Prince Charming (25 page)

“Well, I wasn’t—” In the end, I just broke off, and didn’t really offer up an explanation. She looked so mad, so furious, I knew there was no way she’d listen to me anyway. I leaned one hand up against the locker and closed my eyes, as a headache started to pound at the base of my neck. “I know who did it.”

“Who?”

“Blake and Bruce,” I muttered. “Had to be. They’re the only ones who could have gotten their hands on my phone, besides my parents.” I shook my head as it all became clear. I’d left the phone on the table that day after tutoring. And I hadn’t locked it up.

Goddamn it!

“They must have found the photo on the phone.”

I was going to kill them. No doubt. It was one thing to just hate me, but to bring Laine into this was totally ridiculous. Unbelievable. Un-fucking-real. This was so the way my life worked, and I hated everything about it. Just when I had a chance to be happy, just when things were going right, those assholes had to go and do this . . .

“What do you mean they found it?” Laine’s voice brought me back to the present, and her face grew redder with every question. “What the hell? Why? Why did you take a picture like this? Did you tell them about prom?”

“I didn’t tell them! They found the picture and decided they knew what happened.”

“Why would you have done something like this and then not deleted the photo?”

“I don’t know. I just wanted—I didn’t think—it was just supposed to be a picture for me. Just me.”

“I trusted you.” Her words came out like bullets. “I trusted you. And you betrayed me.” As I stepped toward her, she moved backward, and suddenly I knew there was now a huge gulf of distrust and misunderstanding between us.

“I know you trusted me, Laine.”

Tears formed in her eyes, threatening to break free. “This is horrible. Horrible.” Her phone buzzed in the side pocket of her backpack and when she checked it, all the blood drained from her face. “Oh my God. They’re texting the pic now, too.”

“What?”

She showed me the screen, which had a message from Jillian that contained the photo and a few choice words. “This is the worst day of my life.”

“Well, I don’t know if it’s the worst day—”

“Are you kidding me?” she shouted. She lowered her voice once she remembered the other students, who still stared at us. “You can’t tell me it’s not. I can’t even . . . this is so horrible.”

Of course it was horrible. Laine covered her face with her hand, as if she wanted to shut out the world, and the reality of the situation became clear to me. I was about to lose the only girl I’d ever cared about, the one girl I might really love. Over a fucking picture. I was going to lose her over a picture, and I hated Blake and Bruce so much at that moment. Those dimwits had won. Again. And after this fight, the whole school would know about it, and most people would laugh about it, and never let us forget it. Way to be the headline all around school.

“I’m sorry.” She was slipping away from me, and I had no idea how to catch her again. “Geez, I’m so sorry for all the . . .”

“I’m sorry too, Geoff,” She took another step backward, and this time I didn’t try to follow her. She closed her eyes. “I can’t do this.”

“Can’t do what?” I didn’t want to ask this question, but I did it anyway.

“This. I can’t do this.”

“Us?” I whispered. “Can’t do us?”

She turned her gaze to the floor. “Yeah. I can’t do this. Not anymore. Not like this—with everything—this will never work, Geoff.”

“Wait. It’s not me. It’s them—what about—you said—”

“I know what I said.” She looked up from the floor, and I didn’t see the tears any more. “But that was the wrong decision. I can’t do this. Not like this.”

I leaned my whole body up against the locker as the weight of what she was saying settled around me. She wanted to end this. She wanted to walk away from me. She didn’t want me, not any more. Jesus
fucking
Christ.

“It’s okay,” I lied. “I understand. I get it.”

“You’re a nice guy, Geoff. I just can’t do this.” She paused. “Goodbye.”

I opened my mouth to say something, but the bell rang and stopped me. She gave me a sad smile, then turned and walked down the hallway. The few underclassmen around us sprang into action, too, scurrying to grab their notebooks, backpacks and iPads, and get to class for whatever final exams they had to complete that day. I stood alone against one of the lockers, and watched the hallway clear. All I needed to do was go to a couple of bullshit classes that morning, then take the AP European History test in the afternoon, my last AP test of the year. That test didn’t even count for my final grade in that class, it would just determine if I received college credit for my pain and suffering.

I didn’t care about getting college credit any more. It just seemed so stupid, like something I had spent so much time on because I had nothing better to do. And what did I have to show for it?

“Screw it,” I said. I pulled myself against the locker. “I don’t need this. I don’t care anymore.”

It was true. I didn’t. I had spent twelve years of school trying to be the best in the class, focusing on grades and pushing myself to outdo everyone, only to find that high school was about so much more than competition and completion. I had wasted so much time wishing I were somewhere else, looking for a better life, not noticing I had chances for a pretty good one right in front of me. And now I had lost a huge part of that because my stepbrothers pulled some underhanded bullshit.

I shook my head a few times, took a deep breath, and found my center. Then I turned, walked out of the hallway, back down the steps, and out of Heritage. My high school career only had two days left, anyway. Fuck it.

W
e’d buried my father in the hot, sweltering summer sun, on a Friday in July. After a long visitation and an even longer funeral, a black hearse led a caravan to Spring Grove Cemetery, a large and rambling historic site tucked in between the train tracks on the west side of downtown Cincinnati. Years later, all I remembered was how stifled and stiff the whole thing felt to me, like some kind of orchestrated event the adults in my life had planned because they didn’t know what to do, or how to handle their grief.

