The Rules of Life

There were a dozen or so white notes at the bottom of my locker. But that wasn’t the best part, oh no. Spray-painted and Sharpie’d to the inside walls of my locker were dozens of names. Slut. Whore. Skank. Druggie. Snitch. Narc. Just to name a few. The police officer scooped up the notes and rifled through them. “Drug meetings?” he guessed gleefully.

I blinked. “I had no idea those were in there,” I said honestly. Denning looked like he wanted to believe me but Tanner looked skeptical. It didn’t matter, however, because it quickly became apparent that the notes weren’t drug meetings or anything but just your standard hate mail. I guess no one had gotten the memo that I didn’t use my locker. Of course, that memo had probably gotten filed away without being looked at the same as the “McKinley didn’t do jackshit to any of you people!” one. I wasn’t really surprised though. This was pretty much what had happened to Travis’s locker, only it hadn’t been vandalized. There had just been dozens of notes telling him to go to hell and labeling him snitch and telling him to go fuck himself as well as a few badly written death threats. A quick review of my hate mail showed that I’d garnered no threats but there were certainly a lot of people unhappy with me.

After Principle Tanner cleared me, I went back to class. The number of dirty looks I got in the hallway had gone up considerably. I didn’t used to get any. I was the one handing them out like free candy. But now I was on the receiving end of high school hate. It probably had more to do with the fact that I was Travis’s girlfriend more than the fact that I saw a lot of things happening. I was going to yell at Travis the next time I saw him. There was no good reason for this. He needed to keep his mouth shut and mind his own damn business.

But he didn’t come find me after class, which was weird. And he wasn’t there during lunch. Another oddity. I asked Sophia but she said she didn’t know. Dash just gave me a smile that sent chills down my back—the bad kind of chills. But whatever. I ate my lunch quickly and then headed to the library. I was digging around in the non-fiction section, flipping through a book with glossy pictures of beaches when I felt a presence behind me. As a rule, I didn’t like to be snuck up on. But the pictures of paradise were enthralling and the next thing I knew, someone was clearing their throat behind me.

I knew who it was automatically. Who else would it be? The universe wouldn’t give me the kind of morning I’d had and then all of the sudden go easy on me after lunch. So I closed my travel book and put it back on the shelf it, taking the time to put it back in the right place. Matt waited patiently. He didn’t say anything and when I turned to look at him, he honestly looked confused. So he still didn’t know I’d overheard his call to his lover. I wished he would have figured it out, though. I wasn’t in the mood to spell anything out. Mostly I just wanted to go home and have it be tomorrow so I could drown my sorrows in spiked drinks and bad music, maybe some sex on the side. Whatever would distract me the best.

“Oh, hey,” I said, like I was genuinely surprised to see him here. Like I hadn’t been avoiding him all week. A few times, he’d tried talking to me during class and even asked me to stay after class, after school, but I’d ignored it all. And I was sure he’d seen me turning around abruptly when I saw him. I was pretty obvious.

“Why have you been avoiding me?”

“Me? I’m not avoiding you,” I replied innocently.

Matt gave me a look that said cool it with the bullshit. I didn’t like that he could pretty much see through everything I put out there. “Give it a break, McKinley,” he told me, “You’re not as sneaky as you think you are.” Ain’t that the truth. I’m no good at avoiding you without being obvious. I’m no good at keeping our relationship a secret. I’m definitely not good at flying under the radar. “So, let’s hear it. What excuse do you have this time?”

For some reason, this rubbed me the wrong way. Mostly because it was true. I made up excuses a lot. Excuses, lies, whatever I needed to convince myself or others. And I hated that he could see that. A hot bubble of anger popped in my stomach. “Hmm, let’s see, shall we? Could it be that I’ve fallen madly in love with Travis? No. What about you, is it about you? Well, yeah. So, what about you? What about your devilishly handsome good looks that have frightened me away? Or that you’re my teacher and this is wrong?” I tapped my chin thoughtfully. Matt was looking a little annoyed. Good. “Or perhaps it has something to do with your girlfriend? Yeah, I think that’s it.”

