And so I chose another.
And another.
And then one more . . .
Until all around us was just music and everywhere else a tight silence . . . a pause, a seeming break in space and time, like the moment between one breath and another . . .
And then, when I’d run out of everything I knew offhand, and Isaac was calm and breathing slowly, I stopped.
“Better?”
“Holy cow,” he said. “You . . . you sing.”
“No, I just know some songs.”
“If you say so. But it helped. Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me yet. I didn’t think they’d hear me, but . . . it’s pretty quiet out there all of a sudden . . .”
“You still helped.” He squeezed my hands; I squeezed back. He hummed a couple of bars from the cello suite, and I smiled at him across the darkness.
And then the door flew open, bringing blazing fluorescent light, colder, fresher air, and faces.
“Oh, look, they’re holding hands,” Elizabeth, queen of the assholes, crowed. She was the big evil, and not the typical two-faced, maybe-dumb, pretty-girl evil—she was viciously smart, preppy, and sporty, with long curly brown hair, fair skin, freckles, and piercing blue eyes. She wasn’t pretty, and she wasn’t trying to be, but she had an amazing laugh and a magnetic personality. She was trying to rule the world, and she would probably succeed. She was the one who’d noticed me in early September and decided to make me her target.
“They had a romantic date,” she sneered now, “and he made her sing.”
Yep, they’d heard me. Uh-oh.
“What’d ya do to make her sing, big boy?” said Zac, Elizabeth’s nightmare boyfriend, yanking Isaac into the hallway and throwing a fake-friendly arm over his shoulders.
“You must have some hot moves to make a girl sing like that,” Elizabeth added. “And you . . . such a songbird.”
“That’s just how she begs for it,” Zac said, and all around them their minions cackled.
“That’s just how she gets her mouth ready,” said one of Zac’s nasty followers, earning screeches of approval.
My eyes met Isaac’s and I could see he was angry, ready to fight. I gave a subtle shake of my head.
Don’t.
If we kept our mouths shut and let them have their stupid jokes, maybe it would be over with nothing worse happening.
Maybe.
“She’s a songbird and they’re lovebirds . . .” continued Zac in the same asinine manner, and because he was Zac, everyone laughed.
But then Isaac broke in with: “Oh come on, that wasn’t even funny.”
Crap. I closed my eyes for a second, and by the time I opened them, Zac’s fist was connecting with Isaac’s gut, and Isaac was going down, kicks and punches landing on him all the way.
“Stop!” I shouted, but no one listened.
“Get up, lovebird,” Zac said, hauling Isaac up from behind and passing him off to two burly guys who’d come forward as if summoned by mind-speak. “Hold him.”
At the same time, someone grabbed me from behind and shoved me forward and up against Isaac.
“Show us, lovebirds,” Elizabeth said. “Show us your love.”
I only came up to just below Isaac’s chin, so I couldn’t see his face.
“How about a big, sloppy kiss? Make your loverboy feel better,” Zac said. “C’mon.”
I’d never kissed anyone, at least not in the romantic sense.
Not that this was—at all—in the romantic sense. It was the opposite of romantic.
I could have refused, or helped myself by saying something nasty to Isaac in that moment, but I was way past being able to do that and still live with myself. So I went up on my tiptoes and gave him a superfast peck, aiming for the lips and landing the kiss half on, half off.
“Tongue, tongue, tongue,” they chanted.
I felt my cheeks heating up and tears prickling at the backs of my eyes. I had no idea how to even do what they were asking and was generally grossed out by the concept and certainly never wanted to try it in front of a group of hostile kids whose sole purpose was to humiliate me.
But they’d already been beating Isaac up, and things might get worse.
“C’mon, songbird.” It was Elizabeth, standing behind me, talking right into my ear. “He’s soooo sexy.”
I tried to shove away from her, but that only brought me closer up against Isaac, who was looking panicked again. If he didn’t like closed spaces, he probably wasn’t dealing well with this chanting, crushing mob, either.
Our eyes met and he said, “Just do it.”
Grim-faced, he leaned down and I got onto my toes again.
The crowd was laughing, jeering, and people were still holding our arms, pushing us together from all sides.
We inched closer and I tried to pretend we were alone, back in the closet.
With music.
Then Zac was there, a hand on the back of each of our heads, and in one powerful move he smashed our faces together and held them there.
Our lips may have met in the process, but so did our teeth, noses, and foreheads.
I was still dazed, head ringing, when he let us go, but then I saw blood coming from Isaac’s left nostril, and the pain and humiliation landed hard.
That’s when I flipped.
It’s a bit of a blur, but I remember a surge of fury and the feeling of my elbows flying and my feet stomping and kicking and I think I may have been screaming. I’m not sure I hurt anyone, but I definitely surprised them . . . and hurt myself, because it turns out kicking and punching people actually hurts the person doing it.
I remember tasting blood in my mouth and then thinking that this was it, I was so dead.
And then the bell rang, and there were teachers coming out of the staff room down the hall, and like magic, everyone disappeared.
Except us. Isaac and I, bruised and dazed, stayed at the end of the hallway.
“Are you okay?” I asked him. “Of course not—you’re bleeding. I’m taking you to the nurse.”
