The rest of that charming hallway scene went this way:
Kamala: “She doesn’t know you, Parker.” (Her voice coated in ice.)
Parker: “Well, Jane, we’ve been dating awhile.” (Leaning close.) “More than dating. Meet me in the parking lot after school and I’ll show you what you like.” (Lowers voice.) “Because you’re not going to get many other offers these days.”
Me: (Speechless, confused, and angry at myself for being speechless.)
Kamala, shoving him: “The concussions have caught up with you, moron. Get away from her.”
Me, standing, shivering, realizing, You are at the mercy of all these people. And some of them are going to think it’s a joke.
Parker: “I’ll give you something to remember, Jane.” (Wiggles his tongue at me.) “You won’t forget me.” (And then laughing and high-fiving with his friends, like he’s accomplished something of lasting value.)
The hot little rage demon in me that Mom had warned me about decided to dance out of the bottle. “I do remember, Parker!” I yelled at him. “I remember how tiny and quick it was. Thanks for the reminder.”
Kamala’s jaw dropped. I shrieked this down the hall at Parker, LOUD, and he froze, and then he came back toward me, muttering “you little murdering whore” and then this big blond wall of a boy stepped between us, put his hand on Parker’s chest, and told him to stop it. It was Trevor Blinn, the boy who’d visited me in the hospital but seemed to have nothing to say.
Parker tried to dodge around Trevor and then suddenly Parker was pushed up against the wall and Trevor was whispering in his ear, low and soft and even in the sudden hush that fell across the gathered students, you couldn’t hear it. I noticed Trevor was wearing a knee brace, but he didn’t seem bothered by it in pushing Parker into the wall.
“Get off me,” Parker said when Trevor was done whispering, and then Trevor stepped back and Parker eased away from him. He stared at me and then went back to his friends. I kept staring at him. Murdering whore. I still felt weak from the wreck, but at that moment I could have punched him, again and again. It was an awful thought and I wondered if it was a thought the old Jane would have had.
Trevor looked at me. He said nothing. Then he looked at Kamala, like he was angry.
“Thanks, Trev,” Kamala said. “Thanks for standing up for her.” I realized she had her hand on my arm.
“What are you doing, Kamala?” he asked her. As if I weren’t there. “What are you doing?”
“Helping our friend,” she said, her voice suddenly icy. She put her arm around my shoulder. “She needs me right now.”
Then he gave me a long look. I said, “Thank you, Trevor.” He just nodded and walked on, limping slightly with his leg brace, settling his backpack more firmly on his shoulder.
“He got bigger from when I remember him,” I said. “What happened to his knee?”
“Football.” Then Kamala said, “Yeah, I figured you really do remember.” Only after a moment did I realize she thought I actually remembered an encounter, ugh, with Parker.
“Gross, no, I don’t. I just wanted Parker to shut up.”
“But your memory about the deer, that’s true,” she said. “Right?”
And so this was a big moment about lying, and I made my choice, because I’d realized something.
If information was power, then they all had sway over me. I didn’t know before two minutes ago that Parker was vicious or that Trevor was the kind of friend to truly stand up for me.
“Yeah,” I said. “It’s hazy, but yeah.”
“Oh, good. You let me know what else you remember.”
“I will.” I wished I remembered more recent memories of Trevor. I needed my friends. But he didn’t seem interested in renewing our friendship.
“Forget Parker,” Kamala said. And then she said, “Oh, I did not mean that word choice.”
“I know.”
“You remember me, right, Jane?” an anxious-sounding girl said, stopping and staring into my face. “We met freshman year.”
“She doesn’t remember,” Kamala said, already tiring of the novelty. “She does not remember, OK?” Raising her voice in the hallway. The bell sounded; we were late, the gawkers were late, teachers coming into the hallways to see why kids were not hurrying in, still talking about the fight that almost was over the school’s biggest mental freak.
“I’m sorry,” I said to the girl. I would later decide I needed a button to wear, pinned to my shirt, because the answer would become so rote. No, I don’t remember you.
But many kids did not even look at me beyond a first awkward, painful stare. No, not a stare, a glare. An actual glare.
“I’m not very popular,” I said after she and Kamala sat down in class. This was a shock to think about; I had not really considered the possibility of open hostility and physical threats.
“People are upset about David.”
“I get that,” I said, and my voice trembled. “Is anyone happy I survived?”
“Oh, Jane,” she said, giving me a mournful smile, “of course we are.”
16
JANE RECONSIDERED HER plan: San Antonio, and interviewing Brenda Hobson face-to-face, would have to wait until she could find transportation. She should start with people she could find on her list. So she picked Trevor Blinn, although other than his one visit to her in the hospital—where she did not remember him at all—he had mostly avoided her. She had found his Faceplace page on her phone; he was attending Travis Community College, probably trying to get basic courses knocked out and a GPA high enough to transfer to the University of Texas or St. Michael’s or Texas State. It was a common strategy. She could probably get readmitted to St. Michael’s if she got her head straight, but it might be less stress to try starting again at Travis CC. That could be her gambit in talking to him if he was reluctant.
Because they weren’t still real friends.
His Faceplace page told her Trevor was working part time as a barista at a locally owned coffee shop in Lakehaven called Lava Java. It was in a big shopping center, anchored by a large Italian chain restaurant and an organic grocery. She’d seen it when she’d walked to her house this morning. She saw a big black truck parked near the coffee shop and she remembered she’d seen Trevor driving it after she returned to school.
When Jane stepped inside, it wasn’t very busy with the early-afternoon crowd: an older woman typing on a laptop in a big leather chair, two young women talking at a table, another man, frowning at his tablet screen. Trevor was hard to miss: a big blond guy, wide shoulders, big arms, military buzz cut. He towered over the other barista, who was a small woman who looked to be in her forties. She was clearly in charge and she barked out a couple of annoyed orders to Trevor, who was staring at Jane and seemed not to hear. Then he nodded, and vanished into the back of the store.