Tradition Read online

“I’m fighting,” she said again.

  “Did you tell anyone?”

  “No. Not then.” She leaned back against the counter and crossed her arms. “Do you remember Ashley Kramer?”

  “Yes,” I said. I only barely remembered her. She’d been in our class the first year, but then, near the end of the year, she’d left for health reasons, or so I thought, but given the way Aileen was shaking her head, I was beginning to understand. “So something like that happened to her, too.”

  She nodded, as if lost in a memory. “She tried to say something, Jules. I don’t know what. I don’t know to whom, but she did. And then, instead of anything happening, instead of the boy leaving, she left. She wasn’t sick. She was terrified of seeing him every day.”

  I put my arm around her and held her.

  “I understand,” I said.

  “She was smart enough to be afraid,” Aileen said. “There I was, thinking Sam Crawford was my boyfriend until he went to Yale.” She pulled out of my hug. “I thought he was my boyfriend. How dumb is that?”

  “You’re not dumb,” I told her.

  “I just don’t want to feel helpless or voiceless anymore.”

  “I know,” I said. “Everyone says, ‘Suck it up,’ ‘That’s life,’ ‘It’s not a big deal,’ but I want someone to say, ‘Hey, this happened to you, it’s wrong, you were hurt, and it’s not your fault.’ ”

  “I need people to stand there and acknowledge that it happened and not look at me like I have four heads.”

  “What if we go to the other extreme?” I said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “What if we scare them for once? Make everyone see something they can’t ignore?”

  “What do we do?”

  In my mind I began my own little mantra, again. Not about college. About right now. It buoyed me. It braced me. It lifted me up. You do not hear me. You do not see me. But you will. I just didn’t know what I meant by it yet.

  CHAPTER 31

  * * *

  JAMES BAXTER

  I was having the hardest time keeping a smile off my face, so I remained as silent as possible during the deliberations. We crowded the aisle on the other side of the room from my locker. Freddie sat on the bench, shirtless, hands tucked behind his biceps to make them look bigger than they were.

  “Someone comes in here and does this behind our back?” he said. “It’s like TP-ing our trees before a game.”

  Except it wasn’t at all.

  “Graffiti over graffiti,” someone said from the back.

  “What’s the big deal?” I couldn’t hold back anymore. I towered over the guys in front of Freddie, and he looked up at me, a snarl in his upper lip, as if I’d bit him.

  “Yeah,” Greg said, surprising me. “Who knows? Maybe maintenance came in. Who cares?”

  “Someone came into our house and defaced it,” Freddie said, staring at me. “Better question is, why would someone do that?”

  There hadn’t been time to talk about it before practice, but after Coach grilled us and pushed us and punished us for not whipping Buffalo enough, we dragged our exhausted bodies to the locker room and Freddie tried to play Sherlock Holmes. He’d looked for evidence of a tool. He’d searched the room to make sure it had happened everywhere.

  “You notice it’s only the stuff about girls that’s scratched out?” another guy said.

  “I did,” Freddie said. “Stuff about Hodges, that’s still around. Just girls.”

  “Whack,” one of the guys muttered, but Greg and a couple of others peeled away from the group. I followed them, crossing the room to my own locker.

  “You think it was one of the girls?” Freddie asked the guys still around him, but he was addressing the whole room. He stood. “Probably Jules. She’s always on a tirade.”

  “All right,” I said. “No need to go there.”

  Freddie glared at me across the room, but I ignored him, wrapped a towel around my waist, and walked over to the showers.

  He followed me. “What if it was? What if Jules snuck in here, maybe with one of her friends? Maybe the Viking had a hand in all this? Your locker went untouched.”

  I closed my eyes and let the water drip all over my face. I was enjoying Freddie’s confusion, but his new line of attack was starting to get under my skin. I tried to breathe, find my game-time focus, and let it roll off my shoulders.

  “Maybe we should hit something of theirs? Mary Lyon? Raid the bathroom?”

  “Or you could just let it go,” I said.

