One
‘I love you. Romantically.’
JJ rolled her eyes. Adrian Dare hasn’t given up yet. Adrian’s one of her best friends. He was nice, usually. It started last year, December 2013. Well, it started before that but it started annoying her last December.
Adrian told JJ and Camille that he liked their other best friend, Elizabeth. JJ and Camille ended up trying to set him and Eli up. Eli rejected him and a week later, Adrian texted JJ.
‘What if I told you I’ve already moved on from Eli and started liking someone else?’ Geez, Adrian couldn’t have been any more obvious if he tried. He had been making advances on JJ but she’s not interested in the slightest so she just ignored him. JJ texted him back, ‘I would say that you probably don’t actually her and is just rebounding.’
JJ turned her phone off and stopped responding. Adrian got a girlfriend that summer. They lasted three weeks and they never met his supposed girlfriend. In October 2014, he got another girlfriend. They broke up the week before they met her. Adrian never stopped dropping hints that he like JJ and she never stopped pretending the hints never existed.
Amara Valdez joined their friend group September 2015. She was a 6th grader, making her two years younger than JJ and a year younger than Eli, Camille, and Adrian. And by November 2015, he sent the text. Adrian never got the hint that JJ had absolutely no interest in dating him so JJ just began avoiding him. It was doing well till Camille noticed it.
Camille and JJ have Drama together right before lunch and US History after lunch. This gave them a lot of time to talk. Every performance period, they were given five to ten minutes to rehearse. Camille and JJ performed on Monday so they don’t have to do anything. JJ was on her phone when Camille tapped her leg to get her attention. “So, what’s up with you and Adrian?”
JJ rolled her eyes and sighed. Instead of explaining, she just showed Camille the text. “He’s been doing that since last December.”
“Is this why you’ve been avoiding him? You guys need to talk about this.”
“I don’t think so,” JJ said, “I’ve been dealing with this for about a year and based on previous experience, I just need to avoid him till he lets it go.”
“This is a stupid idea,” Camille told her but bumped her shoulder with JJ’s. “Friends don’t do friends do stupid stuff, but best friends never let friends do stupid stuff alone. Let me know when you want to avoid him, I’ll avoid him with you.”
JJ was skeptical at first. Why would Camille avoid one of her best friends so readily? JJ never got the answer till almost a month after but she wished she realized it sooner.
Amara was out sick that week, Adrian had to talk to a teacher, and Camille had a seminar about gender on Wednesday. JJ and Eli fully supported what the seminar was about, but they’d rather have lunch. Besides, JJ wanted to talk to Eli alone.
They had lunch at the end of the hallway on the 2nd floor. The cliques were spaced out enough that they didn’t to worry about being overheard. Still, JJ shuffled closer to Eli. “Hey, you okay?”
“Yeah.” Eli didn’t look her in the eye.
This just confirmed JJ’s suspicion. “Adrian asked you out last year. Did he leave you alone?” Eli didn’t react so JJ continued. “He began asking me out too you know. He still hasn’t left me alone, no matter how many times I say no.”
“Me too!” Eli accidentally said too loud, which got the people in the hallway’s attention. She blushed and ducked her head. “He’s starting to freak me out. I feel like it’s escalating and about to explode.”
JJ was filled with guilt for a second and then anger. She never even considered that he was doing to someone else. He should have known better to put Eli in a position like that. Eli was the nicest one. She was always worried about hurting people’s feelings. JJ was honestly surprised yet proud that she rejected Adrian immediately. “You know... me and Camille have been avoiding him. Do you wanna join us?”
So, from that day, the three of them began avoiding Adrian. They would later realize that this meant that Amara would be stuck with Adrian. The girls went home after getting a drink from the Starbucks near their school, completely unaware of a set of eyes watching them.
JJ thought it was over. Their friendship with Adrian Dare is over. Apparently, it was just beginning.
You remember how Eli said she feels like it was about to explode? The explosion began on November 16 at 6:11 pm.
JJ got the first text, then Camille, and lastly Eli.
When JJ got the first text, she dropped her phone. She was trembling, she noticed. Why was she trembling? She should stop, but she can’t. She was watching TV in the living so her parents noticed and asked her if she was okay. She told them she was just cold and burrowed under the blanket. She took a screenshot and sent it Camille and Eli through their group chat.
Eli responded almost as soon as she sent it. ‘What the fuck???’
‘I have no idea where this is coming from.’
‘I’m getting scared kind of scared just reading those. I have literally no idea what the fuck he’s doing. Those are pretty heavy texts. Should you tell someone??’
JJ’s hands were shaking while she was typing. ‘I don’t know. I don’t want to get him in trouble but I’m also kind of scared.’
‘Intense is a better word actually. I was talking to him last week over text and he kind of alluded that he couldn’t feel emotions or something then told me to never give him a weapon??’
Her resolve solidified, JJ typed, ‘Let me know if he sends you guys similar texts. I’m just going to ignore it for now, but if he gets worse, should we do something?’
‘I don’t know, but it freaked me the fuck out.’
At 7:07 pm, Camille got the second text.
‘Should we tell Safe2tell or something?’ JJ asked them, trying to keep her cool.
‘I don’t know’, both Eli and Camille replied. ‘I’m now kind of terrified,’ Eli continued.
Eli got the text in the middle of their conversation, at 7:20 pm.
JJ, who was pretty close with her parents, typed, ‘Should we tell our parents or something?’
Eli doesn’t know and Camille replied, ‘They would never leave me alone about it, so a no for me.’
The three of them agreed to go to the Counseling Office to talk with a counselor. They don’t know who else they can talk to about the texts.
On November 17, at 6:15 am, JJ realized a flaw in the plan. Amara. Is she okay? Did she get the texts? After making sure the other two were okay with it, she texted Amara. Sure enough, she also got the confessions.
November 17, a Monday, during 3rd period, all four girls plus Aurora Blue met at the Counseling Office. Aurora Blue AKA: Rory was mostly Camille’s friend. She had US History with Adrian during third period. She didn’t get the texts, but she has some things to confess about Adrian.
JJ, being the eldest, began the conversation with the counselor. “We got concerning texts from our...friend over the weekend. We didn’t know who to talk to so we came here.”
“Aww, you guys must be such good friends to be this concerned about him,” the counselor said, misunderstanding the situation.
The girls glanced at each other. “We’re more concerned about him hurting us than him hurting himself.”
They showed the counselors their phones in order with severity. She didn’t say anything about Amara’s, she gasped when she read Camille’s, and she didn’t even finish JJ’s before she stopped. Her eyes were teary and filled with worry. “I don’t think I should intervene but I know someone who should.” She picked up her phone, dialed a number, and told whoever was on the other side to go to her office.
One of the deans entered the office. They showed him the texts. He told them to follow him to the head dean. They showed her the texts. She asked some questions. She eventually told them to follow her. Camille and Amara were sent to another room. Eli and JJ were on opposite sides of the room filling out the paper in front of them. A police report.
A police officer interviewed them to get the story. Adrian was sent to lunch detention and was watched by a police officer the rest of the day. He was suspended for the rest of the week.
Three weeks later, he was officially expelled from their school and the entire public school system.
On December 29, 2014, Adrian Dare was officially charged for his crimes and will spend 5 years in a juvenile detention center.
