Gone Too Far

by Natalie D. Richards

  He deserves that from me.

  “What are you doing tomorrow night?” I ask.

  “Saturday? Mooching food at your place, if your mom’s cooking.”

  “Good,” I say. “I have something I need your opinion on.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Manny flips through the pages carefully, his face unreadable. I pace grooves into my carpet and wring my hands until he finally rolls his eyes at me. “Sit down before you hurt yourself.”

  “So?”

  “So what? This is a hot mess you’ve got cooked up here, Pi.”

  “It’s not mine. I told you—I found it.”

  “Then unfind it,” he says, tapping at one of the pictures. “Because that is some Grade A scary shit right there.”

  “I totally agree.”

  “And what’s with this handwriting? No one writes like this.”

  “Someone obviously does. I’m thinking of volunteering in the office, so I can file tests or something.”

  He shakes his head. “Won’t help. I work in the office. Every-thing’s electronic and the grade stuff is on pretty tight lockdown.”

  I chew my bottom lip, feeling the questions bubble to the surface. “What about the attendance office?” My voice is much softer than usual. “Did you get in there?”

  He hesitates, his eyes narrowing. My cheeks go hot, and I flip to the section of the book that led me down this path. He reads the first entry—the one about us—and then I show him the next. He doesn’t deny a thing. Instead he sits down in my office chair, arms crossed over his chest.

  “Is that why you didn’t throw this thing away?” he asks.

  There are a million reasons for that, but I nod and he scratches the back of his neck.

  Then he just sits there, picking at a rip in the fabric of my desk chair. He’s looking at his knees or the floor or something that definitely isn’t me.

  I sigh. “Would you say something?”

  “What do you want me to say? ‘Don’t worry’?”

  “No, I want you tell me that it’s not true. Or that it is true. I want you to tell me why I’m reading about this in some whacko’s diary instead of hearing it from you.”

  “Well, it’s not like I knew a whacko was keeping tabs on me.”

  “Manny, I’m serious.”

  “So am I.”

  I throw my hands up in the hair. “Would you answer me already? Are you messing with student records?”

  He rubs a hand over his head and presses his lips together. And then, finally, he spills. “Yeah. A couple of times. It’s done now.”

  I sink onto my bed. “It’s done? How did it even start?”

  “I was working in the attendance office. Scanning permission slips and cleaning viruses off of computers for them. It was easy.” Manny shrugs.

  “It could get you expelled! What were you thinking?”

  He shakes his head and jabs a finger at the book. “You’re one to talk, since you’re sitting around with stolen property.”

  “Not even close to the same.”

  “So, that means we’re back to the Inquisition, huh? Ever since I told you I’m not going to college—”

  “Wait a minute, what? I thought you were putting it off. Now you’re not going?” He doesn’t answer so I huff. “Seriously, Manny? This is your new plan? Petty crime for hire?”

  “It’s real easy for you with your tuition check just waiting to be signed, but not all of us have your options! Sometimes there aren’t any good choices, okay?”

  “There’s always a good choice,” I say.

  Manny just laughs at that, standing up and pushing his chair against my desk. He grabs his coat from my bed and heads for my bedroom door.

  “Wait, don’t go. I’m sorry. I just worry because I care.”

  “Well, don’t,” he says. “Believe it or not, I’ll survive even if I have to, God forbid, follow in my dad’s skilled trade footsteps.”

  I bolt to my feet. “Don’t act like that. You know I love your dad. He works harder than anyone I know. But why is it so wrong for me to want more for you? I know you, Manny—you’re not going to be happy in a job like that. And I’m not talking Ivy League, here. I’m talking community college, so you can do what you want. Go where you want!”

  “You don’t get it, do you? It wouldn’t matter if it was thousand-dollar-a-year college. We. Don’t. Have. The. Money. There is no college fund. No savings. Most months there isn’t enough to make ends meet. But you wouldn’t understand anything about that, Pi.”

  I drop my head, tears welling in my eyes. “I’m sorry.”

