A balled-up note lands on your desk.
You stare down at it. Your heart is a hummingbird. The note could say anything. It could say, “Don’t listen to them.” It could say, “Die, lezzie slut.”
Another one arrives. The teacher is writing on the board and misses the second, third, and fourth notes that rain down around you.
Emboldened, Marvin swivels in his seat and lays a full sheet of paper on your desk. He glances around the room, basking in the pack’s long-denied approval, and waits eagerly for your reaction.
You gaze down at the crudely drawn picture of two naked, humping girls and your fingers roll up tight.
“Lesbo,” Marvin whispers.
“Good one,” someone says, snickering under his breath.
Marvin quivers with pleasure at being acknowledged.
“Hootchie lezzie.” His lips move and his fingers twitch as he hunts for one more name.
The one that will get him hurt.
“Don’t,” you say flatly.
He rears back, startled and momentarily cowed, then rallies and delivers the final blow: “I don’t have to listen to you. Bull dyke.”
It’s inevitable, you guess, that the teacher hears and turns back to the class right as your fist completes its roundhouse swing and bounces off Marvin’s face. He’s seen it coming, though, and ducks, so instead of breaking his nose, your knuckles connect with his bony, unyielding forehead, and the crunch that stuns the room is from you.
“Hey! What the heck did I just see?” the teacher yells, striding down the aisle toward you. “Ardith! Marvin!”
“My head,” Marvin moans, crumpling. “She punched me in my head!” He gropes his face and searches his hands. No blood, just a fast-rising knot.
“Oh God,” you whisper, closing your eyes as pain sweeps your body. Something inside you is broken. Everything inside you is broken.
The teacher hustles you and Marvin to the nurse’s office. The nurse checks head and hand, decides neither of you has done irreparable damage, and dispenses ice packs with cool, practiced efficiency.
“You’re gonna get in trouble, you know,” Marvin says while the nurse calls down to the assistant principal’s office. He touches the goose egg and winces. “I have witnesses. The whole class saw you do it.”
“The whole class thinks you’re a loser,” you say dully. If you’d broken his nose he wouldn’t be talking right now, and if you’d broken your hand you’d be on your way to the hospital instead of sitting here waiting for the ax to fall. “They hate you more than they hate me. Christ, get a clue.” You grit your teeth and turn away from his wounded gaze. “You really think that if you make a big deal out of this you’re gonna be some kind of hero?” Snorting, you give the knife one last twist. Why not? You have no reason to be good anymore. No one wants a lezzie slut for a friend, or for a podiatrist. “Well, you’re not. You’re going to be the same old loser, except now, because of your big mouth, you’re going to be ‘Marvin who got his ass kicked by a girl.’ Is that what you want? You want to be an even bigger laughingstock?” You shrug. “Fine, then go ahead and make a big deal out of it.”
“That’s not what’ll happen,” he mutters, scowling at the floor.
“Wanna bet?” you say, right as the assistant principal strides through the door with Mr. Everett, your guidance counselor, hot on his heels.
Under direct questioning, Marvin sulkily admits he called you names but says he doesn’t remember what he called you or who else was involved.
“You do know, because your teacher has already told me what both you and the notes said,” Mr. Everett says quietly.
“Well, if you already know, then what’re you asking me for?” Marvin says.
“Don’t make it worse,” you say under your breath.
Marvin sneaks you a glance. “Okay, so yeah. I did.”
“Why?”
Another shrug. He’s offered up all he’s going to.
“This incident will be added to your permanent records, of course,” the assistant principal says, sighing and running a hand over his bald spot. “Marvin, I’m signing you up for a diversity tolerance workshop with a peer counselor tomorrow after school.” And in the next breath, “Ardith, you know our zero-tolerance rule about fighting. I’m afraid you’ve earned a day’s suspension.”
The room tilts and you clutch the edge of the desk.
