Copyright © 2015. All Rights Reserved.

CHAPTER NINETEEN: EIGHTH GRADE

D A T E : May 2010

✖ problematic ✖

"I don't know Clara that well," Kole told me, kicking pebbles from the shoulder of the road. I walked along beside him, testing the white line that kept the cars in check. In my right hand I held Puck's leash up as the burly Bernese dog lumbered ahead of us. "You know, now that I think of it, I don't think I've ever talked to her once. She's super tall, right?"

"Yeah, blonde hair, that kinda thing," I informed him. "Just come with me to her house, I don't wanna go alone."

"No way!"

"Moral support?"

"Nah, you're on your own. But I can tell you this: if there's something wrong, I don't think she'll tell you. I mean, she's gone this far without telling anyone, right?" he told me, and I gave a solemn nod because I knew it was true. Maybe just waltzing up to her house was a stupid plan. The last time I did, she shooed me away and on the way home, my skateboard was butchered by a truck.

"I mean, are you sure? Do you think she'd tell a school counselor?" I asked, and he shook his head, because he knew all about that stuff. He knew what it was like to suffer in silence, afraid to tell anyone about it in fear of what they'd think of him. He was stronger than anyone I'd ever met, while at the same time, being the weakest.

"Like I said, I don't know her too well, but it's probably pride. Pride sorta gets in the way of a lot of stuff, actually," he said, stuffing his hands into his pockets and glancing over at me. I stopped teetering on the white line and continued on in a casual trot, leaning up and scratching my hand against Puck's rump. He wagged his tail hard and looked back at us, his tongue dragging out one side of his mouth.

It was warmer than usual outside, so I was just wearing a sweatshirt and shorts, and Kole wore his usual Adidas sweats and a general t-shirt. We could smell the lake coming up on us, damp and reeking of a mucky pond, and on the horizon, the sky merged with the water. I'd messaged Kole to go on a walk with me to the lake, so we met up by the overpass and walked the country roads where cars were minimal, and farms were present. Our little trio crossed onto a path through a corn field, which was only just starting to sprout colors of spring green.

"How's Landon?" he asked me.

"Fine," I answered back. "Better, I guess. We're making a video together this weekend. Hopefully it'll be up by next week."

I realized he no longer enjoyed talking about our videos, because he didn't answer and instead looked down at his feet for another few minutes before I said anything else. "What about you? What've you been up to?"

He scuffed his tennis shoe against a pebble, sending it rocketing through the grass. "Nothing important, I guess."

That was annoying, when he talked like that. He did it so casually too, like he was completely used to it. Not many people picked up on it until they realized they'd gone and poured their life story out on him and discovered they hadn't asked a smidgen about him. He was an excellent listener, though.

"Oh come on, you've gotta be working on something. Any good books? I mean, you spend all your time in the library anyhow," I rambled on.

He shrugged and answered, "Well, I got a sketchbook."

I looked at him curiously, at his eyes just as dark a brown as they were the day I met him at my cousin's Fourth of July party. He dropped his gaze to the ground though, and I saw a hint of pink gather on his cheeks. "You draw?" I questioned curiously. I'd never pegged him as an artist, but I supposed it made sense.

"Well, I mean, I wouldn't call it that," he insisted, seeming offended that I'd made the assumption that he was just a general drawer, sketching generic things like still lives and animals.

I just prodded his arm and said, "Don't be so modest. I bet you're awesome at it."

I didn't know what I was doing to him. All that time I was probably tormenting him and he never had the guts to tell me so. Complimenting him like that was easy, and it was simple because it was true. Around Kole, anything and everything that came to mind ended up slipping out one way or another, but I didn't think the rumors about us were true at school. That he liked me, or I liked him, or anything like that.

I just said stuff like that because I thought it'd make him more confident about his talents. When he was with his buddies, he was able to adapt to anything they did, but they weren't artistic geniuses, or crazy intelligent prodigies suffering from anxiety and teetering on mental breakdowns. He hadn't had one of those in a while.

