Bitter

thirty-four - lydia

I knew something had happened when I saw Cal being ushered into the principal's office. It had worked. My texts had worked and I later learned from other students' conversations that Cal had gone after West this time which I guess wasn't very surprising.

The bell ringing at the end of the school day was an angel choir to my ears and I drove home feeling strange. I kept glancing in my rear view mirror, expecting to see a black car behind me (even though Meg had told me West was supposed to be in detention at this time).

   When I got home, I made sure to lock the door first thing. Mom was washing dishes when I walked into the kitchen and she looked back, giving me a tired smile. "Hey, how was school?" she asked before turning back to scrub a plate in the sink.

   I thought about it. Remembering West was in detention definitely made it a better day than usual. "It was good," I replied, opening the fridge when I realized I was pretty hungry. "How was work?"

Mom chuckled as she washed. "Exhausting but not bad," she said. "I think the kids like that new book I'm reading to them. They all get really quiet when I read it which almost never happens."

I smiled despite my back being turned to Mom, taking out some leftovers from dinner last night. I didn't know how Mom did it every day, teaching a class of twenty third graders. Knowing how Cal and even I had acted when we were in third grade made me respect Mom's job that much more. By the way she talked about her class, I could tell the kids were better behaved than my class ever was. She didn't have any mini West Haley's.

   The clanging of dishes and running water filled the room. "So," Mom's voice sounded again, "I was thinking we could order tomorrow night for dinner. How does that sound? Just to celebrate our good days."

   I looked over at her, soap bubbles gathering on her hands as she concentrated on cleaning a pan. "Yeah, sure, that sounds good," I replied, a smile breaking out on my face again. In that moment, everything faded away and it was just Mom and me. Like it had been since we moved here. Just us two. I barely thought about Dad anymore.

   That was when my phone vibrated twice in my pocket. I took it out then, expecting it to be Cal, but then I realized he was still in detention and I was looking at a text from Meg Sadler. I hadn't even deleted her number after all these years. I guess I'd forgotten to.

   Hi, I was thinking about seeing a movie or something tonight and wanted to know if you wanted to go maybe, the text read.

   I had to read it over again to make sure I wasn't hallucinating. I guess the shock was written all over my face because Mom asked if I was okay. "Lydia? Is something wrong?"

   I looked up to see Mom watching me like I was going to pass out on the floor. "No," I reassured finally. Memories of Meg and me at one of her birthdays when we were much younger flashed in my mind. We had laughed so much because she'd blown out the candles on her cake early so everyone would stop singing "Happy Birthday" and start eating.

   "Um," I began, staring down at the text again, "I think I'm going to go with Meg somewhere. If that's okay."

   Mom looked more surprised now than she ever had and that was saying something. More than that one moment that surprised Mom and me both before we moved. She had stopped washing the dishes and was speechless for a second. "Oh, of course that's okay," she eventually said.

   Mom was probably glad I was getting out of the house and anyway, she loved Meg. I don't think she knew what had happened between Meg and me and honestly, I didn't really know when we had started growing apart either. Other than that time she'd dated Cal for a week. I was still trying to forget that ever happened. She didn't like Cal much anymore though (that was one thing we shared).

   It was definitely going to be weird hanging out with Meg again, I just knew it. But, after all that was happening with West, I guess we both realized we needed something to distract ourselves and a movie sounded great.

———

   It was dark outside already when Meg and I arrived at the movie theater. She had picked me up at 6 PM after I'd eaten dinner at home and we had talked about nothing in particular on the ride there. Just the regular conversations about regular school stuff and how we were doing. She told me she had ended up quitting dance (which I thought she was pretty good at, but I didn't ask her why she'd stopped) and I told her about the time Mom and I had gone to New York City one time during the summer.

   Once we had bought our tickets after standing in line for about five minutes, we waited to get popcorn and drinks too under the neon pink glow of the lights above us. The smell of salt and butter filled the air as we talked. "I hope the movie's scary," Meg said, "usually horror movies aren't."

   I agreed with a laugh. "Yeah, for some reason they never are."

   "If West Haley was in a movie, then I'd find it scary," Meg joked, until her smile fell away almost instantly like she could summon him if she said his name. We both went quiet and she sighed with a shaky breath, her dark eyes in the magenta light looking at me seriously. "You don't have to listen to Cal of all people and hang out with West, Lydia."

   I stared back at her as we moved up in the line for our food. "I know. But I'm not listening to Cal," I started hesitantly, "I made that decision myself." And I really hope it's a good one, I added in my head. "West is going to hurt someone else like he did with Marco if no one does anything."

   "Then let's tell the police or something. Warn them that something might happen," Meg suggested.

   Of course I wanted to see West behind bars as much as the next person, but I knew (and could tell Meg knew too) that it wasn't going to happen. "They can't really do anything about it," I told her. "No one knows how crazy West really is and his dad gets him out of everything anyway," I explained with a shrug, "we'll just look like kids tattling on someone else."

   Meg hopelessly looked away at the movie posters lining the walls. "Yeah, I guess you're right," she mumbled. And with that, we proceeded to get our popcorn and drinks and watch a movie that would prove what was going on with West Haley in real life was much scarier than any horror movie we'd seen.