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The next morning in homeroom, stupid Sierra Brand comes up to me. I felt sorry for her. She wanted to fit in so badly, and for some reason, she thought I was her friend. She came into homeroom with this real serious look on her face and marched right up to me, like she couldn't even help herself, and asked, "Is it true you slept with Calvin's brother?" She said it loud, too.
I said, "It's none of your fucking business, nigger!" and pushed her down. I felt bad about that. Not about jumping her or pulling her hair but about calling her a nigger. I don't know why I said it—I wasn't racist. I think she just had a way of bringing out the worst in me. After she got up, I chased her into the hall and grabbed her by the hair. I was reaching around, jabbing her in the face when Kearns pulled me off of her. I got sent right home and suspended for 5 days. That was on Friday.
Saturday morning, I was sitting on my bed doing my nails when my phone started ringing. It was Hope, and for a moment, I wasn't even sure if I wanted to answer it. I was anxious because I knew she'd be able to tell me a lot of things—things I deserved to know but that I knew would make me feel worse than I already did. I set down the nail polish, took a deep breath, flipped open my phone, and said, "Hey."
She spoke in almost a whisper and said, "Hey, Macy, how you doing?" Her voice was filled with sympathy.
I tried to sound cool and relaxed and said, "I'm fine…no problems…So what's up?"
"I just wanted to see if you were okay."
I said, "Sure, I'm okay…Why wouldn't I be okay? I just got suspended, that's all." I didn't like people feeling sorry for me, and I was so mad at all my friends because not one of them had bothered to tell me what Corena was saying behind my back. Fact is, they'd been avoiding me for two days, even Hope. So I wasn't in the mood to play along with her sympathy routine, but I was glad she called. I tried to make a joke out of how my mom was saying I had psychological problems and violence issues and that I needed to get help. Then I told her my mom had grounded me, not because I'd gotten suspended, but because I wouldn't tell her what Sierra and I were fighting about. I thought Hope would appreciate that because she knew how nosey my mom was, but she didn't say anything. When I quit talking, there was just silence. I guess she was waiting for me to bring up the subject.
I said, "So Corena's telling everyone about me and Calvin's brother, right?"
"Yeah."
"So Calvin must know by now. I guess it's over between me and him."
"I'm so sorry, Macy."
I said, "That's all right. It's my own fault. He was bound to find out sometime." I waited for a response, but all I heard was dead air. Hope wasn't real good at cheering people up. She was kind of awkward that way, but I knew she cared. Then I heard her clear her throat, and I waited, feeling like there was something else she wanted to tell me. But she stayed quiet.
I asked, "So is everyone talking about it?"
She hesitated, "…No, not really…"
"What do you mean, not really? I thought Corena was telling everybody…Does Calvin know?"
There was a long pause, and then she said, "…Yeah…I think so."
"Well how's he acting? He must be pretty pissed off." She didn't say anything. And then I heard her sniffling like she was crying.
"Hope, why you crying?…You're not worried about me, are you? Don't worry about me. What's up?"
She said, "I don't know…" And now she really was crying.
"What happened? Tell me."
"Oh, god. I don't wanna be the one to tell you."
"Well, you gotta tell me. What the hell's going on?"
"Well…she's a fucking bitch, Macy."
"Yeah, I know, Corena's a bitch. So what happened?"
"And you're gonna find out somehow, so I might as well tell you." I could hear worry in her voice, and it started worrying me.
I said, "Well, what is it?"
I heard her take a deep breath, then she said, "Last night, we cheered at the basketball game. The only reason I went is because I thought it might be the last game for cheering. And anyway, after the game…well…Corena and Calvin left together."
I felt a rush of jealousy all over. I pictured those two together and thought to myself, She doesn't deserve him no how…And what the fuck could he possibly see in her?
"I'm sorry, Macy."
I couldn't answer. I felt a big sob starting to well up inside me and two big tears roll down my cheeks. I felt, right then, what I already knew, that it was definitely over between me and him.
Hope said, "I didn't want to tell you, really, but I didn't think you'd want to hear it from anyone else. I wish there was something I could do."
I tried to say, "Thanks for telling me," but it came out all wet and blubbery.
She said, "Do you want me to come over?"
"No, I'll be okay."
I was sitting on the edge of my bed, hunched over and holding the phone to my ear, trying to sob as quietly as possible. I knew it was making Hope uncomfortable.
After about a minute, she said, "Umm, Macy…I'm gonna go now, but give me a call whenever you want to…okay?"
I squeaked, "Okay," and she hung up.
I rolled over on my bed, curled myself into a ball, and pulled the covers over my legs as best I could. I gazed out my bedroom door into the hallway, and suddenly, it seemed like the TV in the living room was really loud. I wanted to get up and shut the door, but I was afraid to move. I was afraid if I got up and walked across the room, my mom would hear me, say something to me, and start bothering me again about why I was fighting Sierra. So I laid there suffering with my eyes open, trying to ignore the blaring TV.
