by Allen, Jacob
I’d never felt so alone, so abandoned in my life. The tears flowed freely as I put my head down on the table, embarrassed at crying so hard in public.
What did I do? What did his stepfather do?
Adam… why?
* * *
Some of my teammates hated that one could hear the sounds of the football warmups and fans from our practice field on Friday evenings, especially the further into practice we went.
I never cared that much. It reminded me how much school spirit we had, and though our soccer games didn’t receive nearly as many fans as the football team did, when the fans did show up, they showed up in full force—including many of the football players, such as Nick Locke.
On this day, though, nothing could boost my energy and enthusiasm for practice. My encounter with Adam—which had really pushed me to my breaking point—had sapped me. Even my coaches asked me if something had happened during school, but I didn’t reveal anything. I just told them it had been a long week, but a chance to sleep in until nine tomorrow would allow me to recover.
When 6 p.m. hit and we finished out with our free kicks, though, my side—the offensive side—won, and so the coaches spared us from having to run suicides while the defense and the goalie had to do so. As they ran, though, I wasn’t sure that I didn’t wish I was part of that, even with a still-somewhat bum ankle. The distraction from having to reflect on the bullshit of the day would have served as an enormously welcome relief.
Still, after our huddle, our “one-two-three Eagles!” chant, and our trudge back to the sideline, enough conversation had started that I felt a little better. Not much better, but a little better. I always had this team, Samantha, and Jackie to lean on if I needed to.
As the girls headed to the locker room, sheer exhaustion set in. Had it really only been one week of school? It was bizarre to think that for everything that had happened this week, especially with Adam, it was still August, and it was only the first week of school. It felt like a semester’s worth of things had happened, but nope. Just one week.
I just needed to get home. I probably wasn’t even going to eat dinner. I was just going to beat my mother to the couch, pass out, wake up, stuff some bananas and peanut butter down my mouth, and then go out for the morning practice.
That was the plan, at least, as I sat on the bench, my eyes closed, and my head tilted back. I could have fallen asleep right there on the bench if I wanted to. I was just so tired… so exhausted… so…
“It’s not a good idea to practice with a bum ankle, you know.”
What is he doing here?
Can’t he ever just leave me alone?
“I can handle myself just fine, thanks,” I said, not yet opening my eyes and not moving my body at all. “Maybe you should be the one to watch yourself.”
“You’re not the first to say that.”
My eyes opened at that strange, almost half-hearted vulnerability. I turned around on the bench to see Adam standing about five feet away from me, his arms crossed, the typical scowl on his face.
“And I won’t be the last if you keep acting the way you are.”
He didn’t say a word. For a split second, I thought I saw something cross his face—fatigue? Disappointment? Exasperation?—but Adam rarely displayed his real emotions. Even when he was a sweet, kind boy, he usually masked his feelings with giddiness, charm, and humor. Now, there was still a mask, it just had taken a much more sinister form.
“What are you doing here?” I said after several seconds of awkward silence. “Have you come to follow me to my car? Publicly humiliate me? Or maybe you’re going to tell me you’re dating one of my best friends to make me feel worse. I know it’s definitely not to apologize to me. I don’t think you’ve apologized to me since eighth grade.”
“Has it been that long,” Adam said with a chuckle.
Something in me told me that his words, though spoken caustically, had a tinge of regret to them. But I was pretty sure every person had a voice in their head that told them to go back to their ex or to give them another chance. Most of us were good enough to ignore the voice or reassure it, and I didn’t intend to be any different.
I opened my mouth to respond, but that was only feeding Adam exactly what he wanted—ammunition to taunt and tease me with.
“Did you know I’m throwing another party in October?” he said. “Did you know that it’s going to be even bigger than the last one?”
I decided to just outright ignore the bully. Hard as it was, as much energy and emotion as I had coursing through me right now, I was not about to help Adam’s cause right now, even if his question was seemingly innocuous.
Because there was nothing innocuous when it came to Adam.
“Did you know that it’s going to be the kind of thing that no one will miss out on?”
I kept walking to my car. I only had about twenty feet to go. Once I got inside, I was safe. Adam might barge on my door and give me hell at school, but he wasn’t so committed to the cause as to get run over by me.
And then, just about five feet from the car door, Adam slid in front of me, a cocky smirk on his face.
“The fuck do you think you’re doing?” I said.
“You’re not listening to me, so I wanted to make sure you heard me.”
“Oh, this is rich,” I said.
I tried to move around him, dart by him, but Adam prevented me from getting in the car. It was harassment, obnoxious, and preventing me from moving on with my day.
But it was also… sweetly familiar.
Adam and I used to play a game, whenever one of us went to the other person’s house, where we’d stand between the other person and the door to keep them with us as long as we could. The game was always corny, and of course Adam always won with his size, but it was just one of those things that turned a good relationship into a better one. That was a game that I hoped to play with someone else in the future.
So why did Adam insist on bastardizing that game right now? Why…
Why did it still almost make me smile? Why did it seem to almost make him smile?
