I do.
“Caiden Patrick Brenner, I hereby sentence you to two months jail time, followed by six months informal probation, and continuation of the court ordered restraining order. You are not to come within fifty yards of the minor…” He looks down at his records. “…Blaire Alison Leon, or attempt to contact her through any means, until she turns eighteen. At that point, it will be her choice whether to continue the order.”
Chapter 19
Blaire
They didn’t use my name in the newspaper article about Caiden’s arrest. They do that to protect the identity of the minor involved. Maybe that’s the way it’s supposed to work, but in reality, word gets out anyway. I watched it start as a ripple my first day back at school—just whispered rumors in the hallways. By the end of the school day it had become a tsunami—the only thing people were talking about. Once it starts, there’s no way of stopping it.
The last two weeks have been the juiciest the Oak Crest High gossip mill has ever seen. There have been days I wanted to stay in bed, but each morning I’ve peeled myself out of my dreams to go live the nightmare. I wish they’d call me a whore, or a slut. That, I could handle. I’ve got comebacks for all the slut slamming that goes on here.
But I hate that they’re making me out as the victim—like I’m too stupid and na?ve to understand that I was being taken advantage of. Raped.
I get sympathetic looks from teachers I’ve never had. Girls who I’ve never been friends with come up and give me hugs. When anyone’s brave enough to say anything to my face, like a couple of the basketball guys I sort of know from class, it’s always about how they hope Caiden gets raped in jail or something.
They think they’re being supportive. All their really doing is killing me a little more inside with each comment.
I didn’t want to go to graduation, but Mom pointed out that that would be a victory for the rumor mongers. “You’re giving the valedictory speech, honey,” she said when I told her. “This is your chance to show them that they haven’t broken you.”
So I take my place in front of the mic, lower my head and breathe, like I always do before slams. It’s not dark. On the contrary, we’re on the football field in the broad daylight of a sweltering June evening, so it’s hot, sticky, and unbearably bright.
There’s a TV news crew set up in the parking lot with one of those mobile dishes. They aren’t supposed to know who I am, but that’s not going to stop them from doing one of those inspirational human interest spots they slip into the news so it doesn’t all seem so fucking depressing. “Despite horrendous adversity (that for legal reasons we are unable to disclose) local teen survives and perseveres,” or whatever.
It just makes me more determined to say what I have to say.
I lift my head and focus on a random point, the same way I do at Tino’s. “We all come into this world with a script that the great playwright, Society, has written for us. First scene, Act One is birth. Those lines don’t require too much rehearsal, so most of us don’t mess them up too badly.” I ignore the smattering of laughter and press forward. “From there we’ve got a few soliloquies, but most of the script is dialogue. With family, friends, authority figures, adversaries. Some of it might seem mundane, but there’s a lot to get through before the grow old and die scenes at the end of Act Five: Love, heartbreak, more love, disappointment, sex, more heartbreak, triumph, more love, more sex, marriage, kids, joy, more disappointment.
“And don’t miss the underlying subtext in some of Society’s scenes. There’s his ‘first love’ scene, which, if you look closely, comes before the ‘first sex’ scene. And read carefully because, though Society hasn’t cast those scenes for us and it’s not mandated that each is performed with the same player, there are carefully outlined parameters for whom each scene can happen with. The consequences for choosing ‘wrong’ might throw the rest of the players into chaos. Then Society is left with no choice but to punish the one who derailed his carefully written script.
“But don’t let me frighten you. Following the script is easy, especially when everyone around you is reading off the same one. When we all stick to Society’s script, he’s happy. He needs focused and disciplined players for everyone to get all the way to Act Five with no major hiccups. As long as no one deviates from their lines, then nothing could possibly go wrong, right?