“I need to get to geography.”
“Seriously, you’re worried about class?” I wrapped an arm around him and propelled him along the corridor.
“Well . . . yes,” he said, huffing along beside me “This stuff happens to me all the time. Not exactly this, I guess. Anyway, it’s not going to stop me from going to class.”
“It is today,” I said, as we arrived in front of the closed office door.
“Wait, Ingrid,” Isaac rasped. “You can’t tell him. How this happened, I mean.”
“Uh, yeah, my death wish only goes so far.”
Mr. Moore, the school nurse, cool-looking in red jeans and a coordinating red-and-burnt-orange button-down, took one look at Isaac and ushered him into the outer office.
“You need me, too?” Mr. Moore asked me, looking me over and then meeting my eyes with an assessing gaze.
“I’m fine.”
“You want to tell me what happened?”
“He ran into a door,” I said.
“Huh. All right.” He didn’t believe me, but I guess he could tell that was all I was going to say. “Get to class, then.”
I gave an encouraging smile to Isaac, waved, then spun away, moving as fast as I could without breaking into a run. I made it to my locker, put everything I could fit into my backpack, shoved my coat on, walked down the hallway, pushed my way out the doors, and let the November wind freeze my tears on the long walk home.
I wasn’t going to spend another second in that school, and it would be three years before I saw Isaac again.
I was lucky, when I told Mom in no uncertain terms that I would never go back to that school, to have Andreas around. We were at an impasse. Mom was unwilling to pull me out of school without another s
chool lined up, and half determined that I should go back and gut it out regardless, and I was desperately trying to hold my ground despite having no viable alternative plan of my own.
Andreas, however, was an incorrigible fixer. It wasn’t just what he did in his coaching business; it was who he was. Because of this, he had a lot of connections. And it so happened that Andreas knew of a school—a very special school—and Mom agreed that we could at least check it out.
Godark Academy is housed in a former church that was later converted into a building with two theaters, and finally into a school. It is a crumbling gothic folly, drafty and creaky, with an old heating system that produces “boiling,” “freezing,” and nothing in between, and it holds a corner of the West End with ghostly charm.
It’s an alternative public school with a smallish student population all in grades six through twelve. Entrance was via lottery and then interview, but Andreas knew the principal and thought he might get me in via a “humanitarian” plea.
“What, like I’m a refugee?”
“Like you are a very special person to me,” he said.
My throat tightened. It was a big thing for him to say.
Upon entering the lobby I gazed up and up, eyes landing on stained-glass windows. I felt the gray stone walls rising up around me, the many-bulbed chandelier floating eerily in the space above. I breathed in and out, feeling the musty, old-book-scented air drop deep into my lungs, soothing me.
It felt like Hogwarts on a budget.
It felt like a downtrodden opera house.
It felt like home.
I stood, my feet on the stone-tiled floor, and wished to sprout roots so I could stay.
I glanced up at Mom, wondering if this was evoking the past for her, too, and if so, whether it would be in a good way, or not.
“I believe the rate of university acceptance upon graduation is quite high,” Andreas murmured, seeming to know already what would hold the most weight for Mom. Her attitude toward the arts—all of them—had taken a big hit since we moved to Canada, and in every conversation we’d had about education and career, she had stressed practicality and stability. I was to get fabulous marks and plan for a smart career. Andreas had obviously taken this in.
“Ninety-six percent university acceptance, actually,” replied a smooth new voice.
I turned to discover the voice came from a white-haired, swan-like personage of difficult-to-determine gender, whom Andreas introduced as Rhea. (Ray-uh. I soon realized she was a she.) “Rhea is Head of School—the principal, in other words.”
I watched Mom as she and Rhea shook hands and studied each other, each seeming to sense some kind of je ne sais quoi in the other.
There was to be a tour and a description of the curriculum and philosophy of the school, and then an interview. I didn’t need a tour. I would have taken any school besides the one I was in. But as we went through, popping in and out of various classrooms and so on, I got all good vibes. Students waved at us and smiled at me, and even visually, there was diversity here; a variety of races, plus people didn’t all dress the same, or do their hair the same, et cetera.
I was transferred within the week, and matched with a “buddy” on my first day.
“The buddy thing sounds cheesy, but it’s cheesy on purpose,” said my “buddy,” a girl named Juno, with carrot hair and giant green eyes. “Basically Rhea’s picked me to be your insta-friend. And she’s a good judge of character, so there’s an excellent chance we’ll get along.”
“That’s . . . okay; that’s good,” I said.
“Rhea has an instinct. She can do friendship voodoo, in a good way.”
“Great.” I liked Juno. I could tell she was smart, and she had a bluntness that I appreciated. I so badly wanted to make a good impression, which meant I had to figure out a way to be friendly, cool, and not desperate.
“I’m responsible for your having a smooth start. My job is to introduce you around, help you get oriented, and make sure nobody messes with you.”
“Messes with me?” I must have looked panicked, because Juno started shaking her head.
“No, no, like, someone might give you the wrong directions on purpose or whatever—stupid things, trying to be funny. But they won’t. And don’t worry; it’s not like you have to stay friends with me if you don’t want to.”
