Collateral Damage

Chapter Sixteen

"I'm taking you home," John said, pulling me to his car.

"I don't want to go home," I muttered.

"Then get in anyway. We can just drive around."

He obviously thought I would do something stupid if he left me alone. The encounter with the McClouds left me too drained to argue further. So I got in the car and we drove off.

"How much did you hear?" I asked dully.

"Enough," he replied.

"She knew. All that time she spent calling Matt a rapist and a monster...and she fucking knew he was innocent!"

"I'm not surprised. Like Grams said, they're a bunch of phonies."

I gritted my teeth. "You should have let me do it."

"Yeah, that would have been a brilliant move," he said sarcastically. "Use your head, Wendy. How would that have made things better?"

He was right. The small part of my mind that was still rational knew that damaging the McCloud car on school grounds could have gotten me into serious trouble—worse trouble than I got for slapping Bernadette. I would definitely be suspended, not to mention charged with vandalism. The fact that she approached me, maybe even provoked me, wasn't relevant. The McClouds would go on being the victims, while I'd be eternally screwed. I should have been grateful that John was there to stop me, and that no one else had witnessed it.

The rest of my mind didn't see it that way. All I could see was that was Marge McCloud's smug, self-righteous face and her patronizing parting: I pray you find Jesus. I wasn't sure I believed in Jesus anymore, but I fervently hoped that hell was real so that she and her disgusting husband would burn there for eternity. Bernadette too, for all I cared.

"Fucking Bernadette!" I ranted. "Standing there, doing nothing like the ninny-bitch wimp that she always is while her bitch mother lectures me about Jesus and forgiveness—why the hell are they still in town? I thought they were going to move! What are they trying to do, milk every last person for pity they can get? They're so PATHETIC!"

"Wendy, calm down," John urged.

"Take a breath?" I shrieked. "Take a breath? That sanctimonious bitch and her daughter ruined Matt's life, and all you say is take a breath?!"

"I don't know what else to say!" he snapped back.

He wanted me to take a breath? Fine, I'd take a breath, all right. "Can I have a smoke?"

His jaw dropped. "What?"

"One of your cigarettes," I clarified. "Give it to me. Now."

He stared at me like I'd gone nuts. Maybe I had. I didn't care that cigarettes were bad, that they led to cancer. At that moment, I wanted it more than I wanted anything in my entire life.

"John, please!"

"Okay, okay," he muttered, reluctantly me passing his pack and lighter. "Just take it easy."

I opened the packet. Pulled one out, held it for a few minutes, savoring the significance of the moment. My very first cigarette. If Matt and Ana could see me now...Miss Goody-Two-Shoes, the straight A-student, about to join the smoking ranks. They never would have believed it. They might have even tried to talk me out of it.

Screw them, I thought. They aren't around anymore. I don't have to be Miss Goody-Two-Shoes forever.

I flicked on the lighter, lowering the flame to the cigarette filter. With some trepidation, I put it to my lips and inhaled.