Goth Girl Rising

by Barry Lyga

  "You need to get going," he says.

  "Jesus Christ! I'm almost ready!" Which is a total lie, but whatever.

  I can almost hear the gears turning in his head on the other side of the door. On the one hand, he totally doesn't trust me to get ready and go to school on my own. On the other hand, he's thinking, Haven't I lost enough time at work already because of her?

  So the other hand beats the one hand and Roger leaves. Excellent.

  I scrounge around in his bathroom for his shaving stuff. But Roger now uses an electric razor. Damn! Doesn't he know I could just get a knife or something from Simone or Jecca or someone else at school? What does he really think he's accomplishing here?

  So I have to do a little better. I have to think this through.

  First of all, I have to get rid of school, so I use my favorite trick: I log on to Roger's e-mail account and send an e-mail to the Spermling:

  Roland,

  I've decided to keep Kyra home today. We had something of a breakthrough last night and I'll be staying home from work as well to work through it with her. Thanks for your understanding, and I'm sorry again about the incident at school.

  Roger

  Classic. The Spermling has never even noticed that I set the e-mail to respond to my account, not Roger's. So I'm the one who gets the "Roger, no problem, thanks for letting me know, hope everything works out" bullshit that the Spermling always sends back.

  So now I'm free for the day. Excellent.

  I can do a lot in a day.

  First, I need a car.

  How I Steal Cars

  IT'S ACTUALLY NOT AS TOUGH as you'd think. Most of the time, you can just rely on people's stupidity.

  The first time I stole a car, it was a crime of opportunity. I was at the mall, waiting for my dad to pick me up, and I saw a car parked off all by its lonesome. I wandered by and saw that the keys were in the ignition. I figured that the owner must have locked his keys in the car, because who would be so effing stupid that they'd leave their car keys in the ignition and the door unlocked, right?

  But for some reason I tried the door. And it opened right up.

  And then it was like I couldn't help myself. I couldn't stop myself. I didn't even look around. I just slid into the driver's seat like I belonged there and started the car.

  And for the first time ... For the first time in a long time, I felt great.

  I feltin control.

  I drove that car all around the parking lot. I weaved in and out of spots, threading the other cars. Roger had been teaching me to drive with Mom's old car even though I was only fourteen at the time. He claimed he wanted to get me "ready early," but I knew the truth. He was trying to buy my love and my caring and my giving a shit by putting me behind the wheel. Tempting me with the promise of a learner's permit and eventually a license.

  So I knew how to drive pretty well and I just hauled ass around that parking lot until it occurred to me that a mall cop might pull me over. I parked the car on the other side of the mall. I left the keys in the ignition, but I locked all the doors before I left.

  Some people need to learn the hard way, you know?

  The second car I stole was my mom's.

  She was dead, but we still had the car and Roger promised me I could have it when I was old enough to drive. So I figured I wasn't really stealing it—I was borrowing it from my future self, which totally ought to be cool, in my book.

  Roger was out somewhere, so I opened the garage door and just drove that sucker all over town. And again—in control.

  After that, it's like the effing universe was just begging me to steal cars.

  Everywhere I went, it was like I was noticing people leaving their doors unlocked or their keys in the car or both. It happens a lot. It's just that most people don't notice it. But it also confirmed something I've always believed, which is this: Most people are idiots.

  So, getting into cars is easy. Even if people don't leave a door unlocked, it's pretty easy to slim-jim a lock.

  Getting them started is tougher. New cars are the worst because they're all protected and shit. Older cars, though, like ones from the eighties, they're pretty easy. You can hotwire them or you can actually rip out the whole ignition and put in your own. That's kind of cool, but it takes a while and it's tough. I've done it a couple of times and I always end up banging my knuckles with the slide hammer. I learned all of these cool tricks from this repo man on the Web.

  When I'm really desperate, I sneak onto a used-car lot, find some old eighties piece of crap, and swipe it. I'm always real careful to wipe everything down when I leave, too, so that I don't leave any fingerprints. But here's the thing—I always return the cars. I drop them off in a parking lot or car sales place or something. So it's not like I'm stealing them forever or anything. I'm just borrowing them for a while.

  That's all.

  I guess technically I'm not supposed to do it. But if that's the case, then why the hell is it so damn easy?

  Twenty-four

  I COVER MY HEAD WITH A SCARF because right now if I go out in public the way I look, someone will probably try to cart me right back to the hospital.

  I feel conspicuous looking for a car to jack in broad daylight. I can't take Mom's car because Roger caught me with it once and now he checks the odometer. So I have to steal one. There's a little shopping center about a half a mile up Route 54, so I head there. Even this early in the day, there are plenty of cars.

  I mosey around the parking lot a little bit, checking out the insides of the cars. I'm looking especially for baby seats in the back. Moms are always freaked out that they're going to lock themselves out of the car with the rugrat trapped inside, so there's a good chance they'll have one of those magnetic key boxes with a spare.

