The entire class groaned, me included.
He handed a girl in the front a card. “Read the name.” She did, getting Gavin’s name. They both looked at each other in distress.
My stomach sank.
Mr. Rios went down every row and seat until there was only four people left. Me, Tyra, a boy named Harold who loved black and white—please no—and Dare. I didn’t know which one was worse. Tyra like taking pictures with her cell phone, and I wasn’t sure Dare just didn’t steal his from the internet.
I prayed for Harold.
Mr. Rios handed me the cards, and I hesitated, swallowing hard. I picked a card and pulled it from the pile, flipping it over and staring down at it in dismay.
“Darren,” Mr. Rios announced happily, like he knew how much I hated this. “That leaves Harold with Tyra. Awesome. Move and sit with your partner, and then I’ll get the one-word prompts ready for you. FYI, no changing. None. If you ask, I’ll dock you ten percent. And this project is thirty-five percent of your grade. Which means even if you get an A on the final, you won’t pass this class if you don’t pass this assignment. Can anyone say summer school?” Mr. Rios laughed.
My head fell and my safe place imploded.
When I looked up, Dare was looking at me with much the same expression.
Horror.
I sat back and swallowed hard, refusing to move as everyone around me did so. I tried to come up with excuses to convince Mr. Rios, but he had that look on his face I hated in adults. The look that said they forgot what it was like to be young, that or he just didn’t care.
A body brushed past me, leaving behind the scent of laundry soap and mint. Dare pulled out the chair beside me and sank down with a heavy sigh. I crossed my arms over my chest and glared at my table top.
Why him?
When he didn’t say anything, I peeked through the curtain of my dark brown hair. Noticing my stare, he looked down at me. With a bored look, he pulled his cell phone out and looked at that instead.
Mr. Rios dropped a card between us.
Both our hands shot out at the same time, but he got to it first since his arms were longer. He turned the card over and read it, his mouth turning down.
“What does it say?” I asked, grabbing his arm and pulling it down so I could see.
He aimed it at me, and my heart gaped at that single word in disbelief.
Love.
I grabbed the card from Dare’s hand. “What does this even mean?” I demanded, not caring who looked over and heard me. “A progression of love? How do you show that with a picture? And every day?” I read the details. There had to be a minimum of ninety-two pictures, an introduction paper, and a conclusion paper, and three main key points along with a thirty-minute presentation.
“Do you want ten-percent taken off your grade, Miss Barton?” Mr. Rios asked, face serious.
I bit down on my bottom lip and slapped the index card down, rubbing at my temples.
“Look at me,” Dare said.
I did, seeing his phone pointed at my face. He snapped a picture. “One picture down.”
I shook my head. “That doesn’t even make sense. I have nothing to do with love.”
He pointed his phone at his face and threw up a peace sign. Gosh, he looked so stupid I could hurl. “We won’t do love. We’ll do the opposite of it.”
“Oh, yeah. What’s that?” I grumbled.
“Hate,” he stated.
My unease untightened. Maybe he was onto something. “I do hate you.”
He nodded, all business-like. “The feeling’s mutual.”
“We could show a progression of the opposite of love, and in turn show what it could be by showing what it isn’t.” I snapped my fingers. “But I think we should each take two pictures a day, and then at the end pick the best from each date and use those to make up the ninety-two.”
He shrugged. “Whatever.”
I froze, staring at him. “Whatever? That’s all you have to say?”
He looked at me, one brow raised. “What would you like me to say, Melanie? Oh boy, what a great idea. Not only are you smart, you’re beautiful. I’m not a liar.”
I sat back, wondering if punching him in his stupid face was against the rules now that hate was our main focal point. I took my Nikon out of my bag and handed it to him. “Take a picture of my face, please. I want to catalogue my disgust for you while it’s still fresh.”
He took the camera with a heavy sigh of boredom, and took the cap off, putting it to his eye. “You’d look mildly acceptable if you didn’t have a resting bitch face.”
