Hate List

  Normally I would have definitely kept walking. Meghan had made it excruciatingly clear that she thought I was responsible for what happened, and I could guess that anything she’d have to say to me wouldn’t be good.

  But I didn’t have anywhere else to turn. The hallways were empty at this time of day at this end of the building. All the athletes were down in the field house. Everyone else had already caught their rides home.

  “Hey,” she breathed again when she caught up to me. “Going to the StuCo meeting?”

  “Yeah,” I answered uncertainly, crossing my arms over my chest defensively. “Jessica asked me to.”

  “Cool, I’ll walk with,” Meghan said. I looked at her for a second longer and then slowly began walking toward Mrs. Stone’s room. After a few steps she said, “I like your idea about the time capsule. It’s gonna be pretty cool.”

  “Thanks,” I said and we walked some more. I bit my lip, considered, then said, “No offense or anything, but why are you walking with me?”

  Meghan tilted her head to the side, seeming to consider this. “Truth? Jessica told me I had to be nice to you. Well, not really told me, but, you know… she got kind of mad at me for shutting you out and we had this fight about it. We made up and everything, but I decided she’s right. I can at least try.” She shrugged. “You don’t act mean or anything. Mostly you’re just quiet.”

  “I don’t usually know what to say,” I said. “I’ve always been quiet. It’s just not been very noticeable before, I guess.”

  She glanced at me. “Yeah, you’re probably right,” she said.

  We could see Mrs. Stone’s room up ahead. A light was on inside and we could hear voices spilling out the doorway. Mrs. Stone’s voice hovering above them; a few laughs puncturing the air. We stopped.

  “I wanted to ask you something,” Meghan said. “Um… somebody told me my name was on the Hate List. And I was just wondering, you know… why? I mean, a lot of people are talking about how the victims deserved what they got and stuff because they like, bullied Nick, but I didn’t even really know you guys. I never even talked to him.”

  I pressed my lips together and wished more than anything that I was already in Mrs. Stone’s room, with Jessica as my buffer. Meghan was right about one thing—we didn’t really know her all that well before the shooting. We’d never really talked to her or had a gripe about her personally. But we felt like we knew her well enough, given who she hung out with.

  I remembered the day Meghan’s name was added to the list.

  Nick and I had been eating lunch when Chris Summer and his stooge friends walked past our table, practically owning the Commons, just like always.

  “Hey, freak,” Chris said. “Hold this for me.” He pulled a wad of gum out of his mouth and dropped it in Nick’s mashed potatoes. His buddies burst out laughing, hands on their chests, stumbling around like they were drunk.

  “Oh man, that’s disgusting…”

  “Good one, man…”

  “Enjoy those potatoes, freak…”

  They ambled over to their table, taking their laughter with them. I could see the anger boil up in Nick, his eyes darkening and dulling to black holes, his jaw clenched. It was different than he’d been that day at the movies. Then he’d looked sad, defeated. Now he looked pissed. He started to push himself away from the table.

  “Don’t,” I said, putting my hand on his shoulder. Nick had been busted for fighting twice already that month and Angerson was threatening suspension. “They aren’t worth the time. Here, just eat mine.” I pushed my lunch tray toward him. “I don’t like potatoes anyway.”

  He froze, his nostrils flaring, his palms pressed flat against the table. He took a few deep breaths and lowered himself back into his seat. “No,” he said softly, pushing my tray back toward me. “I’m not hungry.”

  We ate the rest of our lunch in silence, me flicking glances at Chris Summer’s table behind us. I memorized the kids sitting there—Meghan Norris among them—all practically bowing to Chris like he was some kind of god. And when I got home that night, I opened my book and wrote each of their names down one by one.

  Seemed really justified at the time. I hated them all so much for what they were doing to Nick, to me, to us. But now, standing in the hallway outside Mrs. Stone’s classroom, everything felt different. Standing in the hallway outside Mrs. Stone’s room, Meghan wasn’t so horrible. She was just another confused person trying to get it right. Just like me.

