by Jo Ramsey
“It sucks,” she said. “Sorry you have to deal with it. I’m not going back to that school, just so you know.”
“Ms. Rondeau said something about that. It’s too bad.” I didn’t know what else to say.
“Not really. I won’t have to deal with other people’s crap.” She closed her eyes for a few seconds, then looked at me. “Thanks for caring. I don’t want to be mean, but I really would like you to leave now. This is hard.”
“It is for me too. Thanks for letting me come.” I glanced at her parents to include them in the thank you. “Take care.”
“Yeah,” Maryellen said. “You too.”
I didn’t have anything more to say, and obviously I was no longer welcome there, so I walked out into the hallway. Tears trickled down my face, but I shut them down. There were too many people wandering around, and I didn’t want anyone staring at me wondering what my problem was.
I took out my phone and looked up how to get home by public transit. It was easier than I’d thought, only a half-mile walk to the nearest Blue Line station and onto the train that went closest to my town. At least the temperature had gone up a little, so walking wasn’t totally unpleasant, and I’d worn decent shoes that didn’t kill my feet while I walked.
The whole way home, I couldn’t stop thinking about what Maryellen had said. I’d suspected she kind of blamed me for all the bullying and nasty comments she’d been dealing with, but hearing it hurt like hell. She had only come forward about what Jim did to her because of me. She hadn’t even reported it to anyone else until I’d convinced her.
I’d told Maryellen she should report it so it wouldn’t happen to anyone else, but the truth was, I was selfish. Knowing I wasn’t the only one Jim had raped made me feel better. Which was a sucky thing for me to feel, and a really shitty reason for me to put someone else through the same things I’d been through in the past two months.
I was a pretty crappy person. And there was no way I could change it.
I’d just gotten off the train when my phone rang. I snatched it out of my purse and answered while I hurried out to the buses. “Hello?”
“Hey, Chastaine.”
Holly’s warm voice made me feel a whole lot better. “Hey.”
“What are you up to?”
“On the way home.” I glanced at the route numbers on the two buses to make sure I got onto the one that actually went near my house, and boarded. The buses didn’t take the plastic T cards, so I had to fumble through my purse to find the right change for the fare. Not that it mattered, since the driver was hanging out beside the bus chatting with someone, but I would have felt weird about not paying. “Hang on a sec.”
“No problem.”
I managed to find a dollar bill and two quarters at the bottom of the purse and stuck them in the fare box, then took a seat. “There. I wish the buses would get the Charlie Card scanners or something.”
“They take the weekly and monthly passes.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t go into the city enough to spend that kind of money.” I closed my purse. “Anyway.”
“I wondered if you wanted to come over… if you aren’t doing anything,” she said hesitantly. “My parents went out with friends for the day, so no one’s here, and I’m pretty bored.”
“No Evan?”
“He had to go see his dad.” She sounded disgusted.
“Ugh.” I didn’t know anything about Evan’s dad, but I guessed from Holly’s tone that Evan going to see him wasn’t a good thing.
“Yeah. He keeps acting like if Evan just wanted to be straight and normal, quote unquote, he could be. I wish Evan didn’t have to deal with him.”
That pissed me off. Evan was a good person. He deserved to have people accept him. It was bad enough he had to deal with being put down at school. He shouldn’t have had to deal with it from his own family. “Some people shouldn’t be parents.”
“Yeah. So can you come over?”
The driver boarded the bus and drove away from the station. “Yeah, I guess,” I said. “I’m on the bus from Orient Heights now, so I’ll get off by your house instead of mine.”
“Awesome. My parents gave me money for food and said I can order a movie on demand or something, so we can do that when you get here.”
“Cool.” My phone crackled. For some reason, I didn’t always have great cell service on the buses. “I’m going to let you go, because my phone’s being stupid. See you in a little while.”
“Okay. See you.”
I hung up and started to put my phone away, then realized I should probably let Mom know what was going on. Of course she would try to talk me into going home. Even though she complained about me sitting around on weekends, she wanted me home so she knew where I was.
My phone cooperated long enough for me to call the house and get our voice mail. I decided to leave a message instead of trying Mom’s cell. “Hey, just wanted to let you know I’m going to Holly’s. I’ll be home later.”
I shut off my ringer so I wouldn’t know if Mom called back. She might think it was good that I would be spending time with a friend, but it was just as likely she would tell me I had to go home. I didn’t want to sit around with her and Dad again.
Before I had a chance to put the phone back in my purse, it vibrated. I groaned and checked the display. Fortunately, it wasn’t my parents, so I answered. “Hi, El-Al.”
“Hi.” El-Al paused. “Um, so Brittany called you?”
“Yeah. Next time, ask before you give out my number.” I tried to sound a little pissy so she would take me seriously, but I was too surprised and glad to hear from her to be very convincing.
“Sorry,” she said. “So did you go see Maryellen?”
“Yeah. I’m on my way back now. She didn’t actually want to see me.”
“That’s too bad.” She paused again. “Where are you? I was going to go to the mall. You can come if you want.”
