I’ll Be There

I had always liked to think that I had changed a lot since I graduated from high school ten years ago. However, as I stood in the hall full of my old senior year at our ten-year reunion, I realised that perhaps this was not the case.

I still felt just as awkward and shy as I had done when I had been a student here, and I knew it showed on my face and in my body language.

I took a sip from my coffee, wishing that I could make it a little more Irish. I could do with a nice bit of whiskey right now. But then, I ran the risk of getting drunk, and I made an idiot of myself enough at school without continuing the tradition at the reunion.

"Oh my Lord," someone said from behind me. "Dylan, is that you?"

I turned around, if slightly reluctantly, and became immediately grateful that I had swallowed my mouthful of coffee.

Mischa hadn’t changed a bit since I’d last seen her. She had been in the same class as me for all four years that we had attended this school, and I don’t think I ever stopped loving her. Of course, it was the classic story. My life at high school could have been a bad teen movie.

I had been a nerd. She had been in one of the popular groups, though I never thought that she had belonged there. She was too nice, too sweet. While all the other girls were rowdy and vulgar and slutty, Mischa had always been civil to everyone, even those she didn’t like, and she had the most self-respect out of any girl I’d ever met.

"Y – yeah," I replied, swallowing and hoping I didn’t make too much of an ass of myself. "Mischa, right?"

I only said that to try and cover up the fact that I had thought about her nearly every day for all these ten years.

She beamed and hugged me. I blinked, surprised, before I wrapped my arms around her. She still used the same brand of shampoo that she had used at school.

God, I sound like a stalker. I mustn’t tell her that under any circumstances.

"So, how have you been?" she asked, when we let each other go.

"All right," I replied. "You still use the same shampoo you used at school."

Dammit!

"You noticed?" she asked, and I looked up to see, to my relief, that she was laughing.

"I guess," I shrugged, feeling my face go redder than it had done in a while.

"You were always so awkward at school," Mischa giggled. "You haven’t changed a bit."

I gave a shy smile.

"I know. It’s a curse," I replied. "So, what about you? How’ve you been?"

"Pretty good," Mischa replied, reaching over to the table we were standing beside and grabbing a biscuit. "A lot can happen in ten years, hey?"

"I suppose," I agreed, though secretly I was thinking about just how little had happened for me.

"What do you work as?" Mischa asked. "You never really did have much ambition when you were here."

She was right. I had been an unrepentant slacker. My teachers had despaired with me. They were frustrated, as it was clear that I was intelligent. However, I even managed to procrastinate on my procrastination, so as you can imagine, my grades didn’t reflect the fact I was pretty bright.

"Ah, you’ll laugh," I muttered.

"I won’t," Mischa smiled. "When have I ever given you that idea?"

"I’m a computer game designer," I said quietly. "Nerdy, I know."

"I couldn’t see you doing anything else," Mischa told me, and I knew from her voice that she meant it sincerely, not as a joke about what I nerd I as. "Have you had much success?"

"A little," I shrugged. "I mean, there’s games on the shelves with my name on it, so I suppose that counts enough."

"It must be fun," Mischa said, and I thought I detected a little wistfulness in her voice. "A creative outlet, I mean. I’m a secretary."

She pulled a face.

"Really?" I asked, surprised. I had always thought Mischa would shoot higher than that.

"Yeah," she said. "My husband didn’t want me to do anything too stressful. He says I have to stay energised to keep the house clean for him."

It was like being punched in the stomach. Several times.

By someone with an iron fist.

"Husband?" I asked, trying to sound merely curious.

"Well, he’s my second husband, really," Mischa said. "But I don’t really count the first one, seems I barely saw him. But you don’t want my life story, I suppose."

She smiled, but I detected something in her eyes that didn’t match it.

"Well, I hope things work out for you and your new husband," I said, though I secretly wished her husband would vanish off of the face of the earth. Of course, I wouldn’t tell her that. She had never known how I felt about her.