At first, Mom and I visited Dad all the time. We drove to the cemetery on holidays and sometimes on weekends, and most of the time Mom brought flowers to place at the grave. I liked that she did it, and as a kid, I thought we’d always visit Dad.

By the time I started my senior year at Heritage, though, Mom didn’t visit Dad with me anymore. She said it bothered her too much to make the drive over, and look at the sad little headstone that broke his life down to a name, date of birth, and date of death. She insisted time and time again that she didn’t want to forget him, but she never talked about him anymore, either.

Life was funny like that. People told me they would remember my dad forever.

And then they forgot.

I drove to Spring Grove after I walked out of Heritage. I didn’t really think about going there, I just did it, driving like a zombie until I parked the car in the cemetery parking lot and got out. Dad’s grave was just a short walk from the main road, and while I could have driven right too it, I decided to walk. I needed the fresh air, and the clarity, something that the peaceful place of Spring Grove always brought me. Most of all, though, I needed my dad.

Maybe I’d been a total idiot to think Laine really liked me, or that it would ever work out between us. She didn’t really know me, and all my Facebook stalking hadn’t really left me knowing her, either. Who was I to think I deserved her?

I sat down on the grass once I got to Dad’s grave. He rested underneath a small granite rectangle in the middle of a long, neat row of headstones. Flowers and mementos adorned almost every one of them.

I sat that way for a long time, just thinking. High school was basically over. I’d skipped my last AP test, and only one day of school stood between me, and graduation. I’d been dreaming of this day since seventh grade, the year I turned awkward instead of cool, first laid eyes on Laine Phillips, and heard the escalating taunts of my classmates. In less than two days, I’d be free of all of the past. After graduation, I didn’t have to walk through the halls of Heritage ever again.

So why didn’t I feel so great about that?

“Jesus Christ,” I muttered, to no one but myself. “I need to pull my shit together.”

I kept repeating that over and over until around eleven a.m., when the phone in my pocket buzzed. I pulled it out and saw a message from Josh.

11:01AM

Josh:
Are you okay? Just saw pic on Facebook. Laine left school.

Me:
She skipped the AP test?

Josh:
Yep. Walked out. Heard she was crying.

Disgusted, I shoved the phone back in my pocket and stood up. I had a mission; I knew what I had to do. And nothing was going to stop me.

Nothing.

L
aine’s house looked creepy and imposing as I pulled up to it about a half hour later. On the drive over from Spring Grove, I stopped twice: once at a gas station, and once at a McDonald’s, because I thought was going to throw up. She and I needed to talk, but I couldn’t figure out what to say. More than ever, though, I needed to find the right words.

My nerves got even worse when I saw her car in the driveway. By the time I walked up to the door, sweat covered my hands, back and neck. Thank God I had a black shirt on, and she wouldn’t be able to see it. I just hoped she couldn’t smell it, as I wiped my hands on my jeans and rapped on the door.

Knock. Knock.

I waited. Three minutes passed. No answer.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

I waited some more.

She had to have heard me, because I had a strong knock. Jesus, waiting for her to answer was total agony. She hated me, and I knew it. Laine blamed me for so much, and she’d said as much in the hallway at school. She probably never wanted to talk to me again, but I didn’t care. I was staying.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

The red door flew open a few seconds later. She stood behind it, scowling, with red-rimmed eyes that told me she’d been crying an ugly, deep cry. “What do you want?”

“Look, I’m sorry.” I leaned forward a little, but I didn’t walk inside. She hadn’t invited me in, and I didn’t know what to do so I just stood there, wavering, and wondering if I shouldn’t have come over at all.

“Really, Laine. I’m sorry. I didn’t know they would find that picture.”

She leaned one hand against the door, and turned her head.

“I’m serious.”

“It’s all over Facebook,” she said, still not looking at me. “It’s everywhere.”

“I know.” I sucked in a breath. “Look, high school’s over. It is. One more day of school. And then you can just move on.”

She finally turned to me, and when she did, I saw a few more tears threaten to fall down her cheeks. “You don’t get it, Geoff. It’s not just that. It’s not just the picture, it’s the whole thing.”

“The whole what?”

“I don’t want people thinking I didn’t care about Evan. I did. I really did. Even though he had problems, his faults. I loved him once, and now it looks like I never did. I don’t want to do that to a dead guy’s memory. That’s just wrong. Really wrong.”

“I’m sure no one thinks—”

She frowned at me. “No, you’re wrong. They do. People said stuff to me about it in first period. They think I never cared about Evan at all.” She paused. “They think I was cheating on him the whole time.”

I almost laughed, but I choked it back. “I’m sure they don’t think you were cheating on him with me.”

“Of course they think that! You would, too, if you weren’t with me.” She scowled. “Aren’t you always judging everyone, anyway?”

Her words stung, and I recoiled. She had a point. I’d spent all this time in high school judging people, and it had gotten me nowhere. All it caused was pain, and it made me miss out on the things each person had to offer. I should have told her that, but I didn’t. I just gulped, and didn’t say anything at all.

“Whatever. You don’t get it.” Her tone of voice made me want to shudder. Harsh. Cold. Indifferent. She’d never spoke to me like this before, as if she wished we’d never met. It crushed me. Wounded me. Hurt me, more than anything I had felt in a long time.