Art & Soul (6 page)

My breath caught. A group of popular girls and guys, including Simon’s stupid crush, Tori, were surrounding my locker. The closer I stepped, the harder my heart pounded against my chest.

Tori turned to me with a wicked smile on her face and her red lipstick tube in her hand. She stuck it in her purse and puckered up her lips. “It turns out even freaks can be whores.”

When I read the red lipstick words spread across my locker, tears started to form in my eyes, but I pushed them down and swallowed hard. Sadly these jerks were going to be highly disappointed. I wasn’t going to cry in front of them. Screw them.

16 and Preganent

Slut

Whore

Gothic tramp

I’d hated a lot of moments in my life. When I was six, I hated that I didn’t get the Barbie doll I wanted for Christmas, and I cried so much that I made myself physically ill for the whole day. When I was eleven I hated that I wasn’t able to go to art camp because I had the chicken pox. When I was fifteen I hated that I was invisible.

But right now was a new level of hate. Right now I just hated
me
for putting myself in a position to be noticed.

I also hated that the bullies were entertained by my personal struggles, even though they’d spelled pregnant wrong on my locker. They should’ve really thought about being entertained by an English class or something.

Dummies.

I sighed.

I’m the dummy.

Levi stood at a distance, looking at the words spread across my locker. When our eyes locked, all of the playfulness he’d showcased earlier was gone from his stare. All that was left was pity, and embarrassment.

He started in my direction, and I held my hand up, shaking my head back and forth, hurrying down the hallway.

“Aria.” I heard behind me and I snapped around to find Simon staring at me with the most pathetic eyes ever. He opened his mouth to speak but shut it just as quickly.

“You know what’s messed up? Only three people in this school knew about this: Mike, you, and me. I’m pretty sure Mike wouldn’t tell anyone, seeing as how he tries his best to convince people that we aren’t even related, and I know that
I
didn’t say anything.”

His head lowered, his eyes dancing across the ground. “It was a mistake. Ms. Givens was telling me about Tori in the library, and I might have slipped and told her about…” He couldn’t even finish his sentence.

My heart was breaking.

He was supposed to be my best friend.

“Leave me alone, Simon.” I forced my feet to move from their current location and travel down the hallway to find a way out. My hands aggressively shoved against the girls’ bathroom door, I pushed open a stall, and shut it just as quick. I pushed the lock into place and took a deep breath. My panic was suffocating my heart, breaths fighting each other to be taken in and blown out. My hands rested on my hips as I began to try to steady my breathing.

I coached myself. I promised that no matter what, I’d get through this.

The waves of emotions were strong, but I was strong, too. I had to be stronger than my feelings, stronger than those people. Sometimes there was no other choice. Life had already taken so much from me. I couldn’t allow it to take my strength, too. I smoothed my hands over my shaky body.

A few moments later, I opened the bathroom stall door. My eyes shifted around the space, and I almost had another panic attack when I saw Levi leaning against the sink.

Oh crap, don’t tell me I went in the boys’ bathroom.

This day needed to be deleted from existence. This day was nothing but shit.

I was mortified as I went to wash my hands at the sink farthest from him. He smirked and jerked his head in the direction of the hallway. “Are you okay?”

I ignored him.

“Are you okay?” he asked again.

My head tilted in his direction and even though I knew we were the only ones in the restroom, I double-checked behind me to make sure he was talking to me.

“This is the girls’ room, Levi,” I whispered. He laughed. He thought I was funny. I was actually being extremely serious.

Then he frowned slightly. “Why didn’t you say something to them?”

“I don’t care what they think.”

“Is that why you just had a panic attack?”

The back of my hands brushed against my cheeks, then under my chin. “I didn’t.”

Cocking an eyebrow, he gave me a ‘bullshit’ look. He leaped off of the counter. Before I could say anything else, two girls walked into the bathroom giggling and paused when they saw me and Levi standing there. They started to giggle again and walked out—not before muttering a nice ‘slut’ comment.
Great. Just what I need.

Pinching the bridge of my nose, I closed my eyes. “Look, I don’t need you feeling sorry for me. I don’t need your pity. Besides, you’re coming off as a really creepy new guy and the last thing I need in my life is more creeps.”

