Hear Me Now (10 page)

“I screwed up real bad, Dill.” She says and I just nod. I don’t know what she’s expecting me to say, but if she’s looking for me to baby her about this, she’s got another thing coming.

There really is a first time for everything. Who knew?

“Yeah, I know what you did. We need to get out of here before she calls Daniels.” I repeat before turning to Charlotte and Eve and leveling them with the reality of what needs to happen now, or at least what I want to happen. “You two need to go to class and pretend like nothing is going on. Fake cramps or something so he doesn’t suspect you.”

They nod and before I can say anything more, they’re moving toward the door, doing exactly what I told them.

If this were any other time, I might actually sit back and enjoy how easily these girls listen to me. I used to love it before. It’s like they worship the ground I walk on with how easily they did what I wanted them to and there’s a d
efinite rush to be had from it. I don’t feel that way now though. It’s the complete opposite.

I just want them gone.

“I was so mad at lunch. I’m sorry.”

Her words, they do nothing for me. She’s not sorry, at le
ast not for what she’s apologizing for. She’s sorry that she pissed me off to the point where I walked away from her maybe, but that’s about it. I’ve been down this road before, over stupid crap like this and there’s no way I’m doing what I did then with her now. The time for accepting it and moving on is over.

“We need to talk about that but not here.”

I motion toward the hall and she starts moving. I follow behind until we’re both safely out and away from the prying eyes of the librarian. Not that I’m all that concerned with her hearing what I’m about to do. She remembers the way I was on my first day, having been there when it happened, so I like to think she’s the only person in the school that doesn’t totally hate me.

“So what did you wanna talk about?” Amy asks as I scan the hallway for anyone who might be able to listen in. I know what’s going to happen the minute I do this and I definitely don’t want an audience.

“What did you do that made you hide out? You’ve never run off before.”

“That bitch you brought to lunch. When you took off, I went looking for you, but ran into her instead. The way she looked at me Dill, I lost it. We dragged her into the bathroom and well, all hell broke loose.”

She’s got my full attention now. I want to know what she means by hell breaking loose and more than that, I’m more than a little interested in how Cadence supposedly looked at her for all of this to start, even though I’m pretty sure I know.

I’ve seen the way Cadence is. She’s tough. The way she looked at me in class, especially when she flicked the shit out of me for rolling my eyes gives me all the information I need in terms of her looking at Amy. She stood her ground no doubt and ended up paying for it.

“What do you mean all hell broke loose?”

“She wasn’t like the others. I exp
ected her to act like Isabelle; maybe not pissing herself, but scared.  She didn’t do any of that. She bit Eve and she knocked Charlotte in the face. It was brutal.”

I don’t want to, but the overwhelming sense of satisfaction I get from hearing what Cadence did to the other two, makes me smile.  Looking Amy over, I can see that there’s not a scratch on her, which means nothing happened to her.

“Anything else happen?”

“I got up her against the wall, told her off about what she was doing trying to get with you and the minute I turned to check on Eve, she tried getting away. That’s when we got hold of her hair again and yanked a bunch of it out.”

There is it. I’ve heard enough. Cadence got away, since I saw her a couple minutes ago and she’s safely out of the school. I don’t need to know anything else. Amy admitted to everything I needed her to.

“Ames…”

“I know okay. I know you’re pissed and I said things that weren’t true, but baby, I know girls. I saw the way she looked at you. She wants you and there’s no way in hell I’m letting her get you.”

“You’re crazy. You get that right?”

“Screw you! You’re blind to what goes on around here. What people say about you; what the girls talk about. Things they want to do to you if they could just get five minutes alone with you! I’ve been listening to it for a year now. Seeing the look in their eyes when they pass you in the hall and I never say shit.”

“You’re saying a whole lot of shit right now.”

“Why are you acting like this?” she screams and I know that I’ve reached the point of no return. It’s time to get this over with and get the hell out of here before she completely breaks down, though with the way her voice is already raising, she’s pretty damn close to that point already.

“You don’t see it do you?” I yell back at her, making sure there can be no doubt of what she’s about to hear. “I don’t give a fuck who looks at me. I don’t give a shit about any of it and I don’t give a shit about you!”

Her eyes go wide and where she’d been close to me before, she starts backing up now. This reaction should bother me, with what we are to each other, but I’m so far beyond done with her and the way she’s been since we got together that I feel absolutely nothing. I’m not happy, bothered, nothing. I’m completely numb.

