“What?” he asked curtly.
“Really? Wow. Okay. Why is everyone calling me a slut?” I asked point-blank.
“I have no idea. I haven’t said anything. I don’t kiss and tell,” he said. “Anything else?”
“No, I guess not,” I said, and then he turned and walked away.
My heart shattered all over again at his dismissal of me. So this was how it was going to be. He wasn’t even going to give me the time of day. How could he pretend like he wasn’t head over heels for me just a few days ago? I didn’t understand. But wait! He said he hadn’t told anyone, so then who wrote it in the bathroom?
At lunch time, I overheard the soccer team in the courtyard talking about how Chris was such a stud for having sex with me, and suddenly it made sense. Maybe someone had seen him leave the locker room with me that day. How come the guy was always praised and the girl was shamed? It was such a double standard. I guess I had to endure the pain of being ridiculed while he was crowned a King. The only people who hyped me up were my teammates, who seemed to have moved past what I had done to Griffin and thought I was pretty cool for having had sex with the hottest guy in school. At least my team was supporting me again. I was just relieved that it was finally the last day of school before Christmas break, and I could escape my tormentors. It was all beginning to be too much to bear.
That evening, when I got home, I overheard my mother speaking sternly on the phone to someone. She mentioned something about calling the police right before she hung up as I shut the door.
“What was that about?” I asked.
“I called Griffin’s mother,” she said. “I told her that I know it was her son who egged our house and that I expected them to come clean it up.”
“What did she say?”
“She told me that there was no way it was him, and that unless I could prove it, I would need to take it up with the police. I don’t have proof, so I guess I’ll have to let it be.” Then she walked out of the room, clearly frustrated.
While I was doing my homework, I turned on Dave Matthews Band’s Stay or Leave, and the lyrics of the song caused the tears to flow. Once again, I felt like my world was crashing down on me, and my sadness had become so severe that I was questioning my own existence. I put on my shoes and decided to go for a walk to the place that always used to calm my nerves as a child. It was something that I hadn’t done alone in years.
As I walked past the three-board wooden fence, I paused to look at my neighbor, James Barr’s light blue house. All their lights were on. I had always admired their house in the winter. I walked through the gate and down to the airstrip as the freezing cold air nipped at my lungs, and the frost on the ground caused the grass to crunch with each step I took. By the time I got to the white pebble X, I didn’t even realize I had come so far. When I turned around, the fog began to settle all around me. Everything on the airstrip looked eerie but calm. I knelt down onto the white X to grab a handful of the pebbles, and I welcomed the pain as they needled into my knees. The pebbles were just as smooth as I remembered them from my childhood as they sifted through my fingertips back onto the ground.
I noticed the light on in the airplane hangar and wondered if maybe there was someone in there, but this time I didn’t dare go look. I wasn’t in the mood to be caught and chased away again. The last time I was down here was with Chris, and the memory was still too painful. I felt my eyes well up with tears, thinking about the time that I shared this sacred childhood space with him. Now more than ever, I was certain that this pebble X, once a happy talisman from my childhood, was forever a negative mark on my life. I was now painfully aware that each time I came back, the list grew longer. Maybe this place was cursed after all.
X My sister won’t forgive me.
X My Mom isn’t proud of me.
X My Dad doesn’t love me and left.
X My boyfriend broke my heart.
As the last pebble fell to the ground, I rose to my feet, dusted off my knees, and made my way back towards home. The fog was now dense, and I could see my breath against the darkness. I should have worn another layer because the winter air was colder than I expected. As I got closer to home, the break in the pine trees came into view, and I couldn’t help but check to see if there were any stray coins that others had left behind on the tracks. I veered towards the opening, the stillness of the tracks in the night singing to me like a siren song.
The path along the pines was pitch black as I made my way by moonlight, only stopping to touch the tree where Chris and I once kissed. For a moment, I swore I felt our ghosts there, against that tree, and I quickly moved away. I made my way to the base of the loose gravel slope, gazed up at the tracks, and began the climb. At the top, I reached for the tracks to steady my last step. The rusty metal of the rail was ice cold to the touch, so I recoiled my fingers and began searching for any lost coins.
In that moment, I had never felt more alone, more ridiculed, or made to feel like I was the worst person on earth. My eyes filled up with tears again as I considered the alternative to living. I raised my hand to my cheek, hoping that the frigid feeling of my palm against my face would snap me out of this dark trance. It didn’t, so I placed my hand back on the rail, remembering the time when Chris and I laid coins here, now no longer a memory that I loved. Part of me still hoped that maybe this was all a bad dream, or maybe that Chris would come save me from these tracks. I looked around, but no one was there. It was just me, alone, below the faint yellow light that now flickered. Maybe my Dad’s prophecy was true that I would never amount to anything. I could end my suffering now, and nobody would notice. I could just quietly disappear into the fog. That’s when I felt the track begin to rattle. I looked up and saw the headlight in the distance. I could make this choice. I was ready to let go. I stood up and stepped onto the tracks.
“ALLIE! WHAT ARE YOU DOING! THE TRAIN IS COMING! GET DOWN FROM THERE! NOW!” I heard someone say from behind me, but I wasn’t in a headspace to react. I froze on the tracks as the train got closer, and I was blinded in the headlights like a deer. Just then, someone grabbed me from behind and jerked me backward as the train blew its whistle and flew by. We went tumbling down the gravel hill together, the jagged rocks cutting us up along the way, until we finally stopped at the bottom, and I opened my eyes. It was James.
“James? What are you doing here?”
“Allie, what the fuck were you doing? Trying to get yourself killed?” he shouted at me over the roar of the passing train, but I didn’t reply. That’s when he realized what I was actually doing, and he put his hands on my shoulders. “Wait. What’s wrong? Allie. Talk to me. Did you want that train to hit you? Come here,” he said, and then he pulled me in for a hug and didn’t say another word.
I don’t know how long he held me on the ground in the clearing between the pines. He just held me and didn’t let go as I buried my face into the neck of my estranged childhood friend and uncontrollably sobbed. I hadn’t really seen James in years, since he rarely came home from boarding school, but we exchanged waves and hellos when he was in town. I don’t know how he knew that I was out here, but at this very moment, he seemed to be the only one in the world who cared. Well, he and Isabelle.
“James?” I finally asked. “How did you find me?”
“I saw you when you passed my house, and I figured you were just going down to the old airplane hangar, but when you didn’t come back, I got worried. That’s when I noticed you turned into the path out here, so I thought I would just see what you were up to. What’s wrong?” he asked again, as he looked me deep in the eyes. Unlike Chris, James had dirty blonde shaggy hair, and I didn’t remember his eyes being so blue.
“Everything.”
“Okay,” he said with a look that said he wanted to know more.
“I turned this guy in at school for cheating, and now everybody hates me, and my boyfriend broke up with me because of it. I’m being tormented at school, and someone wrote stuff on the bathroom stall, so now there are rumors flying around. Just everything, it won’t stop. On top of it all, I still can’t get my Dad’s last words that he said to me before he left out of my head. He said I’d never amount to anything,” I said, our heads still resting on the cold, hard ground. I was still in too much shock to move.
