“No, wait!” Aaron said abruptly. He put a hand on my shoulder to stop me. He was too late.
I saw the student commons. It was filled with pieces of paper strewn across the floor and taped to the walls. Each piece of paper showed me kissing a different boy from the kiss list. Across the front of the pages someone had written words like “Slut” and “Whore.”
And then on the other side of the commons, by the doors that connected the school to the music auditorium I saw a group of parents and students frozen in horror, staring at all of the posters with my face on them.
Chapter 40 – A Beginning
Pain. Terror. Horror. Anger. Humiliation. When I saw the paper with so many hateful words scrawled across my image a flood of emotions was released within me. I lost control. I turned and sprinted away from Aaron and all the other onlookers who had come out of the band concert.
Aaron caught up to me just before I reached the west entrance. He grabbed me in his arms and I could hear him trying to say something to me but I was too emotional to understand his words. I couldn’t think straight. Too many confusing thoughts were crashing around inside my head.
I don’t know how much time past before my dad and Aunt Julie arrived. I don’t even know who called them. It might have been Aaron or it might have been one of the school administrators who followed us and stayed with us. Seeing my dad’s hat pulled down over his bald head only made me cry harder. My dad’s face was tired and drawn from his treatment but he took me from Aaron and comforted me. One of the school administrators was trying to ask us questions but my dad silenced the man with a single look and then he and my Aunt Julie took me home. I planned to never set foot in Lakeville High School again.
I stayed home with dad over the following days. My dad didn’t even talk about sending me back to school, which is good because I wouldn’t have gone. Aunt Julie had arrived a couple days ago and she more or less ran the house, getting Caroline to school and cooking and cleaning for us. My dad really was better and his treatments were supposed to end soon but he was still very tired so the help was invaluable.
I didn’t go on my computer. I didn’t turn on my phone. I didn’t care what was happening in the outside world. It didn’t exist anymore. All that mattered was my family. All my friends could go on living their lives and soon they would forget about me. The kiss list, Missy, Aaron, all those stupid pictures – none of it would matter anymore. It would just be a bad memory that would fade to nothingness like an old photo that yellowed, cracked, and eventually disintegrated with the passage of time. That was what I wanted.
On Saturday my dad finally called me into the living room to have a talk with me. “Sadie,” he said, “you can’t hide from the world. There are a lot of people out there who had insecurities and all sorts of emotional and mental issues that you may not even be able to begin to understand. At times people will do mean things to you, especially when you are in high school and everyone is young, inexperienced, and full of raging hormones. There are certain times when you should fight back and other times when you can’t. No matter what, though, you must not let them beat you.”
“I don’t want to talk about this,” I said sullenly. I just wanted to forget it all.
Dad sighed. “Look, I know it hurts. I know it’s embarrassing, especially when something like that happens in front of people you know... or maybe even a boy you like?”
My head whipped around to stare at him. How had he figured out that I liked Aaron? Dad had always been... well, a dad when it came to boys – clueless and disapproving. Maybe Aunt Julie had given him a hint? I needed to have a talk with that woman. There were certain things dads shouldn’t be wise to.
“It’s more than that, dad,” I said grudgingly. “It would be one thing if someone was mean to me for no reason. I could put that off on her and still feel confident about myself. It’s another thing when I know I, uh, sort of brought it on myself.”
To my surprise, my dad shook his head firmly. “Good people can do very stupid things,” he said, “but that never justifies bad things happening to them. If you do something wrong you need to make up for it but you never deserve for people to be mean to you.”
That was something my dad and I were going to have to disagree on. I wasn’t a saint like Alyssa. I had done bad things in order to make my friends happy, satisfy my own insecurities about boys, and complete the kiss list. As a result I had made everyone hate me. I knew I deserved that.
