End of the Innocence Read Free Page B

“No, just completely forgot about it.”
    “Color me shocked! Brad Greymark actually forgetting a party!” She was teasing me, but she was still telling the truth. I had been the first person to bring up having a party. I loved being able to drink, hang out with my friends, and not have to clean up after the chaos, so of course, I pushed for other people to throw them all the time.
    I pretended to skim through my textbook, turning pages at random as I ignored her gaze. “Yeah, I’ve been in the middle of other things; parties I can’t go to aren’t that important to me now.”
    “Why can’t you go?” she asked.
    I looked up at her, openly incredulous. “Um, for about a thousand reasons, but the most important being I wasn’t invited.”
    She rolled her eyes and went back to her circles. “Like anyone is ever invited. Now you’re just making up excuses.”
    I leaned forward and said in an angry whisper, “How about because the three guys who held me down and beat the shit out of me in the locker room are going to be there, and I don’t want that happening to Kyle. Ever.”
    When she looked up at me, I could see the abject horror in her eyes. “That really happened?”
    “I have the bruises up and down my abs to prove it.”
    She tried to cover her shock, but she was clearly pissed. “More reason you should show up,” she said, not looking at me. “You stay away, all they are going to do is think they won.” Now her eyes met mine. “Show up and let the people who are really your friends get a chance to meet the real you. And if anyone tries to hurt you or Kyle, they can answer to me.”
    I laughed despite how serious she’d become. “And what exactly are you going to do to them? Make them over to death?”
    Remember, I have known this girl since we were kids, and I had been intimate with her for the last three and a half years, so when I say I thought I knew who she was, I am not making an idle comment. I had been there when her grandmother died, when her dog got hit by some asshole speeding on her block. I was there the night her dad said she looked like a whore for wearing a miniskirt on a date with me. I really had thought I’d seen every facet there was to this girl. But I assure you, there was a stranger staring back at me when she said, “Because my dad made sure I never leave the house without protection. And he didn’t mean condoms.” The smile she gave me was a predator’s.
    “You’re serious?” I asked, more to myself than to her, because it was obvious from the look on her face she was more than serious.
    “You fucked them up with that little speech at the school board. If you don’t move now, by the time we come back from the break, no one will remember what you said and did. And you and Kyle go back to being second-class citizens.” Now she leaned across the desk toward me. “You want to change this town? Show up with Kyle on your arm and force them to accept it. And if you go, I promise you, you’ll have at least one person standing there with you.”
    I was stunned.
    “I… I did not deserve to be with you,” I stuttered as I tried to get my mind back into gear.
    “No,” she said, smiling. “That we can agree on.” She looked around to the other people whose heads were down in their books. “Now you wanna try to guess what we were supposed to be doing all this time?”
    And that was when I knew things had begun to change at school.
     
     
    K YLE
     
    W HEN class let out, Sammy and I walked out together.
    “So where do you eat lunch?” she asked casually.
    “Normally, the music room steps in the quad.” Brad and I had decided though there were less public places to eat together, we were making a statement in plain sight of everyone. For the first few weeks, people’s reactions had been pretty bad, but now people didn’t even give us a second look. The other day, one of Brad’s friends actually gave him a head nod as he’d walked by us. Brad said it didn’t