Take My Advice

Chapter Six

When I finally did see Bruce that afternoon right before last period, I surprised myself by being happy to see him. I'd never imagined that I'd experience that particular emotion when thinking about that particular person. It was a weird combination. 

"Hey," I said when he drew near. 

"You. Me. Talk. Right now." 

"Okay." I followed him outside and under a tree. I was supposed to be in class in two minutes, but this seemed much more important than listening to a lecture on whatever my very lecture-happy teacher had prepared for the day.  

Bruce stood in front of me, shifting from foot to foot. His clenched fists and tight jaw, along with the hardness around his eyes, gave every indication of his anger. That's why it was sort of anti-climactic when he said, "I'm so mad at you."  

"I understand why you'd feel that way," I began, thinking that a calm, reasonable tone and a validation of his feelings would be a great way to start off this conversation. He held up his hands. 

"You don't understand. You don't understand anything. Child Protective Services came to my house Friday night. They interviewed us for hours. And guess what-my dad was arrested. He's sitting in jail right now. His lawyer thinks he can get him out on bail, but we don't have any bail money, and none of those people who loan you money for bail even want to touch us because of my rib. Yeah, it's broken-the case worker guy made me go to the hospital and get it checked out." 

It seemed to me that things were looking up. Bruce's rib had been looked at, his dad couldn't hurt him-but I was obviously missing something pretty crucial. 

"We have problems, okay? But he's my dad. And my dad's in jail now. My whole family is messed up. You should have just stayed out of it." 

"I thought you wanted help. That's why you wrote me, isn't it?" 

"I wanted you to tell me how to deal with it on my own, not call the stupid authorities." 

I sighed, totally exasperated. "I didn't call them-Mr. Leffert did. And you were expecting a whole lot of me, you know that? I'm a kid, just like you. You came to me for help, and I had to ask for help too. This isn't a problem teenagers can solve, Bruce. We need backup." 

"Yeah, well, I think you should get out of the advice game. You obviously have no clue what you're doing." 

"Now, just wait a second. I'm pretty good at what I do." 

Bruce laughed. "You think? I'm not so sure. Some of the stuff you tell people . . . " 

"What? What about it?" 

"It's all hokey. It doesn't work in the real world. And then the people who try to take your advice and get burned? They're left feeling like total dorks for listening to you." 

I crossed my arms across my chest, trying to protect myself from the barbs he was throwing at me. "And have you taken a poll of the people I've helped? Do you have some scientific data to back this up?" 

"I hear people talk. And I've decided that you need to know what it feels like to take your own advice." 

I raised an eyebrow, totally confused. "What do you mean?" 

"I want you to go through the back issues of the school paper and make a list of all the advice you've given this year. And then you need to take every single piece of advice you've ever handed out."  

"Huh?" I didn't mean to sound totally clueless, but . . . I was totally clueless. 

"You heard me. You have to do everything you've told other people to do. So, like, last week you told a girl to tell the guy she likes that she likes him. You have to do it too." 

I had a sudden terrible vision of me walking up to Colby and blurting out my feelings. It sent a sick feeling all the way through the very core of me. "And just how do you intend to make me do that?" 

Bruce smirked. "See, Gina works in the office. And Gina's brother has some mad computer skills. He hacked into the school's computer, into the e-mail account Ms. Young uses to collect the questions. And he made me a list of all the original e-mails, all the ones that no one's supposed to know." He waved a list in my face. "I know who sent in your questions, and I'm more than ready to print this off a couple hundred times and hand them out. We're talking, public humiliation times fifty." 

"No. Bruce, you can't do that." Chills raced down my arms at the thought of how very, very bad that would be. "That's just mean. Why would you do that just to get revenge on me?" 

"That's why. To get revenge on you." He looked down at me, obviously feeling very sure of himself. "So, what's it going to be?" 

I opened and closed my mouth a few times, so infuriated that I couldn't even decide what I wanted to say. "You are whacked, you know that?" I managed finally. "I'm right, and you're wrong, but you'd rather cause a whole lot of embarrassment for an entire school than to admit it. What's keeping me from just telling Ms. Young that you have the list? She'd have you on all kinds of disciplinary action for hacking into the school's computer." 

"See, there's the thing. In order for a threat to work, I have to care. And I don't care anymore. Coach won't let me play until the doctor signs off on it, so I've really got nothing going for me right now. Go ahead and tell Ms. Young. In fact, do it right now. And while you're gone, I'll just hand this list off to someone, and they'll be more than happy to pass it along."  

"But . . . but . . . " While I fished around, trying to come up with some sort of response, some kind of name to call him that would even remotely suit him, I realized something. He was hurting. Deeply. And while I didn't approve of his choices-not by a long shot-I realized that revenge was the only way he knew how to make himself feel better. This made me feel sorry for him, but not sorry enough to back down. He was still responsible for his own choices. 

"You're a toad, you know that?" I said after a long moment. "I can't believe you'd threaten me with doing something so hurtful to so many people." 

"I'm not going to stand here all day and listen to you talk about how much you don't like what I'm doing. Do we have a deal or not?" 

"Fine," I growled. "I'll do it. I'll take every piece of advice I've handed out. And if I do that, you promise that list stays confidential?" 

"I promise. And yes, you can trust me on that." 

I shook my head. Bruce actually wanted me to trust him, after pulling this stunt? I didn't see how it was possible. 

"Hey, I promise. Football player's honor." 

For some reason that didn't inspire very much confidence either, but I nodded once and strode off. From behind me, I heard him call out, "You have three weeks, Jill." 

Three weeks? That was so unfair. 

I spun on my heel and faced him. "What if I gave two people the same piece of advice? Do I have to do it twice?"  

He seemed to consider. "No, once is fine. But do it right. No cutting corners." 

"Fine." I stalked away again, hoping that I'd advised someone to murder a football player. That was an assignment I'd carry out with glee.