Forever Changed

  “He was also suspended for a week in junior high when he punched a kid maliciously in the face. Sweetie, he’s violent, just like his father.”

  I got up and walked out, heading up the stairs to my room. My heart shriveled up into nothingness. I could have argued that he wasn’t violent, that he had told me he had never raised his fist to anyone, but it was all lies. Maddon had fed me nothing but lies. I wondered if his whole ploy was just to get in my pants. I couldn’t help wondering why he hadn’t taken the opportunity tonight. I was all but willing to give him the one thing I had promised my dad I wouldn’t.

  I closed my door behind me and dropped onto my bed. I pulled my iPhone from my bag after hearing it chirp.

  Hey sweets just checking to make sure you made it home okay. Text me when you get this.

  I stared at the message for a moment before clicking my phone off and sliding it in the drawer by my bed. Turning off my light, I curled up on my side, clutching a floppy-eared stuffed bunny I had gotten in my Easter basket when I was four. I tried to sleep, but my eyes refused to close as I replayed every moment Maddon and I had spent through my head. Mom came in to check on me at one point, but I pretended to be sleeping, so she eventually tiptoed out of the room.

  My eyes opened the next morning to the sun creeping through my window. With my throat dry as the Sahara, I headed downstairs, hoping to grab a bottle of water to bring back to my room before anyone else woke up. I was surprised to find my mom in the kitchen with a stack of papers in front of her.

  “Good, you’re up,” she said, looking at me like she had about as little sleep as me. “Pack your bags. We’re going away for a few days.”

  “I’m not sure I want to go anywhere,” I croaked from my sore throat.

  “You don’t have a choice. We’re going to get away from all of this for a few days,” she said, indicating the file from the lawyer in front of her.

  “Where are we going?”

  “Beech Mountain in North Carolina,” she said.

  “But Mom…” I started to protest.

  “I know, skiing is not your thing. It’s really not my thing either, but I always made an effort for your father’s sake,” she said, smiling sadly at the memory. “But we're not going skiing, anyway. We’re going so we can hang out in the lodge, drinking hot chocolate, and sitting by the fireplace. So, go pack your bags. Our flight leaves in three-and-a- half hours,” she said, standing up to give me a hard hug. “I’m sorry, honey.”

  I nodded my head, working to keep the tears at bay.

  “I know the pain is harsh, but it will dull over time.”

  I nodded again, even though I didn’t believe her. I was pretty sure my heart would be ripped to shreds for a long time.

  I was literally going insane. I hadn’t heard from Kassandra in days. The first night, I assumed she went home and fell asleep before she could text me back. By the end of the next day, I was worried that something had happened to her. I threw caution to the wind and called her house, but no one picked up the phone. Without knowing what else to do, I drove to her house, completely relieved to find her Explorer in the driveway. But where the hell was she? I texted her every twenty minutes the next day and never got an answer. By Sunday, I didn’t care that I hadn’t been appropriately introduced to her mother, I drove back to Kassandra’s house, determined to know what was happening. I parked my car across the street from the two-story home she shared with her family. As I made my way up the walkway, I began to freak out, suddenly realizing I had no idea what I was going to say.

  I waited a moment to collect myself before ringing the bell. I was tempted to leave and wait for Kass to contact me, but my desire to see her made me stay. I could hear the doorbell chiming from inside as I pushed the button and waited. After a few minutes I rang the bell again and peered into one of the long windows that flanked the door, but saw no one.

  “They’re not home,” a snippy elderly voice said behind me.

  “What?” I said, turning to face a little old lady that could have been a twin of that chick in the movie they made about the Titanic.

  “I said, they’re not home,” she snipped. “You need to borrow my hearing aid?”

  “No, ma’am,” I said, turning on the charm. “Do you know where they went?” I asked.

  “Yep,” she answered.

  “Could you tell me?” I pleaded.

  “Nope,” she answered.

