Rise (15 page)

chapter 19

(Riley)

“Riley.” I felt my body shake as I pulled myself out of sleep. “Riley,” Dad said as he shook me by the shoulder. “Wake up.”

I opened my eyes and gave them a rub. “What’s wrong? Attie—”

“Nothing, she’s fine. Get dressed and meet me out front.”

“Where are we going?”

“You’ll see. Come on, get up and get dressed.”

He left me alone as I climbed out of bed and threw on some clothes and shoes. I checked on Attie as I walked past her room. She was sound asleep in bed, her ear buds still jammed in her ear canals. She must have fallen asleep listening to worship music. It was her new routine. She felt like the music ensured the nightmares wouldn’t come back.

I met my dad on the front porch. “Aren’t we going to church? What about Mom?”

“I told your mom what we were doing. She’ll meet us in a bit.” He threw me the keys and started walking toward his truck. “I just wanted to spend some time alone with you.”

“Am I in trouble?”

“No. Do you have to assume that every time I want to talk to you, you’re in trouble for something?”

“Yeah. That’s usually the case, anyway.”

“Not today.”

We climbed into the truck. “Where to?” I asked as I stuck the key in the ignition.

“The cemetery.”

“The—”

“You heard me.”

We made a little small talk while we drove to the cemetery, mostly talking about football. Nothing too serious. I figured we’d have plenty of that once we got there.

“Why are we here?” I asked as we walked up to Melody’s headstone.

“Yesterday I realized we haven’t been here together since the funeral. Your mom and I come here a lot, but I’ve never been here with you. I’m sorry about that.”

“You don’t have to be sorry.”

“Well,” he said, sitting down, “I am. I’m very sorry.”

I sat down next to him. “Okay.”

“You know, Attiline said something very profound on Friday night.”

“She did?”

“Yep. We were up in the middle of the night eating cereal, talking about the gossip that was going around and trying to figure out what to do about it all.”

“Uh-huh.”

“And she turned to me and told me that everyone spends so much time worried about her that we don’t ever worry about you. We don’t ever ask you how you’re doing.”

“She said that?”

“Yep.”

“I guess I hadn’t noticed.”

“Everything that she goes through, you’ve gone through. You’ve had the sleepless nights. You had to deal with the tires being slashed and the rumors.”

“None of that was directed at me.”

“No, but you still dealt with it all. How are you? I mean, how are you holding up in all this chaos?”

“Well, Attie—”

“No. I don’t want you to talk about her. I want you to talk about you. How all this affects you.”

I looked over at Melody’s headstone. “I hate it.”

“Go on.”

“I don’t understand how people who used to be my friends all of a sudden hate me just because of who I’m dating. I mean, they don’t even know her. They never even gave her a chance.”

“You’re talking about her again. What about you?”

“And I feel weak.”

“Weak? Why?”

“Because I can’t help. I look at everyone around me, you and Mom and Attie and our friends. And I see all the pain, all the grief, all the crap, and there’s nothing I can do to make any of it go away. I feel like I spend all my time putting out these small flames, but in reality there’s this huge fire just under the surface, and it feels like it’s gonna explode at any second. Like I’m putting Band-aids on a gushing wound.”

“Son, nobody expects you to fix anything.”

“I know; that’s what makes it worse. The irony is that I had almost this exact same talk with Attie. We were sitting right here, and she was telling me how upset she was that she couldn’t fill the void that Melody and Mrs. Reed left behind, and I was trying to convince her that it wasn’t her job, that she shouldn’t feel responsible. But I’m right here, feeling sorta the same way. Then you pile all the other crap up on top … Sometimes it just gets depressing.”

He turned to face me. “Riley, it hurts you when people attack Attiline, but it also hurts when people attack you. It hurts that your friends believe the rumor about the abortion. It hurts that your friends would think the worst of you, and you can’t be so focused on trying to make Attiline feel better about it that you don’t deal with your own feelings. You’re allowed to have feelings.”

“I’m afraid to.”

“Why?”

“Because if I go there, if I let myself feel that pain, I’m afraid it’ll bring all the other pain back up too.”

“Then that means you haven’t dealt with it enough. If your emotions are that close to the surface, then you’ve still got some healing to do. We all do.”