Puck tugged at the leash, seeing the edge of the bluff and the lake beyond. We reached a set of wooden stairs and clamored down, delving into the shadows of the bluff and feeling the chill of the evening. I should've worn pants.

We decided to walk down the beach, to downtown Port and maybe get a hot drink or something—he had a ten dollar bill in his pocket. I unleashed Puck and let him roam the sand, and prance around ankle-deep in water.

I made it to the damp sand when I felt Kole beside me, his arm brushing up against mine. I wasn't sure if it was because he had goosebumps or something, but a shock of cold rushed up my arm and I shivered in response. Quick to cover up my discomfort, I pointed towards a rock sticking out of the water and said, "Look, do you think I can reach it?"

"Not without getting soaked," he answered, but I raced down the beach anyway, catching Puck's attention and sending him sprinting towards me and the water, dashing in and sending a spray of ice-cold droplets into the air. I shrieked and laughed at him—he was getting absolutely drenched.

"You're right, it's too far out," I told him as I approached the shore across from the rock. It was a good five feet off the shore, which would require a step or two to get to it. "What if we got a log and put it in the water?"

"I dunno, it'd probably drift away," he answered. "Why do you wanna go on the rock anyway?"

"Because I feel like it. Now help me out," I ordered, marching towards the trees lining the bottom of the bluff and spotted a relatively large log to drag over. He came up along with me, and together the two of us lugged the thing across the sand, part of it dragging a line all the way across, but we made it to where the water lapped up to our feet. I ditched my socks and boots into the dry sand and felt my toes go pink and purple.

"You're gonna freeze to death," Kole warned me.

"That's okay," I told him with a laugh, twisting the log into the water and nudging it towards the rock. It bumped into the side of it, barely reaching the surface of the water by that point. "Hold onto this side, I'm going across."

He didn't argue, and just knelt down with both of his arms gripping the end of the log. I stepped up and caught my balance, my toes curling around the edges of the bark. Puck stood out in the water watching and lapping up the filthy lake water.

I swayed on the first step, because the log tilted, but Kole fastened his grip tighter and held it still until I'd reached the point where, when the waves came up, they touched the tips of my toes on the edges. Squealing, I leaned over and pressed my hands onto the dry top of the flat lake rock. After a moment I gained the courage to release my feet from the log, one at a time, and crouched down onto the lake rock with eyes wide and toes chilled to the bone.

"I made it!" I shouted, standing up and feeling like I was falling, but I wasn't. I hollered one of Joni's victory shrieks and punched my fists into the air. So maybe it wasn't much of an accomplishment, but I liked being out on that rock, separated from land, real land.

"You're gonna break your neck," he stated, now standing with his arms folded over his chest, and one foot steadying the log against the sand. He had his shoulders hunched like he was trying to curl over and shield his worries. I saw him do that sort of thing after taking a tough test in science, and reading whatever book in his hands with this severely intent expression on his face.

"As if. I'm like a cat—I always land on my feet," I said, becoming daring and swinging up one foot with my hands in the air like I was about to perform some hardcore kung fu.

"Seriously Skye, cut it out-"

"It's just water!" I retorted, annoyed by his pissy mood. He furrowed his eyebrows at the sound of my raised voice, so I dropped my arms to my side and said, "What's the matter with you? You aren't having any fun."

"Could we just keep moving? It'll be dark soon anyway," he told me. "And I have algebra homework."

"You told me you don't have any homework."

"I have shit to do, okay?" As soon as he started cursing like that, I pouted and plopped myself right down on the rock—legs crossed and everything—with the mist of the waves skimming my jeans. "C'mon, Skye..." he whined.

"Not until you apologize. People who swear, don't care," I remarked stiffly, and just as he opened his mouth to present a half-assed apology, I said to him, "and you have to tell me what's the matter."

He shut his mouth and blinked at me, and looked away a second later. "Look, I'm sorry, sometimes I slip up."

