Bayward Street

by Addison Jane

  I stopped at the kitchen door, hearing voices inside.

  “Do you think we should go check on her?” Helen asked.

  “Mom, she’ll come down when she’s ready,” Heath assured her. I could hear the smile in his voice.

  “She needs clothes. And we’ll have to go school shopping.”

  “Mom.” Heath sighed.

  “She’s about Flick’s size, maybe we could borrow some of her stuff for now.”

  “Okay… stop!” he snapped, but I could sense that he was more amused by his mother’s frantic babbling than annoyed. “For one, do you really think Fable would be caught dead in something from Flick’s wardrobe?”

  I screwed up my nose, who was Flick?

  “You don’t see her in pink lace and ruffles?” Helen giggled. I almost gagged at the thought. I’d never been a girly girl growing up. My dad never let me have money for any nice clothes so my mother would pick up cheap things from the thrift store. They were always T-shirts or jeans that were too big, so that was what I lived in.

  “If you take her shopping for clothes, think department store. Don’t take her somewhere where a pair of jeans costs more than a house.”

  Thank God for Heath. It was weird, but also so relieving to know that he understood me. He knew who I was and how I felt, without us even having to discuss it. It was just who he was, though. He kept reasonably quiet, but you could tell that he was always taking in what was around him and studying people.

  He was smart.

  I heard footsteps on the staircase behind me and ducked into the kitchen, not wanting it to seem like I was snooping.

  Helen patted Heath on the cheek. “When did you become so smart.”

  He grinned at her, a sight that was rare, so I took a moment to appreciate the beauty in his smile and the way his eyes brightened. “What do you mean when? I’ve always been brilliant.” She tapped his cheek a little harder, and he pulled back laughing. “Okay, okay.”

  They looked over and saw me standing awkwardly in the doorway.

  “Great! You’re here. We won’t send out a search party.” Helen laughed, turning back to the counter where there were four pizza boxes lined up waiting.

  I felt someone come up behind me and stepped to the side to let them past. It was a young girl, maybe mid-teens. Her hair was long and brown like Heath’s.

  “Fable, this is our youngest. Felicity, this is Fable.”

  Felicity turned and gave me a shy smile, she had a book in her hands, only looking up from it for a second to greet me. “Hi, nice to meet you.”

  “You too.”

  Heath walked over and placed a hand on my back. The tightness I didn’t realize was there loosened as he directed me toward the food.

  “We sort of got a range of everything. We didn’t know what you liked,” he explained. Opening all the boxes, the smell hit me and my stomach grumbled loudly.

  “I’ll pretty much eat anything,” I told them with a smile. Helen returned my smile, but it seemed to be a little tense as she heard the words.

  I wanted to say something, maybe reassure her that it was fine, but Braydon burst through the doorways like the devil was on his heels. “Pizza,” he crowed.

  I laughed as he pushed past and loaded up a plate with one of everything. The tension seemed to evaporate as Heath and Felicity rolled their eyes, and Helen scowled at her youngest son.

  The next few days went by quickly.

  There was shopping for clothes and shopping for school supplies.

  Heath spent a day at home from school before his mother demanded that I’d be fine without him. I agreed even if it was nice to have him around.

  I missed my friends, but with Heath around I felt like maybe he was filling the void. We hadn’t really spoken about the last time I was there with him. That was when our connection had become more intense. He was allowing me space, and I wasn’t completely sure if I wanted it. The pull to him was so strong. There had been no kissing, but even the gentle touches here and there or the times he would hold my hand when taking me somewhere, I still felt the same explosive heat as I did before.

  With so much going on, I guess I let it pass. It was comfort enough to just have him around. And the whole family had welcomed me in with open arms, ready to do anything they could to make me feel like I belonged.

  Helen enrolled me in school on Friday. I’d be starting the next week, and I was both excited and nervous about the idea of it. School had always been a love for me. It kept my brain occupied, and I simply loved to learn. It was my home away from home, but I remember going into school each day thinking, maybe this is the day someone will say something.

  Yes, this is the day that they’ll pull me into the office and tell me it’s okay. You don’t have to go home.

  I wished every single morning that someone would finally look at me and ask, “Hey, are you all right?”

  No one ever did, though.

  The school I attended was big. Teachers didn’t really see you as a person, they didn’t take the time out to talk with you, or even ask you how your day was. So I sat back and never said anything. The one time someone did notice, my father managed to convince them otherwise, and I paid the consequences for it.

  I wondered if someone had just taken the time to talk with me, whether I would have spilled everything. Maybe I would have pleaded with them to not let me go back there.

  But fear froze me.

  Fear of him, and what he’d do when his charm won another poor clueless soul.

  This time, things would be different.

  Helen explained that Diamond Cross was a very private school. They kept it that way because of the types of families that attended, including children of celebrities and wealthy business people. A place where kids could get an education without a spotlight on every part of their lives. It sounded like it was exactly what I needed. All they wanted was to work hard and get the education they needed.

  I knew that I was probably going to stand out. After the party at the hotel and the way people had eyed me, just for being someone new, I was expecting that there’d no doubt be whispers in the halls or raised eyebrows.

