Walking into the house the next morning, Ginger tried to make as little sound as possible. However, it wasn't to her advantage because her new pseudo-parents were waiting for her the moment she walked into the door. Zac was behind her, still outside, and the both of them were frozen solid at the look on her new parents' faces. Her eyes darted to the time; it was almost nine-thirty.
"Where the hell have you been?" her mother Alina asked her.
"I went out."
"Obviously. Where did you go?" Ginger looked down and back at Zac, who was still at the door. Alina looked at the boy. "Oh. Well. Excuse me. This must be that boyfriend you're always talking about. I guess the rules of this house don't apply when he's in town."
"Mom, I�"
"Stop it. You know better."
"Obviously I don't, otherwise I wouldn't have done it." Upon seeing the red in her mother's face, Ginger's eyes widened and she turned to the door. "Um�now's not going to be the best time to meet them, so why don't you go?"
"Yeah, I was just thinking that."
"I love you."
"I love you too." She gave him a short good-bye kiss and then closed the door, turning back to her parents. Alina motioned for her to follow and Ginger obliged, glancing back at her room where Kris was hiding, listening in on the argument. Ginger walked into her parent's bedroom where Alina closed the door behind the two of them.
"What do you think you are doing spending the night out with some boy?" Alina asked. "First you go out without our permission and then you don't come home! Not a call, not any indication of where you could be�dear, we were all very worried about you."
"Kris knew where I was."
"No she didn't. You told her you would be back soon and according to this family, soon does not mean the next morning."
"Zac and I�"
"Zac and you what? Lost track of time? I've heard this before." Ginger didn't have anything to say. "Have you slept with him?"
"Of course I have. I thought you knew that already."
"No, no I didn't. Are you on birth control?" Ginger nodded. "Really?"
"Me and Zac are really careful about this. And we nearly never see each other so it's not like we're doing it often. I don't know the next time I'll get to see him. It could be weeks or it could be months. His schedule is really messed up."
"Well now so is yours. You're stuck in your room for two months."
"Two months??"
"Maybe next time you'll think about what you do before you do it." Eyes widening in shock, Ginger walked numbly out of the room and over to hers. Kris scrambled to her bed and picked up her magazine.
"Save it, Kris, I know you were listening."
"How long are you grounded for?" Kris asked, looking up. Ginger sighed.
"Two months. I'm stuck here with you for two whole stinking months." Kris hit her with the magazine on her way to the top bunk of the bunk bed.
"What's so wrong with me?" Kris asked.
"You're boring!"
"Well you're my best friend so you must be boring too." Ginger sighed. It was going to be a long two months.
"Miss Stevens, I need to speak with you after class," said one of Ginger's teachers to the sleeping girl in the back of the room. Ginger, groaning, put her head up and looked at her French teacher. She hated this class. It seemed like a good idea when she signed up for it�four years of a language. She'd be able to speak it nearly fluently by the end of the year. But, here it was, the end of the first quarter and she still hadn't learned a blasted thing. It didn't help that she and a friend of hers were the only French 4 students in the entire school and the rest of the kids were a year under them�and didn't seem to know anything. The review that was supposed to last no longer than two weeks had stretched a quarter and seemed to be never-ending. At this rate she'd never learn anything again.
"Whatever," Ginger muttered, and put her head back down on the desk. As the teacher began to speak again, Ginger fell asleep quickly and it seemed that it'd been only a few minutes before the bell rang and she sat up, a large red mark over the side of her forehead. She wiped at her eyes, yawned, and stood up. Getting her things, she walked over to the teacher. "Yeah?" she asked.
"Wait a moment," the teacher said, waiting for the rest of the students to leave the classroom. Ginger felt her stomach lurch in nervousness. She had no idea what this was about. When the final person left, the woman turned to Ginger. "Do you have a problem with me?"
"Excuse me?" Ginger said, a confused look crossing her face.
"Don't play stupid with me. Do you have a problem with me?"
