Breaking Free

by Winter Page

  Rain,

  Your mom told me you brought me home last night. She said you hadn’t told her much, and that she wasn’t going to ask questions as long as I was all right. Thank you for not getting me blood-tested. Let’s keep this between us.—Clare

  With that, I went downstairs, the rest of the day completely normal and uneventful. Except I couldn’t get that note out of my mind. Clare didn’t even know my name. I had kept her from getting raped. I had let her crash in my house. And she didn’t even know my name.

  Four

  I DON’T know what I expected Clare to act like on Monday. But it definitely wasn’t how she did act. I walked into Spanish, and she was in her normal seat next to Brad, laughing and talking with her normal friends. She didn’t even look up when I walked in.

  Stunned, I took my normal chair in the back. I listened to the same old lecture, only on a different verb. I did basically the same worksheet, and everyone left as if nothing had happened over the weekend. I still wasn’t even a blip on her radar after everything that had happened. Just another face to walk past in the hall.

  I didn’t talk to anyone that morning. I didn’t even know what I was feeling. But it was a jumble of pretty strong emotions, some of them deeply angry and disillusioned. That was the both good and bad thing about going to a brick-and-mortar school. I didn’t have time to think about much of anything except shuffling from one class to the next, and trying to focus on what my teachers were saying through all the background noise of a class full of teenagers.

  At lunch, I just sat there toying with my food, not giving anyone the time of day until a girl named Shauna got to dishing about all the hot hookups that had happened at the party.

  “So the big news is that Brad slept with Kathy Whittaker. Can you believe that? I mean just look at him! He honestly has the nerve to sit next to Clare like nothing even happened,” Shauna declared, her face coiling up in disgust when she looked over at the two of them. She waved a hand dismissively. “I call bullshit on that whole relationship. Serious and total bullshit.” Her voice was edged in anger.

  I didn’t know where it had come from, but at that moment, I loved how truthful sweet, shallow Shauna could be. And then something occurred to me. “Cam, how much do you remember from Saturday night?” I turned to her, urgent.

  She looked up at me from her sandwich, deep bags beneath her eyes. It was clear she was still a little shaky from the hangover of a century. “What do you think, genius? Not a thing.” Cam shook her head, going back to her lunch.

  I turned my attention to Freddie, skewering him with my stare. He sighed. I just glared at him until he blurted a little too innocently, “What?”

  I rolled my eyes, pointing an accusing finger at him. “You know something. Start talking, mister.” I took my tone of voice right out of my mother’s playbook of how to make a witness squirm.

  If the other people at the table hadn’t been staring at us already, they were now. Freddie shrugged, playing it down as if he didn’t know anything. I already had enough bottled up inside me; I didn’t need someone I considered a friend to side with the asshole and cover for Brad, too.

  “Freddie. Just tell me what you know.” My voice was hard, almost emotionless. I had no idea why I felt a need to protect Clare. I didn’t owe her anything.

  I told myself it was out of pity for her. It was obvious to me that Brad really did have something on her she couldn’t afford to let get out. Freddie made no move to say anything until Cam put a hand on his arm and murmured something low enough that only he could hear it.

  He nodded at her words, a resigned look on his face, and turned his full attention back to me. “I don’t know much, okay? I just remember that Clare was really fucked up, and we took her home. That’s all I got.” His voice was quiet, only loud enough for our table to hear. Shauna gasped dramatically, and a few of the other kids gave me pointed gazes.

  I nodded. “Thanks.” It was less than I had hoped for, but more than I’d expected. Still, I hated how the teen code was making them all close ranks to protect Brad. At Clare’s expense. She was the victim in all of this. But everyone seemed determined to make her a victim again by not coming to her defense. Were they all assholes, too, or just scared? Either way, it sucked.

  Everyone at the table stared at me, a little bewildered. It was finally Cam who said, “Hang on. You were the only sober person in the entire house, Saturday night. Out of all of us, you should know what happened.” Her voice wasn’t necessarily accusatory, but it was clear she was suspicious.

