Confidential (30 page)

"
Not good."
I watched my self burst into tears and cover my face in shame. It took a moment, but I pulled my hands away and saw myself stare intently in front of me, into the camera, oddly enough.
"I hate this feeling. I never know what's going on, one minute, I can't live in my home because its not safe, because people can find me and hurt me or my family…"
I let out a little sob,
"Then I fall in love with this town and all the people in it, only to be ripped away, only to have a couple hours notice to say goodbye."

I sat next to Anna, horror seeping through my body. "Oh my God." I murmured, over and over again. "Is it on any other news station?" It was useless to ask, of course it was. I made CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, all the local news stations, and as we flipped to a news station, there was a phony newscaster giving a statement.

"And even with her heartache, her strife, she still finds strength, as shown in her trial, when she defends herself gallantly. Only seventeen, Heidi Van Dauson sets an example-"

"Ugh." Anna clicked back to the Today Show, where I heard my voice, angry and mocking, coming through the speakers. I groaned. "Seriously?"

"
No, one could not argue that she saved my life. If they hadn't broken into my home, then I wouldn't have been physically harmed at all, and my life would have no need to be saving. In fact, if anything, Michaela Sullivan put my life in danger. She had Thing 1 and Thing 2 beat the shit out of me, drag me into an ally-"

I snatched the remote from Anna and immediately shut off the TV.

We sat in silence, when the phone rang and we both jumped, "Hello?" I picked it up.

"Hi honey!" My mother's chipper voice rang. I waited for her to continue, she wasn't one to call me much, and I found it too much of a coincidence for the trial to hit mainstream and all the sudden get a call from Mommy Dearest. "Um… so, darling, please don't be upset, but I know how much this trial has taken out of you, and I thought it would be a good idea to tell your story, and there have been so many people calling the house-" I closed my eyes.

"Mom, you didn't," I groaned.

"Just a couple interviews! With the Today Show, and MSNBC, and 60 minutes was interested…" I felt like hanging up on her.

"No." I said.

"But I already told them you would…"

"I don't care. I'm not doing it. Now I have to go, I'm getting stuff ready to go back to school." I lied.

"Heidi, listen to me," My mom's voice complained, but I interrupted her, "No, I really have to go, sorry." I hung up and tossed the phone away from me.

Anna raised her eyebrows, "I don't want to talk about it."

"Are you coming to court today?" She asked.

"I feel like I have to now." I sighed, and shuffled into my room, pulling out a random dress and pumps, leaving my hair and lightly applying make-up, I didn't feel like trying to look good today. My phone rang again, and I picked it up, seeing it was Marcus.

"What the fuck Heidi?" Marcus yelled over the phone.

"Why are you yelling?" I shouted back.

"My mom recognized you on the news and woke my ass up this morning to watch it." He growled.

"Oh."

"Yeah, Oh. Why didn't you say anything?" He asked, sounding a little hurt.

"Because, legally, I wasn't allowed, and if they found me, and found out that anyone knew you guys would have gotten hurt." My voice got louder, getting defensive.

"Okay." There was a slight pause, "That's all I wanted to know."

"Really?" I asked in disbelief, "That's it?"

I could picture him shrugging, "What can I do about it? And obviously, it was a big deal, I saw what you said in court. I'm sorry about what happened to you, by the way."

"Thanks Marucs, that means a lot to me." I whispered to him. Fiddling with the hem of my dress. "Seriously."

"It's cool, just, next time, if something like that happens, know I got your back."

I laughed. "Thanks Marcus. I miss you guys so much. It sucks. I'm cooped up here, because they wanted to make sure I was 'safe', I haven't even gone back to school yet."

"That sucks, you know what you should do? Just finish up the year on online classes or something, because going back is going to be hell. I don't know about your school, but here, all the sudden you have a lot of best friends, if you know what I mean. Don't worry though, I told Clarissa she wasn't allowed to talk to any reporters, and me and Dylan are trying to act like we knew the whole time to chill everyone out."

"Thanks," I breathed a sigh of relief. "That might actually help. I wish my mom felt the same. She kind of has her own agenda, she was scheduling me for interviews and I was like, uh… that's a joke right?"

"Wow…." Marcus whistled, "Don't do interviews unless its for a cool magazine. Like get on the cover of Time or something, hold on," I could here a door slam, and rustling in the background, "Sorry, some of us still have to go to school." He joked.

I rolled my eyes even though I knew he couldn't see me. "So, have you met up with any of your friends yet?" Marcus asked.

"No." I groaned. "I barely ever get to leave Anna's apartment. I'm not even living with my parents, which is fine by me, because I love Anna, but still. It totally blows. And with my interviews on TV and everything, I'm totally stuck. My friends were great, but I haven't seen them, or talked to them, in forever. Since the beginning of the year, so I don't know how that's going to go down."

"Yeah, they'll probably hate you."

