A quick wisp of a smile comes and goes.
“When you want breakfast, let me know.”
He backs out of the room and closes the door behind him.
I press my eyes closed, and see red paint on the backs of my eyelids.
I blink—blink—blink—
Until the crimson splashes fade from my sight,
Replaced by the kindness and understanding I saw in my father’s eyes.
He loves me, I know.
He’s letting me get away with a lot, I know.
I have a very, very good dad, I know.
For the first time,
The thought of love doesn’t raise more questions than answers.
“I CAN DO THIS,”
I coach myself as I turn down
Copper Hills Drive toward the school.
Dad gave me one day to lie in bed;
I didn’t ask for more, but
This Wednesday feels off,
Like a meteor could hit the earth, or
The Yellowstone volcano could erupt, or
I could see Harris.
I pull into the parking lot.
Kill the engine.
Stare at the streams of students as they move toward the door,
Get swallowed by the school.
My heart flutters;
My stomach flips;
I can’t breathe.
Somehow I force myself out of the car and
Toward the school.
“…Winging,” someone says
To my right.
I ignore them and
Keep going.
With my foot on the first step,
An arm lands across my shoulders.
“Hey, Liv.”
Joey MacNamara leers at me,
His fingers gripping my shoulder
In that possessive gesture
I warned Trevor not to do in his picture.
“Hey.”
I try to shrug away from him, but
He’s too strong.
“Want my number?” he asks as we enter the building.
“Maybe we can catch a movie later.”
He chuckles. “I heard you and Harris really liked movies.”
Humiliation burns through my body.
I wonder if one of the Sharpie messages
I didn’t see said something about our make-out sessions
During movies, or
If Joey saw us once.
“Jerk.” I elbow him in the stomach, and
He drops back,
His laugh loud among the noise in the hall.
DON’T CRY, DON’T CRY, DO NOT CRY.
I coach myself all the way to my locker,
Managing to avoid another encounter with
Any overly-hormonal guys.
I hear my name plenty of times,
Along with “slut,” and
“Whore,” and
“Bitch.”
I try to ignore them, but
I can’t seem to get my locker open.
I smell the fresh paint,
Can still see the sprayed-on words,
Try to quiet my fingers as they shake.
I finally get the latch to release.
An avalanche of folded notes fall
To the floor when I open the locker door.
They’re all written in red pen and
Black Sharpie.
“FUNNY.”
Jacey swipes away as many of the notes as she can, but
There’s so many,
They’re everywhere.
I see my name.
See those horrible things Harris painted on the lockers.
See phone numbers,
Guy’s names, and
Crude drawings.
Jacey stands next to me,
Scooping the remaining notes out of my locker, but
I bend down and pick one up.
YOU ARE A TERRIBLE PERSON,
The note says,
Written in Sharpie.
Harris is a great guy.
You don’t deserve him, and
He didn’t deserve what you did to him.
It’s unsigned, but
Clearly a girl’s handwriting.
“I WAS WRONG.”
I drop the note and
Turn away from my locker.
“I can’t do this.”
“WINGS! WAIT!”
Trevor’s voice cuts through the laughter,
The pounding of my pulse as I sprint down the hall, and
The sound of the tardy bell.
I don’t wait.
I don’t go to class.
I don’t care.
“DAD, CAN YOU CALL IN AND EXCUSE ME?”
I stop my car at a red light, wishing he’d picked up, but
Maybe my tears will be obvious over the voice mail.
“I just can’t go today.
I’ll try again tomorrow.”
Maybe, I think as I hang up.
The light turns green, but
I feel like I have nowhere to go.
“LET’S JUST SEE WHAT SHE SAYS,”
Mom whispers from the kitchen,
Causing me to pause at the bottom of the stairs.
Dad answers in his lower timbre,
Words I can’t hear.
He’d warned me Mom would be joining us for dinner, and
The fact that Rose left with Gramma-Linda twenty minutes ago does not escape me.
“Hey,” I say, rounding the corner and entering the kitchen.
Dad lets his glare linger on Mom a moment longer,
Then sweeps his attention toward me.
“Hey, Liv, how are you feeling?”
“Nervous,” I say, glancing between him and Mom.
I sort of feel like they’ve set me up for something, and
Click, click, click,
I see the brief moments of apprehension,
Fear, and
Determination
On my mom’s face.