I didn’t mean the words, and I regretted them the moment they left my lips, but I was embarrassed and wasn’t sure how much more I could take. Having Levi standing in the girls’ bathroom with people walking in staring at us and calling me a slut was too much. Being pregnant was too much. Levi treating me in such a caring way was too much.

It was all emotionally draining and pushing him away was the one thing I could control. I didn’t need his caring gazes and adorable smirks.

He didn’t reply. His head lowered, and he stuffed his hands into his jeans as he walked away and muttered an apology.

I was officially a jerk.

W
hen I finally built up
enough courage to leave the bathroom, I turned to my left to see James, my brother’s best friend, standing in front of my locker, reading the red lipstick. James had always been a staple in my family’s life—he was Mike’s version of Simon, pretty much. He was also my first, longest running crush since I was eight.

I liked to think of James as a born socialite. He was friends with everyone no matter their high school social status. From the stoners, to the nerds, to the jocks, James befriended every group. That was part of the reason why it was so easy for me to crush on him when I was younger.

Funny how it only took one night to change all of my thoughts about him.

James looked up and gave me a half smile. “Aria. Hey.” I swallowed hard and stared into his worried eyes. “Is it true? Are you…?”

My head lowered. “Yes.”

“And is it…” He paused, glancing around the empty hallways. He took a sharp breath and stepped closer to me. “Am I…?”

“Yes.”

He muttered ‘shit’ under his breath. His fingers tugged at the collar of his sky blue Calvin Klein polo. “Are you sure it’s mine?”

I must’ve looked shocked, because he quickly retracted his words.

“Sorry. That was an asshole thing to say.” He pinched the bridge of his nose and took a deep breath. “What I meant was, are you going to handle it?”

“Handle it?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.

He whispered, “You know…are you going to get rid of it?”

I didn’t reply.

How could I reply to that?

“You gotta understand, Aria. Nadine and I are in a really good place with our relationship right now. Plus, I have football and am getting ready to go off to college next year. This would ruin everything for me. I can’t really afford to deal with this kind of thing in my life right now.”

My eyes moved to my lipstick locker.

Pretty sure you’re not the one dealing with this.

My stomach tightened, and for a second I thought about slamming my fist into his perfectly slender nose. “Thanks for your kind support, James. You truly have a way with words.” I rushed out of the school building. All of the buses and most of the cars in the parking lot had already left. Mom sat in her Audi, looking at her phone.

Great. Now the doctor’s appointment.

My body slumped. I dragged myself to the car and collapsed into the passenger seat.

“Where the heck have you been, Aria?! I’ve been waiting here for over thirty minutes and you haven’t been answering your phone!” she hissed, annoyed with my tardiness. “Do you know what kind of stress you’ve been putting on us? Your father is on the edge of a breakdown, I had to make way too many calls to get you set up with a great therapist, Ms. Franks can only watch Grace and KitKat until six, I have to work third shift at the hospital tonight, and you have an appointment in five minutes across town and now we are going to be late!”

I looked up at her and my mind tried to form words about how much of a shitty day I’d just experienced. I wanted to unload all of my emotional garbage into her lap but the thoughts in my head were all just turning into a giant mess.

My bottom lip trembled as I locked eyes with Mom. Her stare softened from her irritation. She nodded once, and only once, in understanding. “Okay,” she whispered, unbuckling her seatbelt and moving closer to me. Her arms wrapped around my shoulders, and she pulled me into her side. “Okay.”

I sobbed uncontrollably into her side.

And she didn’t let go.

I
wasn’t
a stranger to panic attacks. I’d watched Mom fall into them all the time growing up. They had a way of engulfing a person, swallowing them whole and spitting them out to the point that they weren’t recognizable. That was why I had to check on Aria in the bathroom. I had to know she was okay, because I’d seen the fallout of people when they weren’t all right due to their own minds.

Aria’s eyes were sad, the same way Mom’s always were.

The same way mine would be if I didn’t hide it so well.

