Take Me With You (14 page)

I need confirmation that my words actually got through to someone and that I might be able to change things.

Coming to a complete stop the moment I reach the office, I slide myself down onto the benches against the wall, prepared to wait for the door to open and someone to come through.

After waiting what feels like forever, beginning to think I’ve already missed her and thinking about what Ms. T is gonna say when I finally do make it back to class, my whole bathroom excuse blowing up in smoke, the door slides open and I see the shadows of two people come through.

“Eric?”

If it’s possible, the minute I hear my name, I think my heart pounds straight through my chest and stops at the exact same time.

I didn’t miss her.

“Y—yeah. Hey.”

“H—hey.” She repeats, adding in her own stutter for effect. It might have upset me before, but with the way I catch her smiling the minute I get the nerve to look up at her, upset is the last thing I feel.

“Mom, go get the car. I’ll meet you out front in a minute.”

The other person with her, the woman I now know to be her mom, the woman that knows nothing about the horrors her daughter has been living with, takes the easy getaway for what it is and takes off down and around the corner so fast I barely have time register that she was even there.

“What are you doing out here?” she asks me the second we’re alone.

“Belle told me that she saw you come in. I wanted to be here for you.”

Her cheeks, they go that familiar shade of pink and before I know it, I’m joining her. I might not understand what set her off before, but I’m pretty sure I do now. She’s reacting to me wanting to be here.

“I’m glad you’re here.”

“Me too. So, uh, how did it go?”

“I’m not sure. Hannah and her parents are still in there. I guess they’re gonna talk about it and I’ll find out later.”

“Do you think they believed you?”

“Yeah. I mean I’m not sure and I still think that if I were them, I wouldn’t believe anything I have to say considering I burned their kid, but they did thank me, so I guess they do at least a little.”

“That’s great!”

It comes out a whole lot louder than I want it to, but when she laughs, the need to kick myself lessens.

“I should probably go, but after school, do you wanna do something?”

“Like what?”

“A movie?”

I’m not going to admit it out loud, but her wanting to go to the movies with me, knowing that there are going to be other people there, probably people we go to school with, floors me. I have no idea what to think, much less say in response to this.

“Eric, did you hear me?”

“Yeah…”

“So do you wanna go to the movies?”

“Are you sure you wanna be seen with me?”

Moving quickly until she’s sitting beside me on the bench, her bubble gum scent making its way across and straight up int
o my nose, she reaches her hand out until it’s on top of mine.

“Is that really what you think?” she says, her voice barely an octave above a whisper. “That I don’t want to be seen with you?”

“Well, yeah. I mean no one else wants to be seen with me.”

“You’re the only one I want to be seen with, Eric.”

“Why?”

“Easy. You’re the only one that sees me.”

Chapter Fifteen

Amelia

It’s been a really long time since I’ve had a great day.

A good day for me really doesn’t consist of much. If I wake up in the morning and I’m not riddled with nightmares, that’s a good day to me. If I get to hang out with my friends, at least the way we were before, it made it even better.

I really can’t remember the last time I had a great day though. I know I’ve had them, it’s just been so long that pinpointing a time is impossible.

When Eric said he’d go to the movies with me, especially after everything that happened before I got out of Daniel’s office, a good day turned into something great. The only part that wasn’t was what he said to me after I asked him.

His question though, it’s valid. There was a time not that long ago where being seen with him at all was basically committing social suicide. I wouldn’t be caught dead doing it because of the embarrassment factor alone, but things are different now.

I’m different now.

I’m starting to think I’m more embarrassed being around Tim and the others than I am being around Eric. For all the things he told me about himself, differences that supposedly set him apart from the general populace, I don’t see it. Maybe it’s because I’m becoming his kind of different. I don’t know. What I do know is that the way he is, I like it and its easier adapting to it than doing the same thing with my so called friends.

Take Charlotte for instance. After I left Eric, promising that I would text him at lunch, I ran into her before leaving. Instead of looking happy to see me, she’s vacant. Where other girls hug each other in the halls and genuinely seem to enjoy each other’s presence, that’s not the case at all with her.

She doesn’t ask me how I’ve been, what I’m even doing there. She just starts rattling on about herself and how she wishes I’d come back already because the so called retards have taken over the school in my absence.

It’s embarrassing being around her now. The easy way she refers to all the people we’ve picked on over the years as retards is just proof. I know how easy it is to do that because I’ve been the worst offender, taking the crown from Dillon ages before he took off and left us for Cadence, but hearing it from her just makes me wanna back away and pretend I don’t even know her.

