Absolutely Ruined

I can still see the innocence on my face, the complete faith in my friends that secrets don’t go beyond the four walls from which they’re told. Technically, they didn’t.

“Your turn, Nora,” my friend Isabella’s voice comes through the phone’s speaker. “Truth or dare?”

Being my sweet sixteen, I got to come up with all the games. We had a pinata, a turn of Just Dance on my brother’s Xbox and, of course, Truth or Dare.

I sit, pondering for a second, but really I’m just biding my time. If you could see my thoughts through the video, you’d see a countdown of how long to look at the ceiling scratching my chin for. There was no way I was ever choosing dare.

“Truth,” I say, confident that nothing too bad will come of this. With any luck, they’ll ask me who the last person I texted was, or what songs I sing in the shower. My mum, and mostly musicals, mostly Hamilton. See? Harmless fun.

“Who would you, Eleanora McGuire, absolutely ruin, if you had the chance?” Isabella’s voice again. It’s distinctly high-pitched, so I can tell.

I blanch, then my cheeks start turning red. My hands go to my face. I look desperately at other girls in the circle (ones not visible to the camera), trying to find someone who’ll volunteer a less embarrassing, more easily answerable question. When that doesn’t come, I tip my head back to stare at the ceiling, which is like the underside of a jellyfish there’s that many balloons. Isabella and some others (I can’t tell which) chant, “Tell us! Tell us!” and the camera shakes a bit. With a groan I pull my eyes away from the ceiling and confess.

“Aaron Stevenson.” He’s the captain of the football team. And the hottest guy in our grade. It’d never happen.

“Oh my God, really?” Casey says, more of a statement than a question. The camera cuts off before you see me drop my head into my hands and the game continues.

‘is this real?’ is the message beneath the video, which is from some grade eight kid, who had no idea who I was until this morning. I don’t respond. I have to get ready for school.

By the time I make it out the door, there are at least fifty more messages through Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, which is mostly shocking because I barely use Twitter. I turn my phone off and shove it in my pocket, only unzipping it to plug in headphones so I can drown out the world with Lin-Manuel Miranda’s magnum opus.

I get a few stares while I’m on the bus, and some snickers from the grade sevens and eights at the back, but that’s nothing compared to walking to my locker. It’s on the other side of the school from the bus stop, which is really great for when you’re kind of famous in your school for something that wasn’t supposed to leave your house.

I pull Hamilton out of my head and heft my bag into my locker. I keep my head down. I get my books out. My pencil case balances on top. I turn around after closing my locker and this group of big guys walk past—probably from the football team—and the closest one jolts closer to me to knock my books from my hands. He says ‘slut’ loud enough that his friends laugh, but I’m closer to tears as I pick up my books and head to homeroom.

The rest of the school day is a blur of ‘slut’ coughed under breaths as I pass and note taking and looks where I know exactly what they’re thinking. The only thing crystal clear is that I cried in the bathroom during the whole lunch break. Isabella’s running damage control, walking me to classes and acting as my shield, but I still hear and see everything those kids say and do. I admire her effort, though. It makes me feel less alone. Still, crying in the bathroom is basically a rite of passage when you go viral for the wrong reasons. I keep sobbing and my feet keep slipping off the lid and hit the floor in a very I’m-not-actually-here-to-use-the-toilet kind of way, so when a person comes in about halfway through lunch, I just let my feet stay on the floor and zip my mouth shut.

A sob is begging to burst forth, but I don’t let it. Annoyingly, I sniffle and do a kind of whimper thing at the same time, which immediately alerts the newcomer that I’m not here for the same reasons she is. Then she does the weirdest thing.

She knocks on my stall door.

“There are plenty of other stalls,” I say, trying to keep the croaks at bay.

“I wasn’t looking for a stall,” says a distinctly not female voice.

“Uhm,” I say. “This is the girls bathroom?”

“I know.” He sounds familiar, like he talks on assemblies sometimes. “Could you open the door, please?”

I stand, my legs wobbling beneath me like there’s an earthquake directly under my feet, and turn the lock so the door swings open. Standing there, not two metres away from me, his blue eyes heavy with concern is-

“Aaron Stevenson?” No wonder he sounded familiar.

“Hi,” he says, suddenly awkward.

“Hi. What are you doing here? Are you spying on me?”

“I’m not doing a very good job of that,” he says, his hands wringing absentmindedly, but he’s smiling. “You caught me in, like, five seconds.”

I smile back, too in shock to do anything else.

“I just figured that, well, because of the… you know, that you’d be here. I’m… flattered is the wrong word, but, I thought that if there was anyone you wanted to be on your side, it’d be me.”

I give him a raised eyebrow, crossing my arms.

“I can… help you to class if you want, or something like that.” He’s shrugging now, and tilting his head to the side has made his blond fringe fall in front of his eyes.