  But he doesn’t hear me. He’s already gone.

  • • •

  Tuesday morning—and whatever’s going down with Jackson—comes too fast. Still, the coffee I grabbed on the way into school was maybe not my best idea. I haven’t been sleeping well after the Manny debacle, but now I’m a jittery mess. God knows how I’m going to get a decent shot of whatever the heck is about to happen.

  I almost bump into Harrison in the hall. He looks at the camera around my neck and the coffee in my hand and then finally at my face. We exchange something that passes for pleasantries, and I wonder again about that glow I saw under the desk.

  “Morning, suckers!”

  Two words and my stomach clenches like a fist. I whirl to see Jackson walk in, high-fiving one of his fellow A-listers without breaking conversation with Nick.

  I pitch my coffee and lift my camera but kind of stop halfway because I don’t know what I’m supposed to be getting here. Nothing’s happening.

  My chest tightens and people stroll past. I click my shutter for show, collecting random pictures of the trophy case and the drinking fountain, or someone’s nostril. Who knows? All I really see is Jackson and Nick walking right on by.

  Maybe I read the text wrong. Maybe he lost his nerve?

  Or maybe it’s all a big fat joke, and you’re sitting right at the center of it. Again.

  Freshman year flashes back, the year Marlow and Kristen tried to make up with me for all the shoving and middle school teasing. Kristen invited Tacey and me to a party at her apartment clubhouse—said it was high school now, time to mature and let bygones be bygones, but we still knew the score. This was a popular-kid party. They were inviting us over that invisible line.

  When we got there, we heard them laughing about some poor girls they’d invited, losers by the sound of it. Tacey had lifted her chin, feeling proud to not be the butt of the joke, for once. And then they’d said chubby girl.

  She figured it out before I did. I didn’t get it until they mentioned her hippie friend. My fingers fluttered down the braid in my hair and then over my hand-beaded bracelets. Two words and just like that, I was eight years old again, pushed knees-first into cement steps.

  Tacey cried the whole way home. And I bit my tongue until I tasted blood, silently swearing to never so much as look at their kind again.

  In the here and now, Jackson and Nick hit the corner of the hallway. Nick looks back then, his green eyes begging me to break every vow I made that day. He’s one of them. But it’s hard not to like him just a little when he smiles.

  The faint echo of the train whistle outside jerks my attention away from the boys and my memories, dredging up the image of Stella’s face. Good. I need to remember her. I’m doing this for her. Because I wish so badly I’d done it when she was still here.

  Too bad it doesn’t look like it’s going to happen. As far as I can see, nothing’s going down with Jackson Pierce.

  I drift away from the stairs, adjusting the strap of my camera bag on my shoulder with a sigh.

  Stupid. I should have known better than this, but I didn’t. I dragged myself out of bed so I could be here, ready to…I don’t know, make things right or whatever. As if I could ever make any of this right.
I plod toward my locker, pausing when I hear laughter from one of the classrooms.

  Bits and pieces of a conversation trail filter into the hall.

  “Oh my God, he didn’t!”

  “He did—I was there. I think Alex cried after that mess.”

  “Geez, really?”

  I don’t know the voices, but they sound pretty excited. I should be curious—everyone else obviously is. I force myself to peek into the classroom, but there’s not much happening. A crowd is huddled at the front of the room, focused on the television that projects special programs or our weekly school newscast.

  Something’s playing, but I can’t see what it is, really. Terrible quality, maybe cell phone video. I’m too far away to tell. The group closes in tighter, blocking the screen, and I head down the hallway. I just want to get to my locker.

  The next room I pass is still dark, but I can see the blue flicker of the television. Which isn’t that weird since our school televisions can be programmed to power on together. Maybe a newscast was launched at the wrong time. There are even more people in the classrooms at the end of the hall. In a math room on the right, people are laughing.

