Chapter Two

Upon entering sociology class, I spotted Ian, grinning ear to ear, a positively manic twinkle in his eyes. Crazy weird as Ian is the angriest person I know.

“Dude,” Ian said, practically salivating, “you ready for this?” More antsy than usual, his black-painted fingernails scratched at the desktop as he scooted up and down in his chair.

“Not really. I just want to get through the day. Like every other day.”

A crowd of one, I valued Ian Stapleton, the only holdover friend I had from grade school. We met in the fourth grade and immediately bonded over our many surprisingly similar interests: horror movies, comic books, Guitar Hero, Alternative Rock, and surviving school bullies. Last year, Ian self-diagnosed himself as manic-depressive—which I believe—but he refused to tell his parents or do anything about it. I think he considered it a cool type of suffering; the kind old movies used to project upon James Dean and that sort. Ian thrived on being different. He shined a great big spotlight on himself, wearing a big metaphorical “Kick Me” sign on his back, practically begging to be bullied. The typical “emo” kid, he wore the dark clothes, moped about with a down-turned head, and used gallons of product on his shaggy, black-dyed haircut. He hadn’t always been like this. In grade school, he looked like any other kid. But in our freshman year, he decided to go for a “makeover,” wanting to be the Great Misunderstood Emo Kid. And we all know how well that goes over with the jocks and bullies.

At first, the change kinda threw me. I couldn’t figure out why he did it. But after our first year in High School Hell, it made more sense to me. It was Ian’s—possibly misplaced—sense of preserving his individuality. After failing to fit into any of the school cliques—and we both tried drama, band, etc.—rejection gets old after a while. So he figured the hell with it. I’m not going to change to belong to any stupid group. I’ll just be myself. Of course, if he logically thought this through, he’d realize he did change for the very reason he didn’t want to change by reforming himself. But I thought maybe I’d wait a few years to clue him in on this.

The really weird thing, though, among myself, Olivia, and Josh, Ian has the most normal—some would say best—home-life. His parents are happily married. He has one older and one younger brother, who both stay out of trouble, get good grades, and are just “livin’ the dream.” There might be some unspoken envy in our little group of misfits, at times wishing we were in Ian’s black emo tennis shoes. Yet inexplicably, he’s always angry, if not at the injustices in school, then at how his family treats him.

I once saw Ian totally go off in his bedroom, after his mom told him to wash the dishes. He threw a chair across the cluttered room, destroying one of his Star Wars action figures, while making a sort of growling sound. Shortly after this, he bounded downstairs, washed the dishes, and we commenced playing Guitar Hero.

****

A quiet hush suffocated the classroom, occasionally broken by a sob from one of the cloned Clearwell Indians cheerleaders in the front row until Mr. Jensen entered the room. I refused to call him “Coach,” because he was no coach of mine. But as my homeroom and sociology teacher, and as far as coach/teacher hybrids go, he really wasn’t too bad. He sat down behind his too-small desk, his knees visible over the desktop.

“Does anyone want to start?” he asked, looking around the room solemnly. Aside from Ian’s sliding up and down in his chair, the students didn’t budge. “All right, then. You all know we’ve lost a much-loved student…to tragic circumstances.” Tired-looking, he shook his blustery red face slowly. “Matt Rimmer was a good student, a good football player…and a good kid whom I was glad to know.”

At this, Miss Nameless and Vapidly Pretty Cheerleader totally broke down, crying and moaning as if she were possessed by a soap opera diva. “Susie, would you like to go talk to Mr. Sherwood?” Clearly out of his element, Mr. Jensen couldn’t solve this with a few well-thought-out football plays. A couple of other girls leaped up, draped their arms around the hysterical Susie, and escorted her out of the room.

“Sudden death is…” started Mr. Jensen. He took his glasses off, wiping them and staring at the floor. A strategic ploy, I thought, to keep the students from realizing how helpless he felt. I couldn’t help but empathize with him.

I wanted to look over at Ian, but I could see out of the corner of my eye his wide smirk. Yeah, maybe it is time for him to look into a little medication.

The intercom buzzed. Mr. Jensen looked thankful for the disruption. Answering it, his back turned toward us, his head hung low, muttering “yes” a few times. His rounded, large shoulders, straining against a gray sweater, made him look like a giant tombstone. He turned around and locked a now-composed gaze on me. Uh-oh, I thought in a flash of panic, what’s wrong with Dad now?