  Some of the other guys were talking about it, but most of them were talking low or ignoring it. Freddie showered next to me. The silence that walled up between us made everything worse. I was sure others could feel it too. “Hey, Freddie,” one of the guys said from the other side of the showers. “Rumor true? You get paired with Margot for the Winter Ball?”

  “That little European hottie?”

  “Damn, son. Hell of a Senior Send-Off.”

  “Yeah,” Freddie said slowly, turning the water off and walking toward them. “Let’s see how she likes my coq au vin.” The three of them laughed, but only the three of them. Everyone else in the showers was silent. But everyone knew. The Winter Ball came first, then later that night, the Senior Send-Off. Tradition.

  “Jesus,” Greg muttered next to me.

  I took my time washing and letting the water warm all my muscles, and when I finally finished and walked back to my locker, I found Freddie scratching something into one of the lockers near mine. It wasn’t his. It was an underclassman’s, Tuttle, the only sophomore on the varsity team. Freddie had his arm around him. I tried not to look, but I couldn’t help but see the hastily squiggled genitals, and the phrase below: Jules, come and get it.

  I stopped. Tuttle looked up at me, and I eased him aside. Freddie snickered. “What?” he said. “It was probably her. She’s the one who got all hot and horny with Hackett at the party. She’s crazy, but like Hackett said, the good kind of crazy.” He grinned and slapped Tuttle on the shoulder.

  I reached into Tuttle’s locker, grabbed his skate, and started scratching out what Freddie had just drawn. “Just don’t,” I said. “There’s no need.”

  Freddie eyed me. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

  “No. Who cares? Just don’t do it,” I said.

  “It was you.”

  Some of the other guys began crowding closer. Freddie, Tuttle, and the others were all dressed, but I was still in my towel. Freddie tapped the lockers with the metal pen clip he had used to etch the graffiti.

  “I really thought it was her. She’s the one running around crying rape because she went crawling back to Hackett and now regrets it. I was sure she was the only one crazy enough to do this. But it wasn’t her.” He stepped closer to me, pointing the metal clip right at my chest. “It was you.”

  “What’d you just say?”

  Freddie laughed. “Oh my God, you can’t lie for shit. You did do it.”

  I swallowed and tried to keep my temper in check. “No,” I said slowly, “what did you just say about Jules?”

  “I can’t believe you, man. You probably spent the whole night in here scratching this all off.” He laughed and backed away, walking toward the center of the room. “This guy’s spending all his time with the Viking and Jules. No wonder he’s going crazy.”

  A couple of the guys laughed with him, but not the ones who saw me staring at Freddie’s back. “Freddie,” I said. “What the hell did you just say about Jules?”

  “She’s so desperate, man,” he said, walking away. “So desperate. Making such a big deal. Twisting it all out of proportion. Crying rape? So dangerous. Can ruin a guy’s life with that word.” He was halfway out of the locker room.

  “Hackett tell you that?” I yelled after him. He ignored me and left.

  I was still in my towel. I handed Tuttle his skate back. “Finish cleaning that off,” I told him. I know I sounded like some kind of drill sergeant bully, but I didn’t care. I j
ust didn’t want that kind of shit in my locker room.

  I got dressed as quickly as I could. What did I know? I had to find Jules, or maybe Aileen. She’d know what to do. I couldn’t figure out how to deal with the blood racing through me—the storm. I kept trying to still my breathing, but it was impossible. I was on fire.

  I thought I was the last one out of the locker room, but as I turned out of my aisle, I saw Greg sitting on a bench, leaning toward Freddie’s locker with a key. At first I thought he was scratching something in, but I realized he was using the blunt edge and smudging something out. I didn’t even want to know what it was.

  Greg nodded at me. “I got you,” he said.

  “Nice one.” I paused. “This is on us, man. We can’t just stand around and pretend there’s nothing we can do about it.”

  “I got you,” he said again.

  “Hey,” I said. “You hear that stuff Freddie was saying about Jules?”

  He frowned. “I don’t know. Couple of the guys were talking about how Hackett was going on about it. Someone was passing around photos of Jules on vacation somewhere last year. Caribbean, I don’t know. Calling her a cocktease.”

