Fanfare (Country Roads #2) - Chapter 13

“You have a phone call,” Mom said Monday morning as I came out of the bathroom after my shower. “Nothing bad happened.”

The last part was probably because she could see the look on my face. In my limited experience so far, early morning calls were rarely for something positive. The last one had my dad using his one phone call from jail following the bar fight where he’d stabbed a man to death.

“Hello?” I said, taking the phone from her.

“Charlie, it’s Arthur Eaves. I need you to meet me at the principal’s office when you get to school.”

“Is everything okay?”

“It’s fine. I think we’ve had some movement, at least on the restraining order. I have a call first thing in the morning with the school district’s attorney, but we’ve already worked out preliminaries, so it should just be pro-forma. I’ve spoken to your mom about this but if the restrictions on your movement are changing at school, we both agreed you should be there when we spoke with the administration.”

“Does this mean I won’t be under the restraining order anymore?”

“No, but it changes how it will be handled at school. Like I said, I won’t know the final details until I talked to the school district’s lawyer.”

“Okay. I guess I’ll see you later then.”

“Okay,” he said and hung up.

“So what did he mean by a change in the restraining order?” I asked Mom.

“I don’t know. He told me he had some kind of motion in front of the judge who signed the restraining order last week, but I wasn’t clear on how it all worked. He said it went well and there would be some changes, but he still had details to work out.”

“Yeah, that’s what he said to me. I just thought he might have told you more. I didn’t realize you two were in that much communication. I thought he’d just gone quiet since you spoke with him that first time.”

“He said that I had to be present one way or another any time you spoke to him, unless I signed off on it ahead of time. I didn’t think there was anything to say and I didn’t want you to get distracted with there wasn’t really any kind of change. I promise we weren’t keeping you in the dark.”

“I know, I wasn’t trying to accuse you. I’m glad he’s making some kind of progress, because Aaron’s making it difficult to avoid him. He goes out of his way to make sure he’s walking where I need to go so the teacher with me has to make me wait or go another way. I’ve been late to class a bunch of times.”

“Hopefully this all goes away soon. I’m really worried about what will happen if this goes to court. I asked him about what it would cost us if it went that far, but he just said let’s wait and see how all the preliminary stuff goes first.”

“It’ll be okay, Mom. Chef seems to trust him, and that’s good enough for me. Okay, I gotta run to school. See you when you get off work.”

I gave her a kiss on the cheek and ran out the door for Hanna’s house. Normally Kat was already there waiting to ride over with us, which was pretty inefficient since she actually lived closer to the school, but I think she enjoyed the social time. I was a little concerned when her car wasn’t in the driveway.

I let myself in through the back door like normal and started looking around for Hanna. Mrs. Phillips had told me early last year not to bug her by ringing the bell and come in on school mornings to meet up with Hanna. She was already downstairs this morning, getting her lunch together when I came in.

“Where’s Kat?”

“She called and said she’d meet us there. Your phone was apparently busy this morning.”

Mom must have been talking to Mr. Eaves. She hadn’t wanted to pay the few dollars extra for call waiting, which made us one of the few people who didn’t have it.

“My lawyer called this morning and told me to meet him at the front office. Did she ask if anything was wrong?”

“No, but she called from her home phone and was whispering, so something’s going on.”

Kat had a cell phone but normally texted from it if she needed to get a message to us, or she’d call from a payphone or from someone else’s phone. I think her dad monitored her calls because she made it clear she didn’t want us calling her unless it was an emergency and never wanted us to call her home phone. I got the impression it might make things harder on her, so I’d gone along with that, even though I really didn’t like it.

“Hopefully she’ll be there when we get to school.”

“Hopefully. Why do you need to go to the administration office?”

“I don’t know. Our lawyer said he had a call this morning with the school’s lawyer and something about my restriction was changing, but he couldn’t be more specific until after their call. I won’t find out till I get there.”