The flash went off and so did my temper. I snatched my camera back. “You think I care what you think, Darren? I don’t!” I seethed. “I don’t care what you or your dumb girlfriend think.” I couldn’t breathe I was so mad.
And he just sat there, unaffected, emptier than I was.
He looked away. “You need to get laid.”
I tried to count to ten. It didn’t work. I thought of what Jesus would do, but I thought he had way more patience than me. Instead, I thought of what my mom would do. I glowered at Dare’s face, and then I slapped him. His head whipped back, and his hand shot to his face. The entire room gasped and turned, gaping at my hand that still hung in the air.
There was a red hand print on his handsome face, and now he wasn’t bored. He glared at me so darkly I felt a smidgen of regret move in. Just a smidge, of course. I wasn’t crazy.
I was pissed.
“Melanie!” Mr. Rios roared. “Get your crap and go to the office immediately!”
I stared down at my hand, and then looked at Dare’s face. A hysterical bubble of laughter shot out of me. I slapped my hand over my mouth, and then the tears started. They streamed down my face and I didn’t understand why. I grabbed my camera and my bag and ran out of the room.
CHAPTER THREE
I didn’t talk.
Didn’t move.
I was in a numb haze.
Principal Darwin repeated himself for the hundredth time. Darren leaned against the far wall, arms crossed over his chest, fury burning in his eyes. They looked like they had a hurricane swirling in them. The handprint on his face had already started bruising.
I didn’t know how that made me feel, having marred the only part of him I liked. I wasn’t proud of myself, in fact I was mortified and sick to my stomach. I’d never hit anyone before, and this boy had weakened all my defenses. Only, it hadn’t really been his face I saw when I slapped it. It had been my father’s.
Thinking of it that way, I wanted to hit him again. Which shamed me to the point of nausea.
“Melanie!” Principal Darwin snapped, finally snagging my attention. “What do you have to say for yourself?”
Even with all my anger and shame, I wasn’t going to apologize to Dare. Because then I’d be apologizing to my father. And I wasn’t ready to forgive a man who tossed my entire happiness into the fire. To make matters worse, my dad wasn’t even watching it burn. He was too busy making my mom cry.
“I have no choice but to contact your parents.”
My dismay intensified. I bit my lip to keep from crying and looked down at my shoes.
“You’ll be suspended for the rest of the week.”
My hands shook. I pressed them together and wrapped them around each other, until I was a tangled mess of pale fingers with chipped fingernails and twisted up emotions.
“Look what you’ve done to Darren’s face.” He jabbed at him for proof, but I barely looked up. “I’ll have to call your parents as well, Darren. If they press charges, there’s nothing I can do, Miss Barton. You may have to face a juvenile court.”
“Whoa,” Dare said, finally joining in on the beratement I was facing. “Why do you need to call my parents? I didn’t assault anyone.”
I flinched. Assault sounded so harsh, but it was in fact what I had done. If he’d done that to me he’d already be on his way to jail. The fact that I was even still sitting there gave me a sick fee
ling. Charges? Court? Along with nausea I felt severe anger. I should have punched my father.
“This is a serious issue. Were you to slap her, the repercussions would be the same. Do you need an ice-pack?” He leaned forward and lifted his glasses, gaping shrewdly at the growing bruise on Dare’s face. “That looks terrible already.”
Dare’s eyebrows drew down. “No, I’m fine. And I think this is all getting blown out of proportion. Look, I deserved it. I said something rude and she slapped me. We should be celebrating her ability to express her emotional self. Not punishing her. I’m cool. If you want to beat her down even more, go ahead, but I’m going home.” He shrugged away from the wall and swung his gaze around the room to land on mine. There was a distinctly intense look in his eyes. I got the impression he wanted me to play along for both our sakes.
My emotional self? That felt like a load of crap to me, but what choice did I have than to play along? He obviously didn’t want Principal Darwin calling his parents for whatever reasons, and I definitely didn’t want to deal with mine. “I’m sorry, Principal Darwin. I never should have lost control back there. It won’t happen again.”