“Yeah,” I say, dreamy. Then I snap out of it a bit. “Uh, actually, my friend Isabella is helping me out with that, so… plus, you hanging around me more would probably lead to me getting more attention and that’s…”

I stare at the linoleum floor between our feet.

“Not what you want,” he finishes for me. “That’s cool. I get it. Just thought I’d check in. I’ll be going now.”

He flashes me a smile and my heart flutters, then he leaves without another word, raising his hand in farewell. Crushes are great until they know about it. Until the whole school knows about it.

Apparently someone saw me leaving the bathroom a couple of minutes after Aaron yesterday, because today the slurs and stares are getting worse. I’m getting Mum to pick me up from school today so I don’t have to deal with the grade sevens and eights on the bus ride home.

Two of the girls that went to my party—they’re more Isabella’s crowd than mine, but she said they’d be cool—sit with Isabella and I at first break, and not to eat, unfortunately. They’re nice girls, usually, but today… not so much.

“Hey, Nora,” the blond one (Casey, I think) says my name like it’s an insult in and of itself. “How was English?”

I shoot her a tight smile and ‘go away’ eyes. “Fine, thanks. No worse than yesterday.”

“Oh,” Grace (the Korean one, who I would normally admire for her sleek black hair) says. “Did something happen?”

Casey elbows her in the side. “Yeah, dummy, a video of her lusting after Aaron Stevenson went viral over the weekend. You were ho- right next to me during Truth or Dare!”

“I was not lusting after him,” I snap, banging my hand on the table hard enough to make Casey and Grace wince. “We were playing Truth or Dare. Secrets weren’t supposed to leave the circle. We agreed on that.” I move my hands around in a circle to signify group agreement, but it looks like I’m shooing away a fly instead. Casey and Grace laugh like twinkly bells.

“Well,” Casey says, standing up and wiping her hands together like she’s ridding them of flour. “We better be off.” She looks at Grace harshly, who stands up like she’s been zapped. “Garlic bread doesn’t stay in the tuckshop forever!”

Casey walks away with Grace at her heels, and I swear every single person turns to stare at her as she walks by. It’s like she’s magnetic. I look back at Isabella with an expectant expression and pick up my muesli bar.

“That was a bad example,” she says, face flushing. “Casey and Grace are super sweet.”

“Sickly sweet, more like,” I grumble, taking a bite of my muesli bar.

Aaron’s leaning against my locker when I get there after lunch.

“What do you want?” I ask, not even trying to keep the frustration from my voice. I yank open my locker and shove my empty lunchbox in there, pulling out the books I need for the last two classes of the day.

“I just thought I’d check on you,” he says, smiling as he pushes his hands into his pockets. God, he’s so cool.

“Right now? When the corridors are fuller than a tin of sardines?”

“Seemed as good a time as any.” He shrugs but his hands don’t leave his pockets.

“Don’t you have somewhere to be? Like, your own locker, for example,” I say, getting up and looking up at him with the most menacing look I can. “Now, please just leave me alone.”

“Nah, I’ve got Sports and Rec next, so I’ll just go to my locker after fifth.” God, he’s so infuriating. “Besides, this part of the school’s nice. Great view of the oval.”

“Yeah, if you’re into that kind of thing.” I say, verging on whining. “Leave me alone or I swear to God I’ll…”

“Absolutely ruin me?” He looks at me with wiggling eyebrows.

“You’re the worst!” I shout, smacking my maths textbook against his chest. “Leave me alone! Now!”

And he does, but not before other kids notice. He didn’t stay on purpose, but they also didn’t move along on purpose. Great. More rumours. My favourite thing.

The next day is worse. Aaron’s tailing me like a god damned bloodhound. At least he doesn’t bark at people who get too close. Even still, he’s great to look at, and not even that bad of company when there’s a lull in “Slut!” traffic.

We were hanging in the back of the library with Isabella at lunch to hide from the onslaught—not even bullies can break the no silence rule, I guess—and catching up on homework for maths, due next period.

“Hey,” Isabella says, looking up from her notebook and textbook setup. “4 c is killing me.” I nod in sorrowful agreement. “I’m gonna go look for another textbook to help me out.”

She disappears between the aisles of bookshelves and Aaron and I are left absolutely, ruinously, alone. I stick my head down into my own notebook-textbook situation and haphazardly scrawl working-out as Aaron sits there, Aaroning. It’s really annoying, actually.

“I finished the math homework last night if you need help,” Aaron offers, but I ignore him, continuing my messy scrawl, praying for Isabella to find that damn textbook faster. “Honestly, it would be so much faster if I helped you.”

I throw my pen down on the page and glare at him. “Okay, so what am I doing wrong, genius?”

He flushes and shakes his head, then picks up my pen—my pen—and slides my notebook—my notebook—in front of him. “Well, first, you’re using the wrong formula. You need to be using quadratic, not logarithmic.”

