by Callie Hart
My eyebrows hit my hairline; it takes a second to register that a member of Raleigh’s staff just apologized to me for what happened. Foley’s the first person to openly acknowledge that it even happened in the first place. The other teachers have all been making an obvious effort to avoid eye contact; there must have been a staff meeting held in my honor, detailing how little attention should be drawn to my existence.
“No need to look so surprised.” Foley steeples her fingers together. “The school administration’s been woefully corrupt for the better part of the past decade. It’s part of the reason why I retired early in the first place. My position here’s temporary now, though, so I can say whatever the hell I like. The Weaving family are evil incarnate, and they deserve everything coming to them. I doubt the board’s going to replace Principal Darhower mid-way through an academic year, a regime change like that might be too upsetting to the status quo, but believe me…it’s on the cards. It’ll be too late to right the wrongs he’s done to you, but next year hopefully there’ll be someone a little more competent in the driver’s seat.”
I’m astonished that she’d say all of this to me. She’s talking to me like I’m…well, like I’m not only an actual, real life person with real feelings, but like I’m an adult who is due an explanation. I remain mute, uncomfortably gripping the sides of the metal chair I’m sitting on, waiting for this unexpected moment to be over.
“All that aside, I won’t be bringing this up again. And I won’t be going easy on you, Parisi. Mollycoddling does more damage than good, and I’m guessing you might want things to be as normal as possible for your remaining months here as a senior. Am I way off base?”
“No, Coach Foley. You’re right on base.”
“Good.” Perfunctory. All business. I like this about her. She shuffles a bunch of papers, organizing them into one neat stack, which she places in the ‘out’ tray on her desk. “There are only so many spots on this team. You were a good cheerleader once upon a time, but you were always deferring to Kacey, dumbing down your own talents so she could shine. I knew you could be better, and now I’m demanding it from you. There won’t be any in-fighting. No backstabbing. No arguments, and no drama. If I see things going south with the Sirens, I will confiscate your damn uniforms and disband this shit quicker than you can say ‘Go, Rebels, Go.’ Do we understand each other?”
“Um…you mean Roughnecks?”
“No. I mean Rebels, kiddo. This football team was called the Raleigh Rebels for twenty-two years before Caleb Weaving showed up and made Jim change their name. He wanted an all-new brand for his son to rule over, but Jake isn’t here anymore, and neither is his fucking father. It’s about time this school remembered its roots. We’re going back to the Rebels. Now, I repeat. Do we understand each other, Silver?”
For someone who just reprimanded us for cursing, her language choice is a little colorful. I nod, though, answering her question. “I’m here to train and nothing else. You won’t get any trouble out of me.”
“What about that boyfriend of yours?”
“Sorry?”
“The new kid. I haven’t even seen him yet, but I’ve heard plenty. Sounds like he’s got trouble tattooed on his back.”
“The tattoo on his back actually says ‘Unbreakable’,” I tell her, my mouth aching around the smile that’s trying to bully its way onto my face.
Coach Foley gives me a wry sidelong look. “He’s been caught up with the cops before. And now he wants on the football team? I wanna know what to expect from him.”
I hide my surprise well. Nearly a month has passed since Ben’s funeral and things have been…well, they’ve been hard. Alex has dipped in and out of that scary dark recess in his mind, floundering every once in a while, as he struggles to overcome his grief. But at the same time, he’s been trying. He’s been studying ferociously, acing all of his assignments. Every day, he runs five miles in the cold sleet and snow before school. He works on his bike in the small garage at the back of the hardware store. He’s even started picking up some shifts when Henry needs to drive down to Seattle for supplies. He might not be working at the Rock anymore, but he’s found plenty of other ways to fill his time. Every single moment of his day is full. He’s always moving, always busy, always keeping his mind occupied. And now he wants on the football team again? He tried out at the beginning of the year, but Caleb Weaving had him booted not long after. I assumed he didn’t really give a shit, but that can’t be true if Coach Foley is right about him requesting his spot back.
