Back To You (6 page)

It took them a minute to get past the panic to realize that I was on the couch with Steve, although we did manage to get
our clothes on straight and separate ourselves before they made it out of their bedroom.  I knew I was gonna be in for it!  Once everyone realized that there weren’t any cracks or damage to the driveway, pool or house, we assembled back in the living room.  I could tell Sharon was tossed up deciding if she was going to yell at us or laugh (she wasn’t stupid, I knew that).  In the end, I got reprimanded but not punished.  I was horribly embarrassed.  I couldn’t imagine how Steve felt.  He conducted himself as a complete gentleman in front of Dad and Sharon, completely polite and endearingly charming.

I grew up quite a bit that summer.  Leah and I kn
ew that we would probably always be friends.  She was quirky and had a vivacious personality that rubbed off on everyone she met.  But I was confronted with some serious realities that most people don’t like to face head on.  Dad waxed poetic (I still think someone possessed his body that day) and in many ways became my hero.  And, well, I had a boyfriend who dared to cop a feel and touched my naked breast for the first time.

By the time I made it back home, Sandra was back at home with her parents and happy with her decision to keep her baby.  Kim was doing an admirable job of hiding her true em
otions most of the time.  But being raped like that changes a person.  I could tell that underneath the façade was a woman on the brink.  After everything with our parents and then being truly violated, something inside of her snapped.  I will never pretend to understand, but I was beginning to see how a woman must feel harboring all of the hate and rage just under the skin and what kind of toll it could take on your psyche.  I wished she had gone to counseling, but she dealt with it her way, hanging on to the negative emotions, allowing them to drive her to succeed, but all the time losing something beautiful in the process.

Steve
and I slowly grew apart after I got home that summer.  I still cherished his letters as some of my most prized possessions, praying that even though I doubted myself on so many levels, maybe, just maybe, I really was something special.  We might have grown apart, but I would never forget how he made me feel that first night sitting in the wicker swing watching the sun peeking at us.

C
hapter 4

Sloppy Sophomore.  The lowest group of all high school existence.  Freshmen have the new excitement and plenty of teasing ahead of them.  Juniors are almost Seniors, and Seniors, well, they are the gods of high school hierarchy.  No one can deny it.  And what do “slopmores” have to look forward to.  One very unexciting non-existence.  Bah.

I couldn’t help but think back at how exciting it was starting school as a freshman.  Nerves, newness, and more nerves.  This year? 
Well, it was still a little exciting.  I was looking forward to getting back into the groove of school.  I missed my friends over the summer.  The craziness of my California adventures had ended and being at home just wasn’t tons of fun as I am sure you could imagine.  Besides, it was like starting over again!

I guess my mother ha
d enough of the abuse that Brent doled out constantly and decided to move out of the house while I was in Cali.  Yeah.  The nerve of my mom going into MY room and packing up MY stuff was almost unbearable.  Of course, she didn’t bother to tell me and wanted it to be a surprise, so she enlisted Reneigh and Kim to pack for me and help settle my room a bit in the new house.  It was quite surprising going to a new house after the drive from the airport.

My first night in the new house was certainly NOT bo
ring.  It was dark when we got there, and I didn’t realize that the train tracks were right beyond our backyard.  At approximately three in the morning, a train came roaring by, shaking my room (it was on the back of the house). I came straight up out of bed and ALMOST pulled a “Sharon” by running around screaming and thinking it was an earthquake! 

I yelled for Mom, and she just called back from her room, sleepily, “It’s just a train, get used to it.  Go back to sleep.”

Sure thing.  I’ll get right on that, I thought.  The train shook my world enough to leave me lying in bed, staring at the ceiling, feeling strange in my new room.  I had never had a “put together, girly” room like Reneigh had.  It was always a mish mosh of furniture and hand-me-down bedding.  In the other house, my walls were plastered with posters and magazine pictures out of Teen magazine.  Everyone from Duran Duran to John Stamos was in view.  Not to mention my closet doors were completely covered with Garfield comic strips out of Sunday papers (I loved his sarcasm) and lots of other personal items tacked up on the walls and thrown willy nilly everywhere.

Mom had surprised me by getting all matching “girly” be
dding for my bed.  It was light blue with small purple flowers and scroll designs.  And RUFFLES!!!  My room was clean!  Of course in the spare bedroom, all of the boxes of my crap were waiting for me to unpack.  But I would think about that later.  Now I just lay there, enjoying the silence, knowing I wouldn’t have to hear Brent in one of his drunken uproars.  So many things changed in such a short time, and I spent the rest of the night thinking about it all.  Of course, I would have to deal with the trains on a regular basis.  But I learned to sleep through it before too long. 