  Wait a minute. Is this about Jackson? It isn’t what I was expecting, but then a particularly loud burst of laughter draws me to the math room. I spot Connor inside. As riveted as he is to the screen, I’m starting to think this might be it. I step inside, spotting more familiar faces. Aimee Johnston, Isaac Cooper, Nick Patterson, and—bingo. Jackson Pierce.

  Connor catches my eye and points to my camera before giving me a thumbs-up. He mouths “Lucky” to me, like this was all just random chance. If only he knew.

  “This is genius,” Isaac says, shaking his head at the TV. He looks over at Jackson, who’s scrambling, searching the tables.

  “Where’s the damn remote, Cooper?” Jackson’s laugh is weird. Like a bark. Or a cough.

  There are probably fifteen kids circled around the screen, everyone huddled in tight except for me and, now, Jackson, who’s walked away from the rest of them. He’s standing against the back wall of the room, arms crossed tightly and something that isn’t even similar to a smile stretched on his lips.

  Whatever this is, it’s about him.

  I check the TV. Not a newscast—way too grainy. Like a home video or surveillance tape. Yeah, it’s security footage from our high school—the gym, some of the classrooms, even the cafeteria. We all know about the cameras installed last year, but I don’t think any of us thought they kept the tapes.

  The first scene shows Jackson sashaying, limp-wristed, past Tim Corning, one of our soccer stars who announced that he was gay this past spring. The next scene is in the cafeteria, highlighting Jackson again. He’s gesturing wildly at his crotch behind Marlow’s back.

  “God, you’re such a pig,” Marlow says from somewhere in that tight crowd. She sounds way too pleased about it.

  Jackson answers with a flirty smirk, and Marlow’s lips curl in a way that makes me think of a cat with a dish of cream. It also makes me wonder why Nick, who’s looking right at her, doesn’t seem bothered in the least.

  But then the screen changes again, and Jackson’s slamming his fist into a locker, looking like a pissed-off bull on speed, though there’s not another soul in the hallway. A sprinkle of awkward laughter filters through the group, with a softly muttered, “Nice temper tantrum.”

  The scenes flash one after the next. The whole thing is an unbelievably well-edited mash-up tape of Jackson Pierce being an absolute jerk. This is nothing like what I expected.

  It’s so much better.

  Feeling a surge of vengeance for Stella, I raise my camera, slinking into the farthest corner of the room. My breath goes still in my lungs. I adjust the lens and begin.

  My shutter snaps over and over, capturing images quickly. Jackson’s red face, tendons straining in his neck, the television screen, the kids laughing, and then the same kids pointing when the scene changes again. Isaac juggling the remote to keep it out of Jackson’s reach. I capture image after image, but all I see is Stella.

  Mrs. Durmond walks in and demands the controller before she really even looks at the screen. Everyone gasps, I’m guessing because of Mrs. Durmond. I’m wrong. They’re still looking at the screen, but it’s obvious no one likes this joke. I drop my camera to see why. In this scene, Jackson’s imitating Chelsea Timber’s awkward, shuffling gait down the hallway.

  Apparently, even Marlow and her ilk have a no-fly zone. And a girl who struggles to walk because of cerebral palsy is on the wrong side of the line. Especially Chelsea, who has harbored a well-known crush on Jackson since junior high.

  Girls look at Jackson with revulsion, and Nick looks at him with obvious disgust. Even Mrs. Durmond stops her search for the remote to gaze at Jackson with her hand at her throat. I get that photo just right, the press of her fingers against her pearls, her eyes wide with horror.

  Every second of this scene feels like it’s stretching on forever. Until Jackson snaps, flying through the crowd and leaping at the TV. He slaps the control panel. Plastic cracks and the crowd jumps. Connor narrows his eyes and edges in front of Hadley. I hadn’t even noticed her before.

  “Mr. Pierce!” Mrs. Durmond’s voice filters through the sudden quiet. “Let’s take a walk to the office. Now.”

  And just like that, it’s over.

  I feel the warm rush of triumph through my limbs. I didn’t miss it. I could have, but I didn’t. Best of all, I don’t think anyone’s seen me except Connor. Everyone is too busy looking at Jackson as Mrs. Durmond walks him to the door with brisk steps and a hard frown on her face.

