For Ever (2 page)

When Mrs. Heinz smiles and beckons me to join
her behind the counter, I relax a little. Usually school office
employees hate me on sight. My theory is it’s because they can
smell fear.

“Here, I’ll show you where your classes are,
dear. You only have about twenty minutes left of second
period.”

She pushes up her glasses and begins drawing
tiny numbers on the map to indicate where each class is.

“Remember, you’ll have to get your schedule
signed by your teachers before you bring it back to the office.”
She looks up. “Don’t worry. You’ll like it here.”

“Thanks.”

Realizing—again—that I have to leave the
office for an unfamiliar classroom, I smile weakly, and Mrs. Heinz
reaches up to squeeze my arm. When Mr. Chernoff’s door thumps
closed behind him, we both look up. Resisting the urge to stick out
my tongue at the faux wood, I thank Mrs. Heinz again and walk over
to join my mom, who pokes me in the ribs as soon as we reach the
hallway. She raises an eyebrow.

“What was that about? You looked like someone
was sticking hot pokers under your fingernails the whole time we
were in there.”

“Um, A, you were flirting—”

“I was not!” she laughs in a breathy way that
tells me she’s lying.

“You totally were! And, B, you can do a lot
better.”

“Well, honey, I can always use—”

I hold up my hand.

“Yeah, the practice. Ugh. Please don’t remind
me,” I say, poking her back.

I used to have a sense of humor. I think. The
past week, or year, has sort of drained it out of me. I keep
telling myself that things could be worse. A lot worse. And they
could be. I know that. This just doesn’t make me feel any better.
It actually makes me feel like a whiny brat for feeling as
miserable as I have for the past several months.

“Ready for your first day?” my mom says
brightly.

“No.” Only one corner of my mouth turns
up.

“Don’t give me that,” she says, still
smiling. “It’ll be great. You’re going to meet lots of nice
people.”

Sometimes my mom’s tendency to look at
everything through rose-colored glasses drives me crazy.

“You just have to stop being so shy, baby,”
she continues.

“Sorry, I think it’s a permanent
setting.”

She rolls her eyes.

“No, it’s not. Try to have fun. Act your age
for once.”

I’ll be seventeen in June, but in the past
year I’ve felt less like sixteen and more like thirty-five. A boy,
probably a freshman, walks by, smirking at my mom’s last comment.
He must have thought I was getting raked over the coals for getting
sent to the office.

“All right. I’ll start yelling at you,
sneaking out at night, and dating guys with a million piercings,” I
say dryly.

She doesn’t look too worried, which makes
sense. It’s not like I’ve been on a single date. No one had ever
asked me at Pali, and I certainly hadn’t asked anyone. Most guys at
my old school had been the same ones who had teased me mercilessly
in junior high. Now they’re just older. Still jerks, though.

“You win,” my mom says, patting me on the
arm.

I throw my arm around her shoulder. When we
reach the school entrance, I’m still secretly hoping that I can
just go back to the house and deal with a new school tomorrow. But
bringing this up feels way too pathetic, so I don’t. Stopping on
concrete stairs, I see my mom’s copper two-door in the faculty lot.
She kisses me on the forehead. Her expression is preoccupied as she
rummages around her giant black purse. Suddenly her eyes widen in a
panic. She loses her keys every five minutes, so I wait patiently
until she pats down her jacket pocket and pulls out an enormous key
ring.

“Be friendly, Wren,” she says, staring at me
like I’m going to go around snarling at people. “This is going to
be good for us.”

I’m not sure which one of us she’s trying to
convince. I hug her a little longer than necessary. Then I watch as
she starts off through the rain. She looks up at the sky every few
seconds before stopping and spinning around like she forgot
something. She holds a hand over her forehead to shield her face
from the rain.

“I’ll come pick you up after school. Three
o’clock, ’kay?”

She’ll be home all day since she doesn’t
start work at the hospital until next week. Lucky her. I shake my
head and point to the bus stop at the corner, trying to look more
self-reliant than I’m feeling. We both know how easily she loses
track of time. Finally she nods and waves again before rushing
toward the parking lot.