  Sure enough, I find a sedan with a car seat and a key box in the driver's side wheel well. I look quickly—no one's around.

  This is the toughest moment. You just have to commit at this point. I mean, I could get royally screwed if Mommy suddenly comes out of the store and I'm climbing into her car. But I could be equally screwed if I just stand here waiting to get busted.

  I don't get all excited or anything in these moments. It's not like in the books: "Her heart raced!" or whatever. Nah, I get real calm. I figure whatever happens, happens. I just get this peace that flows through me.

  And then I unlock the car and climb in and slam the door.

  The key slides into the ignition. I bite my lip and turn it. You're only supposed to put special keys in those boxes, keys that only unlock the car and don't work the ignition. This way people like me can't steal your car.

  But most people—like the people who own the car I'm in—don't bother getting the special key. They just make a dupe of their regular key. The car starts up on the first try, and I ease it out of the parking space and out of the parking lot, and then I'm gone, and my heart feels warm like it does when Jecca kisses me.

  Twenty-five

  THE WOMAN WHO OWNS THIS CAR has shitty taste in music. Her CDs all suck, so I blast the radio instead, which is only a little bit better.

  I go to the mall. I park in the most inconvenient place I can find so that it's less likely anyone will be around to see me when I leave. When I get out of the car, I take off my scarf to wipe off the steering wheel, the door handle, the gearshift, and the radio knobs.

  I toss her CDs in the trash. Trust me, I'm doing her a favor.

  OK, it's officially weird to be at the mall during a school day. Because there's no one here worth seeing or talking to. It's all old people. I don't mean parent old. I mean, like, grandparent old. Maybe even great-grandparent old. Why do old people even come to the mall?

  I go buy a new razor and some blades. That's only twenty bucks, so I still have money to spend and God knows when I'll get back here. So I should spend it now, right? I should get some clothes to match my new look.

  On my way to my usual store (all black, all the time), something in a window catches my eye. It's
a display for some new store, and I guess I notice it because the manikins in the window are all bald. They don't have fake hair or anything, so they kind of look like what I'm going to look like as soon as I get home and shave off the rest of this stuff.

  Anyway, I stand there for a minute, looking at the display, and then I go in and I try some stuff on and I buy it. It's a totally new look for me. The guy at the counter looks at me a little weird, like, "Why are you buying this?" but he just rings me up and then I'm done.

  I still have about fifteen bucks left, so I go to the music store and poke around in the bargain bin until I find a CD that has a few decent songs. I take it back to "my" car and put it in the CD player. Then I wipe everything down again, lock the car, and put the key back. Too risky to drive this back to where I found it—by now, Mommy has called the cops, I bet.

  So I wander the parking lot, looking for another car to swipe so that I can drive home.

  Twenty-six

  AT HOME, I LAY OUT my new outfit. Weird. How am I going to look in this?

  I stare in the mirror as I unwind the scarf from my head. I'm all knobby and gross. It's worse than I remember from just a few hours ago. Gotta take care of that.

  I unpack the razor and the blades at the sink in the bathroom. I try not to think of the way the blade felt on my wrists. It was years ago, but I can still feel it. It's like it happened yesterday. It's like I could look over my shoulder and I would be standing there, the me of then, the me of ago, standing right there, smiling up at me while blood ran down her palms and dripped off her fingertips.

  I look into the mirror, but there's no one behind me. I'm all alone.

  "Are you there, Despair?" I ask the mirror, because in Sandman, that's where Despair lives—in a world behind all the mirrors in the world. It should be creepy to think that some pale fat chick who likes to cut herself is living on the other side of the mirror, watching me all the time, but it's actually OK. It's sort of nice not to be alone all the time.

  So I snap a blade into the handle and before I can think about it any more, I work on finishing what I started before and pretty soon my head is totally naked and totally smooth and I only nicked myself once just above my left ear.

  Wow.

  I'm a total chrome-dome.

  I look like...

  Like...

  Fanboy's voice pops in my head for some reason: "Professor X."

  Ugh.

  No. Not some stupid comic book character. It reminds me of—

  Bendis.

  Looking in the mirror, imagining him, it's like a few months ago, when I saw him at the comic book convention, where he rejected Fanboy and I taught him a lesson. My eyes are all wide and surprised by myself, surprised the way Bendis was when I flashed him and scared him and made him run away.

  Great. Bendis. What the eff. I'm obsessing about him, just like Fanboy does.

  Stop it, Kyra. Stop thinking about it. About him. About them. Just stop it.

