After (Parallel Series, Book 4)

by Christine Kersey

  He looked at the stage where Mr. Cunningham was watching the students file out, then he looked at me. “I’ll wait for you outside if you want.”

  I smiled. “Yes.”

  Then he kissed me, right in front of anyone who was watching. “Always remember that I support you,” he said. “No matter what.”

  Thrilled beyond belief by his kiss, as well as his words, my anxiety over meeting with the principal was replaced by happiness to have Billy on my side. “Thanks.”

  “I’ll be out front.”

  I nodded, then watched him move to the aisle and merge with the other students.

  Chapter 28

  Morgan

  “Shut the door,” Mr. Cunningham said as I entered his office.

  I did, then I sat in the chair across the desk from him.

  He gazed at me a moment. “The last time we met I gave you some instructions. What were they?”

  Though he was obviously angry with me, it was nothing like the animosity I’d felt from Mrs. Reynolds, or Holly, or any of the other people I’d met in the other world who had seemed to enjoy making my life miserable. That fact calmed me, as I knew there was only so much he could do to me. And none of it was anywhere near as bad as what had been done to me in Billy’s world.

  “You told me to keep my mouth shut,” I said.

  He frowned. “Would you agree that you seem to have a hard time doing that, Morgan?”

  Insulted by his obvious attitude that my opinion wasn’t worth sharing, I said, “I couldn’t sit quietly in my seat when I heard what Holly and her organization have planned. It’s bad enough that they’re going to remove our food choices, but now the school is going to require us to get weighed?” I stared at him, and even though I knew it probably seemed disrespectful, I said, “Are you okay with these weigh-ins, Mr. Cunningham?”

  He didn’t seem to appreciate my attempt to get his honest opinion. “We’re not talking about me, Morgan. We’re talking about your extreme rudeness to an invited guest.”

  Not wanting to make my situation any worse, I didn’t say anything.

  “You were warned about this,” he said. “Now you are being suspended for two days, beginning Monday.”

  My heart dropped. I’d never been suspended before. I’d never even been in trouble before—at least in my world. What would Mom and Dad say? Even though Mom believed my story, would she excuse my behavior? And what about Dad? He didn’t even believe my story, so he would just be pissed that I was such a terrible example to my younger siblings.

  I would be grounded for sure. That meant I wouldn’t be able to see Billy for who knows how long. I had to change Mr. Cunningham’s mind.

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Cunningham,” I said. “Please don’t suspend me for speaking my mind.”

  He shook his head. “No, Morgan. It’s too late for apologies now. You’ve already done it, and your actions have made our school look bad. Your behavior is unacceptable.”

  My shoulders slumped. I knew there was nothing I could do.

  “Get your books out of your locker. I’ll ask your teachers to contact you with the assignments you’ll be missing, as I expect you to have them ready to turn in when you return to school on Wednesday.”

  This really sucks. But instead of protesting, I just nodded.

  “You may go,” he said. “I’ll call your parents in a few minutes.”

  Great. Now I’ll be in trouble before I even get home.

  With a frown, I stood, then left the principal’s office and went to my locker. After getting my books, I found Billy talking to Rochelle in the front of the school. Seeing my two friends waiting for me gave me a small boost. At least someone supported and understood me. Billy more than Rochelle, of course. But at least she was there.

  “Hey,” I said as I leaned forward under the weight of my backpack. I set the nearly overflowing pack on the ground as I stopped next to my friends.

  Billy gestured to my pack. “What’s with all the books?”

  I sighed. “I’ve been suspended for two days.”

  “Oh, no,” Rochelle said.

  “That sucks,” Billy added.

  “Yeah. I’m pretty sure my parents are going to ground me now.”

  We were all quiet as we considered this latest development.

  “I know,” Rochelle said, her face brightening. “Instead of going home, let’s go to the mall.”

  Since it would probably be a while before I’d be allowed to go to the mall—or anywhere—I readily agreed.

  We arrived at the mall a short time later, and as we walked inside I tried to forget about my awful afternoon. When Billy intertwined his fingers with mine, I smiled, happy to have him with me, always with me.

  “What do you want to do?” Rochelle asked.

  “Are you still not having snacks?” I asked as my stomach rumbled.

  She laughed as a guilty look came over her. “I kind of gave that up.”

  “Good,” I said. “Let’s go to the food court.” I frowned. “Before they take that away from us.”

  As the three of us sat at a table and ate our food, Rochelle said, “I don’t like this weigh-in thing. How can they force us to do it?”

  I thought about the rules in Billy’s world—if you went too long without weighing yourself you could be sent to a F.A.T. center—and wondered what the punishment would be if you refused to get weighed. “I don’t know.” A small smile lifted my lips. “What if we got a bunch of kids at our school to refuse? What do you think would happen?”

  “Just be prepared to get in more trouble,” Billy said.

  I shrugged. “I’ve already been suspended. What’s next? Are they going to kick me out?”

  He raised his eyebrows as if to say, Yeah.

  “Well, maybe it’s worth it,” I said. “We have to take a stand at some point.”

