Chapters On A Page

Everyday leading up to Christmas vacation felt like the longest ones I had ever experienced, the next one always lengthier than the last. It wasn't so much that I was anticipating the holiday with excitement that I just couldn't contain or that I wanted the time to get away from school simply because it was school. I wanted to get away from the confines of the building I was stuck in over seven hours a day, five days a week because it felt too close-packed lately, and this was because I could swear that there were eyes on me more often than not. I accepted early on that maybe I was simply paranoid, thinking everyone was out to get me just because I had a few secrets locked up that I wouldn't ever want them to know. But I knew my friends were aware of others' sudden interest in me. It was something else I assumed I was imagining at first, but they were always trying to distract me and to keep my attention from eyes burning themselves into my skin. But I was happy to say that I was more intuitive than that, and I soon caught on that both things weren't being exaggerated in my mind.

So I was delighted, joyous even, when the final day of school before winter break finally came. Being Wednesday, I was still dragging in the morning even if I could look forward to several days of not having to worry about getting up early. I wasn't clueless to the stares continuing throughout my morning classes though. Most of my classes, I was too tired to put in the effort to care even the slightest bit. It wasn't until I was walking into my business class that it began to get to me. Rian was the only one that I shared this class with, along with Art and Allison. The latter two hadn't bothered to talk to me since I had broken up with Dominic. Before I could even step foot into the room, Rian jumped out into the hall to greet me.

"Hey, Val!" he exclaimed, bouncing on the balls of his feet as he blocked my entry into our class. His curls bounced with him, swaying back and forth on his forehead as he moved. "What's up?" he questioned, leaning against one side of the threshold when I attempted to step around him, making himself diagonal in the doorway. He crossed his arms but smiled wide to put up a facade that told me that he was being as natural as he always was. It clearly wasn't working, and I only had more questions building up.

I stifled a sigh and took a step back, adjusting the books cradled in my arms so they were no longer digging into my skin through my long sleeves. "Oh, you know. Freezing my ass off, wondering if I'll actually eat lunch, singing an MCR song in my head. … Trying to get into class," I answered, hoping that he got the hint. I craned my neck and pushed myself up onto my tiptoes to see over his shoulder.

He straightened up hurriedly when he noticed I was trying to see into the room, shooting a glance of his own behind him. "Why be in such a rush to get in there?" he wondered, turning back to me after only a second. "We'll be stuck in there for almost an hour. Let's enjoy some fresh hall air until the bell rings," he insisted with another toothy grin. His smiles always seemed to be very convincing, and I almost gave in and agreed. But to my luck, the bell rang. He looked completely defeated but stood aside to let me go inside at last, following behind.

"What is with you?" I asked him as I slid into my seat and let my purse drop to the floor next to my desk, during which our teacher announced, "Crosswords and word finds coming your way. First one to finish both correctly gets extra credit." My eyes followed him as he seated himself behind his computer to surf the internet while we did whatever we wanted, but they went back to Rian after a moment. "Not just you, either. The others have been acting strange, too," I continued, leaning forward over the desktop as if it would help him hear me better just because he was facing forward.

Rian twisted around to hand me one of the papers being passed around, but his eyes flitted to Art and Ally sitting a few rows away from us before he actually looked at me. "Nothing," he claimed, and he turned back around under the pretense of getting his pencil, but I knew it was mostly to hide that he was lying. I wanted to beat it out of him but I didn't have it in me. So I lowered my head to the papers lying before me and began searching for the first word on the list. I was happy to see that neither of the puzzles had anything to do with business and everything to do with the holiday season. Rian worked silently beside me, taking the top half of my desk as his workspace. But he was hardly concentrating, sitting up from his bent position to look around the room and twirl his pencil between his fingers like a drumstick. Eventually, he sighed and slammed it down next to his papers. "It's just that people have been saying things about you, and we didn't want you to have to hear any of them," he blurted in a whisper that was hardly needed since everyone else was talking and didn't care to try to hear him.

Slowly, I lifted my head to stare at him and my pencil slipped from my fingers as my anger began to rise. "Like what?" I snapped, my voice higher than his but still unacknowledged by everyone else. I had barely bothered to interact with most of this school my entire time attending it. I had been around them in classes and lunch, a few parties and a couple shows. But I had stuck to talking to the same handful of people unless paired up with someone new on a project. I wasn't antisocial, just content. So none of them had any kind of reason to say anything about me behind my back.

