CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Meg waited impatiently outside of Jeff's classroom as time neared three o'clock. Class had ended early for her and she was supposed to meet him afterwards. She peered at the industrial clock which was mounted high on the closest wall to the door, and saw that there were five minutes left.
Jeff saw her and discreetly waved. He mouthed, Hi Meg, as she waved back. He yawned dramatically as though to indicate how boring the class was, then smiled big--crooked and charming. Meg laughed and smiled back.
How can I tell you how I feel? You're gone. The one chance I had with you is over with, and I will never have that chance again. I felt something for you that I only hoped you felt back, but it was all for nothing. I must face the reality that this boy I now smile at and wave to is not the boy that is my all, my whole world, my essence. I can forgive you for killing my brother but somehow I cannot forgive you for not understanding your feelings for me, for leading me on and then dumping me. I love you, I love you, and yet there's nothing I can do or say to convince you to feel the same way back. And I admit that in some strange way, the violent act you committed against my brother led me to you, pulled me to you, drew me to you, locked me to you. Why?
Her reverie was interrupted as the final bell rang. Doors left and right opened, and files of students burst out from the open doors, beginning to fill the previously empty halls.
As Jeff's classroom's door opened and kids began piling out, she stepped aside to let people through. As Jeff finally approached her, she tried to hide the melancholy in her eyes.
"How are you feeling today?" Jeff asked. Obviously, she had not been totally successful. Something of the weight on her shoulders had apparently peeked through and remained visible.
But she waved it off with a gesture of her hand. "Semester's almost over," she said hastily. "We'll be getting report cards soon, and I'm nervous," was her explanation.
He smiled and nodded, seeming to have accepted her answer. She was thankful for that.
He had a slight smile on his face and a glow in his eyes. It was as though he were thinking about something else entirely when he said, "Don't worry about it. Stress always gets a little more intense this time of year."
She nodded, scarcely aware that she was looking down at her hands more than she was looking up into his face. He held out his arms and placed both hands on her shoulders. "Are you ready to go?" he asked.
She nodded again, taking a deep breath.
As they walked, they stopped twice--once at her locker, and once at his. Meg was still getting used to the idea of being his "girlfriend," even though they'd been dating exclusively for weeks now.
He was so kind--overly so, she was afraid to admit, because somehow his kindness to her bothered her. Was she that perverse that she only wanted to be treated with minimal kindness? Surely she was worthy of the treatment that he gave her--he treated her like a princess. He opened doors for her, gave her flowers on occasion, joked with her, complimented her. Shouldn't she be happy with that?
Time had passed since Mark had left her, and she had seen little of him. However, she knew a few things about him: for one, she'd assumed that he'd want to go back to Beth, but he hadn't. The few times she'd run into him he'd been alone, not even with his friends. Former friends, actually. He'd even started wearing his glasses again and lost weight. His complexion was more gaunt, his expression more dull, less animated. She was afraid to even say it...but he was beginning to look...like he did before the incident--of course, years older. But even still, it gave her a strange feeling to see him like that, like seeing a ghost come alive again.
Conversely, at practice and at games, Beth began treating Meg with more and more respect, even praise. The time she'd tripped her at the football game was long over with and they'd become...no, not exactly friends, but definitely comrades. Beth gave her words of encouragement, pats on the back, and even got into some conversations with her from time to time.
She had lots of friends now. The small table she'd sat at on the second day of school became the starting ground for a larger circle of friends. She'd met Kate's other friends and their friends, as well as Laura's and theirs. Plus, she'd met new people through Jeff, and cheerleading, and she was becoming more and more popular there in Glenwood every day. But whenever she'd seen Mark, he was alone. It was as though his circle of friends had vanished, while hers had grown. A couple of times she'd even seen his former friends teasing him in an unfriendly way.
But even now, she could not stop thinking about him, and sometimes she wasn't even aware that she was doing it. Whenever she'd seen him, she'd sucked in a breath, her pulse quickly rising at the sight.
Jeff grasped her hand lightly as they left the building. "Laura and her boyfriend will be waiting for us at the Pizza Hut. You still up to going?"
She squeezed his hand back. "Of course," she replied. "Why wouldn't I?"
