Heart on a Chain (3 page)

Stomach clenched, I walk into the living room where she sits watching a small TV. It sits on a small, rickety table where there used to be a large screen that’s been repossessed. I remember that day with crystal clarity because it was the first and only time I’ve been hit by my father; previously and since it has only been my mother who doles out punishment.

She sits on the couch in her usual, worn spot. She should be overweight, due to her diet of mainly junk food that she hoards jealously—and counts. If any are missing I catch hell—even if she
imagines
any missing. But the drugs keep her metabolism flying which keeps her thin. I think that I could probably outrun her if I wanted to, but she’s done her work on my mind pretty thoroughly, starting when I was younger and more impressionable. Even knowing that it’s all a mind game, I have no more courage to run from her than I do to stand up for myself at school.

“
Where you been?” she demands, words slurred. “I have been calling you for hours!” Which could literally mean hours, or it could have been just a few minutes.

“
I had school, remember? Today was the first day.”

“
Oh.” That takes a little wind out of her sails, but she finds a new objective quickly enough. “Well, tomorrow before you leave you better make sure you get this house cleaned up. I can’t live in this pig sty.”

“
Sure, mom,” I reply, already cleaning up around her. Her clench-fisted swipe above my ear shouldn’t surprise me, but I’m a bit off my game today. I stumble sideways onto my knees, hitting my head against the side table and nearly knocking the lamp off. I’m scrambling up and righting it before it can fall.

“
You being a smart aleck?”

“
No, mom, no. Sorry. Sorry.” I breathe the word on each exhalation even as I feel the flush of humiliation at allowing her to treat me like this and then apologizing for it, but the routine hasn’t changed much in the last eight years and habits are hard to break.

I hurry to the hall closet to grab the duster. I begin dusting around her items on the table, quickly but unobtrusively, knowing better than to upset her things.

“
Oh. Leave off,” she tells me, disgust in her slurred words. I stand back, waiting to see what else she has to say. “Quit staring, you give me the willies,” she says. “Go to your room. I don’t feel like seeing you today.”

I merely nod and replace the duster on my way up the stairs. So it’s the brush-off mood today—the best one of all. Staying in my room means no chance for dinner. It’s a trade off, I suppose. Usually I’m commanded to make dinner, then not allowed to eat it. Sometimes I manage to sneak a little food if I cook. Being in my room means no possibility of that, but it also means I won’t be hit.

So I’m relieved. I won’t be able to sneak back down until they’re asleep to retrieve my books that I’ve forgotten to grab on my way up. I always complete my homework, but sometimes throw it away instead of turning it in, in order to keep my grades average.

Unfortunately, that gives me a lot of time to think about Henry Jamison and wonder what he was up to today. Bitter disappointment in him returns and I sit by my window, gazing out at my swing-set where I wish I could be.

Chapter Three

“
Hey, Kate.”

I stumble and nearly fall at the words, bringing a round of derisive laughter from somewhere nearby. I glance back, and see Henry watching me. If I didn’t know better I would swear he almost has a look of concern on his face.

I hurry away, clutching my books tighter. What did he mean by that, I wonder? His tone of voice sounded neutral, almost friendly. I truly thought there weren’t any new games that could be thrown my way, that I had suffered every possibility of humiliation.

I was wrong.

I seriously consider ditching photography, but I don’t dare. When I walk in, there he sits, already at our shared table. That’s bad enough, but he’s surrounded by two girls and another boy. I know the girls, popular cheerleaders, but ones who have left me alone. The boy is one of the kids who tormented me constantly throughout Middle School. He’s now on the football team and hasn’t bothered me much the past few years, but that doesn’t exactly comfort me.

I debate sitting at another table, but a quick glance tells me there aren’t any seats available that would be any better than next to him.

“
Kate!” he calls as he waves at me. I stop, frozen in my tracks. The two cheerleaders stare at me, gape-mouthed, and the football player stares at Henry as if he’s grown two heads.

“
Okay, people, let’s take our seats,” Mr. Hurley, the teacher, commands. I’m forced to take my dreaded seat next to Henry, who smiles openly at me. I cringe and turn away.

“
I have slips here for those of you who qualify for free or reduced lunches to exclude you from the class fees.”

Oh no!
My cheeks burn at what I know is coming. Sure enough, he walks over and lays one directly in front of me. Embarrassment floods my body at the humiliation of having Henry see this.

“
Who else?” Mr. Hurley says, waving them in the air. “No one? Okay, then for the rest of you, I need a receipt showing you’ve paid your fees to the main office before mid-terms. Janna,” a girl in the front row looks up at him. “Pass these out to everyone for me.” He hands her a stack of slips.

Janna stands and begins handing out the slips as Mr. Hurley moves to the front of the room to begin lecturing. As she comes even with Henry, she hands him the slip with a smile, clearly indicating her interest in him.

“
Hi, Henry. I’m Janna.” There isn’t any doubt by her tone that she’s being more than just polite. He does an odd thing; he glances my way then quickly away. He smiles courteously at her, eyes averted.

Janna’s smile hardens as she looks at me. Then it returns full force, mockery in every line.

“
Here, freak,” she oozes, handing a slip of paper my way, then jerking it back. “Oops, sorry, I forgot
you
don’t need one of these.”