Again, Rian peeked at Art and Allison out of the corner of his eye thinking I wouldn't notice if he didn't turn towards them. But it's hard to miss something you were watching and waiting for. "Just… rumors. Trust me, we don't believe any of them. But other people in this school are assholes and just plain idiotic," he informed me. As if that wasn't true about one hundred percent of high schools in America.

I turned my head, pointing a glare directly at two of the people I had deemed my friends. "Where did these so-called rumors start? Was it them?" I questioned, putting on my most intimidating mask even though my gaze was still pointed three rows down. I already knew the answer though. If they were saying anything about me, it had come directly from Dominic and no one else. "What's he telling everyone about me?" I demanded, facing Rian again. As quickly as it had come, my anger turned into heartache. My eyes stung with tears that I refused to shed no matter how hard they tried to force their way out.

Rian obviously didn't want to tell me but he didn't want to hurt me any more by holding back for any longer. "He's not being nasty exactly. But it's easy to tell that he's saying it all out of anger due to your breakup," he assured me, wanting me to understand before he actually enlightened me on these rumors. "It's mostly about your sex life. He's claiming that he pretty much got you to sleep with him whenever he wanted to, even during class and shit. Then there's the ones about how you were cheating on him. Those ones usually contain a lot of names that paint you in a pretty dark light," he said, cringing as he spoke, probably fearing that I was one of those girls that shot the messenger just because they were there.

I chewed on my lip for a long minute, gnawing hard enough to cause my cracked and chapped lips to begin to bleed. "Well… that's great," I finally mumbled sarcastically, daring one more look over toward Dominic's friends. They had probably been gossiping it up before class had started, which was why Rian had prevented me from coming inside. "What do you think the chances are that I can get them, at least, to believe that it's all lies?" I wondered aloud to Rian. I could live with the rest of the school believing whatever they heard because they meant little to nothing to me. But I felt that people that had actually gotten to know me should be told the truth. It was only a matter if they would take what I said as the truth or not since they had been friends with Dominic much longer.

Rian shrugged. "They're going to believe what they want to believe," he answered truthfully.

I heaved a sigh and flexed each of my fingers to rid them of tension brought on by frustration before picking my pencil back up. "I don't even want to deal with it," I announced, bending back over the word puzzles I had barely even begun. "I'll just hope it all gets completely forgotten over break." Rian gave me a sad smile of empathy and nodded, agreeing this was the best course of action for now. Before we parted ways after class -only to meet up again in a few minutes at lunch- he commended me on taking the high road. I couldn't admit to him that I just didn't know what else to do.

Calmly, I paced down the hall as if I was heading toward my locker. But as soon as I was positive no one was paying me the slightest bit of attention, I ducked into another, shorter hallway that had one single door at the end of it marked custodian. I wretched the door open with the hand that wasn't supporting my books and rushed inside. It was dark and I groped around the air in front of me until I found the pull-string to a light. With a tug and a click, everything was illuminated. Dank shelves were lined with every kind of off-brand industrial cleaning product the school board could pay for, a mop and a push broom were leaning into a corner, and paper towels were stacked to the ceiling against the back wall. It was a typical storage closet for a school janitor, and it was also a fine place to have a teenage breakdown.

I took the few seconds to push my books onto a shelf, not caring that they pushed bottles and containers out of the way to make room. As soon as I was sure they weren't in danger of toppling over, I took the two short steps to the other side of the closet and sunk down to the floor. It was the same cold tile that lined the corridors and classrooms, but even if it was dirty concrete I wouldn't have cared. I had fought hard not to cry in class; that would have just been melodramatic and made me look weak. I was alone now though and I could let tears flow freely. My knees were pulled up to my chest, my head was in my hands, and, without another way to put it, I was sobbing. Tears streaked my face, surely leading mascara down my cheeks. But I let it go, draining myself of the anger that had built these tears up.

It only took about five minutes, which I was thankful for and proud of. I caught my breath, breathing deeply a few times to regain my composure, and then threw open my purse to rummage through it. I came back out with my makeup bag, stuffed to the brim. I found my mirror within it and instantly began making myself presentable again, dabbing away the black streaks from my cheeks and fixing everything that had gotten ruined by my emotions. When it was as good as it was going to get, I shoved everything back into the bag and placed the bag back in my purse before pushing myself up. I then straightened myself out, grabbed my books, and let myself back out into the hall.

