Save Yourself (22 page)

Verna never saw Jared before Art. She looked for him, but she never saw him.

By second period, the low-hanging clouds were the velvet gray of woodsmoke. As Verna sat in Algebra, the wind came up and the drizzle turned into a storm, water lashing violently at the windows. Verna watched the trees outside bending and trembling and wondered idly if rain obeyed the laws of geometry, if the vector of each individual drop could be predicted and chained down by numbers. When she was a little girl and it rained like this, Mother had told her that God was driving the world through a car wash. When it thundered, that was God bowling. Little Verna wondered: did God also mow the lawn and fix the mailbox and stand at the washing machine turning His socks right side out? Who made God’s washing machine? Why didn’t He just create socks that turned themselves right side out? Did God even wear socks? Did God get cold feet, or blisters, or step on pointy things if He went barefoot? Who made the pointy things that stuck in God’s feet?

She remembered how much it had bothered her, this business of the feet.

On a trip to the bathroom she ran into Justinian. “Come for a walk with me,” he said. She was bad now. Why not? The gray light, the empty halls, the squish of her feet in her boots; the day felt unreal and lawless anyway. Justinian pushed open the exit doors at the end of the second-floor hallway and they ducked through. He propped the door open with a paperback book. Outside, a ledge and two walls
made a brick cave, smaller than the inside of Layla’s car. Mostly the storm stayed outside but occasionally a gust of wind swept in and brought a spitting spray of rain with it.

Justinian lit a cigarette. Being caught outside the school building during class would be bad enough. Being caught smoking would be worse. Verna’s heart rattled in her chest but she kept cool, watching the wind whip the trees into a froth. Part of her could not stop listening for footsteps on the other side of the door. The other part thought, I’m bad now.

Justinian offered her a cigarette, which she declined, and then—as if he could read her thoughts—asked how her date with Wolf-boy had gone.

“Layla told you?” she said, although she wasn’t really surprised.

“Are you ashamed of it?”

No. Yes. “We saw
Fireblaze
,” Verna said instead. “It was kind of gory.”

He blew a smoke ring. “What about Wolf-boy?”

I should be in class, Verna thought. “Jared? He’s nice.”

“Are you going to have sex with him?”

“What?” Her face was suddenly hot.

“Sex.” Justinian was flipping his Zippo open, striking it, flipping it closed. Verna could smell the butane.

She shook her head. “Layla might—she can—but—we’re different.”

“You’re both human. You both have bodies and emotions and nervous systems.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

He smiled. “I know it’s not. But you and I both know you’re capable of more than most people give you credit for. So maybe you should think about whether or not he’s worthy. That’s all I’m saying.”

Verna could feel herself blushing. “Layla said sex wasn’t important.”

Justinian flicked ash off the edge of the loading dock. “Sex isn’t
important. Who you have sex with is. It’s a distinction Layla occasionally misses.” Verna heard something in his voice that, while not exactly an edge, was definitely well-chilled. She remembered the way Layla had been that weekend, distant and surly. She’d stuffed envelopes for an hour and barely talked, much less complained.

“Are you two arguing?” she asked, feeling sort of presumptuous. Because since when did Justinian talk to her about his problems? Since when did Justinian even have problems?

“Is that what she said?”

“She didn’t say anything. She just seemed—unhappy.”

“A person can learn a lot from misery,” Justinian said.

What a weird day. On her way back to class, Verna heard people in the halls barking. She wondered if it was some sports thing, some rallying cry she didn’t know. Outside the storm surged and intensified. In gym class they played badminton indoors, and Calleigh, as usual, aimed most of her volleys near, if not directly at, Verna. At one point, when a birdie whizzed past Verna’s nose, she thought she heard the redhead call out, “Fetch, Fido!” but Verna was thoroughly occupied with keeping her expression neutral, and couldn’t really listen.

By lunchtime, water poured down the courtyard steps. They ate in the gym lobby. When the bell rang, Layla hung back while the others went on. “You don’t look so good,” she said, as if Verna’s eyes were the ones ringed with purple-gray circles. “Are you feeling sick?”

“I’m fine.”

The bell rang and people milled around them. Layla was looking everywhere but at Verna. “Maybe you should call Mother. Ask her to come get you.”

