Chapter Thirty-One
The holiday break goes by way too fast. Then again, Gavin went back to New York, and that couldn’t happen fast enough.
He somehow convinced himself he could hang out with us on New Year’s Eve.
He claims it was to get out of the stuffy party our parents were attending.
But I knew he was lying. He loves those things.
Whatever the reason, he stuck around the house when my friends arrived, acting a little too grown up. Drove me crazy.
“I’m not looking forward to today,” Danika says from the passenger seat.
“No one will remember,” Jaz tells her.
I add, “Teens are like goldfish. We don’t retain interest in anything for very long.”
“What are we talking about?” Darcy asks. “Who got a fish?”
“Pucker those lips, baby,” Jaz demands, giving Darcy a big, loud kiss that has Danika and me heckling them.
“Stop being so damn cute!” Danika exclaims.
I set my hand on hers before we get out of the car. “We leave whenever you want to leave.”
Being almost murdered has a way of staying in circulation longer than most gossip, unfortunately. I knew we were kidding ourselves in the car, but I was hoping for the best, for Danika’s sake.
There are eyes, whispers and fingers pointing. Danika stands tall beside me, looking straight ahead, appearing unfazed. Jaz pulls out a squirt gun and sprays some of the gawkers.
“Where’s ours?” I ask, jealous of the idea.
“I stole it from my brother. He only had one.”
Jonathan, Collin and, oddly enough, Sean meet us at the beginning of the senior hall, escorting us the rest of the way. Not that we need them. But we do look like a fierce tribe, strutting down the halls, like one of those movies Collin always makes me watch.
Everything’s different this new year. Every one of us has changed in some way. I’m definitely not the same.
Even though Jonathan and I gifted each other honesty for Christmas, we’re not overtly together in the way we were. It’s still a little too tender. But at least Collin doesn’t have to choose between us anymore, and we are back to Sundays at Clara’s.
When we arrived on January 2nd for breakfast, we had to pull two tables together to fit all of us. Over pancakes and milkshakes, we created a plan of support for Danika’s return to school the next day.
“Is this a new thing?” Clara asked when she came to take our orders.
“Onetime thing,” Jonathan told her and everyone at the table.
While we talked, Danika didn’t say anything. She just let us love her in the best way we could—by being there for her. By her side. The entire day.
Laurel turns our way when we near her locker; Bridget eyes us with judgment. Danika slows. Jaz moves to stand in front of Danika, water gun at the ready. I nudge her arm. They don’t know all the details of that day. Not fully.
Danika approaches Laurel. Their eyes connect for a tense second. Then Danika pulls her in for a fierce hug. Laurel looks as shocked as the rest of my friends. I grin. Laurel tears up.
“Thank you,” Danika says before letting her go.
Danika begins walking down the hall again. It takes a moment for the shock to wear off and for the rest of us to catch up.
“Uh, what was that?” Jaz asks.
“Laurel… came through for me,” Danika says. “Still think she’s annoying. But so am I.”
I link my arm through Danika’s. “Expressive. You’re expressive.”
Danika’s coming over to study tonight,” I tell my mom when I enter the house. “She has some catching up to do.”
“How did today go?” she asks, knowing it was her first day back.
“It was okay,” I tell her, searching the fridge for something to eat. I’m always starving after dance. I grab a cheese and nuts pack and a pear that’s finally soft enough to eat.
Before I can disappear from the kitchen, she asks, “Can I talk to you a second?”
I slow my escape and turn to face her.
“Will you sit?”
Sitting means this is serious. I brace myself.
I lower onto the seat next to her at the table. She sets a hand on mine and tilts her head so she can look at me fully. She’s worrying me, and she’s yet to say anything.
“I wanted to check in with you, to see how you’re handling everything. Especially after what you witnessed at the lake with Danika.”
She’s asked me several times since the day of the bonfire how Danika was healing.
How I was. But I brushed her off for the most part, escaping a true conversation because there was always something to pull one of us away.
But now that we’re sitting in front of each other with nothing to distract us, I don’t know what to say, what she wants me to say.
“I know I’m not usually the one you come to when you need to talk about this kind of thing. But as a woman, I understand what it can feel like to be intimidated or threatened by a man.”
“You do?” This surprises me. My brother and I used to joke that if the house were on fire, it would be Mom who came in to rescue everyone. Not because my dad isn’t brave, but while he’d be directing firefighters where to find us, Mom would say, Screw it, and do it herself.
Mom gives me a soft smile. “Every day, we have to navigate the world. Protect ourselves from the wrong attention, unwanted attention, maybe even unnoticed attention. Whether it’s on a dark sidewalk, in the parking garage, at a bar or restaurant, at work or even among people we think are our friends.
“We don’t just have to care for our spouses, our children, our coworkers and employees.
We have to take care of our emotions too—so we’re not too hard, too soft, too kind or too bitchy.
And we don’t do it to impress other women.
We do it to protect ourselves from the men out there who are looking for any and every opportunity to harm us. ”
I blink, needing to absorb it. And not something I’ve ever considered—at least not in this way.
“I’m not trying to scare you.” She wraps her fingers around my hand. “I want you to know that I understand how it is. And that I love you.”
There’s something caught in my throat.
“You’ve always been comfortable with every kind of friend, no matter who they are, boy or girl, straight or queer, troubled or genuine.
Your dad is always telling you that you have the biggest heart of all of us.
It’s what makes you so very special, Sadie, and I want to protect that heart.
Which may mean having to make hard choices sometimes. Right?”
I nod. She leans in a little closer.
“I’m not asking you to choose anything right now. All I want to know is, do you feel safe? With the friends you have. Those who hold your heart. The places you go. And the home you live in.”