Am I all of a sudden cured of being a total monster because I’ve been hanging out with Eric for the last two weeks? Of course not, but I am smarter than I was before and that’s a start. I’m starting to get why people don’t like the word, especially after seeing the list of names Eric gave me in his letter. It’s just mean and it’s another thing that I think it’s time I change.

I’m just not there yet. Standing up to Charlotte, telling her off about what she said should be easy, but it’s not. I’m still a work in progress. I used to be the leader which means anything I do say she’d probably just follow along with, but something stops me from speaking up.

If she can easily call people different then her these names, than what’s to stop her from saying the exact same thing about me if my secret ever got out? It’s half the reason I’ve kept things quiet for so long. Being on the receiving end of the shit I’ve been dishing out for years is not something I want, even if I am honest about wanting to change it.

So I just stay silent, completely embarrassed being around her as she drones on.

It should have been enough to take my great day and turn it to shit quickly, but it’s not. Eric agreeing to go out with me, even if we’re only doing it as friends, it’s too monumental to be ruined and definitely not by someone like her.

By the time I got home, there was another bit of news waiting for us. Mom as usual when she walks in the door goes right for the answering machine and this time where we weren’t expecting to hear anything from Daniels for a few days, we got the shock of our life with his voice booming through the little speaker.

I’ve been allowed back in. They want me to stay out for one more week, but what happened in the office earlier, it worked and as soon as my final week of exile is over, I’m going to be able to go back to school and finish my senior year the right way.

I’m going to be able to graduate.

Hearing the news, adding it to everything that’s already happened today, there’s only one person I want to share it with and even though I promised I’d text him at lunch, I’m going to break it because this news, it can’t wait.

Heading up to my room, stripping off my coat and changing from the sweet little dress my mom wanted me to wear for the meeting and back into my pajama bottoms and tank top, I grab my phone and make myself comfortable on the bed.

I’ve got news. Txt me when you get this.

Stretching out on the bed, laying my phone down beside the pillow, I lay back and think about everything that’s happened and what it all means. Really give myself the chance to process it all because up until now I’ve just been gliding from one thing to another without giving much thought to it.

Not expecting to hear from him for a while, cell phones not allowed to be used during school hours, it’s the perfect time to do it.

Tonight. This movie with him. I don’t want to look at like a date because the idea of him being with someone like me is so preposterous it’s laughable, but it’s impossible not to because despite my claim that he’s too good for me, that being with me is weird and wrong, I want it to be a date.

I want to go there tonight, no matter what movie we end up seeing and I want to hold his hand. If it’s a scary movie, I wanna curl into him at the scary parts even though nothing really scares me anymore, and I want to feel what I felt yesterday on the bench outside Thompson’s office.

Completely safe and comfortable. Normal. Perfect.

All of this, wanting the things that I do, it’s familiar yet not familiar at the same time.  I had moments like this before I hooked up with Dillon, I think it’s like a natural body response to want these sorts of things with the amount of hormones running around inside us at any given moment, but with Eric everything is more pronounced.

I wanted to be with Dillon because it was better than being alone. When we were hanging out and doing things together it meant I didn’t have to focus on the very real horror story my life was. I could put my attention elsewhere. I want to say that I loved him, but I can’t. Not anymore.

Truth is, I don’t have the first clue what real love really is because it’s never been something that’s afforded to me. The only thing I can even compare to love is what happened with my dad and deep down, I know that isn’t it. What he did to me, still continues to do just by occupying my dreams and my mind the way he does, it’s not love. It’s not even nice.

T
elling Dillon I loved him, admitting it to myself, it was just my way of keeping him close so he could keep the demons at bay. Planning attacks on kids, seeing them through together and then enjoying the laugh afterward, it was all a coping thing for me. He was right all along and he doesn’t even know it.

He’ll never know it.

I did become obsessed with him, flipping out and losing my mind whenever he so much as looked at other girls because I knew that all it would take was one look from the right girl and he’d leave me behind forever. I would wind up alone and the nightmares would take control again, the exact way they’ve been doing for the past few weeks now and I’d give into it the way I always do.

It’s not like that with Eric. I want the same things that I wanted with Dillon but not because I’m afraid of being alone. Eric isn’t just some means to an end so I can keep the nightmares at bay. The nightmares, the pain, they’ve been there even more since I started talking to him, so I know it’s not at all the same.