“Tex, you’re wanted in Mr. Hastings’ office.” The only teacher who called me “Tex,” Mr. Jensen hung up the intercom.

Worried, I stood, a little thankful to exit the post-death-watch vigil scenario playing out in the room. But experience had taught me a visit to Hastings was never a good thing. Down the empty hallways, I stumbled, occasionally hearing an anguished howl or sob from one of the classrooms I passed. The beaten, gray lockers stood as silent as military guards as I felt like a prisoner strolling his last mile to the death chair. Dead Man Walking!

What could Hastings possibly want with me?

****

This would be my second visit with Arville Hastings since I started my incarceration at Clearwell High School. The first go-round happened last year, the inevitable capper to the hilarious hi-jinx that introduced many important players in the unfolding drama called My Life.

Late last April, during my final hour, gym class (which is a very special ring of hell unto its own), we were lined up on the gym floor. Like good dutiful little soldiers, we counted off our assigned numbers so Mr. Sowers, the gym teacher and basketball coach, could take attendance before deciding what sort of punishment to dole out.

The routine began. “One?” “Present!” “Two?” “Present!” “Three?” “Absent!” “Four?” “Present!” On it went, until we got to number sixteen, and silence filled the gym. A small, quiet kid with huge eyes and a mop-top haircut had the unfortunate luck to be number sixteen. I didn’t know Josh Berillo well then, had no idea what came over him, but he had forgotten his number. The punishment for forgetting one’s designated gym number is the entire class does twenty-five push-ups. Mr. Sowers licked his lips sadistically. In his exaggerated good ol’ boy fashion, he said, “Oh, by golly, fellas, it looks like number sixteen forgot his number! Drop and give me twenty-five.” He blew his whistle, groans went through the line, and down we went. Strike number one for poor little Josh Berillo.

That day’s sensitivity training class revolved around dodge ball, a particularly heinous form of torture, since we, the freshmen, had to go up against the older students from Mr. Jensen’s sophomore class. Josh, apparently, hadn’t learned the secret to successful dodge ball playing—stick your hands in the air, let an over-passing ball graze your fingertips, then with a disappointed look on your face, bellow, “I’m out, coach!” I watched from the sidelines as Josh became one of the last freshmen standing. I pitied Josh as the sophomores and juniors pummeled him with an onslaught of terror, showering a torrent of red rubber balls down upon his small body. Not only did he take a physical beating, he clearly drew attention to himself, with taunting names hurled about.

“Take that, Mole!” Mole had become Josh’s unfortunate nickname amongst the brutes and savages. I suppose he did resemble a mole, at least superficially. Josh always wore shirts too big for him, and they were usually fashion-challenged turtlenecks. With his small, mop-topped head barely rising above the collars, his large, wandering and scared eyes peering out, he became an instant, weaker target for the stronger animals in the menagerie. Strike number two for Josh.

After the fun ended came shower time. The perfect end to a perfect day. Josh and I belonged to the secret club of Those Who Would Prefer To Not Take Communal Showers. We all had our reasons. I was self-conscious about my body. My pubic hair hadn’t come in—hell, my voice hadn’t even changed yet—and I thought, it’s last hour, why can’t I just shower when I get home? I did everything possible to avoid the showers.

However, the sadists in charge deemed showers mandatory. If you couldn’t cleverly avoid them, you were forced to strip down, go by the “towel givers” and hit the communal stalls. The towel givers were always upperclassmen—handpicked by Jensen and Sowers, usually football and basketball players—who reveled in handing out insults and smacking us with towels. I guess their form of extra credit or whatever.

On that fateful day, a particularly evil couple of thugs comprised the towel givers. Bob Bellman, star football player and psychopath extraordinaire, was without a doubt the scariest person I’d ever met. Standing at over six feet tall, a blond buzz cut perched atop his completely black unibrow, making his cold gray eyes even scarier. Whenever he smiled, exposing his smoke-stained teeth, you knew trouble was headed your way. Notoriously whispered about by frightened students, Bellman had attained legendary school boogeyman status. His sadistic ways were well known, and only the most naïve, foolish, death-wish-seeking kids would stand up to him. One story had him nearly beating a freshman to death with his football helmet until three fellow footballers pulled him off. I didn’t know anything about Bellman’s personal life, and I really didn’t want to. Up until this point, I had successfully stayed out of his way and under his radar, and that suited me just fine.

