We get back to the main party and people are moving around and dancing. Some are having happy and spirited conversations. I see Bridget in a group talking with a couple people from our school including Bethany. I sit and think about how I'm going to get her and me up to my room to continue my education from earlier when I find I'm being addressed.
"Hey Guy, so we never really spoke before," Brett, Bethany's boyfriend and poster child for white athletes in America, thinks 6' plus of styled brown hair and good looks in Fred from Scooby Doo costume.
"You mean aside from you and the rest of your friends laughing at me when I'd get my ass kicked at school. Or how about when I had to change in gym class and everyone whispered about my bruises from the aforementioned ass kickings," I say it and Brett immediately counters.
"You never asked anyone for help man. I mean had we known…," Brett is going to the family route but I don't care.
"Did you know what? That people were kicking the shit out of me. That I was walking around in constant pain. What would you have needed to know," I ask and Brett is trying to get his piece said.
"Had we known you and Bethany were," he starts it, I'm stopping it.
"First off Bethany and I aren't anything, did that make it into your brain? She's an American cheerleader and I'm nothing. I was nothing when you and your friends stood by and watched me get my ass kicked and I'm nothing now. Don't waste my time because you don't know me and honestly, I don't want you to," I am livid at the level of presumption and most people in spitting distance know it.
Brett backs away, not in a mood to continue this conversation and frankly I'm about done for the evening and attempt to make it to the house and my room but as soon as I'm ten feet from the door Mark or Abigail bring me back around and try to get me to socialize with people. Even Mr. Delauter takes me aside and has me speaking with one of his partners at the law office. I am a fucking trophy and this party does nothing but prove it. After three hours and some change the party finally wraps up, lights and music are packed up but clean up is for tomorrow as Rosa will be given a few extra helpers to take care of the yard. The family is heading back inside and I'm bringing up the rear as everyone heads off to their beds. I get in my room and peel out of my costume and into shorts for bed when there is a knock on my door. I don't even get to answer it as Beth slips inside and her expression isn't a happy one.
"Listen I'm trying and you're not helping anyone," she says and I am too tired to fight," Brett was trying to apologize and you spit on that. I try to have a party for you and you spit on that too. Why are you being such a pain?"
"Welcome to my life for the past three to four years flipped," I say it and it fits, kind of.
"I am sorry," Beth starts and I wave her off fast.
"No you're not. Had it gone on you'd still be laughing and enjoying your long running joke of how to fuck with me, that is the truth," I say it and she wants to counter," No don't, you can tell me all the crap the therapist fed you to make sure I could 'understand' where you were."
"My issues aren't crap," the cheerful sister says and I shake my head.
"My problem is you're putting on this farce of wanting to help and wanting to bring me into the fold. So minus 'your' family putting the screws to you for what you've done or my being stabbed tell me why you're doing anything that would potentially end in my benefit," I say it and wait, I can see her trying to come up with something that doesn't fall in either category.
"Okay, I was cruel but that doesn't mean you have to spit on everything everyone is trying to do for you. We want you in the family," Beth says and she's trying to be sincere, a big mistake.
"See Beth I may not like you, hell I think you're scum but in my generosity I'm going to give you what you want. In less than four months I'll be graduating high school early, I won't wait and I won't walk with the class. I'm going to grab my diploma and leave. That very day I will pack all the things I need which will fit into one bag and I'll be gone. I won't call, I won't write and I won't tell anyone where I'm going. Mother will never have to see her mistake again, your family will be able to move on and resume its standard of perfection minus the blemish you 'know' I am. I'm going to give you what you want most, I'm going to let you win," I say it and realize how cold I sound. I am not sure I like it but I can't say I hate it either.
Bethany wants to speak but I think I finally froze the words in her mouth as she opens it a couple times but nothing comes out. It takes her a moment to realize I've stopped addressing her and am pulling down my bedding to get some sleep before she leaves quietly closing my door.
The weekend before I resume school is a weekend of eggshells. I don't know who Bethany told about our conversation but Abby and Mark spent the time playing buffer between me and their sister. Mr. Delauter is around this weekend and has expressed that he would like to work something out between the family and myself but he doesn't call me into his office or try to sit down with me so I have nothing to do with him. And then there is Mom, she watches me all the time. I slow down my walking and she checks me to see if I'm feeling well. I don't feel like eating and she offers to make me something else. The whole thing is this unreal world that I would have murdered small animals for when I was a child but now it is a pathetic attempt to be something she is not.
