My Life in Black and White (22 page)

“I didn’t mean to spy on you, honey,” she said.

“Uh-huh.”

“The reason we keep the computer in the living room is so Daddy and I will always know that you and your sister are safe. With the world the way it is today … Internet bullying, predators…”

“Right.”

“You did the responsible thing, calling Ruth last night,” she continued. “I want you to know that … and I also want you to know … if you ever find yourself in a situation like that again, I’m here for you….”

“Uh-huh.”

“Thank you for leaving me and Daddy a note to let us know you were going to the dance, so we wouldn’t worry….” She hesitated, gestured to the cat suit draped across the foot of the bed. “Did you at least have fun getting dressed up?”

“A blast.”

My voice wasn’t sarcastic. It was flat. Totally devoid of emotion.

“Alexa.”

“Mother,” I said, realizing I was mimicking her.

She gave me a look, and I looked right back at her.

I could tell she was losing her patience, but she kept her voice calm. She loved me very much, she said, but she didn’t appreciate my attitude.

“Well…” I said, scrambling for a comeback. “I don’t appreciate the
attitude
of guys who post photos of drunk girls on the Internet.”

It was a complete non sequitur, but somehow it worked.

“Those boys did a terrible thing,” my mother said, frowning. “Taylor is a very lucky girl that you found her when you did.”

“Yes,” I said. “She is.”

All day, I waited to hear from Taylor. A phone call, a text—anything to acknowledge what I’d done for her.

But nothing came.

By Monday morning, I still hadn’t heard from Taylor—or from anyone else. This made me anxious to get to school, but not so anxious that I was about to get in a car with my sister.

I’d managed to ignore Ruthie for the past thirty-six hours. I’d almost cracked last night, when I walked into the bathroom to brush my teeth and there she was, standing in front of the mirror. She didn’t notice me; that’s how hard she was staring at herself. Staring and poking at her face with her fingers. At one point, she took a step backward and stood on her toes, to see her whole body. She lowered her shoulders, turned to side, and smiled at her reflection. Smiled!

What are you doing?
I wanted to say.

But I already knew. I knew because I’d done it a million times myself: turned sideways in front of the mirror to see how I looked from a different angle. But my sister? Watching Ruthie check herself out was so weird I had to leave the bathroom. Without her even noticing I’d been there.

Now, Ruthie was sitting at the breakfast table, drinking coffee. Which I will never understand. She and Sasha and Beatrice think coffee is the coolest thing ever, even though it reeks and turns their teeth brown.

“I don’t need a ride today,” I announced, scraping my chair against the floor as I sat. “I will be taking the bus.”

Ruthie’s eyes widened over her mug. “Really?”

I nodded.

“But you hate the bus.”

“So?”

“I would be happy to drive you,” my mother said, gliding over to me with a glass of juice.

“No, thank you,” I said primly. “I don’t need anyone to rescue me.”

The corners of Ruthie’s mouth twitched, like she was trying not to laugh.

I shot her a look. “I’m glad you think this is funny.”

“I don’t think it’s funny—”

“What’s funny?” my father said, appearing in the doorway in full court uniform: navy suit, red tie.

“Nothing,” I said.

Ruthie smirked into her coffee.

“That’s right,” I said, “keep it up.”

“I didn’t say anything!”

“And for the record,” I added, taking a sip of juice and setting it down with a bang. “I am not wearing
any
of your clothes. This is
my
sweatshirt, and these are
my
jeans.”

“Congratulations,” Ruthie said.

My father glanced from me to my sister and back again. I guess he read something in my expression because he didn’t push it. He just walked over and kissed the top of my hood, wishing me a great day at school.

Unfortunately, “great” is not the word to describe it.

At my locker, there was a surprise waiting for me.

Initially, seeing the triangle of orange paper sticking out made me smile. It made me think of junior high, when Taylor and I used to leave each other notes all the time. She wrote the best notes, always on the orange paper that she kept in her backpack. Multiple-choice questions like,
If there was a nuclear war and you could only choose one boy to share your bomb shelter, who would it be?
And fill in the blanks using dirty words. Sometimes she drew cartoons of our teachers, with thought bubbles rising over their heads, saying things like,
I’d rather be cleaning litter boxes
. Taylor’s notes always cracked me up.

This time, not so much.

Alexa
[not Lexi, not Lex; Alexa],

Thanks to you, I am forced to write this letter on a piece of paper instead of in a text or e-mail. Thanks to you, my father threw my cell in the pool and locked my computer in his car. He also called my coach, so now I am off the field hockey team for the rest of the season, even though we could be heading to sectionals—so again, thanks. By doing what you did on Saturday night, I can only assume you were trying to punish me for Ryan. Well, guess what? It worked, because I am grounded until Christmas and my parents are barely speaking to me. So congratulations! You have officially ended this friendship. I’d hoped for a while that we would be able to get past what happened, but now I know we never will.

I tried. I really did, to explain about the night of Jarrod’s party. But you wouldn’t even let me talk. So I am going to set the record straight right here and now. Not for your sake (I’m so mad at you right now I could punch a window) but for mine. I’m tired of feeling guilty. Guilty, #1, for getting drunk that night. (This is not an excuse for what happened, but it is the truth.) That is what gave me the courage to do it.

I don’t expect you to understand this because you don’t have a brother, but I was actually trying to help Ryan. You don’t know the things guys make each other do, especially in football. And the new recruits HAVE to do it if they want any chance of making the team. When Jarrod was a sophomore, the seniors were a-holes and he got it even worse. He got stripped, shaved, covered in eggs and shaving cream and had to sit
in Scotty Fieron’s tree house all night in the freezing cold. All Ryan had to do was get a BJ, and he had too much respect for you to ask you to do it, so … that is what happened.

