Naked (7 page)

But he also helped me. If it weren’t for Luis, I’d have been in the gutter before the sunset on my first day in New York. Was he perfect? No. Especially not toward the end. But if Sarah thinks that just because I left that life I’ll throw him into the gutter he pulled me out of?

She’s not nearly as smart as I thought she was.

I walk out to the parking lot and sit on the hood of her car until she finally comes out. I ignore her until she says my name.

“Anna.” She points to the passenger side door. “I should get you home.”

I give her a look that says she better not say another word, and she doesn’t the whole way home.

Sarah pulls the car up to my parents’ driveway. I pop open the car door, intent on getting as far away from her as possible.

“Anna,” she says lightly.

I stop but don’t look at her.

“I have to go back to New York,” she says. “I’m sorry you’re mad at me, and I wish I didn’t have to leave now, but I do. There are more girls who need my help.”

Why do I feel like she’s accusing me? Like I’m refusing to help those girls with her? And that’s why she’s leaving.

“This isn’t good-bye,” she says. “I just won’t be around for a little while. You can call me anytime.”

“Fine. Bye,” I say and hop out of the car and practically run into the house.

I barge through the door and slam it shut behind me, and for a full second I don’t notice the dog crouching in the hall in front of me.

His bark shakes the mirror next to me. I jump back to get away from the dog and his snapping jaws. Shit.

I can’t handle this. No one wants me. No one likes me. Not even this stupid-ass dog.

“Just
shut up
,” I yell at him, tears welling in my eyes.

He stops barking.

I blink again, then slump to the ground. Right there, in the middle of my parents’ home with a damn guard dog staring at me, I lose it. Completely. Sobbing in a way I don’t know that I ever have.

It has to be a full five minutes before I calm down enough to breathe and open my eyes. The dog just sits there, watching me curiously. He doesn’t understand, but I wouldn’t expect him to.

He sits with his head so high, his chest sticking out, like he’s so proud to be him. It looks like confidence, but I think it’s the way he is. He’s beautiful, in an odd, sorta scary way.

And as I wipe my tears from my eyes, he inches close to me. I watch closely, unsure if I should move away from him. He doesn’t seem to be the most friendly or trustworthy dog I’ve met.

I drop my hand to my bent knee, and he leans in closer, slowly. His wet nose touches my hand, but his eyes never leave me. I wonder if he wants me to pet him, but then he starts to lick my hand. I’m not really sure what it means, but it feels like he’s being nice to me. Like instead of expecting me to pet him, he’s doing something for me. A slimy something, but it’s the thought that counts.

I wait a moment, then pull my hand away and try to sneakily wipe it on my pants as I stand up. He lies back down like nothing happened, and I sneak past him and hide in my bedroom. I lay there, staring at the ceiling, thinking about everything.

I should know better. I know I’m not supposed to think about the present. I guess the problem is that the past and the future are just as painful.

I didn’t belong here the first time around, so why do they think it would work now? Now that I’ve been raped and beaten.

Beaten and sold by the man I loved.

Now I’m supposed to be normal.

I can physically feel the breath—the life—seeping out of me. Each and every moment pulls the things I thought I had further away and gives me nothing new to replace them. What do I have now? A naive boy who’s nice to me but if he knew the truth he’d be disgusted. Parents who are disgusted, a dog who doesn’t bark in my face when I cry, and a woman who pretends to be my friend just so she can put Luis in prison.

Yeah, that’s a life worth living, right there.

I’m becoming emptier and emptier. Soon there will be nothing left.

High school isn’t where I belong. Hell, I don’t have any clue where I belong. Maybe prison—maybe I should be in prison with Luis. That’s the only place that makes sense.

I don’t come out for dinner, and after a few knocks my mother stops pressing. I cry myself to sleep before the sun even sets.

Chapter Eleven

T
oday isn’t just another day of school. That’s bad enough. This is the day after my ridiculous episode in the hall. They’ll call me crazy now.

