Our Christmas Eve dinner was very nice. Everyone was there except for Riley, who was watching Bryce. I wanted to invite Bryce to dinner, so he could get away from his dad. But I didn’t think it would be good to have Riley near him, so it was best not to ask. Riley wanted revenge and I didn’t think he would stop at anything to get it. I wasn’t sure if I could trust him yet, so I had to keep them apart.
Chase left around 1:00 a.m. to go home. He continued to hint about marriage, but Cora ignored every mention of it. I think he only left because he was tired of the rejection and, for him, that didn’t happen very often, if at all. The whole Christmas vacation had turned out to be the best I could remember despite everything that had happened, because Elle, Genevieve and Riley spent most of their time with us. It was starting to feel like a family—a dysfunctional one, but still a family.
Genevieve and Elle acted like friends now. After the Christmas party, they didn’t say anything bad about each other. Genevieve had been great, but still I didn’t think Elle was completely sold on her.
Our Christmas break seemed like it was over in the blink of an eye. Cold weather blanketed Winsor. The low temperatures were in the negative numbers and the highs didn’t get much above 10 degrees. The cold made it that much harder to return to school. Even my dad’s truck struggled with it that first morning.
Eric and Livi were the first two I saw, which was normal with Eric and me sharing a locker. Livi was busy talking to a group of girls next to our locker.
“How’s it going?” Eric said.
“Okay, what’s up with you?” He was not his normal, cheerful self. He was quiet. After a long break to recharge, I would have expected him to be bouncing off the walls, ready to entertain.
“Have you heard the news?” he said. “Oliver’s back.”
I didn’t quite grasp what he said. It sounded like he said Oliver was back in school. But that was impossible, because he had been expelled.
“Eric, I thought you just said that Oliver is back, but that can’t be right.”
“Yeah, he is. His parents and Coach Miller worked out a way for him to finish his senior year so he can graduate with the rest of his class. Does Elle know?”
“She didn’t say anything on the ride here,” I said.
“You need to tell Elle before she finds out, or worse, sees him. And get this: he is back to his old ways. It’s as if nothing happened. His friends are back at his side and he’s acting like he’s king of the school again.”
I grabbed my books and set off looking for Elle. I had to get to her. Down the long hall, I spotted Oliver and a couple of his friends. The closer I got to them, I could see that Elle and Amber were in the middle of his group. Chad was coming from the opposite direction. Both of us were heading right for them. We would get to them at the same time. I didn’t really need Chad’s help, but he was an intimidating figure. Hopefully, his presence would deter anything from becoming violent. The fire lit in my stomach.
We both entered into the circle, cutting Amber and Elle off from Oliver and his friends.
“Oliver, do we have a problem?” Chad asked.
Oliver had a thin, jagged scar that started above his right eye and went all the way down the side of his face to his neck.
“Chad, it’s good to see you too, and look—you brought little Keller. Did you miss me, boy?” He blew me a kiss. I was consumed with fire. The acid in my stomach burned the back of my throat. Elle grabbed on to the back of my shirt to let me know she didn’t want me to do anything.
“Oliver, I want to make myself clear. You stay away from Amber and Elle, or I’ll have Keller kick your ass again,” Chad said.
The scar on Oliver’s face became distorted. I stepped forward.
“Oliver, do you understand?” I said firmly. He didn’t back away.
“Alex or Nick or whatever you go by now, I don’t care that you saved me. You are the reason why your girlfriend was in that car with me on the dock in the first place. If you were man enough to take me up on the rite of passage, then none of this would have happened. You may think this school is yours, but it’s mine. It always will be. You and I will settle this before the end of the year, I promise. And this time, you will be the one licking your wounds.”
He backed away and his friends followed, laughing as they went down the hall.
We turned to see if the girls were okay. They were, but I could tell that Elle was more upset than she was letting on.
“Don’t worry about him,” I said. “I will never let him hurt you again.”
“It’s you I’m worried about,” Elle said, holding on to me tightly.
I walked her to class. All the while, I kept my arm around her for comfort. With all of the other stuff I was worrying about, now I had to add Oliver into the mix. I was close to overload. It was Coach Miller’s fault he was here. He had helped Oliver with the police and now he helped him get back into school. My rage subsided but the fire was not going out, and for once, I was glad. It was a welcome friend.
After I dropped Elle off at her class, I didn’t even attempt to go to my first period Spanish class. I went straight to the locker room in search of Coach Miller. At the door to the locker room I was stopped by Coach Hoff.
“Aren’t you supposed to be in class right now?”
I tried to ignore him and walk by.
