Count on Me (7 page)

I do
n’t want her hurt either. It’s the last thing I want.

“Don’t worry, Ms. T.
I’m not entirely sure what I’m doing with her, but the last thing I want is Isabelle hurt.”

“Well okay then. I’ll take you at your word. Go on, enjoy the rest of your lunch.” she says, motioning toward the door and as I turn and start heading out, I hear her speak again.

“You’re a good guy, Kayden Walker. Remember that.”

Chapter Eight

Kayden

The horrible feeling that’s been in the pit of my stomach hasn’t gone away, even with the time I spent talking with Ms. Taylor and af
ter looking for her at her locker and her regular spot under the tree out front, no sign of her anywhere, I’m starting to realize just what the sick feeling is about.

Isabelle has always been a creature of habit. Well, I’m not even sure it’s habit really, more like routine, but when she’s not in classes or at home, there are only two places I’ve ever known her to be. I’ve passed her a bunch of times in the hall, usually walking by and catching her as she’s got her head stuck in a book. When she’s not there
, she’s outside watching the world go by underneath the ugliest looking tree on the entire campus.

Her not being in either spot worries me. I knew I should have chased after her when she took off and now the proof is being shoved in my f
ace. It only makes me feel worse because if I just stayed away from her the way she wanted me to, maybe she wouldn’t be missing now.

I pop my head into the library, knowing it’s gonna be a waste of time and I’m greeted with the very shocked stares of some of the advanced placement students. I’ve never actually stepped foot in the library and it’s obvious that everyone here knows it.

“Can I help you?” Ms. Reid, our librarian asks, as she comes to stand directly in front of my view of the room.

“No, I’m alright. I’m just looking for someone.”

“Who would you look for in here, Mr. Walker?”

She doesn’t come right out and say it, but trust me; I can hear it in her tone. She knows I don’t h
ang out here and I wouldn’t be caught dead around anyone who does. It’s just another way the grapevine around here works. Everyone knows what I’m all about.

“Isabelle Reagan. I thought I’d find her at her locker, but she’s not there so I thought maybe she came here.”

“She hasn’t been here today, but if she does make her way in, I can tell her that you’re looking for her.”

“That would be great. Thanks.”

I’ve never been this polite before and I’m surprised by it. Normally, I try to run under the radar whenever I’m around teachers, figuring that if I can just blend in, they won’t call on me or even notice my existence. Here I am now, actually having a conversation with one of them and acting pretty decent doing it.

When the hell did this happen?

“Well if there’s nothing else I can help you with…” she says motioning toward the door.

“Actually, Ms. Taylor gave me something that I need to read over and get back to her. Do you think it’s alright if I do that here?”

I can tell I’ve shocked her. It’s not a secret that you don’t have to ask to spend time here, but I figure with as weird as she’s acting with me being here at all, the least I can do is ask for permission.

“Of course you can. Everyone is welcome here. “

She walks away from me after I slam her with one of the fakest smiles I’ve ever done and I make my way down into the stacks of books in the corner, hoping against hope there’s a place at the end I can sit privately and read.

What Isabelle wrote is burning a hole in the back pocket of my jeans, so the sooner I pull it out and read it, the sooner the near obsession I have with keeping it close to me can end. I can do what the teacher asked of me, read it and return it to her, putting it out of my mind once and for all.

I soon realize the minute I sit down and unfold it in my hands, reading just the first two lines at the top, that the last thing I’m going to want to do is give this back when I’m done with it. No, this is definitely something I’m going to want to keep with me, just like I want to do with the actual girl herself.

To: The person in the future

From: Isabelle Reagan

There are people that will tell you that high school is the best time of your life. That when you’re older and look back on it, there will be so many good memories and things you want to treasure and hold onto forever.

They lied.

High school is not the best time in your life or it isn’t when you’re like me.

When I was four, my mother was worried about me, so she took me to the doctor and even though it took awhile to figure out what was wrong with me, they finally did.

I’m autistic.

I know. You don’t have any idea what that means and that’s okay. No one does. I’m not even sure I do and I’m the one that’s spent the last 13 years living with it.

Here’s the thing. People think that be
cause I don’t talk much or I seem to always be lost in my own little world, that I’m stupid or deaf. Some even think I’m retarded. I’m none of those things and I don’t like that word. It makes me cringe and want to cry every single time I hear it and trust me, I hear it a lot here in Wexfield.

Being autistic is different for everyone that experiences it. Some people have things that are
similar, but for the most part, we’re all different. That’s why there’s this whole list that doctors have about it because there’s so many different forms, that you can’t lump everyone in the same one.

For me it’s like this.

When I was little, I didn’t speak until I was six and even when I did, it was like I was two because I didn’t speak the way the rest of the kids my age did. I would point, grunt and jump for what I wanted and when that didn’t work, I would get frustrated and hit myself until my mom figured it out.

I didn’t eat like anyone else
. It had to be crushed and mushy so I could swallow it. It hasn’t changed much since then either. I can eat a few things that I have to chew instead of just swallow, but for the most part, I still like the ease of just swallowing.

I wasn’t completely potty trained until I was eight. I didn’t understand the whole bathroom thing because I was so lost in my own thoughts that I didn’t understand the feeling that happens when you have to go. Yeah, I know, it’s gross, but that’s just me.

I got better with it over the years, but I still have accidents now and I’m seventeen. For years, my mom would keep me home because of it, but eventually she figured I had to adapt to the real world so I started going to school. Trust me, that didn’t help and I don’t think it ever will. Sometimes I wish I was at home still because then if I have them, no one would be around to see it.