"Uh-huh, and what else."

He started fidgeting and turned to the side, like he was prepared to search for Puck and maybe just get out of the fight. "You don't want to hear about it, trust me."

"Oh come on, let it out. Judge-free environment, remember?" I prompted, now leaning forward intently. He tilted his head back and sighed before rolling his eyes in my direction. He caved.

"Girls are so annoying—not you, obviously, but it's just..." he paused, turning away from me and going off on a tangent, gesturing madly with his hands. "Bluebell's really getting on my nerves, and she acts like my sister. Always on her phone, saying 'like' all the time—who uses 'like' ten times in the same sentence? I mean, come on! I thought we grew out of that in sixth grade!"

I had the strong urge to join him in his rant and proclaim to Lake Michigan, "I hate Bluebitch! Suck on that!" but I knew that wasn't what Kole was getting at.

"You know she's flirting with you, right? Why else would she be your lab partner?" I interjected, and I couldn't process the look he gave me. "You guys kissed, and you're telling me you don't know why she's obsessed with you?"

"I thought she wanted me as a lab partner because I was smart!" he whined. "And she practically just broke up with Ryan. She probably just wants to get under his skin or something."

Or my skin. "Stop egging her on then," I told him as casually as I could, but I couldn't even keep it from slipping out, let alone control the tone of it. He looked at me like I'd grown a second head.

"I haven't done anything. I just do all our work in science, and I didn't come on to her or anything, she just-"

"You kissed her!"

"She kissed me! It wasn't my fault, I've told you that before!" he all but shouted at me, talking a mile a minute. "What makes you think I like her anyway? You're practically the only girl I hang out with anyway, so wouldn't that-" Almost immediately he shut up, his voice having escalated so loudly that the last few words resonated off the bluff for a while until they murmured into a muffled ringing in my ears.

I couldn't even imagine what my face looked like right then and there, but it was enough to mortify the living hell out of Kole. I felt like I was starting to live those rumors people spread about us, questioning, "Are they dating? They're so dating. But they never hold hands...? He always walks her to class... They're so cute together."

He was saying something to me, but I chimed in with, "D-Did you just say...?"

"No. No I didn't," he shot out abruptly. He looked around for an escape and pointed ahead, saying, "Maybe I should catch Puck, ya know? So... yeah." In the next instant, he was gone, chasing after Puck, who, upon being spotted, took the opportunity to wreck havoc and prance around like a wild gazelle, sending Kole this way and that to catch up with him.

Suffice to say the walk was awkward all the way to downtown Port. It's hard to act like nothing had happened when it was following us like those immature "Kick Me" signs taped to the back of our shirts. I kept panicking in my head, thinking things like, "You better not bring it up. You better've been joking." But I figured he was probably suffering ten times more over that little slip up.

Maybe it meant nothing at all, but the chances of that were so low, I could tap it with my pinkie toe and it'd come crumbling down.

Once in Port, I suddenly didn't feel like getting ice cream, or going to any of the downtown attractions, so we avoided them like the plague. We didn't even go on the pier or by the lighthouse—I was too afraid that the scenery would sudden trigger some romantic soundtrack, and if he'd try to kiss me like Bluebell did to him, something embarrassing would happen, like shoving him over, but instead of skinning his forearm like I did to Ryan that time, he might just wind up in the lake. Another trip to the hospital.

So we stumbled along with Puck, tracking up the massive hill to the park, running out of breath at the top, and feeling the cool lake breeze catch up my sweatshirt when I bent over my knees and whined, "I guess this is what happens when I quit track."

"Trust me, you aren't missing much. Coach is trying to get me into pole vaulting. Every day after one of those practices, I feel like total crap," he told me, not nearly as winded as me. I straightened back up to look at him properly, but as soon as I did, he got all nervous and fidgety again, and just kept walking onward in the direction of where my house was positioned.