My dad opened his mouth to say something else but just then the doorbell rang. “I’ll get it,” Aunt Julie yelled quickly. She was always trying to do things around the house quickly to avoid giving my dad an excuse to get up and stop resting. A few moments later Aunt Julie walked into the living room with a bemused expression on her face. “Sadie, honey, it’s for you,” she said.
I groaned but my dad grabbed my hand. I could feel his large hands and leathery skin, which had always been so kind and reassuring, clasp mine. “Whoever it is, you’re going to face him or her like an Anderson,” he said. “And I’ll be right there with you.”
Aunt Julie frowned at dad and started to tell him that he shouldn’t get up but he waved her off with his hand. When he had decided that he had to do something for one of his daughters nothing could stop him. He sat up and slowly got to his feet. I wanted nothing more than to run up to my bedroom and hide but there was nothing for it now. I had to go with him.
We both walked slowly toward the door. My dad’s arm was draped around my shoulders. Aunt Julie followed worriedly behind us. Even Caroline peeked down the stairwell from upstairs.
Alyssa was standing in the front entryway with the door closed behind her. As soon as she saw me a wave of relief crossed her face.
“Sadie, it’s so good to see you,” she gushed. “We have all been so worried since we heard what happened at the school. There were some really hateful and inappropriate things written on those pictures and so the school conducted an investigation. Missy finally confessed to doing it after Aaron said he saw her in the activities room. She said she snuck into the activities room when we were all gone, pasted the words across the photos, and printed off over a hundred copies. She pressured a couple freshmen girls from the dance team to help her put them up. They put all the photos up in a matter of minutes and would have gotten away if you and Aaron had not gone back to get your stuff. Sadie, the school expelled Missy. She’s less than two months away from graduation so I don’t know what she’s going to do now.”
Strangely, I wasn’t happy that Missy had been expelled. I didn’t really feel any anger towards her anymore. If anything, I felt pity for her. If she had to go to such extreme lengths to get back at me she must have really hated me. More than that, she must have believed it was something that she needed to do to maintain her identity as the most popular girl in school – the homecoming queen. That was sad because high school eventually ended and then what would all that matter?
“It doesn’t make any difference,” I said glumly. “I’m not coming back to school.”
My dad cleared his throat beside me. I had a feeling we were going to have an argument about going back to school but I wasn’t changing my mind. He could come up with whatever punishment he wanted but he couldn’t make me go back to that school.
“Are you sure?” Alyssa said. “I hope not because there are a lot of people who would love for you to come back.”
“Ha!” I scoffed. “I don’t believe that for a second. You’re just trying to be nice, Alyssa, it’s what you do. Let’s face facts, though. I burned all my bridges at Lakeville. There’s not a single person besides maybe you and the other girls who would want me to come back.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” Alyssa said with a twinkle in her eye. Without further ado, she stepped to the side, grabbed and twisted the door knob, and flung the door open.
My lawn was covered with what must have been 100 people. They were decked out in the red and black Lakeville colors and they were holding
signs and banners with phrases like, “Come Back Sadie!”, “Sadie Rocks!”, and “Lakeville + Sadie = Champions Forever!”.
“104,” Alyssa whispered to me. “One person who wants you to come back for every stupid lie that a single misguided girl printed.”
My body was shaking involuntarily. I felt tears well up in my eyes. I didn’t trust myself to try to speak. My dad tightened his grip on my shoulder as though he either wanted to steady me or needed me to steady him. Perhaps both.
Alyssa smiled. “Some of the boys who were in those photos want to say something to you,” she said.
Sam Queen nervously separated himself from the crowd and approached the front door. He fidgeted with the belt at his waist but when he spoke his voice was firm. “Sadie,” he said, “I met you when you fell in the hallway and I had to catch you. I’ve made a lot of great catches in baseball but you are the best one I’ve ever made. I learned a lot from you and, for a while at least, we were friends. I hope we can be friends again. You’re the coolest girl I’ve ever met. I mean that.” And then he quickly stepped forward, kissed me on the cheek, glanced nervously at my dad when my dad gave him a warning growl, and retreated back to the crowd.