As they got into Jeff's car Meg glanced back at the two-story brick building that was the schoolhouse. It was a relatively new building, but with quaint architecture--a black shingled roof, red and black bricks, pillars in front--and looked like a plantation from the Southeast. How proud it looked, nestled inside of a mostly evergreen wood, looming tall and sturdy over a manicured lawn.
They drove to the pizza parlor listening to eighties tunes on one of those 70's 80's and 90's stations with the windows open. It was not a terribly cold day, even though it was already December. White, puffy, cheerful-looking clouds floated high up above in the sky, in a day that would soon be over--the sun was already drifting downwards toward the horizon.
As they arrived, other kids were arriving also. "Hey, you guys!" hollered Laura, her medium-length, sandy hair flapping in the mild wind. She was holding hands with her boyfriend, Tom Fairview.
Meg was glad that she didn't have to spend the afternoon at home. Her parents most likely would be fighting again, as they had been for weeks now. Over Thanksgiving, they'd enjoyed an overly-stiff, strained meal. It was as though they still hadn't forgiven her for her association with Mark, and still couldn't forget it. Even now, now that she wasn't talking with him anymore, but was spending time with Jeff instead, the tension was still there, and strong as ever.
Laura walked over to Meg as she got out of the car and slammed the door shut. She smoothed back the tuft of her dark-brown hair that had gotten into Meg's face affectionately and said, "Some other people are coming, too, but we may as well go inside and order a pizza. Shall we?"
Meg smiled at her and followed her into the darkened restaurant, Jeff and Tom in tow.
Once they'd gotten their menus and had situated themselves at a long table, they took turns choosing selections from the juke box. They settled in, listening to Mariah Carey and Whitney Houston. When the waitress came, they ordered colas and chattered away while waiting for the drinks to arrive. After about fifteen mintues, several people that Meg didn't know personally came to join them. A couple of them Meg recognized as football players from Glenwood High.
"Hi, Greg! Come sit with me!" Kate hollered at one of them, and he sat down on one of the metal chairs. "So Meg, do you have any plans for the Christmas break?" she asked, turning to her.
Meg shook her head. Jeff was clasping her hand. "Just stay at home, probably. I don't think any relatives will come to visit. Hopefully by then my parents will soften up a bit."
Kate nodded knowingly. "It's tough when your parents act like jerks. I hated when my mom grounded me for talking back to her. I had a perfectly good reason to do so!" She turned back to her football player, her attention drifting away from Meg.
Jeff leaned towards her. "I think I have just the present in mind for you," he said.
"Oh?"
"But it's a surprise," he said. "You can't find out until you open it." She smiled.
The pizza came. Excitement was electric. They talked more about the upcoming Christmas break and how they couldn't wait for it to arrive. The skies darkened as they spent their time eating and talking.
Halfway into the pizza, the football players suddenly got up to go outside; why, Meg didn't know. At the time, it didn't seem strange to her.
But soon, her intuition told her that something was amiss.
It was dark out by then. After about ten minutes, the football players came back, laughing like hyenas.
Meg turned, a slice of pizza in her hand. Suddenly she was filled with alarm.
"What's wrong?" Jeff whispered, placing a light hand on her knee.
She brushed away his hand and put down her slice of pizza. She wasn't sure what it was, but she was positive that something was very wrong. She could feel it in her heart, thudding, pounding against her ribcage that something here was definitely not right.
"What happened?" Meg asked the football players, who were trying to catch their breaths, but still laughing.
They poked and lightly hit each other, gasping for breath.
"What did you do?" Meg said. "Why did you go outside, and what did you do out there?"
The taller of the two, who had a pug nose and a ruddy complexion, finally answered her. "Don't tell anyone this," he said, trying not to laugh. He was literally panting, gasping for breath. He held up his hands like a goalie would call for an incomplete pass. "But there was this complete asshole standing outside, and we just jumped him."
Meg stood up straighter in her seat, panic beginning to set in. "Who was it?" she demanded.
The boys wouldn't answer at first. "It's not like we didn't do a service to society," the shorter one said.
"Was it a guy from school?" Meg asked, fearing that her intuition about this situation was correct.
"Yeah, a major creep, too. But you can't tell anyone. We may have broken his nose. He's that jerk who screwed Beth Hammon over."
Mark. She knew it even before they spoke it.