The corridors were deserted as I made my way down them, everyone in class or at lunch. I was grateful that no one was about, not even the occasional student walking to or from the bathroom. It gave me extra time to put myself back together, which no one could argue I didn't need. I kept my eyes forward as I passed classrooms, both with doors opened and closed, my focus only on getting to my locker and then the cafeteria. When I turned the corner into the hall where my locker was, I felt that I had to scan my surroundings just to make sure there was no one else around. There was just no way that the person waiting with her back against the row of lockers was there for me. But we were the only two there, and it had me biting my lip again. Stacey said nothing as I approached or even as I spun the combination lock that allowed me entry to my things. It wasn't until I bent down to slide the books in my arm back into place that she spoke.

"I know that I've been nothing but cold to you since I met you. But there's something I have to tell you," she blurted, pausing between some words as she warred with herself about whether or not she really wanted to say this. She kept twisting around at the waist, clearly thinking that maybe it would just be best to walk away.

I gave a huff, more out of confusion than annoyance, and I looked up at her from my crouched position. I figured there was only one thing that she would want to tell me if she was being as sincere as she appeared, and I certainly didn't need to hear it -once again- from her. "I already know what Dominic's been telling people about me. I obviously can't stop him, so… whatever. As long as I know he's lying, then I think I'll be okay," I expressed, and I gathered the textbooks I was going to need for the second half of the day.

"None of that's true?" she wondered aloud, almost speaking as if I wasn't even there though I was standing up right beside her. She shook her head, deciding that fact was something to contemplate later. "That's… that's not what I was talking about. Though it does suck to have these two things piled together," she said, looking at everything but me. "I just… Like I said, I know I've been less than cordial towards you. Maybe you won't even believe me because of that. But I just thought that you deserved to know. He did the same thing to me, and what good are we as girls if we don't stick together against skeezy dudes?" she questioned rhetorically, wringing her hands. I just wanted her to get on with whatever it was she so desperately needed to tell me because I still had no clue what she was going on about. She took several more silent seconds to get her thoughts straight, each of which felt like a lifetime to my currently impatient self. "Dominic cheated on you the entire time you were together," she finally got out, a whisper all the higher her voice would go.

There were no tears fighting to break free this time, not even from the rage that had appeared throughout my body, from the tips of my toes to the roots of my hair. I took in her words, weighing each carefully like they were actually tangible objects. She was worried that I wouldn't believe her because she had always been a bitch to me. But I couldn't think for a second that she would admit to me that Dominic had been unfaithful to her as well if she was lying. "Who with? Do you know?" I interrogated, slamming my locker shut as punctuation. The whole hallway rang with the sound of thin metal hitting thin metal, yet no one came out to check what was going on. I clenched my teeth together while I anticipated her answer, slowly grinding them back and forth.

She shook her head, disappointed in herself that she didn't have that information to give me. "A few different girls, I'm sure. He hardly ever bothered to stray too far from the same ones. I think that was mostly just so less people knew to tell you," she told me, her gaze pointed at her shoes.

It took me longer than it should have to realize there was probably a reason for this. "Did… did you sleep with him while he was with me? Did you contribute to him cheating on me?"

Stacey shuffled her feet, kicking at things that weren't there. She was quiet for a long time, and it was answer enough for me. But I still waited for her to vocally admit to it. "It wasn't while you were dating. It was the night of his birthday. You guys were obviously starting something though, and I had no right. I-I missed him, and I thought I could get him back," she explained meekly.

I had to give zero thought to what I was going to do next. "Well, you can have him back now. He's all yours. I'm sure you two are going to be so happy together this time." With that I propelled myself passed her. I didn't look back and I also didn't hear her protest to my departure.