Dad pointed to the headstone. “I look at the date on that headstone, the day that my daughter died, and it feels like it was yesterday. That’s how it feels. Now, the reality is that it was almost a year and a half ago, and for some reason we think we should have moved on by now. We think we should stop feeling the pain, stop thinking about it all the time, and just get over it and get on with our lives. But you know what? I don’t think we ever will, and I think we need to be okay with that. I think you need to be okay with feeling pain. When something upsets you, you need to know that you can tell me or your mom or Attiline, and we’re still gonna be okay.”

I was on the verge tears and wasn’t sure how much longer I could contain them.

“I’m so proud of you,” he said.

That was it. The tears flowed.

“I can’t even begin to describe how proud I am. I look at everything you’ve been through and how well you’ve done, and it practically leaves me speechless. Everything you’ve done for Attiline, how you’ve been there for her, even before you were together and when there was no personal gain for you to be doing it. You rose up and helped her heal. That’s amazing. And all the stuff going on at school and the way you’ve handled yourself—Riley, the choices you’re making are good ones.”

“Attie helps with that.”

“I know she does, but she can’t make you do something you don’t want to do, and she can’t keep you from doing something you really want. You’re making those decisions based on what you know to be right and what you think is best. What more could any parent ask for?”

“Thank you for saying that.”

He reached over and pulled me to him in a bear hug. “I love you, son.”

“I love you too.”

I heard two car doors shut. We looked toward the road and saw Mom and Attie making their way toward us. Attie was barefoot and in her pajamas.

“I told them to meet us here,” Dad said. “I thought we should spend some time here with all four of us together.”

Seeing them heading toward us and knowing that this would be the first time the four us were at the cemetery at the same time caused my tears to start falling to the point that I could barely see through them. All the emotion I’d stuffed away, all the denial of what the four of us really had in common—it all erupted.

We stood huddled and crying for a long time, although I’m not sure how long. Long enough that all the crying gave me a headache and I could feel that my eyes were swollen.

Finally, my mom sat on the ground, and the rest of us joined her.

“Riley,” Attie said from her spot next to my dad, “do you remember the time Melody and I went walking by the creek at Old Man Travis’s house and we found a puppy and came home and told you about it?”

“Yeah. You guys wanted to bring it home, but you were afraid you’d get in trouble.”

“Yes.”

“Why are you asking?”

“Well, lo and behold, on that very night … ”

I shook my head as if to warn her not to tell any more, but she ignored me.

“ … a puppy showed up on your back porch, and as soon as your mom saw it, she was in love, and that puppy had a new home.”

“Boomer?” Mom asked.

I nodded as Attie continued. “I knew you went back to get Melody that puppy, and I knew you sat out at the creek with it until it got dark and then you snuck up to the back porch and left it there right at dinnertime just so your mom would find it. That’s the kind of brother you were … ”

Tears rolled down my cheeks.

“ … and that’s the brother that Melody always talked about. I would complain about you all the time and talk about how mean you were to me and tell all the hateful things you did to me when I’d visit, but she almost always took your side. It drove me crazy. In her eyes you could do no wrong.”

“And your point?” I asked.

“My daddy always told me you can tell how a man’s going to treat you by the way he treats his mother and his sisters, if he has them.”

“That’s true,” Mom said with a nod.

“Sitting here looking at Melody’s headstone made me remember that story and made me realize why it was so easy for me to fall in love with you. I think I figured that if you treated me anywhere near as well as you did Melody, I’d be very lucky to have you.”

“Thanks, babe, but you didn’t have to tell me that in front of my parents. That’s a little embarrassing, don’cha think?”

“I’m telling you the story so that you’d know that even though Melody never told you, she knew it was you that brought Boomer to the house too. It’s another reason she loved you as much as she did. She was crazy about you.”

“You two were best friends,” Mom said. “We could hardly separate you.”

“Yeah, well, I remember the time Riley accidently caught Attiline’s hair on fire—”

“That was not an accident, by the way,” Attie interrupted.

“Yeah, it was too,” I said.

“Was not.”

“Was too.”

“ … and Melody ran over and poured her Kool-Aid in your hair to put the fire out. Your hair was purple for two days.”

Mom started laughing. “Or the time Elizabeth found all three of you sitting in the kitchen with marshmallow topping all over yourselves and in your hair.”

“It was like the Garden of Eden,” I said. “Attie found it in the pantry and told us to try it.”

“Sure, go ahead and try to blame it on me, but I didn’t make you stick your entire arm in the jar.”