“I guess let’s get going then. Here; Mom packed you leftovers from yesterday.”

I still mostly ate the free lunches at school, but occasionally Mrs. Philips packed me lunch, which was always far better than the crappy sandwiches I got from school.

Since I was under the same rules at the moment, Hanna dropped me off at the front door before parking and I headed straight for the administration office. There were a few other kids in there talking to Mrs. Morgan, but I could see Mr. Eaves in the back, who waved for me to join him and Vice Principal Keller by her office.

“Good,” he said as I joined them. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to discuss this with Charlie present, so I don’t have to explain it a second time.”

Mr. Keller didn’t look like he agreed, but he said, “Sure,” and opened his door waving both of us in.

We sat down in the chairs across from Mr. Keller’s desk and waited until he got seated before Mr. Eaves started explaining what was going on.

“I assume you spoke with the school’s attorney already?”

“Yes.”

“Good. I’m sure he explained to you that we received a judicial order on Friday ordering the district to modify their policy towards Charlie. Since the school is a supervised location and Charlie is required to be here by state law, the restriction of the restraining order is not enforceable and the measures taken to follow that order have violated Charlie’s rights.”

“He did.”

“Did he explain the compromise we came to?”

“Yes. Charlie will be allowed to return to his normal schedule, although he will still be required to keep his distance from Mr. Campbell whenever practical. He no longer has to eat lunch separately or be escorted from classes. I understand that, since the original altercation happened in our parking lot, he is still required to be escorted to his vehicle after school each day.”

“If he leaves during normal dismissal times. Since he has baseball practice and Aaron has no scheduled afternoon activities, I was told Aaron would be required to not remain on school property after school let out, allowing Charlie to leave without a chaperone.”

“Correct. Our attorney is contacting Aaron’s father now to make sure they’re clear on the changes, specifically how they affect Aaron, and then I will speak to him afterward.”

I couldn’t believe it. Not only had he managed to get rid of the stupid rules here at school that required me to have a babysitter, but also, Aaron wasn’t being allowed to stay on school property after school. I could imagine how ballistic he, and probably his father, were going to be that he actually had some kind of repercussion from his actions. It was a safe bet this was one of the few times it had ever happened.

It did make me a little worried though. Pissing off Aaron’s dad was going to make it harder to get him to agree to anything later. Mr. Eaves said he knew Aarons’ dad, so I hoped he knew what he was doing. Because, if Aaron’s dad was even a fraction of as vindictive as his son, he’d make sure to try and get some retribution.

“So does this mean everything goes back to how it was?”

“Since classes are well underway, we aren’t going to reset your schedule again,” Vice Principal Keller said. “We’ve spoken with Coach Dean and he agreed to continue letting you do conditioning in sixth period instead of the regular conditioning class, so all of your classes will remain as they are right now. Although you will no longer have to be escorted through the school, we want to make it clear that you still need to stay away from Mr. Campbell as much as possible, and we’ve made the same thing clear to him. Any further run-ins between the two of you will result in both of you being suspended. Also, you will still not have access to any school programs beyond those you have access to right now until this all gets settled.”

“Why?” I said, annoyed. “I still never really understood why the school had to pull me out of everything when it’s just his word against mine. I went along with this, but now that we have a judge saying that I should be able to have access to school, why am I still under some kind of punishment? I thought I was innocent until proven guilty.”

Mr. Keller looked both annoyed and frustrated, but was saved from responding by Mr. Eaves.

“Charlie, I know it’s not ideal, but one of the reasons we got the order from the judge was that the district submitted a brief in our petition arguing that they could ensure the spirit of the restraining order was maintained without all the restrictions that had been put in place. We are still working on getting the restraining order removed entirely, but your mother thought the first priority should be getting your schooling back in order. With the district offering to help, we were able to get this done a lot faster, but it’s under their terms. For now, we just have to take the win and move on to the next thing, rather than wasting time fighting each battle and making this whole thing take so much longer.”

