Stand Alone (2 page)

“I don’t want to hear excuses,” Mr. Johnson said primly, smoothing his jacket with both hands. “It’s not the first time that you’ve been late. You’re a big girl now, nearly an adult. You shouldn’t have to be told by someone else that it is time to get up. You can take the responsibility of getting yourself up on time.”

“I know. And I usually do,” Justine said earnestly. “It was just this one time. My alarm was set, but I was really tired
  
…”

“Then go to bed earlier,” he said, shaking his head and looking at her over the top of the rims.

Justine turned off her smile. She blinked her eyes rapidly and rolled them up toward the ceiling like she was fighting tears.

“I had to work
  
…
 
but
  
…
 
yes, Mr. Johnson.”

“You’re a smart girl,” Mr. Johnson said, his tone a bit more conciliatory now. “I don’t want to see you going down the slippery slope to drop out. You have promise. But you have to be here, and you have to be here on time. When you’re an adult, you’ll be expected to get yourself to work on time.”

“Yes, sir,” Justine agreed.

He looked at his hands, seemingly at a loss as to what to say next.

“Please work on it,” he said finally.

“Okay. I will.”

Mr. Johnson nodded briefly, and withdrew. Justine watched him walk away, retreating down the hall and around the corner.

“Old goat,” Justine muttered.

She closed the door on the locker and attached her lock, snapping it shut. Glancing at her phone again, she headed for her first period class. Now, later than ever. Mr. Johnson wanted her to get to class on time, but he kept her talking in the hallway when she should be running to get to class? What kind of sense did that make? Justine slipped into her classroom and glanced around. The teacher’s back was turned as she wrote on the board, and Justine tip-toed to her desk and sat down. When the teacher turned back around to continue the lecture, his eyes landed on her, and he studied her with a frown.

“Tardy, Miss Bywater.”

“Yes, sir,” Justine agreed, head down. “I already talked to Mr. Johnson about it.”

He was silent for a moment, then returned to his lecture. Justine let out her breath and opened up her books.

Lunchtime seemed to take forever to arrive, but finally the bell rang, and the crowds of students thronged the hall, talking and horsing around, hurrying back to their lockers and then out to lunch or down to the cafeteria to eat. Justine dumped her books in her locker and grabbed her board. She stood in line in the cafeteria, fidgeting with her board at her side. She was starving and impatient to get her food. There were a couple of girls that Justine knew standing behind her in line, and Justine could hear them discussing back and forth what to get. Both wanted big burritos, but didn’t have enough money to get them. She turned around and looked at them.

“I’ll get you the burritos,” she offered. “You want them?”

Macy and Darlene exchanged glances, and then looked at her.

“What?” Darlene questioned. “Are you talking to us?”

“Yeah. You want the burritos? I’ll buy them for you.”

Justine couldn’t stand the thought of someone going hungry.

“We don’t need you to buy things for us,” Macy assured her.

Justine shrugged and went on. She put three burritos on her tray, and a chocolate milk. If the girls were watching her choices, they didn’t have anything to say about it. At the till, Justine paid for the meals. Macy and Darlene checked out behind her. Justine turned around and presented the girls with a burrito each, putting them on the girls’ trays.

“Where did you get all the money?” Darlene challenged, staring pointedly at Justine’s worn, thrift store clothes.

“I won it,” Justine lied, “in a bet.”

Darlene rolled her eyes and shook her head.

“You did not.”

Justine shrugged.

“So, you wanted them, right? And I got them for you.”

Darlene nodded.

“You’re still not sitting with us,” Macy sneered.

Justine felt her face freeze into a mask. She bought them lunch, so they wouldn’t have to go hungry, and they were still going to act like she had the plague? They could eat her food, but they couldn’t sit at the same table as her?

“I’m not eating here anyway,” Justine said scathingly. “Why would I want to eat with you?”

