Her locker was on the same wall as mine.
She glanced at me once and nodded. Her features struck me instantly. She had an ethereal look about her. The white hair and perfectly applied array of gray eye shadow brought out her rounded angelic face. It was as if a painting had come to life in front of me.
I felt so inadequate, so plain.
For a moment, it seemed like she was going to say something, introduce herself, spark up conversation, but instead closed her locker and walked down the long hallway in the opposite direction. She went toward the bright sunlight shining in through the double glass doors at the exit. I could hear a small fashionable chain hitting softly against the back of her jeans as she walked.
~~~
Uncle Carl and Beverlee were both sitting in the den when I got home. The house smelled of pork chops and Macaroni & Cheese.
“So,” Uncle Carl began, “do I need to ask?” He was not too great at the parenting thing, but he was trying.
“What he means to say is,” Beverlee said, “was your first day a good one?”
“Yeah, it was nice.”
“So then you made friends easily?” Uncle Carl added.
“Uhhh, yeah. I didn’t have to eat lunch alone on the first day, so that’s good.”
He just nodded and buried his nose back inside his Scientific American magazine where it felt more comfortable.
“I’m going to...well; I mean if it’s alright, I’d like to go to the skate park with them later.” I wasn’t used to having to ask permission to go anywhere. My mom let Alex and I go wherever we wanted and not because she was an unconcerned parent, she just had no reason to distrust us. We never got into any trouble except maybe that one time we hopped the fence late at night into the water park.
“Sure you can go,” said Beverlee. Her eyes were bright, happy to see I was fitting in. But then the smile faded and she lowered her voice and said, “Maybe you could see if Alex might want to go, too.”
“I’ll ask her,” I agreed, though somehow I had a feeling it would be a wasted effort.
And it was.
“Not interested,” Alex said, sitting on the edge of her bed, staring out the window.
Her room was a disaster. Suitcases were tossed on the floor where clothes and other various things lay scattered around. A plate stained with remnants of last Tuesday’s meatloaf, sat atop her chest of drawers; the fork lying atop the carpet just below. Absently, I counted six bright red SOLO cups sitting upon her nightstand and dresser.
“Well, I just thought you might want to go. Get out of the house for a while.” I remained standing near the door. It was the first time I felt unwelcome in my sister’s room. Secretly I studied her. She wore the same white scoop-neck tee she had on yesterday. The same jeans that used to be mine, but apparently fit her better and so she claimed them last year. Her dark hair was oily and matted and her room didn’t smell all that great. A pair of dirty socks were hidden somewhere nearby, probably stuffed down inside the shoes she wore last.
She had always been more organized than I was; never completely anal about it, but always sort of borderline OCD. This, the way things looked now, was incredibly unlike her.
She never responded to my comment.
I moved further inside the room, stepping over a box that held her Precious Moments collection; each one wrapped carefully in old newspaper. Our great-grandmother had given them to her, one for each birthday up until she died. Normally, that box would be the first thing Alex put away safely. She would never even take the porcelain bisque figurines out to display in her room, she was so afraid they’d get broken. I was surprised to be stepping over them in the middle of a dirty, cluttered floor.
Alex hardly seemed to move and it scared me a little. I began to doubt that she had even blinked once since I walked into the room. Her pale, oval face held no emotion. No anger. No sadness. Absolutely nothing.
I thought changing the subject might help her come around a little.
“Have you talked to mom at all?” I leaned against the dresser.
“No,” she said, still not looking at me.
I hesitated, crossing my arms.
“Well, for what it’s worth,” I said, “you were right.”
Still nothing. I went on.
“I miss Carla and Janelle back home,” I said, “but in a few months Carla will be moving to Texas and Janelle is so into Damon Harmon she hardly notices anyone else.”
Alex brought both hands up and ran them roughly over her face and head, dragging her fingers through her hair. I got the sense she was anxious, trying to hold in whatever she wanted to say, which was probably about not giving a damn about my issues.
Change of topic again. I was getting irritated.
“You know,” I said, “you didn’t have to come here. You could’ve just gone ahead with your plans to move in with Liz and Brandon.”
Finally, Alex looked at me. Just barely. The natural blue of her eyes seemed much darker. Black circles had set in and a red tint outlined the skin around her lower lashes like an infection. Her jaw was pulled into a subtle, yet noticeable hard line as if her teeth were pressed together bitterly. I noticed then that the bruises and the cuts left on her face and neck from the night in Georgia were gone. Hers had been worse than mine, yet I still had a few faint bruises and I thought my mouth would stay sore forever.
“Why did you come, Alex?”
I waited a moment. Alex swallowed hard and looked away from me; her dark bangs fell down around her eyes. “Because you’re my sister,” she said simply, staring toward the window again.
Her answer sparked a tiny bit of hope inside me. It was an opportunity to open her up, though a small one and I didn’t want to let it go. Uncrossing my arms, I bent over and picked the box of Precious Moments figurines up from the floor and went toward her closet, trekking through a bit of everything on my way.