I’d become great at smiles. I hid behind them to make sure no one ever realized how shitty my life was. Smiling was a way to avoid people asking questions. I hated the questions I was always asked when I traveled into town back in Alabama. I hated them almost as bad as I hated the stares and whispers.

The stares and whispers were the worst of all.

“
I
t’s
about time you stopped by,” Lance said as I walked into Soulful Things. He inherited the music shop right in the heart of downtown Mayfair Heights after my grandparents passed away. Lance was a few years older than my dad, but looked decades younger. He was a weird hippie kind of guy who was married to a weirder hippie woman named Daisy.

I wasn’t sure if Daisy was her real name or if she just did enough drugs to actually believe she was a flower. Plus, she was always wearing bright yellow, which fit with her super bright and spunky personality. She taught 5:00 A.M. yoga classes on the rooftop of the store seven days a week up until winter moved in, when the classes were relocated to the high school’s gymnasium.

Lance sipped on his green drink, which he’d probably made from grass and dirt, while he set up the window display with a new drum set. “How was the first day of hell?”

“School was good,” I replied. “Hellish, but good.”

He smiled. His long brown hair was tossed on the top of his head in what he liked to call a manly-bun, and he kept combing fallen pieces back. “And how’s big brother Kent treating you? Is that going over well?”

“It’s good,” I lied.

“That tough, huh?” He reached into his pocket, pulling out cash. “Here’s some money for groceries. I’m guessing Kent mostly has TV dinners. Just try to buy organic when you can.”

“Thanks, but he actually stocked up the fridge.”

“Really?” His eyes widened. “That’s…that’s surprising. Awesome. But just so you know, you’re always welcome over to our house for dinner,” he offered. “Tonight Daisy’s making meatless meatballs and a kale salad.”

“Oh man, not meatless meatballs and kale salad!” I sarcastically sighed. “That’s totally my favorite meal. I would stop by, but I have way too much homework.”

He smirked. “Don’t knock it till you try it.”

“So, is Dad always so…” I couldn’t think of the right word to describe him. Cold? Distant? Since I’d arrived he’d hardly said two words to me. When he was talking, he was normally cursing out the mailperson or the pizza delivery driver for some reason or another. He was great at finding reasons to be unhappy and grumpy.

Therefore, I stayed out of his way.

Lance frowned. “Over the years your dad has built cement walls. There’s a separation between him and the rest of the world. He’s a hard one to crack sometimes and lives a lot in his own mind. But don’t worry, just give it time. He’s really happy you’re here. He just has a hard time showing it.” He sat on the stool in front of the new drum set and started pounding against the drums. He lit the room up with colors that effortlessly flew off of his sticks. “Listen,” he shouted, “If you want me to talk to him, I can. I’ll do anything to make this easier for you, Levi. Just let me know.” He kept banging against the drums.

He made me feel a little less alone.

When he finished letting loose on the drums, he tossed me a smile. “That always feels good, man. If you ever need a place to escape, you can always come here. Except for when you can’t because we close at nine. But then you could always crash at our pad right upstairs. The door to that is through the back by the alleyway.”

“Awesome. Thanks again for everything.”

He stood up. “You play?”

“Not the drums.”

“Have at it,” he said, tossing the sticks at me. “Music runs through our blood. Bang around a bit and see if you can find any magic.”

D
ad was sitting
at his desk inside of his office with the door wide open when I came home from Soulful Things. He was wearing a pair of thick black-framed glasses, studying a stack of paperwork. I paused at his door and greeted him, hoping for at least a hello. “Hey,” I said, giving him a slight grin. He didn’t look up, but said hi.

We’re getting somewhere.

Ever since I’d arrived, I felt this knot in my stomach that if I said the wrong thing to him, he’d send me away. The dad I remembered was much more interested in me. Now, even though I was standing a few feet away from him, there was this strange distance between the two of us.

I tried to keep the conversation going, because it was clear he wasn’t interested in doing much talking. “The first day of school went okay. I like my classes. The teachers are fine. And—”

“Listen, I’m trying to get some shit done. You think we can do this small talk later?” he cut in, still staring at the paperwork. “Shut the door behind you.”

“Okay. I’ll be in my room if you need me.”

He didn’t reply. I shut his door on my way out.