  This is why I tried to ... This is why I tried to go away. Why I tried to make it all end. Because I couldn't stop thinking, no matter how much I wanted to. No matter how much I tried I couldn't stop thinking about

  The Last Time I Saw Her

  the room the room the room is rosevomit because

  roger left roses and

  mom threw up before i came in

  perfect timing

  ("Honey?" she said

  In that clouded, confused way.)

  cancer had eaten a path to her brain

  yum-yum cancer loves brains

  like zombies

  eat her memory

  she has trouble remembering me

  remembering the year

  (When I was eight years old, I

  Had the stomach flu

  And threw up in the kitchen

  And then in the hallway

  And then twice in the bathroom

  —Only hitting the sink once)

  i should understand

  but I can't

  Fluvomit does not equal rosevomit

  Twenty-seven

  I SHAKE MY HEAD AT MYSELF. I imagine Despair laughing at me through the mirror. Well, no. Not this time, bitch. I'm not giving into you or to little-d despair.

  So I try on my new outfit and look at myself in the mirror and it's totally unreal. It's like I'm another person. With my white makeup on, it's like I'm already dead. It's like I really am a ghost now.

  See, the outfit I bought is totally, purely white.

  It's the complete opposite of everything I normally wear. The shirt is this high-necked thing with a little collar and the sleeves have buttons halfway to the elbow. I love it. It comes all the way to my chin, practically, and there's no chance in hell of any cleavage ever showing. And with the sleeves buttoned all the way, my scars will never show, either.

  Just to be safe, though, I put on a whole bunch of white rubber bracelets.

  The pants are white jeans. They're a little tight, but they fit fine. I even have white sneaks and socks that I dug up from my closet. It's all awesome. I look like some kind of pissed-off angel or something. Final touch is my reverse-smiley button. It's the only bit of color anywhere—the black background and yellow eyes and mouth. But I have to wear it. I always wear it.

  I walk around the house, checking myself out in every mirror. The only thing that doesn't work is my black lipstick, so I wipe it off and use the only other color I have: a deep blood red.

  God. That's it. That's perfect.

  I've lost the Bangs of Doom, but it was a sacrifice worth making. Because, I mean, I honest-to-God only know it's me in the mirror because I know it's me. But it's like looking at another person entirely. The shirt doesn't hide my boobs as well, but it's like for the first time ever, I don't care. Because it's not me in the mirror. It's someone else.

  For some reason, that makes me really, really happy.

  Twenty-eight

  ROGER COMES HOME A LITTLE while later and walks into the kitchen, where I'm getting something to drink.

  "Kyra, are you—"

  I turn around. He's staring at me, whatever he was going to say forgotten. Now that I'm facing him completely, he just stands there, his jaw working, no sound coming out.

  Thud.

  His briefcase, dropped. It lies there on its side next to him. He just keeps staring.

  It's pretty cool. He's totally spazzing.

  "Kyra, what the ... What the hell?"

  "What the hell what?" Like there's nothing new.

  "What did you do?"

  "This? You're the one always saying I should wear more than just black."

  "Not that! Your head! Your goddamn head!" He's shaking.

  "Oh. That." I touch it. It feels slippery—I rubbed some moisturizer on it before. "Do you like it?"

  His jaw works again—open, close, open, close. His eyes bug.

  "Go to your room."

  What? Did he really say that?

  "Go to your room," he says again.

  "Bite me. I can shave my head if—"

  "Go to your room!" he screams, and spit flies from his mouth and his face is all red and veiny. "Go! Now! Go to your goddamn room this instant!"

  What the hell?

  Fine.

  Like I care.

  I was going back there anyway.

  I take my soda and I go to my room and I slam the door super hard, just to make my point. Eff him. Eff him up his stupid ass. I can shave my head. It's my head. He can't make me do what he wants me to do. He doesn't own me. He can't control me. Effhim. I hate him. God, I hate him.

  I'm glad I hate him. It feels good.

  So why am I crying all of a sudden? I don't get it.

  Online

  simsimsimoaning: were were u 2day

  Promethea387: Home. I needed a mental health day.

  simsimsimoaning: lol u go grl

  Promethea387: Did I miss anything? (Yeah, right.)

  simsimsimoaning: no

  simsimsimoaning: bio w
as boring, english sucked, math = teh worst

  simsimsimoaning: u back 2morrw?

  Promethea387: Probably. I want to get out of here. I need a mental

  health day from THIS place now.

  simsimsimoaning: roflmao!

  simsimsimoaning: want 2 com her e2night?

  Promethea387: Better not. The Pirate is pissed.

  simsimsimoaning: arr matey

  simsimsimoaning: jolly roger is ANGRY

  Promethea387: Screw him.

  simsimsimoaning: yuk no ur dad is NOT hot

  simsimsimoaning: lol

  simsimsimoaning: :)

  xXxjeccatheGIRLxXx is joining the chat

  xXxjeccatheGIRLxXx: do u think brad likes me?

  Promethea387: Hello to you, too.

  simsimsimoaning: totally

  xXxjeccatheGIRLxXx: he ignored me 2day n bio

  simsimsimoaning: hes totally nto u