"It's not usually this cold and rainy this early in September," I added.
"It's gonna seriously mess up the football season."
"You play?"
"Yeah. I had a talk with the coach, and we're gonna see where I fit in."
"Cool." I prayed he didn't say anything else about football because I had no clue about the game. (Did I know that football was a barbaric sport that only encouraged violence and exposed young athletes to traumatic head injuries on a regular basis?)
Haley approached us. Without a word, he went to his locker next to Zack's and threw his notebook and pen in there.
"Meet you out at the car," Zack said to him over his shoulder. He grinned at me. "See ya, Steph!"
Then he was gone, and with him went all the ease and cheerfulness in the air. Something heavier took its place, squeezing the air out of my lungs.
Haley closed his locker, then turned toward me and leaned one shoulder against it. Keeping my head down, I jammed on my rain jacket and shut my locker with a bang. Humiliation loomed, and I was desperate to escape.
"Stephanie."
His low, gravelly voice stopped me in my tracks. Reluctantly, I turned and looked at him. He took a step toward me. I wanted to step backward, but I was frozen to the spot. My heart was hammering in my chest, and I had the miserable, prickly sensation inside my skin that always happened before a confrontation.
"What's your problem with me?" he asked gently, without any edge to his words.
I waited for him to say something else, but he just stood there, waiting for my answer.
The worst part was that I couldn't give him the real answer, which was we belonged in two different worlds. What could I say? That he was already popular, and I was totally the opposite? That I couldn't breathe his high altitude oxygen, and he'd suffocate in my ground-clinging smog?
The popular kids would be the first to tell you that they aren't popular, and that they don't believe in popularity and cliques. Sure, they have friends, but they'll always point to someone else as being really popular. But I was willing to bet that deep down in their secret souls, they knew exactly where they stood.
Just like I did.
That still left me without an answer.
"I don't have a problem with you," I said finally, fumbling with my zipper so I didn't have to look at him.
He took another step toward me, basically closing the gap between us so that my eyes were at the level of the first button on his shirt. He raised his hand, and with his fingertips touched the tip of my chin to tilt my face up to his. My breath caught in my throat at the cool sensation of his fingers against my skin as I looked into his eyes.
"Then maybe we can try again, tomorrow?" he asked, smiling slightly.
"Why?"
I could have slapped myself for letting that question slip out. If I couldn't spontaneously sink into the ground, I could at least turn away, but his eyes seemed to hold me fast. They were so black that I couldn't even tell where the iris ended and pupil began. They weren't an opaque black, either. They had a depth that seemed to go on forever.
I waited for his answer, dreading it.
He chuckled and stepped back from me.
"I'm new here," he said, far too innocently. "I'm just trying to make friends."
We looked at each other for a long moment. We both knew his answer was totally fake, a mockery of my copout, and yet, I was relieved by it.
"I'm sure you'll make lots of friends, no problem," I said.
He opened his mouth as if to respond, but then closed it again and smiled knowingly at me, as if we were sharing a private joke. He nodded and started to walk around me, only to stop and lean down to whisper in my ear, "See you tomorrow."
Then he was gone. For a moment, I couldn't move. It was like the whole scene just now had overloaded my brain because it was so completely different from anything I'd ever experienced. I was only vaguely aware of the commotion of the other students around me, the slamming of lockers, the Gaggle squeals, and the Jocks roughhousing.
I had no idea what game Haley was playing with me. It didn't fit any of the social structures I lived in, and it broke all the rules I knew. If he was acting, he deserved an Oscar. If he wasn't acting...my skin was tingling over every inch of my body, and I could feel my ears burning as my racing heart sent oxygen-high blood shooting through my veins.
In a daze, I went down the stairs, through the gym lobby and out the doors to the pick-up area for students. The icy rain had cleared to leave heavy grey skies overhead.