“You don’t mean that.”

“I mean every word. I’ve been putting up with you and this jealousy shit for a year. Half the reason Isabelle got picked on is because you saw the way I looked at her one day and lost it. Every single girl we’ve ever chosen is because of you even though I went along with it. It always comes back to you thinking they want me when they actually want nothing to do with me!”

“That’s not true.”

“Yes, it is true! You seem to think I’m God’s gift and maybe for a little while, I bought into it too, but come on!”

“You don’t get girls the way I do.”

“Are you even hearing me right now? This has nothing to do with other girls. It has to do with you! I told you six months ago to knock off the stupid shit you were doing or I was gonna walk. Well it took me way too damn long, but I’m walking now.”

“No, you don’t mean this. You’re just pissed about lunch.”

She reaches out to grab on to me and the minute her wrist comes into my view, I grab onto it. All it would take is one small twist and I could break it and her in the process. I gotta get out of here before I end up doing something I can never take back. With as angry as she’s making me with her stupidity, this is not going to end well if I don’t.

Pulling her to me, not letting go of the hold I’ve got on her, I speak again and this time I say everything that needs to be said because once I walk, I won’t be coming back. This is it. I’m beyond done. The way she’s acting is just further proof that I’m doing the right thing. It might have started with me wanting to do it because of what she did to Cadence, but it’s so much more than that now.

This isn’t about Cadence, it’s about me.

“We’re done. This sick thing we call a relationship, it’s over.  I might not have been the best boyfriend in the world, but I never gave you a reason to act like this. I was loyal as shit to you. You wanna be pissed at someone for what’s happening now, go find a fucking mirror, because you’ve got no one to blame but yourself.”

Releasing the hold and turning my back on her, taking a few steps away, I hear her speak and it only proves that what I’ve done is the right thing. Even with me walking away from her, she’s still so out of her mind that she’s turning it around on everyone else.

“Thanks for proving that I was right earlier. You really do have a thing for the stupid mute bitch!”

I’m starting to wonder what it was I saw in her in the first place because what I see right now, is enough to keep me off girls forever.

“You go ahead and believe that, Ames. It’s not my problem anymore.”

The farther away I walk, the more the knot in my chest alleviates. It’s like in some way my body is letting me know that walking away from her, dumping her the way I did is healthy—right even. By the time I turn the corner and she’s completely out of my view, I feel lighter than I’ve ever felt.

There’s only one more thing I need to do, but with the way everything happened today, it’s going to have to wait. I just hope I don’t have to wait too long.

I need to make things right with Cadence.

Chapter Eleven

Cadence

There was this moment last night where I wasn’t sure I wanted to come back here. I knew what would be waiting for me after the failed attempt in the bathroom and I wasn’t looking for a repeat performance.

My mind was so made up that I told my mom I’d much rather spend the next week in the room doing absolutely nothing than go back there.

It worked. She agreed with me. After speaking with Principal Daniels, letting him know what happened to me, she explained that if I didn’t want to go back, she wasn’t going to force me. Even though the girls would be handled, she knew that what they started would only be continued in their absence and she didn’t want me having to deal with it.

Honestly, it was a relief. If I never saw Wexfield High again, it would be too soon. I wanted nothing to do with the way things worked there and even though there were people there I liked and would miss, it wasn’t enough to change my mind. It’s only when I woke up in the middle of the night, the tossing and turning becoming too much to handle and sat down at the computer, logging into my Facebook account that things began to change.

At the top of the screen where friends could be added, there was a bright red one wrapped in a bubble and right beside it, the little message icon was also glowing red. I didn’t think anything about it considering Eric asked me for my info and I assumed now Isabelle or Kayden were too. It’s only when I clicked on the message icon that I found out it wasn’t any of them.

Dylan Murphy

It took me three hours to find you since we don’t have anyone in common, but I need to talk to you about what happened today. Explain or whatever. Please come to school tomorrow so we can talk?

It wasn’t anything major, he didn’t bear his soul or anything, but what he did say was enough. As sure as I was that going back was definitely not the right move to make, there’s something about what he wrote that made it exactly what I had to do.

With that message in mind, I walk the hall now, on the way to the stairs that will take me to the class where I’m going to see him again. As nervous as I am, checking around every corner for any sign of the three girls that turned my world upside down less than twenty-four hours ago, I’m comforted in knowing that once I did reach the class, I wouldn
’t be alone. Sure, Dillon might be there and he might want to talk, but Eric and Isabelle are there too and neither one of them will let anything happen to me.