Monday morning everyone is getting ready as they normally do and when I come down with my backpack to head off to school on the bus I'm stopped by everyone in the house except Rosa.
"How are you getting to school," Mom asks and I shrug.
"The bus, like I always do," I say like she doesn't know.
"How long has this been going on," Mom asks and I don't know who she's asking , me or her children.
"Since we began high school," Bethany answers quietly.
I watch her turn to the rest of the family and they begin to talk about travel logistics. Who is taking me to school? Who is picking me up? Why wasn't I always taken to school with the rest of the kids? I think I walked out the door quietly when they started going into who did what and when. I make it to my bus stop and wait with the other public transit riders. Getting to school is no problem, getting around school at my slowed rate isn't a problem either. My problem is the whispers. I can hear them, not the words but when people are watching you and talking it's easy to figure out what they are saying. Mostly the usual stuff about my being stabbed or how I'm still alive, very little on my family connections for now but give Bethany some time and she'll spin it so she's the popular girl with the wounded brother. If it would get me out of here faster I'd endorse it but an old lesson about Beth is that whatever benefits her will hurt me. I get maybe twenty minutes into the first class of my first day back and I'm called to the office. Teacher excuses me to leave and I shake my head at the situation before getting up and pulling my backpack along with me. I keep my slightly slowed pace and slightly hunched posture that I've been using since I got out of the hospital. Also with my face only showing a light bruise around my right eye this is the best I've looked in years, which means two shades away from butt ugly. In the office I find Mom there filling out paperwork, looks like the emergency contact forms. Well that secret is out but it shouldn't matter for too much longer. She sees me enter the office and smiles at me before finishing the form. We exited the office and apparently came to school to make sure I arrived alright. Mom is walking with me to my second period class, if they don't like my lack of a pass I don't give a fuck. Unfortunately we're alone and Mom has that look on her face.
"I have been a pretty poor mother for the past decade," she says and I should be kind, I don't know how.
"I can see why you'd say poor, not my choice of words honestly," I get the words out and she stops us from walking.
"How about abysmal," She tries to joke but I'm about to take that away.
"It doesn't matter honestly. You are who you are, I can't change that. I never could and I don't care to," I note she's wearing her business clothes," Have a meeting to get to after this?"
"No, just more paperwork at the center," she says and I shrug.
"Well I'll get me to class on my own," I don't even say goodbye, just keep walking.
My day seems to go pretty fast after my morning meeting with my mother. I even get through lunch with only moderate stares and whispers but as soon as I get outside to my spot, the one I've been eating lunch in for the past three years or so I find I need to change my location. Carlos, the second year senior gang leader, and his partner in crime Hector are waiting with about twelve of their closest boys right where I would sit. I don't even feel hungry anymore as I turn around and walk away. I get back into the cafeteria and halfway across the dining portion when I hear feet behind me.
"Hey we need to talk," I feel a hand on my back and turn to see someone not interested in kicking my head in, yet.
"No Syd, we don't," I turn back around and continue my walk but she's keeping pace.
"Why didn't you say something, half of last year we're friends and you don't tell me you're freaking rich? Aside from that you lied to me about where you live," She says it and I have to remember the dance.
"And your point is," I ask, stopping in the hall.
"I found out you were out of the hospital and went over to 'your house' to talk to you but guess what? I found out that a very confused vet lives in that house and he doesn't like people knocking on his door asking about people who don't live there," I think about the situation and want to laugh but hold it in," We are friends and you lied to me."
"You lied to me about being my friend so I think they cancel each other out," I say it and begin to walk away only getting a step before she stops me.
"Oh no, I have been your friend, you just couldn't be honest with me. I don't care that you have money or your family is connected. I just feel like I don't know you and I am wondering what I did to deserve that," Syd asks and I pull my arm away from her.
"Nothing, what I did I did because of me. Not you. And yeah I thought we were friends until you ditched me at the one dance I actually went to so that you could fuck someone else because you believed I was at a party with friends," I say it and she realizes the error," I don't have any friends, I certainly don't want any because when I trust people they do their absolute best to let me down and leave me to suffer. Friend? No I was your hold over till you could get something out of me and your mistake was cashing out early. Anything else?"
"You're being an asshole. I screwed up but friends forgive each other and try to make it up when they screw up. That's what people do," She argues and I can see some students watching our tense discussion.
"Do us both a favor, walk away. It's not that hard you did it once already," I get the words out and see I caused her some pain.