Before, going to the mall on a Saturday was part of the usual routine. It was a place where I didn’t have to deal with my parents, could hang out with my friends, and bonus, I could buy new clothes to replace what I’d given Holly. For about half a second, I almost told her I would go, because it would have made me feel normal again.
But I didn’t want to bail on Holly, and somehow I doubted El-Al would be thrilled about the idea of Holly going with us. They seemed to get along okay, but they weren’t friends. They had different crowds and different ways of treating people.
Besides, by now I preferred Holly to any of the people I’d called my friends in the past.
“Thanks for asking,” I said. “I have plans, but another time, maybe.”
“Sure. What are you doing?”
“Visiting someone else.” I didn’t feel like giving her details. She would have probably wanted to know why I was hanging out with Holly, and I didn’t want to get into that. “I have to go. My phone’s being crappy.” This time, my phone wasn’t even crackling, but it made a good excuse. El-Al knew about the cell service issues on the buses.
“Okay. I’ll see you Monday, I guess.”
“Yeah. See you.” I hung up before I changed my mind about going with her instead of going to Holly’s.
By the time I got to Holly’s after walking from the nearest bus stop, I was out of breath and shivering. In the city, the buildings had protected me from the wind, but here, right by the ocean and with only houses around, the wind was bitter and way colder than I’d anticipated.
Holly opened the door as soon as I rang the bell, as if she’d been standing right inside waiting for me. “Wow. You’re shaking.”
“Yeah, well, wind.” I took off my jacket and looked around for a place to hang it.
“Just put it over the chair here.” Holly motioned at a wooden chair next to the couch. “I can make hot chocolate. I was thinking about it anyway.”
“Yeah. That would be good.” My stomach growled, reminding me that I hadn’t had any food. “And you said something about order
ing lunch?”
“We can decide what we want while the water’s heating. Come on.”
We went into the kitchen. She picked up an old-fashioned brass kettle from the stove, filled it with water, and put it back on the burner. I stood awkwardly near the doorway to the living room while Holly took mugs and a box of instant hot chocolate packets out of cupboards.
“Are you okay?” She set the mugs and box on the counter by the stove and turned to look at me. “You don’t look okay.”
I shrugged. Now that I was with someone who would listen, and no one else was around, I was close to letting everything out. I wouldn’t have been too impressed with myself about it, though. I’d had enough of breaking down in front of other people lately.
“El-Al called while I was on the way here,” I said instead of letting myself go off about how Maryellen hated me. “She wanted me to go to the mall. I told her I had other plans.”
“You could have gone.” Holly didn’t look happy. “I would have understood.”
“You asked me to come over before she asked me to go to the mall,” I said. “I wouldn’t do that to you. She hasn’t exactly been my friend much lately. You have been.”
“Oh.” She gave me a little smile. “Okay.”
I wanted to say something else, but had no idea what. Holly was one of the biggest reasons I’d managed to cope with the past couple of months. She was the one who let me talk about how I felt without judging me or acting like it was my fault. Even when I kept things to myself, I knew I could talk to her if I needed to.
If I told her any of that, I would have sounded like a sap. And I was definitely not a sap. I’d never been the emotional type. It was bullshit to think that emotions were bad or “girly,” but I got teased a whole lot less when I kept things to myself.
So I didn’t go all touchy-feely with Holly. It was one thing to tell her I was glad she was my friend, and to talk to her when I couldn’t deal with some of the crap building up in me. It would have been totally unlike me to say how I really felt about her. Especially since I couldn’t begin to figure out how to say it.
Thank goodness she went over to a little table at the other end of the counter and grabbed a stack of menus. Choosing food would give us both something else to think about.
We ended up ordering Chinese because she was sick of the usual pizza and fries. That meant we would have to wait longer for the food to show up, but once the hot chocolate was ready, I at least had something to put in my stomach. I didn’t feel as sick as I had earlier, and Holly added some vanilla extract and a little bit of cinnamon to the chocolate, so it tasted better than instant cocoa usually did.
We went into the living room and settled on the couch to scroll through the lists of movies available on demand. “Sad or happy?” Holly asked.
“Huh?”
“What kind of movie?” she said. “You obviously aren’t in a great mood, so watching something sad might make it worse. On the other hand, sometimes when I watch sad movies, I feel better after. Which doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.”
“Neither do you, because you’re talking too fast.” I grinned. “Sad. I don’t want to deal with people laughing and having a great life right now. It would annoy the hell out of me.”
“Yeah, me too.” She kept scrolling until she found a movie about two kids with cancer who fell in love. “This? Evan and I saw it when it came out, and we cried for like an hour.”
“I haven’t seen it.” I’d read the book because El-Al had conned me into it. I hadn’t finished it because I’d thrown it against the wall when I got to the sad part, and hadn’t dared to find out what happened after that.
“Do you want to?”
“Sure.” Compared to dying of cancer, I wasn’t dealing with anything bad at all.
Chapter 10
HOLLY STARTED the movie, and we drank our hot chocolate. We didn’t talk, but it didn’t bother me. With most of my friends, the conversation almost never stopped, as if we were afraid silence would cause something horrible to happen. But with Holly, silence didn’t bother me a bit. Just being with her was all that mattered.