“Riley, I had to shave your head completely bald,” Mom said. “And Attie, I think your mom cut most of your hair off. We couldn’t get that stuff out.”

“Why were so many of my mishaps hair related?” Attie asked. “It’s a wonder I have any hair left at this point.”

We sat at the cemetery straight through church and didn’t even notice. We were telling stories about Melody and Mrs. Bennett. It felt good to talk about them in a way that didn’t depress us. We were remembering the best and funniest things about them, and just doing that accomplished more healing than a month of counseling ever could have.

chapter 20

It was our first day back since Attie’s surgery and finding out what our friends and classmates really thought happened. Walking through the door that morning was as bad as what we could have imagined. A lot of finger pointing, whispering, and laughing, as well as a few gasps. All I could do was hold on to Attie’s hand as tightly as possible and lead her through the madness. When I couldn’t be with her, one of the other guys made sure to stay close to her side. Curt especially became protective, and for someone who used to take part in the teasing, he was none too thrilled with what people were saying about my girlfriend. While Attie had Tammy who wanted to run out and knock everyone’s block off, I had Curt. If given the option, he would’ve personally seen to it that every person who mentioned the incident would never speak again—about anything.

“Proverbs 19:5. ‘A false witness will not go unpunished, and he who pours out lies will not go free.’”

The gang and I sat at the lunch table listening to Attie read from her Bible. It was a strange thing to be doing in the cafeteria, but we’d already all lost our cool label by then, so what did we have to lose if anyone happened to notice?

Attie looked at us for a moment before continuing with another scripture. “This one’s a lot like the last one. Proverbs 19:9: ‘A false witness will not go unpunished, and he who pours out lies will perish.’ Proverbs 20:3: ‘It is to a man’s honor to avoid strife, but every fool is quick to quarrel.’ Proverbs 20:20: ‘Do not say, “I’ll pay you back for this wrong!” Wait for the Lord, and he will deliver you.’ Proverbs 25:15: ‘Through patience a ruler can be persuaded, and a gentle tongue can break a bone.’ Proverbs 26:20: ‘Without wood a fire goes out; without gossip a quarrel dies down.’ Proverbs 29:11: ‘A fool gives full vent to his anger, but a wise man keeps himself under control.’”

Tammy raised her hand into the air. “Is this your not-so-subtle way of telling me that I’m a fool? ‘Cause all of those sound like they’re directed at me.”

Attie put the Bible back into the backpack as everyone’s eyes watched and we waited for a response. “No. I’m talking to all of us, and I don’t think any of us are fools. I think we’re upset, and we should be. There’s such a thing called righteous anger, and I think that’s what we have, but I also believe we need to be very careful about how we respond … or if we do.”

“So what did you come up with?” I asked. “What are we gonna do?”

“I told you I was going to give this situation a lot of thought and get some counsel—and I did. I also spent hours pouring over the Psalms and Proverbs, and much to my chagrin, there are probably hundreds of scriptures about how to handle an attack from the enemy and only a few of them mention attacking back.”

“Well, that stinks,” Tammy said. “What did those attacking back scriptures say?”

“To seek guidance first and make sure you’re supposed to.”

“And I reckon you don’t think we’re supposed to?” Kent asked.

“Right. No matter what we do, people are going to believe what they want about us. I can’t spend any more time worrying about what people think. Those who I care about most in the world know me, and they know I wouldn’t do what I’m being accused of.” Attie turned and looked straight at me. “And Riley, that goes for you too. Is us going around denying the rumors going to change anyone’s mind?”

“So we say nothing?” I asked.

“I didn’t say that. I think that if people come right out and ask us, we tell the truth. We don’t point fingers, make accusations, or act angry. We just tell the truth. My hope is that those that are truly friends will seek you out and give you a chance to tell the truth before they’d believe what someone else said about you.”

“And if they don’t?”

“Then how good of a friend were they? If they can’t give you the decency to either give you the benefit of the doubt or at least ask, then I don’t think they’re really a friend.”

“So what is the truth?” Anne asked. “I don’t even know the whole story.”

“Last Sunday morning I found a lump in my chest, so I went to the doctor to have it checked out, and we made the decision to get it removed. That’s what I was doing on Thursday morning at the surgery center. Tammy was there; she witnessed the whole thing. I even have the scar I can show you—or at least the girls, anyway.”

“You don’t have to prove anything to us,” Chase said. “Are you okay? What did you find out?”

