Forever Changed (11 page)

I tried in vain to go back to sleep, but the look in his eyes haunted me. I couldn’t help feeling a stir of something other than anger when I thought of him. I tried to dredge up the previous anger I felt, but all I could think about was how defeated he looked when I had screamed at him.

I was still awake when the sun came up, and I dragged myself down the stairs, wearing my favorite jeans that had been washed so many times that sections of the jeans consisted of thin strands.

“You okay?” my mom asked as I stumbled toward the coffee pot, wishing someone would invent a caffeine IV drip for occasions such as this.

“Bad dream,” I mumbled, grabbing the flavored cream I preferred out of the refrigerator.

“You want to talk about it?” she asked in her normal inquisitive way.

“No,” I said shortly, cringing at the thought of ever telling her.

“Okay, well, if you're sure,” she added, looking hurt.

“It was nothing,” I said, trying to smooth it over. “Hey, Peanut, are those pancakes with peanut butter?” I asked, looking at the stack of pancakes on her plate.

She nodded happily as she scooped a big bite into her mouth.

“Your favorite,” I said smiling at her.

“Do you want me to whip you up a batch, too?” Mom asked.

“Sure,” I answered, surprising us both. Before my dad died, I had always watched every calorie that made its way between my lips. My cheerleading uniform required me to stay as slim as I could. Being naturally curvy hadn’t helped the situation as I worked extra hard to keep my body fat down. Giving up that part of my life had allowed me to finally eat things I had been missing out on half my life. I had put on a few pounds, but felt they suited my frame better than before. And yes, I had to endure a few snide remarks from Lacey, but I didn’t take the bait. She would get hers one day. Besides, she wishes she could eat like I was now.

Mom set the plate of pancakes down in front of me and I dug into them with gusto. She watched me for a moment and then laughed.

“What?” I asked, feeling a little self-conscious.

“I’m just not used to seeing you enjoy food so much,” she said, shooting Megan a smile who returned it.

“Okay, so you guys were right. I’ve been missing out.” I said as my mom laughed out loud for the first time in months, and Megan let out a small giggle.

My mom’s smile turned wistful as she watched us, and I didn’t need mindreading skills to know what she was thinking.

Our laughter died away and we finished eating as we all tried hard not mention the person who was missing.

I arrived at school before the first bell rang and found Colton waiting for me at my locker.

“Hey, what’s up?” I asked, grabbing my lit book for first period.

“Not much,” he said, leaning against the wall. “So, how was your meeting with Mrs. Leighton?” he asked as we made our way down the hall.

“Ugh, don’t ask,” I said, already dreading my next meeting with her.

“It couldn’t have been that bad,” he said, nudging me with his shoulder as we neared Ms. Johnson’s class.

“Believe me, it was. She’s trying to get all my deep secrets out of me like we're friends or something,” I said, making my way through the door.

“I don’t know, I think it'd be kind of nice to spill your guts to someone without worrying about who they’re going to tell,” he said, sinking down in his seat two rows from me.

I looked at him questioningly, but he kept his eyes firmly on the dry erase board at the front of the room. What a strange thing to say. Did he have something he wanted to tell me?

I waited impatiently for class to end so I could talk to him, but he was up and out of his seat the moment the bell rang. "Colton, wait." I gathered my stuff, hoping to catch him, but by the time I got out the door, he was gone. My impending meeting with Mrs. Leighton today pushed my confusion over Colton to the back burner as I contemplated using the cramps excuse to duck out and go home.

Against my better judgment, I stayed and before I knew it, fourth period was over and it was time for round two.

“Kassandra, it’s nice to see you again,” Mrs. Leighton greeted me, giving no indication of being upset about my abrupt ending to our last meeting.

I looked at her balefully, waiting for the prying to begin.

She sat back in her chair with her hands folded in her lap, watching me, but not saying a word.

I stared back, confused by her silence.

I watched the minute hand on the wall clock behind her move at an excruciatingly slow pace as the silence between us stretched on.

“I was a spoiled brat,” I finally said when I couldn’t take the oppressive silence a moment longer.

“You’re a teenager. All teenagers are brats,” she said, shooting me a small smile.

“Fine, I was a bitch,” I said, going for the shock factor.

“All women can be a bitch at one point or another,” she said, shocking me by repeating my choice of words.

I couldn’t help the small smile that crossed my lips before turning somber again. “I was one all the time. I complained constantly, and expected everything to go my way,” I said quietly, looking down at my lap.

“Kassandra, you’re a teenager, those things are expected. Your dad didn’t hold that against you.”

“How can you be so sure? He was always giving me ‘what if’ scenarios. 'What if I wasn’t a cheerleader? What would I do instead? What if I wasn’t so popular, would I miss my superficial friends?' He might as well have been talking to the wall. I would have died rather than give up cheerleading or all my friends. But I didn’t die. He did.”

“Why did you give up cheerleading?” she asked, shifting gears.

“Because,” I said, pulling on a frayed string on the knee of my jeans.

“Because why?”

“It’s what he would have wanted,” I said as the bell rang, ending lunch period. I jumped to my feet and headed for the door.

“I’ll see you Wednesday, Kassandra.”

