9
I walked slowly down the hall towards the principal’s office, admiring the battered lockers. There were bright colored fliers posted everywhere, telling everyone to join the Debate team, try out for the school play, and not to miss the fall semi-formal this Friday. I wondered what a “semi-formal” consisted of at a public school, but I hadn’t bothered to ask anyone. Besides that, since I had never been to a dance of any kind, I had nothing to compare it to.
The principal’s secretary was a pudgy woman with dark curly hair, and she gave me the same severe look over her glasses that she did every time I came in the office. It was neither disappointed nor disapproving, but rather just as she expected. I could almost imagine her pleading with the principal not to accept me before I started. “No, no, not this one. She’s a bad egg,” she’d say until she was red in the face.
Without saying a word, she picked up the phone to let the principal know I was here. The principal had yet to yell at me, but he always looked at me with that same mixture of concern and pity that everyone gave me. Well, everyone that knew about my mother at least. As if every misdeed in my entire life could be explained away and forgiven because of a single day in my childhood.
“The principal is in meetings all afternoon,” his secretary told me after she set down the receiver. “He said to go see the counselor.”
“Right,” I sighed. That had been his go-to lately, meaning he was giving up hope.
Seeing the counselor was definitely worse than seeing the principal, but I guess that made it a more fitting punishment. Her office was two doors down from him, and it was always physically open, to represent her open-door policy.
Tentatively, I knocked on her partially open door, hoping that she too was locked in meetings all afternoon.
“Come in!” Ms. Page called, and I grimaced inwardly and stepped inside her office. She had been doing something in one of her drawers, but she looked up when I walked in, and her expression fell. “Wendy.”
“Hey,” I gave her a half-wave and immediately felt stupid after I did it.
10
“Have a seat,” Ms. Page smiled grimly at me and straightened a loose strand of her strawberry blond curls. The flashy diamond on her finger assured me that she was engaged, which explained her irrational happiness and optimism. I could tell that I was starting to wear down on that. Somehow that made me feel an odd blend of pride and guilt.
I closed the door behind me, then sat down in the semi-padded chair across from her and dropped my bookbag by my feet with a heavy thud. Ms.
Page crossed her hands on her desk and waited for me to talk, which was a silly move on her part.
“So…” Ms. Page said at length, when the silence had dragged on too long for her. “What brings you here this time?”
“I fell asleep in Mr. Meade’s class,” I answered.
I wasn’t nervous, but I felt I should play the part, so I looked down at my hands and started twisting the platinum ring I always wore on my thumb.
Fashion had always seemed like a totally alien concept to me, so I tended to just load up on whatever seemed like a good idea. Today that meant jean skirt to my knees and a long-sleeved curve-hugging sweater. I had kicked off my skimmers almost as soon as I sat down out of my massive hatred of shoes.
“Again?” Her voice rang with that familiar tone, and I exhaled loudly.
“Wendy, why do you keep doing this? I know you’re bright. Your tests show your IQ is above 140, but you’re not on track for graduation. You’re failing most of your classes, and you only transferred here a month ago.”
“I know, I know.” I twisted around my thumb ring and slumped lower in the seat.
“Do you want to graduate, Wendy?” Ms. Page asked pointedly. “I know you don’t want to be here, but you don’t seem to be in a hurry to get out of here. Do you have any plans after high school?”
“Backpacking in Europe,” I replied flippantly, even though I had no intention to travel. As if Matt would let me go anywhere anyway.
“Is that why you’re not applying yourself? Because you’re afraid of what comes after?” She was desperately trying to delve into the many layers of 11
me, but there really weren’t that many layers. People were often under the mistaken impression that I was far more complicated than I really was.
“I’m not afraid of anything,” I muttered. I had cut my legs shaving last night, and I absently picked at the giant Transformers Band-Aid that covered my wound.
“Wendy, we both know that’s not true,” Ms. Page admonished me gently.
“How do you know it’s not true? You barely know me. You just met me!” I hadn’t meant to snap at her, but I was growing irritated. A headache was lurking just behind my eyes and I rubbed my temples tiredly.
“Everyone is afraid of something,” Ms. Page insisted, trying not to let on that my outburst had bothered her. “I’m deathly afraid of spiders.”
