After Alex Died (6 page)

“Yes, Dr. Jones,” the kids replied again. They were quickly getting the hang of it.

“On Monday, you’ll begin your classes. They are designed to prepare you for the rigors of college-level writing, quantitative analysis, critical thinking and research. The classes run from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. with a break for lunch. You’re expected to study in the afternoon until dinner break and then the evenings are devoted to socialization and appropriate leisure activities. You have a list of approved activities in your packet. We have planned cultural activities every weekend and you are required to participate, no exceptions.”

Dr. Jones told us we weren’t required to attend classes with our group but it was recommended because we were expected to serve as tutors if the students had difficulty. In order to be selected for the College Bound program, a student had to be in the top or his or her class, they had to be from an economically disadvantaged background and they had to be first-generation in college, meaning neither of their parents had a college degree.

The program was extremely competitive. Most of the kids who completed the College Bound Program were accepted into elite universities. I didn’t know how much I could help them if they needed tutoring. I always did well in school but I certainly wasn’t at the top of my class like these kids. I still wanted to attend the classes, though, if only for my own education. I always liked school and loved to learn.

***

The kids spent Saturday afternoon engaging in more orientation training with Dr. Jones, while the counselors set up the cafeteria for the Welcome Party. We had a budget of only two hundred dollars, and that included pizzas and soda, so we had to be creative with the decorations. We handmade some welcome banners and got streamers and balloons.

I noticed
that Renee and Rachel went right over to Cameron to “help” him decorate his banner but it was more like fawning all over him. Not that I cared.

I worked on some smaller signs while Sofia and Antonio tried to hang the banner we had made. When I saw they were stru
ggling, I hurried over to grab the center, which was flopping but ran right into Cameron, who had hurried to help them at the same time.
      “I’ve got it,” we both stated as our bodies collided and I could feel Cameron grab me before I fell on my ass.

The banner fell to the ground as both Sofia and Antonio tried to come to my rescue.

“Are you okay?” I heard Sofia say in my still dazed state.

“I’m so sorry,” Cameron said. “I was so focused on the
banner, I didn’t see you until it was too late.”

“I think I’m more stunned than anything else,” I admitted as I wiped dust from my backside. 

Sofia glared at Cameron. “Don’t you have your own banner to worry about? I thought the legally blondes were helping you.”

Cameron stuck his hands in his pockets and rocked
uncomfortable on his heels. “Rachel and Renee decided to hang up streamers with Dwayne and Shayelle instead. I think they got a little bored with me.”

Bored with him? That struck me as odd. In high school he had girls clamoring to spend time with him. I
had never heard any cheerleaders say they were bored with Cameron or any of the star athletes. I guess a lot had changed since then.

“Maybe you can get Dee
Dee to help you finish your banner,” Antonio offered.

“I’m not done with my signs yet,” I stated quickly.

“Sofia and I can finish your signs. You go help Cameron.”

Now I was glaring at Antonio and it pissed me off when he gave me a little match-maker’s grin. While I appreciated the gesture, Cameron was not a guy I wanted to be matched with. Not now, not ever. I realized I would have to have a serious talk with both Sofia and Antonio.

I realized that Sofia, Antonio and Cameron were all staring at me waiting for my answer. “Fine,” I spat and marched over to Cameron’s poster without another word to any of them.

Cameron quickly caught up to me and said, “You really don’t have to help me if you don’t want to.”

“I said I would.”

“Okay.”

I sat at one end of the empty banner and Cameron sat at the other. “You haven’t even started,” I observed.

“I know. I wasn’t sure what to write or how to write it.”

I looked over at him. He was nervously biting his top lip.

“It’s really not a big deal,” I assured him. “It’s only a banner.”

“I don’t want to make a mistake.”

“We bought white paint. We can use it like
correction fluid and paint over any mistakes you make.”

When Cameron looked at me, his eyes held real worry. There was something going on that was
about more than just the banner.

“Since Sofia and Antonio already made a Welcome banner, why don’t we just write
Summer Fun with College Bound
or something like that?”

He
nodded. “Okay. What color should we make the lettering?”

“Why don’t we do a rainbow and use all the colors? That would go along with the fun in the title?”

Cameron actually laughed and I narrowed my eyes at him. “What’s so funny?” I asked.

When Cameron peered over at me, I could see he was trying not to grin. “The girl who wears
all
black
all
the time wants to use all the colors.”

As mad as I was at
him just for existing when my brother no longer did, and as mad as I was for him calling me out on my fixation with wearing black, a small part of me was actually happy to see him smile.

“Seriously,” he said. I could see some warmth return to his eyes. “I’m glad to see you add a little color back into your life.”

I nodded.
Me, too
, I thought.
Me, too
.

***

The kids loved the party. It could have been the fact that they were starving and there was a lot of pizza. You can never go wrong with pizza.

Dwayne and
Shayelle were siblings, a year apart, and both gorgeous, with lovely mocha skin and beautiful tiger-brown eyes. They could have just as easily spent the summer modeling as working as counselors for the College Bound program. The siblings volunteered to deejay the party and the songs they selected were a big hit with the teens. The counselors seemed to be enjoying the songs too, because most of them were on the dance floor.