He writes out the correct formula in the neatest handwriting I’ve ever seen a boy have, then goes through and explains where I went wrong, and tips and guidelines for the future.

“Yeah, because I’m definitely going to use this in my future,” I say, jabbing Aaron in the ribs. That’s how comfortable I’ve got with him. He laughs.

“In the far-off future, maybe not,” Aaron agrees. “But in your current future, you need to pass math.”

I laugh and a smile brightens his already great features. I lean into him and somehow now we’re really close. He must’ve ducked his head down, because I can see each individual eyelash. His eyes dart down to my lips as mine start to close.

“I found the book!” Isabella announces, altogether too loudly for a library, and the moment is lost. When I look at her, I see her smile fading and her face bright red. “I’m- I’m sorry. I’ll just-”

I slide my notebook back over to me and pick up my pen, adjusting myself in my seat. I’d inadvertently turned closer to him. “No, stay,” I say, swiping hurriedly at the hair that fell in front of my face. “I can help you out now.” I glance at Aaron as I say, “I had an… alright teacher.” He grins.

On Friday, we’re called to an impromptu assembly, and I don’t need two guesses to figure out what it’s about. There’s a power-point already set up when we arrive, and the title is Bullying, Virality, and the Dangers of Social Media. Cool. Very subtle, whoever titled this slideshow is down with the kids. Principal Robinson takes her place at the lectern and looks grimly down at all of us, and I swear she’s looking for me. When she finds me, she offers me a small smile, and I look down at my lap to avoid her gaze. Isabella pats my leg and squeezes my hand. Aaron nudges my other side and grins at me. I smile back noncommittally.

“I’m sure most, if not all, of you know why we’re here today,” Principal Robinson begins, and a thousand pairs of eyes turn to her. “It has come to my attention that one of our year elevens has been the target of intense online and in-person bullying.”

She goes on to talk about how that’s not what we’ve been brought up to do, and the proper way of being a nice person and not, you know, teasing and goading people into hiding in toilets and the library.

“I would like to invite Eleanora McGuire to the stage to say a few words, if she’d like,” Robinson says, and I stare daggers at her. Isabella shakes my knee and looks excitedly at me, but the chorus of jeers around me is enough to make me fold further into myself. Aaron leans over to whisper in my ear.

“This is your one chance to clear your name, and maybe you’ll figure out who filmed and posted the video.”

I murmur back, “I don’t care who posted it, I just want this all to go away.”

“Well, get up there and tell them. You’ll feel better, I promise.”

I nod shakily and start standing up. The jeer chorus turns into whoops and hollers, and I almost sit down again. Then Aaron takes my hand to steady me, which sends a bolt of lightning straight down my spine. I smile at him then edge my way to the aisle and head up to the stage. The crowd is far quieter than my heart, and I don’t know if it’s from nerves or the lingering effects of Aaron’s hand in mine. Everyone is silent once I take my place at the lectern and Robinson nods encouragingly before she steps away.

“Uh, hi,” I say into the microphone. I feel like this is the biggest mistake. I find Isabella and Aaron in the crowd and lock onto them. They offer thumbs up and big smiles, starkly contrasting everyone else’s sneers. “So, by now you’ve all seen the video, and you all know why I’ve been asked up here. I’m not telling you I regret what I said. Whoever betrayed my trust knows who they are and they should be ashamed of themselves, but that’s not what I’m here for. I’m not continuing the cycle of hate. But there is no way I deserved what came after. Do you know how hard it is to walk through a crowd of people who hate you, just to get your lunch? Because I do. And I can tell you for free that it’s not nice. Doesn’t do wonders for my mental health, that’s for sure.”

I go on for another thirty seconds or so before I run out of steam. I quickly say thank you and hurry of stage to half-applause and take my place between Isabella and Aaron. Robinson dismisses us a couple of minutes later and both of my guards take me to my locker. Aaron side hugs me before heading to his locker. Isabella looks at me in shock.

“He likes you.”

“He does? I couldn’t tell.” We both laugh for a solid ten seconds. “Anyway, uh, you were the one to ask the question in the video. Why?”

Isabella flushes. “Uhh… Casey told me-” I cut her off with a hug.

“Did she film it, too?”

“No, that was Grace.” She sounds sombre.

“Thank God, because otherwise I’d only have Aaron and that’s…”

“Not that bad, all things considered,” Isabella says, a laugh in her eyes.

Isabella goes off to the tuckshop while Aaron and I head to the library. People aren’t as harsh now, but it’s nice in there.

“So, um,” Aaron starts as we sit down in our usual spot. “I wanted to ask you something…”

I stare at him, nudging him to keep going.

“Uh, there’s a movie on that I think you’d like. D’you want to go… tomorrow?”

“You mean to say… you want me to absolutely ruin you?” My grin is infectious; he catches it with his lips.