Fragments

8.1

8.1

Adam gets suspended and sent home immediately. If his parents don't kill him, he will be back at the end of Christmas break. But then things are uncertain for him. He's in permanent detention until the school figures out what to do with him. After all, he broke a kid's nose and punched another unconscious.

Maybe it wouldn't be so bad if that was it. Just a simple fight. But Adam didn't know the guy had a brain aneurysm - and even he didn't know. Things could never be easy.

I lie face down in my bed as first period comes to an end. He didn't die, I keep reminding myself. That guy is still in the hospital recovering. But the fact that Adam almost killed someone, intentional or not, because of me? I don't think I'm dealing with that fact very well.

My door suddenly opens without a knock.

I jolt upright so quick that I make myself dizzy. It takes me a few seconds to realize Sasha is the one who barged into my room.

"What?" I ask, my heart still racing in my chest.

"If you're skipping, I'm skipping too." She plops herself down on the end of my bed. "Wanna go for a walk?"

It takes a lot of whining and prodding on Sasha's part to get me to go outside with her. Eventually I agree, but only when I'm dressed in a scarf and hat. Ever since the blizzard hit a few days ago a cold front has moved in.

The sun peeks out from behind the clouds as we walk the path around the grounds of the school. With each step our boots crunch on snow and with each breath we send our a cloud of warmth into the air. It's a bit of a trek to make it to the field in the back, so I'm thankful when we make it that Sasha starts to clear off snow from a spot on the bleachers.

"You know," she says, pulling her jacket down to sit on, "I used to hate winter."

I sit down beside her and grasp a pile of snow, feeling the cold sting my hands. "Why?"

"Because everyone was always inside and I didn't like not having any space to myself. But then I realized if everyone was inside because of the cold, then no one was really outside." Sasha leans back on her gloved hands. "Listen. Tell me what you hear."

I close my eyes. It's so quiet."The snow falling."

"It's kind of freeing, isn't it? Hearing the snow and nothing else?" She turns and smiles at me. "It's kind of like we're the only ones in the whole world."

For a while we sit together, listening to the quiet, enjoying each others company. But I know I can't be quiet forever. I have to ask about our unfinished conversation the day Adam got suspended.

"Sasha." I look up at her eyes and stare into the blue. They remind me of ice, the way I feel, the numbness. Did she feel the same cold pain that I did? "What happened with Lionel?"

She doesn't respond. Instead she turns away and looks down at her hands in her lap, and I begin to wonder if she even heard me. Soon though, she starts telling me what happened, her voice firm.

"It was at a party," she says. "A house party."

The wind whips my hair into my face and I have to untangle it from my scarf.

"I drank too much. Or at least, that's what people kept telling me afterwards."

"What do you mean?"

She looks me in the eye. "I only remember having one or two drinks. I shouldn't have been as drunk as I was."

My lungs start to burn.

"I went upstairs to find the bathroom. I wanted to clean my slobbery self up a bit. But as I was leaving he blindsided me." Her gaze moves to her hands, fidgeting in her lap. "He grabbed my hand like he knew me, tried to lead me into one of the bedrooms, but I wouldn't go. I kept telling him I didn't know who he was." Sasha shakes her head, tears silently forming in the corners of her eyes. "He pushed me back into the bathroom. I tried yelling but he just covered my mouth. I wasn't strong enough." She looks up at the sky. "But I keep wondering, if I fought harder, yelled louder, would it have made a difference?"

"You can't change the past," I say.

"Sometimes I wish I could."

I link my arm through Sasha's and together, we watch the snow fall. "Me, too."

I'm not sure how to comfort her, so for a while, we sit there in silence. Eventually I start talking though, start talking about the night things went bad. I tell her about Roman kissing my forehead, his cousin ditching me for some crazy drug dealer. It's all coming out, like I've turned on a facet and I can't turn it back off. Sasha's sure there was something in my drink, even though there was no way it was Lionel who could have drugged me. Was he conspiring with the guy Reesa was seeing? I don't know.

What I do know? I have to tell Roman, and soon. I just don't think I'll ever be ready to let him in.