“Where’s Sophie?” They went to that club meeting together, or so I thought.
“Oh, she said she had to talk to someone. I don’t know who.” He shrugs, and I can tell he’s disappointed that Sophie seemingly ditched him.
A sigh escapes me. I didn’t realize he was alone. “I’m so sorry. I was on the run from a jock.” I reach across the table and rest my hand on Marty’s arm. Notice how I feel absolutely nothing when I touch him.
Annoying.
Marty frowns. “What are you talking about?”
I launch into my story, not leaving out a single detail. Marty’s big brown eyes get wider and wider when I repeat our conversation. How Jake reacted. How I ran out on him.
“You actually said that to him,” Marty says when I finish, his voice deadly serious. “You turned down Jake Callahan and laughed at him when he told you you’ll regret this.”
“Yes,” I say with a nod and a little laugh. “I did. I mean come on, Marty. I’ll regret this? Who does he think he is? The mafia?”
“Probably. One of his best friends is Tony Sorrento, and that name alone sounds like someone who knows how to put out a mob hit,” Marty says, making me laugh again. “Plus, Jake’s dad is, like, a fucking bazillionaire. I’m sure Drew Callahan can buy and sell all of us.”
“I’m sure he could,” I agree.
Marty slowly shakes his head as he watches me. His mop of dark curls tumbles into his eyes and he shoves them off his forehead with an impatient grunt. “What if Jake and his jock crew do something to you to actually make you regret your choice?”
“Please. I’m not that important.” I wave a hand, ignoring the unease that slides icy fingers down my spine. “What can they do to me?”
“Make your life an absolute living nightmare.” Marty leans across the table, his voice shifting lower. “They’re dicks, Hannah. They’ll make fun of you in class.”
“I don’t have any classes with them.” Thank God.
“And they’ll write mean shit on your locker,” Marty adds.
“I never use my locker. Everything I need is in here.” I pat my backpack like it’s my trusty old friend.
“They’ll spread rumors about you on social media.” I start to counter his words yet again, but he cuts me off. “I’ve seen it happen before. They zero in on a vulnerable target and make that person’s life a living hell. Usually it’s a girl.”
“What a bunch of misogynistic dicks,” I mutter.
“And their leader is usually Diego,” Marty finishes, his voice full of disgust. Diego is Marty’s cousin, and they’ve never gotten along, even when they were little kids. Diego is the athlete and Marty is the brains, and Marty’s told me that at family functions they barely tolerate each other.
“Do you really think Jake will say something rude about me, when I’m the one who turned him down in the first place?” I ask incredulously. “If he tries to spread rumors or whatever, I’ll let everyone know what I said. His friends heard me.”
“They’ll back Jake no matter what. It’ll be your word against theirs.” Marty makes a face. “They can mess up your school year with a few choice words. I told you what they did to me in middle school.”
He’s right. He did tell me, and I vaguely remember it. Diego told all of his friends that Marty was gay in the sixth grade—Marty hadn’t come out yet—and they made his life absolute hell. Until Marty’s overprotective warrior mother marched into the principal’s office and demanded the school do something about it. His mother even went to Diego’s mother—they’re sisters—and told her she’d beat her ass—direct quote—if she didn’t tell her shitty son to stop being mean to his cousin. Family comes first, Lisa Torres has always said.
I wish I had a mother like Marty’s. Someone who’ll rush in and defend her child no matter what. Not that my mom is a bad mother, it’s just…she’s always so busy with work, or her boyfriend. She doesn’t seem to have much time for me.
But anyway.
What sucks is that during middle school, Diego got all of his friends to go along with him and make fun of Marty. They would pants him in the locker room during P.E., which was the ultimate in embarrassment for a boy who’s accused of being gay and is, you know, actually gay. And whatever other horrors twelve-year-old bullies can come up with, they dished it out with glee, making Marty retreat into himself even more, and that breaks my heart. They kept it so under wraps, I didn’t even know it was going on. By the seventh grade, Diego was done with Marty, and they all left him alone.
Diego finally apologized to him. He made a big deal about it when we were in the eighth grade and said sorry to Marty during lunch one spring day. Marty accepted the apology reluctantly—he’d been prepped by his mother to expect it so he had the advantage, and Diego acted like that absolved him from all wrong doing. I thought the apology was bogus.
Too little, too late, if you ask me.
Diego is an asshole. I don’t know how his girlfriend Jocelyn stays with him. She’s actually a really sweet, smart girl. Not smart enough to get rid of her jerk boyfriend, though.
“It won’t be that bad,” I tell Marty, my voice soft, my heart hurting for him. He’s just watching out for me, and I appreciate that.
He shoots me a skeptical glance, but otherwise says nothing.
Not everyone is out to get us. Yes, I’m pretty sure Jake Callahan and his friends don’t give two craps about me and were hoping to, oh I don’t know, put me through some sort of weird and humiliating ritual for their first game of the season. I’m sure he’s already forgotten about me. I’d bet he’s already found another victim.
I’m just glad it wasn’t me.
My last class of the day is my favorite so far—I’m the teacher’s assistant for Art 1. The class is full of mostly freshmen, a handful of sophomores and juniors, and only a couple of seniors who kept forgetting to get their fine art requirement out of the way until their last year of school. We all have to take at least one fine art class in order to graduate, and most of us get it over with our freshman year. This means nobody really knows me in this class, which is just the way I like it.
I love Mrs. Sanborne, my art teacher. I’m in Honors Art 4, the highest art class my small high school has to offer, and there are only eleven of us in the entire class. Mrs. Sanborne and I have clicked since my freshman year, so when she asked me to be her TA for Art 1, I jumped at the chance.
It’s the one class where I didn’t feel enormous pressure to perform. One less class where I have to study and stay on top of things or else I could get behind. As the teacher’s assistant, I clean and organize all the paints, brushes, canvas—whatever Sanborne needs me to do, I do it. I don’t really talk to anyone but the teacher, and no one pays any attention to me anyway. I can do my own thing and organize to my heart’s content.
I’m in the back of the room, digging around in the cabinets that line the entire wall and looking for leftover tubes of paint when I hear Mrs. Sandborne talking to someone. A male someone.
A male someone with a familiar voice. And I’m not talking about Marty either.