“I’m not.” It sounded glib, but I really wasn’t. I wasn’t afraid of any of the normal things kids were. “And even if I were, that seems like an awfully shallow examination. Like 90% of the population is afraid of spiders. What’s that prove?”
“It doesn’t prove anything,” Ms. Page allowed. “But you make an interesting point. Nearly everyone is afraid of spiders. Except you.” She paused to let that sink in, as if I would go, oh boy, you got me there. “You make a point of trying to stand out, to be different than everyone else.”
“Nope, I don’t,” I shook my head. “I just am different. I don’t try. It’s just the way it is. And it doesn’t really bother me.”
“It doesn’t?” She raised any eyebrow. “Is that why you’ve gotten suspended from every school you’ve gone to for having altercations with fellow students?”
“
They
don’t like me. Doesn’t mean I’m gonna put up with their attitude,” I shrugged.
As soon as I said it, I knew I sounded like a paranoid psycho who thought everyone was out to get me, but I didn’t bother to correct it. Nobody was out to get me. Well, maybe that bitch Tegan would revel in something bad happening to me, but there wasn’t a conspiracy ruining my life. I just didn’t put 12
up with people, and that’s why I’d gotten kicked out of every private school on the East coast.
“We have a really diversified student body here, and I think it would be really good for you to try and make the best of it.” She was practically reciting the same speech she’d given me the first time we met, but I just nodded like it was new information. “And even if you can’t get along with your classmates, you can at least focus on your studies. If you played your cards right, you could be graduating in six months, and I know how much you want out of here.” She was playing to my weakness, and that was pretty smart of her, so I nodded more seriously.
“Okay. I will. I’ll at least try to stay awake in class,” I amended with a smile.
Finally, she let me go. I scooped up my bag, slipped on my shoes, and dashed out into the hall.
When the final bell finally rang at three o’clock, I was always the first one out I pushed through the doors going outside, I heard someone calling my name, but I didn’t look back. Against my better judgment, I decided to slow down, though, and Patrick quickly jogged up to me.
“Hey, Wendy!” Patrick gave me his goofy grin as he matched my pace.
He was about a foot taller than me with thick, auburn hair that he was always pushing out of his face. While he wasn’t unattractive exactly, there was something too clumsy about him to be sexy. For some reason, he seemed to fancy us as friends, and he was harmless enough, so I decided to try it out.
“Hey.” I readjusted the straps on my bag and looked up at him as he brushed his heavy bangs from his eyes.
“I heard you got sent to the principal’s office,” Patrick sounded apologetic.
“Word travels fast,” I grumbled.
We had reached the parking lot at the end of the lawn, so I stopped. I hadn’t looked around, but I knew that Matt was waiting somewhere nearby to 13
pick me up. It would’ve been an honest enough excuse that I had to meet him, but I decided to try and finish the conversation with Patrick.
“Tegan has a huge mouth,” Patrick agreed with a knowing smile.
“That she does.” A rebellious curl had escaped from the messy bun I had my hair in, and I tucked it behind my ears. “It was no big deal really. I just fell asleep in Meade’s class.”
“That guy is a douche,” Patrick said.
“Yeah, he kind of is.” I glanced around, just meaning to see if I could see Matt, but I got distracted before I could give it a serious look.
Even though it was pushing seventy degrees, Finn Holmes had on a fitted leather jacket, that looked better on him than I was willing to admit. He was sitting on the hood of his silver Cadillac, shimmering too brightly in a parking lot full of beat up second-hand cars. When he pushed his dark hair back, he looked like he was trying to channel James Dean. That would’ve been all well and good if he wasn’t looking at me again. There was something unnerving about the way his dark eyes settled on me, and I decided that Patrick and I had chatted enough.
“But I gotta get going,” I cut Patrick off in mid-sentence. He’d been saying something about history that I hadn’t even been listening to anyway. “My brother is waiting for me.”