Principal Darwin had an overgrowth of hair between his brows, and whenever he frowned it looked like he had a gray caterpillar wriggling on his forehead, trying to decide which eye he liked most. As he sat staring at the both of us, the caterpillar lowered, and I could see his brain churning.
“You can go, Darren. Miss Barton may not.”
He left without another word, or look, in my direction. Principal Darwin reached for the phone on his desk, and then called the secretary up front, requesting my home phone number. I could sense an impending disaster in the air. The air conditioner kicked on overhead; the chill wrapped around me.
Having gotten the number, he began dialing it, pursing his lips as he glared at me, as though he were being put out more and more each time his meaty finger had to press a button on the phone.
“Hello, Mrs. Barton? This is Principal Darwin at Phoenix High School. I’m calling in regard to your daughter, Melanie Barton. No, she’s fine. But I have some unsettling news to tell you. Your daughter was involved in an altercation this afternoon with one of her fellow students and I’d like you or your husband—oh, well, then, we’ll just talk to you. Can you come in?”
Principal Darwin sat back, listening to my mother’s answers. He nodded along for a moment and then sighed. “Well, I’m not sure that’s true. She did in fact slap a boy. And her squeaky, clean past doesn’t negate her bad choice today.” He listened some more, the caterpillar on his head stuck in the middle. “You can speak to her when you come in,” he stated, a note of irritation in his voice.
I knew exactly what he was going through talking to my mother. These days, she wasn’t present. Not in her mind or her heart. She was hyper-focused on my father. Every single facet of his life, and all the details that didn’t revolve around him no longer mattered. She didn’t want to come to my school. She didn’t want to be taken away from whatever thoughts or tasks she was doing, because then she’d have to leave my father alone. Then she’d have to be single.
“This is a very big deal, I assure you. She assaulted a boy.” Anger began to sizzle in his eyes, and he sat up; the blush on the back of my neck began to work its way down. “Mrs. Barton—” I heard her squawk of outrage, and he quickly corrected her name. “Ms. Marshal, I apologize.” But it was too late.
He put his hand to his temple and rubbed, listening to her scream and growl. I heard a few words like busy and exaggerating, but she was screaming and talking too quickly to decipher it all.
My blush took over every inch of my skin and I looked back down to my feet, wanting to melt into a puddle of nothing and seep into the outdated beige carpet in Principal Darwin’s office. I studied his desk instead. There was a photo of who I assumed to be his wife, unless he went around kissing middle-aged women and photographing it. He liked blue pens. There was nothing but blue ink pens in his holder, except for a lone paperclip affixed to the outside. As he and my mother argued, I tried to picture my camera.
I aimed it at his desk and tried to think of which item I’d capture to describe him. There was a dust mote clinging to the edge of the paperclip, and beneath that a note dating back to two years about the faculty parking lot being closed for a snowstorm. Dust said a lot about a person. Either they were too comfortable to see what they had once seen, or they no longer appreciated it.
My house was covered in dust these days.
The phone slammed down on his desk, pulling me from that lone dust mote. Our eyes met, and I saw pity in his gaze where there had been anger.
“You go home to that every day, Melanie?”
I didn’t answer. I swallowed hard.
He sighed. “I’d have an anger problem, too,” he grunted. “Well, she doesn’t seem to think it’s a big deal and that I’m trying to ruin your reputation. How about this? You meet with your school counselor for a few months, and I’ll ascribe that to your suspension. Maybe you don’t need to be at home four days straight. Maybe you need to talk to someone. And you will not, under any circumstances, do anything at all to end up back in my office, will you?” He stared hard into me.
I shook my head. “Thank you,” I whispered. “I really am sorry. I just blew a fuse. I didn’t mean to.” I hated how much my voice wobbled. I wanted to be strong. But the harder I tried to suck back my emotions, the stronger the emotions seemed to get.
