Dignity - a novel - 3. Chapter 3: Shit Hits the Fan

Chapter 3: Shit Hits the Fan

First Period bell hasn't rung yet, so the corridors are full of dorky kids pretending to be more than only half-grown adults.

I try to navigate the screeching rabble to my homeroom without watching. I hone my ancient lizard-brain motor skills to duck this way and that, while I text Jack:

Mornin Mary Sunshine! Sean, **// Yu dweeb, LMK if YuROK. Don’t hold out! 143 – TYL

[Morning Mary Sunshine! Sean, wink-wink nudge-nudge, you dweeb, let me know if you are ok. Don’t hold out! I love you – text you later]

I just get through my classroom door, and get my phone put away, when I am barked at.

"Dawn," says Mrs. Carter. "You are to report to the principal's office, immediately."

"Am I in trouble?" I ape some wide-eye innocence.

Before my teacher can reply, there is a rippling stream of giggles from the idiots at their desks.

"Go to the principal's office, Dawn. I think you know what this is about."

I swallow down hard, 'cause her tone is one I would not expect from a teacher – ever. It is somewhat compassionate; it almost has pity for me.

˚˚˚˚˚

I sit in the waiting room waiting for 'an audience' – geesh – give me a break. I pull out my phone just to make sure Jack didn’t reply to my text yet. Nope. I wonder where he is by now. He must at least be in the Central Time Zone, which means it's still seven o'clock for him. Damn. Why does he put me through this!?

A buzzer on the receptionist's desk sounds.

"You can go in now," she says.

I open the door, and stop. I expected just Mr. Voorhies to be there – in his office, alone – but, I can see the back of someone's head as they sit in front of his desk.

"Come in, Dawn. Close the door," my principal tells me with his usual authority.

Still, the head does not turn – but…I…'shit,' I think. 'Shit, shit, shit.'

I go to the second chair. I sit besides Mrs. Shaw.

"Mr. Voorhies," I start. "I gave all the information I have about Jack to the police last night. I – "

"Dawn," he cuts me off. "Sometimes 'official channels' can intimidate; the police do not ever strive to reassure those whom they think have information. Jack's mother asked for this meeting to give you those reassurances, but..." he suddenly stands with both hands on his desk. "What you may have to discuss is private. So, I will leave you. Mrs. Shaw, you may have the use of my office for as long as you need it."

˚˚˚˚˚

It has been several minutes now since Mr. Voorhies left the room.

The few side-glances I took of Jack's mom were disturbing. She seems as if she's been crying, and up all night, but now she won't look at me; she won't say 'boo' to me, and all she does is stare down at her hands. They are twisting an already knotted Kleenex in her lap. Does she expect me to speak first? God, this is all so unfair to me.

I swallow down the lump in my throat, and try: "I really don't know – "

She cuts me off. "Do you know how much I love Jack?" She stares me square in the face.

"I…"

"Do you know, Dawn, what it is to love someone that God put into your lap as an infant, and whom you have to watch grow, and then suffer? Do you know the anger that builds and consumes a human soul at how fucking unfair that same God is to make that child sick!"

There are tears in her eyes, but I know what I see these are not drops distilled from sadness, but from pure anger.

"I don’t know what to say, Mrs. Shaw, I too – "

"Look, Dawn," she reaches out and grabs my forearm; her touch is hot, but her grip gentle. "Friendship and loyalty, especially to and from a fifteen-year-old boy and girl, are admirable things. I do not question that what you do comes from a sense of devotion, and – Dawn, I know – from a source of love, but those good qualities can become isolated and, and cancerous, when they are used to serve the wrong reasons. Friendship and loyalty are not good when, when, a person's life is at stake. You can understand that, right?"

I pull out of her touch.

"I, I – all I know is Jack will be back; he met a boy his own age online and went to visit him in Chicago. I don’t know the boy's name; I don’t know his address; I don’t know anything."

'I hope you're happy, Jack.' I think to myself. 'I toe your party line while you skip town.' I'm getting mad. Why am I the one to see this? See the damage his decisions make, while he is out 'living a little.' Damn, this sucks!

Mrs. Shaw inhales and seems to collect herself and her thoughts. She tries a new approach.

"I forget, Dawn." Her tone is almost conversational. "When did you and Jack first meet?"

"Um…6^th grade."

She considers that a moment. "Sixth grade, that means when you were about eleven or twelve. I…I remember that was just after his second round of treatments. Do you recall?"

"Yes."

"Do you remember anything about it?"

"I remember he was sick. I remember he was in pain, and that he, that he…" I can't complete it, because I know saying 'felt bad for you' would probably break her heart, and would certainly not help in this situation.

"Dawn, he was sick. I took care of him. Each day was like a long drawn-out dream – a bad one – when someone is in that condition. Each day a person is tossed back and forth, from hope to despair, and from wanting relief, to wanting to fight it out.

"Right now, Jack wants to throw in the towel. You don’t think I know that? Hmm? I am his mother, and I can't make him want to live, but..." she chuckles. "I am his mother, so I have a job to do to make sure everything possible is done." She starts to cry; she's about to make me cry too.

"Dawn – when he was seven years old, and sick for the first time, I would cradle him in my arms, and tell him not to think about his nausea. I would stroke his hair and lie to him as if I were God – I would tell my boy 'Everything will be all right,' as if I knew; as if I had any power at all. Don’t you see, Dawn, I was powerless then, but I bluffed, because I have never had a real say if my Jack lives or dies. But you, Dawn, you have that power. What are you going to do with it?"

I can feel my lower jaw hinge open. The shit had just hit the fan, and I am only the girl caught in between.

"Look," I tell her. "Maybe there comes a time when the pain of not doing something is less than the pain of doing it. All I know, is what, I have told you already. Ok? I don’t know anymore than that. I swear."

I can barely make out her words through her cracking voice.

"After what he went through with his father…"

Then she regroups and wipes her tears in a long stroke of her sleeve.

"When you are older, I just hope you never have to go through the loss of your child."

˚˚˚˚˚

The toilet stall door clicks behind me. I latch it, and start crying.

My tears too are not sad ones, but fucking angry.

I hate that Jack has put me in this position. Didn't he stop to consider that running away without me would make me the one to see and deal with his mom?

After I stalled her, and became non-responsive, Mrs. Shaw stood, and without a word left Mr. Voorhies' office. He came in and dismissed me with a nasty look of disappointment on his face. Fuck him! He doesn't understand, that much is clear, so who the fuck is he to judge! He may have released me, but how can I go to my Chemistry class like this!?

As I sit here and try and gather myself, I can't help but think of Jack's mom. Maybe Mrs. Shaw is just avoiding the reality of the situation at all costs. Sure, she doesn't know where he is; that part I get and understand her reaction to, but the rest of it – the clinging to hope that poof, presto, wave the magic wand shit, Jack will be cured. That's all some kind of denial, I mean, right? She wants Jack to be ok – and hell, so do I, more than anything else – but the cold hard truth of the whole fucked up mess is this: wishing don’t make it so.

Oh, God. It's all so unfair.

I pull out my phone. No reply from him.

God, how I need for him to acknowledge what shit I'm putting up with for him. I hate-punch out the letters:

B-A-S-T-A-R-D-! 18Yu!!!

[Bastard! I hate you!!!]

I press 'send,' and somehow, I'm surprised that I feel no fucking relief at all.

"Where are you, Jack?" I say out loud, and sit down.

Is this some kind of love or hate I feel? Is my friendship for him a good force or a destructive one?

What kind of friend lets her best friend in the whole wide world – the one she loves more than anyone else, ANYONE else – die?

God, I feel so alone.