Bellman’s faithful sidekick, the equally terrifying Johnny Malinowski, lorded it over us as the other towel giver that day. While Bellman had wide-open crazy eyes, forecasting his insane intentions to cause unwarranted pain and agony, Malinowski’s eyes were narrow slits. One could never predict his mindset. At times quiet, Malinowski could turn on a dime, flying into an inexplicable rage of bullying brutality.

I had had several encounters with this particular sociopath. From the first week of my freshman year, Malinowski had shoved me into a locker, tried to trip me several times (which I always saw coming, so just stepped over his outstretched foot—thus pissing him off more), punched me in the back, and called me various names, including the extremely charming “faggot.”

When it came time for Josh to walk the gauntlet between everyone’s favorite sociopaths, he held his hands cupped over his junk. Uh-oh, I thought, there’s strike three.

“Hey, Johnny, look at this one!” Bellman exposed his rotting teeth in a hideously greenish grin. “This fag ain’t got no junk!” He took a towel, rolled it up, and let it fly on Josh’s back. Whap! Josh stood stoically quiet, but his round eyes fairly screamed in terror.

“What a pussy,” said Malinowski, equally eloquently. “Let’s see if he’s got anything in the shower.” Whap! Whup! The bullies corralled Josh toward the large shower stall with their rolled-up towels, two drunken cowboys rounding up their herd. The majority of the boys quickly fled the locker room to avoid the drama, some with pained grimaces on their faces, others in sweaty panic. I’d been dithering around, still in my jockstrap, trying to figure out how to get out of a shower.

So far, I’ve always lived to see another day by adhering to what I call my Golden Rule. This simply is Survival 101. I learned it a long time ago in grade school. Keep a low profile, fly under the radar, don’t call attention to yourself, don’t get involved in the target practice of bullies, and maybe—just, maybe—you’ll live to see graduation. Josh apparently had been poorly educated, as no one taught him about dodgeball or the Golden Rule.

I pitied Josh, as I knew it could’ve just as easily been me in the showers because the Fates are a fickle bunch of bitches. But in the name of self-preservation, I knew I had to get the hell out of there.

I pulled my jeans on over my jockstrap, foregoing underwear. From the shower stall, Josh’s scream echoed through the mostly emptied locker room. Where in the hell are the coaches? Probably holed up in the attached office area, doing God knows what. Disregarding my self-preservation, I raced to the stall. Bellman had Josh pinned to the floor, one beefy leg on his back. He twisted the hot water knob, the steam gaining and rising. Josh screamed again—in his defense, I don’t think he ever cried or pleaded with them—and Malinowski embellished the torture with his whipping towel. Then Bellman cranked the hot water valve all the way.

Screw the Golden Rule! I ran to the coaches’ shuttered office window. I pounded on the windows, yelling for help. Mr. Jensen, wearing headphones, pulled the door open quickly.

“They’re killing him!”

Jensen threw the headphones into a corner. He raced down the locker room corridor ahead of me, toward the billowing steam and ever-rising screams.

“What in God’s name are you doing, Bellman?” Mr. Jensen’s voice shot through the stall like a bullet. For a big man, he moved fast. He shoved Bellman into the wall with a resounding thud. Bellman, obviously stunned, pulled back his arm, ready to land one on Mr. Jensen, until what little reigning sanity he had left must’ve finally, thankfully, taken over. He dropped his arm to his side, fist still curled. I ran in, turned off the hot water. I grimaced at Josh’s red back.

“Are you okay?” I later thought, what a stupid question. Of course, he wasn’t okay. Malinowski stood in the corner, grinning, waving his towel back and forth, a mad dog’s wagging tail.

“Tex, see if you can get him to the nurse,” ordered Mr. Jensen. “I hope to God she’s still here. If she’s not, call an ambulance.” Josh managed to get himself up on his feet. I put his arm around me, hobbled him into the locker room where he managed to pull his jeans on, and we walked once again by the Stall of Doom.

“Tex…” sneered Bellman. He spat on the ground, glowering at me as I walked by.

“Shut your mouth,” screamed Mr. Jensen. But it was too late. Now—like Josh—Bellman’s radar had pinpointed me.

****

In her office, the nurse seemed even crankier than usual. She examined Josh’s back, declaring first-degree burns (I would’ve gone second-degree, but, hey, I’m no cranky nurse) when the door rattled open.