Maybe that makes it better. If they’ve already judged me crazy, maybe they’ll forget the other rumors. The ones too close to the truth.

“You coming or what?”

I blink and realize I’ve been standing in front of this stupid brick building for too long again. Jackson’s waiting, eyebrow raised.

I’m not really in the mood to be angry or nice, or to even decide which I should be. So instead I pretend that finally entering the school was my own idea.

I’m pretty good at maneuvering through a crowd, so I squeeze through the small gaps of people. Jackson follows right behind me. I don’t care when I hear more whispers from the other students.

“That’s the crazy girl.”

“She had, like, eight kids. That’s why she was gone.”

“Ew, the crazy slut just touched me.”

That last one hits a little too close to home, but it’s one truth among a bunch of rumors, and as long as I’m careful, no one will know which is which.

The crowd slows to watch me passing through, the geeky boy still following behind me, almost like he doesn’t notice the difference. But he also doesn’t call for me to slow down or wait up.

Once we reach the lobby, I pause. He catches up and stops beside me.

Now that I’m here, I realize this was the worst possible place to stop. It’s where most of the people congregate. I see groups of kids standing around, some looking at me, some not paying any attention to anything but themselves.

A group of guys, a few of them in football jerseys, talk animatedly and glance over at me.

“I dunno, dude. She’s pretty hot. I wouldn’t mind tapping a little of that.”

Yeah, I’d say it’s definitely time to go.

“I know a place we can hang out,” Jackson says. “Follow me.”

I follow him, because I’d rather be anywhere but in the watering hole of high school, especially when I’m obviously the prey.

“Look, the virgin and the slut! How cute.”

I spin to see a pretty dark-haired girl, freckles sprinkled on her cheeks, with her arms crossed and a grin that tells me she thinks she’s very clever. I pause for a second and feel Jackson’s grip on my hand tighten. He always seems so calm, but a hint of anger crosses his face.

The girl leans in. “You won’t get anything from him, sweetie. Might as well give up now.”

Jackson pulls me away from the girl before I can respond. I don’t really know what she means, but now I’m curious. Not about what mean things she decides to say about Jackson, but about whether Jackson’s life might not be as perfect as I think it is.

I guess he’s a geeky kind of kid, but in an almost cool way. He’s nice and confident, and it’s hard for me to imagine him being bullied and made fun of.

Maybe that’s the real reason he helped me the other day, because he knows what it’s like.

Jackson guides me down the hall, past the main office and nurse, and into another lobby by the cafeteria. Even though this is my second day back, I still haven’t been into the cafeteria. But he doesn’t take me there; he turns into a stairwell that I didn’t notice before, past a few vending machines and glass cases full of trophies and plaques. At the bottom of the stairwell are a whole bunch of lockers.

There are a couple of kids sitting at the bottom of the steps. Jackson goes to the opposite side and sits. It’s a wide staircase, making us still about five to ten feet away from the other kids.

I just stand there, looking around. There are still kids walking around, slamming lockers, and talking, but it’s much more quiet down here.

“Have you been down here yet?” he asks.

I shake my head.

“The gyms are that way.” He points to the left. “The locker rooms are this way.” He points to the right. Then he smiles at me.

I can’t forget that flash of anger or my question about why he defended me yesterday. He’s not perfect. I get that. But no one does something for someone else for no reason. What does he want out of this?

“Why are you trying to be my friend?” I ask.

“Someone has to.”

“That’s a good reason.” I roll my eyes.

“I want a friend. Isn’t that a good enough reason?”

I sit down but don’t look at him. “I’m not really good at the whole ‘friends’ thing.” Least of all when it’s with a guy who, if I were anyone but me, I’d definitely want to be more than friends with.

He pulls out a bag of fruit snacks and pops one into his mouth. “I don’t expect much.”

Well, that’s good, because he isn’t going to get much.

He offers me a fresh bag of fruit snacks. Bad idea. I shouldn’t take one. But it’s been years since I had one of these…

He smiles as I take the bag. “So, I heard about what happened yesterday,” he says as he pops another fruit snack into his mouth.