Genuinely puzzled, Verna said, “But I’m fine.”

Layla nodded. “Well, think about it. I’m on the third floor most of the afternoon if you need me.”

Somebody passing by barked, and then laughed. “Why would I need you?”

“I don’t know.” Layla sounded oddly grim. “Just if you do.”

·   ·   ·

When Verna walked into Biology, there was a dog collar sitting on her lab table. Pink leather studded with rhinestones. At first, Verna thought it was a mistake, that somebody had left it there accidentally. She picked it up. In her hand, it felt not unlike the bracelet that Justinian had given her.

The room was weirdly quiet. She looked up. Every expectant face and every glittering eye was trained on her. They were her classmates, her peers, her fellow students. The way they looked at her was cruel and faintly hungry.

She began to tremble.

Kyle Dobrowski wore the cruelest smile of all. He didn’t look hungry; he looked full. Sated. Rocking back on his chair, his arms crossed across his chest. “Try it on, Venereal,” he said. “Let’s see if it fits.”

Laughter hit her like a wave. She almost stumbled with the force of it but managed to keep her feet. Giving him her most scornful, most Layla look, she said, “What are you talking about?”

More laughter. Kyle’s grin broadened. “Oh, you know what I’m talking about, Venereal. You know exactly what I’m talking about.”

Just then, Mr. Guarda walked in. “Okay, people, take a look at page eighty,” he said, and Verna sat down. Feeling them behind her, watching.

All through class, the collar lay on her desk. There seemed to be a virus going around because not a minute passed when Verna didn’t hear a cough coming from somewhere in the room behind her, and all the coughs sounded like barks. She held back when the bell rang so everyone else could leave first. Dad always said it was better to have a drunk driver in front of you than behind you, where you couldn’t see them coming. As Kyle passed her he picked the collar up, threw it onto her pile of books, and said, “Don’t forget this, Venereal. You might need it later.”

Laughter.

Of all the indignities Verna had suffered, this was the most baffling.

She picked up her books and the collar came with them. Later she would wonder why she hadn’t thrown it away, but at the time she was sunk in mystification and it didn’t occur to her. She carried it with her to Art.

Where Jared waited at their table. When she saw him, everything that had happened Friday night came back in a flood—his taste, his smell, the chime of the pinball machine—and she wanted to cry.

She put her books down, the collar lying on top of them like a dead snake. Jared gazed at it, and then at her. He shook his head, his expression disgusted. “For the record,” he said. “Nobody really likes assholes like Kyle Dobrowski. They just don’t stand up to him because they’re afraid they’ll be next.”

She stared at him, a bottomless feeling in her stomach. “What are you talking about?” she said. She’d said the same thing to Kyle but this was different. This time she genuinely wanted to know.

Jared’s face fell. “I thought you knew.” He picked up a pencil and studied the drawing in front of him, as if he’d just noticed a line he wanted to change. “There’s this website. HighSchoolAnonymous. It’s sort of like if Facebook met 4chan, or eBaum, or something like that.”

None of those words meant anything to Verna. She knew about Facebook, but she’d never seen it. Jared must have seen her blank look, because he said, “You’re not missing anything. It’s a message board, yeah? Except on 4chan or eBaum, the forum topics are, like, anime or television or hentai manga. On HSA, they’re schools. There’s one for Ratchetsburg. It’s all gossip and crap and nobody ever uses their real name when they post. Remember last year, that cheerleader who said she’d been in a car wreck, but everybody said she was just covering up her nose job? That was on HSA.”

“But what does that have to do with me?”

Jared looked pained. “There’s a thread about you.” He turned
back to his drawing, his hair falling in front of his eyes. “It’s—pretty bad. I mean, everything on HSA is horrible. The Internet brings out the worst in people. But they’re saying—” He stopped, and then started again. “They’re saying there’s stuff going on with you and Justin Kemper.” He pointed at the dog collar. “Somebody made some dumb joke about— Well, it doesn’t matter. Everybody knows it’s bullshit.” He looked at her. “It is bullshit, isn’t it?”

His voice sounded too casual and the sinkhole inside Verna deepened. “What?”

“You and Kemper.”

“You just said it was. You said everybody knew that.”

