Thank God, I hit my head and found myself living a better life.
I turn the corner and head toward the newspaper office. I can see the display case up ahead. The one where we keep our three Spartan Press Awards. I used to pass it every day. I used to stop and stare into the glass at those gorgeous three statues standing so proud and tall. Like they were carrying the weight of the world and hardly even noticed. The sight of them was enough to cheer me up on even my lowest of days.
I can still remember how it felt to hold the first one for the very first time. To see that tiny gold plate with the words “Southwest Star, editor in chief Kennedy Rhodes” engraved in it.
I felt just like that golden woman on the pedestal.
I felt like I could conquer the world.
But as I approach the newspaper office, my feet start to drag and a ripple of unease passes over me. There’s something very strange about the display case.
The trophies inside look … different. They’re not beautiful gilded women standing atop podiums, reaching their arms to the sky. They look like weird lumps that some child crafted out of gold play dough.
I urge my feet to move again, running to the case and pressing my hands against the glass. Then I see the banner strung across the top, and my entire body goes numb.
Congratulations to Our State Wrestling Champions—5 Years in a Row!
Wrestling?
Those are wrestling trophies? But this is supposed to be a newspaper display case. It belongs to the newspaper. We use it to show off our trophies and our best issues, and anything else devoted to the Southwest Star. Why is it suddenly filled with wrestling stuff?
Did they move our display case?
Did they move the newspaper office?
I hurry to the door marked with the number 212, my home for the past three and a half years. Or at least it was. In some other life. For some other me.
School is out, so the newspaper team should be assembling here any minute. With a deep breath, I pull open the door and step hesitantly inside, instantly bombarded by all the memories I made within these walls. Thousands and thousands of them clobbering me at once. The time we misspelled a word in our front-page story about teen literacy. The time we were so desperate for an extra article to fill out the sports section, we invented a badminton team. The time Horace’s game overheated one of the computers and the hard drive melted. The time we challenged the yearbook staff to an epic, cutthroat battle of Taboo and lost.
The time Laney and I accidentally walked through that door for the very first time.
Ever since then, this place has been a refuge for me in the middle of this chaotic building. A place where my voice mattered and my opinion was important and my words were read.
That one twist of fate is what set my whole other life on course.
Now, it’s someone’s else fate. Someone else’s course.
I glance around the classroom, the unease inside me growing by the second. There’s something very off about this place. It feels so … so …
Sterile is the word that pops into my head.
The computers are still lined up in the same formation, the carpet is still in desperate need of replacement, but the room? It lacks a sense of purpose. A sense of life.
Where are all the scribbles on the whiteboard? The hundreds of story ideas thrown out by staff members. Where are all the issues hanging on the walls? The team’s proudest moments on display. Where are—
Just then, the door bursts open and a group of five or six boys tumble inside, talking animatedly while stuffing chocolate in their mouths and sipping soda from plastic cups.
They stop when they notice me and look to each other for an explanation. But none of them seem to be able to give one. Finally, one boy—clearly their leader—pushes his way to the front, and as soon as I see his face my mouth drops open.
“Horace?” I ask in disgust. “What are you doing here?”
He seems to startle at the sound of his own name and studies me for a long moment. “I’m sorry, do I know you?”
I roll my eyes. “Horace. It’s me. Kennedy…” But I immediately catch my mistake. Of course he doesn’t know me. I’m a stranger to him. He never sat in my newspaper club and made annoying jokes while he used my computers to play his stupid Excavation Empire game. Laney and I never stayed up late at night plotting his demise … or, at the very least, his removal from the paper.
He was never a constant nuisance to me because I never went here.
“I’m sorry,” Horace says in his usual haughty tone. “I don’t know any Kennedys. You know, except the president. But he’s dead.”
Thank you, Captain Obvious.
“Now, if you’ll excuse us,” he goes on. “We have a meeting in here.”
I watch in shock and disbelief as the boys disperse throughout the room, taking seats at the computer stations.
Wait, what are they doing?
What meeting could they possibly have in here?
OH. MY. GOD.
Is Horace the editor in chief of the newspaper?
No. That can’t be. I will not allow it. I’ll file a complaint. I’ll stage an intervention. I’ll destroy this place before I let Horace take charge of my newspaper.
I’m about to voice my dissatisfaction right then and there, when suddenly one of the machines finishes booting up and I hear a familiar sound. That obnoxious synthesized melody that used to play over and over again in my nightmares.
I turn and stare at the monitor, a strange gurgling sound coming from the back of my throat.
“Is that…” I ask, struggling to get the words out. “Is that Excavation Empire?”
The boy—a short frumpy kid with glasses—glances up at me in annoyance. “Uh. Yah.”
My gaze whips left and right, watching in horror as all the screens light up and that annoying seven-note song reverberates around me in surround sound.
When I speak again my voice is a shattered replica of itself. “Is this an Excavation Empire club?”
“Yeah,” Horace mumbles from his station, taking a sip of soda. “And I don’t remember your name on the invite, so…” He makes a clucking sound and tips his head toward the door.
