Hickville Confessions: A Hickville High Novel (16 page)

Pain filled every molecule in his body. She was gone. He would never tease her again—fight with her—see her. Why had she answered that freaking text? “Damn you, Chelsea! Damn you. You stupid girl. Don’t you see? You ruined everything. Three people died because you couldn’t put down your freaking phone. Mom is crazy out of her head. Dad is just gone. And I… I need you. Why? Why did this happen? Why did that truck have to be there? Why’d you leave us?”

He sat on the grass cross-legged, let his shoulders slump, and cried. Guilt for the things he’d said spread through him. He turned his face toward the sky. “And You, what the hell were You thinking? What did she ever do to You? You took her from us. She didn’t deserve this. We didn’t deserve this! We were a great family. We were happy. But You had to go and mess that up.” He let tears fall freely until his eyes felt peppered with grains of sand.

He pulled his knees close to his torso, propped his left arm on his knee, and toyed with a blade of grass.
I didn’t mean it. I’m sorry, Chelsea.
He bowed his head.
I’m sorry, God. Please don’t take this out on my family. Make Mom better. Make us a family again.

Tears dripped in an endless stream from his eyes. “I’m sorry I didn’t come sooner. I miss you, sis.”

He sniffed and stood. He took a deep breath and looked around at the stone field. Two graves from Chelsea’s was the one marking the third girl’s resting place. Abigail Yates. She’d been an only child. Her parents had moved to Dallas a few months after her death. He righted a brass cross that had toppled off the ledge of the headstone, turned, and walked to his truck.

Well he’d done it. He could tell the shrink he must be over Chelsea because he’d been to the cemetery. Sarcasm aside, he wasn’t sorry he’d come. It was time.

He blew out a breath, started the engine, and headed back to school.

Ryan sat outside the counselor’s office and willed Justin to text her. She had hoped to see him after lunch, but no such luck. She’d checked her phone between classes—no text. She was so consumed with looking for a message from him that she’d almost forgotten she’d been asked to meet with Mrs. Bettis after school.

She held her phone and stared at the screen, wanting so badly to text him and ask how the session had gone with his family. But how did one ask about a shrink appointment? Instead, she sent
Hi.

Braden McGuire took the seat next to her. “Do you think they went for your idea?”

Ryan toyed with the rubber cover on her phone. “I don’t know. Do you?”

He shrugged. “I guess we’ll see.”

Mrs. Bettis opened the door to her office. “Come in.”

Ryan and Braden filed in and sat in the chairs in front of her desk. Pictures of twin girls hung on the wall behind her. They had the same auburn hair as Mrs. Bettis.

Mrs. Bettis folded her hands on top of her desk. “I talked to Mrs. Johnson about your idea, and we investigated the website.” She stretched a little taller in her seat. “We like the idea of a replacement for the Purity Club. However, in light of—” She swept her hand in Ryan’s direction. “—recent events, we feel we should broaden the group beyond dating violence.”

Great. They’re going to make me the anti-bullying poster girl.

Mrs. Bettis looked at Braden and back at Ryan. “There is a group called Teens Against Violence. It’s very similar to Dating Respect but has a broader focus.”

Ryan leaned forward. “So this is an anti-bullying group?”

Mrs. Bettis shook her head. “More than that. Abuse comes in all forms. Controlling behavior doesn’t just occur between dating couples—friends can abuse each other as well.”

She handed each of them a sheet of paper. Bold letters announced,
Red Flags to an Unhealthy Relationship.

The first one on the list read
Does your friend/partner constantly put you down?

Ryan looked up from the sheet. “I like it.”

Braden read the paper and shook his head. “These things are pretty obvious. I mean…” He looked at the sheet. “
Does your friend/partner check your cell or email without permission?
Who doesn’t know that’s whacked?”

Mrs. Bettis said, “Unfortunately, a lot of people.” Her forehead wrinkled and the corners of her mouth drooped a little. “It often happens slowly, insidiously. The abuser may start with a put-down and eventually break the person’s confidence. They begin to control their victim’s whereabouts, what they wear, who they can see. The victims often believe the abuser’s controlling behavior is an act of love.”

