My Double Life

  * * *

  Monday morning was abruptly depressing. First of all, I was tired. Second, it was gray and rainy, and I was still used to blue California skies. Third, instead of a driver, I had to get out my one-spoke-is-broken-but-it-still-works-anyway umbrella and dodge puddles and worms on the sidewalk going to school. Then I had to explain to the office that I'd returned for the rest of the school year.

  Hector waved when he saw me, but didn't do anything odd or stalkerish, so I assumed he was back to normal.

  Besides a few of my friends, no one in the hallways even commented on the fact that I'd been absent for so long. It should have felt nice to be invisible for a change, but it didn’t. It was almost heartening when Theresa looked me over while I walked to third-period English and said, "You're back. I guess we’ll need to watch for flying books in the library again.”

  Zoey, one of the Cliquistas, said, "Theresa, you’d better keep an eye on Trevor. Alexia has got some temptress hair going. Maybe she’ll try to steal him.”

  Theresa laughed and said, "What did you do to your hair? I mean, really."

  I ignored her, glad for once I could chalk it up to sour grapes. Between Peter and the salon, my hair still looked great. I also ignored Trevor when he tried to make small talk in physics class. He practically draped himself over my desk, but I figured if he could dump me without explanation before the Sadie Hawkins dance, then I wasn’t required to respond to his flirting. And besides, what sort of guy flirted with me when he was going out with Theresa? They deserved each other.

  At lunchtime Trevor sat at Theresa’s table and they both looked at me, lowered their voices, and then laughed.

  This was the sort of thing I was going to have to endure until graduation. Even though I tried to fight it, my mind kept replaying memories of Grant. The way his eyes crinkled when he laughed. The lilt in his smile when he saw me.

  There's something really depressing in knowing that the happiest moments of your life have all come when you were pretending to be someone else.

  I dreaded last period, when I’d have to see Trevor in world history, but at the end of fifth period, the principal came on the loudspeakers and announced a school-wide assembly. We were to go immediately to the gym. "And I caution you not to skip out,” she said. "Trust me, you don’t want to miss this.”

  Which went to show you how out of touch school faculty was, because I had never been to an assembly that wasn’t worth missing. Still, I found Lori and filed into the gymnasium with the rest of the school.

  Bleachers lined the wall, but the middle of the floor had been partitioned off by gym mats turned on their sides to create a screen. These were being held up by teachers so no one could get a look inside. Our only clue to their content was several electric cords that snaked across the floor. The kids sitting behind me spent their time guessing what the assembly would be about. "Definitely a drug assembly” one said. "We’re going to hear how we'll die penniless, emaciated, and covered with sores in some crack house if we ever try them.”

  "Car safety,” someone else said. "I bet some idiot crashed during lunchtime and now we get a lecture on wearing safety belts."

  I flipped open my calculus notebook and concentrated on my homework. I’d done two problems when the screaming began.

  At first I thought something was wrong. Like maybe the bleachers were collapsing or the gym had caught on fire. Then I saw what everyone was gaping at. The teachers had pulled away the mats, revealing a drummer, two guys on electric guitar, a guy on keyboard, and in front of them, rock sensation Grant Delray.