F
inally, I was getting ready for my first day as a boring sophomore.  Butterflies were under control, adrenaline was pumping, but not like last year.  Hair was a little better behaved (not much), make up carefully applied and I was ready and waiting for the bus before I needed to be.  Wondering what the year would be like, what new friends I would meet and if, maybe, perhaps, I might find a boyfriend.

Of course it was the typical, south Louisiana late August heat wave that made you feel like your face was melting off.  I was always so jealous of shows and movies that portrayed the beginning of school with leaves changing colors and that longed for whiff of autumn in the air.  Not
in Hammond.  Still managed to peak at somewhere near 100 degrees every day.  And shorts were forbidden.  It was torture to say the least.  Gym shorts during gym class only.  And they were the ugliest shorts imaginable.  UGH!  At least they were purple.

Hammond High School was not very big, so I had no problem finding my classes the first day.  I had some new teac
hers that I was sure I would like, and a couple of others I doubted seriously that I would enjoy anything about class.  Geometry?  Blech, definitely NOT going to be my strong suit.  The teacher, Mr. Carter, was a tall, black man with graying hair and a sarcastic tone that led me to believe it might be worse than I originally thought.  Fortunately I had a few friends in the class.  I hoped they would make it more bearable.  After the first couple of days, my eyes were crossed by the time I left the classroom.  I knew I was a good student and good at taking challenges as they come to me, but I wasn’t too sure about geometric proofs.

It did take me a couple of days to get my bearings in all of my classes.  I had Mrs. Ling for fourth period.  Again, an En
glish teacher with the ominous reputation.  She was a chain smoking, take no prisoners, hard as nails type of teacher.  Who was also married to the Vice Principal.  Best not get on her bad side!  The class was full of the students I recognized as primarily “college prep” kids.  Basically that meant that we were separated from the regular kids and put on an advanced pace.  I was friendly to those I knew from last year, but kept to myself a little more since none of my really good friends were in there that year.  The guy who sat behind me was Kyle.  His hair was as red as a fire engine and his attitude matched it.  He could be quite sarcastic and defiant.  Let’s just say he was a challenge to any teacher.  But somehow he managed to charm each and every one of them.  Two aisles over from me sat Jack.  By this time, I was able to be friendly without that crazy butterfly thing in my belly.  Okay, so maybe it was there a little.  I figured I had lost my chance with him, so I moved on.  But man was he looking good!  Filling out more (football practice?), definitely over six feet tall now, and, well, just better.  Less brooding maybe?  I still found myself looking up every day to see when he walked in the room.

Fifth period was biology.  Mrs. Fender was known as the crazy teacher. 
Her husband was the head football coach.  Mrs. Fender was almost six feet tall, had short black hair and was skinny as a rail.  She smiled a lot and had crooked teeth.  Basically she looked like a skeleton with skin.  She probably could have stood at the front of the room in place of the full size skeleton she had hanging out by her desk.  She might not have been extremely attractive to look at, but she more than made up for it with her personality.

A
girl named Megan sat right across from me in that class.  I thought I had a lot of wild hair, but I think she had ten times more than I did.  She was a very pale, full blooded Italian (there were many in Hammond) who was extremely smart and quite quirky.  She kept to herself a lot, stayed guarded and alert, but I knew there was more to her than that.  A bunch of the popular kids ignored her for the most part, but they knew her from Holy Cross.  She was a pretty girl, but seemed to not know it and also seemed not to care.

Across from me on the other side was a boy I went to middle school with.  I hadn’t noticed him the year before so I was surprised to see him in class.  Ran
dy Hunter a.k.a. Asthma Boy.  Okay, I wasn’t being mean, but he really was one sick kid in middle school.  From the looks of it, that hadn’t changed much in a couple of years.  I remember him well from seventh and eighth grade.  He was small, really small, skinny, had red-rimmed, rheumy eyes that would have been pretty ice blue if it weren’t for the bloodshot, teary looks he gave everyone.  He sneezed a lot and blew his nose constantly.  I felt sorry for him.  In middle school we didn’t hang out, but we had some classes together.  He was definitely in the “nerd” group.  Once we had snack duty where we watched the vending machines after lunch and then refilled them once recess was over.  We talked a little bit.  I discovered that underneath all of the sniffly nerdiness, he was really a nice guy.  Unfortunately he just had this way of staring at people that was unnerving at times.  I also knew that he had a really bad crush on me in middle school.

“Hey, Randy.  What’s up?  Where have you been hi
ding?”  I asked.

“I went to Independence High last year, but dad and I moved, so I guess I am here now.”  He smiled.  Yep, still a dork, but at least he wasn’t as sickly looking.  He had filled out as well.  Still skinny, but taller, and his voice had dropped really low.  His eyes hadn’t changed much though.

