodded, finding Marley’s hand and grabbing it. “Yeah, I do.”
I felt her body tremble beside me as big, fat rain drops began to fall. “I think it would have been the best tree house on the block.”
“The way Dad doted on you, it would have been a tree mansion by the time he was done with it.”
Losing my father was hard enough when I was just eight, but having to be faced with the constant reminders of his life made it even more difficult. The worst was looking out our back window at a tree that he had begun to build a house in for Marley and me. The night that Mama had explained to us that Dad had gone to heaven and wouldn’t be coming back, I remember glancing out there and seeing Marley sitting on the lone wood plank that he had set up as the foundation of the tree house. Nearly every night that we lived in that house, we would go out there and simply lay down and look at the stars.
“This reminds me of that,” I said softly. “Of those nights in the tree house.”
The sound of thunder boomed around us and we remained on that roof, not caring that we were both drenched from the late summer downpour cloaking the town.
“Me, too,” Marley said. “I think that’s why I like coming out here so much. It reminds me of ‘before’. It makes me feel closer to Dad. I always swore I could hear him talking to me in that tree house and, some nights when I’m out here, I can still hear him.”
“What does he say?”
She turned to face me and almost broke into tears. “That he’s proud of you. That he can’t believe how much of him he sees in you. That he’s happy you don’t let anyone or anything influence your decisions. That he’s thankful you’ve never abandoned me. And that he’s glad you finally got the Wrangler you always wanted…but he’s much more impressed with my choice of car.”
“Hey, now!” I laughed. “Don’t knock the Jeep! It’s a classic!”
“So is my Mustang!” she said, her teeth beginning to chatter from the rain and wind.
Raising myself off the roof, I pulled her up with me. “Come on, Marley Jane. You can’t be sick for the first day of your senior year of high school. You’re shivering.” I helped her into her window and followed, grabbing a towel out of the bathroom and wrapping it around her before doing the same to me.
Once I was sure that she had warmed up, I turned to head to my own room.
“Hey, Cam?” she said, getting my attention.
“Yeah?” I looked over my shoulder at her.
“Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For being my normal.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
LOSING CONTROL
TODAY WAS THE FIRST day of school. It felt refreshing to be able to walk through the school campus and see friends. There was something about the socialization that happened in the hallways before class that always grounded me in some sense of normalcy. It was like this no matter where you went to school. And I wanted more of that…ordinary, normal, teenage averageness.
“Marley Jane Bowen!” I heard as I strolled through the halls between first and second period. I turned around and saw two of my fellow Dance Squad girls and good friends standing behind me.
“Carla!” I squealed, wrapping my arms around her and Kristen as if I hadn’t just seen them at the bonfire on Friday. “I can’t believe we haven’t run into each other yet.” I linked arms with them and we must have looked like quite the sight walking through the hall, all of us adhering to the cookie cutter mold…blonde hair, blue eyes, tall, skinny, our plaid uniform skirt hiked up to make it more fashionable and less “church-choir”.
“Where are you off to now?” Kristen asked.
Pulling out my schedule, I wrinkled my nose in obvious displeasure. “Ugh. Cam must have registered me for this one. Governments. He keeps saying that I need to know more about how our government works.”
“I’m in that, too!” Carla responded excitedly. “Isn’t Brianna’s father teaching it? Man, looking at that fine specimen of a man, she has some good genes!”
“Carla!” I said in shock. “He’s, like, four times your age.”
“Ummm… No. He’s forty. We’re only talking about a twenty-two year age difference. That makes him entirely do-able.”
“You’re disturbing sometimes. You do kn
ow that, right?” I shook my head and walked down the noisy, crowded hallways with my friends on either arm.
Mr. Monroe, Brianna’s father, is that teacher at our school. The one all the girls flirt with or wink at. The one that all the guys would love to grab a beer with when they finally become old enough to drink. From what I know about him, he comes from a very wealthy family in Georgia. He met Brianna’s mother when he moved up here to attend graduate school. He was a teacher’s assistant and she was one of his students. Four months later, they were married. Eight months after that, Brianna was born. Their marriage was a victim of snobbery and stereotypes, and was doomed for failure. Obviously, it was based on lust, and their unhappiness and animosity toward each other has only increased over the years, mostly because the former Mrs. Monroe was angry when Mr. Monroe continued with his education and went on to get his doctorate, instead of simply signing his trust fund over to her.
