Chapter 26
Charlie took me out to a nice lunch the Saturday after that talent show. There was only one week until Finals, and in a way I think he wanted to celebrate; celebrate our growing success, celebrate our friendship, but above all, celebrate the fact that we’d survived a second year of high school.
He had a new car, or at least a car that was new to him. The red SUV his dad had gotten a while back, which had somehow managed to pick up more dings and dents than I could keep track of. When Charlie told me he’d learned to drive with that car, I braced myself for the worst, but he actually wasn’t bad. Certainly not nearly as bad as Joey.
We went to a small burger joint, the kind named after the owner, and ended up at one of the laced-metal tables outside, sitting under the hot sun. The day was so warm that I was already starting to sweat after five minutes. “So…” I said.
“So?” Charlie asked, a playful grin on his face. He was wearing a dark gray shirt that had to be collecting a disproportionate amount of the day’s heat.
“I don’t know, I guess I’m wondering why you wanted to bail Jessica out.”
He shrugged, like he didn’t quite know the answer himself. “It’s what any good person would have done. No one wants to fail in front of a bunch of their friends, right?”
“Yeah, but it was Jessica. She deserved it, didn’t she?” In my mind, she certainly did. And so much more, too. She deserved the kind of pain she’d given me, so deep that she didn’t even want to get out of bed in the morning. If she’d arrived at the Jaded phase, I could empathize with her, but she had a long way to go before I would feel like her punishment was fair.
Charlie’s brow wrinkled. “For me, it was about being good people. We aren’t responsible for deciding what Jessica deserves. All we’re responsible for is ourselves, and I feel better about myself because of what we did. We didn’t stoop to her level, even though we could have.”
I took a moment to consider his words. I couldn’t help thinking that it was easier for him than me, since he’d never experienced the full brunt of Jessica’s cruelty. He’d been a bystander—a sympathetic, kind bystander, but a bystander nonetheless. “I think I get what you’re saying, but… I don’t know. It wasn’t about deciding what she deserves. Well, maybe on some level it was. But in my mind, we wouldn’t have been doing anything wrong if we didn’t save her.”
“Hmm…” He pursed his lips. “So you mean to tell me that choosing to sing Jaded after you found out that she was going to perform it had nothing to do with her?”
“No, I’m not saying that. But it wasn’t like I went on Facebook and made a page to bully her. It wasn’t like I told her she should kill herself. Look, the reason I chose to sing Jaded was because it felt like she was trying to tear that away from me. It seemed like she wanted to steal the last thing I had left—like she was trying to hurt me in a way no one else would even notice.”
Charlie reached out, touching my wrist with a sympathetic expression. “I get that. I don’t think that’s why Jessica chose our song, though. On some level, I think she honestly relates to it. I mean, you noticed that she stopped hanging out with Maya, right? Or Maya stopped hanging out with her, or however that happened. She lost at least one friend, and I’ve heard other rumors too.”
“What rumors?” I couldn’t help asking.
“Rumors about why she was suspended, and why she seemed so different when she came back. It seems like no one realizes it was because of that Loser McGee page...” He sighed, as if he actually felt sorry for her. “One of the worst ones I heard was some guy bragging that the principal had caught them going at it in an empty classroom.”
I laughed. “Seems fair to me. She was the one who started calling other people skanks, after all.”
“Ash, you weren’t the only one she was mean to. And I’m not denying that she was mean, but we both know how much it sucks to have people talking about you when you can’t defend yourself.” He paused, watching me for a response.
For a while, I wasn’t sure what to say. He was trying to convince me to sympathize with Jessica, when I didn’t want to do anything but hate her. He might have had a point, but it was hard to agree with.
As long as I held onto my anger, I couldn’t move past it. That was true. As long as I held onto my anger, I would be jaded and hostile and just as bad as Jessica. But moving past it didn’t mean forgiving her. Certainly not the way Charlie was advising. “I didn’t know you were such a Christian,” I said, trying to play it off as a joke.
“A Christian?” Charlie cocked his head. “How so?”
“Turning the other cheek. That’s what you’re telling me to do, isn’t it?” When I’d been younger, I’d thought that was a singularly stupid idea. Turning the other cheek was just a sure way to get slapped again.
“If you want to call it that,” Charlie said. “Like I said, I call it being a good person. It’s important that we learn from what Jessica did, and grow from it if we can.”
I exhaled slowly. Willingly or not, Jessica’s actions had made me stronger. The memory of standing up to her on the bus stood out in my mind, in stark contrast to the defeat I’d felt after our confrontation in the locker room, and after finding out about Loser McGee. She’d made me so miserable, made my life impossible to bear, and because of that I’d been forced to change until I became the sort of person who could bear it.
