Gabrielle's Bully (Young Adult Romance) (20 page)

I started to cry. “Poor Heath, poor Gaby, poor both of us.”

“How can you do it?” she asked. “You love him so much.”

She wasn’t helping, she was only making me feel worse. “Thanks for cheering me up, Barb,” I said, seeing the humor of it even in this situation.

“Well, what’s your plan?” she asked. “To stay out of school for the rest of your life?”

“I’ll be back on Monday.”

“What are you going to do when you see him?”

“I don’t know! Do you think I have all this mapped out? I don’t know what I’m doing.”

“That’s obvious.”

“Oh, shut up.”

“Fine, fine, get mad. That will be a big help. All I’m saying is that if you let him get away, you’ll be regretting it when you’re eighty years old.”

“I’m regretting it right now,” I said in a small voice.

Barbara sighed and produced a thermometer from her pocket. “Your mother asked me to take your temperature,” she said.

“Barbara, don’t be ridiculous. You know I’m not sick.”

“I told her I would do it, and I will,” she said stubbornly, jamming it between my teeth.

I yanked it out. “Just tell her it’s normal. That’s no lie. It’s been normal for three days.”

She slid off the bed and took the thermometer from my hand. “I’ll bring this back downstairs. I hope you’re in a better mood when I return.”

There wasn’t much chance of that.

* * *

I spent a miserable weekend moping around the house, and was a bundle of nerves by the time Monday morning rolled around. I sat through my morning classes without hearing a thing, and walked to trig in a fog of apprehension.

I was in my seat when Heath walked in. He looked over at me, his green eyes intent, and paused for a second, then walked on and took his place. I felt the ache of tears in my throat at the very sight of him. He looked so good, his neat, quiet self, and I missed him more than I could bear.

Mackley gave his usual boring lecture, and I ignored it, doing the homework assignment for the next night. I was flipping through the book, looking up logarithms, when I heard my name. I raised my head to see him standing over me. I sighed with resignation.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Mackley, I didn’t hear what you said.”

“How could you, Miss Dexter? You were, I believe, fully occupied with tomorrow’s work. Trying to get a little jump on the rest of us?”

There were a few snickers around the room. Everybody did what I was doing, otherwise Mackley put you in a coma, but I had been dumb enough to get caught.

“Since you obviously don’t need to hear today’s lecture, perhaps you’d like to give it for us. Anyone as far ahead of the rest of the class as you are should be able to instruct all of us.”

The old creep. I hated him so much in that moment I wanted to punch him.

“I don’t think so, Mr. Mackley,” I answered, trying to keep my voice even.

“But why not? A mathematical wizard like yourself should be able to handle it with no problem.”

Everybody was staring at me, including Heath, who looked like he was going to punch Mr. Mackley if I didn’t. I saw that Mackley was not going to let me off the hook. He had a mean streak, and nothing brought it out more than the evidence that his students didn’t need him to learn trigonometry. We were all teaching ourselves in there, and he knew it. I was going to be the sacrificial lamb on the altar of his pride. Forget it.

I got out of my seat and walked to the front of the room as if I were going to take over the class, as he wanted. But I kept moving, marching straight for the door.

“Where are you going?” Mackley demanded.

“To see my guidance counselor,” I responded, not missing a step.

“Just a minute, young lady,” he began.

I turned to face him on the threshold. “Read the student handbook, Mr. Mackley,” I said, thanking God that I had. “Any student who feels that he or she is being unfairly treated, and wishes to see his or her counselor, is to be dismissed immediately. Or words to that effect. It’s not only a regulation, it’s the law in this state. If I were you, I’d let me go.”

“All right!” Heath yelled, applauding. Several others clapped too, and Barbara whistled. Even Jeff grinned and made a circle of his thumb and forefinger. It was his first day back.

I didn’t wait for Mackley to recover and think of something else. He had whirled to silence the class, and I made my escape, fleeing into the hall.

I wasn’t half as brave as I sounded. My knees were weak, and I turned into the library and sat in the first available seat, getting my wits together. I would have to go directly to see Mrs. Lindstrom. Mackley would check. He wasn’t going to take this lying down. I had bested him in front of a class full of students. I would hear from him again.

I got up and went to the guidance office. Mrs. Lindstrom was busy, so I took a seat and waited until she was free.

“Gabrielle,” she said, smiling, “what can I do for you?”

I told her exactly what had happened, and the reason why I was seeing her. “I want a transfer to another trig class,” I said.

“You should not have been doing your homework during the lecture,” she said firmly.

“I know that,” I answered. “But that’s not the point. He’ll take it out on me now, you know he will. He’ll be on my back every day, he’ll skimp on my grades, he’ll give me a hard time in any way he can.”

Mrs. Lindstrom said nothing. She knew exactly what I was talking about. Mackley was everybody’s problem and his vindictiveness was hardly a secret.

“It will be difficult,” she said. “The semester has already begun, and each class moves at a different pace.”

“I can adjust, you know I’m a good student. Mrs. Lindstrom, I’ve been here three years and I’ve never asked for one change, but you have to help me with this. I need trig if I want to go to college, and I can’t take a chance on Mr. Mackley.”

“Your parents will have to be involved,” she warned. “We can’t make a change of this nature without contacting them and getting their approval.”

“My mother used to be a teacher, Mrs. Lindstrom. She knows as well as anybody that these conflicts can arise.”

“All right, Gabrielle. I will work on it. But I don’t want you to construe my agreeing to this as an acceptance of your opinion of Mr. Mackley.”

She was nice. She would help me, but she didn’t want to stab old Mackley in the back.