  “Freddie?”

  “No. A guy on the ski team. Guys in my class. Hackett had shown them the pictures on his phone.” He went back to scratching at the graffiti. “He’s got everyone calling her crazy. Gillian too. Some of the girls are saying you can’t trust a thing she says.”

  I couldn’t hold back. I spun and punched a locker so hard I put a dent in it. I yelled as I did it because I didn’t have any words, only the rage welling up and steaming out of me.

  Greg didn’t flinch. “Yup,” he said calmly, still scratching. “I’m with you. It’s messed up. I know she’s your friend, dude.”

  I hated myself in that moment, because I knew I hadn’t been her friend. I had assumed just like everyone else that she was trying to get back together with Hackett. Javi had been right, and I should have found her yesterday.

  As I tore upstairs and out of the hockey arena, I tried to think about where Jules might be, and how to calm down enough so I didn’t scare her. Let her know how much I wanted to help. Let her know I was her friend, just like she’d asked me to be, I just hadn’t realized how.

  It was dark out, and the streetlights along the academic drive in front of the student center and gym barely lit up the street. There was enough light to know there were shadows moving up ahead or behind you, that’s all, and though I knew there was a group hanging out on the benches by the student center, I had no idea who they were until I heard one of them yelling my name. “Buckeye! The list is posted. Come check out your date to the ball!”

  I blew by them because I couldn’t imagine Jules sitting there with them, and as the guys continued to call my name, I didn’t bother looking back or answering. I didn’t want to turn on them in that moment. There was too much adrenaline in me. I couldn’t trust myself and I knew I couldn’t start a fight with my own teammates. I didn’t know how I was going to avoid it for the next six months. I wanted to rip the student center’s glass doors off their hinges and smash them. I wanted to yell—I needed to get something out of me.

  By the time I made it to Mary Lyon, I had almost calmed down enough to think about what I might say to Jules, but as I walked up the path toward the front porch, I saw Hackett leaning against the railing, playing guitar and singing to two freshman girls, Lianne and Margot. I lost it.

  “Hackett,” I hollered, coming up the path.

  He stopped and blinked at me as I came into the light.

  “Jesus, Buckeye,” Hackett said. “What the hell is the matter with you?”

  The two girls had been gazing up at him, bobbing their heads along to his song, Lianne so close she was almost leaning against his leg. They were as startled as he was, and Lianne shuffled up against him.

  “What are you doing?” I said to Hackett. The fire in my veins still zipped through me, and I wasn’t sure I could hide my anger for very long.

  “Well, when I find a few expert ski bums like these two, I can’t resist sharing my ski song with them.” He chuckled. “It’s totally dumb, I know.”

  “No it’s not,” Lianne said.

  Hackett rested his guitar against the porch post behind him. “Lianne’s skied some of the best places in the world,” he said. “I love it.” He smiled down at her and ignored me completely. “But really, which one do you think is better? Cortina d’Ampezzo or Zermatt?”

  “Zermatt,” she said. “Besides, you can ski into Italy from there, if you want. Ski both countries.”

  “Love it,” Hackett said. He stepped closer. Something about the way he touched her shoulder caught me off guard. She smiled. “I just knew it. That’s my favorite too,” he said to her.

  “Hey,” I interrupted. “I need to talk to you. Maybe you two want to get out of here?”

  Hackett heard the venom in my voice. I could see the flash of fear on his face. “Damn, Buckeye, no need to start barking orders. Have some manners in front of the ladies here.”

  I almost sprang forward and tackled him. Instead I took a deep breath.

  “Then you come down here and take a walk with me.”

  He held his own, eyeing me cautiously. “All right,” he finally said to the girls. “I’ll hit you up later? Lianne?” He smiled at her. “I have to deal with the bear.”

  “Excuse me?” I said.

  Lianne looked back and forth between us.