Our differences, secrets, things about ourselves that we’ve spent so long trying to rid ourselves of, or in my case bury down altogether, they’re not bad. He’s no more wrong or a stain on the world than I am. We’re two worn out pieces of a puzzle, the ones that go missing every time we get pulled out, forgotten and discarded by the world around us. We’re different, yet somehow perfectly the same. For each other.

I might have been with other guys in the past, at least as much as I would allow myself to be, but none of those guys ever knew the real me. Eric does and that’s why I want to look at this movie thing as a date. For the first time ever, I actually want to be with a boy for the right reasons.

I want to hold hands, be held, kiss and whatever else comes next. I want to experience love and I don’t want it to be with someone random, a person that likes me because of the persona I put out at school or the horrible things I do. I want it with one guy.

The one that’s my kind of different.

Eric.

Eric

I think I’m finally learning what it means to lose my mind.

No sooner do I get back to class than Ms. Taylor levels me with a look before telling me that we’ve got to talk after class. If that wasn’t enough to shatter my already frayed nerves, thinking about what’s going to happen after school today does it.

Amelia wants to go to the movies with me. Not only does she want to sit with me in a darkened theatre with a bunch of random people around me, but she wants to get something to eat before it in the mall food court.

She wants to be seen with me in public.

I’ve never done anything like this. It’s one thing to go to the movies with Belle and my parents, I’m comfortable with them and they know everything about me and can intervene should something happen that I can’t control, but to do it with someone like Amelia? Someone considered by the rest of the world to be normal?

I’m gonna totally screw this entire thing up. Make a fool of myself and make her remember why she started picking on me in the first place.

Anticipation, anxiety, absolute fear, it’s so powerful right now that I’ve started scratching at my arms, like I’ve been bitten by a mosquito, the urge to itch so strong that I’ve broken through skin.

I don’t know if I can do this.

You can because you want to do it.

For the first time, I really wish this was one of the days I was seeing Thompson, because with the way I’m feeling, I need to get this out to someone and he’s the logical choice. He would be able to talk me through everything I’m feeling, tell me in his usual way that I’m taking a step in the right direction and branching out this way is a great thing.

He could tell me that going out with Amy is a natural teenage experience and that if I don’t do it I would be letting myself down, not enjoying life the way I’m meant too. He could make all of this anxiety make sense.

I need it to make sense because right now, I’m dangerously close to losing control and I just can’t do that. Not here. The people in the class right now might understand, but nobody else would and with as happy as her wanting to hang out with me makes me, other people seeing me break could ruin it all in an instant.

I’ve got news. Txt me when you get this.

That’s the message I’m met with when I finally pull my phone from my pocket, my work for class finished and the need for a distraction driving me more than it ever has before.

No time like the present to text her back. As nerve wracking as thinking about her is right now, the urge to write her back is even worse.

*txts you*

Her response is immediate and seeing it calms me. The overload that was building in my brain, with just a few words from her starts to melt away until I start feeling almost human again. Maybe I won’t need to bolt from the class after all.

LOL nice one. Daniels called.

And?

I’m coming back in a week.

Other than her asking me out to the movies earlier, this is the best news I’ve heard all day. I smile and for the first time today it’s genuine and my face doesn’t feel like it’s going to lock in position with the force I normally have to use to fake it.

She’s coming back.

Something about her coming back, it makes my heart speed up, but not in a bad way. For the first time since she crossed my path a year ago, the idea of seeing her around school doesn’t scare the living crap out of me. It makes me excited.

“What are you smiling about?”

Sliding my phone back in my pocket quickly, not wanting anyone to see that I’ve got it out and even worse; that I’m sitting here texting on it, I turn toward the voice and shrug.

“Try again, Eric.”

Sometimes I forget just how easily Belle can see through me. I should have realized that a simple shrug wasn’t going to be enough for her.

“I got some good news.”

“Care to share?” she whispers as Ms. Taylor moves from her spot from behind the desk and starts making her way around the room.

We’re allowed to talk in here, it’s not like she would come over and stop us, especially since we’ve done the work she assigned and we’re just waiting for her to collect it and move onto something new, but it’s obvious that Belle, just like me wants to keep our conversation as private as possible.

Another reason I’m glad she’s my best friend.

“Not really.” I whisper back before again sliding the phone out of my pocket and staring at her words in front of me. I need to say something back. I can’t just leave her hanging.