Keep Holding On (18 page)

And then. Gym happened. Along with the announcement that we’re playing volleyball again. But first we have to deal with the warm-up, crunches, and whatever additional horrors Ms. Kane cares to inflict.

Ms. Kane is a tyrant. She’s one of those teachers who takes
their problems out on you. She always has something nasty to say and she won’t hesitate to tell you that your form sucks. It’s obvious she’s having a bad day because she’s being even more boot camp about form than usual.

“Shoulders up!” she shouts.

As if crunches weren’t hard enough without some maniac yelling at us.

“Get those shoulders off the floor!” she shouts louder.

I’m dying. We all are. We’ve already done way more crunches than we normally do. My abs are on fire.

“Push-ups!” Ms. Kane demands.

We flip over and crawl into position.

“I’ll wait,” Ms. Kane says. She’s standing at the front with her hands on her hips, rolling her eyes at the ceiling.

We stay bent over in push-up position, waiting for whoever she’s waiting for.

“Still waiting,” she says.

I look around to see who she means. Kim Reynolds is not in correct push-up position. She’s kneeling instead of balancing on her knees with her hands splayed out on the floor in front of her.

Kim sees me looking at her. “Who’s she waiting for?” she mouths.

“I think … you,” I mouth back.

“What?” Kim looks over at Ms. Kane. Ms. Kane is staring right at her.

“Any day now, Ms. Reynolds,” she tells Kim.

“Aw,
hell
no.” Kim gets up and strides toward the back door.

“Get back here!” Ms. Kane yells after her.

Kim keeps going. She slams out. She’s going to get in major trouble. But it’s good to know that some people are strong enough to take a stand against their bullies.

Sherae is giving me a ride home. I pick the music while she maneuvers her car in line to pull out of the parking lot. There’s always a traffic jam right after school. Cars are clogging the only exit from like five different directions. They should have made another way out.

“If we added up how much time we spend waiting to leave, it would be days,” I estimate. “Weeks, even. Weeks of our lives wasted in line.”

Sherae isn’t listening. She’s flashing a glare at the rearview mirror. I turn around to see who she’s looking at.

Hector’s car is right behind us.

Sherae hurls her door open, jumps out, and slams it.

This. Could be a problem.

She stomps over to Hector’s car. He opens his door to get out, but she blocks him.

I turn off the music.

“Do you really not know why I’m mad?” Sherae throws down. Our windows are both open. I can hear everything.

“Not so much,” Hector says.

“How could you not know what you did?”

“I’ve asked you what I did! You won’t tell me.”

“I shouldn’t have to tell you. You were there.”

“Can you let me out?”

“Why should I?” Sherae doesn’t move. “Why should I do anything you want? You didn’t do what I wanted.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You took it too far. I told you to stop and you didn’t. Ring any bells?”

“I thought you were playing.”

“No, I wasn’t
playing
. I was trying to keep my virginity. You should have respected that.”

“I respect you.”

“Forcing me to have sex when I told you I wasn’t ready is
dis
respecting.”

“Then why’d you stop saying no?”

Angry cars behind Hector are honking. Hector gets out and waves them around. Then he guides Sherae over behind her car.

“I wasn’t ready,” she says. “I just … felt like I should have wanted to. But it was a mistake.”

“No, it wasn’t.”

“Yes, it was!” Sherae sounds furious. “How could you do that to me? To
us
? You destroyed everything we had.”

“You’re crazy. I didn’t destroy anything. You’re the one who walked away. We could get back together right now. We don’t have to do anything if you don’t want.”

“It doesn’t work that way. You can’t go back to just making out once you’ve had sex. It becomes this thing that’s expected.”

“I won’t expect it.”

“Yes, you will. That’s how you’re wired.”

“Sex is part of a relationship. It’s what you do.”

“Are you really that delusional? Not everyone is having sex.”

“Well, they should be.” I see Hector smiling in the side mirror.

“You’re disgusting. I can’t believe I was such an idiot.”

“Hey.” Hector reaches out to her. “I’m only joking.”

“It’s not funny.” Sherae backs away from him. “You weren’t listening to me that night, but I seriously hope you hear me now. Stop calling me. Stop texting me. Stop writing me notes. We were done the second you chose being a dumbass over being with me.”

Sherae gets back in the car.

And we move forward.

The toilet’s not
working again.

You’d think that mother would ask the landlord to call the plumber. Or to replace this ancient toilet so I could stop worrying every time I flush it. But mother refuses to tell the landlord that our toilet stopped flushing. She hasn’t paid the rent for May yet. Calling the landlord would draw attention to that. I’m sure the landlord would be up here demanding the rent right now if she could actually climb the stairs to our place.

Last time this happened, the toilet stayed broken for a week.

Of course the busted toilet is the one in my bathroom. I have to be really quiet going through mother’s room to get to hers so I don’t wake her up. I slowly turn the doorknob. It makes a few small clicking sounds. Nothing drastic. I push the door open and peer into the darkness of her room, trying to see if she’s awake.
Her curtains won’t allow even one speck of sunlight to enter.

As I sneak past her bed, she remains an immobile lump under the covers. I’m sure she’d rather have me pee in a cup than wake her. I won’t pretend I haven’t considered that option.