He had the grace to look ashamed, at least. “I was just asking. Sometimes things are a little bit true.”

Verna was angry. “No. Nothing is a little bit true. Things are either true, or they’re not.”

Jared flinched. Doggedly, he said, “But there’s nothing. You know. Physical.”

She stared at him. “You think there is? Just because some stupid website said so?”

“No, of course not. But people say a lot of stuff about Kemper, your sister—sorry—that whole group. Weird stuff. Sort of culty stuff.”

“What kind of stuff?”

Jared smiled a thin smile. “Vampire blood orgies.”

“That’s ridiculous. You know that’s ridiculous.”

“I’m just telling you what people say.” Jared’s lips were tight and his neck was pink. He was angry, too. Verna didn’t understand what he had to be angry about. She was the one on the website. She was the one who had to sit and listen to him say these things. “Because they’re saying it about you, too.”

“So, what,” Verna said, “we’re not friends if people say things about me that aren’t true?”

“That’s not what I meant,” Jared said. But then Mr. Chionchio started teaching, and whatever Jared was going to say, he couldn’t. When class was over Verna got up and walked out without a word, without looking back. She threw the dog collar in the first trash can she passed.

At Eric’s, they read the thread aloud from Justinian’s laptop. “Tales from the Slut Side,” Eric said, as deep and sonorous as the announcer on
Masterpiece Theatre
. “Little Whore on the Prairie, aka Venereal Elshere.”

Layla, bubbly, curved her syllables upward to make everything sound like a question. “Venereal Elshere acts all holy but she’s the sluttiest ho around? Justin Kemper does her doggy style? Her and her slut sister? He makes them wear dog collars? And they love it?” She looked at Justinian and batted her eyelashes. “Woof woof.”

Everybody laughed. Verna, too. The words were horrible but the way Layla was reading it, it was funny. It reminded her of the time she’d had a tooth pulled and the dentist gave her nitrous oxide. She was laughing, but nothing was funny, and it hurt.

“Lahl,” Justinian said, with great gravitas. The screen said
LOL
. Verna thought she was going to break in half, she was laughing so hard. Tears pricked at the backs of her eyes. “Let’s buy her some Milk-Bones. I hear she loves sucking cock.”

“Layla is a stuck-up whore?” Layla said. “And her sister is, too? I hope they and that lesbo? Criss Elkin? All catch AIDS? And die?”

“See, this shit right here, this is why I dropped out,” Eric said.

“As long as it keeps that freak from shooting up the school,” Justinian said, in his newscaster voice, “I don’t care who he sticks his dick in. Bet those sluts like it though.”

Everyone shouted:
“Lahl!”

Eric’s filthy room was full of laughter. Their warm bodies surrounded
her like a cocoon, and Layla held her hand. The voices and the gestures made the website funny but the words on the screen remained black and white and ugly.

little elshere looks like she’d be into a good solid assfuck
ive got gym with her she smells like old tampons
i fucked her and her sister last week
so did my dog lol

“Should we post something back?” Criss wondered, and Justinian said, “Why bother. Let the sheep get it out of their system.”

she’s fucking jared woodburn 2. he told me all about it
.

Even Jared.

When she could, Verna snuck away. To the living room, which was just as dismal as the rest of the apartment, but deserted. The grimy coffee table was littered with gun magazines and there was a pyramid of beer cans next to the couch. On the wall hung a painting of an eagle in front of an American flag, a single tear running down its feathered cheek. The knotted wood frame was coming apart at one corner.

Verna could still hear the others. Her face and her gut both ached from laughing and her throat burned from holding back tears. Verna tried to listen for the voice of God in the room but there was nothing. Just the hum of the refrigerator in the kitchen.

After a while, the bedroom door opened and Justinian emerged, a cigarette in one hand and a lighter in the other. The noise from inside surged and fell away as the door closed behind him. He saw Verna sitting on the edge of the threadbare couch. “Hey,” he said. “I was going to go outside and smoke. You want to come?”

Verna looked at the nearly full coffee can of butts on the floor. “You can’t smoke in here?”

“I could, but then you’d smell like smoke and Layla would smell like smoke and your fascist parents would shit their collective pants. Come outside with me. You can sit upwind.”