Cheated (3 page)

I hated whoever made up my school schedule, putting Project Physics first hour. Project Physics was one of the many code words at Creek for “no-college kids.” I knew that Whitney and her group were two doors down in real physics, while Nicole and a select few took honors physics. Their futures burned bright, while I toiled away in darkness.

The worst part of first period was my second glimpse of Roxanne. She sat on the other side of the room, so short that I could barely see her on the stool. She wore black mascara, dark brown lipstick, and two big silver hoop earrings. Her tight black Snoop Dogg T-shirt showed off her stomach, and her eyes showered me in shame. I paid little attention to Mr. Gates as he rambled on about the project before us, because I couldn't get my mind off the past or my eyes off Roxanne. I laughed when Mr. Gates reminded us not to put our hands in the fire when we used the Bunsen burners. I glared at Roxanne and knew it was a “been there, done that” moment.

It was at a pool party at Rex Wallace's house over Labor Day. The partygoers were mainly football players, and they'd all signed Words of Honor, a pledge not to drink or do drugs. They were mostly older kids, but since Brody made varsity as a tenth-grader, he was invited. And where Brody went, I followed. Aaron was busy with his mom and step-dad, while Nicole and her family were camping in Canada.
She'd only be gone a few days but I missed her badly, and for once couldn't wait for school to start so I could see her every day. Brody kept pushing me for details about Nicole as we walked over to the party, but I stayed quiet since I didn't have much to tell. I desperately loved Nicole, but she wouldn't let me show it beyond kissing. At the party, Brody was thirsty and I was hungry for Nicole. With an empty stomach and a troubled mind I created the chemical compound that exploded my life.

Brody had lifted a bottle of rum from Rex's parent's liquor cabinet, and the two of us took off, which was fine since I didn't know many people at the party anyway. We went into the woods behind Rex's house only to find Roxanne and other WindGate girls getting high. Even though Brody and I barely knew them, they invited us to party with them. Brody declined, but dared me to partake. When Roxanne passed me the joint, her tiny fingers set off odd reactions in me. I wanted to ask Roxanne:
Why are you here? You're not a prep or a cheerleader. You're not dating a football player. You're in with the wrong crowd, like me
.

After a while, the other girls and Brody headed back to the party, while Roxanne and I stayed behind. She took off her jacket, put it down on the brown dirt and patches of grass, then lowered herself onto it. I took one look at Roxanne's wet inviting mouth and knew I should run away. Instead, I let her pull me down and lay on the cold ground next to her. But the cold earth didn't sober me up. Mom had beaten me up since day one about drugs, yet I'd betrayed her because it was so easy and available. All those endless
lectures, all those DARE classes at school, and now all those words meant nothing.

I looked into Roxanne's mascara-heavy eyes, then glanced back toward the party. I thought about those confident football players, and I knew I didn't belong. I didn't even deserve to be with Nicole, she was too good for me. No, I really belonged with the other losers, like Roxanne. She pushed up against me and whispered something into my ear about scoring. As we kissed, she held on to me, but not around the shoulders; she put her hands on my belt. Her tongue tickled my ear while her fingers unbuckled my belt. The summer breeze washed over my face as Roxanne pushed my pants down just far enough. My feet remained perfectly still and my left arm wrapped around Roxanne; my right arm was useless as Roxanne's tiny hand took control. For that second, our eyes met, but no words were exchanged. It was just Roxanne's crooked smile and my heavy breathing. When it was over, I pulled up my pants but remained on the cold ground stunned as if I'd been struck by skin-burning lightning.

In Project Physics that morning, thinking about the past, I was angry at Roxanne for stumbling into my path. But she wasn't the only target of my anger. I hated whatever person told Nicole, but the heat didn't belong there either. I guess I hated Brody for putting the rum in my hand and the evening in motion. Even through smudged safety glasses, I could see that the red-hot fury really belonged in one place and one place alone. I ignored Mr. Gates shouting out my name as I put my hand over the small Bunsen burner, giving my pain badly needed, if only temporary, release.

Did you know that not all blood is red?

