Reaction - Lesley Choyce [2]
I knew that Ashley and her brother were close, but I was surprised to think that she would have told him she was pregnant. But, as I was cleaning my shoes, it occurred to me that she didn’t have to tell him she was pregnant. All she had to do was make up anything about me that would get Stephen angry enough to, well, piss on my shoes. Damn.
It wasn’t long before I started to get the picture. Some of Ashley’s friends started giving me dirty looks. Her brother reappeared when I was waiting for the bus and “accidentally” shoved me in line so that I rammed into a couple of kids in front of me.
Gossip travels fast in school, and before long I was getting dirty looks from people I didn’t even know. I started to avoid looking at anyone in the hallways. At home, Guitar Hero wasn’t enough of an escape to avoid thinking about my problem.
When some of the girls started calling me “The Perv,” I didn’t know how to react. It was starting to get to me, so when Elisse, a girl I once considered my friend, glared at me, I stopped her in the hall. I still couldn’t believe that Ashley had told everyone she was pregnant. It had to be something else.
“What is it?” I asked her. “Why does everyone suddenly hate me?”
Elisse continued to glare at me. She started to walk away, so I grabbed her, and this made her even angrier.
“What is it?” I repeated.
“You mean, you don’t know?”
“No. Help me here.”
“We all know that you forced Ashley Walker into having sex with you. You perv.”
She twisted herself away and walked off, turning once to glare yet again and, this time, give me the finger.
So this was Ashley’s revenge. Yes, we’d had sex. And apparently I got her pregnant. But I would never, ever, try to force myself on any girl. Never.
So now I had two problems. But they were two damn big problems, and it felt more like a hundred. I needed someone that I could talk to. I decided I had to confide in someone—not my parents and not any of my so-called friends. But who was I kidding? I didn’t have that many friends anyway. It would have to be Kiley. She was one of my ex-girlfriends. Kiley was always the smart one and so cute. I was surprised that she had even been interested in me. She was out of my league. But I kept doing stupid things around her. Like that party I convinced her to have at her parents’ house, where I puked in the living room. And that other party where she found me off in a corner kissing a girl whose name I can’t even remember. She had plenty of good reasons for dumping me. But strangely enough, she stayed friends with me after we broke up.
After school that day, I found Kiley at the bus stop. I followed her on. She sat down in the back, and I sat down beside her. It was just the two of us on the back seat. I was afraid she was going to give me that look all the other girls were giving me. She didn’t, although she didn’t look all that happy to see me.
“Hi,” I said.
“Hi.” She looked puzzled.
“Aren’t you going to ask me how I’m doing?”
“I know how you’re doing,” she said. “You’ve been voted most-hated student at the school. You’re human garbage. I imagine that doesn’t feel so good.”
“But what people think isn’t true,” I said. “Ashley is mad at me…for something else…so she spread this rumor.”
Kiley nodded. “I think I knew that. I know you’re not that kind of guy. Horny, yes, but not...well, like that.”
“Thank you.”
“Everyone believes what they want to believe. But then why is Ashley so mad at you?” she asked.
“Can I trust you?”
“Trust me to what? Keep a secret? I don’t know.”
So I told her anyway. Kiley’s eyes grew wide. “This is not good.”
“What am I going to do?”
“Well, the first thing you have to do is talk to her. It’s no good for her to stay mad at you. You have to discuss options.”
“Yeah, right. Options.”
“You need to figure out what is best for both of you,” Kiley said.
“What is best for us?” I asked.