Not a suspension. You’ve kept your permanent record spotless. No failing grades, no detention. Few absences, no fights. Not even one gentle, chiding “Is not working up to capacity” or “Needs to try harder,” because you’ve always had to try harder just to reach your capacity.
“He gets a workshop and I get suspended?” you choke out. “But he started it! I was just minding my own business…” Panic steals your breath. “It’s not fair.”
“Sticks and stones, Ardith,” the assistant says, not unkindly.
“Life isn’t fair. There will always be people who say things you don’t like, but that does not give you the right to physically assault them. Do you understand?”
You struggle for a moment to dislodge the sordid details that will explain why it wasn’t your fault, and why you don’t deserve to be suspended, but they won’t shake loose. You’ve been private too long. You bow your head, your neck creaking under the weight.
“Do you understand, Ardith?” he repeats.
You nod. Yeah, sure, you understand. You understand that people like Kimmer and Mrs. Brost and even Marvin will always be granted license to destroy simply because they use the adult-sanctioned weapon of words.
“Look, let’s not be hasty on this suspension,” Mr. Everett says.
“Ardith’s never been in trouble before and I’m not sure we’d be accomplishing anything by—”
“She punched this boy in the head,” the assistant says. “And zero-tolerance means just that. What kind of message would we be sending to the other students and their parents if we didn’t enforce our own rules?”
“But he admitted that he instigated it,” Mr. Everett says doggedly. “There were extenuating circumstances.”
You glance at him, then down at his feet. His shoes are wide and worn thin on the outsides. He must walk like a gorilla.
“Look, don’t make it into a big deal, okay?” Marvin says, hunching low when they turn to look at him. “It’s over. I don’t want her suspended.”
“Well, you should have thought of that sooner, Marvin,” the assistant says. “What’s done can’t be undone, and someone has to pay the piper. Now, take your ice pack and go back to class. Ardith, you’ll finish out the day in Mr. Everett’s office and tomorrow you’ll serve your suspension. And I don’t want to see either one of you back here for fighting again.” He nods at Mr. Everett and the nurse and walks out.
Marvin goes back to class.
You follow Mr. Everett to Guidance. He does walk like a gorilla, rolling along on bowed legs and crushing the outside edges of his squeegy, rubber-soled shoes.
You spend half the morning tucked into the corner of his office, doing your homework assignments as they come in, your gaze locked onto your notebook, your ears ringing with humiliation. You mumble thanks when Mr. Everett brings you a cup of hot cocoa from the cafeteria, but you can’t bring yourself to look at him. He calls your house to tell your mother about the suspension but the line is busy and he can’t get through. You don’t tell him it’s because she’s designing an adult website. You don’t tell him anything at all.
Something flutters at the edge of your vision. Blair is standing out in the hallway, peering in through the window and waving frantically. She mouths something, points, and ducks out of sight.
You look at Mr. Everett. “Can I go to the bathroom, please?”
“Sure, but come right back,” he says, smiling as if he’s glad you’ve decided he’s not such an ogre after all.
“Thanks,” you say and hurry out.
The halls are dead—classes are still in session—and you jog to the b
athroom, where Blair is yanking a brush through her hair and scowling into the mirror.
“Oh my God, Ardith, I heard,” she says, whirling as you walk in. She scrapes the hair from her brush and tosses the knot toward the garbage can. It falls short and drifts to the floor. “Are you all right? I can’t believe it.” She catches your cautioning look and shakes her head. “It’s okay, there’s nobody here. I already checked. So what the hell happened?”
Your stomach spasms. You feel bloated and obscene. “Gary saw us with Officer Dave on New Year’s Eve. He saw when I put my arm around you and made that squishy face. He’s telling everybody we’re gay.” You can’t meet her gaze in the mirror. The swim dance memory has always been a warm, deep pocket of water in an otherwise shallow, chilly pool but here, now, and under these circumstances, it seems more like a sinkhole than a sanctuary. “Kimmer’s passing it on.”