“Uh…Alex is determined. Passionate. He works hard,” I tell Coach Foley. “He’s still a mess after his brother’s death, but…he probably needs this. He’s trying to stay afloat. He’s not gonna cause any issues for you, I promise.”
Creeeeaaaak.
“Quit flailing, Silver. It’s done. It’s fucking done.”
Jake’s vicious words taunt me on my approach to the gym. I’ve been walking around the outside of the school for long enough now; I know I can’t avoid the it forever. That doesn’t mean that my anxiety isn’t riding high, though. The last time I walked, or rather I was dragged down this hallway, I had broken ribs, my face had been mashed to a pulp and I was about to be hung by the neck from the rafters. Such violent memories are enough to make even the strongest person break out into a cold sweat.
Creeeeeeeeaaaaaak.
“You want the pain. You want the humiliation. You want to be degraded, hit and kicked and spit on. It’s all you know now. It breeds inside you like a plague.”
I can’t differentiate between my heartbeats. My pulse pounds at my temples like a drum. It throbs in the soles of my feet, dum, dum, dum, dum, out of control.
But…wait.
The pounding, it isn’t my pulse. It’s a sound, outside of my body. A repetitive banging, stomping…and it’s coming from inside the gym.
“Oh my god, he’s gonna fucking kill him!”
Coach Foley frowns, quickening her pace. “What the hell?”
I have a bad feeling about this. Too cold and snowy to practice outside right now, the Sirens and the Rebels are having to share the gym for their training sessions, which makes for seriously close quarters. A high-pitched scream splits the air in two just as Coach Foley slams the gym doors open and storms her way through the knot of students who have all formed a tight circle around—
Oh, great.
Around a very familiar looking senior with vine tattoos tangled around the column of his neck, and another student with a Dreadnaughts MC badge inked onto his upper right arm.
It’s Alex and Zander.
Of course it fucking is.
Coach Foley scowls at me over her shoulder. “No issues, huh? I’m assuming one of these morons belongs to you?”
My face hot with embarrassment, I nod, pointing to Alex. “The one who’s about to—” Ahhh crap. Too late. Alex slams his fist into Zander’s jaw, and his friend topples over backwards, landing hard on his ass.
“Next time he gives you a message to pass on, you know where you can tell him to shove it!” Alex roars.
Laboring for breath, Zander collapses flat on his back, hands resting on his ribcage, laughing at the top of his lungs. “One of these days, I’ll be done letting you use me as a punching bag, man. You’re not gonna like it when I start hitting back.”
“Please.” Alex looms over Zander, his face red from exertion. “Don’t act like a little bitch on my account. Feel free to fight back anytime.”
“As far as I can see, you’re both being little bitches,” Coach Foley snaps. Thirty heads turn in unison toward the sound of her voice, including Zander and Alex’s. The look on my boyfriend’s face when he sees me standing behind Coach Foley says plenty: he knows he’s fucked up, he knows I’m disappointed, and he immediately regrets the stunt he just pulled in front of an entire gymnasium full of our classmates. He scrubs his face with his hand, grimacing as he turns away from Coach Foley and begins pacing up and down like a caged lion.
“The Lord only knows what the hell this was about, but violence will not be tolerated here, and especially not in this goddamn gymnasium. You hear me?” Coach Foley hisses. “I’d have thought you’d know better, Alessandro, considering what went down the last time you were in this space.”
Alex shoots a pained look at me out of the corner of his eye, like he’s just remembered what happened here with Jacob himself and his guilt is eating him alive. “Alex,” he mutters softly.
Coach Foley shakes her head in confusion. “I’m sorry?”
“My name’s Alex.”
“I don’t give a good god damn what name you prefer to be called, Mr. Moretti,” she splutters. “Only people who act like civilized members of society get any respect from me. At this rate, I’ll be calling you fucking Susan for the rest of the year if I decide it fucking suits you.”
