Kevin O'Brien - Disturbed

Leaving him behind in the car, she stashed Courtney’s cell in her coat pocket and started back into the sports wing of James Monroe High School. She paused at the double doors to the smaller gym, where Courtney was playing volleyball. She peeked through the windows — with crisscrossed chicken wire — in the doors.

Her blond hair pulled back in a ponytail, Courtney was looking pretty, bored, and a bit forlorn as she sat on the sidelines in her pale blue gym uniform. About a dozen other girls shared the bench with her while the two teams scrimmaged on the court. One of the girls near the net kept yelling: “Set it up! Set it up!”

The woman moved on, heading toward the girls’ locker room. She thought about how much damage Courtney had done to her former guidance counselor with all the talking, texting and Twittering she’d done on her iPhone.

She couldn’t help thinking, Live by the sword, die by the sword.

Courtney had only played the last five minutes of gym period, but for that brief interlude, she’d forgotten all about her father’s arrest. She’d forgotten about the kids at school today, looking at her and whispering to each other.

She’d spiked two balls over the net, and her team had won.

She was still on a high about it as she headed into the locker room with the other girls. Their laughter and chatter echoed off the tiled walls. Rounding the corner to her locker row, she started to unbutton her gym uniform.

Then Courtney saw her locker and stopped dead.

Considering the day she’d had so far, she should have been expecting something like this. She should have figured some asshole might want to rip her off or just screw around with her head — now that she was feeling so vulnerable.

“Damn it,” Courtney hissed, taking the broken padlock off the locker handle.

She quickly opened her locker, wondering what had been stolen. But all her clothes were there, along with her shoes and her purse. She reached inside the purse and found her iPhone — and her wallet. The money was still in the wallet.

She wondered if some narc in school administration had decided to search her locker for drugs — now that her dad was a known cocaine user. Maybe that was what had happened.

Courtney quickly shoved her wallet back in her purse. But she held on to her cell phone. She wanted to call her friend, Cindy, and tell her what happened. Maybe Cindy already knew something about this. After all, no one could keep a secret around this crummy school.

The phone suddenly vibrated in her hand, giving her a start.

The caller ID lit up: Incoming Call: Blocked Number. Courtney decided to answer it anyway. Maybe it was the asshole who had broken into her locker.

“No cell phone use in the locker room, Courtney!” chided one of her classmates. “Can’t you see all the signs, stupid?”

It was that tall, obnoxious Monica Beller, thinking she was so cool with her long black hair and her big tits. Courtney couldn’t stand her. Naked, Monica sauntered by on her way to the showers. Monica’s friend, brown-haired and skinny Doreen Rustin, walked alongside her, wrapped in a towel.

Courtney hesitated, then threw her vibrating phone into her purse. She flipped Monica and Doreen the bird, but they didn’t notice. “She’s probably going to use the phone to take our pictures so she can give them to her father the pedophile,” Monica was saying.

Doreen giggled.

Courtney decided not to take a shower. She’d barely broken a sweat for the few minutes she’d played volleyball. So she just applied some deodorant and got dressed. As she pulled her black sweater over her head, she noticed a small square patch cut out along the bottom. She hadn’t noticed it earlier. Had her pullover come back from the cleaners like that?

“Oh, screw it,” Courtney muttered. She finished dressing. Maybe she shouldn’t have come to school today, after all.

In the hallway, she took out her phone again but then decided she didn’t want to talk to anyone right now. She didn’t even want to check if that caller with the blocked number had left a message. Shoving her phone back into her purse, she stuffed her knapsack full of gym clothes in her regular locker and then headed to Mr. Florian’s world history class.

But walking down the hallway and then sitting there in that boring class, Courtney couldn’t ignore so many of her classmates who stared at her, whispered to each other, and giggled. She tried to hold her head up and act above it all. But she just wanted to go home and lock herself in her room. The only good part of today had been driving to school with Chris.

He understood what it was like to be the unwilling subject of everyone’s gossip. He was going through it now, the week after his mother’s murder; and he’d been through it last year, after the scandal with Corson.

She remembered her mother talking last week about someone breaking into Chris’s locker. She hadn’t paid much attention to what her mother was saying. She hadn’t been very interested at the time. But now she was.

She heard her phone vibrating against something in her purse. She involuntarily went to reach for it to see who was calling. But Mr. Florian looked over the rims of his glasses at her, and she froze. She’d let it go to message.

She really didn’t want to talk to anybody right now anyway — except for maybe Chris.

Courtney waited for class to end. As soon as she stepped out to the hallway, she reached inside her purse and took out her cell. Someone in the crowded hallway bumped into her, and she almost dropped the phone. “Hey, watch it,” she muttered, looking up.

She noticed Chris. He was on the other side of the busy corridor, walking away. Courtney quickly zigzagged through the crowd. “Hey, Chris!” she called.

He turned and gave her a dazed half smile. “Hey. .”

She still had her cell phone in her hand. “I was just going to call you,” she said — over all the banter and banging locker doors. “Listen, I can’t stand to be here another minute. Let’s get out of here. Let’s ditch the rest of our classes and just go someplace where we can be alone.”

Chris looked stumped for a moment. “Courtney, I’d love to, but really, I can’t. I missed so many classes last week, because of my mom. I can’t just take off. Plus I told Elvis I’d get together with him after school.”

She pouted. “But I really need to talk to you. It’s important.” She handed him her cell phone. “Here, call Elvis and tell him you can’t make it. He’ll understand.”

Chris looked at the phone in his hand and hesitated.

“C’mon,” she insisted, stroking his arm. “You’re the only person I want to be with right now. I absolutely hate everybody else. I really need you, Chris. . ”

Chris’s thumb hovered over the Talk button.

“Plus you owe me,” she continued. “I was there for you after your Mom got killed. Remember, I came over?” She tugged at his arm. “Just call him. You can see him later tonight.”

Chris glanced at the phone again. But then he shook his head and gave the phone back to her. “Tell you what,” he said. “I’ll meet you after school, and we can hang out. I’m seeing Elvis next period anyway. I’ll tell him we can get together another time.”

The phone vibrated in her hand. Courtney checked the caller ID. The blocked number again. She tossed the phone in her purse and then smiled at Chris. “Okay, then I’ll just drive around until school’s out, and I’ll pick you up in front of the music building.” It was where they used to meet after school while they’d been dating those few weeks.

She got on her tiptoes and gave him a kiss on the cheek. “Thanks, Chris.”

Blushing, he gave her a shy smile and said good-bye.