Mrs. Carbody poked her pelican-like nose in and sniffed. “Mr. Hastings would like to see you boys now.” One of the front office paper-pushers, Mrs. Carbody prided herself on busting kids who faked letters of sickness from their parents. If you could get one by Mrs. Carbody, you had a nice future in forgery.

“Josh will have to stay for a bit,” said Nurse Cranky. “The other one’s all yours.” With a regal flourish of her hand, she dismissed me. I followed Mrs. Carbody down the now-empty hallway to the main office, where I took a seat by the front desk. Mrs. Carbody alternately peered at me over her glasses and shuffled papers. Her phone rang. She nodded several times before saying, “Right away, Mr. Hastings.”

Hasting’s door opened. The ugly, grinning Bellman, followed by the slithery Malinowski, and finally, Mr. Jensen, exited. Bellman spotted me. As soon as I registered in his psychotic brain, he raced toward me. But not fast enough. Mr. Jensen grabbed Bellman’s collar and redirected him toward the hallway door. “Go Home! Now!” After Jensen shoved them out the door, he came toward me, shaking his head back and forth. “I’m sorry… I’m sorry about your friend.” Clearly upset, maybe even a little ashamed, he shuffled out the door.

“Mr. Hastings will see you now,” said Mrs. Carbody. Yay, I thought.

I knocked on the daunting wooden door, wondering if it was specially installed per Arville Hastings’ wishes. Everyone knew about his notorious one-team task force in intimidation. The world’s biggest Clearwell Indians supporter, he’d go to great lengths to protect his sports boys. If you didn’t play football, you didn’t make it into Hastings’ football-focused tunnel vision. Rumor has it he’s even instrumental in recruiting promising players out of grade schools.

“Come in,” bellowed a Southern-tinged, husky voice. A big man already, Hastings’ favored cowboy boots made him even bigger. His hawk-like nose jutted out from his square head, ever ready to sniff out troublemakers. Frankenstein’s Monster from Texas. Yippie-ki-Arghhhh!

He stacked papers on his desk, ignoring me as I entered. Welcome to Intimidation Central.

“Why did you and the other boy…Josh…start a fight with the other fellas?” Finally, he looked up at me.

I couldn’t believe it, yet I shouldn’t have been surprised. “We didn’t! And I’d hardly call it a ‘fight.’”

“That’s not what the other fellas just told me. Why would they make something like that up?” Hastings still hadn’t offered me a seat, so there I stood, swinging in the wind, so to speak.

“They were burning him in the shower! I just ran to get Jensen’s help. What did Mr. Jensen say about it?”

He glared at me, unemotionally. Blink! I willed him. Blink! Do something!

“All right,” he said. “Well. Someone’s not telling the truth here.” And I bet I knew who he thought that was. “Detention next week for you and the Berillo boy. Dismissed.”

My first meeting with Arville Hastings came to a close as he looked down at his papers again. I thought about arguing with him but realized it’d be a wasted effort and may buy some extra detention time. So I left, slamming the door much too loudly.

****

So, in a haze, my mind filled with the worst possible outcome, I stumbled toward my second visit with Arville Hastings, with no idea why. I had several minor encounters with the local bully-pen since last year, but by no means could they be considered ‘fights’ even by Hastings’ limited definition. Deciding to bypass the scrutiny of Mrs. Carbody, I headed straight toward the imposing door. It pulled open before I could put my hand on the golden doorknob. Paul Jacobson, an amiable enough stoner, looked at me and said “Duudddde,” which was code-speak for what a crock of crap you’re in for.

Flanking Hastings on both sides stood two bald men, arms folded, a set of genie bookends. One I recognized as our figurehead of a principal, Bob Smithson. A quiet man, Smithson appeared to be afraid of the students over whom he presided. The only time anyone ever spotted him was when, once a month, he stood on the front steps of the school, greeting students whose names he never learned. Likewise, I’m sure most of the students wondered who in the hell he was.

“I understand you didn’t get along with Matt Rimmer,” said Hastings. I could see his desktop manner hadn’t improved since last year.

“Where’d you hear that?” I asked. “I didn’t even know him.”

“Someone said there’ve been names exchanged between the two of you in the past,” Hastings drawled. Principal Smithson shifted uncomfortably, itchy to escape and hide behind the doors of his mysterious office. “Care to explain that?”