The minute I enter the class I see my mom and she throws me a weak smile, the concern she
has over me being here evident in her eyes. When I got up with her in the morning, grabbing my backpack before making my way out to the car, I’d taken her off guard, but after having the drive to school to get used to it, she’d gone along with my decision and hadn’t voiced her fears even though I knew she had them.

Those same fears sh
e’s displaying now without saying a word.

Walking to the back of the room, fully prepared to take my seat, pull out my book and dive into it again, I come to a complete stop the minute I see the folded lined paper in the middle of it. Darting my eyes over to the seat next to me and seeing it empty, I breathe a sigh of relief. I’m overthinking things. With me not being here yesterday, someone else probably sat here and left the paper behind.

Tossing my bag on the floor beside me and sliding into the seat, I pick the paper up and open it, determined to see who it belongs to so I can give it back. It’s only when I see the familiar scrawl on the page and my name at the top that I realize that I hadn’t been overthinking it at all. Dillon strikes again.

Cadence

I really hope you got my message last night and you showed up otherwise this is gonna be a wasted piece of paper.

Shit

Let me start this again.

I don’t have a clue what I’m doing. I’ve never done anything like this before and it’s a little messed up. I’m leaving this here super early, before anyone can see because I don’t want to see your face while you’re reading it.

If you hate what I’m saying to you, I don’t want to see your eyes go all dark and hard the way they did after what happened with Eric. I know that look really well because I’m always wearing it.

What happened to you yesterday, it shouldn’t have happened. When you got up and walked away from us, Amy kept saying shit and I got up and left too. I was actually coming to find you. I wanted you to know that the
shit
stuff she was saying, I didn’t agree with it. It wasn’t what I thought about you or anything.

I know what they did to you after I left. Amy admitted it to me and I hate it. I hate that because I tried to do something, it got twisted and you got hurt.

You’re the best damn thing about being stuck in that class. I did a lot of horrible
shit
stuff that got me put there and I swear, I thought it was gonna be hell until you started busting my balls. Lol

This is supposed to be all serious and I’m doing my best not to be a jerk and curse, but I keep screwing that up too. If you’re still reading this, I’m sorry.

I’m sorry for the letter and all the lines and scribbles and being all over the place with what I’m saying and I’m sorry for what Amy did to you. I brought you to lunch that day because I wanted my friends to meet this cool person I got to spend the class with and I just screwed the entire thing up.

I want to come to class today, see you sitting there, smile at you and have you smile back. I want to be your friend. I hope that when I do show up, you’ll talk to me again. I don’t think I can get through the class without it.

God that sounds so gay. Ugh. I’m just gonna stop writing this now.

I’m sorry. Please forgive me.

Dillon

Folding the paper back over and placing it back on the desk, I stare at it, as if doing that will somehow make everything I just read easier to take. It’s easy to see that he’s never done anything like it before because there were a lot of scribbles and curse words crossed out. Why he thought he had to speak any different than he always does is beyond me, but there’s no doubt it was awkward.

He wasn’t attempting to be funny, but he was, a lot more than he should have been. It’s half the reason I kept reading even though the stuff he was talking about I didn’t want to think about. What happened to me yesterday is still fresh, so the last
thing I need is a reminder, friendly or not.

It’s not the stuff with Amy that gets to me most. It’s the way every time he said something even remotely nice, he had to backtrack
and call himself gay or say it sounded stupid. Whatever he’s been through; the person he’s changed into, it’s made him think that even saying something nice is bad and there is something so wrong about that.

It shouldn’t be a bad thing to be nice and whoever told him otherwise needs a smack upside their head because they lied.

It’s been a couple of minutes since I read the words and even now I’m so sensitive to every shadow that passes by me that I keep looking up, hoping that the next person I see will be him. He said he was going to show up, but do it after I was finished reading. Well, I’ve been done for a while now and there’s still no sign of him.

Even when he does show up I’m not sure how I’m going to handle it. His words got to me because even though he was all over the place, you could easily see how hard he tried with it.  He wants to make things right, blaming himself for what happened yesterday and I owe him the chance to try.

This whole thing is awkward. I was supposed to come here, sit silently in the back and mind my business while my mom taught the class, going home with her at the end of the day and repeating the same cycle over again for the next two weeks. I was never supposed to get involved with the people here or even form attachments, but that’s exactly what I did.

