Forget Me Not (13 page)

mobs of ants scurrying from

their holes. They walk right by us

like we’re not even there.

I know they can’t see me,

but nobody acknowledges

Elijah or Oscar, either.

A few minutes later, they come

back out of the cafeteria carrying

burgers and salads and chocolate milks.

They sit all around us but never look

in our direction.

“We’re our own little island,”

Elijah tells me,

“in a sea of wannabes,

princesses, and studs.”

“Does it ever bother you?”

I ask. He shrugs. “I’d rather

have one or two friends I know

I can depend on than a crowd of

sharks just waiting for the

scent of blood.”

I nod

because I know

popularity

isn’t what it seems to be.

So why can’t I picture

life without it?

They say people’s greatest fear

is public speaking.

I’ve got that one down.

My greatest fear

is disappearing.

But isn’t that

what will happen

if I go back to the hallway?

How long would it take

for folks to forget

I ever existed?

I’m surprised when someone sits

down next to Elijah, and I look up to see

my former best friend, Bri.

She shakes her head,

looks at the yellow tape

across the quad, and says,

“I miss Ally.”

I miss Bri too, and that surprises me,

after what she did to me.

“She’s not gone yet,” Elijah tells her.

Brianna shakes her head.

“She’ll never forgive me.”

I get up and go stand where I can look her in the eye.

“Why should I forgive you? You ruined my life.”

“I didn’t send that picture of her and Davis,”

she tells Elijah.

“Yeah, right. It came from your number.”

“I admit I took the picture,

but I never sent it to anybody.

Someone else must have done it.”

“Who?” asks Elijah skeptically.

“Somebody who’s at my house all the time.

Somebody who saw my cell lying around

and figured she’d get back

at both me and Ally.

The same person who sent the picture of her and Will.

I sure didn’t take that one.

It’s pretty sick to send it now,

after everything that’s happened.”

At the mention of Will, I feel my stomach

turning inside out.

Images flash across my memory.

Me with Will.

Darla with a camera.

“What picture of Will?” Elijah asks.

“It’s been going around school all day.

I thought you’d seen it?”

Elijah opens his phone, and there’s a picture

of me in the back of Will’s pickup.

His pants are down around his ankles,

and he’s lying on top of me.

Elijah looks up at me in

total disgust.

“I didn’t send any pictures,” Bri says.

But I don’t care anymore

who sent the pictures.

What I can’t stand is that look in

Elijah’s eyes, because now he knows

I really am a whore.

Now there’s no one left

to believe in me if I stay.

Or remember me

if I go.

I run through the crowd

just trying to get lost.

Every time a camera clicks,

somebody dies.

I hear Elijah following, but

I don’t dare turn around.

I can hear his footsteps,

but I can’t bear the sound.

’Cause if he catches up to me,

he’ll look me in the face.

And I’d rather disappear

without a whisper or a trace

than see the disappointment

in his eyes.

I dash behind the cafeteria

while Elijah gets stuck in the crowd

on the quad.

I see Will.

He’s selling dime bags

to the same freshmen

he was beating up last week,

taking their money

with the same hands

he used to unhook my bra.

When we arrived at his pickup,

the night of homecoming,

he got a bottle out of the glove box.

Then we sat on blankets he’d spread

in the truck bed and started doing shots.

I knew better than to mix pills

with booze, but I didn’t care, because

the pills had pretty much wiped out

any judgment I had left.

All I could think about was how awful

it felt to have Davis ignore me,

and how warm and wonderful it felt

to be drinking tequila by moonlight

with a varsity football player

who couldn’t keep his hands off me,

who kept saying over and over again,

“I want you, Ally.

I want you, Ally.

I want you, Ally.”

After a while

my body was burning and

the world was spinning

so fast I just needed something

to anchor me to the ground.

All I ever wanted was for

someone to want me.

Was that so much to ask?

So the next time Will said,

“I want you, Ally,”

I figured, what the hell,

and I whispered, “Okay.”

All of a sudden I was flat

on my back with the full weight

of him on top of me, my spine banging

against the metal ridges of the

pickup bed, with the blankets

providing little buffer.

He pushed up my dress and

pulled down his pants so fast

that we were already doing it

before I had a chance to ask

about condoms.

He smelled like sour fruit,

and I tried to scream out the word

“Stop!” but his tongue was too far

down my throat for me to say anything.

All of a sudden I was blinking,

because a camera flash

was going off in my eyes.

When I looked up, I saw Darla

standing next to Davis.

“I told you,” she said to him.

What? What had she told him,

I wanted to ask,

but I couldn’t string together

enough coherent words to speak.