  The only thing I did in response was nod very slowly, never looking up. And with that, I went back to toying with my food. It wasn’t like I was any better than the rest of them at the end of the day.

  The table was mostly silent for the rest of lunch.

  Afternoon classes were a breeze, and I found myself without homework at the end of the school day. I couldn’t help smiling now and then in spite of my foul mood, because hey, life is about the little things. That, and I’m by nature a pretty optimistic person.

  I followed my afternoon routine when I got home, grabbing a snack and heading straight upstairs to my room. I went to my computer to check my e-mail before I headed over to YouTube to surf music videos for a while.

  I opened the last mail and blinked, startled. That was weird. It was an invitation to join an online chat and instant message service a lot of the kids at school used. I didn’t recognize the e-mail address of whoever’d sent me the mail. Intrigued, I clicked the link and downloaded it.

  When the little icon popped up, I double-clicked on it, curious. And hey. I had a good antivirus program on this machine. I set up my profile like it told me to and let it load.

  In the meantime, I reread Clare’s note just like I had been doing for the past two days. I guess I thought if I kept reading it over and over again, I might uncover some sort of hidden message or plea for help. Or, more likely, I was just crazy. That was definitely a possibility. I jumped when the download completed, and it dinged loudly. It then gave two short beeps. Investigating, I went over to my desk to see what was up.

  Apparently, I had two new messages. I didn’t know how that was possible, since I’d joined like ten seconds ago, but I didn’t question it in that moment like I probably should have.

  I clicked on the first one. The profile picture in the top right corner was blank. I read the message quickly, my eyes scanning quickly across my computer screen. What I saw made me want to turn off my monitor and go vomit in the toilet.

  You have no proof. She didn’t get tested, bitch. Let the games begin.

  I clicked on the user info, but it was blank. I didn’t need it to know who it was from, though. He had made it pretty clear. But this whole business of how he got to my account before I even made an account was freaking me out. Shaken, I opened the second message without clicking on the profile.

  I’m sorry for not staying longer and thanking you in person. Not safe yet. Brad has something on me I can’t let him go public with. Stay sane, Rain.

  I didn’t need to see who it was from, either. There was only one person I knew who called me Rain.

  THE NEXT day at school, I kept to myself. I watched the people around me pass by and wondered what it was in their lives that occupied their secret thoughts. Was it as scary as what occupied mine?

  I noticed, to my chagrin and fear, that Brad kept shooting glances at me from across the Spanish classroom. I looked away and didn’t try to engage him in the middle of class. But in the cafeteria at lunch, I caught him full-on staring at me. This time, I held his gaze, matching him steel for steel. I didn’t spend the first sixteen years of my life in Texas, desperately fighting to be who I was to back down to the first random schmuck who gave me hell.

  Shauna saw our staring contest. She whistled obnoxiously. Her beautiful mocha-toned face broke into a bright smile. “Looks like you’ve got an admirer, Raimi.” Her voice was teasing.

  I didn’t look away from Brad.


  Shauna squealed in excitement. “Oh my God. He might be a total ass, but you two would be so cute together!” Her voice was sweet, but the same shallowness I both loved and hated was definitely out in force today.

  I chuckled darkly, without humor. “He’s not really my type.”

  IT WAS a small victory, but Asshole was the one to look away first. Okay, so Clare all but draped herself across his lap to force him to look at her, but still. I won round one.

  More and more after that, I caught Brad looking at me. Eventually, I learned to just tune him out. He wasn’t worth my time at this point. No one knew my secret, and I wasn’t going to let him think I had something worth hiding. So life went back to normal.

  The week flew by, and I aced all of my tests. Very quickly I was rising to the academic top of my class. Thank you, Mom, for all the great tutoring. Friday came quicker than I thought possible. Oh joy. Another football game to endure.

