My heart pounds, and I feel sick to my stomach. I imagine the photos on her lap. Maybe there’s one of Theo, age five, being swung in the air between his parents. We have that picture in our before album. My mom on the right, my dad on the left, me in the middle, caught right at magic liftoff. I am smiling so big you can see that I’m missing a tooth. Did my dad show Rachel our pictures? Hand over everything—our entire history—just like that?
My eyes fill with tears, though I fight them. I’m not sure why I feel like crying. Suddenly, everything feels irrevocably broken in that way it can in the middle of night when you are alone. In that way it can when you are watching your father comfort his new wife. In that way it can when you too are hurting but there’s no one there to comfort you.
I walk backward, a silent moonwalk, a trip that feels so much longer going back than it did coming. I pray that they don’t see me, pray that I can get away before they start kissing. I cannot watch them kiss. When I finally get to the stairs, I force myself to go up slowly and noiselessly, one at a time. I force myself not to run away as fast as my creepy bunny slippers will take me.
CHAPTER 7
Day 15: better and worse and maybe better. Sun still shines with relentless aim and glare. My classmates are still fancy-pants, and the girls still somehow look more mature than me, more confident. As if sixteen years adds up to more out west than it does where I come from.
The humiliation begins early, in class. Good, I think. Bring it on. Let’s get this over with. Maybe I am my dad’s daughter after all. An optimist.
“The Gap is so pleb, don’t you think?” Gem asks her wonder twin, of course in reference to my jeans, though I have no idea what she means. Pleb, short for “plebian”? As in my pants are those of the common folk? Well, yes, yes they are. As are my Costco undies, which I’m tempted to pull down so she can kiss my ass.
The anger sharpens my wits, makes me want to advance rather than retreat. I will not engage with these girls. I’m not strong enough for that. But I will turn to Adrianna, who is sitting next to me, because, screw it, no time like the present to make an ally. I ignore my burning face, refuse to turn to see if the Batman overheard anything, and pretend I don’t notice that anyone was talking about me.
“I like your glasses,” I say, just a tad above a whisper. Adrianna blinks a few times, as if deciding about me, and then smiles.
“Thanks. I ordered them online, so I was a little nervous.” There is something about her tone, quiet, like mine, that’s inviting. Not overly loud, not that teenage-girl voice that everyone else seems to use to demand notice. She has brown hair tied back in a bun that looks purposely messy, big charcoal-lined brown eyes, and bright red lipsticked lips. Pretty in the aggregate, the sum somehow adding up to much more than each individual part. “You really like them?”
“Yeah. They’re Warby Parker, right? They make neat stuff.” I hear Gem and Crystal giggle in front of me, maybe because I used the word “neat.” Whatever.
“Yup.” She smiles and gives me an ignore them look. Bitches, she mouths.
I smile and mouth back, I know.
—
After class, I gather the courage to tell the Batman that we’re going to have to de-partner, that I’m not willing to risk breaking Wood Valley’s honor code just because he doesn’t know how to play well with others. I am feeling brave today, empowered by having introduced myself to Adrianna and by not cowering before the blond-bimbo squad. Or maybe it’s that for the first time since I moved to LA, I ate something other than peanut butter on toast for breakfast. Regardless, I will be immune to the Batman’s cute-boy voodoo.
Not my type, I tell myself just before I march up to his usual spot by the Koffee Kart.
Not my type, I tell myself when I see him in all his black-and-blue glory, as tender as a bruise.
Not my type, for real, I tell myself when it turns out I have to wait in line behind a group of girls who are traveling five strong, like lionesses, one the obvious leader, the rest her similarly dressed minions. All the type to skin you alive and suck on your bones.
“E, tell me you’re coming on Saturday,” the leader, a girl named Heather, says, not at all dismayed by the Batman’s dismissive hug or the fact that he keeps glancing down at his book. Not Sartre today. Dracula, actually, which is both awesome and seasonally appropriate reading, considering we are nearing Halloween.
Not my type, not my type, not my type.
“Maybe,” he says. “You know how it is.”
Generic words arranged in such a way as to say absolutely nothing. Impressive in their nothingness. I’m not sure I could say less in as many words, even if I tried.
“For sure, Ethan,” one of the other girls says. Her name is Rain or Storm. Maybe Sky. Definitely something meteorologically related. “So, like, yeah, we’ll see you then, then.”
“Yeah,” he says, and this time he just gives up the act completely. Starts reading right in front of them. His energy sapped.
“Okay, well, bye!” Heather smiles her best smile—perfect teeth, of course, since LA is the land of the porcelain veneer. I Googled “veneers” last night and found out they cost at least a thousand dollars a tooth, which means her mouth cost five times more than my car.