I don’t want to talk about it, but I’m not really a fan of silence, so I answer. “Had a freak-out, I guess.”

“They’re saying you’re going to murder us all.” He smirks. Awesome, more great rumors. At least he’s not looking at me like I’m crazy. “I don’t put stock in rumors,” he says. “But sometimes the truth is the best ammo.”

I have no idea how to explain this, not without giving up my secrets, but he wants an explanation, so I try being vague.

“Something, a memory, came back that I wasn’t ready to deal with.” I don’t know if this made sense at all, but it’s all I can think to say.

“What’s the big deal? Everyone’s been through something.”

I shake my head. “Not like I have.”

He stops and looks me right in the eyes. “Okay, you’ve been vague about a lot, but that one got my attention.”

“Jackson, I’m not…normal.”

He raises his eyebrows. “So?” he says. “I mean, what’s normal, anyway?”

I shrug. “A suburban brat who’s got nothing to worry about but homework and who’ll take them to homecoming. Kids with friends, dreams of college and settling down…mostly people whose nightmares don’t come back to haunt them at the worst possible moments.”

He smirks. “Whose idea of normal is
that
?”

“That’s what my parents want from me. I just don’t know how to do it.”

He rolls his eyes. “Don’t tell me you do everything your parents want.”

I raise an eyebrow. “Oh, and I’m sure you’re a total rebel.”

That gets a laugh from him so big that I can’t help but join in. “Don’t let the nice guy look fool you,” he says. “My dad
wishes
I did everything he tells me to do.”

I can’t help but notice he only mentioned his dad. “Your mom doesn’t care?”

A burst of pain flashes across his face. It’s quick but strong enough that I know I hit a nerve.

“Sorry,” I say. I should know more than anyone that you can’t expect people to be an open book.

“My mom passed away,” he says.

“Oh.” I play with my bag of fruit snacks. Only now do I realize that in the midst of us talking, I ate all of them.

Jackson reaches over and puts his hand over mine. My heart speeds up. My instinct is to pull my hand away. No one’s touched me like that in a long time without expecting something else. Something more. But he’s not demanding. Just letting me know things are okay.

“We’re all messed up in some way,” he says. “You’re not so different from the rest of us.”

His sparkling, kind eyes look at me like I’m special. He knows I’ve got something dark in my past I don’t want to talk about, something that made me pass out in the middle of school and cry out to someone, but he still looks at me like I’m normal.

It’s nice, but I know better than to push my luck. I can’t tell him the truth. I can’t stand the look he’d give me if he knew that for the last three years I’d been sleeping with men for money. That’s too much for anyone to take, let alone a boy like Jackson.

I jump when the bell rings, and I realize I’ve got to go to class and be a normal student again. Awesome. I pick up my backpack and try to figure out how to get from this part of the school to my first class.

Jackson eyes my backpack. “You have a locker?”

I shrug, and he grins. I pull out my folded-up schedule and hand it to him.

Jackson looks down, then stands. “Come on Miss Normal, I’ll show you where your locker is so you don’t break your back carrying that thing around.”

We walk down the hall and to my locker, and Jackson attempts to show me how to unlock it. We had lockers in middle school, so the concept isn’t completely foreign to me, but I’m not exactly a natural.

I finally get my locker open without help, and I drop my bag off. My locker’s completely empty except for a small slip of paper on the top shelf.

I unfold the note. In sloppy letters it reads:

I know who you really are

Or should I say “what”

I stare at the writing for a second and then crumple it up, ignoring the pounding in my chest. It’s just someone playing another stupid trick one me. That’s it. No one knows what I was in New York.

“You okay?” Jackson asks.

I jump, despite myself. “Yeah, no problem.”

I won’t let this get to me. I crumple the paper in my fist and throw it back into my locker. Whoever left it can move on to someone who cares.