For a long moment Davis just stood there,

looking at me in disgust,

as Will continued to heave

against me.

He never even slowed down.

Then Davis turned and ran away.

And all I wanted

was to disappear.

for the first few days after that,

except that Davis turned away

whenever he saw me.

And that was before

any pictures had been texted.

Then one day at lunch,

when we were all sitting

together, Darla said

to Megan, “Where’s Ally?”

“I’m right here,” I said.

“I don’t know,” said Megan.

“I haven’t seen her all day.”

“Very funny, Megan,” I said, poking

her in the ribs.

She didn’t even flinch.

Why were they pretending

I wasn’t there?

“Just as well,” said Darla.

“I really don’t like her

that much. What do you

see in her anyway?”

“To tell you the truth,” said Megan,

“I don’t really know.”

Was I dreaming? Was this

some kind of psycho

nightmare? I had to

pinch myself to make sure

I was awake.

“You have to be careful

about your reputation,” Darla

told her, “hanging around with a girl

like that.”

I ran to the bathroom

and splashed water on my face,

then I looked in the mirror

to make sure I was really there.

What was happening?

Was I really losing all my friends,

or my mind,

or both?

started ignoring me

after that,

treating me like

I didn’t exist.

Even Megan and the other freshmen

started whispering words

like
slut
and
whore

when I passed.

Friday night Darla changed

the dance routine and

“forgot” to tell me,

making me look like

an idiot in front of the

whole school

during the game.

Afterward

I found

ten packages of condoms

in my gym locker

with a note that said,

“Hope these get you

through the night.”

When Dad asked me why I was crying,

I told him I wanted to quit.

He said,

“There is no
I

in ‘TEAM.’”

Oh, Dad.

Don’t you know?

There

is no

I

anywhere.

I went to stay with Brianna.

She was the only person

who was still talking to me.

Plus I was

hoping for a chance

to explain things to Davis.

I didn’t love Will.

I didn’t even like him.

What happened was a mistake.

A drug-induced nightmare.

While I waited for Davis to get home,

I tried time after time to start

a conversation with Bri.

But she just sat there

watching some stupid documentary

on whaling that she’d ordered from Netflix.

We finally went to bed around eleven

in silence.

At midnight I snuck into

Davis’s room.

He wasn’t there.

I went back at one

two

three

No Davis.

When I returned I found Brianna

sitting up in bed.

“You’re not my friend,” she said.

“And I don’t want you coming over anymore.

The only reason you’re here is because

you want to screw my brother.”

Her words lay between us like a wall of glass.

Mostly because they were true.

the next Monday,

half the class giggled

and the other half looked away in disgust.

They were huddled around Megan.

My phone started to buzz.

I opened it to see the words

NEW PIX MESSAGE

It was from Brianna’s

number.

I reluctantly pressed Open,

and a picture of me,

bare-chested, lying next to Davis,

flashed on the screen—

only you couldn’t tell it was him

because at the last minute he had

covered his face with his arm.

My heart skipped a beat.

I wondered why

she was sending it then,

after all those weeks had passed.

Now I wonder

if she sent it at all.

“The Twins are looking healthy,”

said a boy in the back row,

and the whole class started laughing.

At that moment I wanted

to be invisible.

They all held up their cell phones

like they were at a rock

concert, and pictures of me

filled the room.

“Where are you going?”

Mr. Jones asked

as I tried to run out of the room.

“The bathroom,” I told him.

“Oh no, you don’t.

You know the rules.

No passes for the first

ten minutes of class.”

I cowered

in my seat

while voices

behind me giggled.

Sat watching

the clock until

the ten minutes

was up, and I swear,

time stopped.

And when it did,

a little voice

in my head

whispered,

You’d be better off dead.

In less than a minute

I was gone.

Whoever I was before

that moment disappeared.

Sometimes I can’t even

recall who she was.

The girl who wanted to

light up the stage.

The girl who would stand

up in front of class

and make her classmates laugh

with her spoofs of Poe.

Sure, they were all laughing,

but they were calling me “ho.”

I got a text from Cricket,

an old middle school friend.

I looked at my photo and cringed.

WTF. IS THIS REALLY YOU, ALLY?

DID U KNOW THERE’S A WEB POLL WITH THIS ON IT

CALLED PICK YOUR FAVORITE TWIN?

Cricket was going to a

high school ten miles away

in another town.

That’s when I knew

there was no place to hide,

there never would be.

I was going down,

and there was

No. Way. Out.

because I can’t stand to be at school

and I don’t know where else to go.

I lost Elijah on the quad,