Our food showed up about half an hour later. Holly paused the movie so we wouldn’t miss anything. “I already know what’s going to happen in this movie, and I’m still bracing myself,” she said.
“I kind of know,” I said. “If it’s anything like the book.”
“Mostly it is. They changed a few things, but the main things are the same.” She took two plates out of a cupboard and opened a couple of drawers before she found forks. “Half the time I don’t know where anything is in this place. Mom rearranges things and forgets to tell Dad and me.”
“Parents,” I said.
“Exactly.”
She started taking things out of the delivery bag. We hadn’t been able to decide on combos, so we’d ordered a few different items so we could mix and match. “I was afraid it would be weird having you come over.”
“Why?” I reached past her and grabbed a beef teriyaki strip.
“Because of what I told you.” She opened the container of fried rice. “About me.”
“Oh.” It took me a second to remember what she was talking about. “If it wasn’t awkward when you told me, why would it be today? Were you afraid I’d think you were asking me for a date or something?”
“Kind of, I guess.” She turned away. “Okay, so it doesn’t really make sense, but a lot of things don’t. When Stephanie found out, the next time I asked if she wanted to hang out, she told me she didn’t date girls and I should leave her alone.”
“Stephanie’s an idiot,” I said. “I know she’s your friend, but if she assumed you were asking her out just because you’re a lesbian, that’s stupid.”
“Yeah, well, some people think that way.”
“Some people are idiots.” Apparently “idiot” had become my new favorite word, given how often I’d thought it about people lately. It was better than thinking they might be right, though.
“I guess.”
I tried to think of something to say that might reassure her. Everything I came up with sounded lame, though, so I put some food in my mouth to avoid having to talk.
Besides, part of me wanted to tell her I definitely wouldn’t care if she did ask me on a date, and I was far from ready to say that. I didn’t know if I was reading her signals right, and I wasn’t even totally sure how I felt about her. Until I had zero doubt that I really liked her instead of just being happy that she was nice to me, I didn’t want to start anything with her.
She started the movie again, and we didn’t talk because we were too busy eating. And by the time we finished eating, the movie had hit the beginning of the sad part, so we were too busy crying. Even though I hated watching a movie where a character I liked died, I did feel better by the time it was over. Maybe because it gave me an excuse to cry other than just being a frigging emotional wreck.
After the movie, Holly shut off the TV. “Do you want to watch something else?”
“You decided to ask after you turned it off?” I teased.
“My parents will be unimpressed if they come home and find a mess, so I need to clean up. And they won’t be happy if the TV’s on when I’m in the other room. Electric bills.” She smiled and took my plate. “Come hang out with me in the kitchen while I clean up, and then if you want to watch another movie, we can.”
“Okay.” I checked the clock on the cable box. I’d been there for about two and a half hours. My parents were probably losing it, since they hadn’t heard from me since my voice mail, which meant I should go home. Something I really didn’t want to do.
I thought about checking my phone and decided not to. If I didn’t see that my parents had called, I would have an excuse for not calling them back.
Instead I followed Holly into the kitchen and stood beside the sink while she washed our plates and silverware. “Did you honestly think it would be weird to have me come over?” I asked.
“I did
n’t think it would be weird to have you here,” she said. “I was afraid you would think it was weird that I asked. It was just that you’ve been upset, and I didn’t know if you were hanging out with any of your friends, so I figured I’d give you something to do besides staying home.”
“You are my friend.”
“I mean your other friends.” She shut off the water and opened a drawer where a bunch of plastic containers and lids were just kind of tossed together. “You know. Your clique.”
I didn’t like the snarky way she said it, so I sounded pretty harsh when I answered. “I don’t have a clique. Maybe you’ve noticed people don’t really talk to me now. And even when they did, they weren’t my clique. Just people I hung out with sometimes.”
“Uh-huh. That’s called a clique.” She flashed me a smile. “Sorry if I’m pissing you off. I don’t mean to. I just haven’t totally wrapped my head around you hanging out with me so much lately. We’ve been in the same classes pretty much every year since kindergarten, but we were never friends before.”
“Yeah.” I couldn’t argue with her. In kindergarten, everyone was everyone’s friend to start with, because we were all little and excited about finally being in school around other kids our age. But it didn’t take long for little kids to start deciding that one person could be their best friend, but they didn’t want to play with another person at recess anymore.
Holly and I hadn’t been in the same group ever, and I regretted that. Holly wouldn’t have fit in at the parties I went to, or with my old crowd, but that didn’t matter. I should have tried to get to know her sooner. She was a hell of a lot better than some of the people I’d called “friends.”
And honestly, it was nice being with someone who didn’t drink or use other stuff, or talk about nothing besides sex all the time. Not that I minded doing those things or talking about them, but there were other things in life too, and some of the people I’d slept with and partied with didn’t seem to get that. Holly did.
“Anyway….” She paused.
I waited for her to finish her sentence, but she didn’t say anything else. “Anyway?” I asked.