  I was walking out of my last class of the day, Advanced Art, when I saw her in the parking lot. I was surprised she was still here. Almost everyone had already left school since there were no after-school sports on Friday, and the parking lot was basically empty. The only reason I was still here so late was to help with an art assignment Ms. Reynolds had wanted me to set up for the class next week. And a little one-on-one time with a hard teacher was never a bad thing.

  Clare was behind the wheel of her car, mascara running down her face. I stood at the edge of the parking lot, not knowing whether I should go to her or not. The wind blew over my face, catching my hair in its crisp chill. The sky was thick with a gray blanket of storm clouds scudding along overhead. I don’t know how long I stood there trying to decide what to do.

  She wasn’t sobbing. There was no shaking. Pain too deep for simple crying emanated from her. The tears just streaked silently down her face, which was more difficult to look at than if she’d been lost in a snot-and-slobber sobfest.

  Her hair was a mess, thrown back into a bun that must’ve taken her under ten seconds. Which was saying something. She was one of those girls who always tried and was always put together. She never came to school in jeans and sloppy hoodies with no makeup and bad hair. Ever. But she looked like hell, right now. Still beautiful. But hell.

  Puffy red rims made her eyes stand out so stark and blue that I could see their vibrant color from a good thirty feet away. She just sat there, her knuckles white on her steering wheel, clutching it so hard I thought her nails might draw blood from her palms.

  I felt the note in my jeans pocket and thought back to what she had looked like, so helpless, at that party. The eeriest part of seeing her crying now was glimpsing the same resigned self-hatred on her face that I had seen every morning on mine when I looked in the mirror, pretransition.

  I felt as if I owed it to her to at least try to find out what was going on. Even if I didn’t owe it to her, I did owe it to the fourteen-year-old me who’d decided briefly to kill herself because no one would take the time to talk to her. It had been a close thing for me, staying alive there, for a while.

  So, shuffling my books around until I found one of those stupid little plastic packages of tissues my mom insisted on stuffing in my backpack, I strode across the empty parking lot. I got right up to her car’s window, and she didn’t even notice my presence. I rapped on the thin glass, and it took her a moment to respond, even then.

  Eventually, she wiped a hand across her wet face, her hand coming away black with eyeliner and mascara. She rolled down the window a crack. “What?” she croaked.

  I stuffed a tissue through the slit in the window. She let it fall into her lap. For the longest time, it sat in her lap, and I honestly thought she was just going to roll up the window, drive away, and never speak to me again. I felt anger roiling off of her like she was building walls of rage to keep people out.

  I sighed, leaning against her car. “You know, not everyone is an evil bitch or bastard out to screw you.” My voice was tired in the humid air.

  She laughed, but it didn’t reach her eyes. Clare picked up the tissue and dabbed at her face. Thunder rumbled overhead, ominous and looming. I stood there a moment, waiting for her to respond. She finally put the tissue down, her hands settling restlessly in her lap. Her body seemed to just leak with anxiety, and I desperately wished she would talk to me about it. Eventually, I got tired of waiting for her to talk again.

  “I’m one of those lucky individuals who isn’t crazy or trying to get something out of you, Clare. Let’s be real. There’s not much you could tell me that I could pass on. Who would they believe? You can talk to me, if nothing else because, as the new kid, I have a pretty low social ranking around here.” I was trying to get her to see that I didn’t bite.

  She finally turned in her seat to face me, her stare locking on to me with the full force of her turquoise eyes. “What if I told you that I’m a monster?” she asked, dead serious.

  I snorted. “Well, then I’d say you’re certainly trapped in the body of an angel.” The minute that was out of my mouth, I had to restrain my hand from flying to cover my mouth in horror. I prayed I wasn’t engaging in some serious blushing, but from the heat in my face, I’d say I was failing.

  She laughed, nonetheless. “That’s not what I mean.” Clare’s voice was serious beneath the façade of sardonic amusement.

  I nodded sympathetically, trying to summon the right words to help her as best as I possibly could. “Everyone has monsters, demons, they don’t want to face. We as teenagers live in hormonal hell right now. And it doesn’t help that we’re surrounded by a bunch of people living in the same hell, too wrapped up in their own problems to really think about anyone else.” I spoke carefully, enunciating my words with precision, not wanting to screw this up.