“What’s going on?”
I sit at the table, where the Chinese take-out is spread, but
I don’t eat.
“Olivia, darling—”
Mom cuts off when I give her a scathing look.
I’ve been trying to get her to stop calling me darling for years.
Actions speak louder than words, and
Hers have told me I’m not darling to her.
She smoothes her honey-colored bob and tries again.
“Your father and I have discussed,
That is,
We think…”
She looks at Dad, just as she always has.
Mom’s never been able to break bad news,
Which is how I know whatever Dad says isn’t going to be good.
“We don’t think you should go back to Copper Hills,” Dad says,
His voice soft but strong.
“We’d like to explore some alternatives.”
I frown as the words settle into my mind.
I am both relieved and thrilled at the prospect of
Never darkening the doorway of Copper Hills High again, but
Also indignant and defensive.
“You think I can’t handle it?”
My voice is much too quiet to be polite.
“Of course you can,” Mom trills, but
I look to Dad for the truth.
“It’s not that we think you can’t handle it,” he says,
“It’s that you shouldn’t have to.”
He reaches toward the counter and gathers a pile of paperwork.
“We have some options we’d like to discuss with you.”
He spreads the brochures and papers before me,
Where I can examine them.
I glance at him before picking up the top item.
Private school =
Dreary and elitist.
“No,” I say.
Jacey could never afford the tuition to come with me.
Char
ter school =
Dreary and elitist without the academics or credentials to back it up.
“No,” I say,
Wondering what other options there are, and
If I’ll be able to convince Jacey to come with me.
Mom removes several brochures from the pile and
Tucks them in her purse.
She exchanges another glance with Dad.
“Well, honey, the last option is homeschool.”
I gauge them carefully, and find no snapshot tells.
“Really?” I ask. “But you both work.
Who—?”
“Grandma Baker,” Dad says,
“Is a retired high school teacher.”
Gramma-Linda is soft,
Like a teddy bear.
Growing up, I thought Gramma-Linda was how
Everybody said Grandma.
She always smells like baby powder and sugar,
Always tells the best stories about her former students,
About what her childhood was like in Berlin.
I suddenly want to be with her and Rose
Instead of sitting here at this table with my parents.
“She taught German, Dad,” I remind him.
“I am aware,” he says, the familiar quirk to his lips
That says he’s trying not to smile.
“Still, she knows how to make a student turn in assignments on time, and
You still have six months of your senior year to finish.”
Homeschool seems like it could be a viable solution.
Something that would allow me to avoid the jokes,
The boys coming on to me,
The staring,
The whispering,
The constant notes written in red pen.
“You can’t stay home forever,” Mom nudges.
“I know,” I snap.
After Wednesday’s failure,
I haven’t even tried to go back to school,
Unable to face the freshly painted lockers,
The mocking laughter, and
The rumors of Harris’s expulsion.
I’ve connected with Jacey and Trevor, and
There isn’t anyone else I care enough about to talk to.
“Homeschool.” I roll the word around in my mouth
As I chew on the idea in my mind.
“With Gramma-Linda.”
“OKAY.”
I meet Dad’s eyes and then Mom’s.
Dad smiles, and I see that moment of acceptance.
He would’ve supported me in whatever I chose.
Mom bends her lips up, but it’s not a real smile.
Click—I see disappointment in her eyes before she can force it back.
I’m sure she wanted me to pick the swanky private school—
Only minutes from her and the Youngbloods.
“I’ll call Gramma-Linda,” Mom says,
Running from the room like it’s caught fire.
“HOMESCHOOL?”
Jacey’s disbelief echoes off the walls in my bedroom.
I pick at the threads on my quilt and don’t look up.
“Livvy, are you sure?”
She touches my knee, and
I simply stare at her fingers.
“I don’t want to go back,” I say.
“I just wish you could come to my gramma’s with me.”
She chuckles. “Right. Your grandma scares me.
She yells.”
I let myself smile. “Only because she thought you’d eaten her chocolate.”
I look up, and
The tension between us fades.
“It was in German,” Jacey says,
“I didn’t even know what she was saying.”
“I’m tired of hanging around here.” I stand up.
“Want to help me while I take pictures?”
“Who are we shooting?” She stuffs her feet back into her shoes.
“Maybe Rose,” I say.
“Maybe you.”
She raises an eyebrow. “Not Trevor?”