  “Can you at least tell me if they’re okay?” I asked, allowing my frustration to come out.

  She looked at me hard for a moment. “They’re fine, or as fine as they can be after the tragedy that struck them this year. You know all about that?” she asked.

  I nodded my head.

  “You ain’t hurting one of my girls, are you?”

  “No, ma’am, I love one of them,” I admitted.

  “I suspected as much. They went on vacation. Their momma came over and asked me to collect their mail, said her daughter was hurtin’ over some boy. You know anything about that?”

  “No, ma’am, I don’t. I wish I did,” I said, raking my hand through my hair in frustration.

  “Well, I reckon it can be resolved once they get home,” she said, turning to leave.

  “Yes, ma’am,” I said, feeling defeated as I walked toward my car.

  “Young man,” she called.

  “Yes, ma’am?”

  “You remember, just because your papa has his demons don’t mean they’re your demons,” she said, disappearing into her house.

  I stared after her, wondering what she knew about my demons.

  I headed home to wait out the rest of the break. In a week I’d find out exactly what was going on, one way or another. The question was could I make it a whole week without knowing what had happened?

  We arrived home the night before classes were supposed to resume. I was pretty sure Mom had planned it that way so I wouldn’t dwell on it too much. The trip at least helped the days pass and allowed time for me to sort out my feelings for Maddon and re-categorize how I felt about him. I began to wonder if it was even possible to fall in love with someone you’ve only known a week, or was the whole thing just me being stupid and lonely. By the time we were flying home, I had myself convinced that it was probably the latter, that after years of being with a guy that I had no chemistry with, I was bound to fall for someone that sparked a fire in me.

  I would have responded the same with any guy who showed interest, I lied to myself the next morning as I got ready for school.

  “You ready for today, honey?” Mom asked, handing me a cup of coffee when I entered the kitchen.

  “Sure,” I lied.

  “It’ll be okay,” she said, seeing through my lie.

  I nodded, figuring it wasn’t worth it to argue. I was pretty sure that nothing about school would be fine again. I had less than five months to go before I walked for graduation.

  The student lot was busy by the time I arrived to school, and I couldn’t tell if I was being paranoid or not, but it seemed like everyone was watching me. I saw Maddon leaning against the building, waiting for me. I took a deep breath. I had been expecting this.

  “Kassandra, what the hell is going on?” he demanded. “Did your mom find out?”

  “Yeah, she found out,” I said, trying to control my traitorous heart that raced being near him.

  “So what gives?” he asked, exasperated.

  “I don’t know, Maddon, you tell me what gives. You forget to mention the fact that you’re speaking as a character witness at your father’s hearing tomorrow,” I said, raising my own voice, not caring who could hear.

  “That’s what this is about? Kass, I have my reasons for that,” he said, looking hurt.

  “Funny thing is I get that part. What I don’t get is why you lied to me about the drugs and violence. Did you think I would judge you? Me? Have you heard nothing I’ve said about how I used to be? I was no angel either.”

  “Kassandra, what the hell are you talking a
bout?”

  “Maddon, I know about the drug charge,” I said in a lower tone, not wanting anyone else to judge him. “And I know about the incident in middle school.”

  “Kass, you should have come to me. I could have explained,” he said, looking more hurt than I had ever seen him. “I thought we had that kind of relationship,” he added in a voice that would have broken my heart if it wasn’t already shattered.

  “So you could feed me more lies,” I whispered.

  “I never lied to you. Did your sources tell you why the drug charges were dropped?” he asked.

  I shook my head.

  “They were dropped because the solitary joint they found in my backpack was already half smoked. I took a drug test and passed. You know why? Because I didn't smoke it. They did a DNA test on it, and guess who matched? That's right, my dad. Did your source also mention the only reason they searched my backpack that day was because my dad was too drunk to drive me the five-and-a-half miles to the middle school. I was halfway there when I stopped outside an elementary school so I could rest. A cop driving by thought I was skipping school and looked suspicious, so he hauled me in.”