Still on the floor, except now with his hands beneath his head providing a pillow, Zander chuckles maniacally—probably a bad idea, since the sound draws Coach Foley’s attention. “And what the hell are you doing? Taking a siesta? What’s your name, princess?”
Zander’s smile dies. “Judging from the look on your face, it’s probably gonna be Mavis.”
“Perfect. Mavis and Susan. Off you go, ladies. Suicides. You stop when one of you can give me a good enough explanation for the carnage I just walked in on. What the hell are you still lying there for? Get your ass up off that floor right now!”
On the other side of the gym, Leah and her crew snicker behind their hands, giving Alex dirty looks. Their disapproval is a show put on especially for me. They’re terrible actresses, though. Alex, with his brand new Raleigh Rebels Crew t-shirt pulling taut across his chest, and his dark, unruly waves mussed like the devil himself just tousled them, looks so sexy that I could drop down fucking dead. The girls squint down their noses at him and sneer to try and make me feel bad, but they can’t help their treacherous hormones from softening their spite. I see their hunger as their eyes cut him down, and it brings me a savage satisfaction to know that they’re never going to get to eat at that table.
Zander and Alex shuttle up and down the gym, glaring mutinously at one another every time they pass. The football team and the Sirens disperse, plainly disappointed that the fun is over, and each team heads to their respective ends of the gym. Meanwhile, I duck my head, praying that I’m not as red in the face as I feel.
“Sorry, Argento.” Alex slows a little as he passes me. “Couldn’t help it.”
I’m not mad at him. It would have been nice to commence my first day of training with the Sirens without a spectacle. “Jack?” I ask quietly. “He asked Zander to try and get you on side?”
Alex is too far away to respond now, but from the steely, unhappy flare of acknowledgement in his dark brown eyes, I know I’m right. It’s surprising that Giacomo hasn’t tried to elicit Zander’s help before now. I’ve waited with bated breath every single day since Alex’s father approached me outside of the English block, bracing myself for the next Giacomo Moretti-related incident. It’s a miracle that it’s taken this long to arrive.
I stretch quickly, warming up my muscles, trying to ignore the lancing pain in my ribcage every time I twist, or just how generally stiff and sore I am all over my body. The doctors recommended I wait at least six weeks before I attempted any kind of physical activity. It’s almost been that long now, but my injuries still aren’t completely healed. If I have to sit out on the sidelines, missing my chance to catch up with my own life, then I’m going to lose my mind, though. I’ll tolerate the pain. I’m going to have to.
The mat area set aside for stretching is small, but the other girls give me a wide berth as I sit down and fold myself over my legs, easing the tension in my hamstrings. Things are going to be really interesting if they don’t find a way to get over themselves soon. Cheerleading is all about trust. You have to trust the person next to you to move in sync with you, and you need to trust the person at the bottom of the pyramid to catch you when you leap. Without trust, the whole thing literally falls apart in the blink of an eye. Usually with very painful consequences.
“Silver?”
I look up, and a pair of white Adidas sneakers with pink laces fill my vision.
Huh.
The sneakers are brand new, the same as style as all of the other Sirens’ footwear, but I only know of one person who wears pink laces. One person, who used to dive bomb into Lake Cushman with me during long, hot summers, and who used to giggle and laugh about boys with me in the back conservatory of her parents’ house.
Slowly, taking a second to prepare myself for whatever’s about to come next, I lift my head and look up. “Hi, Hal.”
Her thick strawberry blonde hair is longer than ever. Her Sirens uniform is perfect as always, her skirt pleated in a crisp, sharp way that always used to piss Kacey off because she could never get hers to look as good. A couple of years ago at an away game, Kace even made Halliday switch skirts with her because it was her ‘duty’ as captain of the Sirens to look better than everyone else. Halliday had given up her skirt without flinching, but when Kacey had tried to put it on, it had been a size too small and she couldn’t get the zipper up. Suffice it to say, that had not gone down well. Not at all. Kacey had given Hal a week to put on five pounds or she was going to have to find somewhere else to sit at lunch. Again, Halliday hadn’t flinched. She’d happily gorged herself on donuts and grilled cheese while the rest of us picked at our salads morosely, and by the end of the allotted time, Halliday had in fact gained six pounds. On her tits.