When my feet stopped carrying me forward, I found myself at the library doors. I let myself in as I did all the time and seated myself at a table, not even caring that it was right in the open, and scattered my things out on the table. There was nothing to study for since every teacher was surely going to let us do whatever the hell we wanted or even hand out more word puzzles to make us look like we were doing something, at least. I wasn't going to put the effort in anything that had to do with school while I sat all by myself. So I reached into my purse, easily finding the book I'd been reading, and I opened it on the bookmark I had placed inside when I'd last put it down. My eyes didn't leave the text for longer than I cared to keep time for. I took note of the bell ringing that would normally send me to fifth period, and I didn't bother to move. For some reason, I just didn't want to see Alex in study hall. So I continued on with my book for another hundred or so pages, finally standing when sixth period came around. I made the show of walking to English, but I asked the teacher if I could return to the library as soon as she announced that we were only going to play hangman for the duration of the class. I went to nutrition though because I knew that missing out on the Christmas cookies we were making was only going to be me hurting myself.

I was nibbling on one as I headed to my locker for the final time today, my hands free of anything but more cookies since I had dropped my books off after I had left English. I was brought up short though halfway down the hall, finding for the second time today that someone was waiting for me. I wasn't dreading talking to him, but I had skipped a class just to avoid him. So it was with ease that I approached my locker and eliminated the last few feet between us.

"I missed you in study hall," Alex whined, putting on a pout just to make me feel bad that I hadn't been there. When he noticed the cookie sticking out of my mouth while I opened my locker and the rest in my free hand, he quickly perked up and snatched one for himself. "Oooh, they're butterscotch!" he exclaimed, thrilled.

"I was busy," I lied, ignoring his excitement. "Is there something you want?" I inquired, hiding behind the open door as I dumped the cookies into the front pocket of my messenger bag and then slipped my coat off one of the hooks. I couldn't conceal myself as well as I pushed my arms through the sleeves but I still tried my best.

He shrugged. "I figured you would want a ride home since it's positively freezing outside. No one wants to walk in that shit," he claimed with his mouth full.

I would have argued if it weren't for the fact that he was absolutely right. I was cold enough as it was inside. I didn't even want to brave the weather outside. So I nodded to let him know I would appreciate it and reached into my locker one final time to retrieve my book bag. We walked together in silence, listening to everyone else screech in delight that school was over for the year of 2005 and how we wouldn't be back for two weeks. I had learned too much today to join in their yells and exclamations. I simply couldn't wait to get home and curl up in my bed to be dead to the world for a few hours while I napped. Outside, the grass was covered in snow that crunched under every person's feet that ran over it and the sky was bright white while the cold air stung my nose and made me rub my hands together. As soon as we had reached it, I climbed into the passenger seat of his car and was adjusting the heat settings before he could even stick the key in the ignition.

I couldn't think of anything to say as we started toward my house and I didn't care much if we spoke at all. But Alex wasn't the type to leave it silent between us. "You missed my birthday last week," he pointed out after we had pulled out onto the road. "And you didn't go to Rian's party either. We missed you," he revealed, watching me from the corner of his eye.

"Sorry," I muttered, turning to look out the window so I could no longer see his stare. "I'm not much in the partying mood this month." As if I had ever been.

He didn't say anything for a minute but then gave a painstaking sigh. "Rian told me he let you know about Dominic and his big mouth. I'm sorry. I just didn't want you to have to deal with people and their bullshit rumors," he apologized. I had already suspected it, but he confirmed for me that he had been the one to initiate their protection over me. I wasn't surprised in the least.

"Yeah, well, I wish he would have known that Dominic was cheating on me, too. Then I could have gotten both blows over and done with in one fell swoop," I fumed. To cover up my temper, I pretended to fix the heater so that the hot air was hitting me more directly. I also didn't want to know what his reaction was to what I had just told him. I moved it back into the position it had originally been in three or four times before settling back into my seat once again. We had reached my house and were idling in my driveway, but I made no move to get out. "This Christmas is going to be so shitty. I'm going to do nothing but dwell over this drama," I grumbled, more than aware that I sounded like a toddler though my problems were much more mature.

"Don't think about it," Alex suggested. It was easy to tell by his tone that he knew this was much easier said than done, but he persevered. "We're having a party Friday night, our last hurrah before the majority of us visit family for the holidays. Come. Have fun. Be with your friends," he insisted as he continued to lean over the center console toward me. "Meet me under the mistletoe," he murmured, and then his lips found mine. I should have been angry at him for doing this after everything I had learned today. I should have been pushing him away forcefully and jumping out of the car. But I accepted it because I wanted it. And when we broke apart, I promised him I would be there.