She laughs cruelly, looking at Henry, expecting him to join in the joke. I can’t see his face because he’s turned slightly away from me toward her—that and the fact that I am now ducking my head, trying to hide my face but also trying to see his reaction. So I can’t see what she sees, but whatever it is, it freezes her laughter. The smile drops from her face and she swallows loudly, cheeks flushed as she moves away.

Henry turns back toward me, but I quickly lean forward, pulling my hair down as a shield, mortified at the whole exchange.

I wonder how hard it will be to change my classes around.

School becomes even more of an exercise in torture—though I would not have guessed that was possible—because
he
has been added into the mix. Sitting next to Henry in photography is the worst, because he always sits and says hello as if we’re friends. Most days he’s surrounded by others, and either he’s completely oblivious to their looks as he acknowledges me, or he just doesn’t care.

I know what he’s about because it’s not exactly a new game. He’s just better at it than those who’ve tried the same thing before. Get the freak to think you are her friend so that you can set her up for some major humiliation. I didn’t learn the first time, and had been duped a second time, but I haven’t fallen for it again; I won’t this time either.

Always before, though, it hasn’t seemed personal somehow. I know the others really don’t think of me as a real person so while it hurts, it isn’t the most devastating thing. This is worse because he’d been my friend once upon a time, and maybe even a little more. I have to admit, part of it is that I’d thought he was so much better the rest. It’s a painful reality to see that he isn’t.

In photography he sits, sometimes trying to start a conversation, but I keep my back turned and refuse to be drawn in, steadfastly ignoring him, keeping my hair between us.

Even knowing what he’s up to, I can’t help but be drawn to him in spite of myself. Because of our history, I suppose. So I watch him surreptitiously—just his hands, at first, as they drag a pen across the page while he takes meticulous notes. They’re large, forming neat writing and not the messy scrawl most teenage boys create. Strong hands, long fingers, neatly trimmed clean nails, a thin scar across the back of his right hand. He’s left-handed, but he doesn’t write with his hand held at an awkward angle as I’ve seen other lefty’s do. Rather, he holds his hand at the same angle as someone right handed, only in reverse, though he turns his page almost sideways to write.

Sometimes I even let my imagination wander and imagine his scarred right hand reaching over and enfolding my own. I wonder if it would be warm or cool, soft or rough with calluses. I can’t recall how they felt all those years ago. I haven’t been touched in a kind way by male hands for as long as I can remember—probably since he last held my hand—though I feel sure there was a time when my father touched me with love.

That’s most disturbing of all, the fantasy of kindness from him.

Then I remember what Henry is about, that his kindness has died and that those hands will never touch me with anything other than for the purpose of humiliation, or worse, with revulsion. Each day after class I flee from the room, and from the building, waiting until I’m beyond school boundaries to slow down.

The first few weeks of school pass, and though Henry has quit trying to make conversation, he still says “hi” each day when he comes in. I never answer, but when he makes no further moves I at least begin to relax and not sit so far off the edge of my seat. He hasn’t made any jokes at my expense in the hallways either, at least none I know about, and hasn’t yet tried to humiliate me openly.

Oddly, it seems as if some of the other students who previously enjoyed tormenting me are losing interest in the game as well. Not all of them, of course, but some.

Then one day, as September gives way to October, the air beginning to cool, and leaves beginning to turn a brilliant yellow, something happens to change everything again.

I sit at lunch, in my usual spot on the floor in the corner, eating my free state-sponsored lunch, when Henry comes and sits at the table nearest me. I freeze in the act of lifting a bread stick to my mouth as he sits down at the table, which is usually reserved as a catch-all for the “losers” of the school (though obviously they’re still not as big of losers as me, as they at least have a table).

He turns my way, looking directly at me. I stare into his dark eyes, the first time I’ve made eye contact with him since the first day of school. An electric charge runs through my body. Every nerve is standing on end, and a flush steals over my body, warmth flowing through my abdomen. I clearly recognize the fight or flight feeling.

He seems to be waiting for something, but I can’t breathe, let alone think what he might want. He sets his tray down without breaking eye contact, then takes a step toward me.

That thaws me. Flight, it is.

I scramble to my feet, refusing to wait and see what he might do to me or my food. He calls my name, but I’m already hurrying toward the tray drop off area to dump my precious, uneaten lunch. I stumble in my hurry and nearly drop my tray, ignoring the mocking laughter near me along with calls of “idiot” and “freak.” I don’t even look to see who they come from. Those words no longer mean anything to me, but knowing that he’s probably watching my clumsy retreat makes my cheeks burn brighter.

I ditch the rest of my classes. I’ve only ditched class once before in Middle School when the ridicule had reached extreme cruelty from a particularly tough girl and I was actually a little afraid for my life, so I’d left school early and went home. But when the school called home to inform my mother I had missed class, it had happened to be on one of her violent days. I’d had to return to school the next day with a black eye, swollen lip, sore ribs that felt possibly broken, and red finger marks on my neck where my airway had been cut off until just before losing consciousness.

When I came back, the tough girl had seen me, and some form of recognition and kinship had sparked in her eyes. After that she no longer gave me a hard time. In fact, I think there was a possibility that she had put out the word that I was to be left alone because no one gave me a hard time after that for quite some time. Then she had been arrested and taken to juvie—or so I heard—and within a short time she was forgotten. I was not and the persecution resumed.