The busses for students had already left, and I could have been on one of them, if my mother had trusted their driving. (Did I know all the bad things that happened on busses—drugs, bullying, kids making out? Yes, Mom.) I had always refrained from pointing out that all of that happened in the hallways and bathrooms at Darbyfield anyway. The last thing I wanted was for her to pull me out and homeschool me to keep me away from those bad influences.
I watched the juniors and seniors drive by in their cars as I waited with the straggling freshman and pre-driver's permit sophomores for pick-up. I stared at a black BMW as it drove by. The windows were down, revealing Haley at the wheel and Zack sitting next to him.
A few minutes later, Mom pulled up.
"So, how was your day?" she asked cheerfully.
"Fine," I said grimly. "Just fine."
CHAPTER FOUR
I WALKED INTO the kitchen, throwing my backpack down on a chair and pulling off my jacket.
I kept my eyes on the worn vinyl tiles of the floor because the alternative was forcing myself to take in the obsessive French Provençal theme that had clusters of grapes and roosters on every single surface. As far as I was concerned, the entire kitchen was a disaster, starting with the roosters, and continuing with the piles of clipped articles, scraps of notes, half-empty bottles of vitamins and herbal supplements, and ending with the dishes in the sink.
Mom came bustling in after me, throwing her keys on a pile of papers that would inevitably swallow them up and leave her scrambling to find them first thing in the morning. I studied her for a moment as I quietly moved the keys to a spot where I knew I'd find them, just like I had done every day since the fourth grade.
Mom looked good for her age, despite her hippie-chic muumuu dresses and ratty Birkenstocks that she wore with hemp socks. She was tall and plump, without being fat. Her blonde hair had started to get a few streaks of pure white, but it looked more like highlights than anything. Her eyes were still a pale blue, like the color of a bleached-out, hot summer sky. She didn't have any wrinkles, except a few crow's feet around her eyes.
"So did anyone say anything about your pretty new dress?" she asked, starting to slice up an apple and set it out with cold, baked vanilla tofu for my after-school snack. I hated tofu. Always had, all my life. (Did I know tofu was extremely good for me, being low in fat and high in protein, and it was really delicious if I would just give it a chance?)
"No," I replied tiredly. "It's not really what everyone is wearing."
"Well, you don't want to dress like everyone else, do you? You are too smart to follow the crowd. You are strong enough to be independent and wear different things. At least this dress wasn't made in a sweatshop."
I refrained from pointing out the irony that I was free to be independent as long as independence meant doing as my mother said because what she said was always supposed to be the most reasonable, sensible thing. I also vaguely wondered why she still expected me to believe every word she said, unquestioningly, just like I did when I was little.
"So, how was the first day of school?" Mom asked, seating herself at the kitchen table. “You’re not too tired are you?”
"It was fine," I said, picking up a slice of apple and nibbling on it. Apples, I liked. “I’m fine, too.”
"That's good."
She hummed a little as she sorted through the mail, and for the first time, I felt stung by her blatant lack of interest in my education. I was smart, but si
nce my intelligence didn't have any nutritional value and couldn't catch a cold, it didn't matter to her.
It should have been a relief that she didn't care about my education, but deep down, I felt hollow and plastic. Food, clothing, driving me around, my general health, those were all surface things about my body, easy to identify and deal with. My thoughts, feelings, hopes, and dreams were far messier, but far more me.
Yet, she had never once asked me what I was thinking or feeling. She always told me what I should be thinking and feeling, especially if I was a sensible, independent, young lady who was immune to peer pressure.
But I wasn't. I realized in that moment that she didn't want me to be immune to peer pressure. She wanted to be the peer that pressured me, the only one who could influence me. Silent surprise at this revelation made me choke on a piece of apple.
"Remember, you should chew your food forty-four times before swallowing, Stephanie. Did you know that it helps your saliva break down the food and make it more digestible?"
"Okay," I wheezed out, finally getting past the apple.