On TV, it looks crimson, like our school colors. Bright. Vivid. Or maybe that's just the color of blood from the living, not from the dead. We checked his pulse and there was none, so the heart didn't pump the blood, it just oozed out of him. Gravity took over as the almost purple liquid dripped out of the deep wounds in the dead body drop by drop. We were there when he made the transition from person to corpse. The blood mixed with the brown dirt and the yellow and red leaves, like a box of dark-colored Crayolas melting in the sun. That must be the color of a rainbow in hell
.

My quick trip to the school nurse and around the truth of my not-so-accidental accident made me late for math, which was my best subject. I handed the pass to Mrs. Webster hoping she wouldn't notice the bandage on my hand, and walked to my seat slowly, trying in vain to make eye contact with Whitney. But the numbers on the board were more important to her than my sad smile. I wanted to stop at her desk and whisper,
Whitney, please save me from myself
. Instead, I went straight to my seat next to Aaron. Aaron shot me a half smile, readjusted his glasses, then tugged on his blond hair as he focused his bloodshot eyes on the blackboard.

Up on the board, Mrs. Webster was drawing various triangles. I didn't need math to see three-sided shapes: me, Brody, and Aaron; me, Mom, and ex-Dad. Only the girls I thought about had more than three sides—from Whitney, who I lusted after, to Nicole, who I yearned for; from Roxanne, who I was angry at, to Cell Phone Girl, who I was curious about. Girls in my world weren't a triangle, a circle, or a square; they were an infinite plane. But everywhere else, I saw triangles. Go to church and talk about the Trinity. Study government and learn about the three branches. There might be two sides to every story, but it took three sides to make that story interesting.

Of them all, it was the triangle of Brody, Aaron, and me that was strongest. We shared more than poker, jokes, and
rum; we were all abandoned sons. One of the first things Brody and I learned about Aaron was how he almost died in the same car accident that took his father's life. Brody and Aaron miss the joy of having their dads around. Even if ex-Dad only saw me every other weekend, he took full advantage of that time by bossing me around and telling me how to behave, to stay away from Brody, and to teach me life lessons, like how to be smart with money.

Ex-Dad has this crazy thing about money. He's a fanatic about always counting the change and keeping the books. When I visit him, he lets me earn money doing chores around the apartment, but then he brings out “the book.” The book is a small black accounting ledger and part of the deal. Ex-Dad pays me for my work, but I need to record the money I get and show him, down to the last penny and including receipts, how I spend it. When I was younger, it was easy to do since I'd spend my money on stuff ex-Dad approved of. By high school, I had to make up lies and get money from Aaron to buy stuff “off the book.” I'd learned in social studies how big companies did stuff like that all the time, cheating people out of millions of dollars by faking their own books, so it didn't seem like such a big deal.

I tried to concentrate on the problems on the board, but Whitney's perfect shape was only three desks away. I couldn't see her face, just the blond hair stretching down her back. I imagined that hair swaying to music, the music of the homecoming dance. I could imagine the whole scene now. I'd have Mom drive us to the dance; I would see the pride in her eyes as she said, “
Whitney, a pleasure to meet
you
. But more than that, I could imagine Nicole coming up to me during the dance, saying,
Mick, I forgive you; let's get back together
.

“Aaron, I need a favor,” I whispered as I tapped my pencil against his desk.

“Name it,” Aaron replied. His attention wasn't on me or the blackboard but on the
Electronic Gaming Monthly
magazine stuffed inside his math book.

“Can you loan me sixty bucks?” I asked, half ashamed, half anxious with anticipation. I was talking to Aaron, but staring at Whitney. Even when her best friend, Shelby, caught me staring and shot me a dirty look, I still couldn't look away from Whitney.

“Sure,” Aaron answered, as he always did. Brody and I liked Aaron, and welcomed him in as our friend, but the truth was, he also bought his way in. Aaron's new stepdad used money as buddy barter; it seemed to be a lesson Aaron practiced himself.

“Thanks, I owe you,” I said out of habit since I never paid him back in cash.

