“Have you been out here all period?”
“Yeah. I went in for a moment, but the second I passed by him, I caught a whiff of him, and I fell apart, so I rushed out of the room and have been sitting here ever since.”
“Okay, let’s go,” she said, as she pulled me to my feet and put her arm around me. She walked me to my next period, put both hands on my back, and shoved me through the door.
“You got this,” she said. When I looked over my shoulder, she was smiling an encouraging smile.
That afternoon, when the bell rang, I headed to my locker with Isabelle by my side, grateful to have somehow gotten through the day.
“You did it,” she said.
“Thanks to you,” I said, and then I opened my locker and something fell out.
There, sitting on the floor at my feet, was my hoodie, and it knocked the wind out of me all over again. I guess Chris was officially done with me. I couldn’t breathe.
That afternoon after practice, as I headed up to my Jeep, I dropped his hoodie on his soccer bag while he was down at the other end of the field putting equipment away in the shed. As it left my fingers, I felt like a piece of me was slipping away. Now we no longer had anything that belonged to each other. I guess it was officially over.
29
After two weeks of enduring everyone’s jokes and being ignored by Chris, things started to get easier. I was learning to navigate the new normal of being considered the bad guy and keeping a low profile around school. Isabelle kept me company every day, eating lunch in my secret grassy spot, and Madame Holly let me switch periods so that I no longer had to be in the same French class as Chris. Everything seemed to be going a little bit better until early the next morning, when my Mom woke us up to yelling from outside the front door. Amy and I both shot out of bed and ran down the front stairs.
“Look what someone did!” Mom said, pointing to the front of the house. There, above the front door, were two dozen egg splatters eating away at the paint. “Who would do that?”
“I know who,” I said. “Griffin.”
“It could have been anyone. People egg houses all the time,” Amy shrugged, void of all emotion. “It’s freezing out here,” she said, then she went back inside.
“There’s no doubt in my mind that it was him,” I said.
My Mom pulled me in for a hug before we both went back inside, and I got back in bed for a little while longer. My stomach was still in knots, and my heart was in a million pieces from being abandoned by Chris. The hurt came flooding right back from when my Dad left, and I still couldn’t believe Chris asked me to trust him and told me he was different. I knew better, and I was right. Everything we had was gone. That’s when I remembered that I still had the flattened penny, so I rolled over, opened the marble box, and took it out. It turned out I did still have something of his. I wondered if he still had mine. I ran the tip of my finger over it and remembered the night we put them on the train tracks, then I put it back and shut the lid like a memory that I wanted to lock away forever.
When I finally got up for school, I realized that I was running later than usual, so I raced through my morning routine and jumped in my Jeep, almost forgetting my field hockey gear. By the time I got down to the locker hall, the first thing I saw was Chris, wearing his green hoodie, as if to rub it in that we were done. It made me lose my breath, but thankfully, Isabelle anticipated it and was waiting by my locker to catch my fall.
“Allie, hey, ignore it, okay? I think he did it on purpose to hurt you, but we are not looking at Chris; we are focusing on Allie. By the way, my mom wants to know when you are coming to the farm again?” she said, in an upbeat tone.
“Soon,” I replied, absentmindedly as I glanced down the hall at Chris walking away in the hoodie that I once wore. Isabelle snapped her fingers to draw my attention back to her.
“Hey, eyes here. Good. Lucky misses you,” she said with a smile. I mustered a smile back. Just then, I heard something, and Isabelle spun around. “What was that, Brandon?”
“I said SLUT,” he said again, looking at me, with a disgusted look on his face. Great. I thought I was past this. Suddenly, people were looking at me again, muttering it, too.
“What are you talking about, asshole?” she said, looking at Brandon. “Get lost.” Then he rolled his eyes and walked away, and she snapped her head back to me. “Ignore it, he’s a loser,” she said with a reassuring smile. “He’s just jealous that he’ll never get laid in his life.”
The chatter continued as I walked around the school, and I was really getting tired of everyone calling me a slut, tramp, and every other vulgar word. I went back to the front desk, asked to speak with the Headmaster, and was shown into his office. I sat down immediately and began talking.
“The school has done nothing to help me. Our house was egged last night, and we know it was done by Griffin, but we can’t prove it—” the Headmaster interrupted.
“—Ms. Wyatt, how can you accuse him of such a thing?” he asked.
“Who else would randomly egg our house?” I asked heatedly. “And suddenly everyone in school is calling me a…sir, it’s a pretty awful word that I’m embarrassed to say in front of you.” He looked at me, waiting for me to continue. “A slut, sir,” and his eyes got big. “And don’t forget what was carved into the boys’ locker room stall.”
“Good heavens! I see. Well, that is certainly inappropriate. Do you believe it is related to Griffin?”
“I don’t know.”
“I will address it at the assembly today. Thank you for bringing it to my attention,” he said. “The graffiti in the boys’ locker room has been removed. If there’s nothing else, then it’s time for next period, Ms. Wyatt,” he said, as he rose to his feet and walked to the door.
I went to my next period still upset about everyone’s accusations. Why weren’t they past tormenting me? When I passed Chris in the hall, I finally got the nerve to confront him, so I grabbed his arm to stop him, and he spun around.