"So do I," Mischa said, and I knew then that something wasn’t right. I could hear it in her voice, see it in her eyes. She had always had the prettiest brown eyes. They were so warm and soft, not like mine. Mine were blue, and they shot through you like ice. It hadn’t helped matters when I was feeling in a bad mood. People tended to back away from me.

"Do you enjoy your work?" I asked.

"Not really," Mischa replied. "It’s not very challenging. All I need to do is answer phones and book people in and look pretty. And have all of the fat, grey old business men flirting with me and saying cheesy chat-up lines, and asking if I come with the hotel room."

I flinched. Mischa didn’t deserve that. She was too pure, too pretty, too sweet. My blood almost boiled when I thought about all those old men leering at her, saying such disrespectful things.

"I hope you tell them what they can do with their chat-up lines?" I asked. The Mischa from high school would have done, but this Mischa shook her head sadly.

"No, I don’t," she said. "I used to, but you know. They reported me, and my husband gets pretty angry with me when I get myself into trouble."

"Why don’t you tell him what they say to you?" I asked, but Mischa’s eyes widened.

"Oh, God, no," she gasped. "If my husband found out that other guys had been flirting with me, he’d kill me."

I blinked.

"Um," I said. "What?"

"He doesn’t like it," Mischa said, and there was a hint of desperation in her voice.

"But it’s not your fault," I protested.

"He doesn’t believe me," Mischa sighed. "He thinks I’m putting out, or dressing provocatively, or asking for it in some other way. He thinks all women are asking for it."

I was shocked. This was not the Mischa I remembered. The Mischa I knew was strong, independent, a bit of a feminist, but not to the extent that she was all in your face about it. This Mischa was wrapped around her husband’s little finger, wary of him, perhaps even scared of him.

"Is he here?" I asked, wondering what he would do if he saw her speaking to me. I didn’t think I looked much of a threat, what with my scruffy Converse and jeans and my T-shirt with an Internet meme on it, but I didn’t want to cause her anymore trouble.

Mischa snorted, however.

"Come off it, Dylan," she told me. "Do you really think he’d let me come here? He thinks that I’m round at my sister’s house."

"That’s terrible, Mischa," I said quietly, and then I knew I had messed up. She looked at me, her brown eyes suddenly blazing with anger.

"Did I ask your opinion on my marriage?" she demanded.

"Well, no," I began, but she hadn’t finished with me yet.

"I can’t believe you," she spat. "You’re just like all the others. You look in for five seconds ad you think you know absolutely everything about my husband and me. Well, you don’t, all right? You know nothing about us, so why don’t you just keep your opinion to yourself?"

"All right," I muttered. "Are you done now?"

I may be shy and awkward, but if someone was rude to me I became pretty aggressive very quickly. It had been how I had survived at school.

"Yes," she said hotly.

"All right," I said, my voice as cool as hers was heated. "ell, it was nice getting to know you again."

I decided I was going to call it a night. I didn’t think I could be heartbroken by someone I hadn’t seen in ten years, but I was obviously wrong. I just wanted to crawl into my bed and die. She was married, and now she hated me.

I walked through the crowded hall, the same one I had spent many miserable years sitting in at lunch, havin things thrown at me, and headed for the door. I was unfortunate enough to bump into Ian on my way out, who had been one of my full-time tormenters at school, but I really wasn’t in the mood.

"See you haven’t changed much, nerd,"he said to me, eyeing my T-shirt, but I just rolled my eyes.

"Looks like I’m not the only one who’s not changed a bit,"I shot back. "You’re twenty-eight now, Ian. Give it up."

I got out into the quiet hallway before another voice reached my ears.

"Dylan!"

I turned, and saw that it was Mischa.

"Forgotten something you wish to add?" I asked, and then to my total horror, she began to sob.

No man on the face of the earth knows what to do when a girl starts crying, least of all me. The most contact I had with girls was when they answered the phone when I was ordering a takeaway or a taxi. Most girls avoided me like the plague.

"Mischa?" I asked, feeling practically terrified. "What’s wrong?"

"I’m such a bitch," she sobbed. "You’re only trying to help, and I just totally bit your head off. I’m sorry, I really am."