"You? Not so much you�I think the way you teach is terrible and although the head of the department specifically told you to cover material both classes have yet to see you have specifically gone against that and wasted a quarter of my life and my parents' tuition money."
"Listen to me. You've been nothing but a thorn in my side since this year has started. You don't have to be here. This is not a mandatory class. I do think you should continue to take it so you can learn the language�"
"Although you have yet to teach me a single thing this entire year," Ginger interrupted.
"�but if you have a problem with me I don't want you around."
"What is that supposed to mean?"
"I think you should get transferred out of this class."
"What gives you the authority to�"
"I have every authority!"
"What the hell is your problem? I haven't done a single thing to you. I ace all of your tests, I don't bother you, I sleep in class and even though I don't pay attention to anything you say I still have the highest average in this class and I always have. You have no right to speak to me like this."
"I think I do."
"This is bullshit," Ginger muttered, putting a hand to her forehead. She'd just woken up and already a teacher was screaming at her. Students who had homeroom in this particular room were coming in to go to their lockers situated at the far side of the room, trying hard to ignore what was going on.
"Don't swear at me! Listen, I don't want you bothering my class or me any longer. You're not worth my time. You do not deserve to be talking to me like that."
"Excuse me?" Ginger said, tears springing to her eyes. "I'm not 'worth' your time?"
"Listen, I know what you've gone through and don't think it's going to make me treat you any differently. You're not special because your parents died and because your brother beat you. Obviously they didn't care about you either so I don't understand why I should." Ginger looked around; the kids at their lockers had stopped, staring at the scene.
"I hope you get fired," Ginger said, her voice low. "Because I will not rest until you do. Whoever taught you how to teach, if anybody taught you how to teach, obviously did not know what he was talking about. Which is sort of like you." Ginger turned around and ran out of the classroom, straight across the hall into the girl's bathroom and began to cry. She put her things down and locked herself in a stall, climbing on top of the toilet and pulling her knees to her chest. As time passed and the bell rang again, starting the next class, Ginger's quiet cry had turned into bloody hysterics and she couldn't control herself.
The door opened and someone came in, running to the door of the stall that Ginger was in. "Um�hello? Are you all right in there?" Ginger couldn't say anything. She was losing her breath and the room was starting to spin. "Hello? My name's Kellyn, I'm a junior�can I come in?" When Ginger didn't answer, she knocked on the door. "Hello? Are you okay?" Things were fading fast and Ginger was deteriorating quickly. The girl, realizing she was getting nowhere on the other side of the stall, climbed underneath the door and stood up in front of Ginger, who couldn't see. Her hands were in her hair, pulling on it, her eyes shut tight, trying to block the tears flooding from her eyes. She was biting her lip so hard it was starting to bleed. "Hey, I know you, you're a senior. Come on, look at me, calm down, things are going to be okay." Ginger shook her head. Another person entered the bathroom.
"Hello? Who's in here?"
"In here!" Kellyn said and opened the stall door. It was a teacher on the other side, somebody different than Ginger had just had a fight with. "I don't know what happened, I walked in and I heard her crying.
"Go page the office and tell them to call for an ambulance. Go!" The girl ran off and as the teacher turned to Ginger, she had already passed out.
When she woke up she was in a cold hospital room with Kris by her side. "Hey," Kris immediately said. "How are you doing?" Ginger shrugged and sat up. She pulled her pillow out from behind her and began to play with it. "Do you remember what happened?"
"Not�" Ginger cleared her throat. It was hard to talk. "Not exactly."
"Some chick found you in the bathroom crying your eyes out and apparently you were crying so hard you couldn't breathe and you passed out." Ginger looked down. "I've known you a long time, sis, and I've never seen you cry. Not like the girl was explaining it."
"I haven't cried in a really, really long time." Ginger glanced over at her sister. "It all got to be too much, you know? The quarter's ending and I don't know what any of my grades look like, I haven't seen Zac since school started, I haven't talked to him in over a week, my brother used to beat me, my parents died, and I haven't had a steady family since I was born." Kris nodded.