  “No worries,” he said to her. “We’ll catch up later.” She glanced at me again, quickly. “Sans souci,” he said to Lianne. “I’ll catch up with you after dinner tonight.” He stepped away, and even though he kept grinning with that big, carefree smirk of his, he swept up his guitar, sprung down the steps, and headed for the walkway—angling away from me and walking toward our dorm.

  I ignored the girls and followed him. He wasn’t running, but he was walking as quickly as he could. “Hey,” I said, a step behind him. “Where you going?”

  He glanced back at me for a second as he headed up the drive toward Tapper. I don’t think he knew where he was going. He’d made the wrong move. He should have stayed on the porch with the girls. I grabbed his shoulder from behind and slowed him down.

  “You don’t waste any time, do you?”

  “What?” he said. He lifted his nose. Tried his smirk. It was weak as shit.

  “You and Lianne? Seriously? She’s like fourteen years old.”

  “Take it easy.”

  He broke from my grip, but only briefly. He fought to get free of me, but I backed him up against the wall of Mary Lyon. It was dark, but the girls poked their heads around the corner from the porch steps and could see us.

  “I don’t feel easy,” I said.

  “I’m just getting to know my date to the ball,” Hackett said. “Relax, man.”

  “Your date?”

  “Yeah.” Hackett found a little courage. “Just check the list. You want me to find out who you’re going to be paired with? I can do that.”

  I held my hand up. “Shut up for a second. Tell me what you’re saying about Jules.” I wasn’t sure why I couldn’t just come out and say it. I tripped over my words.

  “Oh, that’s what this is about? You’re jealous because she was with me and not you?” He laughed. “That’s crazy. Well, she’s all yours, Romeo. She’s a nutcase.”

  I kept fighting for words. “No. It’s not like that.”

  “Oh, I think it is.” He tried to walk around me, but I blocked him again. Pushed him back against the brick wall. “Just let me by,” he snapped. “You can use your left hand if she doesn’t want you. It’s a free country, dude.”

  He tried to move again, but I grabbed him by the shoulder and held him in place. “No. It’s more like she didn’t want to be there,” I said.

  “Yeah, she says that now.” He sniffed. “That’s not what she was saying that night.”

  “She’s not a liar.”

  “Take i
t easy, Buckeye. Let go of me.”

  “She’s not a liar,” I said again.

  “So what are you saying? I am?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re out of your league here. I know you think you know, but you don’t know anything. You don’t know her. You don’t know me, and you don’t understand anything about life here at Fullbrook. You don’t belong here, dude. Why don’t you get out of my face and go back to whatever dirty little garage you crawled out of?”

  I grabbed him by the front of his shirt and slammed him back against Mary Lyon’s wall. He grunted, and then I pressed him up, held him in the air off his feet. He kicked out at me, but I pinned him with my whole body and pressed harder into his chest. My head felt light and electric, like when I was back on the line. All I could hear was Coach Ellerly’s voice. Hit-hit-hit. HIT.

  “I can break you,” I spat.

  “Hey, stop!” Lianne yelled from the porch. Light suddenly shone through the window above us.

  “Yeah,” Hackett said, fighting to get his arms around to try to hit me. Useless swats. “That’s the kind of thing a kid like you says, because that’s all you have, isn’t it? Your muscle. Watch how I own you, dipshit.”

  Someone was leaning out the window above us, shouting for us to break it up. Margot and Lianne shouted too. I could hear them all, but they sounded so far away. I couldn’t slow my momentum. I pushed harder, heard him yelp like a whipped puppy, then I dropped him. Just as his feet landed, I socked him in the stomach. He doubled over and coughed, but before he fell to his knees, I caught him and pressed him to the wall again.

  I kept him pinned there, catching his breath, but his words had scared me. I pushed harder and he groaned. “I want you to know,” I said. “I just want you to remember this. I can break you like you’ve never been broken. Remember that. Remember when you’re walking across campus at night. I’m coming for you.”

  Despite his obvious pain, he looked me in the eye. He trembled and his voice wavered like I’d never heard it, but he still found a small grin before he spoke. “No. Remember what I can do to you, Buckeye.”

  I laughed in his face, but he didn’t flinch.