"Anything else happen today?" Mom asked absently, going back to the bills once I was breathing again.
I ran over all the "new" stuff in my mind: Jordan's haircut, Morris' roast beef sandwiches, and the Smith brothers. I decided not to mention any of it because Jordan's haircut would have inspired a lecture on vanity and empty-headedness when all you cared about was your looks. Morris' sandwich would have triggered a lecture on how bad processed meat was for you. The Smith brothers...there was no way in hell I could tell my mom about two new, cute guys in school. She'd freak.
Boys were forbidden because they were evil, sex-crazed users who broke up families and trashed girls, leaving them with broken hearts and full of babies and STDs. She only let me be friends with Morris at school because she couldn't stop us there. Besides, Morris was hardly the heart-breaking, baby-making, STD-spreading type. His family was almost as strict as mine.
"There's a new librarian," I said, finally coming up with one safe topic.
"Oh, that's nice."
I pinched off a smile at the way Mom barely tried to hide her boredom.
Something small snapped inside me, like a single crack in a glass.
"Well," I said, getting up. "I'm going to go change and then do my homework."
"Alright, dear. See you when you come back down."
"Actually, I was thinking I'd do my homework in my room."
Mom frowned and objected, "But, that's not healthy for you, to be alone like that. You need to spend time with me."
"I'll be down for dinner, and if I have to use the internet, I'll come down. I really need to concentrate for my classes this year."
"I'd really rather you did your homework downstairs in the living room with me. You know, just like we've always done."
Just like I had always done. The words closed in around me, like a stiflingly thick blanket and cut off my air supply.
"Sure, Mom," I said quietly. She shot me a worried look. I had to leave the room before I started choking on something far worse than an apple, like the irrational teenage anger she had always warned me against.
Upstairs, I took off my dress and hung it up carefully. I put on some old sweat pants, a baggy sweater, and socks. I hated wearing socks. I loved being barefoot, but Mom worried my feet would get cold, and I would get sick. Never mind that wearing socks on our slippery old wood floors posed a very real hazard to my health.
Trying to take deep breaths and calm myself, I went back downstairs to the living room, where I sat in my usual faded chintz easy chair with my backpack at my feet.
Mom took up her knitting, I picked up my books, and we sat in silence. The only sounds were the tick-tock of the grandfather clock, the clicking of her needles, and the steady patter of the rain.
Trying to relax the tension that had settled in my jaw, I let my thoughts lazily drift to my day, rolling my observations around, refining them.
I thought of Zack, the brother who seemed to do nothing but smile and overwhelm you, like too much sunshine beating down on a hot sidewalk. I strained to keep a straight face so Mom wouldn't notice my thoughts had wandered, but I wanted to smile at the thought of poor Helen having to deal with Zack all semester as a lab partner. His cheerfulness might just drive her mad.
Thinking of Zack inevitably meant thinking of Haley.
I relived, for a moment, the sensation of looking into his eyes. My throat closed up as my heart fluttered, and I could feel a tingling in my lips.
It took several breaths before I was calm enough to tune back into the peaceful scene around me.
Peaceful?
I supposed this was peaceful, sitting here in the silent evening with my mother, listening to the oblique sounds of raindrops and the tinny ticking of the clock. In a few days, I would be eighteen. I thought about that, absently counting eighteen ticks of the clock. Eighteen years I had existed, but there hadn't been a single day when I had truly lived.
The thought was sudden, piercing, painful and utterly frightening. I saw a long stretch of straight road with me and mother, leading nowhere and to nothing. Just endless shifts at the store, quiet evenings at home, and my graveyard garden as my only refuge.
My fingers dug into the book I held, and I forced myself not to flinch. It was almost impossible to restrain myself from revealing some kind of outward sign of the inward upheaval I was going through. It was like thinking you're waking up from a horrible dream and wondering, for that awful split second, if the dream was reality and waking was the dream. Every day of my existence had been the same. Except for today.
