~~~
It wasn't until the next week that anyone else besides my best friends would talk to me about what'd happened. It was on Monday in Spanish class, while we were waiting for the bell to ring, that Caitlin, Hailey Moore, Cassidy Catrell, and Hope started talking to me about it. Hope didn't actually say anything. She just sat quiet and listened. They told me that Calvin and Corena were acting like they were king and queen of the school ever since they hooked up. They said what Corena did was mean, and nobody trusted her anymore. I told them I wasn't gonna let it bother me. "I thought she was my friend, but I guess not. She's gotta live with herself and with what she did, and I'm just gonna move on." Then they asked me if I was gonna fight Corena, and I said, "No, she's not even worth it." Sidney Bouchard was in there, and I knew she'd be reporting everything to Corena, so I said it in a way so that she and everyone else would know I wasn't gonna get caught up in any Corena drama. At that point, I really did want to forget about it and let the whole thing pass.
The next couple of weeks were kind of hard, though. It felt like everything had shifted. Those girls were right about Calvin and Corena and the way they were acting. They seemed overly happy, like they were trying to rub it in. Seemed like they thought everyone else should be happy for them as well. And this vibe was going around where you were either friends with Calvin and Corena or friends with me. I didn't like it because I didn't need anybody trying to support me or taking my side.
It was all going on in Tammy's office—the place where Corena would hang out when she didn't want to go to class. And of course, whenever Corena didn't wanna go to class, she always made sure a lot of other kids didn't go either. I'd see them in there lounging around in the big comfy chairs—Corena, Calvin, Sidney Bouchard and her mom, Latisha, K.P., Trent, and Garrett. Tammy was loving it, having a bunch of kids in her office all day chit-chatting and gossiping. I'd never seen her so happy. You could actually hear it in her voice. She sounded up and chirpy. It was like they were having their own special party in there to celebrate Corena being in love, and it made me sick.
What bothered me most was that I knew what went on in that office and what they talked about—I'd been in there myself enough times to know. They were always talking shit about someone and tearing somebody down. I remember the year before when I sat in there and listened to Tammy rip Makayla and her stepsister to shreds. You see, Makayla had been living with Tammy and her family because she had no other place to stay. One day, Makayla quit showing up to school, and then we heard that Tammy had taken out a restraining order on her, but no one knew why.
A couple of weeks after Makayla quit school, I was sitting in Tammy's office talking to Corena, and Tammy was sitting behind her desk. Mrs. Bouchard came in and said, "Guess who's transcripts they want over at the high school."
Tammy asked, "Who?" and Mrs. Bouchard kind of raise her eyebrows and gave Tammy this serious look. Tammy's mouth dropped open, and she started nodding her head like she knew.
Mrs. Bouchard said, "And guess who's address she put down for where she's living," and she handed Tammy a piece of paper.
Tammy looked at it and said, "Oh, really. What a joke. Well, good luck to her. I bet she doesn't even finish out the school year…That lying little bitch, when she came to us, she told us this story about not having any parents, but we knew all along she did. They just didn't want her, and we found out why. She's a nasty little pig is what she is who can't keep her eyes off of anyone with a penis." Then Tammy started going off, saying all kinds of mean things about Makayla. I was caught between wanting to leave the room and wanting to stay so I could hear what she said.
Tammy said, "That girl doesn't know anything about hygiene." She looked over at Mrs. Bouchard and said, "I told you the story about the tampons, didn't I?" Then she looked at me and said, "She was throwing them under her bed!…And then one day little Billy was asking me what the dog was eating, and when I looked, it was her tampons!…God, it was disgusting. Imagine the talk I had to have with her. I still haven't had the courage to go clean that room she was staying in." Mrs. Bouchard asked her if it was bad. Tammy said, "Oh, it's bad, and who knows what else is under that bed. Maybe I'll find some of the stuff she stole from us. Corena, you know what I'm talking about, all those CD's that went missing and your iPod. And there was always money disappearing, the little thief. I can't believe we let her stay as long as we did. And the way she would lie—Oh, my God. And then, after she was staying with us for a while, I hear about what she did to her parents, making up these stories and trying to get them in trouble…"
When I heard Tammy say that, I said, "She told me it was true."
Tammy made a sour face, shook her head, and said, "It was all a lie, Macy. That's why they didn't go to jail. And I don't blame them for kicking her out and letting her sister be her guardian. I wouldn't want to have anything to do with my daughter if she tried accusing me of stuff like that."
And that's where Tammy was wrong. Because everyone knew what Makayla's parents had done to her. They just couldn't prove it. Her dad had been in trouble for that before, abusing kids, and her stepsister swore it happened to her, too. Makayla hated her parents so much that the state let her stepsister become her guardian so she wouldn't have to live with them anymore. I couldn't believe Tammy was saying it was all a lie.
But Tammy kept going on, "And that stepsister, she's one notch above a retard if you ask me. She came over once to sign some papers, and I swear I was starting to wonder if she could even read because I had to explain to her what everything meant. And that's who Makayla's staying with now. She lives in Minnith, not Rock Hill. So now she's telling more lies and putting her parent's address down as the place where she's living. Wait 'till the school finds out about that."
Which is exactly what happened. The high school found out she wasn't living in town, and they kicked her out. In August, she came back to Lifegate. The only reason Tammy let her come back was because Mrs. Bouchard and some of us girls begged her.
That day I sat in Tammy's office and heard her tearing up on Makayla was the first time I caught a glimpse of how cruel and mean Tammy could be. I'd heard a lot of other things since then. And now, since none of the kids who were hanging out around Tammy's office would even talk to me, I figured the person they were busy ripping on was me. I knew how they were. It wasn't enough that Corena stole my boyfriend, not for them. They were gonna make me out to be some sort of dirty tramp who never deserved to be going out with Calvin in the first place. Then they were gonna talk about every other bad thing I'd ever done. It didn't matter if I was trying to be cool, trying to move on. I was the bad person, the black sheep. Even Lanetta, Keisha and Joslyn, these girls who were friendly with everyone, were avoiding me. It was the old "Whose side are you on" game, and at this school, most people wanted to be on Corena's side, just to be safe.
It wasn't like I didn't have any friends at school. I still had Lori and Chelsea and some girls in my class. Lori and Chelsea pretty much kept their distance from Corena outside of cheerleading because they'd known her for so long, they'd grown tired of dealing with her shit. It was disturbing, though, when you find out people are talking about you behind your back. One day, I was eating lunch with Cassidy Catrell and her crew, and I saw Latisha and Sidney Bouchard standing outside the doorway. They signaled for Caitlin to come out into the hall, and I saw them whispering to her and laughing and whispering some more. Then they looked at me and started laughing. Now in the past, that'd be more than enough to get me out in the hall throwing punches, but for some reason, I didn't care. I stuck my tongue between my fingers and wiggled it around, then mouthed 'lesbos' at them, and they turned and walked away. Caitlin had already disappeared down the hall. She probably felt bad about what they were doing—trying to pick off what few friends I had left.
I'd heard some of the things they were saying about me, though—Cassidy and her friends told me. One thing they were saying was that the first time Calvin and I broke up, it wasn't just Dwa
yne who had sex with me, but the other guys, too. They said that's what Dwayne had been telling people. I didn't know what to think, as to whether it was true or not—I was so drunk that night, I blacked out. It was also going around that I was a cokehead and that I stole pills, once, from Calvin's dad when I was over at his house, which was total bullshit. It's sad the way people will make things up about other people. Even if what they were saying was true, does that make them a better person for saying it? I think not. I didn't spend much time denying these stories because like my mom says, the more you deny it, the more people will think it's true.