  “Let’s do it,” Rochelle said. The expression on her face showed her commitment. “Where do we start?”

  “We can all go on our social media sites,” I said. “We can say that we’re going to refuse to be weighed, and then suggest that everyone else refuse as well.”

  “Good idea,” she said. “We need to start today though, because the weigh-ins start next week. We want to put a stop to it before it even starts.”

  I nodded as my earlier feeling of helplessness started to lift. Then my cell phone rang. When I looked at the screen, I frowned. “It’s my mom.” Suddenly I wished she hadn’t given me the phone back.

  “Don’t answer it,” Rochelle said.

  I glanced at Billy, but he didn’t give any indication as to what I should do. “I’ll call her back in a little while,” I said. “After we post everywhere.”

  Rochelle took out her phone and the two of us got busy posting our plan to the many social media sites where we had accounts. Half an hour later we were done, and I called Mom.

  “Where are you?” she asked, her voice showing how upset she was.

  “At the mall.”

  “Get home right now, Morgan.”

  Any power I’d felt while posting about our boycott on the weigh-ins was squashed by the knowledge that my parents still controlled my life. Maybe they’d even make me weigh myself at the school. “Okay.” A moment later I hung up. It would be better to talk to Mom face to face anyway.

  Billy and Rochelle were watching me. “I have to go home,” I said.

  “Okay. I’ll take you,” Rochelle said.

  When we got to my house, Rochelle stopped at the curb.

  “Do you want me to come in with you?” Billy asked.

  “No, I think I’d better go in alone.”

  “Okay.” He got out of the car when I did, and gave me a kiss. “Good luck. Call me later.”

  “I’m not sure I’ll be able to even use the phone, but I’ll call if I can.”

  After they drove off, I walked toward the house, on edge as to what Mom would say.

  Chapter 29

  Morgan

  “What were you thinki
ng?” Mom said after she sat me down in her room for a talk. “Mr. Cunningham told me that he warned you before about disrupting the assembly.” Frustration was etched in her features. “Look, I understand why you’re upset about this new weigh-in policy, but arguing with Holly at the assembly? How is that helpful, Morgan?”

  I closed my eyes and shook my head as I tried to form an explanation, then I met Mom’s gaze. “I didn’t plan on arguing with her. But when she said we were required to weigh ourselves, it’s like I couldn’t help myself. I had to say something.”

  Mom sighed.

  “Mom,” I said as I made a snap decision.

  “Yes, Morgan?”

  “Mom, Holly is the woman who . . . well, the other-world version of her is the one who tortured me.”

  Mom’s eyes widened. “I remember you telling me about some kind of torture you experienced.” She hesitated, like she wasn’t sure if she should ask her next question.

  “What?”

  “Can you . . . can you tell me more about this torture?” Worry filled her eyes. “If it’s not too difficult,” she hastily added.

  Her question made me realize that maybe she didn’t understand as much about my experience as I’d thought. I had to remember that I’d told her the whole story in one sitting. It had been a lot to take in. It was no wonder that she didn’t remember every detail. Besides, I hadn’t given her all the details of the torture Holly had put me through.

  “Yeah,” I said. “I’ll tell you about it.”

  She listened closely as I explained how Holly had first gotten me to eat several power bars until I’d basically been drugged, and when that hadn’t worked to get me to tell them the information they wanted, how Holly had flat-out threatened me. Then I told her how eventually Holly had come to realize that I wouldn’t willingly help her and her people, so she’d forcibly inserted some sort of device into the base of my skull.

  “I didn’t know what it was for,” I said. “But it didn’t take long to find out.”

  I described how Holly had brought me back to the interrogation room, and when I hadn’t answered Fred’s questions about the resistance groups, Holly had pressed a button that had sent me into throes of absolute agony.

  “She ended up doing it three times before she . . .” My voice dropped to a whisper as I remembered the shame I’d felt when I’d told them that Brynn was the one who’d brought me to Jack’s house. “Before she broke me.”

  Mom pulled me into her arms. “Oh, Morgan. No wonder you didn’t want to work with her.” She released me and looked at me. “Why didn’t you tell me about this before? That she was the one who’d done this?”

  A small smile lifted the corners of my mouth. I was happy that Mom understood where I was coming from. “Because,” I said. “I knew that the Holly here wasn’t the same person who had done it.”

  Mom stared at me, evidently thinking things through. Finally she said, “Do you understand why Mr. Cunningham suspended you?”

  I nodded. “Yes, but I think I should be able to speak my mind. And anyway, I wasn’t really rude to Holly. I just said what I thought.”

  “I’ll have to talk to your father,” she said. “But even though I understand why you were suspended, and I’m not going to protest it, I don’t know that your father and I need to punish you further.”

  Joy pulsed through me. Mom supports me.

  She smiled. “Before you get all happy, let me talk to Dad and see what he says. He might not feel exactly as I do.”

  I tried to dial back my enthusiasm. “Okay.” Then I remembered the campaign that Rochelle and I had started. “I should probably tell you something else.”

  She looked wary. “What?”

  “Rochelle and I are trying to get as many kids as we can to refuse to be weighed.”