She rushed outside, ignoring her food. "Meg, where are you going?" she heard Jeff call after her, but she ignored it. Leaving the lively group behind, she emerged into the cold darkness, looking left, then right, her heart hammering so fast it could have belonged to a hummingbird. Her breath fogged up in front of her face, looking like white smoke in the light from the restaurant. The air was crisp and dry and she wasn't wearing a jacket--almost immediately her nose began to run and goose pimples appeared on her flesh.
Beyond the weak lights from the restaurant, there was thick blackness. A few moths flew by, caught by the light, but other than that, she could see almost nothing beyond a few feet. "Mark?" she called. "Mark, are you there?" There was no answer. She walked over to the garbage dumpster, where she thought she heard a noise, then looked behind it. He was not there.
Then she stopped and looked at something on the ground. She pressed her finger to it, held it up to the light and saw that it was a small puddle of blood. She shivered as she stood up, rubbing the blood off on her jeans.
That's when she heard the voices. They were unmistakable: Dan Riggsbee's and Drew Santini's low, athletic voices laughing heartily while Beth Hammon's high shrieks of amusement filled the air, off in the distance.
Meg turned her head to listen. Just barely, she heard, "...what a loser! Did you see how we almost made him cry?"
Just then she heard a groan. It was so soft that she might have just imagined it, but a second later, she heard another one just like it.
"Mark?" she whispered loudly. It was cold outside by now, and she had to wrap her arms tightly around herself.
She walked in the direction of where she thought the noise was coming from, and headed straight for the bushes.
Her heart lurched. It was there that she found him, hunched over, holding his nose. "Mark, my God, what did they do to you?" Her voice seemed to echo in the encompassing darkness.
He was breathing heavily and jaggedly. "Mark, are you okay?" She came closer.
It took him a long time to answer. When he did, his voice came out in groans. From what little she could see of him in the scant light, she could see that he was badly beaten up. "Meg...no...please, don't help. It's nothing, just go. I don't need you to help me."
She then wrapped her arms around him, seeing that he was shaking all over from the cold. "No, Mark. I'm not going to leave you. You're injured. How did this happen?"
His voice was wheezy and he was bleeding from the nose. "They don't like me anymore, Meg. But that's my problem. I don't want you to get involved."
The cold made the flesh on her face begin to sting from numbness. "But can you get home? Are they going to go after you again?"
Mark shook his head wildly from left to right. "Please, Meg. Please leave me alone, I'll be alright. I can get home, I have my car."
"What were you doing out here all alone?"
He stayed silent for a few moments. "It's nothing, I was just driving by, that's all."
The door to the restaurant opened and Jeff peeked out. "Meg? Are you alright out there? What are you doing?" She could see his dark silhouette inside the light through the doorway.
"I'm fine, Jeff!" she called. "I just need a minute alone!"
With a confused nod, he closed the door and she could hear the tinkle of the bell as it closed.
"Mark, I love you." She lightly touched his face and kissed him gently on his lips. He did not pull back, only looked back helplessly into her eyes. She felt so brave at that moment and yet so weak--willing to risk everything to tell him how she felt about him, but vulnerable to what he might say or do.
"Why?" he asked, simply.
Amazingly, she knew exactly what to say. "Because you're the bravest person I ever met, and because you had to fight to be that way."
Suddenly, as though passed over with a magic wand, his trembling stopped. She kissed him again, still gently. "I never believed you when you told me it was for guilt."
He stared back incredulously at her. "I expected you to hate me," he whispered. "I expected you to feel about me the way your parents did."
"No," Meg said. She shook her head slowly from side to side. "That's not how I felt at all. My parents were wrong about you. If anyone is the victim here, it's you."
He began to cry, shaken by a new set of trembles. "I didn't want to cause any trouble," he said. "I didn't want to influence you negatively."
"How could you?" she said, "When everything I did I chose to do myself?"
"I love you, Meg," he whispered. She held him and rocked him.
"Mark, listen."
"Please, Meg, just go. I'll be fine."
"No, you won't!" She looked at him and softened. "...you won't be fine," she argued, in a more subdued tone. "You've been beaten up. I'm staying right here with you. Listen." He didn't say anything. "I don't want this ever to happen to you again...I'm going to talk to those people who did this to you."
He sat bolt upright. "No!"
"Why not?"
"Meg, that's suicide! They're dangerous people, they might do something to you as well!"
"I've got to, Mark. And you've got to help me."
"Help you, how? What are you talking about?"
Meg looked at him for a long time. "You've got to pull the trigger."