“I’ll put these up for you,” I said as I shoved a mound of sweaters away from the door with my foot. Finally getting the closet door open, I was surprised to see it completely empty inside. Then again, I guess it wasn’t much of a surprise since everything she owned was all over the place. Pushing up on my tiptoes, I carefully slid the box onto the top shelf. A tiny white rope dangled from the ceiling. I reached up and pulled it, clicking the closet light on. I could see the lines on the carpet where Beverlee must have vacuumed before we came here. I had hardwood floors in my room. Apparently, mine was the room Beverlee and Uncle Carl never got around to remodeling. But I didn’t mind so much.
“I can clean your room for you,” I said. “Help you get set up and organized.”
A part of me wanted to see her look over and shake her head at the absurdity of me organizing anything, but the bigger part knew that was wishful thinking.
So, I started cleaning anyway.
I began with the trash: the SOLO cups, various wrappers of snack cakes and plastic grocery store bags. I stacked the dishes into a small pile upon the edge of the dresser, unsurprised I found more dirty plates underneath her bed. Mold was setting in. Embarrassed to let Beverlee see how disgusting Alex had let her dishes get, I couldn’t resist throwing one plate away that a fork had been stuck to, held together by muck and decay.
Alex never said a word. She never looked at me, even when I was standing directly in front of her. Still, it seemed she hadn’t blinked.
In minutes, I had cleared enough out of the floor to make a suitable path from the door to the bed. I filled a laundry basket full of clothes, though most of them had never been worn, but to me they were filthy simply because of the surroundings they had been lying in.
Finally, I was getting overwhelmed, but I think it was more due to her silence than the cleaning.
“What’s wrong with you?” I walked toward the window and sat on the desk chair near it that Alex was using as a closet. It was time to confront her. It had been long enough for her to start dealing emotionally with what happened, but instead she was getting worse. I sti
ll felt bad for her. How could I not? I was there with her when that...beast attacked us and when that man...changed. We both went through the same hell. But I was learning to put it behind me. I was trying to be myself and live my life rather than letting what happened force me to live in fear. Alex was supposed to be the strong one. She was my big sister, the one who had my back if I ever needed her.
Now, she was reduced to...well, someone I didn’t know. I meant it when I said everything about Alex had changed. Her personality, her attitude, even that bright enthusiasm she always carried in her face. It had become something brooding and miserable.
“Please, Alex,” I said when still she refused to acknowledge me. “It scared me too. No, it traumatized me, I admit, but it’s over now and we need to put it behind us.”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” she snapped, still not looking at me.
I took immediate offense.
“I think we should talk about it. You’re not yourself; you’re this rude, selfish hermit. You never come out of your room. You treat Uncle Carl and Beverlee like crap and you won’t even go to school.”
She was getting mad, I could tell right away, but I didn’t care. She needed to hear this.
“You’re gonna get the State coming down on us here too. They don’t need that; we don’t need it. Why can’t you snap out of this?”
Her fists clenched against the sides of her legs, handfuls of the plaid white-and-yellow sheet she sat upon crushed in anger.
“I said,” her emphasis on the word struck me numb, “I don’t want to talk about it, Adria.” Lines around her eyes became noticeable, deepening furiously.
“But—“
“No!” she roared, jerking her head fiercely to look at me. “Please, just stop.”
I paused, stunned. “Fine.”
I closed her bedroom door harder than usual when I left her sitting there. I was done. I was through.
If Alex wanted to talk to me, I would be there to listen when she was ready and when she could be Alex again. I loved and missed my sister, very much, but I wasn’t going to let her ruin this for me. I never really had much time to think about how badly I wanted to get away from home. I was always too worried about mom, but once I was away and could think about myself more, I realized how miserable I truly was in Georgia. At Uncle Carl’s, we had spacious bedrooms overlooking an awesome landscape of trees in the back and a field in the front. The air conditioning worked here, but we didn’t have to use it because the weather was nearly perfect. Beverlee cooked breakfast and dinner every day. She and Uncle Carl were the type that would do just about anything for us. But other than all the material things, what was truly important and made me see the misery was that there was no fighting here. There was no Jeff. I didn’t have to worry about leaving the house to avoid the belligerent idiocy of Jeff Bradley. I didn’t have to fall asleep under a tree in a park alone at night because I didn’t feel safe in my own house. Or worse, catch him peeing off the front porch because he was too drunk to realize he wasn’t standing in front of the toilet.
I thought maybe it was for the best in many ways that we were forced to leave mom. Not only did we have a better home in a better atmosphere, but I hoped that mom would somehow wake up and get away from there, too.
The events that led to all of the changes in my life were another side to my story, the darker secret side I knew I’d not forget easily. Or at all.
I MET UP WITH Harry and the others at the skate park before dark, surprised I found the place as easily as I did. It was a relief when I rode up on the bike Uncle Carl bought for me, to see that I wasn’t the only person without a car. But Harry had a car; music blared from two enormous speakers in the wide-open trunk. Skaters whizzed by on the ramps, the sound of wheels hitting the concrete and metal was loud even over the music. There were only a handful of skaters, outnumbered by those like me who came only to watch and probably had never been on a skateboard.
I had to give Harry credit; as much as skateboarding didn’t appeal to me, it did look like it took a lot of skill.