Braden shook his head. “That’s crazy.”

Ryan looked at him. “Which is why I want to do this. I mean, what if this is an education not only for the abused but the abuser? If they don’t understand that what they’re doing is wrong, we can teach them. Who knows—maybe I could save somebody from having to go through this.” She drew an imaginary circle in the air in front of her face.

Braden looked at Ryan and back at Mrs. Bettis. “I’m in. What do we do?”

Mrs. Bettis pointed to the paper in his hand. “I want y’all to check out the website at the bottom of the page. Think of people you’d like to help you charter this club. I’d like to have a panel of eight—two from each class. I’d prefer a boy and a girl from each class. Let’s meet back in a week. I’d like names of potential candidates.”

Mrs. Bettis discussed the type of candidate she was looking for and Ryan and Braden were dismissed. Braden walked with her toward her locker. “Obviously I’m the sophomore male member and you’re the junior girl. Do you think Mackenzie would be the freshman girl?”

Ryan tried to contain the smile that formed and it morphed into a smirk. “I guess you should go ask her.” She pointed down the hall.

He visibly gulped. “Okay, then.” He practically sprinted to where Mackenzie was talking to Travis.

Ryan pulled her phone from the back pocket of her jeans and looked for a message from Justin. Nada.

Her stomach tightened. The session must not have gone well. Should she call him? He probably wouldn’t want to talk, but he probably needed to. Besides, she really wanted to ask him to be the senior representative. Was that cold? Here he was dealing with major stuff in his life and she was focused on asking him to be a leader in a club.

Texting was safer. He could ignore that.

Ryan:
Hey there.

She didn’t want to be too intrusive, just in case things were bad.

She stared at her phone as though she could make him answer. Nothing. Maybe he was with his parents and things were going great. Maybe not. She shook her head. She had never been the clingy type and she wasn’t about to start now. She shoved the phone into her pocket and headed to her locker.

Someone, probably the janitor, had cleaned off the lipstick letters that had stained her locker.
That leaves a clean slate for whoever is doing it.
By tomorrow, another profanity would be scrawled across it. She got her books and slammed the metal door.

If they brought the Teens Against Violence club to school, would it stop? She doubted it.

Did she still want to be involved in Teens Against Violence? Absolutely.

*

Normally, if Justin missed school he had to miss practice too. Coach knew why he’d missed and probably figured how badly he needed to work out.

He’d answered Ryan’s text with
Football practice.
He should’ve told her he’d call later. Part of him wanted to talk to her, tell her everything. The other side of him wasn’t ready to share what had happened at the cemetery, but if he saw her, he’d find himself telling her. He wanted to hold on to it a little longer—to feel the pain and then release it. How sick was that?

He wasn’t going to worry about that now. He had passes to catch. He and Austin might have been enemies, but they’d pretty much always been able to leave it off the field. Austin had an arm, and he had aim. All Justin had to do was be close to the spot he was supposed to be and Austin would get the ball to him.

Too bad Justin couldn’t seem to hang on to a single pass. It was like the ball was greased or something. Every single pass slipped through his fingers. Coach blew the whistle and called him off the field.

“If you’re going to play Friday, you’d better focus.” He lowered his sunglasses. “Everything okay?”

“Yes sir.” He rubbed his hands on his thighs. “I’m good.”

Coach replaced his sunglasses and nodded. Justin ran back on the field. That’s the way it was. Short and no extra bullshit words. The way it should be. They ran the drill again and focused on keeping the ball in his hands.

On the field it didn’t matter that his family was effed up, or that Chelsea was gone. Here he could just be.

After they were dismissed, he took his time going to the field house. He had no reason to hurry home. If his dad was home, he’d have to talk to him and he wasn’t ready. If he was at work, he’d have to face the echoes of the memory of the gun clattering to the floor. Either way, it sucked. Yep, that was his life.

Caleb James was at the door when he entered the field house. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah.” Justin pushed past him.

Caleb followed. “Mickey and I are going to the Early Bird. Wanna go?”

Home with memories and Dad. Diner with guys from the team.
“Sure. I got nothing better to do.”
Why wasn’t Ryan option number three?