“Cool.  Well, I guess we get to dissect worms together.  WooHoo.”

He laughed at me.  I
t was pretty obvious I hated the thought of cutting anything open, let alone worms. 

“Just wait
‘til we get to the frogs,” he responded.

“Ugh, don’t remind me.”  I shuddered. “Gross.”

The rest of my classes were pretty much just classes.  Boring.  I saw a few new faces in the halls here and there.

Lunch in Southern Louisiana was not always your typ
ical disgusting lunch fare.  Mondays were always red beans and rice days with hot cornbread and turnip greens.  I didn’t love the turnip greens, but that was some of the best red beans I had ever tasted!  It always came with a small link of smoked sausage.  Other times it was jambalaya, dirty rice or some super delicious Italian food.  The lunch ladies were older women who looked like they had been cooking since Louisiana had been discovered.  The food was obviously monitored by the authorities and safety inspectors, but it was usually pretty good.  My favorite thing about lunch was not the food though, it was the chaos.  Seeing people you didn’t have classes with, or simply being able to laugh and be normal instead of sitting like statues in class was usually the highlight of my day.

Of course, Monopoly’s was still THE hot spot.  And I was still in love with Pete, from a distance (although I tried to remedy that as often as possible).  There was
one night at Monopoly’s that stood out when it came to Pete.  He had finally, FINALLY asked me to dance, a slow dance.  The song was Heaven by Bryan Adams.  He held me close.  I could smell his Polo cologne.  He was sweaty but still smelled so good.  Joel was dancing with Reneigh right next to us.  During the last chorus, Joel sang out as loud as he could and we laughed at him!  I assumed he was in “heaven” because he was dancing with Reneigh.  Pete looked down at me and smiled his award winning smile.  I thought I was in heaven too.

*****

Jack was surprised to see Suzy walk in to his English class the first day of school.  He had decided to give up on her and had been flirting with other girls, even going out with a few, or finding a way to make out with some of them.  But he couldn’t help the way he just froze when she came into view.  It always felt like his throat and his stomach switched places when he was around her.  She wore pink a lot.  That was a good thing.  She looked beautiful in pink.  And she still seemed so different from the other girls.  He never could figure out exactly what that was, but she was like a bright pink crayon in a box full of grey. 
Lost your chance on that one, but maybe someday I will get up the nerve to ask her again.  Doubtful.  But maybe.

They had lunch together.  Well, not TOGETHER, t
ogether, but they went to and from lunch with the class.  He sat with a few guys he had known from Holy Cross, but he also hung out with some guys he had just met.  Sometimes he ate lunch with a girl he was interested in, but that never seemed to last very long.  He often wondered why it was that sometimes he would get a chance with a girl, and after one or two dates, or even after a night of kisses and making out, the girl would just pretend he didn’t exist.  Dropped like a hot potato.  Didn’t do much for his self esteem.  He knew he wasn’t ugly, and he was sort of popular because he was on the football team, but still, why didn’t girls want to date him?  It was like a lot of girls wanted everything he was, until they got it.  He admitted he was moody at times.  He was completely and totally in love with music, which almost always came first.  He was sweet and sensitive.  And although he had plenty of friends, he was a bit of a loner.

Pretty much every day, he was just drawn to look up
at Suzy came in class.  And pretty much every lunch period, he always knew where she was sitting, whether he was purposely looking for her or not, he never really knew.  He listened for her laugh because something about that sound made him want to smile.  He even realized one day that he got jealous when he heard other guys talking about her.

One day at lunch, Jack was caught staring at Suzy by one of his friends, Randy Hunter.  He liked Randy because he was a no bullshit kind of guy.  Sickly, allergic to everything, even a bit nerdy, but down to earth and really cool.

“She is beautiful, isn’t she?”  Randy asked.

Jack was startled and even a little embarrassed.  He hadn’t realized he had been staring.  “Yeah.  Something about her is so di
fferent.”

“She’s just as nice as you think she is too.”

“Haven’t thought about it much.”

“Hmpf.  Yeah.  Sure.”  Randy laughed at him.

“How do you know her?” Jack asked.

“From middle school.  She moved here in seventh grade.”  He sighed.  “She has always been nice to me, but she is way out of my league.”

“Why do you say that?  Does she think she is better than everyone else?”

“No, just the opposite, actually.  It’s like she has no idea sometimes that she is so different from every other girl.  Some of the girls hated her because she was the ‘new kid’.  Then she and Reneigh and Donna started hanging out all of the time.  Reneigh was so pop
ular.  Suzy just kind of let Reneigh be center stage.  Honestly, I never thought Reneigh was as pretty as Suzy.”