Chapter Twelve

J
ackson sits beside me in art class, and Mr. Harkins gives me a book of canvas paper and some pastels and tells me to draw anything I want. I take in a deep breath.

I’m not sure what to draw, so for a minute I just sit there, staring at the blank canvas, wondering what in the world it’s going to become. This is another fresh start, I realize. It can be anything.

The class is quiet. Only the sounds of pencils, charcoal, and pastels scraping and scratching against paper. I pick up a yellow pastel stick and begin with one long line.

Within seconds, all of my tension is gone. There is only me and the paper. Me and the picture in my head.

This. This is perfect. No talking, just drawing.

I feel so completely free, thinking about the colors and the lines and what I’ll do next, planning and preparing and doing.

It’s freaking magical.

The outside world falls away. The classroom. The students. Even Jackson. All I need is the pencil and paper. Art.

I draw a carousel and a little brown-haired girl with pigtails and pearls around her neck. She laughs wildly as she rides the plastic tiger around and around.

The little girl is free, and for a moment, so am I.

I leave that class with a soaring feeling in my chest. My picture isn’t finished yet, but I feel so very accomplished. I’ve finally found something that matters. Who cares if the picture sucks? If the people around me don’t even know what it is? I know what it is. It’s my world. And that’s all that matters.

I walk to the bathroom, and this time I set my books down on the windowsill and look out the window that leads to the courtyard. It’s been so long since I felt like this. Real hope. Real happiness.

I stand there for so long the bell rings, and I realize I’m late for lunch. At least I can’t get detention for that. I know if the hallways are bad, the cafeteria will be ten times worse. Maybe I should skip lunch? But damn if I’m not hungry, so I suck it up and rush down the stairs.

I manage to blend into a small crowd of freshman as they enter the cafeteria. Just because I don’t care about the whispers and the stares doesn’t mean I have to invite them. But everyone’s preoccupied with whatever drama their own lives hold for now.

Good, keep your mind on your own business.

I wait in line for some food. There are three different lines, and they seem to be pretty identical. Same food at each one. I end up just getting a soft pretzel, a cookie, and a Gatorade.

“Two fifty,” the lunch lady says.

That’s it?

I hand her three dollars, wait for my change, and then head out. I stand there for a moment, holding my tray, unsure of where to go now. As I look out into the sea of high school students, all I can think is: how the hell did I end up here?

Then a voice comes from beside me.

“What’s up?” Jackson says with a goofy smile. “Need a place to sit?”

I shrug, hiding my immense relief. He motions for me to follow him, so I do. I guess I’m not interesting enough on my own anymore, but seeing me with Jackson, people twist their heads so far they look like they may break their necks to watch me walk by.

Jackson leads me toward the back, at a table next to the window. I look to a small outside patio with picnic tables and see some stoner-looking people and a group of younger boys playing hacky sack.

Jackson sets his tray down with a
clink
. A few heads look up quickly, all boys. Two of them are white and skinny like Jackson, but they look a little less chic geek. In fact one of them is in a school football jersey, and the other in an Abercrombie T-shirt.

I try to smile, but I’m not good at making friends. They surprise me by smiling back anyway.

“Hey guys,” Jackson says. “This is Anna.” He points at each of them. “This is Doug, Garry, Kurt, and Jason.” I haven’t the slightest clue who is who, but that doesn’t really matter, because I won’t remember their names in about thirty seconds.

Jackson pats the chair next to him. I blink, realizing I was staring. I sit down and stare at my food. I want to eat it, but it feels weird to do something so natural in such an odd situation.

Is it really this easy? Say hello, sit down, make instant friends?

I look up and realize none of them are looking at me anyway; they’re all looking at Jackson and seem to be having some kind of silent conversation. That’s more like it. Smiles one minute, weird looks the next.

They exchange a few nods and mouthed words. The Asian boy notices me looking now, and he stops, wide-eyed. He clears his throat.

I raise my eyebrows as the other guys look to him, then to me. One of the white boys begins to blush. I still have no idea what’s going on, but I’m sure it’s about me.