“It’s nothing. It was just a growth, no cancer or anything.”

“Well, if we didn’t even know, how would anyone else find out?” Jennifer asked.

“Don’t look at me. I didn’t tell a soul.”

“I know you didn’t, Tammy. Honestly, I’ve racked my brain trying to figure it out, and all I can think of is that Riley and I were discussing it in the hallway at school one day and Tiffany was standing not too far away. She must have overheard and taken the conversation completely out of context.”

Tammy’s head shook wildly. “You’re giving her too much credit. She could know the truth and still twist it to suit her needs.”

“Well, that’s neither here nor there. Again, just as in everything else, we can’t prove it was her.”

“You look really down. Are you okay?” Tess asked.

“I think I’m just worn out from all the drama. It’s the constant bombardment of crap that’s been flowing our way. If it isn’t a rumor or a slashed tire, it’s a cryptic message on my Facebook. There hasn’t been a day that’s gone by that we haven’t heard something else that was said about us or an accusation that we said something or did something to them. Every day I wake up and wonder what in the world they’re going to do that day, and for the life of me, I can’t figure out why they find any of this necessary. Like they have nothing better to do than sit around and dwell on the fact that Riley’s moved on and he’s happy. And for some reason, until this, most of the fingers have been pointing in my direction, and I’ve done nothing but keep my mouth shut and try to go with my life.

“I don’t get this whole mentality of ‘if you’re not one of us, then you’re the enemy, and we’ll do whatever we have to do to take you down, and that includes lying to anyone that will listen.’ It isn’t enough to stir up a little trouble; they think it’s necessary to absolutely destroy people. When you’re dealing with people with that mind-set, no matter what you try to say, they aren’t going to believe it.”

I finally spoke up. “The more I think about it, Attie’s right. If we just keep our mouths shut, eventually they’ll dig their own graves and the truth’ll come out. I may be forty when it finally happens, but it’ll happen. They’re too stupid to pull this thing off long term.”

“And here’s the thing,” Anne said. “Even if it doesn’t look like they’re being punished for what they’re doing, they are. Just look at the way they act. Nobody that’s truly happy with and likes himself or herself acts like that. They may act like they’re happy, but I’m willing to bet that deep down inside, they know they’re total screw-ups and that if people knew them for what they really were, they wouldn’t have any friends at all.”

“I don’t agree,” Attie said. “Not with all of that anyway. I think they’re just like the rest of us. They’ve got issues, and they try to hide them because they’re afraid that if anyone knew they wouldn’t be friends with them.”

“That’s what I just said,” Anne huffed.

“I’m not done. But the reality is that everyone would like them a lot better if they’d just be themselves and quit putting on the show. They put on the show in order to hide their true selves, but their true selves aren’t any different than the rest of us.”

“My head is spinning,” Tammy said. “Look, I’m not gonna sit here and try to figure those whack jobs out. Their minds are very dark, and once you get in there, you may not come back out.”

“I’m trying to have some compassion for them,” Attie mumbled. “I’ve got to do something to keep myself from being completely overcome with hate.”

“I think compassion is a bit much. Why don’t you just think of contempt and then dial it back a bit to feeling slightly less than contempt.”

“I don’t know, Tammy. I’m just going to have to forgive them. They’ll never admit they did anything wrong; all I can do is forgive them and move on.”

“Gross.”

“I didn’t say I had to like them or be their friend. My only responsibility is to forgive them.”

“And you can do that?” Tammy asked.

“What choice do I have? If I don’t, they win. If I don’t forgive them, then I end up dwelling on it all the time; and if I give them an ounce of my time or attention, they win. They don’t deserve a thought, let alone any of my energy. So this is it. I’m drawing the line; no matter what they do, I’m not going to give it a second thought. Anyway, how much worse could it get?”

Tammy threw her hands over her ears. “Don’t say that out loud. It’s like you’re tempting the evil powers or something. As soon as you say ‘what could be worse,’ something worse happens.”

“True. I take it back. They could do worse; I just won’t give it any attention if they do.”

Kent stood up and grabbed our trash off the table. “Let’s go, guys; we gotta get to class.”

We piled out of our chairs, followed him into the hallway, and ended up passing Rick, Wes, Tiffany, and clan in the hallway.

As soon as I spotted them, my arm instinctively wrapped around Attie’s waist.