Their constant bickering has put Brianna in a bit of an awkward spot the past few years. While Mr. Monroe is one of the most beloved teachers, Mr. Grayson, her step-father, is the chairperson of the board of trustees of this school, and pretty much runs the show here. He tried to have Mr. Monroe removed from his teaching position, but the board voted unanimously against it…well, almost unanimously. Rumors circulated about Mr. Monroe smoking pot with a few students, or touching one of his female students in an inappropriate manner. I’m more apt to believe the latter rather than the former, although any touching was probably welcomed and invited.
The bell rang and we bolted down the corridor, not wanting to be late on the first day of school. I was already grounded for playing hooky from church. I didn’t want my aunt to add to that punishment.
“So I saw you sucking face with Doug!” Carla shouted just as Kristen threw open the door to the room and the three of us stumbled in, all eyes turning to us as we made our grand entrance.
“Miss DuBois, Miss Galloway, and Miss Bowen,” Mr. Monroe said, turning away from the dry board and looking at us with his warm hazel eyes. Surveying his tall stature and athletic build, I could see why all the girls would find him attractive. He was the epitome of tall, dark, and handsome. And while I knew he was forty, I didn’t think he looked a day over twenty-five, his features rather young, similar to that of many of the guys I had met when I went to visit college campuses last spring.
“The bell rang already, did it not?”
“It did,” Carla said, throwing her hair over her shoulder and placing her hand on her hip in a flirtatious manner. I almost thought I saw her hike her skirt up even more.
“I’ll allow your tardiness to slide today because it’s the first day, but starting tomorrow, it will result in detention. Do you understand, ladies?”
“Yes, sir,” I responded as my friends pouted, hoping it would win his heart. It didn’t.
“Good. Please find a desk. A seating chart is being circulated at the moment.” His eyes remained glued to me as we all nodded our heads in unison.
Carla and Kristen scrambled in front of me and grabbed the last two remaining desks toward the back of the class. I was relegated to the only desk left…dead center of the front row. The worst desk there was.
Sighing, I made my way to the desk and slid into it, opening my backpack and grabbing a notebook. The classroom remained eerily quiet as I shuffled things around. Finally ready to begin, I looked up and was met with hazel eyes once more.
“Miss Bowen, a little modesty in your choice of tops may go a long way in the future. Or do I have to report you for taking liberties with the school dress code?”
I immediately placed my hand over my chest, noticing the neckline of my loose t-shirt had dropped dramatically. While we did have to wear a uniform, we were allowed to wear our choice of white top. Apparently, my choice today was a little too revealing. My face flushing red in embarrassment, I readjusted my shirt so that it was more, in his words, modest.
“No, sir.”
His lips turned into a strange smile. “Good girl.” He looked at me with a disquieting gaze and I shifted in my desk, hating the attention I was getting. Opening my notebook, I avoided his eyes and began writing the date on the first blank page I came across, making a mental note to begin to dress in a way that would no longer bring attention to myself.
The forty-eight minute class dragged on mercilessly as my mind wandered to everything…ditching church the other day, driving to Charleston and seeing Buck in the market, going to our secret spot and falling asleep in Doug’s arms, waking up screaming from another nightmare, looking at the confused expression on Doug’s face, and telling my pastor uncle that there was no God.
I began to feel guilty for saying those words to him. How would I feel if my own family thought that my profession was worthless?
Granted, I didn’t really have a profession. I didn’t think folding t-shirts and hanging clothes in a boutique clothing store really counted as one…at least not to me. That wasn’t what I saw myself doing in the long run. I guess that had always been my problem. I didn’t know where I saw myself in twenty years. Hell, I didn’t even know where I saw myself in twenty days.