  “It wasn’t about you,” I told Meghan honestly. “It was Chris. You were sitting with him at lunch one time…” I trailed off, realizing that no matter how mad Nick and I had been that day, no matter how mean Chris had been to Nick, given everything that had happened, it just wouldn’t make sense to her. It barely made sense to me anymore. “It was stupid. No, it was wrong.”

  Fortunately, Jessica stuck her head around the doorjamb of Mrs. Stone’s room and peered out at us.

  “Oh, hey,” she said. “I thought I heard voices. C’mon, we’re about to start.”

  She disappeared back into the room. Meghan and I stood out in the hallway awkwardly for a few minutes.

  “Well,” she said at last, “I guess it doesn’t matter anymore anyway, right?” She smiled. It was forced, but not fake. I appreciated that much, at least.

  “I guess not,” I said.

  “C’mon. If we don’t get in there, Jess’ll start throwing a fit.”

  We walked into Mrs. Stone’s room and for the first time I did it without feeling like running away.

  26

  [FROM THE GARVIN COUNTY SUN-TRIBUNE,

  MAY 3, 2008, REPORTER ANGELA DASH]

  Nick Levil, 17—Although witnesses and police investigation have positively identified Nick Levil, a junior, as the shooter, what remains unclear is his motivation for the crime. “He was kind of out there, but I wouldn’t call him a loner or anything,” junior Stacey Brinks told reporters. “He had a girlfriend and lots of other friends, too. He talked about suicide sometimes—a lot, actually—but he never said anything about killing anyone else. At least not to us he didn’t. Maybe Valerie knew, but we didn’t.”

  Police have been able, with the aid of security videos, to track the movements of Levil on the morning of May 2nd, and have pieced together a clear picture of what took place in the cafeteria that day. After opening fire on a lunchroom packed with students, mostly upperclassmen, Levil shot his girlfriend, Valerie Leftman, in the leg and then turned the gun on himself. Portions of the videos, which show the grisly ending to his rampage, have been aired online and on some news channels, causing an uproar among Levil’s family.

  “My son may have been the shooter, but he’s still a victim,” Levil’s mother told reporters. “Damn those media sharks who think that something like this isn’t already tearing my family apart. Do they think this won’t rip our hearts out to see our son put a bullet through his brain time and time again?”

  Levil’s stepfather added tearfully, “Our son is dead, too. Please don’t forget that.”

  I don’t know how it happened, but somehow I must have gotten used to being friends with Jessica Campbell. The end of the semester came and went and had Dr. Hieler not done this big gloating thing at one of our sessions, I might have never even noticed.

  “I told you you’d make it through the semester,” he’d said. “Damn, I’m good at this!”

  “Don’t get too full of yourself,” I’d teased. “Nobody said I’m going back after winter break. How do you know I’m not still going to transfer?”

  But I did go back after winter break and the nerves that had accompanied me the first day of school were much less debilitating when I plowed through the doors in January.

  People seemed to be generally getting used to the idea that I was going to be around, which seemed to be helped by the fact that Jessica and I sat together at lunch every day.

  And I still had the Student Council meetings. I was beginning to participate more, even helping decorate the
room for Mrs. Stone’s birthday. We were going to have a special meeting—about five minutes of working on the memorial project and the rest of the time dedicated to eating cake and giving Mrs. Stone grief about being old. It was going to be a surprise, and we were working fast to get the decorating finished before Mrs. Stone came back in from bus duty.

  “I’m so going to the JT concert,” Jessica said. She leaned forward in her chair and it tilted under her. She wobbled for a minute, steadied herself, and hiked herself further up on her tiptoes. She tore a piece of masking tape off the roll and stuck the blue streamer in her hand on the brick of the school wall. “You going?”

  “No, my mom won’t let me,” Meghan said. She was holding the other end of the piece of streamer. Jessica tossed her the roll of tape. Meghan reached to catch it and dropped her end of the streamer. “Dang it!”

  “I’ve got it,” I said. I hobbled over and grabbed the streamer, twisted it the way Meghan had it before, and handed it up to her.

