by Jo Ramsey
“Okay.” I didn’t know why I was standing awkwardly on the mat inside the door. I felt like I should have been doing something other than hanging out with Holly and Evan, but I couldn’t figure out what.
Something felt wrong about me being there. I didn’t belong, and I would only cause one or both of them to get hurt. Just like I had with Maryellen.
“Are you okay?” Holly asked softly. She moved closer to me. “God, what a dumb question.”
“Chastaine?” Evan scrambled to his feet. “You should sit down.”
“I’m fine.” My voice kind of croaked, and my chest was so tight, I couldn’t get much air. I didn’t know what the hell was going on, and I wasn’t happy about it.
“No, you aren’t,” Holly said firmly. She took hold of my arm. “Come into my room while I change my socks. Evan, want to order some food, please?”
“Yeah. Pizza and fries?” He took his wallet out of the back pocket of his skinny jeans. “I’ll cover it. You owe me next time, Holly.”
“Yeah. Whatever. Sausage pizza. Steak fries. Baklava. I need sugar.” She tugged me toward the stairs.
I followed her because she wasn’t leaving me much choice, and because the room was spinning and I needed to sit down. Or maybe lie down. My eyes watered, and my heart was doing weird things like beating too fast then not at all for a second or two.
“What’s going on?” I mumbled as Holly led me upstairs to her room.
“You need to breathe.” She glanced at me. “I should have left you down there. You could have sat on the couch.”
“I’m fine.” My lips felt numb, and our voices were coming from about a mile away.
“You’re breathing funny, and you’re pale as hell. Sit down.”
“Here?” We were at the top of the stairs. I started to look over my shoulder, but turning my head made the spinning worse.
“Yes.” Holly hesitated. “No. Maybe that’s a bad idea. Come on.”
We got moving again, which was good. The longer we stood still, the more my legs shook. Holly’s room was right beside the stairs. She led me in and made me sit on the floor, which was way too awkward in my miniskirt. I decided it wasn’t worth caring about.
“Pull your knees up and bend your head forward.” Holly knelt beside me. “Try to take even breaths. Maybe I should call your—”
“Hell no.”
“Okay. Then breathe.”
I did what she said, even though pulling my knees up pushed my skirt way higher than I wanted. Not that it mattered with only Holly sitting there, though I didn’t exactly want her seeing the thong I wore under my panty hose. I didn’t know whether she noticed. I had to close my eyes so I wouldn’t see how bad the room kept whirling.
After a couple of minutes, I didn’t feel as woozy. “That sucked.” I looked at Holly, who was still beside me.
“Yeah. Are you okay?” She looked concerned. “I thought you were okay on the way here.”
“I was. I don’t know what happened.” I didn’t want to figure it out. I stretched out my legs and crossed my ankles, then straightened my skirt so I wouldn’t show more than I wanted to. “Sorry for the show.”
She chuckled. “No problem. I didn’t think you did it on purpose or anything. That’s a cute skirt, anyway.”
“Thanks.” It was one of the tight, pull-on skirts a store at the mall sold for ten bucks apiece. I had a closetful of them. This one had a blue and turquoise floral pattern, and I’d paired it with a turquoise low-cut sweater. My usual style. Even though my clothes apparently gave people another reason to think I deserved to be treated like shit, I refused to dress differently. I’d been wearing the same kind of thing since middle school.
“I wish I could dress like you.” She looked down at herself. She had a cute body as far as I was concerned, but her frown said she didn’t think so. “Maybe if I lost twenty pounds.”
“You aren’t fat or anything.”
She shrugged. “I guess. I can’t wear the same kinds of things as you, though. You’re built like the magazine models. I’m the chubby girl who gets all the comic relief best friend parts in plays.”
“You aren’t chubby either,” I snapped. “Knock it off with the putting yourself down. You’re pretty. Maybe you could use some fashion advice from Evan, but it isn’t because of what you weigh or what your body looks like. It’s just that you dress like you think you’re fat.”