  The hallway began to close around me. I had prosecuted him without the facts. I wanted to throw up, scream, anything to erase the hurt that was etched across his face.

  “You know what the ironic thing is? I took a beating from the old man over that joint two days before that. He couldn’t remember where he had put it when he was in one of his drunken hazes. So, I guess you could say I paid the price for that joint twice. Well, three times now, huh? As for the violence thing, I punched a kid when I saw him pounding on a friend of mine, Drake as a matter of fact. I hit him once. At first, I wanted to pulverize him, but every hit I’d ever received from my old man flashed through my head in an instant, and my rage turned to disgust. That was six years ago, Kass, and I haven’t been in a fight since. I never lied to you. If anything, I bared my soul to you because I thought I could trust you. I guess we both got betrayed,” he said, walking away from me.

  I gasped out loud as the door slammed closed behind him. I wanted to call him back. Plead with him to forgive me, but the words wouldn't come out. I had prosecuted him and thrown away the key without giving him a chance.

  I walked down the hall away from my first period class in a daze. I reached my destination having trouble breathing, paying no mind to the person that tried to stop me. I didn't care about knocking. I just had to get in.

  “Kassandra, are you okay?” Mrs. Leighton asked.

  I shook my head, sinking down in the chair as tears streamed down my face.

  Mrs. Leighton walked around the desk and softly closed the door.

  She sat back down behind the desk and picked up her phone. “Michelle, please hold all my calls, and have Kassandra Cole excused from first and second period,” she said before hanging up the phone. She then pushed the box of tissues toward me.

  I grabbed a handful and clutched them in my hand like a lifeline. After a few minutes, I was able to calm down enough to ask her the question that had brought me here. “Why am I poison?” I finally asked.

  “Why do you think you’re poison?” she asked, studying me intently.

  “Because, I ruin everything I touch,” I said brokenly.

  “Like what, sweetie?”

  “Like my father’s and Maddon’s hearts.”

  “Maddon Johnson?” she asked.

  I nodded my head.

  “What makes you think you broke your dad’s heart?” she asked, switching gears.

  “I was a brat. I whined. I made demands,” I said, trying to make her understand my poisonous behavior.

  “Kassandra, you’re a teenager. If teenagers were perfect, what would parents complain to their friends about?”

  “The accident was my fault,” I finally said, tired of keeping it bottled up inside me.

  “Honey, why do you say that?”

  “He shouldn’t have even been in the parent drop-off that day. I was mad that he wouldn’t buy me a cute convertible like Lacey’s, and I had been complaining about it for weeks. I tried to convince him I needed a new car and that the Explorer was running like crap, but it really wasn’t. My dad finally caved and dropped it off at the dealership the night before, so it could be checked over. I lied and he died.”

  “Kassandra, it’s not your fault that your dad chose to have your vehicle looked over.”

  “I was still complaining about it the next day. The whole drive to the school I gave him a hard time. I questioned his love for me,” I said, taking a deep breath before continuing. “I stayed in the car after we got here that morning, still complaining. The driver behind us got pissed that we were holding up the line, but I didn’t care,” I whispered. “I didn’t care until I heard that same driver ran my father and little sister off the road, and then I cared, but it was too late. My caring at that point didn’t change anything. Don’t you see? All of this is my fault! My poison contaminates those around me.”

  “Kassandra, you didn’t force Rick Johnson to drink the liquor that made him intoxicated just like you didn’t make him get behind the wheel. What happened to your father was a tragedy brought on by the actions of one man, not the actions of a teenage girl who has been way too hard on herself. You’re not the poison, honey. The man who did this is. It’s time to forgive yourself. If your father was half the man you claim he was, then he was wise enough to know that you loved him.”

  “You don’t think I’m a terrible person?” I whispered, not quite daring to believe.

  “No, honey, I don’t think you’re a terrible person. Now, what’s this about Maddon Johnson?”