"Do you know what set it off? You've been holding all of that in for a really long time."
"My fucking French teacher! She doesn't know how to teach and I guess somehow she found out I said something about that and she yelled at me! She told me I was worthless and that although my parents died and my brother used to beat me I don't deserve any special treatment." Ginger huffed. "I hope she gets fired."
"Are you okay?"
"I'm fine."
"Are you sure?"
"No. But I will be fine. I just need a little time to vent over this. I never really did have time to deal with my parents' death." Ginger sighed. "I cannot believe that woman yelled at me like that."
"I called your boyfriend." Ginger immediately looked at her sister.
"You didn't."
"I did."
"Did you talk to him?" Kris nodded. "Oh God, Kris, he doesn't need to know about this. He's going to rub it in my face the next time he talks to me."
"Now why would he do something like that?"
"The last time I saw him he asked me if all of this crap that happened to me had any kind of psychological affect on me and I said it didn't but I guess it has. He's not coming, is he?" Kris remained silent. "Kris!"
"I didn't tell him to come! I just mentioned what had happened and he said he was going to come! I figured you'd be happy he was coming to see you. Like you said, you haven't seen him in forever."
"When is he coming?" Ginger asked, rubbing her forehead with her hands. He was going to judge her the moment he walked in the door and she could feel it. He knew this was going to happen before she did. That scared her. Nobody's been able to do that before with her, and certainly not while knowing her in the short amount of time that Zac did.
"Well, he called me saying he was off the airplane about ten minutes ago, so he should be here soon."
"Oh God."
"Sis, it's okay. Calm down." Kris noted how the monitor with Ginger's blood pressure went up a point or two. "He really wanted to see you anyway. I know you don't want him to see you like this, but�"
"I don't want him to see me like this! I don't want him to come here!"
"Sis, he's going to see you like this some time or another, why not now?" Ginger shook her head. She was beginning to freak out again and her blood pressure was still rising. "He's going to be really disappointed to hear that he's come all this way to see you and you won't let him in."
"You don't understand, Kris, it's�" The door opened and Zac came in. "Hey, honey."
"Hey Ginger. Are you okay?" Zac rushed to her side, sitting on the edge of her bed. "Hey Kris."
"Hey," Kris responded. "I'll leave you two alone." Ginger nodded, a smile on her face, not breaking her stare with her boyfriend. When Zac heard the door close behind him, he spoke again.
"How are you doing?"
"I'm fine."
"How are you really doing?" Ginger broke the stare and looked down, shifting uncomfortably in her hard hospital bed. She didn't answer him. "Tell me."
"I'm terrible. I've been terrible all my life. What that woman said to me just set me off." She shook her head. "I haven't been happy in a really long time, Zac, and I don't want you to know that."
"Why not?"
"I don't know. Because if I'm not happy I'm not the girl you know."
"Ginger, you know that's not true."
"I love it when you call me Ginger."
"I love you." She smiled. "You scared me today."
"I know. I didn't expect anybody to call you. I didn't want you to know about it."
"Why?"
"I told you. I don't want you to know this part of me." He shook his head and looked away from her for the first time since he entered the room. "Zac�"
"How am I supposed to love you if you won't let me know anything about you? You don't tell me anything, Ginger. We've been together, what, three months now? Longer? I still don't know your first name. You don't let me stay around your family because they know your real name."
"Zac, if you really wanted to find out what my name is, there's a chart right there, look at it." Zac looked over by the door where a bin was attached to the wall, her medical chart sitting right inside.
"Do you want me to know?" he asked. She shook her head, looking away. "Then I won't look. But, Ginger, I'd really appreciate it if you didn't hide part of yourself from me."
"I know."
"Come here." He wrapped his arms around her and kissed the top of her head. "Don't ever scare me like that again, honey. You mean too much to me."