I didn’t know why I was saying any of that. It was all true, but I sounded like a bitch. I didn’t want to hurt Holly’s feelings. The way she dressed wasn’t any of my business, even though she wore a baggy gray sweater, which made her face look almost yellow, with a pair of mom jeans.
“Evan keeps saying the same thing.” Holly sighed. “I don’t know. I don’t always dress this crappy. It’s just warm. Some of the classrooms seriously need their heating units fixed.”
“Yeah.” I hesitated. “Sorry.”
“For what?” She stood and went over to the bureau. “I’m not ignoring you, but my feet are turning into ice cubes with these damn wet socks.”
“For criticizing your clothes.” I managed to get up from the floor sort of gracefully. I felt a lot steadier, but my legs were still shaking a little.
“It’s okay.” She smiled at me over her shoulder. “You’re right. I feel fat, especially when most of my friends are skinny and everyone’s always talking about dieting and going to the gym and stuff. We can’t afford a gym membership except at one of the ten bucks a month places, and I’d only be able to go to one of those after my parents get out of work because I don’t have my license yet.”
She took a long breath. “And now I’m babbling and making excuses. Truth is, I don’t mind walking and stuff, but I don’t like actually working out. And I like to eat.”
“Nothing wrong with that.” When she mentioned eating, it clued me in on why I’d probably gone all wonky. “I used to like to eat, but now I forget half the time. I didn’t eat lunch, did I?”
“Not that I saw.” She finally pulled two socks out of the bureau and closed the drawer. One sock was pink with darker pink polka dots. The other was purple with little Easter eggs all over it. She sat on the bed. “That’s why you almost passed out?”
“Yeah, probably.” Since I’d puked so many times after breakfast, and a few more times after I’d gone back to school from Kendra’s, there probably hadn’t been anything at all in my stomach all day. I’d gotten so used to not eating or not being able to keep food down that I hadn’t even realized it.
“Hopefully Evan ordered food already.” She tossed her wet socks into the corner of the room and put on the dry ones. “Maybe sometime you can help me put some outfits together? You definitely know clothes. I can’t go shopping or anything, but maybe we can find stuff I already have that doesn’t look so schlubby.”
“I can probably give you some of my stuff.” That sounded like I was offering her charity, so I tried to explain what I meant. “I have clothes I haven’t even worn, and some I’ve only worn once or twice. They’re just gathering dust.”
“Your clothes wouldn’t fit me, Chastaine.” Holly rolled her eyes. “Seriously? You’re at least twenty-five, thirty pounds lighter than me.”
She was probably right, but some of the clothes were too big for me. I’d lost weight since the whole reporting Jim thing happened. I didn’t want to say that, though. She might have thought I agreed that she was fat, and she definitely wasn’t. Maybe a little curvy, but that wasn’t a bad thing at all. I liked the way her body looked.
What the hell am I even thinking? I noticed other girls’ bodies, but it was usually critiquing their looks or wishing I had their boobs or legs or something. Not like this, where I was thinking how cute Holly was and how if she wore the right thing, her curves would have guys drooling.
Obviously at some point, I’d lost my mind. I was thinking about Holly’s looks the way I thought about some of the guys I hooked up with. I just hoped Holly wouldn’t realize it.
<
br /> “Hey.” She waved her hand in front of my face. “Did you fall asleep or something?”
“Just thinking. I probably shouldn’t be.” I grinned. “I have clothes I bet would fit you. Maybe you can come over this weekend. I would say tomorrow, but my mom won’t be home Saturday, so that would probably be better.” Before everything hit the fan, Mom had never bugged my friends and me. But the couple of times people had come over lately, she hadn’t left us alone or even let us go to my room. It annoyed the hell out of me, and I didn’t want Holly to have to put up with it.
“Yeah.” Her expression brightened. “I mean, I really don’t think anything you have will fit me, but I wouldn’t mind coming over.”
“Hey, are you guys going to hide from me forever?” Evan called from downstairs.
“Chill, Evan.” Holly stood. “Okay. Let’s get back down there before his head explodes or something.”