“Noelle, can you stay a minute?” Ms. Scofield asks at the end of class.

A jolt of fear stabs me. Why would she want to talk to me? I don’t think I did anything wrong. The homework I handed in yesterday wasn’t a masterpiece, but compared to everyone else’s lame end-of-the-year attempts, I’m sure it was decent enough.

After everyone leaves, she waves me over to the desk in front of hers. “You have English now, right?”

“Yeah.” How does she know my schedule? I don’t think I’ve ever told her what I have next.

“I’ll give you a pass. I don’t have second period, so I thought this would be a good time to talk.” Ms. Scofield picks up the prism she used with the spectrometer in today’s demo. “Did you like the demo?”

I nod. “It was cool.”

“Dusted off an oldie! So. How’s everything going?”

If Ms. Scofield were any other teacher, I’d just say I’m fine and get my late pass. But she’s Ms. Scofield. I can tell she’s asking because she cares.

“It’s been better,” I admit.

“When?”

“What?”

“When was it better? Isn’t high school a constant state of emotional turmoil?”

“Pretty much.”

“Worst time
ever
. But it won’t always be like this. I know that doesn’t help much right now, but it’s something to hold on to. If I’d stopped believing that my life would eventually get better, I don’t think I would have survived high school.”

“Seriously?”

“Absolutely.”

“But you’re so happy.”

“I’m happy
now
. I was really depressed back then.”

Ms. Scofield is kind of blowing my mind. I always assumed she was a shiny happy cheerleader type back in the day. She’s always in a good mood. She’s always smiling. Even when she got sick a while ago, she was still in high-energy mode. And now she’s telling me she was depressed in high school? How is that even possible?

“What’s your secret?” I ask.

She smiles. “I’ve already lived through the worst time of my life. So I know that whatever happens to me from now on, nothing will ever be as bad as it was back then. That makes me happy.”

Ms. Scofield is a fellow survivor.

“Is that why you’re so perky in the morning?” I ask.

“Partially. Also because I believe that everyone deserves a quality education. That motivates me to bring the energy.”

“Oh, you bring it.”

“I wish things were easier for you, Noelle. But all of the pain you’re feeing right now will make you stronger. Trust me: that
strength will make you a better person. Then you can help other people who aren’t as strong.”

“It’s hard.”

“I know it is.”

Ms. Scofield would be an awesome mom. Too bad she doesn’t have kids. She’s not even married. I forget how it came up, but someone was asking about her family in class a while ago. She said that she wants to get married. She just hasn’t found the right guy yet. She wants to have kids, too.

It’s so wrong. Women who shouldn’t be mothers can just go ahead and have kids like it’s nothing. But some women who
would
be good moms don’t have kids because they haven’t found the right person to have them with.

How messed up is that?

“Did you hear about the paintball thing?” I ask. “Is that why you wanted to talk to me?”

“I did hear something about that.”

The last thing I want to do is talk about what happened. I don’t know if Ms. Scofield is expecting me to come right out and tell her. Part of me really wants to. It’s just too hard.

“If you feel like talking, you know I’m here, right?”

I nod.

“I know you’ve been hurting lately. So I just wanted to let you know I’m always here.”

Even if I don’t talk to Ms. Scofield about everything, it’s good to know I can.

Ali Walsh killed herself last night.

I can’t believe it.
I was just talking to Ali yesterday. She asked me to explain one of the homework problems she didn’t get.

And now she’s … gone.

No one can figure out why she did it. No one has heard about anything horrible that might have pushed her over the edge. She even seemed happy when I talked to her in class.

I should have been there when she reached out to me.

I should have become better friends with her.

I should have done a lot of things that I’ll never get another chance to do.

Counselors are such a joke. They expect you to tell them things you can’t even tell yourself. They think that just because a girl who went here killed herself, we’re all sad. Don’t they realize that these kids made Ali’s life miserable?

“Does anyone have something they’d like to share?” Mrs. Henley asks.

When I got to physics and saw Ms. Scofield, I could tell she was shattered over Ali. I almost went up to her. But Mrs. Henley was hovering nearby. All I know about Mrs. Henley is that she’s the social worker. Which supposedly means she deals with tougher issues that regular guidance counselors aren’t equipped to handle. We had to put our desks in a sloppy circle so we could all see each other. Mrs. Henley started by saying a bunch of stuff about loss and anger and how important it is to let your feelings out. I wasn’t really listening.

Now she wants to know if anyone feels like sharing.

Here’s the truth she doesn’t want to hear:

People avoided Ali. No one knew her well enough to be grieving right now. They don’t have the right to be sad. And P.S.? Mrs. Henley can’t just chuck us in a circle and expect everyone to suddenly open up in front of people they would never talk to. That’s just not the way it works.

“I know it’s hard,” Mrs. Henley says, “but this is a safe space. You can talk about anything that’s on your mind.”

Hilarious. The woman is beyond clueless.

Jolene DelMonico raises her hand. Mrs. Henley nods at her encouragingly.

“I think what happened was tragic,” Jolene says. “Ali was
so
nice.” Jolene sniffs loudly. She digs a pack of tissues out of her bag. “I just wish we could have done something to help her.”

Bitch, please. Like you even knew her.