What I cared to do was sit down because I felt the wind knocked out of me. “Well, he called me a few names in the past, but I pretty much kept my mouth shut and didn’t talk to him. As I said, I didn’t even know him. We didn’t exactly run in the same social circles or have sleepovers or whatever.” I gazed longingly at the chair in front of me, wondering if anyone had ever been invited to luxuriate in its brown plush comfort.

“Settle down, son,” said the other bald bookend. “We’re just gathering information and are questioning as many students as possible.” Meaning the students on Hastings’ “special list,” containing the names of “school troublemakers,” I’m sure. “I’m Detective Ryan Cowlings by the way, of the Clearwell Police Department.”

“Okay.” I nodded, wondering why Cowlings let Hastings run his investigation. I directed my full attention to Cowlings. “Look, I barely knew Matt, and I sure didn’t wish him dead. Even if I did, look at me. I’m one hundred ten pounds soaking wet. Do you really think I could jump a football player?” As soon as I said this, I wished I would have phrased that a little less…incriminatingly. Hastings sat up, looking as though he’d just extracted a confession. “Why aren’t you questioning the local psychopaths who’re capable of hurting people, like Bob Bellman or John Malinowski?”

Cowlings shot a look to Hastings. The hard-ass vice-principal narrowed his eyes and gave a shake of his square head, signifying this was a dead-end according to his expert profiling techniques. “Those boys were Matt’s friends…and teammates,” snapped Hastings. “I hardly think they’d do something like that.”

“But since Matt called me names, I’m your primary suspect?” I shot back. “Too much CSI for you,” I muttered under my breath.

“Hold on, hold on,” said Cowlings. “No one’s said anything about suspecting you of any wrong-doing. Richard, isn’t it? We just want to see if you’ve heard anything. When was the last time you saw Matt Rimmer?”

“I really don’t know. Maybe a week ago? In the hallway? I usually tried to avoid him and the rest of the Clearwell Indians. And, no, I haven’t heard anything.”

“Okay,” said Cowlings, proffering his hand toward me. “Here’s my card. If you think of anything unusual, or if you hear anything, please give me a call.”

Principal Smithson audibly sighed and leaned against the window, obviously glad to have another interrogation finished. The golf course beckoned.

I didn’t say anything. I didn’t want to say anything. The unbelievable absurdity was too much to grasp, and I didn’t know whether to laugh or to break down and cry. Either one could incriminate me. Hello, paranoia, old friend! One last glimpse of Hastings glaring at me under a furrowed brow was all the fuel I needed to propel me the hell out of there. Without a word, I left quickly, while feeling their stares burrowing into my back, trying to get a peek into my guilty soul.

****

While Ian, Josh, and I met for lunch down in the boiler room with Red, I still felt anxious. Ants in the pants anxious.

Red—one of the two school janitors (the other being Carl, an old cantankerous dinosaur of a man)—was cool enough to give the three of us a safe haven at lunchtime. I believe Red relished the company, as it gave him a chance to hold court and regale us with fascinating (fake, I wondered sometimes) stories of his sexual conquests, and how he had been the basketball star of Clearwell High School ten years ago until he blew his knee out.

We first met Red late last year under unusual circumstances. Ian and I were walking around one school night, bored, looking for something to do. Ian came up with the not-so-great idea to egg our school in a grand showing of anti-school anarchy. So, armed with eggs, we set out on our nocturnal mission.

Very few lights lit up the building as we propelled our poultry bombs onto the school walls, concentrating on the street side (for a fast getaway) where the gym sat next to the janitor’s lair. Whack! Splat!

I hurled my last egg onto the janitor’s serrated, pull-down metal garage door. It flew open with an awful grinding sound. A tall, lanky redheaded man in coveralls spotted me and gave chase. Incredibly, even with my one-hundred-foot head start, he caught up with me in no time. He grabbed me by the scruff of my neck and shook me thoroughly, dragging me back to the garage.

“Hey! Hey! Why the hell’d you do that?” He stared at the egg decoration and shoved me down onto a metal folding chair. After a long bout of fuming silence, he finally let his anger go and handed a bucket of water and rag to me. I shook in fear, hoping this wouldn’t turn into a huge “contact the parents” sort of ordeal. Anger also gnawed at me as Ian got away and left me to take the blame and hold the bucket, even though it had been his brilliant idea.

“Clean it up,” he ordered. He stood over me, watching while I mopped up the mess, like some giant red-haired prison orderly in a jumpsuit. “Why’d you do it? Why’d you egg the school?”