This moment takes the awkward up about ten notches, and it was pretty high to begin with.

I sit there in silence for a few seconds, pretending not to notice their silent conversation. The dragon shirt kid’s eyes are big, and he looks across the lunchroom like there’s someone watching us or something.

One kids shrugs like he doesn’t care one way or the other and just shoves a huge piece of pizza into his mouth, and the last boy shakes his head.

“I can leave,” I say.

Jackson cocks his eyebrow. “Come on. They’re just being weird.”

I have no idea what’s going on, but I do know that I’m not very comfortable.

I’ll have to take his word for it. “Okay. But I need to get some mustard for my pretzel.”

Eyes follow me as I cross the room, and I have an urge to jump up on a table and scream “food fight!” or something stupid so I’ll actually deserve the looks.

When I make my way back to Jackson’s table, I stop when I hear the hushed voices.

“Dude, seriously,” the boy with the jersey says. “I get you like the charity shit and all, but you don’t need to drag us into it.”

I stop around two feet short, unsure of what to do. No one looks at me.

Jackson stands, leans forward, and puts his hands on the table. “When I say she’s cool, I’m not just blowing smoke. She hasn’t even spoken a word and you want nothing to do with her. What does that say about you?”

“That I’m human, dude,” the football player says, sending a glance across the room.

I follow his gaze and see a group of kids watching us. The cool kids, maybe? Is there really such a thing?

Then the football player sees me. His eyes flicker to mine and grow larger, but he doesn’t say anything.

“Guys,” Jackson says. He hasn’t seen me behind him, and that fills me with a warmth that takes me by surprise. He’s not saying these things for my sake. He means every word. “You can’t listen to these rumors. She’s just the new girl. What does it matter?”

“How do you know they’re just rumors? Maybe she really is a drug addict or just got out of juvie,” the dragon T-shirt kid says.

“Yeah, and maybe she was abducted by aliens, or the Soviets. Maybe she’s really a Russian spy.” He straightens his shoulders. “Besides, didn’t you go to juvie last year?”

“Well, yeah, but—”

“Yeah. So worst case, she’s just like you.” He looks around the table. “Like all of us.”

His friends are silent at that. What would they say if they knew those “rumors” are just watered-down versions of the truth? If they knew that the things they’ve done pale in comparison to my past? If they knew I was really a hooker…well, let’s just say his friends might have every right to look at me like I’m Bigfoot.

I make up my mind then. I turn and walk away. I’ll see Jackson later. I’m not sure what he wants out of this, what he expects to get for being so nice to me, but I need to get out of there before things get worse.

When I look back, Jackson’s watching me go, a look on his face that I hate. Sadness. So I wave and smile to let him know it’s okay. He cocks his head, confused, but nods, seems to get that the world hasn’t ended just because his friends were jerks.

I find a table in the middle of the cafeteria that’s empty. I sit and pick at my pretzel and sip on my Gatorade and pretend I’m fine being alone. But then a tray clinks down in front of me, and I see a girl sitting across from me.

She smirks. “Do you mind?”

I shake my head. She sits and dips an odd-looking crinkly french fry into a cup of ketchup. She’s pretty, but the kind of pretty that tries to hide it. Choppy short hair, dark eyeliner, and an eyebrow piercing.

“What’s your name?” I ask.

“Alex.”

“Oh, hi Alex,” I say.

She waves goofily.

She looks too old to be a freshman. Maybe even my age. “What grade are you?” I ask. I’ll be jealous if she’s a senior. That should be me. Except, you know, I’m technically stuck in the ninth grade.

“That’s up for debate.” She smirks.

I blink. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I’m sort of a junior, but most likely I won’t graduate with that class.”

“Why’s that?”

She shrugs and bites off a piece of one of her odd-looking fries. “Failed a few important classes.”

“Like what?”

“Like gym,” she says and laughs.

I’m oblivious. I have no clue if she’s joking or not. “Gym? Isn’t that a ninth-grade class?” I’m surprised I haven’t seen her in gym with me.