“Mr. Mackley really knows his stuff,” I said in a placating tone, since I was getting my way. “He’s an expert in the field, and has the book down pat. I know that.” This was perfectly true, but it was also true that he couldn’t teach it to anybody else.

She nodded, satisfied. She said she would call my mother soon.

When I got out to the reception area, my books and purse were sitting on the secretary’s desk. She waved me over to them.

“A young man brought these in and left them for you,” she told me. “He said you forgot them in your last class.”

Oh, Heath. Who would ever again care about me the way that he did? I picked up my things and went to lunch.

* * *

This was the one day a week that I had lunch at the same time Heath did. I couldn’t help looking for him as I waited in line and then sat with some girls from my gym class. Barbara had art this period.

I had finished eating and was walking out when I spotted him at a table with a bunch of other seniors. He was sitting next to Vicki Stanfield, and she was very interested in what he was saying.

Well, it certainly seemed that Vicki had taken advantage of my absence to move in on her quarry. I went to the girls’ room and burst into tears in front of two astonished sophomores, who clearly thought I was one step away from the funny farm.

They weren’t far wrong. It had been quite a day.

* * *

I had practice after school and I was useless. My feet were leaden, and I kept stumbling and crashing into the ball when I was dribbling, the way children do when they’re first learning how to play. Wonderful. I was regressing. I figured I’d be at about third grade level by the time I got home.

Mrs. Collier picked us up and dropped me off at four-thirty.

“Do you see what I see?” Barb asked as we came in sight of my house.

Heath’s car was parked in front of it. My heart began to pound and I could feel my mouth drying out like a riverbed in August. I was not ready for this. Not after today.

“Courage,” Barbara said, as I slammed the door.

I walked slowly up the path, trying to figure this out with my numb and atrophied brain. Why was he here without me? If he had come to see me, why had he chosen a time when he knew I had practice?

I went through the door and on into the kitchen. Heath and my mother were sitting at the table, having tea. Very cozy they looked, too, all chatty and companionable. I groaned inwardly. What, oh what, was this?

“Hello, Gaby,” my mother said calmly, as if she had tea parties with my boyfriends every day. “Heath called this afternoon, and he asked if he could come over and talk to me. We’ve just been discussing your problem, which has been bothering him very much.”

My problem? Our
problem
! I turned scarlet, mortified. He hadn’t told my mother about
that
!

But he had. I couldn’t look my mother in the eye.

She got up from the table and walked into the living room. “May I speak to you for a second?” she said to me.

I followed as slowly as possible. I didn’t dare to think about what she might say.

“I want you to give that boy a chance,” she said to me fiercely. “He really cares about you. He came over here and humbled himself, talking to me in a way that was not easy for him, because you wouldn’t listen to him and it was the only way he could think of to get through to you.”

I stared at her. This was the same woman who had been ready to write Heath off as a loser because she thought his father was the playboy of the western world.

She knew what I was thinking. “I’m capable of hasty judgments, like anyone else,” she said airily, dismissing her former opinion with a wave of her hand. She nodded toward the kitchen. “Go in and talk to him now. I’ll go upstairs and you can be alone.”

I watched her ascend the staircase in a daze. I was dreaming this, it wasn’t happening.

She turned around and caught me gaping. “Shoo!” she said, and I jumped.

Heath looked up as I went into the kitchen again. “Hi,” he said.

“Heath, you told my mother all about what happened?”

“Gaby, she’s heard of it before, I assure you.”

“But . . .”

“I didn’t shock her. I just knew that you’d never tell her yourself, and I was afraid you wouldn’t see me because of it. Now she knows, and she can help you. That’s what mothers are supposed to do. I knew she was a nice lady. I knew she’d understand.” He got up and came to stand beside me, tilting my chin up with a forefinger the way he always had. “I love you, Gaby. I have to be with you. I had to do this, I didn’t have a choice.”

“I love you, too,” I whispered.

He drew me against his chest. I put my head on his shoulder and closed my eyes. Home. I was home.

“What are we going to do?” I asked him.

“Take it one day at a time,” he said, echoing Barbara’s advice. “Get into some groups, I guess, so we won’t be alone
 
so much.”

“Groups?” I said, picturing us at church socials and community sings. I started to laugh.

I felt him laughing too, silently. “All right, all right, don’t listen to me. I don’t know what I’m saying. All I know is that it’s worth anything to me to be able to see you, and I’ll do anything you want. I won’t even kiss you, if that’s what you want.”

“I wouldn’t go that far,” I said, kissing him.

Silence reigned for a few minutes. Then he cradled me, hugging me close as he said, “I missed you so much.”

I couldn’t resist the opportunity to tease him. “Oh, really? You didn’t look too lonely at lunch today.”

His brow furrowed, and then cleared. “Oh, you mean Vicki. You saw that, huh? Jealous, were you?”

“I certainly was.”

“Good. But there’s no reason for you to be. We’re working on a report together, that’s all.”

“Mmm. A likely story.”

“It’s the truth.”

“She likes you. She likes the sexy, macho basketball star.”

“You like me,” he said. “And you liked me when nobody else did.”

“I love you,” I corrected.

“Best news I’ve had all day.”

He was stroking my hair with his big, gentle hands. “Heath?”

“Yup.”

“You’re not really going to sue your father, or whatever you were talking about that night, are you?”

He was silent a moment. Then, “I guess not.” He sounded weary.

“You should talk to him, try to work it out. I don’t think he knows what to do with you. It’s not that he wants to hurt you.”

“Maybe you could help me,” he said. “You seem to be developing a talent for mastering situations. You sure rocked old Mackley on his heels today.”