He wanted to see her. He wanted to wrap his arms around her and feel her against him. So what was his problem? She was the only good part of his life. She made him feel alive, happy.

But tonight he didn’t want happy. Tonight he wanted to think about how much his life sucked. He wanted to wallow in it and let it suck him in.

*

As soon as they pushed open the screen door of the café, Justin regretted coming.

Ashley Boyd and Courtney Randall sat at a four-top in the middle of the restaurant. Ashley jumped up so fast when she saw them that she knocked her chair over. Couldn’t they just ignore the girls and sit in the back corner?

Apparently not. Caleb was quick to help Ashley with her chair and then took a seat next to her. Justin sat next to Courtney, with Mickey Williams on her other side. It would’ve been great if at least the girls had been fixing to leave, but no-o-o. They hadn’t ordered yet.

Great. Just effing great.

And as if the suck gods hadn’t rained enough shit on him, Kelsey Quinn was the waitress
du jour
. She brought a tray of water to their table and passed around menus. “I’ll be back in a sec to get your orders.”

Justin jumped in before anybody else could order. “Can we have separate checks?” Not that he minded paying or everybody pitching in, but he wanted it to be clear that this was not a date—just in case Kelsey talked to her sister.

Courtney stuck one end of the straw in her mouth and blew the wrapper at Justin, hitting him on the cheek. Everyone laughed as though it was the funniest thing ever. All Justin could manage was a weak smile.

The girls droned on about something that had happened in the cafeteria. He laughed in the right places but his mind wasn’t really into hearing about some poor kid spilling a tray full of food.

He sighed and leaned back in his chair.
Okay, really it isn’t that bad. Better than sitting at home eating peanut butter sandwiches.

That must have pissed off the suck gods, because before he could wipe the artificial smile off his face, he heard the screen door of the café squeak open. He turned toward the noise and a voice in his head screamed,
Nooooo!

Yep. It was Ryan. In the few seconds of eye contact he saw—no,
felt
her emotions travel from shock to hurt in a nanosecond. One-two-boom. He wanted to explain himself, but she turned her back on him and walked straight to Kelsey, taking a seat at the counter.

He slumped back in his chair. “Crap.”

Courtney fake-shivered. “Can you imagine having to go out in public with your face torn up like that? I’d just hide until it healed.”

“Or at least cover it with some makeup,” Ashley said. “They make stuff especially to cover scars.”

“I’m done.” Justin tossed his napkin on his plate and stood.

Courtney grabbed his hand. “Come on, don’t leave.”

He pulled his hand from hers and walked over to Ryan and Kelsey. “Hey.” His chest felt heavy. He should’ve texted her after practice. He should have been here with her.

She looked up at him. “How was practice?” The words came out flat.

“Okay. I’m sorry I didn’t text afterward.”

She shrugged. “It’s cool.” She turned back to her sister. He’d just been dismissed.

He leaned in so he could see her face. “Ryan, can we talk?”

“Not now. I’m busy.”

Kelsey didn’t say anything, but the look she gave him came through loud and clear:
Leave my sister alone.

But he couldn’t. He’d screwed up and he had to fix this. “Can I call?”

Ryan didn’t look at him. “I can’t stop you.”

Shit. Shit. Shit. This was bad. “Please, don’t jump to conclusions. It wasn’t a date.”

She turned to face him full on. “I don’t own you.” Her words were clipped and angry. But the thing that tore at his heart was the hurt in her eyes. Not like there were tears—only pain.

Kelsey stepped closer to Ryan. “I think you need to leave.”

“Okay.” He stepped away. He’d effed up the best thing he’d ever had. And the suck gods rejoiced.

For now.

He walked to the cash register where the rest of his group waited to pay. Courtney slipped her arm around his waist and looked at him. “You okay?”

He backed away and put a hand up. “Not now.”

He tossed a ten on the counter with the check and walked out. His truck was parked almost front and center, facing the door to the diner. He climbed in and opened the windows, but he didn’t start the engine. He wasn’t ready to leave. Not until he’d talked to Ryan.

So he’d just sit here until she came out.