“I guess,” I said, petulantly.

Except for tutoring, which I was getting from Kat anyways, I didn’t use any of the school programs, so it really shouldn’t have mattered, but I was pissed. Every teacher here knew the kind of stuff Aaron pulled and nothing ever happened, but the second he accused me of something, they just punished me without actually proving anything.

It didn’t really matter though. Until we get the whole thing resolved, it's still going to be a pain in the ass. All I could do was wait for Mr. Eaves and be happy that at least the district had agreed to meet us halfway.

“Hey, look who it is,” Megan said when I showed up at the lunch table for the first time in a week.

“Did they get rid of all the restrictions?” Hanna asked.

“Most of them. I have to keep my schedule, which means I still have Coach Bryant for history and that ‘special’ conditioning class, but I don’t have to be escorted to and from classes anymore and I can eat in the cafeteria. Get this though, because I have baseball and Aaron doesn’t have any school-related activities, he has to leave campus right after school.”

“He’ll be pissed. I bet he goes crying to his dad,” Jordan said.

“Probably. So I’ve only been hearing stuff second-hand through Hanna. What’s everyone up to?”

“Megan broke up with Troy McCallum. Everyone’s shocked.”

“I thought he was cute,” Megan said defensively. “How was I to know I needed to be able to have a conversation with him too.”

“Our little Megan’s growing up and finding she want’s more than a pretty face,” Jordan said.

Megan gave her the finger.

“I have no idea who that is,” I said, a little lost.

“He’s a junior on the chess team,” Laura said. “I’ll give her he’s not ugly, but he’s also the biggest nerd in our grade. He wears button-up shirts every day and I swear one time he had a tie on, and Megan here can’t keep the same hair color for more than two days at a time. It’s a weird match for sure.”

“You guys are just … ohh,” Megan said, stopping suddenly and looking over my shoulder.

I turned around and saw Kat, who was trying and failing to hide a black eye under her sunglasses.

“What happened?” I asked, standing up and lifting up her glasses so I could see how bad the damage was. “Holy shit.”

It was a lot worse than I thought it’d be. Her eye was swollen shut and the area around it was puffy and swollen. Half the lunch group stood up and started to surround her, both to get a better look and to offer words of sympathy. I knew they were trying to be comforting and supportive, but I could see Kat’s body stiffen as they peppered her with questions.

“Guy’s, give her some room. We’ll be back in a few minutes.”

Hanna got up to follow us, but I waved her back down. I wasn’t trying to keep anything from her and would probably discuss whatever I found out with her later, but Kat was clearly barely holding it together and I didn’t want to make this any harder on her than it needed to be. I took Kat’s hand and led her down towards the choir room, which I hoped would still be open.

Mr. French was in his office and looked out as the door opened.

“Charlie, I thought you were able to eat in the cafeteria again?”

“I am, but I needed somewhere quiet to talk to Kat. Can we sit in here for a few minutes?” I asked.

I didn’t think he could see Kat’s black eye from there with her glasses on and didn’t want to bring any more attention to it and freak her out more until we had a chance to talk.

“Sure, as long as it’s just talking,” he said, chuckling to himself.

I led her to the far side of the room where we could have some privacy, although Mr. French also closed the door of his office, which was nice of him.

“Are you okay?” I asked once we sat down.

She just shook her head, looking down at her shoes.

“No,” I said, putting a finger under her chin and forcing her to look at me. “I know you’re struggling but I need to know what happened. Have you seen a doctor?”

She shook her head no.

“Does it hurt? Maybe we should take you to the nurse to get it checked out. It’s really swollen and I don’t want you to get any permanent damage.”

“Please, no. I’m not supposed to, ‘cause they’ll have to report it if they find out.”

“Your dad did this, didn’t he?”

She didn’t answer and tried to look at her shoes again.

“Kat, I’ve been avoiding this subject for a while, but if you’re getting hurt, we need to figure out what to do, because if he’s hurting you, this can’t go on.”