Justine whirled around, and walked away. She disposed of her tray, taking just her own burrito and chocolate milk. She strode out of the cafeteria and out of the school. She was seething over the slight by the two girls. But why did she even care? It wasn’t like she even liked them. She didn’t care what anyone at school thought of her. She didn’t need to sit with anyone at school. She was a big girl, independent, tough. She didn’t need to sit with friends like a kindergartner. Justine put down her board and stepped on, and zipped quickly down the sidewalks. The air streamed by her face, her hair streamed behind her like a ribbon, and her heart pounded as she kicked the board faster. Those girls were nothing. Could they skate? Could they do anything but put on their morning makeup so heavy that they looked like hookers? Why would she want to have anything to do with them?

After a while, Justine slowed down. She continued to skate at a walking pace, eating her burrito. The big burritos were legendary at the school, and though they were well-wrapped in plastic, they were messy to eat. Even though Justine was careful, it leaked, and her semi-clean shirt was again stained. How did anyone eat those things without wearing it? What Justine wouldn’t have given to see Darlene and Macy trying to eat their burritos, neat and dainty, touching the corners of their mouths with their napkins. With their figures, she was amazed that they would consider eating those burritos anyway. A salad would be too fattening. A thought occurred to Justine. What if they had been talking just to see what her reaction would be? Maybe they didn’t actually want the burritos after all, they just wanted to see how she would react, if she would step in and make a fool of herself by buying them something they would never even consider eating. Justine felt her face flush, and her heart started to pound again, with anger instead of exertion. They had just been messing with her? They just wanted to see if she would spend her money on them? Waste it? Show interest in being friends with them so that they could make fun of her yet again? Justine was so angry that she slammed the last half of her burrito in a garbage can as she rode past. Her blood boiled.

She took a lap around the pond, blowing past the dog walkers and women pushing strollers. They gave her irritated looks, but no one told her that she had to stay out of the park. She went down one of her favorite hills, and did some half-hearted jumps. Then it was time to be back at school again. Justine returned to her locker before the bell rang, not wanting to get singled out for being tardy twice in the same day. She walked past Macy and Darlene, who whispered and giggled to each other, eying Justine as she walked past them.

In math, Megan turned around when Justine sat down. She gave Justine a friendly smile. Megan had short hair and round black-framed glasses that Justine thought made Megan look sort of like Velma on Scooby Doo. All she needed was an orange sweater.

“Hey, Justine.”

Justine nodded, not smiling back.

“Hey,” she acknowledged curtly, and opened her books.

“You okay?” Megan questioned.

“Fine, Why?”

“I dunno, you just look like you’re upset or something. I’m just asking.”

“Just leave me alone,” Justine growled. “I’m fine.”

Megan turned back around. Phillip was turned around in front of Megan, and said something to her. Megan shook her head and they put their heads together and talked quietly for a moment, both of them looking back at Justine during the conversation. Justine couldn’t hear what they were saying about her, but near the end of the conversation, she heard a name that stabbed her in the heart. ‘Christian’. Megan cast one more pitying glance at Justine and faced the front as the teacher started the class. Justine put her face down in her folded arms, closing her eyes, the painful memories washing over her. Her heart ached.

After school, Justine headed home to grab a snack. She was tired and stressed out and just felt like vegging in front of the TV with her favorite junk food. But as she skated up to the house, she saw that Em’s car was already parked out in front. She had gotten out of work early, or else brought her work home with her to continue to work on. Neither one boded well for Justine. There would be no time to herself to relax with Em home.

With a deep breath and a sigh, Justine opened the front door and clomped into the house. Em looked up from her papers spread over the kitchen table.

“Hi, sweetie,” she greeted cheerfully. “How was school today?”

Justine rolled her eyes and cut through the dining room into the kitchen.

“Just need something to eat,” she said.

“I already got something ready for you. I know how hungry you are when you get home from school.”

Justine looked at the plate of cut-up apples and glass of milk on the kitchen island.