“What's wrong with your hand?” Aaron asked, as his fingers nervously twisted his longish blond hair. I'd seen Aaron pull out long strands by accident. “You get in another fight?”

I laughed, but managed to avoid capture by Mrs. Webster's glare. “No, an accident.”

“What's it for?” Aaron asked as he reached for his wallet. “Just curious, doesn't matter.”

“Homecoming tickets for me and Whitney,” I whispered as I waited for three twenties.

“Whitney?” Aaron knew all about my lust life, but he rarely reciprocated by sharing details with Brody and me about his long-distance girlfriend, Debbie. “You're not getting back with Nicole?”

“Nicole's dead to me,” I said overdramatically, like I was trying to convince myself.

“We'll drink to another death then,” Aaron said with a wink, then turned to face Mrs. Webster after handing me the bills. She was discussing a proof, but all I could think about was the proof of the rum we'd drink later that night.

Have you ever been drunk?

It sounds better than it feels. The big thing in junior high was to brag about getting drunk. It was like a badge of honor not only to get drunk but to make sure everybody knew about it. I noticed most people told stories about getting drunk with cousins at parties, or while camping, all stories that were probably just lies. You do that a lot in junior high, lie about stupid small stuff, lie to impress people, lie to escape punishment from your parents. And lie just because you can. I never lied to Mom about being drunk, because she never asked, and she never noticed. Except for a few times here and there, it wasn't something Brody and I did a lot, maybe because his father was a drunk. Aaron was the one who kind of pushed us to do it with him, which was funny because he normally did what we wanted. But freshman year he told us that his sister would buy booze for us, if we gave her some money, and we could use her trailer to drink. We tried beer, Jack Daniels, lots of stuff. But Brody was the big one for Bacardi, so in tenth grade that was all we drank. Unlike other people, though, we didn't brag about it outside of our circle. It was our secret, but as Brody and I found out that night, it wasn't the only secret that Aaron was keeping. Keeping secrets is a lot like getting drunk: it makes you feel good at first, but in the long run, it just eats away at your life
.

I bolted out of my seat at the back of the room and got to the door in record time as the second period bell rang, but I couldn't get the words out of my mouth. When Whitney walked past me, her books cradled where I longed to put my head, I couldn't say,
Whitney, would you come to homecoming with me?
My tongue tied up in my mouth, and sweat rolled down my forehead in the overheated hall. Unable to speak in English, I took a deep breath, and hurried to Spanish.

Ten minutes into the class, my head was down on the desk, one ear open in case Mr. Rice called on me, one eye open on ex-friend Garrett in case he finally wanted to settle his debt.

It all went down, the fight and our friendship, a few days after the end of our freshman year. We were out back behind Garrett's house. Brody had Aaron gather some kindling, while Garrett and I dug a pit. It took just one flick from Brody's bone white lighter to start the fire. Everybody was in a bad mood because Aaron didn't get us anything to drink. I was surprised to even be there since I'd noticed a change in Garrett. While we all went our separate ways after school—Brody to sports, Aaron to his Xbox, Garrett to student council stuff, and me to my house to watch TV or listen to music—we'd remained tight. But by the end of the year, Garrett started dressing nicer, talking a little less trash, and hanging out
with us a lot less. So, it was cool that Garrett wanted to hang with us again.

We started talking about the only thing that mattered: girls at school. Garrett started the conversation and suggested we name names of different girls at school who we'd want to hook-up with. Brody jumped right in and went first. He surprised us by naming Cell Phone Girl. I guessed Brody wanted to figure her out as much as I do. Aaron went next, naming Debbie, the never-seen girlfriend from Detroit. But we pressed him to name someone that the rest of us knew, so he offered up the name of Terri White, who was Nicole's best friend.

It came to my turn, but before I could even answer, all three shouted Nicole's name. They enjoyed watching my face turn scarlet in embarrassment, but saw it change to red-hot anger when Garrett said, “If Nicole was my girlfriend, I'd do it with her until my dick fell off.”

“Well, at least I have a girlfriend,” I shouted at Garrett. He didn't need to know Nicole and I hadn't done anything, nor ever would, thanks to her “purity pledge.”