Discipline

“Ben! Stop!” I tried launching myself at him but he caught me by the shoulders, pushing me — or rather, flinging me off to the side. Eyes squeezed shut, I heard shrieks echo the halls as I crashed into something hard — a doorframe. My head throbbed and my ears pulsed as I lay sprawled on the floor, shaking magenta dots from my vision. Barely lifting my head, I expected to find Aaron on the ground where I’d last seen him, but instead, I saw two pairs of feet — his and Ben’s — and in a second, I saw Ben crash to the floor before me, bright red streaming down one side of his face.

Instinctively, I scrambled back from him. We made eye contact for long second before he sneered and shakily returned to his feet, all the while shouting, repeating the same line.

“He fucked her when she was seventeen!”

Nothing came out of my mouth when I tried to contest his words, my head dizzy as I tried to sit up. None of the surrounding kids were smiling anymore, their eager expressions now twisted with shock, horror. There were more of them now, probably three, four times as many spectators as there were a few minutes ago, all of them having filed out from the library and classrooms. I blinked hard, my focus just so happening to land on the freckled girl who knew Jake. Both her hands were clasped over her mouth, but she didn’t look at me. She stared at Aaron, aghast.

When the police came, they took both him and Ben away.

CHAPTER 20

The first court hearing came about a month after the fight, and even weeks after, the reports continued strong. They focused mostly on Aaron, whom they painted as the star teacher who had fallen from grace. Released to the public was every last detail of his personal life, including his “torrid affair with former student, 21-year-old Nina Decker.”

From Mr. Davies to Cara Fulton to Bree Hannigan, quotes were taken, spun and published. Even Aaron’s neighbor, Maura Lewis, repeated her account of what she’d heard the night that I’d gone to his home in Woodhill. Overnight, Aaron saw his heavily guarded personal life splashed in detail across the front pages of both local and regional papers.

One former student of his released an entry on his personal blog detailing the “disruptive” and “heavily flirtatious” conversations he’d witnessed between Aaron and myself during my senior year. The article was picked up by a local paper and quoted in a new story. By the time someone fact checked to find that the blogger had never shared

a class with me or Aaron, the story had already been out several weeks and accepted as truth.

Another story claimed that often, Aaron and I brought our affair onto school grounds.

According to Jake, the students in his year displayed a mix of emotions ranging from envy to “absolute disgust,” which were the words that Bree Hannigan had used with the newspaper. “Don’t worry,” he had told me. “They know you two weren’t together in high school. They just need something to be mad about.”

That was apparent, considering the distorted tales that continued leaking out from “former classmates and students,” most of whom I’d rarely spoken to in high school.

Though the worst stories were the headlines about Aaron’s suspension and investigation by the school board, because those were real and true. They came during my second round of court hearings, which served the purpose of granting a permanent status to my restraining order from Ben. Foolishly, I’d imagined him being thrown into jail for making death threats and taking the first swing at Aaron, but that didn’t happen. Thanks to his lawyers, he’d been charged with only third degree assault, a misdemeanor with a fine of a hundred-twenty dollars. He was as free a man as he’d been before the whole mess, so the restraining order was a comfort to me. Even if it meant furthered tension with my mother.

She attended the court hearing, but she didn’t speak much to me. Everything about her posture and expression embodied shame when she stood near me, but her lips refused to form any sort of an apology.

And I didn’t ask for one. Not from her nor Kelsey. Sitting before the judge in the cold, brittle courtroom, I thought of the freeing words Aaron had told me at my favorite little bar in Brooklyn. You either love the family you were born with or you choose the one you want to live with.

And I had chosen.

EPILOGUE

Eight Months Later

“Adriana, damn it! Unpack this box now or we can’t technically have this dinner tonight!”

Em jabbed her finger at the yellow shoebox sitting next to our front door. I laughed from the kitchen, uncorking a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc as I watched Adriana fly out of her bedroom, a brilliant blur in her ivory sundress. Kneeling before the vintage shoe rack we’d bought from the flea market last week, she threw open the shoebox. Removing her espadrilles from inside, she held them above the first shelf of the rack, pausing dramatically as she peered over her shoulder at us.

“Ready to make it official?”

Em nodded as I grinned. “Go for it.”

Adriana dropped the shoes onto the rack before spinning around and holding both arms out like a magician after his final trick. “Ta-da!” She wiggled her fingers, her eyes bright and dancing with mirth. “We’re officially moved in, ladies. Let the housewarming celebrations begin.”

A month after moving into our new apartment, we were finally ready for a housewarming party. For probably too long, we’d been living out of boxes and suitcases, too excited about being under the same roof and exploring the neighborhood to ever unpack. Many nights, we all slept in Em’s room, talking ourselves to sleep in her cushy, queen-sized bed. Among the three of us, she’d unpacked the most, being the responsible “mama hen” as Adriana called her.

“Linh’s here!” Em announced upon hearing the doorbell. She poured two more glasses of wine and readied the cheese plate, brushing crumbs off her white shorts before pointing a finger at me. “You. Go put on your outfit, missy!”

“Whoops. Yes, ma’am, will do.”

It had been Adriana’s idea for us all to wear white. It was something or another about symbolism — “a blank canvas” and starting over at our new place. Something like that. I didn’t mind. I had been planning on wearing a certain white dress for the dinner anyway.

“Oh boy, Nina. Bringing back the memories with that number, aren’t ya?”

An arm draped around Linh, Mike grinned wide when I emerged from my room in my white crocheted dress. I hadn’t told the girls about my plan to wear it, so upon catching sight of me, they burst out laughing.