“Charlie, please. I don’t want to … I can’t …”

“Kat. Look at me. I promised you I’d take care of you, right? We agreed that I was in charge and you’d come to me from now on when you have problems, and I’d help you work them out. I can’t do that without knowing what’s going on. I don’t want to make this hard on you, but you have to tell me what’s going on. I promise that for right now, I’m just going to listen.”

She hesitated and said, “I don’t want to go into the foster system. My grandparents died when I was little and I don’t have anyone else. I’ve heard stories of what happens to kids who go into the system and I don’t think I could deal with it. I’m so close. One more year and I’m an adult and they can’t force me to go anywhere. I just need to make it one more year. Please, promise me no matter what, you won’t tell anyone. Please promise me.”

She was terrified, and I could understand why. With her condition, she’d be particularly vulnerable. Every month there seemed to be a news story of a kid getting abused by another kid in the program or by a foster parent; and that was if she ended up being placed with a family and not in one of the group homes where they warehoused all the kids when they didn’t have placements slots available. For most kids, it would probably still be worth chancing it, since it couldn’t be worse than the situation they were in, but Kat knew that might not be true for her. She was in a no-win situation.

“I get it and I promise we won’t do anything drastic until we figure out a plan, but I need to know what happened. Your dad did this?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“I said no. He got mad, but I wouldn’t, so he … he got angry.”

“You said no to what?”

She hesitated and said, “Charlie, I don’t want to …”

“He was abusing you right. Sexually?”

She gave a slight nod, trembling. I was at a loss for what to do. I’d suspected it ever since I found out about her condition, since Doctor Rothstein and said that the main cause of DPD was abuse, but suspecting it and doing something about it was not the same thing. She was terrified to go into foster care, which is what would happen if we reported the abuse, assuming the police believed her, which wasn’t always certain. Her dad owned the factory Mom worked at, and was the main source of income for a large part of the town which made him influential and respected, so they might decide she was lying.

“Does he normally hurt you like this when you say no?”

“I’ve never said no, before.”

I guess that made sense, given her condition. If she couldn’t say no to Aaron, she definitely couldn’t say no to her dad.

“Then why …?”

“Because you told me not to sleep with anyone else unless I really wanted to, and I didn’t want to. I was scared, but you said you were in charge and I had to listen to you, so when he came home from his trip and … I said ‘no,’ I couldn’t. He got so mad and I almost gave in, but I didn’t want to disappoint you, so when he tried again I kept saying ‘no’ and wouldn’t let him. He was so angry and punched me. It hurt bad, but I didn’t give in and he stormed out.”

I felt a knot at the bottom of my stomach. I thought I was being clever, finding a way to use her condition to get her out of Aaron’s clutches, but it never occurred to me what all of the repercussions were. I felt a wave of guilt wash over me.

“Kat, I’m so sorry. I didn’t … I wouldn’t have been disappointed in you. What happened wasn’t your fault. I’m very proud of you for standing up for yourself, but I don’t want to see you hurt either. I don’t … I just don’t know what to do here.”

We both feel quiet for several minutes, staring at the ground. My mind was going a mile a minute, but the only thing I could think of was to tell someone like Mom or Chef, but I knew both of those would end in a trip to the police, which Kat was deathly afraid of.

“When I was little,” Kat said suddenly. “My mom died and Daddy was so upset. He cried himself to sleep all the time. I tried to console him, tell him I loved him, but it didn’t work. For a long time he was barely there, just going through the motions. Then one night, he came to my room and …”

She paused. I took her hands and could feel her shaking as hard as she ever had.

“You don’t have to tell me. It’s okay.”

“No. You’re right, you need to know and I want to tell you. I’ve never told anyone before, but … I want to tell you.”

She was whispering and I had to strain to hear her clearly. She paused for a long time and I thought maybe she’d had second thoughts until she finally started talking again.