The torture she’d put me through had forged me into a better person. I didn’t owe her for that, though. “I’ll never be friends with Jessica,” I said, “And I’ll never forgive her for what she did. But that doesn’t mean I didn’t grow from it. When it comes to anyone else, I can still be a good person. Maybe even a better person, because of everything that happened. Forgiving Jessica, though… That would just be too much of a betrayal.”
“A betrayal?”
“Yeah. If I could rewind the clock a year and talk to my old self, she would hate the way we saved her. That’s the person I’m betraying. Just like I had to stand up for myself back then, I have to stand up for myself now. My suffering meant something, and by forgiving her I’d be letting her off the hook. I’d be saying it didn’t mean anything.”
Charlie pursed his lips, as if he was bracing himself for a full-on argument. “Okay, look at it this way: what would a perfect person do? She’d forgive Jessica, right?”
“No, she wouldn’t.” I closed my eyes; like Charlie, I could tell we were about to get in a fight. “Honestly, I don’t know what a perfect person would do. I don’t think she’d trivialize what she went through, though… Maybe we should just drop this, since I don’t think we’re going to agree.”
“Yeah, me either.” He shook his head. “We’ll talk about it later, once you’ve had more time to think.” The way he said that made me roll my eyes.
It was clear that he thought I was in the wrong, that he thought I just needed a little more perspective. Like when we’d argued about his grandpa; he wouldn’t let up until he had his way. I wasn’t about to deny that there was a grain of wisdom in what he was saying, some small grain of truth. But there was my truth… And then there was Charlie’s.
My truth was that it wasn’t wrong to remember the ways someone had hurt me. Forgiveness in the case of Jessica just seemed naïve. When I didn’t say anything, Charlie shook his head. “Just think about it, Ash.”
I already have, I thought. But I can’t make a decision either way. In a way, I felt as if I was making a decision about whether I wanted to stay with Charlie or not. At some point, I had to figure out whether I was okay with bowing to his opinion on everything. That was the only way the argument would get resolved, just like our disagreement over his grandpa. If I didn’t agree with him, he’d find ways to bring it up.
The decision of whether to stay with him was so much harder than figuring out how to treat Jessica. Charlie had been there for me; he’d been my sounding board, my confidant, my only friend at a time when friends had been more precious to me than all the gold in
the world. Jessica had made me a stronger person, but I didn’t know if I was strong enough to let Charlie go.
Whoa, you made it through the whole book! Congratulations!
If you enjoyed Auburn: Outcasts and Underdogs, please be sure to leave a review on Amazon, Goodreads, or anywhere else (shouting from a rooftop works too). You can also tweet me @vtothetom.
The second novel of this series, Auburn: Lost Causes and Bad Investments, is currently available on Amazon. If you liked Outcasts and Underdogs, please pick up a copy!
Song Lyrics
Add One More
To one pain we add another
When you’re hurting like no other
Sometimes you just can’t take it in stride
If you can’t stand, you hopeless sufferer
To one trial, here take another
Don’t collapse until the day you survive
And maybe you’ll find
No not happiness
But just a little less sadness
Just a little less pain to deny
Not satisfaction
But perhaps just some compassion
Something you won’t have to keep inside
Maybe one day you’ll survive
To your sorrows, add one more
When you feel like death’s door
Is coming close at your own hand
Maybe you’ll remember
That this isn’t our December
The end doesn’t have to come as planned
So go on, give me more
‘Till I’m falling to the floor
‘Till I beg for mercy, make me scream
Because life can be a chore
And the worst afflicted
Are those who never add one more
So add one more
(Add one more)
Sing it with me now
(‘Cause life’s a chore)
And we’ll find out how
This life will continue on
(Add another)
Cling to it tight
(Don’t go under)
Stay with me tonight
Until we see the break of dawn
Just add one more
Early Flight
First Verse
He took the early flight home
Packed his bags and said “I’ve gotta go”
Kissed me on both cheeks
Said goodbye to everyone
Told me our time together was just about done
‘Cause he took the early flight home
All the love that we shared
The times that we cried
The times that we laughed
I still had to say goodbye
Next to pictures of his wife
I love him forever
But he left us last night
Chorus
Yeah, he took the early flight home
Who could tell him he was wrong?
He took the early flight home
And now that he’s gone
That early flight
Is movin’ on
Second Verse
He used to put on red pajamas
Tell me he was Santa Claus
He made such a silly ruckus
Stumbling halfway down the stairs
I never told him that I knew
I never wondered if he cared
Do you think he used that old knapsack
When he boarded his plane?
Do you think that he looked back
Wished he could turn back again?
I love him forever
I’d give anything to see
Santa stumbling down the stairs
Just one more time for me
Chorus
Yeah, he took the early flight home
Who could tell him he was wrong?
