The Year of the Great Seventh (4 page)

Tyson and Chase tried to get Nate away from Ethan, but he was so possessed by rage, he didn’t notice that two guys of his same size were basically on his back.

All hell broke loose. Champagne glasses smashed to the floor as people pushed to leave the room. I stood in front of Nate and Ethan, unable to react. Ethan lay on the floor like a corpse, and his head wagged from side to side with each punch. Each time the room went dark and the light flashed back, a larger part of Ethan’s face was tinted with the red of his blood.

“Stop! What do you think you’re doing? Please, stop,” I wanted to yell, but the words were only thoughts.

Nate abruptly closed his eyes again and then his punch missed Ethan’s face, hitting the floor. Chaos turned into silence as the DJ finally cut the music, and people stood still surrounding Nate and Ethan. Nate rose, and fearing his rage, Tyson, Chase, and I stepped back. He walked out of the room, looking disorientated. Then people were crying and yelling, but no one was actually helping Ethan.

“Chase, give me your blazer! Quickly!” I said, kneeling next to Ethan and placing Chase’s blazer under his neck. Then I brought my ear close to his nose to hear that he was still breathing.

“Sophie, let’s go. The police are going to get here any minute, and Emma and Megan are still waiting in the car,” Tyson said, pulling my arm.

“Let’s call 9-1-1 first,” I begged.

Chase grabbed his cell phone out of his blazer pocket and called 9-1-1. Then, dragging me by my arm, he instructed, “They’re on their way. Let’s go.”

We darted out of the house and drove off of the property. We saw a caravan of police cars speeding up the hill minutes later. After explaining to Emma and Megan what happened, we lapsed into silence, wondering whether Ethan was going to make it. Ethan’s behavior toward me had been inappropriate, but Nate’s reaction had been way out of proportion. None of us could imagine what could’ve brought Nate to commit such an atrocity.

CHAPTER III

ON MONDAY MORNING, EVERYONE stared at me as I walked to the back of the school bus. I had no doubt why I was suddenly the center of attention. It was okay that Nate had tried to protect me from Ethan—up to a point. But Nate’s crazy overreaction could’ve had nothing to do with me; it’d probably been all about some unsettled business with Ethan. Nate was the center of female attention at school, and that probably bothered Ethan, creating some friction between the two of them. Anyway, I didn’t need Nate to protect me; I was old enough to look after myself.

“That’s the girl from Saturday’s fight,” one girl sitting in front of me murmured to her friend.

How could anyone refer to Saturday’s event as “the fight” when a fight could only occur if there was active involvement from both parties? In this case, Nate had physically assaulted Ethan while he was unconscious on the floor, leaving the scene without a scratch. This could be called anything but a fight.

Two girls turned to look at me, and one whispered to the other, “I heard that Nate had been after Ethan for a while, and last Saturday, he finally found the perfect excuse to give him what he deserved.”

I didn’t know why they were whispering to each other when I was sitting literally twenty inches from them. If her friend could hear her whispering, I could hear it, too.

“I also heard that Ethan only has a broken nose, but he’s fine,” the same girl murmured to her friend. “I wouldn’t like to be in that girl’s shoes if Ethan blames her for it,” she added, nodding at me.

Nate had literally hammered Ethan’s face for what seemed an eternity, and it was a miracle he only had a broken nose. My main concern was that Ethan could think somehow I’d asked Nate to defend me, blowing the consequences of grabbing me out of proportion. Ethan’s family had a lot of connections and, if blamed for what happened to Ethan, they could make sure no one ever spoke to me again. My paranoia was so monumental that I was even concerned about next year’s university application. If Ethan’s father decided to make a few phone calls, he could guarantee I wouldn’t get accepted anywhere.

“Did you see the school website announcement about the fight?” the girl sitting next to the window asked her friend.

I wasn’t planning to sit in the bus for half an hour, pretending I couldn’t hear them talking about me. “Excuse me,” I said. “I’m not sure if you think there’s an invisible wall between your seat and mine, but I can clearly hear you.”

The girl sitting by the aisle fidgeted in her seat and turned to check whether I was talking to her.

“What’s on the school’s website anyway?” I asked.

The bus careened along the road at high speed, making us move from side to side each time it took a turn.

The girl spoke nervously. “There was a statement saying that since the fight happened outside the school boundaries, the law enforcement authorities were going to deal with the matter.”

After moving a lock of hair away from her face, she continued, “My family knows Ethan’s family, and I also happen to know that his parents weighed the possibility of pressing charges against Nate, but Ethan is already in enough trouble with the law due to his DUIs, and ultimately, Ethan’s parents decided to not press charges.”

Emma would definitely be impressed with the ability of this girl to gather information. “Thanks,” I replied.

The two girls smiled at each other and moved on to talk about their friend’s birthday party.

Surely Ethan wasn’t going to be thrilled about Nate walking away without facing any consequences, neither from the school nor from the police. Having both of them at school through the semester was like a ticking time bomb. As long as they didn’t involve me in their problems a second time around, though, I didn’t care what they did.

Once at school, I waited for everyone to get out of the bus, as I was done with my fifteen minutes of fame. But as I drifted across the lawn, looking for my friends, I could hear the students whispering as I passed them. They followed me with their gaze, and I fixed my eyes on the ground, letting my loose hair cover part of my face. I couldn’t take so much attention.

My friends were at our usual bench. I rushed to the safety of their side, but Emma, Megan, Tyson, and Chase were also staring at me as though I had one leg and three eyes.

“Hi, what’s with the staring?” I asked, shrugging.

None of them said anything. I felt my chest tightening. Emma and Megan were sitting in the middle of the bench and Tyson and Chase, on either side, seemed to be their bodyguards. They were defiantly waiting for me to make an announcement. The problem was that I didn’t know what they were expecting me to say.