  I was ready for that.

  But I really didn’t care. I was there for me. Not them. Their opinions were irrelevant.

  I needed to concentrate on my education and figuring out a way to help my friends. However, I was about to learn that maybe that wasn’t going to be as easy as I thought.

  I’d spent my time on the streets being ridiculed and judged, having people look me up and down with disgust and pulling their belongings closer to their bodies in fear I was going to jump them or something fucking stupid. I was used to being looked at like I was scum, and as we drove up to this fancy private school that Heath, Braydon, and Felicity attended, I expected nothing less.

  It was three stories high, the main entrance was adorned by three large brick arches, the third story had the same arches above, but they were filled with beautiful stained glass that depicted an intricate cross in the middle. Both sides were filled with large birds taking off in flight. They were amazingly detailed and sparkled in the morning sunlight.

  There were students scattered around the carpark, smiling and laughing with each other, their little cliques as clear as day. I knew in that second I was never going to fit in here. Their carefully tailored sports jackets and designer dresses screamed money, the school logo itself being colored with gold and silver. I took a moment to thank a higher power that there was no school uniform. Clothing was a form of expression. It showed people who you were, the music you might like, the hobbies you might have, and in times like these, the money that you possessed. I knew the moment I stepped out of the car in my black on black on black attire that people were going to look at me and immediately start a train of gossip and suspicious rumors.

  Heath pulled into a parking space and turned the car off. The car was silent. It was as though the three siblings were just waiting for me to take off running. As though the jud
gments of some teenagers was going to be the thing to finally break me.

  Heath eyed me cautiously.

  “We’re gonna be late if you’re all just going to sit there and stare at me like that,” I told them, rolling my eyes.

  “Bye,” Felicity whispered in her sweet voice before throwing the door open and walking toward the front of the school. A small group of girls instantly swallowed her up, and I watched as they bombarded her with questions, taking sneaky looks back at our car.

  Ahhh, so the news had already spread that an outsider was moving in.

  I rolled my eyes. “People already know I’m coming, huh?”

  Braydon chuckled in the backseat while Heath continued to study me in silence. “In a community like this, gossip makes the world go round.”

  I smiled back at Braydon. “Well. Best we get out there and add some fuel to the fire.” Pushing open my door, I climbed out. I adjusted my black stockings and pulled on my dark wash mini skirt, so it was sitting comfortably low on my hips. My long sleeved plaid shirt hung loosely over a tight fitting plain white tank top, completing my grunge style look. I pulled my backpack from the ground and threw it over my shoulder, before moving to the back of the car to wait for the boys. Kids stared and whispered to each other, some with wide eyes, others—mostly girls—with an intense glare. An arm was thrown over my shoulder, and Braydon was soon ushering me toward the front steps of the building, Heath close on my other side.

  “We’ve got a class together first thing. You any good at English ‘cause I need someone to copy off,” Braydon joked as he steered me through the doors and down a long hallway. Heath and I were the same age, but I’d been put in the year below him with Braydon due to the amount of schooling I’d missed. I didn’t mind though. It wouldn’t take me long to catch up as I was always bright.

  We stopped briefly at some lockers, Braydon and Heath’s were next to each other, and I was a little surprised to find that mine was gathered with theirs also. I watched the boys out of the corner of my eyes as I arranged my locker. People came and went, sharing fist bumps and man hugs with Braydon, who laughed and greeted them enthusiastically. A few said, “Hi,” to Heath, who simply acknowledged them with a small flick of his head. This alone was enlightening. It was like the moment we pulled into the school grounds, he’d transformed himself back into the serious, brooding guy that I’d met that first night.

  Gone was the Heath, who I’d gotten to know slowly over the last few days, whose laugh made the butterflies in my stomach do summersaults, he was now replaced by a mask.

  People stared at me as I walked down the crowded hallways. Like I was an alien, so completely foreign to them. But I held my head high, pulling on the thick skin I’d worn so well over the last two years. I knew Heath was nervous about me coming to school. After all, it wasn’t like the party at his father’s hotel, where nobody knew my name let alone where I was from. Now they all knew, and I was just waiting for the moment where the pack of lions began preying on the weak member of the herd.

  But they were wrong. I wasn’t weak. And if they came at me, I would fight back.

  The classes were uneventful, the teachers looking me over with the same analyzing eyes as the students.

  “Keira, can I see you please?” my math teacher Mr. Warren requested from the front of the class, as he held the test I’d just completed.

  Looking nervously to my left where Braydon sat, I saw him narrowing his eyes at the man.

  I slipped out of my seat and weaved my way to the front of the class. “Yes, sir?”

  He pointed to the equations at the bottom of the page. I knew they were reasonably high-level algebraic equations. There were two marked with a tick and two with a cross. I hadn’t done them in a long time, so I wasn’t surprised that I’d gotten a couple wrong.

  I loved math. It was straight forward, and not open to interpretation like English or Social Sciences. One plus one would always equal two. It was the same everywhere, and it would always be the same.