“If I let you tell me whatever the hell you want about the party,” I said with a sigh. “Will you let me go?”
“Let you go?” Adam said. “All you have to do is ask nicely.”
“Jesus,” I said. “May I please go?”
“Ask a little more nicely.”
He was making me grovel. I’d seen him do this shit before. I was not about to let him get away with it.
“Ask me to ask a little more nicely, and I will scream at the top of my lungs,” I said. “And you may have your stepdad protecting you at school, but there are plenty of other adults here that won’t be afraid of you.”
The two of us engaged in a silent standoff, Adam daring me to follow through on my threat, me daring Adam to hold true to his demand. It was kind of ridiculous, of course—weren’t all high school fights?
But it didn’t feel ridiculous to me right then. It felt very real, like everything that would happen for the rest of the school year would revolve around this moment.
“Why did you even mention the party?” I said. “So you can taunt me with you not inviting me?”
“What?” Adam said in mock shock. “I would never do such a thing! No, the question is, would you dare to come?”
“Hmm,” I said, crossing my arms. “I suppose it would be a pretty big risk to show up to the place where some asshole publicly mocked me, made me cry, and then continued to harass me at school, including in the privacy of the women’s locker room. Gosh, I’m trying to think of the upside.”
“I can think of one,” Adam said. “You’d get your chance to fight back at me. I know you want that.”
I arched an eyebrow at him. I didn’t know that I would call it “wanting” to fight back. I felt more pinned. Did he…
Did he fucking like when I pushed back on him?
“I’ll decide if I want to come later,” I said with an eye roll. “It’s a deci
sion I’ll make on my own.”
“You better behave then,” Adam said, now having the audacity to lean against my car. Who the hell did he think he was? “I can always rescind the offer.”
That was true.
But I was beginning to pick up on something about Adam’s behavior, especially in recent times. He wasn’t just bullying me. He was getting off being near me. Not literally, of course—God, I hoped not. But for him to show up here, after my soccer practice, before the first football game of the school year?
“You wouldn’t do that,” I shot back. “You wouldn’t dare.”
For a flicker of a moment, I saw Adam’s lips curl up, confirming my thought—my fear—that he actually enjoyed it when I pushed back. He enjoyed seeing me writhe in discomfort and humiliation.
Except… the smile didn’t seem cruel. It almost seemed… pleased? Happy?
But the smile faded quite quickly as Adam the bully returned.
“Are you telling me what the fuck to do?” he said. “Do you need to be reminded of who I am—”
“And what you’re capable of, blah blah blah,” I said.
The threats weren’t ever empty, but they were losing their effect all the same. I knew one hundred percent I had Samantha and Jackie in my corner. For everyone else in this school, the odds of spending more time with them seemed extraordinarily low. What was Adam going to do, ruin what little social reputation I had?
So long as he didn’t affect my grades—and not even Adam had the pull to do that—I really didn’t care what he did.
“Are you mocking me?” he said in a deep, low voice that would have sounded quite rugged and hot if it hadn’t accompanied such wicked words.
I was getting tired of this. I just needed to go home and sleep.
“You know, Adam,” I said. “I really have no idea what you’re doing and why you’re doing it. You used to be so sweet. You always had a temper, but you never turned that temper on me. Now, because of something that happened at home, you’ve become a giant dick. I don’t know what happened. I don’t know what happened to the old ways.”
“I don’t either.”
I almost felt my jaw collapse to the concrete at that. Was that an admission of uncertainty? About us? About what had once been?
Was Adam actually… was he actually sorry for what had happened?
It’s not too late, Adam. It’s…
“Because I don’t give a shit about what happened when my balls were only starting to drop.”
And just like that, whatever brief illusion of hope and a return to kindness had been there had completely vanished. Adam could have pulled out a knife and stabbed my arm and it would have hurt less.
“That’s too bad,” I said, my voice a low whisper. “Maybe you should give a shit about what happened. I can only imagine the kind of pain you’re in that you feel like you have to be a giant jackass all the time to me and everyone else.”
I forced my way past Adam with that, but he gave no reaction. He moved only to dodge my rearview mirror from hitting him as I back my way out. I looked behind me as I pulled out, noticing he had not moved.
Maybe my words had gotten to him in some manner. Maybe this would be a turning point for him. I could hope for his sake.
But for our sake? There was no “our sake.” We were just memories in a yearbook, nothing more.
The best Adam and I could hope for was to be neutral to each other. Adam had nuked the bridge between us one too many times for me to trust that I could ever rebuild it again safely.
10
Adam
I watched Emily drive out of that parking lot with a feeling that had been creeping up on me a lot in recent days, but one that hit me especially hard right then.
Confusion.
What the fuck did I actually feel for her, anyways? Why did I say “I don’t know either,” in reference to the good old days?
I’d caught myself as soon as I’d said it, of course. It was basically the equivalent of a Freudian slip, nothing more. It didn’t mean anything.
Nope, it sure didn’t.
