Ch. 11: Paul

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
“Oh my god!” Marsha’s hands flailed about as she and Maxine approached my spot on the bench.
“Tell me, tell me, tell me!” Marsha chanted excitedly like a little kid being told we were going to Disneyland. I chuckled, looking at her, and back at Sean’s retreating frame. Even his walking swagger attracted me, this all felt unreal.
I still had my phone in my hand when I turned to them and said, “Well, he gave me his number.” I grinned, feeling warm and blushed in my face, “and I think we may be going on a date?”
“You think?” Maxine asked me teasingly.
I laughed. “Well he sort of arranged the whole thing while pretending to be me, and he made plans for us to go to the beach tomorrow after school - and I don’t think I can go” I added sadly, realizing that while realizing I still needed to tell him that wouldn’t work for me.
“Well why the hell not?” Marsha asked.
“There is only one bus that takes us home after school and I didn’t live in this town. My mom works a part time job after her full time job and doesn’t get off until late. I have to get on that bus after school, no exceptions,” I relayed.
“Ugh, if only we could drive you… We must come up with something!” Maxine thought aloud while taking a sip of her soda.
Just then Ally found us and walked right up.
“Hey Marsha, Maxine” she greeted them. “Rach - we really should finish our conversation?”
Right. I had almost forgotten about Vance, and Paul, and creeps everywhere. Well, I might as well get this over with. I told Maxine and Marsha that I would see them later and walked with Ally out of the courtyard, taking a glance at Sean who waved at me as we headed to the hall. His little wave had me giddy. I made a mental note to text him later about our possible-date.
We turned into the outdoor hallway and away from the majority of students, while Ally recounted a little about something funny that Simon had said in her last class. She couldn’t stop smiling. We walked all the way out the ‘back’ door towards the student parking lot and I followed her as she led the way to the stairwell. The stairs connected the student parking lot to the track field way down below. School on the side of a hill. We sat at the top step as she finished her story, and she turned to me to note my raised eyebrow.
“What?” she asked, in a laughing tone.
I raised my eyebrow higher in a you-know-what way.
“Whaaat?” she laughed again.
“Dude, you know how smiley you are when you talk about Simon,” I said his name in a singsong voice.
She playfully pushed my shoulder and said, “Oh come on, he’s hilarious but it’s not like that!”
I gave her the face again.
“No! Seriously!” She exclaimed. “He’s great but I don’t know…” she trailed off looking at the pier way further down the hill. Turning back to me with a determined look she said, “Hey! Wait. Don’t go changing the subject on me, you know why I had to pull you away. I have several questions for you about Sean but we can’t even go there yet. You’re not going to make me forget,” she took a breath and with a serious, concerned voice said, “What happened this morning at the end of Homeroom?”
I exhaled. I really wasn’t trying to change the subject, but maybe I was. I looked away, focusing my eyes on anything else. Past the field, across the street, across the highway, down two blocks, my eyes found the pier and narrowed in on the waves I could faintly identify from this far away. The sun had been fighting to break through and while there was still some fog up by us, it looked like it all burned off down there. Well, time to get into it I guess. My real embarrassing reason for leaving P.H. Not even my mom knew about this.
“Okay well. You know there were tons of reasons that I just couldn’t be at P.H. anymore,” I paused. “I guess you know almost all of them, but there was something - er, someone else that really messed things up for me.”
I glanced at her, she was urging me on silently.
“Well I’ll just say it. I basically had a stalker. He was following me around, cornering me in the halls. He started leaving these creepy voicemails with just silence and breathing… and the last straw was this note.”
Ally grabbed hold of my hand. She didn’t say anything, just nodded and held my hand, concern on her face. Giving me the space to continue.
After some silence I exhaled again, trying to get it off of me like this was all actually weighing me down.
“Well, at that point I knew it was too much. He wrote to me that if I didn’t speak to him again that he would hurt himself more than he has before. When we first met we were partnered on this project and I thought he could be a good friend. He was definitely a little weird, and like… greasy? But he seemed nice. My god, I even met his mother and she is so nice. He opened up to me about how he had lost his dad to cancer at a young age and shared so much about his life. The bullying in middle school, all of it. I really did think we could be friends, but then everything got really weird. He started trying to touch me all the time - a hug, a hand, and it just didn’t feel right. I tried telling him that I wasn’t comfortable with all that, but he just would tell me he didn’t mean anything by it. But it didn’t stop. So I started to try to ignore him, and he got some friend of his to come up to me during lunch and tell me that Paul - that’s his name, the stalker - really needed to talk to me, that he was worried Paul would hurt himself if I didn’t. And I knew in my gut that this was gross, it was wrong. I felt so manipulated. He really scared me. I really started to think, maybe I could just suck it up? Save a life? He was always insisting to me that I felt something for him, and he clearly wanted me. Maybe the honorable thing for everyone around would be to just give him what he wanted?”
I looked at Ally, she had squeezed my hand really hard and was giving me this incredulous look.
I quickly corrected, “Oh my god, no! No, I didn't do anything like that. I know objectively that that whole line of thought is just bonkers, but it got so bad and I felt like I was drowning, I really did think about that all as an option. It’s just like an echo of a thought you get, you know you won’t do it but it crosses your mind, like that is always the ‘last resort’ option.”
“Oh thank the lord, Rach. Yeah, in that situation it’s him, it’s his fault not yours. He is the one not listening to reality and to what you are saying. He can’t force that on you, and I am so proud of you for not going that route. But, I’m also worried - I mean what is this guy’s deal now? Is he still bothering you? Have you told anyone? Your mom?”
I turned to look at her finally and said, “Last I heard he left the school. No, I haven’t told anyone. I tried to, but… I just couldn’t. My mom is doing way too much, and I just couldn’t do that to her. I needed to start fresh anyways and had already told my mom about wanting to move schools, and those wheels were in motion, so it didn’t matter. That whole place freaked me out every day. I couldn’t walk anywhere without seeing his face, his eyes, silently demanding I give in to him.” I had the brief memory come up behind my eyes of the only place I did always feel safe, where our group stood around at lunch, with the people who all came from our middle school like Sophie, and Jake. Other than that, the whole place could go to hell if I had any say.
Ally let go of my hand and said, “Well I’m glad you told me. And if you change your mind and want to tell someone at that awful school, or your mom, or whoever the hell, I’m here for you. That must’ve been absolutely crazy.”
I nodded. Talked out. I felt both heavy and lighter. Ally opened up her backpack and pulled out her lunch. We sat there for a while in the sun as it won its battle with the fog, and had our lunches mostly in silence until the bell rang.