  “Thanks,” she said. She stood up on her toes and secured it to the wall. While she was doing that, Jessica was busy blowing up a balloon to tape in the center of the streamer.

  I plucked a balloon out of the bag on the desk behind me and started blowing it up, too. Behind me, some of the others were laying out a tablecloth and the cake. Josh had hurried down to the cafeteria to get the drinks Jessica’s mom had brought in earlier that day.

  “Wish I could go,” Meghan said. “I love Justin Timberlake.”

  “God, he’s so hot, isn’t he?” Jessica added.

  Meghan sighed deeply. “My mom won’t let me go anywhere these days. She’s so paranoid. My dad says to just let it go. But now she’s talking about making me go to community college next year because she can’t stand the idea of me going off to college. Like I’ll be in another school shooting or something. She needs therapy.”

  I tied the balloon I was blowing and pulled another out of the bag.

  “Well, my dad got me tickets from some guy at work,” Jessica said. “He came home and was all, ‘Hey, Jess, you ever heard of this singer, Dustin Timberland? Is he country or something?’” We laughed. “And I was like, ‘Heck yes, I’ve heard of Justin Timberlake!’ and he was all, ‘Well I’ve got two tickets to go and you can have ’em but you’ve got to go with Roddy.’ So my brother’s going to come home from KU that weekend and take me, which I guess is okay. Roddy’s usually pretty cool.”

  “No way would my parents let me go with Troy,” Meghan said. “He hangs out with those losers, like Duce Barnes. I’d probably get shot with Troy along.” Her face turned kind of pink and she flicked a look down at me.

  I knew Troy. Sometimes Troy had hung out with Duce when Nick wasn’t around. Troy had graduated from Garvin about three years ago and was sort of legendary around school as a hothead. Once he’d gotten in trouble for punching dents down an entire row of lockers. Meghan looked up to her brother and adored him. But she was nothing like him.

  Nobody said anything for a minute. I tied the balloon I’d been working on and let it fall to the floor. I turned and plucked another one out of the bag and stuck it in my mouth.

  “Are you going to the concert, Valerie?” Meghan asked.

  I cleared my throat. I still didn’t feel entirely comfortable with Meghan and I guessed the feeling was mutual. “Um,” I said, testing out my voice, which sounded entirely too casual for how I felt. “I don’t think so. I’m pretty much grounded for life.”

  “Why?” she asked. Jessica hopped down from her chair and started helping me with the balloons.

  “Well. The shooting,” I answered. I felt my face burning.

  Meghan gave me a curious look, then said, “But it’s not like that was your fault. You got shot.”

  “Yeah, I guess my parents don’t really see it that way. They’re all about my ‘lack of judgment’ right now.”

  Meghan made an unh! noise. “That’s so unfair,” she said quietly.

  Jessica tied her balloon. “Have you asked them if you could go out anywhere?” she asked.

  I shook my head. “I don’t really have anywhere to go.” I shrugged. The kids in the back were quietly bickering over the placement of the birthday candles.

  “Jess, you should invite her to Alex’s party,” Meghan said. She jumped down off the chair and stood back to admire the streamer. “How’s that look?”

  Jessica put her hands on her hips and studied the wall. “I think it’s perfect. What do you think, Val?”

  I stood. “Looks good to me.”

  We all blew up balloons for a few minutes and then Jessica said, “Meghan was talking about this party we’re all going to on the twenty-fifth. It’s a barn party. Have you ever been to one?”

  I shook my head and tied my balloon.

  “It’s at Alex Gold’s farm. His parents are going to be in Ireland for two weeks. It should be pretty wild.”

  “Last time I lost my shoes,” Meghan added. “And Jamie Pembroke totally got puked on. Remember that?” She and Jessica laughed. “You should come, Val,” Meghan added. “It’s really a blast.”

  “Yeah, come with,” Jessica said. She reached over and nudged my arm. “Everyone’s going to crash at my house.”

