Someone to Trust

She was in the seventh grade, in a new town and new school. The other kids had known each other since early grade school and had no need for new friends. Teachers had classes to teach, students to discipline. No one spoke to her. After each class, she was herded out into the hallway to a sea unfamiliar children. She floated to her classes on waves of candy-colored barrettes, knock-off perfumes and designer jeans.

One afternoon, a boy she’d seen in the halls jostled through the crowd to walk with her. Eyes trained on fingernails chewed raw, he was trying to ask her a question.

The students were loud, she couldn’t hear him. His face was flushed. He asked again. "Would you like to go out with me?"

No one before this boy had spoken to her. She could feel his honest nervousness, sensed a kindness in him. She stammered a response. They would meet at her locker later to go to lunch together.

They talked a great deal, saw each other every day. It became more and more apparent to her that the teachers and other kids didn’t like her new friend. She knew he was considered a "stoner", but he was a nice boy, and his crude vocabulary softened when he was with her.

One Sunday evening, the telephone rang in her family’s loud, boisterous house. The girl’s father had answered. "Yes, we’ll accept the charges." He listened to a frightened voice, and turned to his daughter sternly. "Donna, it’s for you."

The girl took the phone meekly. She had no other friends, this could only be the boy. Her father had forbade her to date before she was sixteen. She answered the phone. On the other line, her only friend shivered into a metallic pay phone halfway across town.

The boy’s voice came in shaking gusts. "Hello? Hello? Donna? Is that you?"

"Yeah, it’s me," She stretched the phone cord as far as she could, tried to look casual as she whispered into the telephone. He knew about her father, he knew not to call her.

"Oh my god… oh my god… I don’t know what to do… what am I going to do?"

"Jaime, what’s wrong?" She spoke to him hesitantly. She didn’t know how to respond. Her father sat in the other room, but she could feel his attention on her.

"M-my dad. My step-dad. He—I had to run, he kept hitting me. Oh shit… what am I going to do? He said … he said he’d beat the shit out of me. I can’t go back there." Donna was silent. She knew her father’s temper. She had a boyfriend, and her dad wouldn’t approve either of her dating or of this boy.

"I’m at the gas station down by the school…"

Her dad would have to know, and he would have to take her to pick Jaime up.

"Donna, are you there?"

"Jaime," She spoke softly, slowly. Guilt rumbled up her spine, pushing tears out of her eyes. But her dad—but she couldn’t leave Jaime—

Jaime’s voice still shook, but the pleading was gone. "Oh. I see."

"But… but I want to help you… You know about my dad…"

She didn’t remember what else was said. She vaguely recalled putting the phone down quietly, as though nothing had happened. She knew only the hate—she wanted to smack her dad as hard as she could, and keep hitting him and screaming at him until she couldn’t move anymore.

How many times had she listened to him yell at her sister, tell her she was a slut, that she was hanging around the worst elements in town, that her boyfriend was scum, and if he ever caught her around that boy or anybody like him, he’d strangle her himself…

In one slow, smooth motion, Donna lifted her head, drained her face of emotion, and returned to the living room.

"Who was on the phone?"

"Nobody, just a kid from school." She answered as though her mind had already returned to the movie, her father’s question barely heard. The hate was locked away where it couldn’t reach her anymore. All that was left was a dull, throbbing depression.

"Why is a boy calling for you?"

"He’s in my study group, dad. He needed help with a question, we have a test tomorrow." She waited until her father had forgotten the call, then quietly went to her room.