Thinking of the bus, I feel a sharp stab of
longing for my old car, the same vehicle that I had cursed only
weeks ago for taking up almost all my after-school income in
repairs. But that dented Ford Mustang—ten years my senior—had been
the best thing to happen to me. I got a job. And, more importantly,
I escaped the house when things got really bad with my parents.
It’s too bad the car never would have survived the trip north.

I stand and watch the rain sheeting against
the asphalt long after my mom has pulled out of the parking lot.
I’m cold and soaked, but I don’t bother moving until I press my
fingernails into my palms without any feeling. Resigned, I walk
inside and pull out my schedule. Second period:
BELLARMINE, G:
ALG 2
. Ugh, math. Forget it. I’m not officially enrolled yet,
so I decide that it’s not technically ditching if I skip the last
few minutes.

Looking at the map Mrs. Heinz gave me, I try
to get my bearings, but my sense of direction, like my
coordination, has always been faulty. I envy other people who
intuitively know where north, south, east, and west are; whereas I
can barely tell my left from my right. I start walking in what I
hope is the right direction. After a few steps, I look down at my
shoes, which are making a terrible squishing noise. Fantastic. I’m
waterlogged straight through to my socks. At a sign for the girls’
bathroom, I make a detour. My nose crinkles at the faded smell of
cigarettes and bubblegum. Studying my reflection in the mirror, I
frown. Not good. My lips have turned blue, and my hair is a
straggly mess.

I look like a reanimated corpse that someone
just dragged out of a river.

In the middle of trying to comb out my hair
with my fingers, I freeze in place at the sound of approaching
voices. Instinctively I retreat into one of the stalls and pull my
feet up out of view just before the door swings open. The newly
introduced perfume smell mixes unpleasantly with the bubblegum and
smoke. Then I hear the unmistakable flick of a lighter. I roll my
eyes when I see a puff of white smoke eddying above the stalls. A
water faucet turns on.

“So? Are you guys still together or what?” a
voice says. The unseen girl sounds like the type I avoid—ready to
cut you down because she can. I breathe carefully and try not to
shift around too much as the girl continues, obviously amused with
herself. “I mean he follows you around like a puppy dog. That
should count for something, right?”

Another girl snickers. I’m guessing there are
at least three of them, but I’m not about to risk checking.

“Besides, he’s like the hottest guy in this
place, right?” another voice says a little less confidently.

“Not really,” a third voice snaps. “I’m over
Jeff.”

The cool disregard makes me feel sorry for
Jeff, whoever he is.

“Since yesterday?” the first girl sneers.

“Who’s gonna do your Spanish homework, then?”
another crows.

I know I’ll have to abandon my stall
eventually, but right now I would rather gouge out my right eyeball
with a spoon. I remember my mom saying:
The eyes are the windows
to the soul
. If only she knew how right she was.

I’m not sure when I first began picking up
people’s passing thoughts. It happened slowly—voices, random images
popping into my head. At first I thought it was my imagination.
Then that I was going crazy. After some time, I started matching
people’s voices with their thoughts. That’s when I knew I was
hearing others’ thoughts in the same way normal people hear others
speaking out loud. But it’s not like I’m listening to everybody’s
brainwaves all day. I actually have to look directly into a
person’s eyes, which is easy enough to avoid. Besides, who wants to
hear every thought that other people have? I don’t. If I could hear
everyone all the time, I
would
be crazy by now. I usually
block it out, but occasionally I still slip up and start to answer
questions before people have asked them.

The bell buzzes, and the bathroom falls
silent again. When I step out of my hiding place, I feel like I
just avoided a pool of hungry sharks. Reaching for some paper
towels, I dry my hair as best I can and then use some lip gloss I
scavenged from my mom’s purse to hide the bluish tint of my
lips.

Glancing in the mirror one more time, I
mumble:
You’re gonna be okay
. My reflection looks back at
me, stubbornly skeptical. Who am I kidding? I sound like a
self-help book. Ducking out the door, I take out the map that Mrs.
Heinz marked for me and search for my next class:
FRE 3.
French. At least Mr. Chernoff got that right. He could have put me
in Spanish.