“Seriously?” she breathed. What was she, five? She stuck her head into the fridge and looked around. Em had obviously already cleaned it out. The rest of the leftover pizza was gone. So was the mac and cheese Justine had made the previous day. Justine moved on to the cupboards, pushing around boxes of cereal and various dry goods. Em’s purge of the kitchen had failed to find a bag of chips that Justine had stashed. Justine pulled them out and unrolled the top of the bag to dig in. No pop or chocolate milk in the fridge. But Em wasn’t able to give up her daily cup of coffee, so that was still available, and Justine put a cup in to brew.

Em came into the kitchen a few minutes later, probably smelling the coffee, and looked at Justine eating her chips and drinking her espresso.

“Justine! We’re trying to eat healthy! You can’t have that!”

“I can have what I want,” Justine told her, cramming another handful of chips in her mouth, just in case Em decided to try to take them away from her.

“No, you can’t eat just whatever you want. It’s bad for your body, and it’s bad for your mood and for your brain. We agreed that we needed to start eating healthier, and to clean up all of this junk in your diet. Dr. Morton says
  
…”

“I never agreed to anything,” Justine cut in. “You and Dr. Morton decided all this, not me. I never agreed to give up my food and start eating salads and crap. And you can’t make me.”

“Healthy body, healthy mind,” Em lectured. “There have been studies that show that with nutritional and biomedical treatments, you can change the chemicals in the brain
  
…”

“I’m not a lab rat,” Justine snapped. “You can’t experiment on my brain!”

Em laughed.

“We want you to feel better. We want you to feel like you are safe, to be happy
  
…”

“You don’t make me feel safe by messing with my brain. I don’t
want
you to change my brain!”

Justine was sure that if Em could get Dr. Morton to agree with her, she’d be hooking up electrodes to Justine’s head.

“It’s not like we’re operating on you, or injecting you with noxious chemicals, or even trying more prescription drugs. We’re just talking about eating healthy, nourishing your body. Maybe when you were sick as a baby, your body and brain didn’t get everything they needed. Maybe with the trauma, the nutrients that were depleted when you were sick, maybe way back then, that changed things, so
  
…”

She trailed off. Justine stared at Em, deliberately crunching the chips. She washed them down with another swig of coffee.

“You can’t make me,” she repeated.

“If I only buy healthy food, and that’s all that’s around the house
  
…”

Justine filled her mouth with a large handful of chips and chewed them, her cheeks bulging. Em breathed out in frustration, and threw her hands up in disgust. She turned and walked out of the room. Justine nodded to herself and washed the lump of chips down.

“Don’t mess with my food,” she said to the silence of the room. “I’m not gonna let you starve me.”

Em left her in peace for a while, and Justine went up to her room to look at her homework. But then Em was there, opening her door suddenly without knocking and intruding on Justine’s sanctum. It made Justine jump, and the burst of adrenaline instantly made her angry.

“Get out of here!” Justine shouted, hurting her throat with the violence of the scream. “You can’t come in here like that! Dr. Morton said you have to respect my privacy!”

Em’s face was set grimly. Her lips were pressed together in a thin line, and Justine found herself glancing around for escape routes. Em was upset about something, and if Justine had somehow pushed her over the line
  
…

“Where is the money that was in my purse?” Em snapped out.

Justine forced herself to assume a casual, unworried attitude, lounging back on her bed and shrugging widely.

“I don’t know. Where is the money that was in your purse?” she questioned.

“You stole it from me. You went through my purse and you stole my money!”

Justine raised her brows.

“Why would I do something like that?”

“Because you’re an ungrateful sneak! I can’t believe that after all I have gone through to help you, to provide for you, to try to raise you and make you feel safe, you steal from me! Why, Justine?” she demanded, her voice screeching upward.

Justine winced at her rising tone.

“Seriously?” she said. “You’re going to get all over my back because you misplaced your money? Nice parenting, Em.”

“You stole it!”

“Prove it,” Justine said calmly, eyes wide and innocent.

Em stared at her, eyes bright with fury. Justine struggled to keep her anxiety from showing.

“I know you stole it, and you know you stole it. This isn’t a court. This isn’t about proof. This is about you violating my space and stealing my money.”

“Well, if you’re so sure I stole your money, what are you going to do about it?” Justine challenged.