  Once they disappear into the hallway, I back toward the door, ready to make my escape. My smug grin fades when I realize I was wrong about not being seen.

  Because Nick is looking right at me.

  • • •

  I slip from the classroom and move fast, half-convinced Nick will follow me. He doesn’t. Or at least, he doesn’t come sprinting wildly down the hall and up the stairs after me, which is about what it would take to catch me.

  I stop on the second landing, camera pressed to my chest to secure it. No one will be up here yet, so I lean against the wall and grin at the stained-glass window. Even here, surrounded by dark wood and long shadows, I feel light and bright, like a balloon about to take flight.

  A message comes into my phone, a startling buzz against my leg that makes me smile.

  It’s him. Or her. I don’t really know, I guess, and I don’t care. This total stranger is officially my freaking hero. I read the message waiting for me.

  How’s that for justice?

  I laugh out loud, but when I move to text back, my hands still shake, fumbling over every letter.

  Tastes pretty sweet.

  Get good pictures?

  I scroll through them on my camera, admiring every shot. There’s one of Jackson’s face, his white teeth obviously clenched between his lips. Yeah, they’re good. Really good.

  I let my camera drop down on the strap around my neck.

  Yes, I’ve got them.

  Good. Now you can make your own little book. Or add to the original if you like.

  My laugh isn’t so quick this time. I don’t really like this part, this undeniable reminder that while he’s a stranger to me, he knows exactly who I am. But I guess if I have his book, we’re both even in a way.

  Another text arrives, jarring me.

  So, what’s next?

  I bite my lip and look around, though of course no one’s here. I sink to one of the cold steps and tap out a reply.

  For Jackson? Hasn’t he suffered enough?

  Unlikely. But how about someone else?

  Worry nags at the back of my mind. I could be caught. Another text comes in, one that seems to read my mind.

  Come on, Piper. This is bigger than Jacks
on. We could change things. Make it better.

  Could we? Could we stop people like this? Adrenaline flares through me at the idea. But fear is close on its heels. This could be trouble for me. Big trouble.

  I pull my legs back in, my ears perking to a new group of students heading down the main hall. It’s getting closer to first bell. I should probably get something to eat, brush up on my Spanish for the test this week or something. I haven’t even slapped on any makeup today. I think about a lot of random things like that—a lot of perfectly legitimate reasons to ignore the text on my screen.

  Another message arrives.

  Guess I was wrong about you.

  I peck back quickly.

  I need time to think.

  This time, I don’t wait for a reply. I power off my phone, telling myself that the battery is low. Which is true. Ish. Except that I have my charger in my camera bag and I’ve got technology lab later and could charge it there.

  Ten minutes later, I’ve got my books for the day under my arm and a half-eaten granola bar in hand. I’m waiting at our usual breakfast table when Tacey arrives, pink-cheeked and looking scandalized.

  She slides in beside me with an enormous coffee and a folder with an extra credit history paper under her arm. I’m convinced she never sleeps. “Hey, early riser. Did you hear about Jackson Pierce?”

  Before I can answer, Manny arrives from the other doors, walking a wide arc around the empty chair beside me to sit by Tacey. All’s definitely not forgiven. “You guys talking about Jackson?”

  Tacey sags. “You heard?”

  “Jackson’s benched,” he says.

  Tacey practically slams her cup down but speaks in an exaggerated whisper. “No. Way.”

  Manny nods, stretching his arms overhead like it’s all old news to him. “Yep. Coach Carr was in the office with the principal. They talked for all of five minutes before Coach said under no circumstances would Jackson set foot on the field this year if he has anything to say about it.”

  “I don’t get it,” I say. “I thought football was over.”

  “Baseball, baby.” Manny says it to Tacey, even though I’m the one who asked. “Pierce is ridiculous on the pitcher’s mound. They were talking college scouts, scholarships. And he can kiss it all good-bye.”