“B-b-but you can’t,” I stammer, getting flustered. “You can’t do that. This is the newspaper office.”
Horace flashes me a strange look from the top of his computer. “What newspaper?”
I stomp my foot in frustration. “The Southwest St—” But my voice cuts off when I remember that I named it the Southwest Star. I changed the name from the Southwest News after I became editor in chief. After I wrote that story about the football coach siphoning the funds and won us the first Spartan Press Award and saved the paper from …
A bitter, cold frost settles in around me, chilling me to the bone.
From closing.
From folding.
From ending.
“The school newspaper,” I say meekly.
Horace scoffs at this, taking another slurp of soda before saying the words that I know will haunt me forever. “This school doesn’t have a newspaper.”
Then I Set Myself Straight
As I stand in the middle of the classroom that used to be my second home, Horace’s words echo in my mind.
“This school doesn’t have a newspaper.”
They hit me hard. Like a blow to the chest. The kind that knocks the wind out of you. That takes away your ability to even scream.
“Don’t look so shocked,” Horace says, his fingers moving rapidly across the keyboard as he launches into his game. “Newspapers are dead. No one reads them anymore. So, get lost.”
I feel like I’m collapsing in on myself.
I feel like I’m falling.
I feel like I’m going to throw up.
“You’re such a big fat cheater!” Horace yells at his screen. “Let’s see what you think of my Storm of Prophecy!”
“More like Storm of Absurdity,” another guy fires back.
I
can’t watch this.
In a daze, I stagger out the door, down the stairs, and back into the parking lot. I can barely put one foot in front of the other. I can barely get my lungs to move oxygen in and out.
This was a mistake. Coming here was a huge mistake. I should have left the past in the past (or in the other universe) where it belonged. I just wanted closure and all I got was my worst nightmare come true.
My newspaper is gone.
It never even was.
And now my computers are being used to build imaginary cities with imaginary bricks so imaginary bulldozers can tear them down.
That shouldn’t be allowed to be a club. Who approved this? Who thought this was a good idea? Those are the best computers in the school! They shouldn’t be used for something so pointless, not to mention … violent.
They’re in there destroying cities. That club is promoting teen violence. If those boys all grow up to be criminals, it will be entirely the fault of this school. I’m tempted to write a very strongly worded op-ed piece on the whole thing, until I miserably remind myself that I don’t have a newspaper to publish it in.
I plop down on the front steps of the school and try to calm myself.
Deep breaths. In. Out. In. Out.
This isn’t my world anymore. I don’t go to this school. I don’t sit in those classrooms. I shouldn’t care what the computers are being used for.
I rush to pull my phone out of my bag, open the Windsor Achiever app, and click on the Rankings tab.
1. Kennedy Rhodes.
There it is, I tell myself. Your new life. Your new accomplishment. This is what you’re proud of now.
With a determined huff, I stand up and brush the dirt from my uniform. I don’t have time to sit around here and mope. I have things to do. Tasks to complete. People to impress. I’m at the top of my class at the Windsor Academy! That’s a big freaking deal. And if I want to keep it that way, I need to remember my priorities.
I march through the parking lot, ready to put this whole escapade behind me. Ready to get back to my new and improved life. But a moment later, I spot something that pulls me to a halt. I squint across the row of parked cars, certain that I must be imagining it. Or that I’m simply too far away to see it clearly.
I take a few more steps, trying to get a better view. But the closer I get, the more convinced I am that what I’m looking at is absolutely, one-hundred-percent real.
It’s them.
My ex-boyfriend, Austin McKinley, and my former best friend, Laney Patel.
And they’re kissing again.
Then I Become a Stalker Again
I remember when we won our first Spartan Press Award. I remember sitting there in that newspaper office, my hand clutched tightly in Laney’s, waiting for the email to arrive.
When the notification finally popped up in my inbox and I opened it to see the words “The Southwest Star from Southwest High School,” I nearly fainted. All the blood left my head. I could barely even stand up. Laney had to help me out of my chair. She kept me from falling.
She was always my rock. I leaned on her daily. For so many things. And yet, she never wanted to share in the glory. After the trophy came in the mail, I offered to let her take it home for the weekend, but she refused. I offered to have them engrave her name alongside mine, but she refused that, too.
She was always so intent on letting me shine. Like a moon circling the earth. Never feeling direct sunlight. Always basking in someone else’s glow.
But not today. Not right now. She’s glowing plenty on her own. In fact, I think I might need sunglasses to protect my eyes from all that glow radiating off her.
For a moment, as I stand there watching them make out in the parking lot, I’m convinced that I’ve fallen back into that other universe. That I’ve been tossed right back into that nightmare where I’m stuck at this school and Laney and Austin cheated on me and I’ve blown my chances at going to Columbia.
But then I glance down and see that I’m still wearing my Windsor uniform. And the questions start to bounce around my brain like pinballs in a machine.
Are they together in this life, too?
How long have they been dating?
How did it start?
Did she steal him from someone else like she stole him from me?
My whole body is numb. My breathing is ragged. My heart is pounding.