Kole never really went to my house before, he'd just seen it and acknowledged it as my humble abode from time to time. He'd probably been to one of Bluebell's parties and, upon touring her extravagant house, she probably snorted at the front bay window and pointed across the street, saying, "And, like, that's where the neighborhood dork lives. Like, how weird, right?"

Upon sighting the house, Puck took off and flounced around in the yard for a bit before hiking up a leg and peeing on the Mighty Maple. Kole laughed, and the sight of Puck and the sound of Kole laughing was so contagious that I couldn't help but giggle too, but I was so disoriented to keep it up for long.

I stopped at the driveway where Lucas's car was parked, and debated just walking up, waving over my shoulder, and calling out, "See ya later!" but suddenly, that seemed so cold. Instead, I turned to him with a casual shrug and waited for him to say goodbye first.

He stuck a hand in his pocket and tugged on his beanie. "Well, that was... fun. I guess I'll message you sometime later, when I get home," he said.

I probably mumbled something awkward like, "Yeah..." before I felt his hand on my upper arm. It wasn't anything super intense, like he was going to reel me in for some great hug, but it definitely put a blinking light over his head like we suddenly stepped foot into the Sims.

His hand swiftly faded away, and he walked off, letting it swing to his side and eventually slip into the pockets of his Adidas sweatpants. I waited until I was sure he wouldn't look back—like in one of those ridiculous romantic movies—before I took off for the garage and flew straight up to my room to join Joni and Landon on a group chat.

Because this was majorly freaky.

...

In the discussion of all things freaky, school took a dramatic turn the minute the ticking time bomb that was Clara finally burst in the middle of study hall. I'd never gone into her study hall because I never really had work for her homeroom teacher, so I wasn't there when her mom showed up at the front office and ordered to meet her daughter out at the front of the school.

The library windows, though, had a clear view straight to the office at the three-way intersection of halls. I'd been up behind the librarian's counter talking to Joni when we recognized Clara's mom's mess of blonde hair through the window.

"Hey, would'ya look at that? It's Clara's mom. What's she doing here?" Joni said, pointing her finger at her so I could see. I leaned to the side to get a better look, but looked away when I saw the woman pound her fist into the secretaries desk like she was super pissed off at something.

"She doesn't look happy," I commented. "Are you sure that's her mom?"

"Positive. I saw her once or twice at a track meet," she answered confidently. "And she has the same oversized handbag. It looks like she's going to the beach or something with that shiznit."

It did, and just as we were talking about it, her mom hiked her purse straps onto her shoulders and turned away from the desk, arms folded and face as hard as stone. I saw the secretary dial a number on the school phone to contact Clara's homeroom.

It was around that time that Kole walked past to retrieve something from his locker, so Joni and I waved to him and he flashed a peace sign. Joni glanced over at me with a suggestive smirk, and I rolled my eyes and shoved her in the shoulder.

"I think you should ask him to the eighth grade dance. I mean, it's not that far away, and honestly..." she told me in a hushed voice, leaning over the counter to see that he had disappeared. When she settled back down, I felt my ears burn uncontrollably, and I twisted a long strand of black hair over them to keep the heat from showing.

"That's ridiculous. We're friends."

"Then go as 'friends'. Wink, wink, nudge, nudge," she jested, pestering me with little bats of her hands while I squirmed around to avoid the attention. "Anyway, I heard someone from Bluebitch's group is bringing a kid from another school. I'd feel awkward doing something like that, ya know? You wouldn't know anybody."

She continued her little rant as a tall, skinny blonde strolled past the library windows. I recognized her as Clara, and upon entry into the office, both Joni and I shut up when her mom started blowing up at her like she wasn't in an office surrounded by clear windows. We could hear muffled shouting all the way over here, but it wasn't enough to tell what she was yelling about.

I didn't know what to do, but I felt like I had to do something. It was one thing to get yelled at by your parents in of your friends, but it was something completely different when it happened in the middle of school where anyone could be listening in. Clara just stood there taking it, with her chin drawn to her chest and shoulders curled in like Kole when he was trying to hide something.