“What’s up?” I asked, testing the waters. “You look like you saw a monster right before I arrived.”

Everyone else behind the gymnasium seemed to have gone back to minding their own business.

Emma’s intrigued look was nerve-wracking. She finally spoke, opening Pandora’s box. “We’re still shocked about Nate’s reaction last Saturday. It’s one thing to protect you from Ethan’s wandering hands, but another to almost kill him. What’s wrong with that guy? He totally lost it.”

“What do you want me to do? I didn’t ask him to defend me,” I murmured nervously, holding my hands together as though I didn’t know what to do with them. Standing in front of them felt like I was trying to make the jury believe my alibi.

“People at school are saying that you asked Nate to teach Ethan a lesson,” Megan said, shaking her head. Her lips curled. “After all, Nate was defending you when he left Ethan unconscious.”

This was absolutely unfair because I didn’t deserve to be accused of conspiring with Nate. I didn’t even know him. Why would anyone blame me for anything when it was Ethan who started the whole episode by grabbing me? I went to that party to meet Travis Roy, not to trigger any fight.

“I can’t believe you’re suggesting I was at that party on some obscure mission,” I mumbled. “Just think how absurd that sounds.” I couldn’t believe my friends doubted me.

Just then I spotted Ethan on another bench farther down. His dark bruised face magnified the redness of his eyes. A bandage covered his nose. He was talking to a friend, and after propping a hockey stick against the gymnasium wall, he glanced at me. I needed to know how bad the situation was before Ethan accosted us.

I took a long breath and gathered the courage to make them talk. I wanted to know the truth, and only the truth, before it was too late. I formed the question that was foremost in my thoughts. “Does Ethan think I asked Nate to beat him up?”

They looked at each other and none of them said a word. I stared into Tyson’s eyes, but instead of speaking what he knew, he brought his gaze down to avoid meeting mine.

“Please, Tyson! I need to know.” I begged, squatting down in front of him and forcing him to look at me.

He finally spoke, breaking the silence. “Apparently Ethan said that you’re with Nate, and any friend of Nate is an enemy of his.”

“If you promise you had nothing to do with Nate’s reaction, we’re behind you all the way. I’m not scared of Ethan, not a bit,” Emma stated curtly.

I couldn’t believe this was happening. The thing that concerned me most wasn’t that Ethan somehow blamed me for what happened to him. It was that my friends had considered the possibility I was somehow “in” on this with Nate.

“You shouldn’t even need to ask me. Come on! You know me! How many times do I need to say it? I don’t even know Nate.”

They seemed thoughtful, as if they’d realized their accusation had been utterly ridiculous.

Finally, Megan groaned. “I guess if you say you don’t know why Nate blew up on Ethan, I believe you.”

The backyard was buzzing with activity as the bell rang; students were amassing in the building entrance. We’d promised that we wouldn’t be late for class anymore, and before I could react, Emma ordered, “Let’s move.”

We advanced in silence toward the main school building. I felt like each of them was still internally debating whether to fully believe me or not. I didn’t want to jeopardize my friendship with them for some stupid fight, and I realized there was only one person who could explain to me what really happened on Saturday—Nate Werner.

Tyson and Chase went into the science lab, while Megan, Emma, and I continued walking down the hallway to the English classroom. I was upset with Nate because I suspected the real reason he assaulted Ethan had nothing to do with me. There must have been a history between the two of them. I didn’t care what people said, but Nate was going to explain to my face why I ended up in the middle of his problems with Ethan.

“I need to go to my locker. I’ll meet you in class in a moment,” I told Emma and Megan.

They went into the classroom, and I waited outside in the hallway, searching for Nate. His car wasn’t in the parking lot, so probably he was nowhere to be seen. I surveyed the corridor, and surprisingly, spotted him taking his books out of his locker. He still seemed to carry himself with the same superiority he always did, not showing any remorse about what happened on Saturday.

The hallway was still packed with people, and I compulsively began advancing toward him. My vision closed into a tunnel, focusing only on my target. People were whispering as I passed them, but everything around me had become secondary. The only sound present in my mind was the echoing of my steps on the hallway.

Nate was unpacking his bag, unaware of the storm approaching. When I reached him, I stood between him and his locker. To my surprise he looked shocked.

“What are you doing here? You shouldn’t be talking to me,” he growled, reaching around me to close his locker.

Nate turned around to double-check every student in the hallway was indeed staring at us and shifted to the gap between two sets of lockers, motioning for me to follow.

This was utterly wrong. How could I still feel attracted to him after what he’d done? I used all my energy to block my feelings and focus on my mission: getting the truth out of him.

As I stepped between the lockers, Nate murmured as though he didn’t want the spectators in the hallway to hear. “Whatever I did to Ethan is my problem, not yours. What you’re doing right now is just a big mistake. Just let it go.”

Why did he think he could order me to walk away after he got me mixed up in his problems with Ethan? The problem wasn’t that I was talking to him now, but that half the school thought he nearly killed Ethan in my name.

“Why did you get involved?” I said, staring defiantly into his eyes. “I can look after myself. Don’t you think breaking his nose because he grabbed me is a bit much? I don’t understand what happened, and you owe me an explanation.”

“Like I said, that’s my problem with Ethan. I’ll pay for what I’ve done. You don’t need to.” The tone of his voice raised; he spoke with more urgency.

I wasn’t going to walk away without an explanation. “Everyone at school seems to think I asked you to beat up Ethan. This is my problem as much as yours now!”

Nate’s forehead creased as he listened to my accusations. Then he moved his gaze to the floor. “Okay, I’ll give you an explanation, but not now—outside the school, and only if you promise to keep your distance after that.”