Just because I’ve got issues,
doesn’t mean it’s all I am. There’s a whole lot more to me, but no one really takes the time to get to know it. So I’m supposed to sit here now and write about it.

The one thing that
still shocks people most about me is that I’m insane for numbers. I’m actually in advanced placement math because there’s just something about it that’s easy for me. As long as I have numbers around, I’m at my most comfortable. I guess that sort of takes away from everyone’s belief that I’m dumb, so I don’t go out of my way to call attention to it.

I also like stories. I guess when you’re like me and spend most days being made fun of, call
ed names or even worse, ignored, like you’re part of the scenery, escaping into a make believe world where everything turns out right in the end isn’t a bad thing. Usually though, when it happens, I end up talking to myself or to the characters I’m reading or writing about.

That’s just another t
hing that makes me weird.

The whole point of this assignment is to explain yourself to someone in the future, so I hope that everything I’ve said explains me to you. I’m sorry if it doesn’t.

I guess the one thing I hope for most is that whoever does end up reading this does the one thing that despite how badly I want to, I haven’t been able to do. I want acceptance, but not for me. I want people like me to be accepted. Sure, you might not get it and that’s okay, but do you really have to go out of your way to be mean when it’s so much easier to be nice?

I don’t want kids like me to be afraid of their own shadows anymore. I don’t want different to be such a horrible thing. I won’t ever be a cheerleader or go to Homecoming with the hottest guy in scho
ol (mainly because I’d just have an accident on the way there and ruin my dress), but I should be able to walk down the hall and not fear the names I hear every day. The way people sneer at me, or even plug their nose when I walk by.

The ki
ds of the future, especially ones like me, deserve better than that. So if you’re reading this, instead of that sneer I know you wanna make at the person you don’t understand, why not try smiling instead?

I promise you, you’ll make their day.

Most days I hate the way I am and wish so badly that I was normal like the other girls. Sometimes I even feel like the world would be better off, not to mention my mom and brother, if I just ceased to exist at all, but as much as I think it, I never do anything about it.

Don’t make anyone feel that way. It’s not worth it.

Make that statement from earlier that I said, true. Make these the best years of your life and become a person you’re going to enjoy living with twenty years from now. Be the best person you can be.

I know you have it in you.

There’s only one thing
I’m thinking when I finish reading Isabelle’s assignment. She doesn’t realize it, but she wrote this for me and I’m going to do exactly what she wants me to.

I’m going to make this the best year of her life and I know just where to start.

Belle

I want to go home.

I thought everything was over when Dillon walked away from my locker, but I was wrong. Not only wasn’t it over, but it was just getting started.

The entire time he was standing there, I’m pretty sure I didn’t breathe, so when he walked away I let
out the biggest sigh of relief I’ve ever done in my life. I was shaken by the way he acted and the things he said, but I was more than ready to get outside and underneath the safety of my spot. At least I was until Amy, Charlotte and Eve blocked me the minute I rounded the corner.

I should have known then that I wasn’t going to make
it outside, but maybe I’m as dumb as people say because I wasn’t ready for what came next at all.

Without so much as a word to me, only
their cold eyes and evil smirks to go by, they grabbed me, Amy the worst as she had my hair tangled around her hands. Before I knew it, I was dragged into the girl’s washroom, and now I’m being slammed up against the wall.

Visions of what Eric must have endured the day before flash in my mind and before I know it, I feel the slap across my face and Amy directly in front of me as her friends hold my arms, pinn
ing me in. I’m trapped. I can’t get free and even if I could, there’s no one in the school that I can run too. When I’m feeling alright, I can’t talk to most people. With the way I feel now, I’m not even sure I’ll ever talk again.

“Just what the
fuck do you think you’re doing, huh? I saw you talking to Dillon earlier. I don’t know what you’ve done to Kayden, but you better keep your dirty hands off my man.”

She slaps me again and this time the minute the girls let me go, my body slumps to the floor from the impact. Any break I thought might come doesn’t materialize as I again feel her breath on my face, now down on her knees in front of me.

It’s only when she reaches into the pocket of her jacket, pulling out the cigarette, that I realize what’s about to happen. It’s never happened to me before, but I’ve heard about it. The entire school has. It’s the way that the girls do business. The guys on the football team haze kids using their fists, but the girls take it a step further. I just never thought I’d be on the receiving end of it.

The minute I hear the lighter flick, I flinch, which only causes the three of them to laugh and squeal
in delight. I don’t see what’s so funny about any of this. Physically hurting someone is never funny. I might have a different sense of humor then most people, but I thought that would be universal. It’s wrong.

The minute I feel the
lit cigarette burn into the hairs on my arm, I cry out in pain and start rocking in place. No one knows this, but rocking is a coping mechanism for me. It can take me out of the most stressful place and calm me, but it isn’t having the desired affect this time. Not even close.

That’s when it happens, t
he pounding of my heart, the fear in my mind and heart all crashing into me at once. The laughter stops immediately and all three girls release me, letting me fall back against the wall.

“Gross, she just pissed herself.” I hear
Charlotte say, though it’s muffled with how blocked my ears are with the sound of my own sobs.

“Eww, there’s a puddle and everything!” Eve joins in. The only one completely silent is Amy, but it d
oesn’t take much to find out why. Opening my eyes slightly and looking up, I see her face. The sneer is still in place and she looks pleased.

“Sta
y away from Dillon, you hear me, stupid? Or the next time this happens, it will be a lot worse than a burn on your arm.”