“It was my fault she died.”

“You were a little kid, Kat. I’m sure that’s not true.”

“It is. Our house is on this big hill and I was outside playing. I loved sci-fi movies, and they’d left the car unlocked. I was in it and playing spaceship. Mom saw me and yelled for me to get out. She was running over to me and I got scared and somehow took off the parking brake. The car started rolling backward. In my memory, it was going really fast, but mom caught up and pulled the door open, so it probably wasn’t that fast. She yanked me out and tried reaching the parking brake, but she got caught on something. I don’t really remember anything after she pulled me out of the car, but Dad said she threw me clear and was dragged down the hill where it crashed into a ditch. Had I not been playing in the car, she’d still be alive.”

“You were a little kid; you couldn’t have known what was going to happen. Had they not left the car unlocked, it wouldn’t have happened. Had someone been keeping an eye on you, instead of letting you play unattended near the car, it wouldn’t have happened. When my dad went to jail, I had a lot of the same thoughts. If I’d only stopped him drinking so much, or if I’d convinced him to stay with us that night instead of going to the bar. It’s taken me a while to realize it’s easy to blame yourself when bad things happen, because it makes you feel like you’re in control of your life, but you weren’t. No one is, not completely, but especially little kids.”

“I guess,” she said, clearly not believing it.

She’d lived with that guilt most of her life. It would take more than a few words for me to absolve her of it. She was quiet for a while, still looking at the ground, tears flowing down her cheeks. I sat silently, giving her the time to continue when she was ready.

“He said I owed it to him. I’d killed mom and he had needs. He said he’d never love anyone else like Mom, but he still needed a woman in the house. Someone to help cook and clean and … other things. I didn’t want to, but it was my fault. He said I couldn’t tell anyone.”

“I’m so sorry, Kat. You didn’t deserve that. I know you’re scared of what will happen if you tell someone, but you can’t let this keep happening.”

“I only have one more year and then I’ll be free. Please, you promised.”

“I know. I just don’t want to see you get hurt like this. Can you get away, when he tries something?”

“If I run to you, he’ll make us move. When I was ten, I said I was going to tell someone and he said he’d move us where I didn’t know anyone and start over. I don’t want to leave. Even with this,” she said, pointing at her eye. “Things are better than they have been in a long time. I’ve never had friends who didn’t tell me to do things I didn’t want to do. Who liked me for me, not because they could use me. I’m so scared that if I leave I won’t be able to find this again.”

“Can you call me if he starts getting bad? I know you want to just try and deal with it, but I’m worried he’ll get too violent and you’ll get seriously hurt.”

“He takes my phone a lot when he’s mad at me. I think he’s worried I’ll call the police. We don’t have a house phone, I think because he’s worried about that, and the computer’s in his room and he keeps it locked when he’s not there.”

“What if I get you a disposable cell phone? You can hide it and only use it if you’re in trouble. As you get closer to graduating, I’m worried about what he might do. You need some way to escape if it gets too bad.”

“I can try.”

“You have to promise me to use it if things look like they’re getting too bad. If you’re going to get seriously hurt, you have to call me and let me help you. I know you’re scared of foster care, but it’s only one year and it’s better than being dead.”

“Okay.”

The bell rang and she wiped her face, trying to collect herself. I could see Mr. French eyeing us and I knew he’d probably have questions I wouldn’t be able to answer. Thankfully, he just waved at us as I walked Kat out and to her next class. We didn’t say anything else, which was probably for the best. While I had already guessed some of what she’d said, at least the general outline of it, hearing the specifics made me feel ill. I desperately wanted to help her, but she’d begged me not to tell anyone, and I was worried what would happen to her fragile mental state if I did it anyways. She was so close to breaking I think it could actually throw her over the edge.

I wasn’t equipped to deal with this and I couldn’t get help from anyone who was. All I knew, though, was that I wasn’t going to let this keep happening. I needed to figure out some way to get her out of that situation.