I still remember Kacey’s rage when she realized Halliday was still a dress size smaller than she was but that her rack had become significantly more impressive. She’d told Hal she looked like a blow-up fuck doll, all the while jealously eyeing the boys on the football team, who all seemed to appreciate Hal’s new curves.
Now, Halliday warily eyes the other girls; they’ve all stopped their own stretching routines to surreptitiously watch our exchange. “Um. Hi. I…I…” she stammers.
The last time we were this close, I’d just pieced together that she was on her way to the Rock to strip, and things had gotten pretty fucking weird. At the time, I’d thought things couldn’t have gotten any more uncomfortable between us, but it looks like I was wrong. She shifts anxiously from one foot to the other. “Glad you’re back on the team,” she says. “And…I’m glad you’re doing better, after…”
“After Jacob hung me from that rafter and made me swing?” I point to the specific rafter in question. Better to avoid any confusion.
Halliday ducks her head, twin spots of red burning on her cheeks. She looks many things: ashamed; afraid; mortified; remorseful. I could ease up and try not to be so confrontational, but I’m feeling spiky and her meek approach hasn’t made me feel very merciful. She was my friend, one of my best friends. She was the one who found me, shell-shocked and covered in blood, wearing nothing but one of Mr. Wickman’s dress shirts and a pint of my own bloody at Leon’s party. She’d panicked, scared as hell, because she’d known something terrible had happened to me, and yet she’d still let Kacey spurn me from the group. She could have taken a stand that night and left with me. She could have picked me over Kacey, right over wrong, countless other times during the months that followed, when the other students at Raleigh made my life a living hell. So, no. I could go easier on her, but I’m not feeling that benevolent.
Halliday swallows thickly as she looks up, eyes fixed on the rafter over our heads. I’ve been doing a damn good job of avoiding looking at it, but I can’t stop myself now. To my horror, there’s still a piece of police tape fluttering away, high over our heads, snagged on the beam.
“Fuck, Sil,” she whispers. Her hand goes to her throat, as if she’s picturing what it must have felt like to have that noose biting into her skin, tightening, tightening, tightening… “I—I—I don’t know what to say.”
“So say nothing.” I bend back over my leg, grabbing onto my foot so I can
pull myself lower into the stretch. “It won’t change anything.”
A long, awkward moment passes, where Halliday stands silently over me, watching me, and I do absolutely nothing to set her at ease. Inevitably, she speaks again. “Look…I know you probably hate me, and I don’t blame you for that. I’ve hated myself for the way I treated you. I hated myself when I was doing it…”
The question burns on the tip of my tongue: So then why the fuck did you do it, Halliday? But it’s a question that I already know the answer to. She did it for the same reason I did so many shady, shitty things over the years. You never went against Kacey. Not if you wanted to survive. I bite the inside of my cheek, waiting for her to continue.
“I don’t expect you to forgive me, after everything that’s happened, but…I kind of need your help.” She says the words like she knows just how ridiculous they sound coming out of her mouth.
She needs my help? I misheard her. There’s no fucking way she just told me that she needs my help.
“What could you possibly need from me, Halliday? Seems like Raleigh life’s been working out for you pretty well since Kacey was banished to Seattle.” I see everything, and I hear everything, two skills I picked up quickly once I became Public Enemy Number One at my own high school. Being hyper aware of my surroundings helped me stay ahead of the curveball when Jake and his idiotic buddies on the football team were plotting new and interesting ways to embarrass or humiliate me. When Alex arrived at Raleigh, I began to let things slip, though. I have no idea how Halliday is faring at school now that, for better or worse, there’s a Kacey Winters shaped hole in all of our lives. She could be the new Silver 2.0 for all I know, spit on and laughed at in the hallways, abandoned by anyone and everyone who ever called her a friend. But I doubt it. Halliday’s way too likeable for any of that.