“Who knows, Tiffany,” Wes said with an obnoxious laugh, “maybe you’ll get lucky enough to barely survive some tragic accident so that you can have a sob story too. Maybe you can get as many sympathy friends as Attie gets.”

I started to lunge for him, but Attie held me back. Before I could react, and in what seemed like the blink of an eye, Tammy had Wes on the floor, punching him in the face repeatedly. Students stood cheering as she waylaid on him, and he screamed in horror and tried to cover his face with his arms.

I enjoyed the fact that he screamed like a girl.

His friends didn’t bother stepping in to help him, so I finally raced in and tried to pry her off of him.

Words spewed out of her mouth so quickly that I could hardly identify them, but I did recognize a few that I’d have been grounded for if Dad or Mom heard me repeat.

As soon as I grabbed her, Kent ran in to help me restrain her. We each grabbed an arm and pulled her off Wes, and as we did, her legs flailed at him. Unfortunately for Wes, one of her very powerful kicks landed in the “sweet spot,” and he was left curled up in the fetal position with his hands between his legs.

I couldn’t be sure, but I think I heard him cry for his mommy.

Tammy was still screaming when Dad and several teachers scrambled in to break up the commotion.

“Tammy!” Dad yelled. “Calm yourself down this instant.”

Her spirited legs finally calmed, and I set her down and removed my hands from her waist.

Wes slowly stood up, regained his footing, and wiped blood from under his nose. “Get that wench away from me. She’s completely insane.”

Within seconds, Tammy was assailing him again, and this time it took several adults to pry her fingers from around his neck. By the time she’d finished with him, Wes had claw marks carved in the skin on his face and neck.

I felt almost jovial watching the spectacle and would have joined in on the cheering if it wouldn’t have gotten me in major trouble with my principal slash father.

As two teachers restrained Tammy, Dad straightened his shirt. “Get her to my office.” He looked over at the rest of us. “All of you to the office. Right now.”

“Dad—”

“Riley,” he screamed, “get to my office.”

“Yes, sir.” I placed my hand on the small of Attie’s back and led her down the hallway as Tiffany, Rick, Wes, and Kent followed behind. I didn’t remove it until we were sitting safely in Dad’s office. I watched as he paced in front of the window.

“What in Sam Hill was that out there?”

“Wes, would you like to share with Mr. Bennett the nice comment that you made just before I kicked your—”

“Watch it, Tammy,” Dad interrupted.

“Since you were so proud of yourself when you said it, I’m sure you’ll have no problem retelling it now,” she added.

Wes stared at his feet and said nothing.

The room was silent as Dad took a moment to eye each of us sitting in front of him. Then he picked up the phone, pushed a button, and waited for the person on the other end to answer. “Mrs. Fields, could you please join me in my office? Thank you.”

Silence again as we waited for the assistant principal.

The door opened, and a brown-haired woman poked her head into the room. “Yes, Mr. Bennett?”

“Could you please join us in the conference room?” he asked. “Unfortunately, this incident includes my son and Attie, so I don’t wanna be accused of preferential treatment in any way.”

“Of course, Mr. Bennett.” Mrs. Field snapped her fingers several times before telling all of us to meet them in the conference room.

We stood in a single file line and marched out of his office through the reception area and into the conference room.

“Keep Wes and Tammy separated,” Dad quietly suggested to his subordinate. “She may not be finished with him yet.”

We sat around the conference table, and before Dad or Mrs. Fields could get a word out, Attie stood.

“I’d like to say something.”

“Yes, Attie?” Dad asked. It was the first time I’d ever heard him call her Attie.

“I wasn’t involved in this particular incident, but for some reason I seem to be the cause of everything that led up to it.”

Glancing over at Tiffany, I noticed a small grin sweep across her face, and I had to fight the urge to reach across the table and knock it right back off.

Attie hadn’t noticed and continued talking. “Mr. Bennett, I know you’re aware of a lot of the things that have gone on over the last few months: the uniform situation, the refusal by fellow squad members to follow my lead, my tires being slashed, the rumors. Really, I could go on and on.”

“Yes, I’m aware.” His eyes momentarily rested on Tiffany, and then he looked back at Attie.

“I’d asked my friends to ignore all of it, not to respond or retaliate in any way, and up until today, they hadn’t. Tammy’s a great friend, and I think that hearing what Wes said was the last straw. She ended up taking it out on him all at one time. She wasn’t really thinking clearly.”