Total pages in book: 65
Estimated words: 62997 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 315(@200wpm)___ 252(@250wpm)___ 210(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 62997 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 315(@200wpm)___ 252(@250wpm)___ 210(@300wpm)
No answer comes through, which is worse than anything.
Can I please see you in person?
Still nothing.
I’m taking her at her word about calling the cops.
I put my fist through the wall beside my bed.
Fuck!
Bailey
“Any closer, you’re going to get slapped.” I speak without turning from my locker, sensing Cole’s presence behind me.
“Turn around,” he murmurs. “I’ll take the slap, Pink.”
I whirl and give it to him to so hard I gasp at the sting of my palm. He doesn’t move, just looks at me with mournful eyes.
Everyone in the hall stops moving. Stops breathing, even. All eyes are on us.
“You don’t get to call me Pink,” I tell him through tight lips. “You don’t get to call me anything.” Several lockers down I see Adriana and her cheerleader friends gathered, staring with wide eyes. Adriana wears a wicked smile. Like it’s her birthday and this scene is her present. Like she won.
Bitch.
I slam my locker shut and turn on my heel.
Cole catches my wrist to pull me back but when he sees the outrage on my face, drops it and holds his palms out in surrender. He looks terrible. His hair is messed up, he has dark circles under his eyes and deep lines between his brows like he’s been worrying.
“Hold up, Bails. I just want to talk.” He speaks in a voice so low I can barely hear it.
I make a show of looking around. “You sure you can talk to me in public? You wouldn’t want anyone here to know you actually care about me, right? Oh wait—you don’t. It was all a game. What was the object again? To bring me to my knees? Newsflash, Muchmore: I’m still walking.”
If Cole still needs to pretend he’s the bully to me, I’ll let him. He can keep his alpha-hole image intact. Far be it for me to prove he actually has a heart in that chiseled chest of his.
He swallows. “You know that wasn’t true. Everything I said was bullshit. I told you that.” His shoulders slump. I can’t deny the misery etched in every line of his face. I won’t let it soften me, though.
I was stupid to look past the alpha-hole persona before. But he won’t get any passes from me again.
I push past the onlookers, willing myself not to let the hot tears filling my eyes spill. Of course at the end of the hall I have to pass Casey and her friends.
Casey semi-blocks my way.
I lift my chin and pass without looking her way. I’m shaking, but I’m not the confused little outsider I was when I first came to Wolf Ridge High. I know their secret now. I know it’s not me, it’s them.
And I know the real truth about Cole; he’s not an asshole. Or at least he’s capable of something else. But maybe that’s his best-kept secret. Maybe I really do hold all his secrets.
In the library, I plop down and pull out my Chromebook, on which I’ve been assembling the newspaper. I have all the features, sports and entertainment articles. What I lack is any real news.
I think of Mr. Findle, my journalism teacher back in Golden. “A real story is about news that means something to the readers. It isn’t news the politicians, or in our case, administration wants to feed the population. It’s the story someone is trying to hide. Or the one they don’t want to talk about. Sniff that news out, uncover the wounds, expose the flaws. That is real journalism.”
I still remember the headlines: Two GHS Students involved in Fatal Tragic Car Accident. And then the next month: GHS Student Suffers from PTSD Following Fatal Accident. And the third: Students Remember Catrina Goldberg Through Tile Art Project.
I remember the way the students huddled over the paper reading and re-reading the stories the moment the papers came out. The way they talked in hushed voices. Some even cried.
I wanted to kill our editor John Yager for wanting to write about it. For asking to interview me. I refused to talk to him at first. But somehow he convinced me that the story would be healing for everyone.
He was right. And John Yager won a state journalism award and a thousand dollar honorarium for “his sensitive coverage of the tragedy that affected the entire student body of GHS”.
I hated being the subject of those stories. And yet telling the truth, having my and Catrina’s story told did help on some level.
I stare at my blank screen.
There’s a story to be told here, too.
A story that, again, would put me in the spotlight and cause me a lot of scrutiny and discomfort. A story that drags my tragic experience out into the open for others to explore. It’s the most important news there is to tell at WRHS. The news that means something to every student. News that could protect future students from suffering the same experience I had.