  I pretended to think it over, to be excited about the invitation, but warning bells clanged so loudly in my head I could barely think. It was one thing to come to a StuCo meeting with Jessica. To sit in the hallway with her at lunch. It was totally another to go to a party full of her friends. I could only imagine what some of them might have to say about her bringing me there. I could only imagine what Nick might have to say about me going. There was no way I could handle it.

  But Jessica was looking at me so earnestly, so openly, I couldn’t turn her down without at least pretending like I’d asked. “Okay,” I said. “I’ll try.”

  Jessica beamed and even Meghan smiled a little. “Great!”

  “What’s this?” Mrs. Stone asked from the doorway. She was still shrugging out of her coat and her nose was red from the brisk wind that had come out of nowhere this morning.

  “Surprise!” we all yelled in unison, and then the room erupted in hooting and cheers.

  Mrs. Stone touched her chest and looked around the room, but she seemed to spend extra time looking at me, Jessica, and Meghan, as we laughed, standing next to one another, bumping shoulders and chattering.

  “What a terrific surprise,” she said, wiping the corners of her eyes.

  27

  “Sorry, girls, but you can’t sit here anymore,” Mr. Angerson said. “The builders will be coming and going through here.”

  Jessica and I stood holding our lunch trays in front of us.

  Builders had been in and out of the building all morning, hammering and pounding and running loud machines that made it totally difficult to concentrate on anything. They were installing new doors on the classrooms—ones with no windows—and replacing the glass on either side of them with some sort of bulletproof stuff. The doors that they were installing locked from the inside whenever they were shut, which meant that if you had to use the restroom during class you had to knock to be let back in. Of course, it also made it so that we were sitting in a little fortress of safety, just in case someone should make it into the building with a gun or a bomb or something.

  “Okay,” Jessica said. We looked at one another and then both turned and faced the cafeteria.

  “C’mon,” she said in her old Jessica the Commander voice that I remembered so well. “You can sit with me.” She tossed her hair confidently over one shoulder and hitched up her chest, walking boldly through the crowd.

  My feet felt cold and heavy, but I followed her anyway. She led me to what I’d always known as the SBRB Headquarters and the thought of it made me feel panicky.

  “Hey guys!” Jessica said. She set her tray on the table and wrangled a couple of empty chairs in front of it. The chatter at the table instantly died.

  “Hey, Jess,” Meghan said. But her voice was
very quiet, her face unsmiling. The moment at the StuCo meeting blowing up balloons together could have just as easily been a hallucination. “Hey, Val.”

  I tried to push my mouth up into a smile, but talking was definitely out of the question.

  “I thought you sat in the hallway now,” Josh said. “With her.”

  “Angerson put a stop to that, of course,” Jessica said. She sat, then turned to me. “Come on, Val. Sit down. Nobody will mind.”

  Somebody made a tch! sound when she said that, but I didn’t catch who.

  I sat down, focusing only on the food on my tray, but I knew there was no way I could eat. Suddenly the gravy looked like brown jelly and the meat looked like plastic. My stomach was turning around like crazy.

  “Hey, Jess, you going to the barn party?” someone asked.

  “Yeah, we both are.”

  “Both who?”

  Jessica motioned to me with her fork. “I asked Val to spend the night with me that night.”

  “No way,” Josh said in that big Josh voice.

  “Yeah,” Jessica said. “What’s the problem with that?” I detected a hint of snotty in that voice—a sound I recognized all too well. How many times had I heard it leveled at me? What are you looking at, Sister Death? Nice boots, Sister Death. As if I’d be talking to your loser friends, Sister Death. You got a problem? What’s your problem? Is there a problem, Sister Death? Only this time it wasn’t directed at me, but at the friends she reigned over. I felt relieved and then immediately felt guilty for being relieved. At that moment I couldn’t have told you who had changed more: Jessica Campbell or me.

  “Actually I haven’t asked my parents yet,” I mumbled to Jessica. “I was going to ask this weekend.”

  She waved me off, her attention focused on the other end of the table. Her eyes were slits, daring her friends to say something to oppose me being there. She held her fork steadily in front of her. The mood at the table changed, turned uncomfortable.