It wasn't as bad as it sounds, me sleeping with Calvin's brother. Not as bad as I'm sure Corena made it sound. When it happened, Calvin and I had already been broken up for a couple of months. I was at a party, back in November, and I ran into Calvin's brother. He was a couple of years older than Calvin, but he used to hang out with Calvin and his friends sometimes, so I knew him pretty well. We talked for a while—I hardly knew anyone else there—and he asked me what I'd been up to. I told him about these crazy girls I was hanging out with and about Lori getting drunk all the time, because he knew Lori. Then he asked me if I wanted to go back to his place. We didn't even leave the party at the same time because we knew how people would talk. I left first and waited by his car until he came out.
He was real honest and up front about it. He said we couldn't start dating or going together because he knew how bad it'd make Calvin feel. I went over to his apartment a couple of times the next week, and that was it. Right after that, Calvin started being friendly again, and I was already regretting what I did. And now I was regretting it way more than I ever thought I would.
The only two people who knew were Hope and Corena. I tell Hope a lot of things, almost everything, because I know she can keep a secret. I should have never told Corena. That was stupid. I know why I did, though, and I feel ashamed every time I think about it. The truth is, sometimes I wanted Corena to like me more. I wanted to be in with her, and when I let her know about Calvin's brother, I was bragging. Corena was asking about him. She said she thought he was cute, so I told her about me and him and made her swear she wouldn't tell anyone. What a fool I was. She even told her fucking mom. That's the only explanation I could think of for why Tammy was hugging Calvin after he pushed me into the snack machine—because she knew. She was probably thinking I was some evil tramp who was trying to hurt her innocent Calvin.
God, I hated Corena. Here, she'd been acting so friendly towards me, sitting by me in class, and inviting me to go to lunch with her. She fucking invites me over to her house the weekend before, and then a couple of days later, she's talking behind my back and stealing my boyfriend. It seemed unbelievable that someone could be so ruthless and mean, but if there was one person who could, it'd be Corena. Because I knew her, and after it happened, I realized she'd been planning it all along, the fucking bitch, and I wanted to kill her. That whole weekend
, when I wasn't busy feeling terrible about losing Calvin, I was imagining how I was gonna kick her ass.
My imagination went crazy, and I started getting all these pictures in my mind of Corena and Calvin being happy together and in love. I imagined that this is what they wanted all along, for them to be together. I even started to think they'd planned it—that Corena had begun telling everyone about me and Calvin's brother so Calvin would have a good excuse to break up with me, and that he was in on it, too. And every time I pictured them together, I'd ache with sadness. I'd imagine them standing close to each other, glowing with joy and sharing a joke about something, and then I'd be overcome with the pain of rejection, but I'd go right back to it, that picture in my mind. I'd have a vision of them walking down the hall at school. They'd have their backs to me and would be bumping up against each other with those excited looks you see on the faces of people in love, and I would feel small and worthless. I felt crazy things, like Calvin never loved me but only felt sorry for me…or that he was using me to pass the time, and I was just someone for him to have sex with.
Then I started going through in my mind everything I'd ever imagined for me and Calvin. You know how it is when you're young and in love. You think no two people have ever had a relationship quite as special as yours, which is how I felt about me and Calvin. I thought I could tell him anything and that he always understood me. I felt like he understood me telepathically, and I didn't have to explain because we were meant for each other; we were soul mates. And when we were together, I thought we could conquer the world. It was as if, because of our love, we had special powers that only we could fully appreciate. And I felt excitement whenever I imagined what our future would look like because it seemed we were destined for something remarkable—as if whatever miracle had brought us together was, by itself, evidence of other miracles to come. I had no idea what our future was, but I thought that because it was ours, mine and Calvin's, it would be great.
Well of course it was all a bunch of stupid teenage bullshit, but that's what Corena stole from me. She stole my dreams, and she didn't even know it. I began picturing her as a thoughtless beast or a lower life form, like the guy who runs over your dog and speeds off, not having any idea about what he just destroyed. I wanted to say to her, "If you only knew how it'd make me feel, you would've never been able to do what you did." I hated her more than I'd ever hated anyone, and for the first day or so after Hope told me, it seemed like nothing else mattered in my entire life other than making Corena pay for what she did.
I spent the whole day Saturday moping around the house. My mom kept asking me what the fight with Sierra was about, and I kept telling her it didn't matter.
She said, "Oh, yes it matters because this is crazy, you fighting at school and with girls I don't even know. And you're not going anywhere until I get more information."
Then she asked me why Calvin wasn't calling. I told her I didn't know, but she was suspicious. I just didn't feel like going into it with her and dealing with all her questions and judgments. I wanted to talk to someone, though, so I texted Lori and Chelsea, but they didn't text me back. I spent the evening watching TV with my mom, which just made her more suspicious because I wasn't trying to leave the house.