Her mom clasped her hand to her daughter's chin and forced her to look her in the eyes, and that was when the secretary got up from her seat. Joni slapped me in the arm, already up from her seat. "C'mon, quick," she hissed, ditching the librarian counter and rushing out into the hallway.

Not knowing what else to do, I got up after Joni and headed straight for the office. The yelling just got louder, especially when Joni opened up the door to interfere. I floundered in the doorway, not sure if I should enter, or if I should wait out in the hall.

Confrontation wasn't my thing, especially in cases like this. I just felt like crying, seeing Clara all exposed like that when her mom wailed on her. She even swung her beach bag against Clara's arm and screamed, "How dare you! I'm your mother—you can't do this to me!"

"Joni, I have to ask you to leave-" the secretary told Joni, like she could totally handle the situation, when clearly, she was just trying to avoid getting hit with Clara's mom's handbag.

Joni ignored the secretary and nudged her way beside Clara, facing the furious mom whose eyes were surrounded by red, and scraggly blonde hair falling carelessly out of her messy up-do. "Whoa, whoa! Mrs. MacFarlane," Joni interrupted, holding her hands up, one defending the front of Clara. "What's going on here? We're supposed to be in class."

Clara's mom made a big huff and threw her arms around, her handbag swinging like a nunchuck. "Well, tell me something, kid," she bit out, daring to use words that would get us sent to the principle's office on any other day. My eyes flew open wide, and Clara made an attempt to push Joni out of it.

"C'mon, Joni, this doesn't involve you," she told my friend, sounded so defeated it hurt.

"Like you would know anything about boundaries! You worthless- I outta have you-" I wanted to shut my eyes and hold my hands to my ears. All I could do was flinch and plead for someone to get her out of here. At that moment, I didn't care that she was a parent because no parent should shout at their kids like that, no matter what the child did to hurt them so terribly.

"Mrs. MacFarlane-" the secretary started, only to be turned on with a wrath like no other.

"Miss! It's Miss MacFarlane, thanks to this bitch! Have a nice life with that son of a whore! He'll treat you like shit, and don't expect me to wait here with open arms." She didn't get very far with that strut of hers—three-inch heels and all—because she rolled her ankle on the spin around and had to hold onto the wall for support. She cursed loudly, and had that little disaster not cost her so much time, she might've even escaped the stern look of the school officer marching up from a call one of the secretaries sent into his walkie.

While the police man escorted Miss MacFarlane off school property, Clara refused to be seen by the school psychiatrist. "I'm fine, really. I have a lot of math homework to catch up on, so I should probably get back to class," she said, looking stone-faced and none too happy with the explosion from her mom.

Clara walked past me out the door, and the secretary was quick to ask Joni and I to watch over her, and to come to her if she needed to sort anything out for us.

Joni thanked the secretary and took off down the hallway after Clara, who had a hand to her face with her eyes to the ground. I followed closely by her heels until we were both flanking Clara, who heaved a great big sigh and said, "Ya'll really don't have to worry about it. That was so embarrassing. You weren't meant to see that."

"I know, I figured, but we want to help. Whatever happened between you and your mom is your deal, and you don't have to tell us if you don't want to," Joni told her, and tossed an arm around her shoulders like Clara hadn't made a giant divide between us for basically the entire year.

That was the point that she started to get teary-eyed, but refused to shed a tear. Joni and I could see the pain where it glazed over her eyes.

"Families suck," she told us, and sucked in a deep breath before gathering me around my shoulders and reeling me in for a side hug. "You guys'll do, though."

I still couldn't get over how awkward it felt to hug someone, to be by someone's side, and act like I could understand where they were coming from. Maybe Clara just needed someone to hug, to sympathize with even though we'd never ruined a marriage before, we'd never got beaten with handbags and God knows what else by their mom. Because under all Clara's sweatshirts, her pants in the summer, and the late-minute cancelations, Clara had problems since day one.

As did everyone else.