“Kimmer?” Blair’s voice squeaks. “That little bitch!” Her hand whips the locket back and forth on its chain. “Oh God, I swear, I’m gonna kill her.”
“You can’t, you’ll get in trouble,” you say. The hairball drifts across the tile and clings to your shoe. “You can’t even say you’re going to kill her, remember? The school has a zero-tolerance policy for making ‘terrorist’ threats, too.”
“Oh, but she and Gary can go around spreading rumors and nothing happens to them?” Blair demands, planting her hands on her hips. “What’s that about?”
“‘Life isn’t fair.’” You mimic the assistant principal, but you’re too miserable to be angry. “I’m suspended tomorrow for fighting. It’s going on my permanent record.” The room blurs. “Everything’s ruined.”
“Oh, for…I can’t believe this,” Blair says, scrubbing her hand across her forehead, and in that moment, with her set jaw and fierce gaze, she looks more Brost then Blair. “What the hell are we doing wrong?” She paces the room.
You slump against the cool, painted cinder-block wall and whack your head on the corner of the paper towel dispenser but the pain barely registers. You must have winced, though, because Blair snakes a hand up behind you and rubs the back of your skull.
“You have this weird, tangled cowlick going on back here, Ardith.” Scowling, she pulls out her brush. “Stand still.”
You can feel the brush working through the knot, patiently separating the strands, parting it into sections, working and smoothing it all back together.
“There. That’s better.” She nods, satisfied, and wedges her brush into her pocket.
“Thanks,” you say, mourning the loss of the warmth at your neck and wishing the knot had been bigger. Wishing it had encompassed your whole stupid head. “Blair?” You meet her unwavering gaze in the mirror. “What’re we going to do?”
“I don’t know,” she says, sighing and rubbing the side of her face. “It’s too late for lirgas. Gary’s stupid babbling might have been ignored—nobody ever listens to him anyway—but now that Kimmer stuck her big fat face into it…” She stops, cocks her head, and her gaze brightens. “Hey, you don’t think she’s pushing this rumor because she’s afraid Jeremy still likes you, do you?”
“No,” you say immediately, because the thought is absurd.
“Think about it,” Blair says, pacing again. “She wants to see you crawl, Ardith. Why? What’s her motivation here?”
“She gets off on it,” you say. “It’s something to do, like a sport.”
“I don’t know about that,” Blair says, shaking her head. “People don’t usually go out of their way to crush other people unless they really hate them, or there’s something in it for them…” She stops and pins you with a piercing, sparkling gaze. “You want to pay Kimmer back and kill the gay rumor at the same time? Be with Jeremy.”
“What?”
“Go be with him. Kiss him. Grope him. Make him cheat on Kimmer with you.” She laughs and her rising excitement buffets you like a sweeping Santa Ana wind. “Come on, it’s a great idea and she can’t do shit about it because there’s no school rule about messing around with somebody else’s boyfriend! Oh my God, I’m a genius.”
“I can’t kiss Jeremy,” you say stupidly.
“Why not? You wanted to last Thanksgiving,” she says.
Yes you did, but you don’t anymore and you stammer as much.
“So what? You don’t have to like him to kiss him,” Blair says with an impatient look. “All you have to do is endure it. Trust me on this, Ardith, because I know.”
She means your brother. Thanks to him, her experience now exceeds yours, but you still have your own grim memories of shadowy hallways pressing against your back and the tinny taste of blood and foreign saliva flooding your mouth. The only kiss you’ve ever given willingly was the one shared with Blair and even that carries its own dark, confusing legacy.
“I can’t,” you say, miserable. You’ve walked the balance beam between home and school so carefully, and for so long, that falling off immobilized you. No step is a safe one, so it’s safer to take none at all.
She gazes back at you for a considered moment and you get the feeling that she sees more than you’ve ever shown her. You can’t break the connection, can’t shut her out because she’s too far in and you’re terrified that she’ll guess what you’ve only wondered at yourself, and hate you for it.