“Over here!” Harry shouted over the noise.
He jumped down from his board, stepped on the end of it in a fancy, strategic sort of way and the board popped up into his waiting hand.
“Glad you came,” he said, “Wanna try it out?”
“Uhhh, no that's alright,” I declined, though I knew he was mostly joking. “You’re really good though. I couldn’t even begin to understand how to do any of that stuff.”
“Ah, nothing to it,” he said.
“Yeah, right.”
Two guys joined us then and a tiny girl scurried up behind one of them. She forced her hand into his and smiled suspiciously at me, obviously marking her property so the new girl wouldn’t get any ideas. If she only knew how complicated that type of mine was, she could put her worries to ease.
“This is Marc and Evan,” Harry introduced. “And that’s Cecilia,” he added with a furtive, reproaching smirk.
Harry and I shared a knowing look.
“I’m Marc’s girlfriend,” said Cecilia, “cool to meet you.”
“You, too.” I smiled and introduced myself.
“Adria!” Julia came up from behind with Tori and Sebastian following hand in hand.
Unsurprisingly, Tori overdressed for this kind of social gathering; the glittering make-up, pigtails and short pink skirt was awkward against the casual colors and jeans.
“Have trouble finding it?” said Julia.
“No, your directions were perfect.” I smiled.
Julia gestured for me to follow. “Let’s go sit down over here,” she said. “It’s far enough away from the racket, but not too far away we look like snobs.”
I assumed she meant the skateboards when she said ‘racket’.
“Unless...” she paused, raising a brow, “you want to sit closer to the skaters.”
I caught on. “No, no, I think your spot will be great.”
“You sure?” she said, pulling me along. “Evan is hot, and so is Layne; he’s the tall one over there in the Fight Club shirt.”
Tori jumped in, “Julia, I thought you hated Layne?”
“I do, but that doesn’t mean he’s any less hot.”
“Why do you hate him?” I asked.
We came to an area with two stone picnic tables situated in an L-shape next to each other. A park grill stood feet away in the center; remnants of charcoal lay scattered about. A bright red and black sign had been nailed to a nearby tree that read: ‘No Camping’.
“Well, I don’t really hate him,” Julia answered.
“No, she used to date him,” Sebastian said with a twinge of laughter. It caught me off-guard since he hardly ever spoke.
“We never dated.” She stared at Sebastian for an infuriated moment longer. “So anyway, Adria” she finally went on, looking over at me again, “was it just you that moved here?”
Really, the question was just her way to distract everyone from the subject of her and the guy, Layne. And it worked. Suddenly, all eyes were on me and I was stuck tiptoeing around the topic of Alex. But how were they supposed to know that the very mention of her made me uneasy and even a little annoyed? Or, that talking about her only made me think about the night she and I were attacked by a wer...well, by a beast, and that they were making it more difficult to put behind me? Making it more difficult for me to convince myself I was a stable member of society.
“No,” I said, “my older sister, Alexandra, came too.”
I was glad they didn’t probe further.
The first hour at the skate park was fun. I laughed a lot; something I realized I hadn’t done in a long time. I even tried to stay up on Harry’s skateboard, which was an unsuccessful mission in so many ways. Everyone laughed when I fell, but no one made fun of me. Well, except maybe for jealous Cecilia. Her laughter was a bit smugger.
Suddenly our circle got quiet and everyone looked up and toward the street.
“You’ve got to be ki
dding me,” growled Tori.
The muddy Jeep with big tires drove slowly into the skate park. The same three guys were with the spiky-haired blond girl from school. Once again, they were looking in our direction and this time it made me uneasy. I glanced at Julia and then Harry, lastly at Tori and Sebastian, but saw that everyone seemed as perplexed as I was. I had hoped that someone from our group might know what attracted their obvious stares.
“Thank god,” said Tori, as the Jeep pulled away from us and went toward a nearby parking lot instead.
I watched across the long stretch of grass and trees that separated us from them. Pulling into a space, the driver killed the engine and only he and the spiky-haired blond girl got out. Bracing her palms against the hood, the girl hopped up and sat atop it letting her legs hang just over the tire. The driver walked around to the passenger’s side and leaned against the back door, crossing his arms over his chest and his legs at the ankles. Vaguely I could see his lips moving as he spoke, apparently to the guys that still sat in the backseat. I got the strangest feeling. I knew they were watching us, even when they appeared not to be. Quietly I glanced once more over at each of my friends, wondering which one of them could be the reason, which of them knew more than they were letting on.
“Maybe they just want to hang out,” said Harry. “We should ask them.”
Tori’s face scrunched up into an ugly grimace. “Definitely not,” she scoffed. “They look like trash.”
Harry frowned. “What does a trash look like exactly?” He and Sebastian glanced at each other privately, agreeing that she had said something that neither favored. “You’re way too judgmental of people, girl.”
“Whatever, Harry,” Tori snapped back.
I liked Tori—or, maybe I just tolerated her—but I probably would never have befriended her on my own if she wasn’t already part of the group I hung out with. We may have all been pretty diverse, but she was least like the rest of us.
“Have any of you ever talked to them?” I said; my first attempt at obtaining some clues.