  “He and I have been kind of seeing each other, and my mom found out,” I said.

  “And she was mad?” she asked.

  “At first she was just upset, but when I told her I think I loved him, she went a little crazy. She had this whole folder on him that the prosecutor rounded up to use against him. There was a drug charge and some violence issue. I assumed Maddon had lied to me, so I cut him off without asking him,” I said miserably, remembering the hurt on Maddon’s face.

  “I see,” she said, sitting back in the chair. “I take it he wasn’t happy about your assumptions.”

  “No, he was crushed,” I said as new tears leaked from the corners of my eyes. “Turns out the drug charge was bogus, and the violence charge stemmed from one of the things I love the most about him.”

  “Why do you think you allowed doubts to creep in?”

  “Because I thought falling for a guy after only a week was farfetched. That I had misinterpreted my feelings for him.”

  “And how do you feel now?”

  “I couldn’t care less that it was only a week. Love is love, and I know that’s what I feel for him, even if it’s too late.”

  “Do you think it’s too late?” she pried.

  “I don’t know,” I whispered.

  “Kassandra, if your dad was standing here right now, what would you say to him?”

  “I would tell him I was sorry and I love him,” I said without hesitation.

  “Well, there you go. Maddon is alive and accessible.”

  Her words struck a chord in me. She was right. I could fix this situation.

  “Thanks, Mrs. Leighton,” I said, jumping to my feet.

  “You’re welcome, my dear. I’ll see you Wednesday.”

  “Ugh, really? I thought after the breakthrough we had, we’d be done.”

  “I believe the phrase, ‘you wish,’ is appropriate here,” she said, shooting me a big grin.

  “Whatever,” I said, softening the word with my own smile.

  I grabbed my pass for third period from the girl at the desk and headed out. I was tempted to skip, but knew I’d have a better chance of finding Maddon at lunch.

  Third period dragged as I watched the minute hand tick by. I was so lost in thought about finding Maddon that it took me almost the whole period to realize I was the subject of a
lot of whispering going on in class. Mrs. Lewis had to call the class to attention several times. I heard Sarah and Jessica mention mine and Maddon’s name before Mrs. Lewis threatened to separate them.

  Surprisingly, for the first time in my life, I couldn't care less about the negative gossip surrounding me. All I cared about was finding Maddon and apologizing profusely until he forgave me.

  Fourth period was no different, and by the time the bell rang for lunch, I was ready to climb the walls.

  “Hey, stranger,” Colton said as I threw my books in my locker. “You never called during break. I thought we were going to hang,” he added as I walked briskly through the halls, searching for Maddon.

  “Oh no, I’m sorry, it was such a crazy break,” I said, not slowing my pace.

  “So I’ve heard,” he said.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” I said, stopping abruptly. He was the last person I expected crap from.

  “Whoa, slay another dragon. I was just making a comment. Believe me, I’m the last person to judge someone for who they want.”

  “Sorry, I didn’t mean to snap at you. I’ve just been hearing snippets of trash-talk for the last two hours,” I said, resuming my hunt down the hallway.

  “Where are you off to in such a hurry?” he asked, keeping pace with me.

  “I’m looking for Maddon so I can apologize. Do you have any idea where he might eat lunch?”

  “I think he hangs out in Smokeville,” he said, following me as I veered off down the hall that would take me there.

  “You don’t have to come,” I said, surprised he was still following me.

  “I have nothing better to do,” he said. “I’m not sure you’ve noticed, but I don’t fit in much with our group of friends anymore.”

  “You fit with me,” I said, looking sideways at him. “I mean that.”

  “Thanks, girl. I hope you find your guy. I’ll catch you tomorrow,” he said, slowing to a stop.

  “I won’t be here. Maddon’s dad goes in front of the judge tomorrow,” I said, also slowing my pace.

  “Sheesh, I didn’t know it was that close.”