  Clare stared ahead emotionless, her eyes hardening.

  I made a noise of irritation. “Don’t do that. I can see you putting up walls, right now, as I’m trying to hold a conversation with you and failing to keep your attention.”

  She did look at me then, like she was trying to figure me out, trying to see the cogs working in my mind, to figure what was causing me to act this way. Finally, she averted her gaze, frustrated.

  “Why do you care?” she snapped.

  I rolled my eyes. “Oh, get over yourself. Whatever it is can’t be that ba—” The window snapped up, cutting me off. I rubbed my forehead. I have to say, guy hormones were a lot easier to deal with. But the effects of estrogen still amazed me.

  I raised my voice to be heard through the glass. “That’s not what I meant, Clare. Just talk to me, and I promise whatever it is will seem a lot less all-consuming. Sometimes it takes someone from the outside to see what’s going on clearly.” I rested my hands against her window and peered in at her, tilting my head.

  She finally turned her gaze on me, and I saw something in it begging for me to understand. I had to fight the urge to recoil from her intense stare, to actually shy away from the power of it. Not only the power of the raw emotions evident in her eyes, but also in the sheer beauty of it.

  I held my breath, waiting for either one of us to do something. An icy raindrop fell onto my head, nestling into my hair. I frowned up at the sky. Fat raindrops began to fall down around me. I heard the soft click of a car door unlocking. Keeping my eyes on the sky, I walked around to the other side of her car and got in. Thunder echoed overhead, filling the air with impatient electricity. I settled into the passenger seat, trying to get comfortable. It smelled like cinnamon and vanilla, spicy with warm undertones.

  I put my bag on the floor, and she curled up with her legs on the seat in front of the steering wheel. We watched it rain in silence, and I tried to understand what to do next. Her eyes were unfocused, and she started crying again.

  I reached over to her, tentatively placing my hand on her arm. I just brushed my fingertips against her wrist and murmured, “It’s okay.”

  She shut her eyes tightly, crying harder, letting the sobs finally escape.
/>   I covered her hand with mine, and then we just sat there awhile. I held on to her hand tightly as she let the pain flow out.

  I knew she would tell me what was going on when she was ready, but right then, she just needed someone to be her rock. Lightning zinged through the sky, and thunder rumbled deeply overhead. But it didn’t matter. The only thing that mattered to me right then was that she would be okay, that I would help her be okay even if that meant leaving her alone.

  I don’t know how long we sat there, but it was a long time. Eventually, her breathing steadied, and her tears started to subside. I smiled calmly at her.

  She looked up at me and laughed. “Sorry. I know I look awful when I cry.”

  I rolled my eyes, snorting. “Oh, whatever. I don’t know a girl who doesn’t.”

  She nodded, biting her lip. “Do you ever think it’s not worth it?” she inquired softly.

  My eyebrows knit together in confusion. “What’s not worth it?”

  She extricated her hand from mine. I waited a minute before putting my hand back in my lap carefully.

  Her breath stammered out, broken. “All of it, everything. Being alive and everything that means.” She gestured wildly.

  “I think it’s worth it,” I murmured.

  She nodded, looking out the window. “So it’s just me, then,” she whispered.

  I paused a second, deciding if I really wanted to go there with her right then, and how much to tell her. But if I expected her to tell me what was wrong, then I probably would have to reveal something as well. There’s always a certain give and take when you deal with people. Which is why I don’t usually deal with people.

  “I didn’t used to, though,” I said quietly. “I was pretty convinced everyone was out to screw me for the longest time. And I was right to a degree. I spent a long time shutting everyone out, not telling anyone what was going on inside my head. It got bad for a while, and it just kept getting worse until I told my parents, and they were able to step in and help. But I was alone for what seemed like an eternity, just waiting for someone to see the hell I was in.”