"No worries," I replied gruffly. "It wasn’t my place, anyhow."

"I know," Mischa sighed. "But you’re right, Dylan. It’s not all right, what my husband’s like. But I have nowhere else to go. The house is in his name, the car, everything. I don’t want to come crawling back home again, like I did last time. I can’t do it again. I don’t want to start from scratch all over."

"Mischa," I said firmly. "Listen to me. Do you want to spend the rest of your life in a loveless, belittling marriage, or do you want to be the girl that I used to know, and get out there and find a man who’ll give you the respect you deserve?"

Wow. Maybe I had changed a little. Programming shooting games had obviously given my confidence a little kick in the right direction.

Mischa fell silent, looking at the floor.

"I want that so much," she said quietly. "But I’m secure now."

"Are you?” I asked. “Living in fear isn’t secure to me."

She looked up at me, her watery brown eyes wide. She looked almost like a child who had been yelled at by her parents.

"You were always so sweet, Dylan," she said quietly. "And you always spoke sense. No one ever listened to you."

"No one ever does," I replied. "But I’m hoping perhaps you will."

She nodded.

"I’m going to," she said, and there was the strength in her voice that I remembered. "I don’t care where I have to go. Coming back here, it’s made me realise that life goes by so quickly. I’m not going to spend it doing things I hate."

"You shouldn’t," I said. "I get teased so much for what I do for a living, but I love it. I must be one of these rare people who actually gets up excited about going to work."

It was true. I had been thinking that not a lot was going for me, but now I had met up with Mischa, I realised that I was the most successful out of the two of us. I had a good job, I enjoyed it, and I had co-workers just as nerdy as me so we got one another’s jokes. I had a steady wage coming in.

"I’ve got a horrible job," Mischa muttered. "I’ve got a husband who thinks I’m an object. I don’t deserve this."

"Damn right you don’t."

"I’m leaving him," Mischa suddenly blurted out. She looked up, her eyes wide, but happy. "I’m leaving him!" she repeated, stronger this time.

"Good for you," I told her, and I truly meant it.

"But," Mischa frowned. "He won’t be happy. I’ll do it tomorrow morning, when he won’t think it’s my sister. I’ve said it before when I come back from hers, and he’ll ring her and yell and then he’ll realise where I’ve been."

"Do it tomorrow, then," I told her, but she still looked scared.

"He might attack me," she said softly.

"Has he before?"

"Yes. When he thinks I’m getting out of hand, he smacks me around," Mischa said, and then she began sobbing again. "I’m such a failure!"

Taking all of the nerve I had, I stepped over to her and hugged her tightly.

"You’re not a failure," I told her firmly. "And don’t let that bastard tell you otherwise."

"But I make him so mad," she sobbed. "I deserve it."

"No you don’t, Mischa. No woman deserves it, no woman asks for it. He’s a woman-beater, he’s a cowardly bastard and he hides behind it by making you feel you had it coming. He’s the worst kind of scum, and you need to get out of there."

She took a shuddering breath and looked up at me.

"I’m scared," she told me softly, and I knew at that moment how deep her terror of her husband went.

I let her go, and then I took out my cell phone.

"Tell me your address," I told her.

"Why?" she asked, looking scared again.

"You have your bags packed early tomorrow," I told her. "And I’ll come round at eight. If you’re not outside with your bags, I’ll know he’s done something to you, and I’ll call the cops. If you’re out there, you can get the Hell into my car and I’ll take you anywhere you need to go."

Mischa threw her arms around me again.

"I don’t know what to say, Dylan," she said to me. "Thank you so much."

"No problem," I told her. "Really. It’s not. You deserve better."

She was sobbing again as she told me her address, and I saved it into my phone. That way, her husband wouldn’t be able to find out that she had spoken to me. She would have no strange number on her phone, no strange texts or anything of the sort.

"I’ve got to go," she told me tearfully. "You promise you’ll be there tomorrow?"

"I promise," I told her firmly. "I’ll be there."