Dylan was the next person to come forward. I held my breath, expecting him to tell me how much he hated me, but when he spoke his words were much different. “I think I made one of the biggest mistakes of my life when I broke up with you,” Dylan said. “Neither of us is perfect, but you cared about me and listened to me. When we broke up I was in a bad place and I couldn’t find it in myself to trust you. Now I know what Missy was capable of and what she did to us. I’m sorry it ended the way it did but I hope it doesn’t have to end our friendship. More than anything, I hope you don’t let Missy keep you away from Lakeville.”
“Thanks Dylan,” I said as more tears welled up in my eyes. Dylan darted forward and gave me a quick kiss on the cheek before heading back to the crowd.
David was next. I knew how much David despised me – I had heard him say it – and so I had hoped that he would have opted out of this intervention. Nevertheless, he walked up to the front door.
“I thought you were the most amazing girl in the world,” David said slowly, as though he were struggling to get the words out. “I still think that. I just could never understand why I always got hurt around you. I thought that meant we weren’t supposed to be together. I don’t know, maybe it does, but I’ve realized that I can’t avoid you anymore. I mean, my heart won’t let me. Being around you is an adventure and I love it. Even if we’re nothing more than friends, I want to be a part of that adventure.” David kissed me on the cheek. He lingered a little longer than the previous two boys had but my dad’s watchful gaze eventually drove him back to the crowd.
The crowd had just seemed like one big, threatening mass when I first saw it but now I began to pick out specific faces. Some – like Olivia and Payton, who were waving outlandishly large banners – I expected to see. Others I did not. I saw Paul Dolan’s face and wondered if he had just come to mock me some more. He was wearing a red and black tee shirt that appeared to have my face on it, however. I also saw Graham Knight. Was he really going to join the parade of boys coming up to see me?
The one person I wanted to see most of all, however, was nowhere in sight. Where was Aaron?
Graham walked up next. What was he going to say to me? “Thanks for getting my girlfriend expelled”? “I really appreciated how you orchestrated an entire kissing contest so you could check my name off a stupid list”?
Instead, the homecoming king said, “Missy was wrong. I beginning to realize that she was wrong about a lot of things. You seem like a pretty cool chick and a phenom on the soccer field. Lakeville needs you back. When I’m gone at college next year I want to hear that you whopped up on those A-holes at Churchill again.” After delivering that eloquent speech, Graham faded back into the crowd.
I looked around in trepidation. The girls had obviously organized this so that the boys from the list came up in the order that I had kissed them. Aaron was the next boy whom I had kissed. I waited expectantly for him but it was Ryan who walked up next.
“You were the first person I ever told about my sister,” the boy who had once seemed so mysterious said as he brushed his mess of reddish-blond hair off his forehead. “You cared. You helped me come up with a beautiful way to remember her. I’ll never forget that.”
Ryan seemed to have tears of his own when he kissed my cheek and then he held out his hand to my dad. Dad clearly struggled with the transformation from guard-dog-against-boys to human being. He awkwardly took his hand off my shoulder, shook Ryan’s hand, and then replaced his arm around me.
Surely Payton was not going to force Jamal on me. A moment later, however, Jamal emerged from the crowd and bounded up the steps to meet me. “Come back, girlie,” he said with a big smile plastered across his face. Then he lowered his voice. “Seriously, come back. Please, Payton is driving me nuts with all her girl talk. She says that if you don’t come back soon we are going to have to spend an hour every evening talking about chick stuff.”
I laughed and accepted his quick peck on my cheek. Gabriel followed right behind Jamal.
“What is it you Americans say?” he said. “Ah yes. Don’t let de bastards get you down. Come on. We need you back. Alyssa is driving me crazy. All she talks about is ways to get you back. Please. If for no one else, do it for my sake.”
He kissed me on the cheek. The stubble on his upper lip scratched against my skin.