His caterpillar straightened, and his eyes lost their angry edge. “I expect a log in once a week with your school counselor for…” He thought about it, tapping his chin. “For two months. At that point, we’ll have to have a parent conference meeting. That isn’t healthy. And you can talk to me, dear. If you want to come in here and unload, your counselor and I are both here.” He nodded stiffly, uncomfortable with his offer.
But I sensed that he meant it. And I sensed that my own father hadn’t so much as looked at me for weeks, and this stranger had just offered me his dust mote. It made a burning start in my throat, but I swallowed the emotions down and nodded. “Thank you, Principal Darwin.”
“Where’s your father?” he asked next, tone much softer than when I’d first come into his office.
“He moved out. I have to spend every weekend with him. But,” I added when he looked relieved I wouldn’t be with my mother full-time. “That’s only when he remembers to pick me up.”
“Counselor,” he repeated sternly. “School’s been over for the past half-hour. Do you take the bus? When I kept you this late I figured a parent would be coming to pick you up.” He frowned again.
“I walk,” I lied.
“Good. Go on home. And I expect a note from your counselor tomorrow.”
I picked up my bag and left, a storm of nothing churning in my stomach. I went to my locker—which was thankfully empty—and tried to remember homework and textbooks, but all I could think about was the pitying look on Principal Darwin’s face. The truth was starting to seep out. I’d struggled for the past two years to keep everything in a neat box of destruction.
But thanks to Darren, that neat little box had a tear in it now, and my parent’s divorce was about to explode all over me.
CHAPTER FOUR
I lived in Phoenix, Arizona.
It was ninety-six degrees outside, according to my weather app on my phone. A phone I’d been given two years ago when my father and mother cared about my wellbeing. Now it was an object I used to take my mind off of things, and an occasional camera when I needed to see things through a lens.
I checked my call history. The last call I’d gotten from my mother was two weeks ago, and that was only because I’d been with my father over the weekend, and she’d begged me to keep her “abreast.” Whatever the heck that meant.
Why was I in the middle of their war when I had barely figured out how to survive in my own?
Sighing, I grabbed a band from my wrist and put my dark locks up into a lopsided bun.
The heat radiated off the sidewalk and burned my corneas. It. Was. So. Hot. I had another fifteen minutes to go out there. Walking to and from school in the fall and spring was great. In the summer and winter, I took the bus.
I bent outside of a house and rolled the cuffs up on my jeans. I’d scored them from a thrift store before school started for a buck-fifty. They were boy jeans, so they had that comfortable room I loved, and pockets that were actually functional. But they were also thick, and a virtual denim-covered oven. Rolling the ends up to my knees, I ignored my blindingly pale legs, and set off once more.
I felt like I was melting.
Like every single inch of hot air in the world rained down on me.
My hand hurt.
My heart was sore.
And my pits were dripping.
“I hope you own a can of deodorant,” someone called, and I froze at the deep, familiar voice.
Instantaneously, rage and shame unfurled in me. The emotions landed in my stomach, and before I could even think, I was running. I couldn’t face him. Refused to ever do so again.
“Melanie, get over here!” Dare called, and I heard the sound of an engine purr.
I looked over my shoulder to find his truck aimed at me. He was on the opposite side of the street and his window was down. He tried to make a U-turn, but two cars came down the road then, blocking his way. I took advantage of it and ran down the street. I stopped at the approaching intersection and looked both ways before I darted across the road and continued running down the street for the turnabout coming up. He had no choice but to make a circle. The sidewalk continued, but the road turned around. Even though it probably added an extra ten minutes to my walk, I dashed around the turnabout just as he approached it.
“Why are you avoiding me?” he called angrily. “You’re the one who hit me!”
“Exactly,” I whispered, breathing hard. I slowed down my gait and continued walking down the street, peeking over my shoulder twice before I decided he’d given up.
The Tomboy & the Rebel Page 2