Whatever he was expecting, this was not it. “My girlfriend?” he asked.

I plucked a book off the shelf and flipped through it absently, like this whole ordeal hadn’t ripped my heart to pieces. “Yeah. You probably call her baby or whatever. Maybe lover? Fuck buddies perhaps? I don’t care. Either way,” I closed the book with a loud snap and looked him dead in the eye, “I don’t do guys who are already spoken for.”

Matt grabbed the book from my hand. “No,” he said in a hard voice, “you just cheat on boyfriends.” Then he leaned forward and proved himself right and me wrong when he kissed me. It sent my mind into dizzying, blissful chaos and so it took me a few moments to gather myself and pull away, glaring. He looked slightly angry still and so when I stormed off, he didn’t follow me.

As I left the library, I smacked into a tall, familiar body. “Oh, hey, babe,” a voice said, “I been lookin’ for you.” I stepped back and looked up at Travis, tall and looking slightly tousled. He ran his fingers through his hair, messing it up more, and flashed me a lazy smile. My lips tingled and I felt like he could see the guilt on my face. But that was crazy. You couldn’t see tingles or see into someone’s head and see the cheating weebles wobbling around with other weebles they shouldn’t be wobbling with! So to distract from the growing guilt in the pit of my stomach, I channeled into my anger.

“Why are you spreading rumors, Travis?” I snapped.

Travis’s eyebrows shot up. “It’s nice to see you, too, Kinley,” he said and rolled his eyes. “What do you care? They aren’t about you.” He took my hand and led us away from the library entrance and a less hallway blocking way. He didn’t drop my hand when we stopped but I pulled it from his grip. “What’s the big deal?”

“The big deal is,” I said, standing taller to see into his eyes more clearly, “is that people’s lives are getting destroyed. The valedictorian—”

“Missy? The one who smokes up behind the school?” A group of freshman who had been walking by walking by gasped. Maybe they didn’t know her real name, but they certainly could spread news of the valedictorian who was a druggie. I clenched my hands into fists and pressed it against the locker.

“This is exactly what I’m talking about it!” I said loudly. I turned to the gaggle of girls. “You open your mouths and you’ll know exactly how it feels to have vicious rumors spread about you!” Their eyes opened wide and they scurried off, cowering beneath my glare. “That valedictorian—whatever her name is—could lose her scholarship because you opened your big mouth!”

Travis leaned against the lockers and crossed his arms over his chest, a typical male defensive position. “That’s not my fault,” he said. “She shouldn’t have been doing drugs anyway.”

“It’s not just her life that’s being ruined, Travis.” I pressed my lips together. “I’ve been accused of being a dealer. Do you realize that I could be expelled? With my history, dealing isn’t such a farfetched idea! I can’t afford to be expelled and the rumor was only told because people think I’ve hopped on your gossip train.” I took a deep breath to keep from yelling at him. But this turned out to be the wrong thing to say because if I had a temper, Travis’s was worse. I should have known that. He’d tried to punch me once. In fact, he took another swing but it wasn’t aimed at me, just at the locker. His fist connected and the impact sent a slew of ‘fucks’ streaming from his mouth.

I rolled my eyes. “Nice going, dumbass,” I said. Travis glared at me and cradled his fist in his other hand. I reached for his hand and carefully unfurled it. His knuckles were split open and blood oozed from it, trickling down between his knuckles.

“I’m going to kill whoever said that about you,” Travis said through clenched teeth.

“Oh please,” I said. “I’m fine. They didn’t find anything in my locker besides hate mail.” I pulled a crumpled packet of tissues from the front pocket of my backpack. I dabbed it across his cuts and Travis inhaled sharply. “But you’ve gotta stop. Come on, Trav. This is dumb, spreading rumors and shit. People don’t need any more drama in high school.” After I cleaned his cuts and looked up at Travis, who was staring me dead in the eye. His fingers tightened around mine. “Will you stop?” For a long time, nothing happened. But then Travis nodded. I lifted his hand to my lips and kissed one of the injuries. Travis slung his arm around me just as the bell rang.

“Come on,” he said, his voice heavy, “I’ll walk you to class.”