Paul Stedman walked up to the door. “You’re beautiful, brilliant, kind, and athletic. You’re amazing. Consider me a huge fan. Anytime you are interested in, um, getting together, give me a call.” Paul gave me the obligatory kiss on the cheek. Then he lingered as if trying to decide whether to go in for something more passionate. My dad made the decision for him. Dad stretched his free hand out, pressed his fingers against Paul’s chest, and slowly pushed him back. Paul got the message. Aunt Julie smacked dad lightly on the back.
The twins. I was glad my dad was there to protect me against Chris if need be. Surprisingly, however, both twins looked happy and contrite.
“As much as I hate to admit it, you broke down our barriers and taught us how to be brothers again,” one of them said. That must be Chris.
“I don’t know how to thank you,” the other one – Liam – said. “You gave me the greatest gift I could ask for. Freedom. Thank you. Please come back. Don’t become the victim that I was.”
The two boys kissed me on either cheek. That earned an extra loud growl from dad but I heard a sniffle behind me, which must have come from Aunt Julie.
That was it. The girls had somehow managed to bully all the boys into kissing me and asking me to stay. Well, almost all the boys. I would never have actually expected Aaron to come. Still, it hurt that he hadn’t.
“Thank you all for coming,” I said as loudly as I could manage without bursting into tears, “but...”
“Wait!” Payton yelled. “We’re not done yet.”
And then Aaron’s face emerged from behind the crowd.
I instinctively took at step towards him and then stopped, wondering what he would have to say to me. My dad’s arm fell off my shoulder but that was okay. If I was going to face a boy I liked I needed to do it on my own. This was something dad couldn’t help me with or protect me from.
Aaron walked up to me and then everyone else disappeared. I had eyes only for him. He looked as handsome as ever. He wore a simple tee-shirt and a pair of shorts yet his lean and astonishingly toned body made them look like they were clothes fit for a prince. His tan skin, beautiful light blond hair, and light blue eyes reminded me of summer. They also reminded me how ridiculously attracted I was to this boy. Even now, with so many emotions swirling around within me, I wanted to run to him, tear off his shirt, take in those perfect abs, and...
Aaron reached me. He smiled. I looked up at his face, suddenly feeling like a little girl again.
“Sadie,” he said. “You are thoughtful. You are kind. You are an amazing soccer player, and you...”
I was listening to his words but they were not the ones I wanted to hear. I didn’t want another speech from a guy telling me how much he wanted to be my friend. I wanted Aaron to say that he wanted me, that he thought I was special, and that he wanted to be with me no matter what. I couldn’t force those words on him, however. I couldn’t make him want to be with me.
So many things were going through my head that it took me a moment to realize that Aaron had stopped speaking. He was looking instead at something else along the front of my house. I followed his gaze and realized that he was staring at the fire lilies my mother had once planted. The lilies were not in bloom yet and they wouldn’t be for another few months. The vibrant reddish-orange bulbs, however, were unmistakable.
I stared at Aaron uncertainly. What was he thinking? I saw him reach around to his back pocket and pull out his wallet. Then he extracted something from the wallet.
It was a wilted fire lily that looked like it had been pressed in a book... and then carried around in Aaron’s wallet ever since the day I had kissed him.
Aaron cleared his throat. He was still looking at the flowers. “Every day since before the snow arrived and after it melted I have been driving around town, looking for those flowers.”
“Why?” I asked so quietly I could barely hear myself. For some reason I couldn’t speak any louder.
Aaron’s head turned sharply to look at me. “That kiss,” he said. “The one at my house during the kiss competition… I needed to know who that girl was.”
“A lot of girls kissed you that night,” I said.
“But none had the passion and yet tenderness of the one I’m thinking about,” Aaron said. I had never heard him speak like this before. I almost expected him to burst out laughing and admit that it was all a joke but he seemed deadly serious. Aaron’s serious face was very, very cute.
Kiss List (The List Series) Page 28