  “These type of questions are further along in our syllabus. Since you haven’t been at school for several years, I’m wondering how you knew how to answer them?” His eyes watched me, accusingly. I knew what he was trying to say, that I can’t have known and that I must have cheated somehow.

  I swallowed my sharp retort and held my tongue. “I did advanced math through an out of school learning program.” My explanation was short and clipped.

  “Would you mind giving me the name of this learning program so that we can verify this and get your grades for our records?” he spoke slowly like I was stupid, and a smirk turned up at the corner of his mouth like he knew he’d caught me in a lie. The eyes of the students behind me burned against my back as they waited for an answer, hopefully, something they could use as gossip.

  If that’s what they wanted, I’d give it to them.

  I smiled sweetly at Mr. Warren. “Sure, sir. You’ll need to call Southwest Juvenile Detention Center. They’ll have it all there, I’m sure.”

  “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised,” he sneered in disgust.

  Shrugging, I turned and began to walk back to my seat. “I guess you shouldn’t, delinquents like me and prison go hand in hand don’t they?” I dropped into my chair, ignoring the whispers and commotion around me. Braydon chuckled softly, leaning back in his chair.

  “What?”

  He shook his head. “I know Heath’s freaking out about you being here, but I think you’ll do just fine.”

  I couldn’t help but grin as I picked up my pen and went back to my work.

  By the time it got to lunch, I was done with this place. The teachers either spoke to me like I was stupid or slow, or they completely ignored me, opting to help out the students whose parents paid their ridiculously high salaries. No wonder the kids here felt entitled and better than everyone else. Because the stupid adults around here wouldn’t even stand up to them, seeing too many dollar signs in front of their eyes to care that they were breeding a school full of selfish self-centered assholes.

  Wandering down the bustling hallway, people stepped out of my way, moving around me with side glances. I smiled to myself as I compared it to parting the Red Sea of high-class teens. They looked at me as though I had some kind of disease as they nudged their friends out of the way in order to avoid touching me. It didn’t last long, though, as someone struck me sharply in the shoulder, causing my body to turn. The girl stopped and looked me up and down, her cronies standing on either side of her doing exactly the same.

  I recognized her immediately, Jay.

  “Do you mind?” she spat, throwing her bleach blonde hair behind her shoulder and folding her arms across her chest. I glared at her for a moment, reminding myself that I was here for the education opportunities, not to play into her stupid high school behavior. Her bedazzled tank top was too tight across her breasts and didn’t reach all the way to her pants, showing off a sliver of her flat stomach that was darkened with an obvious fake tan. She had teamed it with a pleated skirt that left very little to the imagination.

  I thought this place was meant to be classy.

  “Oh, if it isn’t the street kid,” she sneered. “Don’t get comfortable sweetie. You’ll realize soon enough that you don’t fit in here, and go running back to the gutter you crawled out of.”

  I smirked. Her harsh words did very little to rattle me. If she thought her high and mighty attitude was going to break me, she was in for a rude awakening. I didn’t back down, ever.

  “Wow, such foul words coming from a little princess.” I leaned forward. “Did you know your slut was showing? Might want to tuck that back in, sweetie.”

  Her face visibly tightened and became a shade redder. I guessed I’d finally met the top bitch, and it seemed she didn’t much like someone who didn’t just lay down and take her bullshit. People were beginning to stop and observe our interaction, some in amusement, others in shock.

  “Just because you came in here with the Carsons,
now you think you’re all that? You are nothing. Nobody. A charity case.” She laughed.

  Smiling, I held my arms out wide. “Why are you getting so upset then? Is this charity case rattling your nerves? Do I scare you?”

  “Me? Scared of you? Please.”

  “Yeah, that’s what the last girl said... she disappeared not long after that,” I stated with a shrug. I saw her eyes widen a little and gasps came from the people around us. Keeping a straight face was a struggle as I giggled internally.

  This girl wanted drama, I could do drama.

  Jay recovered quickly, pointing her perfectly manicured finger at me. “You have no idea who you’re crossing, street kid.”

  I folded my arms across my chest. “Enlighten me, princess.”

  “There’s a way things work around here,” she started, finally beginning to find her composure. Talking back to her had shaken her, something she wasn’t used to. But now she was finding her feet again, circling slowly around me, predator studying its prey. “I suggest you learn fast, or you are going to find that things get very, very uncomfortable for you.” She turned with a huff and stomped off down the hall, pushing and shoving through the crowd, her crew of whispering heathens jogging after her.

  A voice that I recognized called over the crowd. “All right, show’s over! Get lost.” A young guy pushed his way through the fast retreating bodies and stood in front of me with a kind smile.

  Lucas, Heath’s friend from the train station. “Well, aren’t you full of surprises?” He grinned down at me.

  Rolling my eyes. “Yeah, I’m a regular fucking party. I’ll be lucky if I make it through a whole day without punching someone in the face and getting expelled…” I threw my hands in the air, “…or better yet, sued!”

  He chuckled. “Come on, let’s get lunch.” He strolled off, leaving me standing there a little confused. People around here were different. Well, at least the ones I had met. It was like they believed their word was law. They told you to do something and just expected you to follow. How these teens felt they had that much power was completely astonishing.