“Keller.” He grabbed my arm. I wanted to jerk away, but I held back.
“What’s the matter?” he asked. He looked concerned, not upset.
“I just need to talk to Coach Miller about something that only he can help me with.”
He stood there for a moment processing what I had said.
“Okay, but next time, when I talk to you, you answer,” he said in his best coach’s voice.
“Yes, I will.” I knocked on Coach Miller’s door.
“Come in,” he said.
He was sitting in a chair in the corner of the room reading a book. I couldn’t hold back my anger any longer.
“How could you help Oliver?” I blurted out. “First you helped him with the police somehow and now you helped him get back into school. He doesn’t deserve any of it, especially after everything he has done to Elle. He’s nothing but a bully.” I took a deep breath. He never flinched from my shouting. He simply put down the book he was holding and took off his reading glasses.
I grabbed the pack of Tic Tacs out of my pocket and nearly downed the whole box.
“So, Nicholas, it seems you have a problem with me. But before we talk, and I do mean talk, please shut the door.” I shut it and turned to find him standing right behind me. He was a foot away, towering over me.
“Please sit down.” He motioned for me to sit next to his desk. I sat and he did too, but this time at his desk.
“Nicholas, I am only going to discuss this with you once. Not because you demanded it, but because I would like for you to learn something.”
I immediately felt guilty for yelling. “Coach Miller, I’m so sorry for how I acted. It won’t happen again.”
He smiled and nodded. “Nicholas, you’re right. I have helped Oliver several times and will continue to do so. First, I asked Officer Daniel Hill at the police station to allow Oliver’s family to visit him in jail whenever they wanted to. District Attorney James Caldwell had his family barred from visiting him during those first few days out of the hospital when they took him into custody, which is against the law. So I had to intercede. Then I was also able to get Oliver released from jail to stay at home before the trial. Finally, he needed to get back into school so he could graduate and have a chance to go to college, so I worked out a way for that to happen.”
“Coach, I understand why you helped his parents see him and get him released, because D.A. Caldwell is an idiot. But why help him get back in school this year? Why not next year? That would have been better because most of the people he hurt would have graduated.”
“I did it because everyone needs a second chance.”
“But he’s a bully! Jus
t this morning he trapped Elle and Amber. Chad and I had to get him and his friends to back off.”
“Did you hear what he was saying to Elle? I imagine that when you and Chad saw him you didn’t exactly welcome him back with open arms. When Oliver gets nervous, he falls into old habits and yes, one of those habits is being a pompous bully. When you get nervous, you become calm. These are just different ways you both react to stress. Let me be clear: there is no room for bullies at this school or anywhere else, but it will take him some time to readjust and I am going to help him each day to try to do that. Nicholas, I don’t regret helping him, and I suggest you try to make the best of it. Who knows? Maybe one day you will decide to give him a second chance, too.”
“I think I’ve given him all the chances he deserves. If he were a cat, he would already have used up his nine lives.”
“Nicholas,” he handed me a pass back to class, “there’s nothing you can’t do. Give him a chance.” I took the pass and walked out of the office.
I couldn’t concentrate on school or anything else. How was I going to deal with Oliver on top of everything else? My mind felt like mush. All I wanted to do was see Elle and be in her arms.
At lunch, I walked to our table, and Elle was sitting there with Bryce. Both of them were staring at a sheet of paper. They were smiling about something. I was glad to see her happy.
“Hey, what’s going on, Nicholas?” Bryce said.
“Nothing, what’s up with you?”
Elle pushed the paper they were looking at toward me. The flyer was for a local food pantry.
“We are going to have a Valentine’s Day Dance to help the less fortunate in our community, and Bryce said he would help me with the planning.” Thank goodness he did. It would make guarding them a lot easier if they were both together. I was sure she was putting all of this together to get her mind off Oliver returning. It didn’t matter why; it was just good to see Elle being Elle.
“Bryce, be careful. You don’t know what you’re in for. She will work you to death.” Elle hit me, giving me one of her crooked smiles. That instantly made my mind clear.
“Oh, I can’t wait. It’s going to be a lot of fun,” she said.
“So how will the dance help the pantry?” I asked.
She began to explain how it would all work. People who came to the dance would have to bring five canned good items to get in the door. The table became full with our usual group. With the arrival of new people, Elle would restart the explanation of the dance and made it a little bit bigger and better each time. Eric was the last to join the table with no sarcastic comments or anything about the dance. He just ate his lunch, minding his own business. Oliver coming back was affecting him just as much as everyone else, maybe more. Eric was the quarterback of the team now, and I was sure Oliver had somehow found a way to make sure that Eric felt like he was a nobody.