Page 67 of Reckless At Raleigh High
“Dude! I’d never mock you for wanting to show Silver a good time. I think it’s highly commendable that you wanna take her to prom. I was thinking about asking our lovely Billie Halliday to go with me, for your information.”
“I don’t think Halliday’d be stoked about your using her stripper name outside of the Rock, man.”
“Duly noted. Duly noted. You’re completely right. That wasn’t cool. I take it back.” Zander spins to avoid a gaggle of freshmen girls who are loitering at the bottom of the stairwell, staring at us with eyes the size of saucers. “If I was about to admit that I’d accidentally overheard your conversation—”
“You were eavesdropping, Hawk.” I thunder up the stairs.
“If I was about to admit that I waseavesdroppingon your conversation with Silver, then the whole prom invitation would hardly be the most surprising element of whatever I had or hadn’t overheard, now, would it?” Zander muses.
I pause mid-step, turning around to face him. Suddenly, I realize why he’s following me like a lost fucking dog. He heard our conversation. He overheard all of it.
Fuck.
Zander grins, slapping me on the shoulder. “I’d say congratulations, but from what I’ve seen of the holy order of matrimony,commiserationsmight be more appropriate. Still, what the hell. I say go for it. Follow your hearts and your hormones and all that other weird shit. Now…have you thought about dates? Venues? Themes? I’m gonna need as much information as possible.”
Horror courses through every inch of my body. This…this is a fucking nightmare. No one was supposed to know about this. Not yet anyway. And especially notZander. “Why the hell would you need as much information as possible?” I ask in a worried tone. Worried, because I already know the answer…
A broad smile splits his face apart. “Well, how the hell am I supposed to perform my duties as best man if I’m left out of the loop?”
36
SILVER
It’s tough to concentrate in History. I mentally cycle through my wardrobe, weighing the pros and cons of every single dress I own before coming to the conclusion that I need to buy something new for the occasion.
A year ago, I wouldn’t have bothered panicking over my clothing options. It would have been a futile exercise. Kacey would have monopolized all the sirens’ time, making us give her feedback on the dresses she picked out for herself. Once she’d selected the perfect little number that hugged her curves and emphasized her tits, she’d have picked out our dresses for the rest of us—dresses that were still nice and still worked well for our body types, but that were also not quite right somehow. A little too long, or a little too tight, or a little too gaudy. It was our job as Kacey’s minions to make sure our shortcomings highlighted just how perfect she was by comparison. With Kacey now gone, the knowledge that I can wear whatever the fuck I want is a dizzying breath of fresh air.
Class ends, and I’m still floating in a daze as I traipse out into the hallway. I’m so distracted by prom plans that I don’t register what I’m seeing for a second. It’s the awkward silence that’s pressing down on the hallway that initially brings me back into myself, and then it’s the weird way that all of the other kids in the hallway are all looking in the same direction, their bodies angled toward the same focal point.
Next to the door that leads to Raleigh’s south exit, Zen MacReady stands, staring down at her feet, clutching a folder to her chest; it looks like she’s trying to use the binder as some sort of shield to fend off the incredulous, suspicious glares of her former subjects.
Once upon a time, you could spot Zen a mile away by her hair. Either in a teased-out afro, or braids, or some wild, outlandish color, Zen’s hair always made her stand out from the crowd. Courtesy of the cat fight she had with Rose Jimenez outside the front of school, her hair’s all gone now, though. The red beret she’s wearing obviously covers the top of her head, but it can’t hide the shaved sides of her head.
Timidly, she pushes away from the wall, navigating a pathway through the frozen forms of our classmates, her eyes diligently glued to the floor.
“Bitch,” someone hisses under their breath. A male voice. A voice filled with malevolence.
“Whore.”
“Lyingcunt.”
A wall of heat rises from the pit of my belly. It begins as a small flame of anger, licking at my insides, but quickly my temper fans that flame and it becomes a roaring inferno, raging through every part of me.
This shouldnotbe allowed to stand.
Day after day, I endured this kind of treatment, and nobody did anything about it. Just like they are now, the guys and girls I grew up with stood by and observed as I was humiliated and publicly shamed. Well, I won’t stand amongst them. Not today. Not ever.
Quickly, I break through the forming crowd and slip my arm through Zen’s. Her automatic response is to flinches at the contact. When she looks up and sees who’s dared to take her by the arm, however, her fear subsides.
“Silver. You don’t—I don’t expect you to—” She gropes for the right words, but I already know perfectly well what she wants to say to me.
“I know. I don’t have to stand up for you. I shouldn’t have to, either. I reckon I’ve been dealt enough abuse to last a lifetime. But that’s the whole point, isn’t it?No oneshould have to deal with this shit. And what kind of hypocrite would I be if I stood by and let these assholes do this to someone else?”
Zen gives me a weak, broken smile. She’s sorry. I know she’s sorrier than she’s ever been before in her life. Now that she’s experienced just how foul this kind of treatment tastes, she knows what it must have been like for me to endure it day after day, week after week, and she doesn’t like it one little bit. “I wanna be invisible,” she whispers, so softly only I can hear her. “I just want to be no one. I just want…todisappear.”
How many times did I say that exact same thing to myself? I couldn’t count that high if I tried. It was all I repeated to myself inside my head for months. That desperate wish seared itself into my very soul. I smile sadly as I take a deep breath and begin to guide Zen down the hallway. “If you become a ghost, they win,” I tell her. “If you make yourself small for them, it’ll never be enough. They’ll demand that you make yourself smaller and smaller still, and they’ll cheer you on as you do it. You can’t hand over victory to them like that. You have to raise your head, lift your jaw, look them in the eyes, and tell themno, Zen.”
“I did tell them no.” Zen’s voice breaks. She’s referring to Jake, Sam and Cillian, and the night they assaulted her on the concrete beside the Weaving’s family swimming pool. The cops showed me the photos of Zen trying to fight the boys off when I was in the hospital. I witnessed the fear on her face; I saw how hard she was trying to fight them off. She probably screamedno! stop!until her throat was raw and bleeding. Her panic must have excited Jacob and his monstrous friends to the point of frenzied madness.