"Way to soften the blow." I muttered.

"Just sayin'" I could here his smile, "Hey Camdon! What's up?" I heard the murmurings of Camdon's voice on the other line and my heart instantly started thudding. "Oh cool, hold on. Alright Heidi, gotta go, stay real, don't let TV get you down. I expect a call later, I'm sure Dylan is freaking. You looked really hot, by the way. Did you see her Camdon?" Marcus laughed, "He's blushing, so I'm taking that as a yes. Oh chill out Kelly. By Heidi, say hi to Anna for me."

"Bye Marcus," I laughed, hanging up.

"Ready to go?" Anna stuck her head in. "We are allowed to drive ourselves today," Anna's voice held a light, teasing air to it, and dangled the keys in front of her.

"Ohhh goodie."

As Anna and I pulled up to the courthouse, we instantly saw the amount of reporters and attendees double from the day before. I looked at Anna and gulped. She turned to me and raised her eyebrows at the scene before us. "It's going to be a long couple months for you."

*  *  *

"Hey Heidi!" My former friend Katie waved to me awkwardly. I briefly looked up and gave her
a
forced smile. She stood in front of my desk, looking pristine and beautiful as ever. Now, living at my parents again, with no Anna to dress me, my roots needed to be touched up, my hair was straight again, and at best, I wore jeans instead of sweatpants. "Do you want to come sit with us at lunch today?" She asked meekly.

I stared down at the paper in front of me, contemplating the thought. I had been sitting by myself; it was only my first couple of weeks back. But we only had
a
month left of school. I often wondered what I was even doing here. "Sure." I shrugged.

"Okaaay. Um. I'll see you later then?" I just gave her another smile, and twirled my pencil around my fingers.

The trial was coming to a close, and the press's interest slowly but surely was lost in the never-ending tragedies of the world. I never interviewed, I never gave any information away, and mostly kept to myself. Dylan, Marcus, and I still called each other regularly, but hadn't talked as much as I hoped. They were avoiding me, I could tell. Or more like, avoiding the situation. The only situation I could see was that Camdon and Kelly were becoming official.

Thinking of this sometimes made it hard to breathe. It made me question everything that ever happened between us. Sometimes in my head, I would think about how he told me he never felt this way with a girl before, or how I was the only one he told about his dad, the only one to become close to his family.

I wondered if Kelly had met his family, ate dinners over there as I had, or even talked to Ella. I missed Ella, Jill, and Joe. And I ached for Camdon. It was the only way I could even begin to describe the feeling. I thought about him, and my heart literally wrenched a little bit, and began to ache. My mind would wander, and I would imagine explaining everything to him, and then we would all be okay.

When I wasn't so hurt about everything, I was kinda angry at him. Usually it was
a
mix, I missed him like crazy, I was hurt by the silent treatment, and I was pissed that he was upset in the first place. I mean, for
a
little while, fine. But its been what? A month and a half since I've been back? He's had time to think it over. A call would be nice. I tried desperately not to talk too much about it to Dylan and Marcus, because I knew how much it would annoy them. But, like all my relationships after I've moved, they begin to fade. And I go back to hurting again.

As I shuffled into the cafeteria, a sick sense of dejavu hit me. I remembered being chased out of here by some creep that Mickey sent. I was hoping the school invested in some type of security. I sat between Lauren and Emma, and Katie sat across from me. They all stared at me for a little while before Emma finally was brave enough to speak.

"So... You're blonde now?" She pushed her salad around with her fork. Quickly putting the lettuce into her mouth when she noticed I wasn't answering right away.

"Yup. I'm thinking about going back to my natural color." It reminded me too much of what the past year had been, I was ready to move on. Even Dylan and Marcus, I could tell, was tired of answering the constant questions and curiosities of the town that had seen me on TV.

"I like it blonde. But I kinda miss your reddish hair. Not many people have strawberry blonde. It's so unique." Katie put in, smiling.

I smiled back. "Thanks. I miss it too. What have you guys been up to?"

The atmosphere shifted, and it became less tense. They would all three continue to give
me a
play-by-play of their lives for the next couple days. It made me feel less lonely, but I still felt empty. These people didn't really know me. Eventually, Lauren got this great idea in her head.

"Okay," She announced, and sat down with an air of authority. "I have an idea of what we should do this weekend."

I raised my eyebrows. I hadn't officially been able to hang out with them on the weekends yet. Maybe they felt I had finally 'earned' my place back, once I had my hair dyed back to the natural color and started wearing semi-normal clothing again. I couldn't help but scoff at the thought.

"I was thinking, since you keep moping around the place," She turned and told me, "And you just broke up with Andrew," She then looked at Katie, who flushed, "I contacted a couple super hot seniors that go to that private school, and got us all dates. We are going out Friday night." She beamed.

I rolled my eyes, but knew I would be dragged into it anyways. "My parents won't be home," I offered.