Studying the numbers on the doors, I figure
that the room I want is on the opposite end of the school. I pick
up the pace before noticing that the halls are full and nobody
seems to be in much of a hurry. It must be the nutrition period. My
stomach tightens at the thought of twenty minutes of nothing to do.
Rather than standing around, I continue looking for my third
period.

At the door matching the classroom number on
my schedule, I pause. The woman sitting at the front of the
classroom is engrossed in paperwork. When I take a step into the
classroom, she looks up, studying me with keen brown eyes. I reach
up and touch my hair. It’s damp, and my clothes are still drenched.
Great first impression.

“Excuse me. Is this French 3? Third period, I
mean,” I ask.

She rises from the desk. Wearing high-waist
jeans and a tucked in denim button-up shirt, she looks at home in
her durable-looking boots, which match her frizzy, grayish brown
hair.

“
Oui. Et votre nom, s’il vous
plaît
?”

I pause. I wasn’t expecting to have to speak
French during nutrition.

“
Je m’appelle
Wren Sullivan,” I
respond haltingly.

“Wren—
comme l’oiseau
?”

When she smiles, I nod. Yes, I’m named after
a small bird.

“
Je suis Mme. Gilbert. Bienvenue
.”

I hand her my schedule, which she signs
without further questioning, apparently satisfied that I understand
a little bit of French. Reaching behind her, she removes a
battered-looking French 3 textbook and hands it to me before
gesturing toward the rows of seats. I hurry to take a spot as far
back as possible. When the first bell rings, students begin
trickling in. Some look in my direction, but most don’t.

Fourth period is Chemistry. I hand my
schedule to Mr. Van Houten, whose wild hair and crazy eyes make him
look a little like a mad scientist. When he looks up at me, his
passing thoughts are chaotic, swirling with random song lyrics and
equations. He points me to an empty table, and by the time the late
bell rings I still have the table to myself.

Going through his roll sheet, Mr. Van Houten
calls my last name automatically, despite having signed my schedule
only minutes ago. When I call out
here
, a few people look
back at me. One guy, sitting a few tables in front of me, turns all
the way around in his seat. He has short, styled blond hair, and
square features, kind of like a Ken doll.

Hmm, new chick. She’s kind of
—

I look down, abruptly cutting off my
connection to his thoughts.

“Summers?” Mr. Van Houten calls after my
name.

The Ken doll’s attention turns back to the
front of the room.

“Yo!”

A few people chuckle, and it’s easy to tell
that he’s used to being the center of attention. He’s good looking,
no doubt. But the expression on his face and his reclined
posture—not to mention the unmistakable arrogance of his voice in
my head—combine to make him less attractive. At the end of class, I
duck out the back door and search for the cafeteria. I would have
packed a lunch just to avoid the cafeteria line, but the house
we’re renting isn’t in functional shape, and we’ve been relying on
takeout and cereal bars. I grab a sandwich, juice, and a salad from
the cafeteria’s refrigerated offerings, even though I don’t feel
particularly hungry. After paying, I stop, feeling the blood drain
from my cheeks.

I’ve just entered my personal version of
hell. This new cafeteria, unlike Pali’s, is entirely indoors.
There’s no quiet corner or stairwell to sneak off to, which means
no escape. Just rows and rows of tables occupied by strangers.

I lie and tell myself that I don’t care if I
sit alone for the rest of the year. It doesn’t matter, though,
because there’s no way I’m brave enough to pick a random group and
assume that my seatmates will welcome me with open arms. After
several seconds, I spot an empty table at the very back of the room
and hurry toward it. I’m almost there when disappointment washes
over me. Someone else has already claimed the table.

I slow down and try to decide what to do. The
only person at the table is facing away from me. I figure it can’t
hurt to sit down at the opposite end and mind my own business. And
maybe if I do it really casually, the person might not even notice.
I’m still weighing my options when my potential seatmate stands
abruptly and walks away, leaving the table empty. Moving forward
more confidently, I drop my bag on a chair and reach for
headphones. Then I pull out my book, a grim narrative about the
last few survivors of an unidentified apocalypse that renders the
world almost unlivable. I want to finish it as soon as possible,
mostly because I’m hoping for some type of redemption in the end
that will make up for the two-hundred-plus pages of bleakness I’ve
suffered through so far.