His Dark Words

20 | Moments of Sky

Weirdly, that was a good day. That was a day when I didn't think about my dad for the space of a few minutes strung together. That was a day when I smiled and laughed with my friends and the world didn't feel like it was collapsing under my feet. When I first heard what happened to him, I thought I'd never be happy again, not for a long time. The first time I smiled I felt like a monster. But grief, anger, pain is like that. You can't sit and live in one emotion like you can sit and live in black clothes for the rest of your life. And yeah, I feel horrible most of the time and I even obsessed about that stupid comment Austin said about my dad, but there are still these little moments even in the first few weeks where I can see the sky through the clouds.

My mom goes back to work, and I'm relieved. At least at work she can focus on something else. At home all she did was cry. I tried all our old things. Movie Night, donuts, Ping Pong, Chinese food. 

But nothing works... She isn't doing well. 

And I guess that's what draws me back to the film, my film. Because I realize that there are others out there that I can save... Or at least attempt to help. Also, it's probably because the mystery still remains a mystery; Book-Boy is not Austin Loew and that makes so much sense now. I had always been waiting for his inner depths to surface and they never did. I'm not saying that people who suffer can't inflict suffering on others but the sadness in that book, that cry for help... Well, I just can't imagine Book-Boy doing the things that Austin Loew did... Or tried to do.

In the nights I spend sobbing silently into my pillow my obsession with fixing things, even if it can't be, can never be for my Dad, but for someone else grows and grows in my mind like some parasitic thing. 

I get up from my bed and sit with the stacks and stacks of old movies, taken out from the cabinets in the living room. Gone with the Wind... Toy Story... Breakfast at Tiffany's: every movie that made up my childhood. Each of them has these scenes... These perfect moments that stand out to me. Whether it's just a character's look, a snatch of song, or a kiss... They're each this spark of something real. I take them all upstairs and painstakingly start to cut out these scenes and stitch them together on my laptop, just like with my note to Alex. I'm not sure if it's anything really... But at least it's a better way to spend my long, sleepless nights... At least it's a distraction.

Life carries on, pulling me with it and suddenly it's the first day of exams. Everyone is filled with this tense energy, still trying to read from their textbooks right up until the last moment or else completely nonplussed as if their future isn't about to be decided in those halls filled with long lines of desks. I'm just grateful to only be sitting for my advanced classes. This is all a taste of what next year will be like for us juniors and it's daunting enough on its own.

We all file into the hall. It's the same hall where we had prom, transformed again into little desk islands where we will strand ourselves for an hour and forty-five minutes and try our hardest to stay afloat. I put my bag by the side of the room with the others. I have tied a scrap of leftover prom-dress fabric to the top loop to avoid any further Austin related mishaps. We all sit down and wait with bated breath for the proctor to start the exam. Hundreds of hands open their exam books and hundreds of eyes lock onto the printed inserts tucked inside. 

These do not belong... 

These are not equations and indices... 

There are gasps, titters, then full blown explosions of laughter. The inserts are photos, sent within text conversations. 

The photos are of Austin Loew completely naked and in pretty compromising positions all with little emojis just about covering what little there is to cover. There are screenshots of just the texts too. His deepest desires laid as bare as his ass with the recipient redacted in black scribbles. The texts get darker, more abusive as they go on...

"WILL EVERYONE PLEASE SETTLE DOWN!" The proctor tries in vain to instil order and get the exam back on track, but the hall is total chaos.

People are throwing the print outs up in the air and hollering like maniacs. I find myself standing up, throwing them up into the air over and over and laughing with the others. Austin had been frozen to his seat somewhere near the front of the hall but now he manages to stumble out of his chair. He tries to grab some of the print outs from the people around him but there are too many for him to make any dent in the volume. After this realization dawns on him, he takes off running through the rows of desks and slams his way out of the hall.

I see Macie Myers near the middle of the room. She's just sat at her desk, completely silent and innocent, her hands folded over her unopened exam book. It takes an hour for the room to be reset and us to all sit back down and take the test, everyone except for Austin, that is; he never came back.

"How the hell did she pull it off?" I ask Alex in wonder as soon as we're out of the hall.

The whole school is buzzing with the same question. This must be what it feels like to be inside an echoing hive full of bees.

Alex's grin is bordering on manic. "I don't know what you mean."

"ALEX!" Vanessa bristles. "You HAVE to tell us! I know you know what happened! It's not like we're going to tell anyone else!"

It's true. The whole school knows it was Macie, it could only have been Macie, but there is no way anyone will attest to it. Especially after reading all the screenshots and learning just the kind of manipulative, demeaning things Austin had said to her, day after day, week after week and all with the threat of ruining her if she told, just like he ruined Natalie Pierce's reputation...

Alex pulls us off to a deserted section of the quad then lowers his voice. "She's been planning this for a while now. He pressured her into doing... Well, a lot of stuff and then after that he just dropped her. After Derrick's party she took me home, sobered me up and we ended up talking for a long time. She told me everything Austin did to her and how she wanted to do something about it. His father is a really connected guy, so she didn't trust the school to do anything about it. Also, most of the things he'd said to her at that point had been when they were together or over the phone. I told her I'd help her in whatever way I could, and I swore to keep it a secret. So, we tried to make him jealous by pretending we were a couple..."

"And let Harlow hook up with that monster in the meantime..." Vanessa jumps in, her face still with genuine rage.

Alex looks pained. "I tried to tell you... Without breaking Macie's trust. She assured me she'd tell you herself if she couldn't win him back. It had to be real you know? Or he would've caught on."

I swallow and nod, not sure if I follow their reasoning.

"Anyway... That night at the cinema, seeing her with me drove him crazy. They had this huge fight in the girl's bathroom, and she thought she'd blown it. But he didn't leave her alone after that. She got all the texts she needed then I guess she waited for the best moment to expose him in front of everyone."

"How did she get the messages into the exam papers?" I ask, amazed at her daring.

"I honestly have no idea. My part was over after she managed to win him back."

"What will happen now?" Vanessa asks quietly.

"If there's any justice in the world he'll never come back to school again, not get into college and drop off entirely!" Alex predicts, face alight with confidence.

Of course, it doesn't quite happen like that. Despite failing to sit a single exam Austin Loew's transcripts tell a very different story. He'll get into his first-choice college. 

It just goes to show that money and connections can expunge even the gravest of transgressions. 

This broken world...

But at least for that one day we believed it was possible. For that one day there was a patch of blue in our clouded sky, everyone at Mont Michel knew the truth and Macie, Natalie and I were free.