“No, I . . . I want to. I mean, if you want to.”
“Of course. But I mean, although so far I like you quite a lot, I won’t be heartbroken.”
“Does everyone get assigned someone like this? Or is it . . .” Just the freaks who’ve been pariahs at other schools . . . ? I knew Andreas had told Rhea everything he knew and I hoped she would keep it private and I could have a fresh start.
“Anyone new, and anyone who starts late,” Juno said.
“Oh, good. All right. And thank you.”
“By the way, you have to be ready, if we’re going to be friends, to help me deal with some boy drama,” she says.
“Boy drama? Like a boyfriend?”
“No.” Juno made a face. “A boy who’s a friend—my best friend, growing up, but he’s been weird since, I don’t know, last year? He’ll be acting normal one minute, and like he doesn’t even know me the next—you know, pretending he’s too cool for me. And I will not tolerate that garbage from a boy I used to play dress-up with. So I’ll be like, ‘Toff, I’ve seen you naked a hundred times and you once pooped in my bathwater!’ right in front of his friends, which embarrasses him almost to death, which causes him to act like even more of a jerk toward me.”
“Wow,” I said, not sure whether to laugh. “So what do you need from me? Talk to him when you’re talking to him, ignore him when you’re not?”
“Sure. And . . .”
“And . . . ?”
“If he ever says anything about me . . .”
“I doubt he’s going to talk to me, but of course I would report back to you if he ever did,” I said, hoping this was what she wanted.
And it must have been, because Juno smiled, then suddenly reached out and gave me a hug, and I hugged her back and tried not to cry from relief.
SMOKED
(Peak Wilderness, Days Three to Six)
Dear Mom,
I have massacred many mosquitoes by now.
And yet the bites are so numerous, I’m not sure my skin will ever recover.
Meanwhile, I’m sure you’re concerned about what happened to my wet things—my undies and bra in particular. Like, did they dry, are they off the stick and no longer making an inappropriate spectacle of themselves, are they clean, am I wearing them now? Admit it—you are obsessed.
Before bed, Pat gave me a small piece of canvas and together we hung it over some low branches in a less windy spot, back from the beach. Under that I rigged my stick drying rack so that everything could hang overnight (not including the sleeping bag, which I obviously needed) without fear of rain or dew making them all wet again.
Last night was cold, though, and this morning everything is still damp. (Don’t even talk to me about sleeping in the wet sleeping bag.)
But let me tell you about campfires, Mom, because I don’t believe you’ve ever encountered one up close.
Yes, they are hot, with warming and drying capabilities.
You know what else campfires are?
Smoky.
And do you remember what else was happening around that campfire last night?
Smoking.
At the time I was in the midst of it, and therefore desensitized.
This morning, though, my sense of smell is working at full capacity.
So.
Consider that while I did my best washing everything, all I had to work with was a small bar of biodegradable soap. Consider the socks and underwear that I hiked in, slept in, sprayed bug spray in and around for two days.<
br />
And the other set that sat wet and moldering in my pack in the hot sun most of the day yesterday? Consider that.
And then imagine how these items smell this morning, after being fire-and-stinky-herbal-cigarette-smoked last night.
Imagine putting these items on under cold, damp clothing, and then imagine the smell of them, wafting up from your feet, chest, and nether regions. It is a unique stench, and quite inescapable, like wearing an inferno, and not the Disco kind.
Imagine how this will develop today, as, for example, my feet get sweaty.
Meanwhile, Bonnie, trying not to choke when she comes near me, has suggested that for the purposes of airing the other pair of underwear out—the ones I’m not wearing—I hang them on the outside of my backpack for the day.
So, yes, I have mounted my undies like a flag on the back of my pack.
You know, in case anyone failed to get a good look at them last night.
Smoked love,
Ingrid
I wake feeling dreadful on Day Three. I’ve barely slept. I was awake shivering and shaking, cycling from furious to scared to confused and back, and trying not to let panic overtake me. It’s been here all along, but I’ve been fighting it off. Now, however, with every muscle in my body aching, with everything stinking and wet, myself included, with my every action under scrutiny—of the emotionally intrusive kind by Bonnie and Pat, of the uncomfortable kind by people like Jin and Tavik, and of the creepy kind by Peace-Bob—I’m losing the fight. I am too tired even to fight, so I am just losing.
And there’s no out. We’re in the middle of nowhere, days of hiking from civilization, so even if I wanted to renege on my deal with Mom, it’s impossible. I’m trapped.
After having my morning pee in the woods and getting dressed, I sit down to write to Mom about the smoked undies, bra, and socks. The angry bite of these letters I’ll never send has been oddly grounding. (Maybe they’re written in my true voice, in which case my true self is a sarcastic bitch.) Today it doesn’t help much, but I do it anyway. And then, as I close the journal and tie the leather straps and look up at the sky, I feel, again, like everything is closing in on me. My heart races. I start to shake again, then tell myself I cannot do this, cannot fall apart, because if I do that out here, with a bunch of strangers who don’t give a crap about me, I’m toast.
Everything Beautiful Is Not Ruined Page 10