“I don’t know.” Which was the truth. But I didn’t think he’d buy “youthful shenanigans.”

“Do you go to some rival school or something?”

“No. No…I go here.” Not one of my more eloquent times.

“What? Why would you do that to your own school? Do you egg the house you live in?”

“No.” For a second, I thought how ridiculous it’d be to egg your own home. “I guess I just don’t like it here much…that’s all.”

Silently, the big red giant rubbed his chin. “Come down to the boiler room at lunch tomorrow,” he finally said. “And bring your partner in crime with you. Don’t worry. I’m not going to report this to your parents, or Hastings, or the cops.” He pushed me out into the cold, night air and shut the serrated garage door. “People call me Red,” he shouted as an afterthought.

It took a few weeks to get Ian to visit Red. Terrified Red would hand us over to the authorities for our act of random terrorism, Ian fought my invite. But when I told Ian that Red wanted to teach us self-defense, he finally relented.

Red had guessed the reason I hated school was bullying, so he offered to show us some boxing and karate moves. Of course, once he realized Ian and I had neither coordination nor muscle, he changed tack. “Come get me when you’re in trouble,” he sighed, giving up the good fight. “If I can’t teach you, then I can at least try and help you.” Eventually, Josh joined us in our safe lunch place, and soon bullying became a generally ignored topic. The subject matter covered became all about sex, Red’s glory days in basketball, cars, or how to fix things. It flowered into an education being acquired below the school in the boiler room, miles apart from what happened in the upstairs classrooms; and perhaps better, too.

****

Red enthralled the three of us with a wild tale about some girl he picked up in a bar the other night, when a loud, obscene litany of curses grew louder and closer. The banging, slapping sound of feet on the metal stairs and the spider-webbed, adorned black stockings told me who came visiting. Hurricane Olivia on a rampage.

Goddamned fascist sexual pig bitches is a more sanitized version of what Olivia yelled.

“O’, what’s going on?” I asked. “Why’re you down here?”

The three of us sat dumbfounded—Olivia never ventured to the boiler room. She thought it just a little too geeky even for us and gave us grief for lunching with one of the janitors. In all honesty, she was probably right about this, but we needed a guaranteed safe lunch place. For thirty glorious minutes per day, we didn’t fear bullies.

“Those bastards! Those pigs think just because I’m a girl, I’m not capable of killing someone! They didn’t even bother talking to me! Bitches!”

“Olivia, you’re the only one I can think of who’s mad because you’re not a murder suspect.” Thank God for Olivia’s bringing something funny to this solemn day.

Olivia looked positively pissed at our amusement, and it stoked her internal fires higher. “Oh, yeah! Real funny, dorks! Goddamn it! I’m just as dangerous as any of you geeks, and I can prove it! I know they talked to you, Tex, and to Ian, and probably even Josh, and they never considered me because they’re nothing but a stupid boys’ club of fascist, sexist pigs!” She paused long enough to take a look around and grimaced. “And it’s…really, really gross down here!”

I couldn’t deny the boiler room ruled in grotesquerie. Red had papered the brick walls with old pin-ups, leaving all sorts of female anatomy exposed. Crushed beer cans filled nooks and shelves. Fast food wrappers adorned the floor. Exactly what a high school boy’s bedroom would look like if not for the domineering designer tastes of parents.

Red tossed back his floppy mane of hair and said, “Well, hello there,” For a moment, I thought he looked like the golden, boyish basketball star he bragged about in his prime, even though his advances were wildly inappropriate in more ways than one. “They call me Red.”

Definitely not the way to Olivia’s heart. Her visible anger built as she huffed and puffed, for once at a loss for words. I braved myself for the terror we brought upon ourselves.

“And more sexist creeps,” she screamed. “Well, Red, I’d tell you to go get a room with your paper girlfriends, but you probably live here, and you’re a creep, and this crappy-ass school is nothing but a boys’ club, and I can murder someone, too, and I’ve had it with all of you.” She stormed up the stairs, still ranting, and I honestly have no idea how she managed the stairwell in her rage.

“Um, we’d better go see if she’ll be okay,” I said. Ian and Josh sheepishly agreed.

“Man, I hope one of you guys is hitting that.” Red grinned, master of the sensitive.

We looked at each other and chuckled nervously, neither manning up nor denying Red’s inquiry. And for a moment there, I noticed something odd that hadn’t struck me before. Did I resent Red’s crass come-on to Olivia, even just a little?