I nodded my approval.

I spent the rest of the afternoon trying to mentally prepare for detention. I convinced myself that he had most likely served his time and wouldn’t be there, but as I entered the large room, I saw him sitting in the same seat as the previous week. We were the only two students in detention again and I wondered if all the troublemakers had taken a three day weekend. The same dippy teacher's aide from Friday signed me in and was on his phone the moment I walked away. He waited around for a few minutes for any stragglers before heading outside to BS on his phone.

I sat in the back row, trying to ignore Maddon, but I couldn’t help studying the back of his head. I tried to draw my eyes away, but something about the way he was slouched over looking defeated made me question everything I had believed.

I had spent months hating him, wishing he would disappear off the face of the earth, and yet, somehow my anger for him had drained away.

“I’m sorry,” he said without turning around when our time was at the halfway mark.

“What?” I asked, not sure if he was talking to me even though we were alone.

“I said, I’m sorry,” he said, walking toward me.

“Me too, I kind of lost it Friday.”

He laughed, almost harshly. “I think you were entitled to lose it.”

“Not really. I’ve spent months blaming you for something that really wasn’t your fault. I guess I just needed someone to blame besides myself.”

“Kassandra, you weren’t wrong to blame me. I could've stopped him that day. I should've stopped him,” he said in the same defeated voice from Friday.

“How would you have stopped him?” I asked, more curious than I should have been.

“Just by talking I could've stopped him. It doesn't take much to provoke my dad,” he said bitterly.

“Yeah, I know,” I said, looking down.

“Yeah, I guess you do.”

We didn’t speak the rest of the time, but for once, the silence between us wasn’t suffocating.

We walked to the parking lot at the same time, not necessarily together, but close enough. The knots that had ravaged my gut at the beginning of detention had unraveled by the time we made our way to our cars. We didn't talk, but she lifted her chin in acknowledgement as she climbed into her SUV. I returned the nod and watched until she drove away.

I sank back against my car once she was out of sight. We had actually talked without her looking at me like she wanted to dip me in battery acid. I tried to control my heart rate. Just because she no longer wanted to hang me up by my toenails didn’t mean she suddenly shared my feelings for her.

I made the short drive home to my aunt’s house, smiling like a goon the entire way. I bounded up the three porch steps, iPod in hand, anxious to hit my room so I could rehash our conversation. My aunt was sitting on the living room couch when I let myself in. She clutched a letter in her hand and looked up at me with wide eyes.

“Great, what now?” I asked, sensing it was something bad.

“We got a letter from your father’s public defender. He wants to know if we will speak as character witnesses on his behalf.”

“Um, let me think about it. Hell NO,” I said sarcastically.

“Are you sure?” she asked. “It could help him.”

“Exactly,” I said, making my point clear. “I couldn't care less if his ass rots away in jail for the rest of his life.”

“You might change your mind later on down the road,” she said quietly.

“Dolores, I’m not going to change my mind,” I said exasperated. “Maybe he'll finally dry out,” I added, my mood significantly soured as I made my way to my room. I thought it was classic that he dared to ask for my help. After all the crap he had thrown my way over the years, all the poundings and he expected me to rescue him?

Frustrated, I threw myself on the bed and tried to dredge up the happy feelings I had before I walked through the front door. I pulled up the image in my mind of how Kassandra had looked at me in the auditorium without anger for the first time. How the corners of her mouth had pulled up slightly, like she was on the verge of smiling. Her lips were one of my favorite features, and I had spent a ridiculously insane amount of time thinking about them. Slowly, the anger and frustration left as I entertained ideas of what I would like to do with her lips at that exact moment.

I felt an odd mixture of apprehension and something akin to anxiousness the next day when I got to school. For months, the campus was the place where I might have to see
him,
which forced me to deal with my demons. But
he
was no longer an
it
presence. He had a name,
Maddon
. I rolled the name around in my head, remembering his confessions from the day before. It floored me, knowing that he dealt with the same inner turmoil that I did.

I walked through the doors, feeling lighter than I had in months. The weight of my "if onlys" had lifted. I no longer had to worry about what I would do if I saw Maddon, or what I would say to him. We’d crossed that bridge.

Colton was once again waiting by my locker. “Well, this is turning into a habit,” I said, giving him a smile.

“Wow, Kass, I think that’s the first legit smile you’ve had in months. What brought that on?”

I started to shrug my shoulders, ready to retreat back into my protective shell, but decided to be honest. “Things are just starting to feel a little less dramatic,” I said, closing my locker door.

“I bet. It was total suckage about your dad. I’d give you mine,” he joked.

“What’s the deal with you and your dad? You two always seemed so buddy-buddy.”

“Oh, we were as long as my dreams matched his dreams,” he answered sarcastically.

“What do you mean?” I asked, taking my seat.

“Just stuff.”

“Like what?”

“Stuff that’s way too intense to talk about now,” he said, looking around the room.

I followed his gaze and saw Matt and Alex, a couple of Colton’s friends studying us with scowls on their faces.

“What's the deal with that?” I asked. “Why aren’t you hanging back there with them?” I added, pissed at myself for closing myself off so entirely that I had completely missed what was going on around me.