I got attached to Dillon Murphy and now that it’s done, the only thing left to do is ride it out until my school is fixed and I can go back to the way my life is supposed to be.

It’s just not something I’m sure I’m gonna be able to do.

Dillon

Something’s going on with me and I’m not sure how I feel about it.

It started last night when I got home and it hasn’t let up since. After spending hours going through every profile I could possibly find until I found the one that would connect me to hers, I sent her a friend request first and then messaged her. I’m not much of a writer, this being the first time I’ve ever written anything on Facebook that wasn’t related to football or perverted somehow and by the time I finished, it was a really long message. After sitting there staring it for an hour, I finally deleted it and went with something shorter.

I spent the entire night stressing over it to the point where I didn’t sleep for shit and finally getting up and making my way down to the kitchen, I put the plan together that I’m now hiding out in the hallway waiting to happen.

Everything I said to her in the original message I was
gonna send, I wrote out by hand. Even though I think it looked like shit and if I were her, I wouldn’t want anything to do with it, I left it on her desk, sneaking in before Ms. Taylor got there, hoping that she showed up so it wouldn’t fall into the wrong hands.

The last thing I want is someone getting their hands on what I wrote her. Not because I’m embarrassed by any of it, but because it’s just not something I do. I don’t go out of my way to make a girl forgive me. I don’t go out of my way for anyone period. This is my first attempt at even being civil with someone like her and that getting out would throw my reputation in the toilet pretty quick.

Maybe I am embarrassed after all, if I’m that concerned about the way people will look at me if they saw it.

The way I’m acting, it’s throwing me off. I know that I want to do the right thing by this girl but I honestly have no clue what the right thing is and there’s this conflict inside me over it. On one hand, I’m beating on myself pretty hard because the way I’m coming off looks stupid and on the other hand, I’m hoping that it has the desired effect.  I can act sweet when I need to get what I want, but I don’t have a clue how to actually be sweet.

I watched her enter the room, watched the look between her and her mom before she went to her seat and sat down. I saw her pick up the paper and I’m assuming that her eyes scanning over the page means that she’s read what I wrote. It’s time for me to get over the fear and awkwardness I have and enter the class, but I still can’t will myself forward.

It’s the fight going on inside me. I have no clue what sides gonna win and I’m afraid that the minute I sit down, that part of me that wants to do the right thing is going to get squashed and I’m going to turn into the ultimate asshole again. It’s the way I’ve always been and I’ve been doing it so long now that I swear it’s the only thing I know how to do. Being different isn’t even on my radar.

At least it wasn’t until Cadence.

“Dillon, are you going to join us this morning or are you planning to skip again?”

Damnit. Standing here not focusing got me nailed. Now I’m gonna have to explain what happened yesterday and hope I don’t get in shit for it and pay the price for lingering outside now.

“I’m coming in.  Sorry about yesterday Ms. T. Something came up that I needed to handle.”

“There always seems to be something with you, Dillon. We can discuss yesterday and where you were later. For now, please come in so we can start the class.”

Doing as
she says, I walk in and immediately turn to head to my seat. It’s when I’m about a foot or so away that the girl I’ve been watching for the last fifteen minutes looks up and our eyes meet.

Sticking to what I said I wanted in the note, I smile, even though it’s a pretty weak attempt and my brain goes haywire waiting for her to return it. When she does, my heart and my head settle and I slump my body down into the seat, feeling the ache in my muscles the minute my ass hits the chair. It may have been a couple of days since the fight, but I’m still feeling the pain from it.

I flinch from the impact and a few seconds later, I see a blue paper make its way up into the air.

Are you okay?

With everything that happened to her yesterday, I put a lot of what Kayden told me out of my head, but now, seeing the note and the words on it, I’m reminded again. Where I believed she was just a random girl that didn’t like the sound of her voice, there’s more to it and even more to the notes she’s been writing me. Cadence isn’t like any other girl because she’s deaf.

This would have been material for me to use picking on her before, but knowing it now, with all the stupid changes going on with me, picking on her, it’s the last thing that comes to mind. Her being deaf should prove to me that she’s even weaker than the others, but it doesn’t do that. I’m completely going against everything I know because her being deaf doesn’t mean anything to me.

She’s still the same Cadence she was the first day and I refuse to look at her differently. In fact, I’m not even going to bring up that I know because I don’t want it to change anything that’s already going on between us.