“No. I mean yes, I’m in a freshman gym class because I’ve skipped a few too many times the last two years. But no, it’s not one of those important classes. You only need two of them to graduate.”

“Oh.” Guess I just don’t know how this all works.

“I failed English freshman year. I want to just leave, but my parents won’t let me drop out. I figure if I fail enough classes, they’ll just give up and let me get my GED.”

That never even occurred to me. All I have to do is give up on good grades and I’ll get out of here for good?

“Maybe I should go that route, too,” I say.

She nods.

I see a girl walking slowly down the side aisle close to us with a tray in her hand. I recognize her. She’s Jen, the girl who’s supposed to tutor me. She looks even shier out here in the wild than she did in the library—which is saying something.

“That’s Jen,” Alex says, head lowered like it’s a secret or something. “She slept with Marissa Larson’s boyfriend a couple of weeks ago, so now everyone hates her.”

That sounds familiar. But looking at this lanky shy girl, shuffling her feet, I can’t imagine she’s very much like me.

“Everyone?” I ask.

“Well, almost everyone. Marissa is Miss Popular and thinks she owns the school. Unfortunately, she kind of does. If anyone even thinks about being Jen’s friend, Marissa and her friends make their life hell. Which apparently scares everyone enough that they won’t talk to her. Losers.”

“Who’s Marissa?” I ask quickly.

Alex stands and looks around for a moment, then points to a table toward the front of the cafeteria. “Curly brown locks,” she says.

I stand to see. There’s a group of girls and boys about my age, the same ones Jackson’s friends seemed nervous about. Yeah, definitely the cool kids. How lame is that?

I recognize Marissa from the “curly brown locks” Alex described her by. She’s sitting next to the girl who said that nasty thing about Jackson this morning.

“So what, they’re like the popular kids?”

Alex snorts. “Hell no. They’re just mean to everyone and it makes them think they’re cool.”

Jen’s slow steps bring her past our table. Her head’s down. I guess she doesn’t expect to find help any time soon. Is it like this every day? I notice a hint of red in her eyes as she finally passes us.

Screw this. I stand. “Hey, Jen!”

The shy girl whips around so fast her apple falls off her lunch tray.

I smile and look down at the empty chair beside me. “You can sit here,” I say.

Alex’s eyes grow wide, but I see a hint of a smile.

Jen pauses. She looks at me, then at Alex. Then her eyes dart to the “popular” table and she says, “Are you sure?”

“Can’t get much worse for me.”

“I’m not sure about that,” she says, but she sits anyway.

Alex no longer hides her smile.

The lanky girl looks down at her plate. She doesn’t eat any of it. “You’re coming to my house after school, right?” I ask her. She’s supposed to come every day after school, but yesterday I wouldn’t leave my room, so my parents canceled the appointment. Good times.

“I didn’t realize you knew each other,” Alex says.

Jen takes in a deep breath and drinks a small sip of her milk. “I’m her tutor.”

Alex raises her eyebrows, and I just shrug. Is it embarrassing that I need a tutor? I think I’ve got bigger problems than that.

After a few moments of silence, Alex asks Jen, “Was it good at least?”

“What?” I ask, but Jen’s wide eyes give me a pretty good clue. Alex just raises one thin eyebrow.

“I was drunk, he wasn’t.”

Apparently this wasn’t what Alex expected to hear. She doesn’t speak.

Of course, it wasn’t what I expected to hear either, but I guess you don’t have to go to New York for a guy to take advantage of you.

I find myself looking over at Jackson’s table. He glances at me, just long enough to catch my eyes and smile, like he’s checking up on me.

The popular kids are watching us with hate in their eyes, Marissa especially. I have a feeling I made the wrong kind of enemy here. But it kind of feels good, to be honest. I’m not a victim anymore. I chose this. I’m in control here.

Besides, it’s a hell of a lot better for them to hate me for their random high school drama than for them to find out the truth.