Actually, that wasn’t entirely true. I saw myself here, sitting at this desk, finally done with the first of my official obligations as a member of the Jessamine Court. It was less than three weeks until they would make the official announcement and present the twelve of us to the entire town in an elaborate display of sexism at its finest.
“Miss Bowen?” A voice woke me from my thoughts about the spectacle that awaited me at the end of the month.
I looked up from my notepad where I had unknowingly scribbled several expletives around a sketch of a girl dressed in a pageant gown, and was met with a somewhat stern expression on Mr. Monroe’s face. You could hear a pin drop in that classroom.
“Yes?” I squeaked.
“I’m waiting for your answer.”
“Ummm… My answer to what?”
He sighed in an irritated way. “Is this class too boring for you, Miss Bowen? I thought, as your class president, you might take more of an interest in how systems of government work. But alas, in high school, it appears that class office is simply a popularity contest, isn’t it? As long as you have a pretty face and charismatic charm, you’ll win. Isn’t that true?”
Crossing my arms in front of me, I glared at him. “Not necessarily, although it helps, doesn’t it? Look at Bill Clinton. If I was old enough to vote, he would have gotten it based on looks alone.”
Stifled laughs surrounded me and I looked across the aisle at Brenda McLean, winking at the shocked expression on her face.
“That’s precisely why you need to be in this class, Miss Bowen. Over the next several months, all of you people will be turning eighteen. You will now have a say in who you elect and what your government does. You all need to be educated so that you can make a wise decision when you go to vote for the first time.”
He spun around, returning to the dry board. “Now that I finally have Miss Bowen’s undivided attention, perhaps she’ll be so kind as to grace us with an answer to my previous question before we got off topic.”
“Which was?”
I noticed his annoyance with me return. “While you were preoccupied with your little art project there…” he sneered, glancing to my notebook and I quickly covered my sketch with my hand, “we were discussing different systems of government. Our system here in the United States is what, Miss Bowen?”
“A democracy.”
“Ah… So the beauty queen does have a brain.”
I gave him a contemptuous smile. “Beauty and brains is a rare combination these days, but I’ve been blessed with both.”
Hushed voices echoed in the room and I could feel Mr. Monroe’s previous irritation turn more into anger and, possibly, embarrassment. I had a feeling that this was a man who liked control and wanted everyone to agree with him no matter what.
“Miss Bowen, please see me in my office after class.”
“Yes, sir,” I replied in a sing-song manner.
The bell rang a few minutes later and I took my time collecting my things, hoping to prolong the inevitable punishment that would await me for speaking back to one of my teachers. Following the crowd out of the classroom, I slowly made my way toward the administrative wing, heading down the quiet hallway to Mr. Monroe’s office. I was about to turn the corner when I nearly ran into someone walking rather quickly toward me.
“Brianna?” I said, noticing her downturned head.
She stopped abruptly and raised her eyes to look at me.
Scrunching my eyebrows, I surveyed her agitated demeanor. “Are you okay?” Lowering my voice, I asked, “Did you get in trouble for staying out all night on Sunday, too?”
“Yeah, that’s it,” she said sheepishly, pushing down the sleeves of her cardigan.
I followed her hands and could almost make out faint scratches and bruising. Grabbing her arm, I went to pull up her sleeve.
“Miss Bowen!” a voice bellowed out, forcing me to turn my attention away from Brianna. “Do you need a written invitation? Because, I assure you, my temper will only increase the longer I have to wait.”
“Coming, sir,” I replied meekly, looking at Brianna’s nervous expression as I kept her wrist clutched in my hand. “We’ll talk later,” I said to her before dropping her arm and heading toward Mr. Monroe’s dark, windowless office.
“Have a seat, Miss Bowen,” he said, gesturing to a chair on the opposite side of his mahogany desk that appeared to be more of a mission statement than a surface on which to do paperwork.
I followed his request, growing nervous when I heard the click of the door behind me. As he walked around me and sat behind his desk, his vexing eyes remained glued to mine and I couldn’t help but feel incredibly creeped out by him.
