“That’s what I thought would happen,” I said. “It was so awful. I felt like a moron.” I stared down at my hands, clasping and unclasping them in my lap. I could feel my mother studying my face.
Finally she said, “Mrs. Spangler was very disturbed, I think. I don’t think she understood that you were laughing because you were uncomfortable, or nervous, or whatever it was.”
I looked up, startled. “Why else would a person laugh about that? It was horrible! Does she think I’m a psycho or something?”
My mother touched my hand. “Mrs. Spangler doesn’t matter. Of course you’re not a psycho,” she said, smiling. “I just wanted to talk to you about that. Your dad and I weren’t sure if we should say anything about it.”
“You should have talked to me about it earlier!” I said. “All summer you guys have been walking around here thinking I’m insane?”
“Not quite,” she said, laughing. “Okay. But I feel better about it now, and you’re right, we should have asked you sooner. Now go ahead and call your friends.”
I wonder how Mom would have reacted if I had told her how exciting the whole thing had been. How I had thought about it since and laughed even more. Or about how I secretly had a fantasy, deep in a dark place inside myself, where I imagined showering someone with my own blood. The way they would fear it, the disgust and horror, the way they would scream as I poured and smeared and slathered my unknown, alien blood all over them. This was so exciting I could barely even admit it to myself, and the thought of communicating it to my mother almost made me start laughing all over again. Luckily, I managed to hold it in.
xXx
I suppose it was around this time that I started nurturing my desire to be feared. I wanted to surprise people who underestimated me, and rather than simply impress them, I wanted them to regret having felt that way. I became fixated on that moment of realization — whether it was the look on the guy’s face from that concert after I had punched him, when his eyes widened and his hands caught his own blood, when he realized that I had done it to him, or the way the coffee shop customer’s eyes had registered that same fear as I wiped blood on him, or even Brandi staring at me in horror. I wanted to inspire fear and revulsion in people who tried to undermine me. I wanted to watch their opinion of me change, read it in their eyes. The fantasy of covering some judgmental asshole with a bucket of my blood was definitely appealing to me. I wanted disgust and fear and for them to know that I was in control. I had no outlet for any of this, of course, and I had a tour to plan for.
xXx
At that point we had barely two weeks to get ready. We rehearsed a bunch of times, of course, even though we all knew the songs. Every time I saw Fern, whether it was at rehearsal or to go shopping or have tea, her hair was another shade lighter. She had obviously tracked down Pegasus hair bleach. I redyed mine, as well, and carefully picked out four different outfits that would all look awesome. This was going to go well. It had to. We were going to be killer onstage.