I bite back my grin. “Not today.”
“Okay, I just need to check in with my parents.”
She gives me a look that clearly means,
Oh, so Trevor later. I get it.
“I CAN’T ENTER THIS,”
I mutter to myself.
Number one, the picture of Jacey
Doesn’t fit into the portfolio.
She’d dragged me to the Ferris wheel
At the city park, and
The shots I’d taken are carefree and joyous.
They don’t match
The Many Sides of Trevor Youngblood,
Teenage Boy Who’s Hiding Something.
Not only that, but the sun was too bright, and
The light in the photos is all wrong.
She hadn’t listened to me about the golden hour, and
She won’t understand even if I show her the overexposed pictures.
She’ll analyze how her hair looks, and
If her teeth look straighter now that she’s been wearing her night guard.
I’m looking for something deeper,
Something beyond hair color,
Straight teeth,
A beautiful face.
I’m looking for a person’s soul,
Their hidden feelings,
Their deepest secrets.
I can usually find those things easily,
Just a click, click, click, and
I see them for who they really are.
I sit back, and
Wonder why I haven’t been able to
See who Trevor is in a single photo.
He’s more complex than I imagined,
Than I even knew.
I upload Jacey’s pictures from my memory card to my computer, but
I don’t waste my time editing them.
They’re useless, even if the afternoon wasn’t.
“IT’S OVER,”
I’d told him eighteen months ago.
He thought we’d broken up because my mom
Got engaged to his dad, but
It wasn’t the only reason.
I felt myself falling for him.
Fast,
Furious,
Completely.
I couldn’t allow myself to do that, so
I smothered the flame,
Telling myself that fire burns.
I quenched the fire inside, even
If the simple sight of him feeds it.
I know nothing about love,
Other than it’s a powerful feeling that shouldn’t
Be equated with falling
Or fire.
Both are dangerous.
Both break important things,
Like hearts,
Like families.
“YOU CAN’T IGNORE ME FOREVER,”
Trevor says on my voice mail,
A message he left during his lunchtime.
“Call me back when you get this.”
I don’t know what he’s talking about.
I’ve texted him three times over the past week.
Of course, each one was an excuse why I couldn’t meet him to shoot, but
Still.
“I’m not calling you just because you tell me to,” I mutter to myself
As I delete the message.
He’ll get a text, and
That’s it.
Me: I’m not ignoring you.
It’s seventh period, and
He has world history.
He might be able to text.
Trevor: You don’t answer your phone when I call.
Me: Maybe I’m busy, have you ever thought of that?
Trevor: Busy doing what?
I look up from my phone,
See the same caging walls of my room,
Where I’ve been for too many days.
Suddenly, the halls of Copper Hills High don’t sound so bad.
Except for the outing t
o the Ferris wheel with Jacey and Rose over the weekend,
I haven’t left the house.
Me: Stuff.
Trevor: Rumor is you’re not coming back to school.
It’s Monday,
The sixth day of school I’ve missed.
Dad excused me again this morning, but
He’s been leaving me home alone while he goes to work.
Gramma-Linda is coming over tomorrow to begin homeschool.
Me: Rumors can be false.
Trevor: Sometimes they’re true.
Me: Who did you hear it from?
Trevor: Jacey.
I take a deep breath, so
I won’t hit the call button and tell him off.
Or end this conversation and
Call Jacey and demand to know why she told him.
Then I remember that they’ve been all buddy-buddy lately.
Me: Fine. It’s true.
Trevor:
When he doesn’t text back for ten minutes,
I take my phone downstairs and
Plug it in.
I don’t want to talk to him anyway.
“GET THE DOOR, LIV,”
Dad yells from his office,
Where he’s been since he came home early.
Rose, who got home ten minutes ago, is in the living room,
Watching TV and snacking on apple chips, but
Dad thinks she’s not old enough to answer the door by herself.
I’m in the kitchen,
Just starting dinner.
I heave a sigh Dad can’t hear,
Wipe my hands, and
Go to answer the door.
I expect to see Gramma-Linda on the step,
Her white hair freshly permed,
Her skin pillow soft and freshly powdered, and
Her hug a welcome boon to my current situation.
“Hey, Wings,” greets me when I open the door.
“WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?”
I hiss as I look behind me.
Rose hasn’t moved, and
Dad won’t come out of his office unless I call for him.