Her pale blue eyes search mine—of the same shade. “Do you feel safe?”
The question echoes in the stillness between us.
I think about my friends and their homes, their loves, their families and if they are safe everywhere we go. And they are not.
Jaz and Darcy avoid certain places because of the looks they get. Jaz walks with her hands out of her pockets when we’re shopping. Darcy wonders what made her birth parents not want her, no matter how much she’s loved by those who chose her.
Jonathan and Collin are always sized up at parties and sporting events. Forget Jonathan’s family, where he has to be brave for his little brother, loving toward his mother and ready to take a hit from his father at any minute.
And I’ve had to watch Danika’s brilliance get stripped away by two different guys because… I don’t know why. I don’t know why any of this is happening. Or why we continue to pretend it’s okay.
But my mom isn’t asking about my friends. She’s asking me if I feel safe.
“Yes.” The word has strength behind it. “Because I have friends who would do anything for me. And a family who’ll always protect me. I’m… privileged, I guess.”
This shocks her. It shocks me as well.
“You think that?”
“It’s not a bad thing, Mom,” I assure her, although my cheeks are red as I acknowledge it for the first time.
I had a hard time hearing it from Collin.
But I’ve been sitting with it every day since, flipping it over and examining it.
And it’s time I recognize my situation for what it is.
“It just means that I have to do a better job of making sure everyone else feels safe too.”
“You’re not the same, my Sadie. You’ve changed.
” She cups my cheek as her eyes shine. I’m not sure if this has made her sad, until she says with a note of pride, “You’ve grown up.
When did that happen? You still have the biggest heart, but you also see the truth of the world.
And instead of it making you hard, it made you the best of us. ”
I can’t gather a response. My mother has never said anything like this to me before.
I thought my overly dramatic reactions and societal edge–dwelling friends embarrassed her.
That she was disappointed I wasn’t taking life more seriously because I don’t have direction or I’m so busy with my cause of the minute that I never make a real difference.
I don’t know what to do with myself right now. And the moment I consider hugging her, she blinks the tears from her eyes and sits upright.
“Thank you for listening. I’m heading out to meet with the photographer for a magazine shoot we’re doing. Magda put dinner in the fridge for you to heat up. There’s more than enough for Danika.”
I nod.
She collects her computer bag and purse before heading to the coat closet. “I’ll be late. And I think your dad may be as well. He’s out knocking on doors, if you can believe it.”
I smile. He asked if I wanted to help campaign with him and his team. But just the thought of knocking on strangers’ doors to ask them to vote for my dad nearly brought on an attack of the hiccups.
Before she can leave, I finally find my voice. “I love you, Mom.”
She looks back before closing the door and smiles. “Lock the door behind me.”
I’m asking the prosecutor’s office to drop the charges.” Danika blindsides me in the middle of studying for physics.
We haven’t talked about the trial since Oren was released on bail last month. He’s being homeschooled for the remainder of senior year. And the judge issued a restraining order so he can’t come within one hundred yards of Danika.
“Did someone say something to convince you not to?” I ask, thinking of Darren and the other football players who idolize Oren and make dick-ish comments about how they wish he were in school. They’ve basically ostracized Sean for supporting Danika.
“You mean, other than Livvy tossing one of her germ-infested lollipops at me in the bathroom, accusing me of lying? Saying he has never hurt anyone ever and that I’m the real abuser?”
Oh, that girl. “What the—”
“That brat doesn’t bother me. Regardless, that’s not why.” She picks at her hot-pink nail polish. “But she does have a point.”
“He hurt you.”
“I know.” She can’t look at me when she admits, “I don’t want to be the person who ruins his entire life. Especially when he’ll probably only get probation.”
I’m trying so very hard to hear her out and not react judgmentally. I don’t want to lose her over a guy ever again. So, every time I inhale to say something, I stop myself and hold my breath instead.
After I do this twice, she finally says, “Talk. Whatever it is, say it. You’re going to make yourself pass out.”
“What does this mean exactly? Will anything happen to him?”
“I know that wasn’t what you were going to say. You were gonna tell me that I’m not ruining his life. He did that to himself when he hurt me.”
“But I didn’t say it!” I declare victoriously. “I figured you thought about this a lot and that you probably have reasons you feel this way. And I want to understand.”
I also want to scream, He almost killed you!
“Look at you, not telling people how to take on their issues,” she mocks, but smiles to let me know she loves me.
“My parents and I talked about it after they spoke with his parents. Oren and I were terrible to each other. It wasn’t just him.
Sure, he’s stronger, and his anger left marks that lasted longer, but I was just as horrible to him.
I hurt him, too, like Livvy said. I feel like I need to take responsibility for that. ”
She sounds like an adult. It throws me.
“I know. I sound like a brochure,” she says in way of explanation. “We came up with an agreement. He has to attend anger management and therapy. I’ve decided to go too. I’ve been talking to a therapist already. And classes start next week. I want to be better. Choose better.”
I blink in surprise. And then smile—I can’t help it. “That’s good! Getting help and everything. I’m so proud of you!”
“Thanks,” she says, smiling meekly. “Man, this is weird. Right?”
“Which part?”
“All of it. Senior year has become an entire documentary about teen drama and how to keep your friends from becoming a statistic.”
Oren should be in jail for what he did to Danika. But she obviously doesn’t feel the same. I can only hope he never harms another girl. And that she learns to choose herself.
I sigh. “Can the rest of senior year be about making memories that we’ll want to remember? Can we please have fun?”
“Yes, please. But first, I need to graduate, so ask me questions.”
I pick up the study guide and search for where we left off.
“Are you and Jonathan…”
So much for studying.