“Yeah.” I didn’t want to go back downstairs. I wanted to hang out with Holly away from Evan for a while longer.
But the wish didn’t make any sense, so I just left the room ahead of Holly and headed down.
Chapter 5
I STAYED at Holly’s as late as I could without having my mom or dad call or freak out. Evan left at the same time I did and offered to walk me home, but I turned him down. Walking by himself had made him twitchy since Jim and Ray attacked him, and since he lived beyond the high school, he had a long way to go already. My house was in the opposite direction from his, and I didn’t want him to have to walk any farther than he already had to.
Until I got to my house, I didn’t realize I was holding my breath. Walking after dark had always worried me a little, because the news was full of stories about what happened to females who were stupid enough to be alone outside at night. I’d never had any problems, but with my current situation, taking chances wasn’t as easy as it had been.
My parents were still sitting at the dining room table. My brothers Andy and Marcus were there too. That didn’t mean anything good. Usually they were working or hanging out with friends at night. Both of them were in college. They lived at home to save on dorm and meal fees, but they were rarely actually at the house.
“We were getting worried,” Mom said in an accusing tone. “I tried calling your cell.”
“Sorry. I didn’t hear it.” There was one empty chair. She probably expected me to sit in it, but I stayed on my feet. This whole thing felt like a confrontation setup, and I didn’t feel like dealing with it. “I already ate. Pizza at Holly’s.”
“You told me that was the plan.” Mom impatiently waved her hand toward the vacant chair. “Sit down.”
I opened my mouth to argue, but Dad’s glare stopped me. Mom was easy to work around, but I knew better than to try it with my father. I sat.
“You should have come home after your appointment with Kendra.” Mom folded her hands on the table in front of her. “I didn’t think you going back to school was a good idea. And then you didn’t even come home after school. Do you think you should have gone off with your friends?”
“Um, yeah.” I didn’t see why it was a problem. Until November, I’d almost never come straight home after school. And on the rare occasions when I had, I’d gone out later. “I wanted to be around people who don’t act like I’m broken, not sitting here with you or sitting alone in my room.”
“Respect your mother,” Dad said.
“Sorry.” It wasn’t easy to be respectful when she was acting like I’d done something horrible by spending time with people I actually wanted to be around. I looked at my brothers. “Is this some kind of intervention or something? I don’t drink, I don’t do drugs, and I’m not addicted to anything else except maybe chocolate.”
“We asked your brothers to be here for moral support,” Dad said. “Chastaine, you’ve been through a lot lately. First turning in that boy and all the harassment you’ve had to deal with. Now what happened to that girl. Your mother told me how worried she is about you.”
“Oh.” Now I got it. Mom was afraid. Mom was always afraid lately when it came to me. She probably thought I would follow Maryellen’s example, like Kendra had. From Kendra, the concern made sense. She was a counselor, and for all I knew she’d had other clients who had killed themselves. So of course she would worry about it.
Mom should have known me better, though. I did things she didn’t approve of, like having sex and partying, but I didn’t want to die. Not even after everything that had happened.
“Maybe you should change schools,” Mom said. “There’s an opening at the Catholic high school your cousin Leigh-Anne goes to.”
“Hell no.” I immediately put my hand over my mouth. As far as my parents were concerned, “hell” was a swear word and wasn’t permitted at the table. “Sorry for my language. I’m not changing schools. The only way I would do that is if you let me do online school, and you keep saying no to that.”
“A new school will get you away from the kids who are making things difficult for you,” Mom argued.
I looked at Marcus. He was the third of the kids in our family. He hadn’t been old enough when I was born to completely ignore me the way our older brothers Joseph and Lenny had, and he was used to having a younger kid around so he hadn’t resented me as much as Andy. Marcus usually had my back, especially against our parents.
“Say something,” I said. “Would you let them make you go to a religious school?”
“No, but I’ve never been in the same position you are.” Marcus sighed. “You don’t talk to anyone anymore. You just go into your room and check the crap people post about you. I see you on Facebook all the time.”
