Free Physical by Gabriella Luciano Page B

strange
looking.”
    Valentina didn’t know what to say.
    “ Tomorrow night is the
initiation,” Brittney told her, suddenly changing the focus of the
conversation.
    “ The
initiation?”
    “ Yes. The initiation to
the slut list. You should be happy. It’s a very exclusive
list.”
    “ But what are you going to
do?”
    “ You’ll find out. I’ll
give you the address tomorrow.”
    Brittney turned and started to walk
away.
    “ So you’re not going to
put the video online, right?”
    “ Not as long as you
behave,” she told her without turning around.
    “ Behave?”Valentina
couldn’t believe she had used the same word as the principal. She
suddenly wondered if the two of them had talked about all of this.
The bell for the end of class rang and a wave of students filled
the halls.
     
    Alexis decided she was going to stop by the
school to talk to Liam before she spoke with her step-daughter. She
wanted to get the whole story behind this slut list before she knew
what to tell Valentina. When she got to the school, there were a
number of news vans stationed outside along with various reporters
doing their broadcast on the steps of the main building. She
spotted Liam in front of one of the cameras, doing his best to
maintain a look of total composure.
    She was astonished at how well he had aged
and how good he looked. He was always trying to act like one of the
popular kids, but he now had the appearance of a man cut straight
out of the pages of Esquire. He wore a classic camel-colored coat
over a blue-striped dress shirt and dark gray dress pants. It was
almost as if he was dressed for a photo shoot rather than an
emergency press conference. He still had that clean cut
baseball-player look and physique. She wasn’t at all surprised that
he ended up as the principal of the school. It let him control
things he was never able to control as a student.
    She got out of her car and approached the
edge of the school to listen to the reporters question him.
    “ How did you find out
about this slut list?”
    “ Do you think this is an
attempt to bully sexually active teenagers?”
    “ What does the list
signify?”
    “ What are you going to do
to make parents feel safe when they send their teenage daughters to
school?”
    Alexis hovered at the periphery of the
cluster of reporters and took in the whole chaotic scene set
against the pristine landscape of Ivy Glen. Just looking at the
idyllic brick building and the serene green landscape dotted with
maple trees made her realize how far she had come with Valentina.
When she married her father, Valentina was a rebellious,
out-of-control kid who was well on her way to becoming a public
high school drop-out. Alexis also saw it as her own opportunity to
turn her life around. Since she had graduated from Ivy Glen, she
had done little with her life, moving from one unfulfilling,
dead-end job to the next while she tried to get her bachelor’s
degree. When she meet Valentina’s father, she threw herself into
family life and did everything she could to give her step-daughter
what she never had. She had even convinced her old friend Liam to
accept her at the school and provide a partial scholarship for her.
Valentina, though, was eager to rebel against authority every
chance she got. It was only once she grew to like the art
department at Ivy Glen and found a small group of friends that she
was able to settle down, for the most part.
    Eventually, the media began to disperse and
Liam thanked them before he slipped back through the front doors of
the school. She marched up the stairs past the reporters. One of
them glanced at her, eyeing her to see if she might have any
connection to the story. She suddenly got the feeling that these
reporters were like a grown-up version of the high school kids who
were always looking to judge everyone at the drop of the slightest
word of gossip.
    When she got to Liam’s office, she saw that
the door was open and that he was alone. When he heard