He took the early flight home
And now that he’s gone
That early flight
Is movin’ on
Finale
All the love that we shared
The times that we cried
The times that we laughed
I still had to say goodbye
I love you old man
You silly, clumsy old man
I love you forever
But you left me last night
I hope your early flight
(laugh, whisper) Well, I hope your early flight made it in just fine
Jaded
First verse
Feeling lost
Twisted and confused
Abused like a puppet
Caught up in a winter tempest
I’m feeling like a kite
Torn up by the wind
My colors once so bright
Now I just can’t stand…
Chorus
One, two, three
Do you see
What you’ve done to me?
And can you hear
My whining plea?
Oh, please just let me be.
Let me be.
Second verse
Feeling hated
Rejected and affected
By all of the cold shoulders
By all of your hostile stares
Where once I was a kite
Now I can no longer fly
I’m stuck here on the ground
And I just keep falling down
Chorus
One, two, three
Do you see
What you’ve done to me?
And can you hear
My whining plea?
Oh, please just let me be.
Let me be.
Finale
I want this feeling to end
Please mend my broken colors
And let me sing again.
Hear my plea
And let me be
Oh, don’t make me feel lost
And don’t make me feel hated
The sadness will pass
Don’t leave me feeling
Jaded.
Head over Heels
Intro
When we walk together
It feels like the world falls away
And when we talk forever
It seems like life will never change
I’m falling fast
And falling hard
Falling head over heels for you
Chorus
(Head over heels)
How can I describe it?
(Head over heels)
I cannot deny this
Feeling inside
It’s like I’m finally alive
And tumbling
Falling head over heels
For you
First Verse
If the song plays soft
When the time is right
If you love me fast
I’ll fall hard tonight
You feel like a world
I’ve never known
And when you speak to me
It’s like coming home
So just let me fall
Into your arms now
Just let me fall
Let’s both tumble down
Chorus
(Head over heels)
How can I describe it?
(Head over heels)
I cannot deny this
Feeling inside
It’s like I’m finally alive
And tumbling
Falling head over heels
For you
Second Verse
If you love me back
Please just let me know
‘Cause I’ve tumbled too far
To let you go
And we’ll hold hands
Play our silly songs
We’ll keep falling hard
And they’ll sing along
Final Chorus
(Head over heels)
How can I describe it?
(Head over heels)
I cannot deny this
Feeling inside
It’s like I’m finally alive
And tumbling
Falling head over heels
For you
Plastic Hearts
Intro
There are people
Who they say
Never have to feel this way
There are people
Not like us
Who’ve never felt our bare disgust
With plastic hearts
And hollow love
They send on judgment from above
They don’t see us
Or hear our pleas
They only send us to our knees
Their plastic hearts cause only pain
Their plastic hearts go out in vain
Chorus
Plastic hearts, warped and twisted
Plastic hearts by the side of the road
Plastic hearts grew cold and sick as
They never learned to
No, they never wanted
To let us sho-ow them how to love
Second Verse
They are broken
Cracked and bruised
They always knew
Just how to use
Our own feelings
For their own gain
Plastic is never flesh again
But my love is real
Plastic can’t touch me
Give me something I can feel
Now, give me something I can see
Whoa-oh
I can show you how to live
If you just come with me
Your plastic heart can break
Let me show you how to bleed
Chorus
Plastic hearts, warped and twisted
Plastic hearts by the side of the road
Plastic hearts grew cold and sick as
They never learned to
No, they never wanted
To let us sho-ow them how to love
Finale
Your hearts, warped and twisted
I will leave by the side of the road
When your heart grows cold and sick just
Remember that I offered to show
You how to live
And how to love
You could’ve bled with me
But now your heart, it beats in time
And you’ll never learn to bleed
No, you’ll never bleed
Starstruck Lullaby
Intro
I stayed awake last night
Counting stars to the flicker in your eyes
Living dreams in my own head
Fantasies better left unsaid
They say the future’s full of snow
And lord knows I’ve felt the bitter cold
Chorus
This is a star,
Struck lullaby
Sing it up to the life that passed me by
Never good and never great
I keep trying anyway
And nights’ll be warmer
Faces kinder
In that life we can’t deny
(Starstruck lullaby)
‘Cause it won’t pass me by
(Starstruck Lullaby)
Pass me by,
Tonight
First Verse
I built up my dreams
Poured out my hopes
And what did it ever get me?
A life of has beens
A life of sorrow
A life of looking for what could be
These shooting stars
Are passing planes
Coming overhead
Tell me, are we past these silly games
Past fantasies we left for dead?
Chorus
This is a star,
Struck lullaby
Sing it up to the life that passed me by
Never good and never great
I keep trying anyway
And nights’ll be warmer
Faces kinder
In that life we can’t deny
(Starstruck lullaby)
‘Cause it won’t pass me by
(Starstruck Lullaby)
Pass me by,
Tonight
Finale
Pass me by,
Whoa pass me by,
In this starstruck lullaby,
Just pass me by tonight