“Well, I can,” she says finally and the air crackles. Her locket catches the glare from the overhead fluorescents and flashes silver lightning. She yanks her sweater up over her head, revealing the sheer, tight, black mesh T-shirt underneath. Ties the sweater around her waist and bends over, fluffing up her hair. Straightens.
“There. That ought to do it.” Her bra is the same black lace one she wore on Christmas Day. “I’ll meet you for lunch, okay?”
“I can’t, I’m stuck in Guidance.” She’s so cold and distant that she’s scaring you. “Blair? What if he doesn’t do anything? I mean, what if he blows you off?”
“Then I’ll be a laughingstock,” she says shortly, pinching her cheeks until they glow. “Oh, excuse me. A lezzie-ho laughingstock and Kimmer will win again and we will lose again and Gary’s yap will go right on flapping because nobody’s humiliated but us, and we don’t count. Okay?”
Her bluntness is a rude shove and you fall back a step. Somehow you’ve shrunken or Blair has grown because she towers over you now, and you used to be the same height. “Are you mad at me?”
Blair’s eyes flicker and a thin smile curves her lips. “No. I’m mad for you.” She strides out.
The room throbs with residual energy. You meet your gaze in the mirror and see she’s right. You have no righteous anger, only despair. And fear. You look like a victim. You pee and walk back to Guidance.
“You’ve been gone a long time,” Mr. Everett says, glancing at his watch.
“I had a problem in the bathroom,” you mumble, avoiding his gaze. He’ll think you mean your period, which is what you want because then he’ll get all weird and drop the subject. You’ve heard your brother’s girlfriends say this is so a thousand times.
“Oh,” he says and turns away, scrabbling around for something on his desk. “Well, uh, your history homework is here now, so you might as well start it.”
“Sure,” you say and open the book, but you don’t do much reading because you’re thinking of Blair. You don’t know whether to curse her recklessness or applaud the brazen, irreversible payback she’s about to unload on Kimmer.
And you worry about the backlash. Because there will be one.
There always is.
I feel bad about punching Marvin. I mean, yeah, maybe he deserved it, but they all did, so why did I take it out on him? Why punish the kid who’s been a public punching bag his whole life? I mean, even his friends pound on him.
I never thought I was the kind of person who’d kick a dog when it was down, but I went and did it anyway.
And I know why, too. Because I could. Because he was the safest one, the kid with no power or high-status friends to come bac
k at me.
So I sunk as low as every other bully and that makes me sick.
You know these kids around the country who can’t take the pressure? Who lose it and go ballistic? Well, I’m telling you this is how it starts. Taunting. Teasing. Tormenting.
Torture someone enough and the pain turns to anger.
The only thing worse than being invisible is being visible and powerless.
I shouldn’t have hit Marvin. I should have hit Gary or Kimmer, but Gary would have hit me back, and I wasn’t brave enough to scale those clique walls to get up to Kimmer.
Blair was, though. She not only scaled them, she picnicked on them.
When she got mad, all of that potency inside her just blossomed, like she’d waited her whole life for that first, sweet victory.
Stop her? No way. I couldn’t.
Because it brought something out in me, too, and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t like it.
Chapter 12
Blair
So now you see why I had to do something about the rumor. I mean, when Ardith walked into that bathroom she looked ready to kill herself. Terrified and totally beaten. That freaked me out because she’s the strong one, and if this was bad enough to take her down, then it had to be serious.
The gay rumor thing hit her harder than it hit me. Of course, at that point I didn’t really understand that keeping her record and her reputation clean meant more to her than just smoothing a path toward med school.
I didn’t understand that keeping clean was her way of building a life.
I was more upset at my mother. Who the hell was she to pick my friends? I mean, being in a world without Wendy sucks; I absolutely refuse to be in one without Ardith, too. That’s just not an option.
So I was already pretty wired when Ardith told me about Kimmer pushing that rumor and there was no way that little bitch was going to get away with it. She’d hurt Ardith on purpose and now she was going to get hurt, too.