“I talk to plenty of people.” He was right, though. Most of the time I tried to avoid my family. It wasn’t so much because I didn’t want to be around them. It was more that I wanted to minimize the chance of hearing them say something negative about the way I’d lived my life until November.
I wasn’t ashamed of anything I’d done, but in my family, good girls waited until marriage or at least engagement to have sex. I didn’t see the point in waiting around to sleep with a guy who might not even know what he was doing, and then be stuck with him for the rest of my life. I wanted to have fun and try things and sample the possibilities before I settled.
Plus sex felt good, and as long as the people doing it wanted to and were smart about it, I didn’t see why there had to be a problem. But that wasn’t a popular opinion in my family. At least not for girls. Guys were allowed to stick it wherever they wanted as long as they didn’t catch anything or knock up anyone.
So far, my parents and brothers hadn’t said a word against me when I was around. I didn’t know what they said when I couldn’t hear them, though, and I didn’t trust that they wouldn’t spout off at me if I spent too much time with them.
“You had a lot of friends,” Marcus said.
“I had a lot of people I par—spent time with,” I said. Talking about partying wouldn’t help my case. “If they were actually my friends, they wouldn’t have turned on me. But that doesn’t mean I should go to a different school. Kids from this town go to Leigh-Anne’s school. They’re going to have heard about everything. At least here, I know what people are going to say and who’s most likely to say it. A different school might be even worse.”
“It isn’t really your decision,” Dad said. “Your mother and I want to do what’s best for you. At the Catholic school, you might meet people who are a better influence on you.”
“Are you freaking kidding me?” I stared at him. “Dad, have you listened when Leigh-Anne talks about that place? There are five girls in her grade right now who are pregnant, and two seniors who got married already because they had kids. And I’ve been to parties with kids who go to that school. They drink, do drugs, all that stuff more than anyone I go to school with. Just because it’s a Catholic school doesn’t mean everyone’s all goody-goody. Some of them are pretty much the total opposite of goody.”
I sh
ould have known better than to bad-mouth anything Catholic in front of my parents. Not that I was actually bad-mouthing the religion or church or anything. I was telling the truth about what Leigh-Anne had said and what I’d observed about some of the people who went to that particular school.
Of course, my parents didn’t see it that way.
“I don’t believe you,” Mom snapped. “You’re just trying to talk us out of the decision, and I don’t even understand why. Why would you want to keep going to a school where people drive each other to suicide?”
She practically shrieked the last word and then burst into tears. All I could do was stare at her. And all my dad and brothers did was look uncomfortable.
I couldn’t think of a response right away. At least not a positive one. I could have pointed out that only one person had attempted suicide and she hadn’t succeeded, but that wouldn’t have made Mom feel any better. And I would have had to add “so far,” which would kind of take away my point.
After what other people had said to me, I could easily have done the same thing as Maryellen. She hadn’t been able to take what people were saying. Like me, she had probably realized that Jim having to pay for what he admitted he’d done didn’t necessarily mean people would stop putting us down.
I could sort of handle it, but I definitely had times when I didn’t want to. At least my friends and Kendra supported me. I didn’t know what kind of support Maryellen had. If any. Hopefully once she got out of the hospital, she would have help.
What I did know was kids were assholes everywhere. We all treated each other badly at least once in a while. It wasn’t exclusive to any particular school, and sending me somewhere else wouldn’t change anything.
Mom kept crying. Andy, who was sitting closest to her, reached over and put his hand on her shoulder. It didn’t seem to help.
I finally came up with something to say. “I want to be at the school where I have friends. If I go to Leigh-Anne’s school, she might have my back, but she might not. It depends on what her friends say about me. Here, I definitely have friends who stick up for me. And the nurse and my guidance counselor know what happened, and so do some of the other staff. I have support at school. You want me to go to a school where you think no one knows anything about me, but I guarantee they do, and some of the staff might agree with some of the kids that I deserved what happened.”