  Her gaze went to the ceiling before settling back on me. “Do you really have to keep stirring things up?”

  I couldn’t believe she was asking me that. “After all I’ve been through? Yeah. I do.”

  She sighed. “What do you think Mr. Cunningham will do when he finds out you’re behind that?”

  I shrugged. “I can’t worry about that right now. The important thing is to put a stop to this government intrusion. It’s getting kind of scary how much they want to be involved with what we eat and how much we weigh.” Memories of my experience in Billy’s world flashed through my mind like a movie. A horror movie. “Very scary.”

  When Dad got home Mom pulled him aside to tell him what was going on, and then the two of them invited me to come into their room for a chat. We all sat on their bed, and as I looked at Dad’s face I tried to figure out what he was thinking, but his expression was unreadable.

  “I understand you had some trouble at school today,” he said.

  I glanced at Mom, then met Dad’s gaze. “You could say that.”

  “Do you want to tell me about it?”

  I told him about Holly’s announcement that the school would require each student to be weighed every thirty days, and how that concerned me. “I know you don’t believe what Billy and I told you,” I said. “But it’s true. And I’m really worried that what happened there could end up happening here.”

  He chuckled. “It seems pretty unlikely that the government would make people go to some sort of government run weight-loss place.”

  I wondered how I could convince him, but Mom spoke up before I had a chance to come up with a good response.

  “Steve,” she said. “If ten years ago I’d told you that the government would be imposing food restrictions at school and making the kids get weighed every month, would you have believed me?”

  He looked thoughtful, then cleared his throat. “Hmm. Probably not. In fact, I might have argued that the government would never try to control our lives that much.”

  Mom smiled. “Exactly. So what Morgan told us she experienced—that the government truly controlled people’s lives down to how much they weighed—could absolutely happen here.”

  Dad’s expression became serious. “I suppose you’re right.”

  “That’s why I had to say something,” I said. “I couldn’t just sit there and let everyone think it was okay to do these weigh-ins.”

  “I understand.” He paused, like he was considering my argument. “It would be helpful if I could have seen for myself what happened.”

  I thought about all the kids who’d had their cell phones out during the interaction, and I smiled. “I’ll bet there’s a way for you to do just that.”

  “Oh?” Dad raised his eyebrows. “How?”

  “Some of the kids recorded it,” I said. “Let me see if anyone posted it online.” Dad agreed, and we went downstairs to the computer. It didn’t take long to find not just one, but several videos that kids had posted.

  Dad and Mom watched the videos that I found before Dad turned to me with a frown. “I have mixed feelings,” he said. “I understand what you’re saying to her, but you could have been more respectful.”

  Worried where he was going with that, I didn’t say anything.

  Looking perplexed, he went on. “But she seemed to bait you too.” He frowned. “She even lied, didn’t she? About you begging her to be in her PSA.”

  I nodded, a feeling of hope blooming inside me. “Yes. I only did it for Amy.”

  Mom nodded. “Amy had to really twist Morgan’s arm to get her to do it, Steve.”

  “Hmm,” he said. “I’m not thrilled that you’re bringing all of this attention to yourself, but I agree with your mother that your suspension is punishment enough.”

  “Really?” I could hardly believe that I wouldn’t be grounded.

  “Yes. But I think you need to step back from this some.”

  I looked at Mom. “Did you tell him about the protest?”

  “No.” Her mouth quirked into a smile. “I thought telling him about the suspension was enough to hit him with initially.”

  “Oh.”

  “What protest?” Dad asked, look
ing less than pleased.

  I told him how Rochelle and I had posted on all of our social media sites that the other students should refuse to be weighed. I purposely didn’t mention Billy as I didn’t want them to think he was a bad influence. Besides, he didn’t even have any social media accounts.

  “Oh boy,” Dad said.

  “What does that mean?” I asked.

  He sighed. “Just that it seems that you’re looking for more trouble with Holly and her group.”

  Anxiety tightened my chest. “I don’t want trouble. Not at all. I just don’t want the government to think we’ll just go along quietly with their agenda.”

  Dad gazed at me a moment. “You’ve changed, Morgan.”

  I stared back, wondering how to convince him that what Billy and I had told him really happened. “Terrible experiences tend to do that to you.”

  He was silent as our eyes locked, then in a quiet voice he said, “You and Billy weren’t making up that story, were you?”

  I shook my head, and my voice dropped to nearly a whisper. “No. It’s completely true.”

  “Huh.”

  Was he finally starting to believe me?

  Chapter 30

  Billy

  I finished straightening my bedroom as I waited to hear from Morgan. Ever since I’d known her it seemed trouble found her. Was that something I wanted? If I stuck by her—and I’d always wanted to stay by her—would I be pulled into her tsunami of trouble too? What would that mean for me?

  I’d only just arrived in this world. I’d had more than my share of problems in my world. Did I want to start getting into trouble in this one?

  I heard the phone ring, then Tasco called up to me that Morgan was on the phone. I hurried down the stairs and into the kitchen where I took the cordless phone from Tasco, then I carried it back to my room.

  “What did they say?” I asked before even saying hello.