Something had happened differently today.
Haley Smith had smiled at me.
He knew I existed.
No matter what happened tomorrow, today, he had known I existed.
For the first time in my life, I saw that there was a choice to be made, that I could actually be the one to make the choices. Even if my mother didn't, I finally recognized my own inner existence, and I promised to free her.
In the dimming light, I sat, lost in thought, with the clicks of clocks and knitting needles.
CHAPTER FIVE
DARK. COLD. Dark. Cold. Dark. Cold.
I woke with a gasp as I scrambled to snatch at the fading sensation of icy fingertips tracing my collarbones.
One blink, two blinks, and it was all gone. I couldn't remember my dream. All I knew now was that I was awake, and the sky was full of heavy, cold clouds.
Shivering in my tank top and pajama bottoms, I slid out of bed and went to stand at the window, watching shades of grey chase each other across the treetops. My feet went from sleep-warm to achingly cold against the wood floor. I liked the sensation of the burning chill against the soles of my feet. I liked the way the needles of pain anchored me to the here and now and chased away the lingering confusion of sleep.
"Time to get up, dear!" Mom called, way too cheerily, through my bedroom door.
And it was back to reality, meaning I had to go to brush my teeth, shower, and disguise myself for another day.
"I'm up," I called back, aiming for equal cheerfulness. "Getting ready!"
***
Mom was especially attentive, observant, and picky that morning with me, probably still suspicious that something was wrong with me after my wanting to study in my room the night before.
"You didn't iron your skirt." "Did you take your vitamins?" "Did you get enough sleep? I can write a note for you to go in late if you didn't." "Finish your oatmeal, it's got lots of fiber and will keep you from being hungry until lunch." "Do you want some more blueberries for your oatmeal? They've got lots of antioxidants." "Let me carry your book bag, it's too heavy for you." "Are you wearing tights? It's cold out today." "Make sure you wait inside until I come pick you up today. I just heard about a girl who was kidnapped while waiting outside of the school for her parents to pick her up."
Just breathing and replying politely became an exercise in s
tillness and self-discipline. Sometimes, my rage was so close to the surface, I felt like it was scorching my throat with all the noise and words that wanted to blast out from my lips.
But, I managed. I always managed.
Teenagers were supposed to yell and fight with their parents. Teenagers were supposed to rebel and be rude. Not Stephanie Starr, though. I was the product of a lifetime of the most loving, well-intentioned conditioning. You can't repeatedly and daily tell someone that they are sensible and mature without her becoming somewhat sensible and mature.
Teenage Stephanie knew that Mom was often wrong and wanted to scream and throw things. Sensible Stephanie knew that Mom also loved her daughter and was just trying to do her best according to what she knew. Mature Stephanie knew that it was better to be respectful and pick her battles. Weak, scared Stephanie had never yet found a battle worth risking the precious little freedom she had.
But maybe, just maybe, there was another Stephanie I could be.
***
Most people hated Mondays. I hated Tuesdays.
Tuesdays meant there were still almost four days to go in the week. Tuesdays meant that there was still plenty of time in the week for lectures, homework, and minor social disasters to happen. Tuesdays also meant a full day of school and a five hour shift at the grocery store.
As I approached my locker, I realized that Tuesday meant I'd have another whole day of trying to avoid Haley and pretending to be happy about it. I cringed, my toes curling in my orthopedic clogs. (Did I know that girls who wore regular flats, that were cut badly and had no support, developed warped feet and suffered neurological damage?) I wanted to see him, and I never wanted to see him again. Whatever happened, I knew I would instantly want the opposite. Go figure.
I took a deep breath and was completely unsurprised to be disappointed when I saw that only Zack was there. Well, not just Zack, technically. It was Zack, surrounded by a chunk of the Gaggle, who were Jordan's best friends. I liked to think of them as an elite Gaggle Guard.
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