“Oh, alright, okay.” Patrick nodded and smiled brightly, so I smiled back. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
I didn’t even know where Matt was and I was already hurrying away from Patrick into the parking lot. Scanning quickly for Matt’s light blue Prius, I absently started to chew my thumb nail. When I looked back at Finn, he and his Cadillac had magically disappeared, and for some reason, that only bothered me more. I was still staring at the empty spot where Finn had been when a loud honk startled me, so I jumped. Matt was sitting a few cars down, looking at me over the top of his sunglasses.
“Sorry,” I opened the car door and hopped in, but he just stared at me for a moment. “What?”
14
“You were biting your nails and looking around. Did something happen?” Matt asked seriously, and I sighed. He took his whole big brother thing way too seriously.
“No, nothing happened. School sucks,” I brushed him off. “Let’s go home.”
“Seatbelt,” Matt commanded, and I did as I was told.
Matt had always been quiet and reserved, thinking everything over carefully before making a decision. I rarely argued with him because there wasn’t a point in it, even though I tended to argue with everyone about everything. He was a stark contrast to me in everyway, except that we were both relatively short. I was barely over 5’4, and he was 5’9. He had sandy blond hair that he always kept short and neat, and his eyes were the same shade of blue as our mother’s. My hair was an unruly dark brown mass of curls, and my eyes matched it perfectly. Since Matt was a pretty intellectual guy, he was shockingly muscular. I think he had some kind sense of duty, like he had to make sure he was strong enough to defend us against anything, so he spent a lot of time working out.
“How is school going?” Matt asked carefully.
“Great. Fantastic. Amazing,” I lied.
“Are you even going to graduate this year?” Matt had long since stopped judging my school record. A large part of him didn’t even care if I graduated high school. In fact, he probably preferred it. The thought of me going off to college had to terrify him.
“Who knows?” I shrugged and started rummaging through my bag for my iPod.
“Just to warn you, we got a call today,” Matt said. “About you sleeping in class.”
“Delightful,” I sighed. Matt could care less about my schooling, but my aunt Maggie was an entirely different story. And since she was my actual legal guardian, her opinion mattered more than I would’ve liked. “What’s her plan?”
15
“Maggie’s thinking bedtimes,” Matt informed with a dry smirk. He had been privy to all my failed attempts at bedtimes over the years.
“I’m almost eighteen!” I groaned. “What is she thinking?”
“You’ve got four more months until you’re eighteen,” Matt corrected me shortly, and his hand tightened reflexively on the steering wheel. He was suffering from serious delusions that I was going to run away as soon as I turned eighteen, and nothing I could say would convince him otherwise.
“Yeah, whatever,” I waved it off. “Did you tell her she’s insane?”
“I figured she’d hear it enough from you,” Matt grinned at me.
“You told her it wouldn’t work, though? And if she tries to make me go to bed then… I don’t know. I’ll take sleeping pills in the morning so I sleep through all my classes!” I announced triumphantly, as if it were a perfectly brilliant, logical idea. Matt laughed, the same way he laughed at all my ridiculous posturing.
“I told her it wouldn’t work,” Matt assured me. “But I thought it would be best if you let her tell you the rules, and then you yelled about not obeying them. Then you both agreed to some kind of compromise where you pretty much do whatever you want.”
“Yeah, that is usually what happens,” I yawned and looked out the window. We were rapidly approaching our new house, buried on an average suburban street amongst a slew of maples and elms. “I hate this town.”
“It’s a beautiful town!” Matt sounded shocked at my complaint.
“I guess.” I shrugged, and the scenery did look pretty. Overall, it was an okay town, but I just hated moving. Maggie and Matt probably hated it just as much as I did, and they only ever did it for me, so really, I was the one that had the least to be pissy about.
“You promised you were really gonna try here,” Matt reminded me, almost pleading with me. We had pulled up in the driveway next to the butter colored Victorian that Maggie had completely fallen in love with.
16
“I am!” I insisted. I disappointed people constantly, but I could never stomach disappointing Matt. “Did you see me talking to that kid? His name is Patrick. And he’s kind of a friend.”
“Look at you. Making your very first friend at the ripe old age of seventeen.” Matt shut off the car and looked at me with veiled amusement.
“Yeah, well, how many friends do you have?” I countered evenly, and he just shook his head and got out of the car, so I quickly followed after him.