When they finally manage to break apart, I duck behind one of the cars, afraid that they might see me. Which, I quickly realize, is actually pretty stupid. Laney doesn’t even know me in this life. She’s not my friend. We never met. Those three and a half years of friendship, when she stood by me through everything, are gone. Vanished. Erased.
Still, I can’t bring myself to come out from behind the cover of this car. Crouched down like a spy, I peer at them over the hood. I watch as Laney whispers something to Austin that I can’t hear.
Then Austin grins and shouts in a booming voice, “Here comes the big one! Here comes the…”
Laney immediately joins in, “Whaaaaammmy!”
They practically fall on top of each other in fits of laughter. I can hear Laney’s signature chipmunk giggle from here.
My stomach flips.
Apparently their taste in television shows hasn’t improved much in this universe. They’re still quoting that stupid How Is This My Life? show.
Still laughing, Laney says, “That last episode was funny as balls!” Then she buries her face in Austin’s chest, and he kisses the top of her head.
I can’t do this. I can’t take this anymore.
I need to get out of here.
Staying in a crouch, I zigzag through the cars until I’m out of the parking lot. Then I sprint the entire way home.
* * *
When I burst through the front door a record eight minutes later, I’m breathless and dizzy. My mom is in the kitchen, yelling at someone on the phone again. I barrel past her and charge up the stairs, past Frankie’s room where he’s working diligently on his What’s the Matter? board game, straight to my bedroom.
“Kennedy!” Frankie jumps up from his desk when he sees me. “I’ve made a new list!”
“I don’t want to hear it right now!” I call back.
But like always, he ignores me, following me into my room as he reads from his notebook. “My obsession with argyle socks.”
I sigh. “The same.”
He frowns and crosses it off his list. “My inability to surrender in Monopoly.”
I roll my eyes. “One time we had a game that lasted twenty-two days.”
His body wilts as he crosses this off, too.
“Frankie,” I plead. “I really can’t deal with this right now.” I grab his shoulders, turn him around, and march him out of my room.
“My fear of barbershops?” he asks, barely looking up.
“The same!” I close the door on him.
“My laptop decal?” he calls from the hallway.
“It’s Newton’s apple falling from the tree!” I yell back.
I can hear him harrumph before stomping back to his room and slamming the door.
With a groan, I toss my bag onto my bed and dig out my phone. I open SnipPic and search for Laney’s profile. I click on it and scan the photos, my heart sinking with a thud when I notice her profile picture.
It’s the two of them. They’re dressed up and posing in front of a fake city skyline. I recognize that backdrop. I once had a very similar picture in front of that backdrop. Except it was a photo of me and Austin. It was taken at prom last year.
They went together, I think with a sudden wave of nausea.
I quickly start scrolling through her feed like a crazy stalker, desperate for more information, more details. It’s overflowing with photographs of the two of them. Laney and Austin skiing together, Laney and Austin at the community pool in the summer, Laney and Austin at Peabody’s café. I scroll back and back and back until I find the very first one of them together.
&
nbsp; It’s dated sometime during the second semester of freshman year.
Which means they’ve been dating for the past three years.
As I stare at the photos, I feel a hot, jealous rage rumble through me.
She didn’t just steal my boyfriend. She stole my whole life.
But I can’t tell if I’m jealous of her because she’s with him, because she took him, or if I’m simply jealous of them. For what they have. For what they’re sharing in all these pictures.
They look so dang happy.
Were Austin and I ever that happy? And come to think of it, have I ever seen Laney look that happy?
When I search back through my memories of my former best friend, why do they always seem to revolve around me? Her cheering me up. Her making me feel better. Her telling me the newspaper is going to be amazeballs.
For more than three years, Laney was my rock. My support system. The person I leaned on for everything. But as I continue to scroll through her feed, watching tender moment after tender moment pass by, I suddenly find myself wondering, Who was Laney’s rock? Who did she lean on?
I mean, sure, we were always there for each other. I would have helped her through anything. Except I suddenly can’t recall one time when our roles were reversed. When I was the strong one and she was the one falling apart, freaking out, waking up in the middle of the night with panic attacks that the front-page headline is misspelled. She was always the one who answered the phone. Who calmed me down. Who logged in to the server to assure me that the headline was fine.
She was so busy being sturdy and strong for me, who was being sturdy and strong for her?
The answer hits me like a slap in the face.
No one.
Until now, apparently.
Because now she has him. She has Austin. My Austin. My boyfriend.
But as I continue to stare at them, feeling more and more like a creepy Peeping Tom, that possessive word—my—starts to lose its meaning. It starts to feel like a pair of jeans that no longer fit, that you’ve stashed away on the top shelf of your closet, just in case. But every time you bring them down, they never quite look right. And eventually, you have to give them away.
With a lump in my throat, I toss the phone on the bed. I sit in silence for a long moment, listening to the faint sounds of the house. The whir of the heater, the footsteps of people downstairs, the thumping of my own heart banging against my rib cage. And then the sound of my mother’s voice calling me down to dinner.
In Some Other Life: A Novel Page 18