I know you hate me, and I know you probably think I’m a slut and a horrible person, but I was only trying to help Ryan’s chances of making the team, which I thought is what you wanted for him, too. No matter what you think, I was NOT trying to steal him away. Do you really believe I would do something like that to you? Anyway, Ryan would never go for me because I am, well, ME, and you are YOU and there is just no comparing. I know better than to ever try to compete with you, Lexi.

I am crying while I write this because I still can’t believe that the girl who used to be my best friend in the entire world, one of the best overall PEOPLE I have ever known, would turn me in to my father. You know how he is. You know how mad and crazy he gets. How could you do that to me???

I guess you could say that we are even now. (Although what you did was for spite, whereas my actions—however drunken and misguided—were from the heart.) You got what you wanted, at least. I hope you are happy.

—Taylor

P.S. I’m not even going to get into what you did with my brother, except to say that it’s pretty ironic how mad you got at Ryan when you were doing the exact same thing that night.

I felt like I’d just opened a letter from a terrorist. Taylor had hijacked my anger and made it her own.

By the time I finished reading my hands were shaking. I just stood there, staring at the paper, stunned.

Ryan had too much respect for me?
How much respect could he have? He’d never even
told
me—his own girlfriend—what the seniors asked him to do, let alone given me the chance to say no. And Taylor thought she was
helping
? Like hooking up with her best friend’s boyfriend was some kind of
sacrifice
? Her way of “taking one for the team”?

It was too mind-boggling for words.

I hate her.
That was all I could think.

I was in the girls’ room, between first and second periods, when I ran straight into Taylor’s guard dog, Heidi.

“It wasn’t enough to get her grounded, was it, Lexi?” she said in a voice loud enough for all of sophomore hall to hear. “You had to humiliate her, too?”

“What are you talking about?” I said.

Heidi sneered at me. “Did you really think you could get away with taking those photos?”

“Get
away
with it?” I said in astonishment. “I had nothing to do with it!”

Heidi’s arms were crossed over her chest. Her face had the pinched look of disgust, bordering on pure hatred. “You’re the only one with a motive.”

Two girls at the sink exchanged looks and left. Another skittered out of a stall and out the door without even washing her hands.

“Heidi,” I said with as much calm as I could muster, “you had better check your facts before you go accusing people of things they didn’t do.”

That’s when Taylor walked out of the handicapped stall, her eyes redder and puffier than I’d ever seen them.

I looked straight at her. When I spoke, my words were like shards of glass. “You
know
I had nothing to do with those photos.
I’m
the one who got you out of there! You should be
thanking
me!”

“I don’t know what I should be doing,” she whispered, more tears welling up. Then, “I think I’m getting a migraine.”

Taylor had been getting migraines since fifth grade, right around the time her parents started fighting 24/7. Stress brought them on, the doctor said. I used to feel bad for her. Not anymore.

“Come on, Tay,” Heidi said, swooping in and throwing her arm around Taylor’s shoulders. “I’ll walk you to the nurse.
Some
people should lock themselves in a stall all day so they don’t ruin any more lives.”

I nodded. “Good one.” To Taylor I said, “You’re a piece of work, you know that? Nice letter.”

Taylor said nothing, just blinked at me with those red eyes.

After she and Heidi left, I collapsed against one of the sinks, feeling my heart thump and my head spin.

Did Heidi really think I took those photos? What if she told everyone? Then I wouldn’t just be the girl with the fucked-up face, I’d be the girl with no morals.

Could this day get any worse?

I found out the answer to
that
question after school. Somehow I’d managed—by hiding behind my hood and steering clear of anyone who might confront me—to make it to the final bell. I was about to step onto the bus when I suddenly remembered my bike, which I’d ridden to the dance but forgotten to put in Ruthie’s car.

Minutes later, standing at the bike rack by the parking lot, I wanted to scream. There was glass all over the ground—which of course I’d failed to notice on Saturday night. Now both my tires were flat. Not just soft. Completely, undeniably flat.

I knew that Ruthie would give me a ride after band, but that would mean swallowing my pride and letting her rescue me, which I was
not
about to do. The second-worst option was calling my mother.

Which I would have done.

If my cell were in my backpack where it was supposed to be.

Instead of at home, on my bedside table, charging.

Arrrrrgh!

I wanted to punch the brick wall of the school building. That’s how mad I was. But the rational part of my brain took over and marched me back inside in search of a pay phone, which I finally found in senior hall, wedged between a bank of lockers and a trophy case. I scavenged my backpack for quarters and was just starting to dial when something made me jump.

“No!” a voice barked. Then, “Whose life do you think this is?” Followed by, “It’s not your decision!”

It was none of my business. I knew I should keep dialing. But I was too curious.

I hung up the phone and crept toward the nearest classroom—the one with its door half open. I stepped inside and, there, sitting at a desk piled high with newspapers, laptop balanced on his knees, was Theo. He was wearing a plaid shirt with the sleeves rolled up, and some kind of weird hat—like a baseball cap only puffier, with a shorter brim. On the wall above his head was a quote:
JOURNALISM IS THE FIRST ROUGH DRAFT OF HISTORY
.

“You’re not listening to me!”

At first, I thought he was arguing with the computer screen, but then I saw the cell clutched to his ear.

“Bullshit!”

I started to back away.

“Complete bullshit!”

Theo slammed the phone on the desk at the same time the strap of my backpack snagged on the doorknob and I stumbled.

When Theo looked up, his mouth was a grim line. His eyebrows were two black slashes.

“What?” he snapped as though I was the one he was mad at, which threw me.

“Nothing,” I said.

“You want me to go to college, too? Huh? Get in line!”

I paused for approximately one second, then whipped around and started walking away, straight past the pay phone.

I thought
I
had problems? This guy had
problems
.