Sofia and Antonio were showing a group of kids some steps to a new line dance. And it looked like Rachel and Renee’s partners, Max and Tommy, had finally gotten the girls to dance with them. Max and Tommy knew each other from high school and were self-proclaimed band geeks, definitely not the type of guys Rachel and Renee would normally go for but their interest in
Cameron seemed to have waned a little when he didn’t reciprocate their flirtation while banner making.

I tried to keep an eye on the six kids who were our respons
ibility. As I suspected, Ryan and Hunter had gotten Savannah and Grace to dance with them. The kids were doing their best to keep up with some of Sofia and Antonio’s dance moves. Lyle was hanging out with Dwayne and Shayelle helping them deejay.

That only left Destiny unaccounted for. I scanned the crowd of sweaty teens on the dance floor but I didn’t see her anywhere. I had a moment of panic at the thought of getting fired for losing a kid the very first day of the program until I saw her in the corner of the room talking to Cameron.

I couldn’t hear what they were saying but their body language and facial expressions led me to believe it was a pretty serious conversation. I saw Destiny wipe away some tears that had streamed down her face and Cameron handed her a paper napkin that she promptly used to blow her nose.

I hurried over to make sure everything was okay. I got the feeling Destiny had some serious issues she was dealing with and I didn’t really trust Cameron to help her deal with them.

I was surprised when I approached and I heard Destiny say, “Thanks, that does help.”

“Is everything okay?” I asked.

Both Destiny and Cameron stared at me and I suddenly felt like an intruder.

“I think I’m going to find Lyle,” Destiny announced.

“He’s helping Dwayne and Shayelle with the music.” I pointed over to the deejay area where he was standing.

Destiny nodded and then made her way to other side of the cafeteria.

“What was that all about?” I asked, my eyes fixed on Cameron’s.

“She was a little upset,”
he replied.

“Yeah, I saw that. What was she upset about?”

He took a deep breath then exhaled. “The other girls in the group are making fun of her.”

I crossed my arms over my chest and glared at him. “And you really think you’re the best person to give advice to someone who is being bullied?”

He crossed his arms over his chest and glared right back at me. “Maybe I am.”

“Oh, yeah, right,” I scoffed.

His eye narrowed. “What I said obviously helped.”

“Why don’t you talk to the girls who are actually doing the bullying and get them to stop? Since you have intimate knowledge of what makes a bully tick.”

Cameron looked like he was giving it some thought. “I think the two of us need to talk to all of our kids about bullying.”

I gulped. I wasn’t sure I wanted to go where he was leading.
“Just our kids or all of the kids in the program?”

“All of the kids in the program,” he said decisively.

“I’ll think about it.”

He frowned. “I can do it with or without you. I don’t need your permission
, or your blessing, but I’d like to have your support.”

“This isn’t easy for me,” I admitted.

“Do you think this is easy for me?” he shot back.

“Easy for you?”
I could feel rage start to boil up inside. “Why should anything be easy for you?”

“You have no idea what I’ve been through,” he whispered.

“Well at least you’re still here. Alive. Alex isn’t.”

“There
are a lot of times I wish I wasn’t.”

“There
are a lot of times I wish you weren’t either,” I admitted.

When our eyes met, I could see Cameron’s were filled with pain. It was a pain so familiar it made my stomach clench. It was the same pain I saw in my own eyes when I looked in the mirror.

“It’s getting late,” I said. “We should probably start gathering the kids and getting them back to their rooms.

Cameron nodded. “Think about what I said.”

I wanted to say:
How could I not think about it
? But I just nodded and turned to walk away.

***

On Sunday Cameron volunteered to take all the kids in our group to the gym for a volleyball tournament against the second floor. Antonio said he’d take their group, so that left Sofia and I some time to try and get some laundry done.

“One good thing about having all dark clothes is that you’ve only got one load.”

I laughed. “I’ve got some white underwear and bras.”

“Well, that’s dumb. Why not go with all black, just to save on quarters every week in the washers.”

She had a point.

The communal laundry room that all the residents shared was fairly small with just four washers and four dryers. We each took two washers and separated our whites and darks into the appr
opriate piles.

“So, are you going to tell me what’s up with you and R
omeo?” Sofia asked as she threw a bra into her white’s pile.

“Who’s Romeo?” I asked feigning ignorance.

She placed her hands on her hips. “You know exactly who
Romeo
is. Now spill.”

“First of all, I think you’re mistaken about the whole Romeo thing.”

“I am not
mistaken about the Romeo thing
,” she mocked. “That boy looks at you like a love sick school boy.”

I shook my head. “He’s definitely not looking at me the way you think he is. That isn’t love or lust,
it’s guilt. He feels sorry for me, that’s all.”

“You’re wrong.” Sofia was insistent and it was starting to make me mad.

“You don’t know the whole story. If you did, you’d know you were way off base.”

“The laundry is going to take at least 45 minutes, so why don’t you tell me the whole story.”

That was it. If I was going to let Sofia into my life I would have to tell her the whole ugly truth. Maybe that was the reason I hadn’t made any friends after Alex died and why I had kept to myself during my freshman year of college. I didn’t want to have to talk about Alex’s death and explain all of the nasty details surrounding it.

We both sat down on the plastic chairs they had placed b
etween the washers and dryers. They were about as comfortable as Hell on a hot day. I felt like I was sitting on a concrete slab but they would have to do.