But…
Nope, it meant nothing. I really didn’t know what it meant, which was why I said I didn’t know. It didn’t mean that I yearned for the old days. The days when I’d kiss her, hold her, feel connected to her in a way no one else made me feel or still made me feel today, go out with her…
“Fuck!” I roared as I kicked the car that had parked to her left.
It was a red Honda Civic. I had no idea whose car it was, probably some junior’s, and I gave no shits about it. If not for the parents and adult fucks that looked my way after I’d kicked the car, I probably would have kicked it until my foot or the car broke.
I wasn’t sure which one I would have preferred, if for no other reason that I couldn’t decide which one would make for a better story or better school gossip.
* * *
The month and a half passed leading up to my party, and I left Emily alone.
For the most part. Whenever we played kickball, I said a couple of things to her. Nothing crazy, just enough to remind her that I hadn’t forgotten about her. I really didn’t have any idea why I left her alone, other than that… well, I was confused.
She also seemed a lot less willing to engage me, and that took out half the fun of it. If Emily wasn’t paying attention to what I was trying to do or say, then what was the point of even engaging her? That was like trying to have a conversation with a fucking turtle. The turtle would sooner retreat in its shell than start speaking to you.
It just left me even more bored than normal compared to the typical school day. Being around Emily excited me and invigorated me—it gave me a verbal and intellectual challenge. What she called bullying, I called pushing boundaries.
It was kind of lonely, frankly. But that was a fucking stupid term that I just used when I was feeling particularly shitty about my parents. I was fine. I didn’t need help. I just let myself get weak a couple of times.
In any case, though, the night of the party arrived, and when ten o’clock hit, the night would begin in the most epic of ways possible.
I’d told people to start coming around 9:30 in preparation for the 10 p.m. starting time. I did not tell them what was about to go down, just that it was a party they would never forget. I even invited some of my now-college friends who were on their own spring break back in town. This may have been a party thrown by a high schooler, but it was not a party that any fraternity, nightlife planner, or club-hopper was going to top.
I had my parent’s credit card, I had the space, and I had the balls. No one else had all three. Only I could throw a party worthy of going down in Providence Prep legend.
I stood on the balcony of the place at 9:58 p.m., with Ryan, Kevin, and Nick by my side. No one else—not even the hot college girls who had joined some of their friends—were allowed up here. Kevin begged to have some of the college coeds up there—even I had to admit they were stunningly hot in comparison to the Providence Prep girls—but appearances had to be maintained. There could be no one up here until we allowed it.
I scanned the crowd as I had multiple times since we’d all gotten up there ten minutes before. Many people were there; anyone who was worth a shit or had a social reputation was there.
Except for her.
“One minute to launch,” Ryan said with a yawn. “This better be good, Adam. I don’t even know what shit you have planned.”
“That’s the whole fucking point, you idiot,” I said. “Half of the idea of impressing these people is to do something that’ll blow their fucking balls off by surprise. Once you do that, everything else is easy.”
“So let me guess,” Ryan said. “You’re going to bring out strippers, a live band, some glowsticks, scatter cocaine from the rooftop, bring in hookers, give everyone free liquor, and turn the party into an orgy, right?”
Ten o’clock hit. The lights all went out. A small smile crossed my lips.
“Something li
ke that,” I said quietly.
“Ladies aaaaaaand gentlemeeeeeeeeen,” the DJ said from the far side of the pool.
I’d hired a professional DJ—that was a first for this kind of party. No more shitty Spotify playlists, no more letting some teenager hijack the stereo, no more corny ass high school songs. This was going to be an upscale production, and that required an upscale disc jockey.
“Give it up for your host. Adaaaaaaaaam Colliiiiiiiinnnssssssssss!”
The crowd went wild as strobe lights that I had had installed—like I said, I went balls to the wall on this party—shined upon me. Kevin, Nick, and Ryan naturally faded back. I stood over the crowd with my arms wide, soaking up the praise. I was a fucking God to these people, and there wasn’t a goddamn thing that could change that.
So why do I still feel miserable and pissed off?
“Welcome, fuckers!” I said, drawing even more cheers.
I had to stifle a laugh at this. I could have called them all ugly pieces of shit and they’d probably just laugh anyways. It was so goddamn easy to draw praise from these pussies.
“Tonight, the Broad Street Boys are going to throw you the greatest party that you have ever been to,” I said. “And that goes for you, frat boys and sororities! This will be a night unlike anything you’ve ever seen. We’ve got… dancers!”
Both inside, where I couldn’t see, and outside, lights shined on poles that had been set up in the darkness, as well as a few girls that I had hired from the strip club.
“We’ve got all the booze you could ever want!” I said, with lights shining on a bar outside and inside. “And if there’s anything else you need… and I mean anything else… you come ask one of us, and we have it. So rage, Providence Prep. Rage like you’ve never fucking raged in your life!”
The cheers went up as the DJ started to lay down the beats, starting with “Shots” by LMFAO. I ducked out, giving two middle fingers to the crowd, making them go even crazier, before I took a seat on my pool chair.
