Forever for a Year (2 page)

Thinking.

Thinking about how there was another Trevor in another dimension who was happy. A Trevor who had gotten up on time, was excited about school, and had friends, a girlfriend, and a reason to live. Then I was thinking about how this Other Dimension Trevor would be clueless, and I would hate him for being clueless. Because I might not have any of those things Other Trevor did—friends, a girl, a reason to live—but at least I wasn't clueless. I knew what the world was really like. I had seen its dark, corrupt core, and I couldn't and wouldn't unsee it.

My dad didn't care about Other Dimension Trevor. He didn't care much about This Dimension Trevor right now either, because he was mad. He didn't get mad very often. So when he was mad, you could tell. And right now, as he sat on my bed, you could tell he was very, very mad.

He grabbed my shoulder and turned me toward him. I didn't fight it. He's not evil. He's just ignorant. Ignorant that everything is bullshit. “Trevor, this is a new school and a new year. Don't you want to start off on the right foot?”

“That's a clich
é
, Dad. ‘Start off on the right foot.' I no longer comprehend clich
é
s. Try again.”

“Trevor. No smart-mouth. Get up. I'm driving you.”

“You're going to be late for work.”

“Don't worry about me. Get up. Lily refused to get on the bus since you were still sleeping. Now she's late too. So get up now. We leave here in twenty minutes.”

“Mom can drive me.”

“Your mother is sleeping.”

“Are we sure she's sleeping? She might be dead.” This was a joke. You don't understand it, because you don't know my mom overdosed on sleeping pills over a year ago. Maybe you don't find it funny now that you know. Neither did my dad. He gave me that look where I feel I'm the worst son ever born.

“Okay, fine,” I said, but I didn't move. So he didn't move. “Fine. Okay. I'm up.” I kicked off the blankets and sheets, which also dislodged him from my bed. A bonus. He didn't leave the room until I walked into my bathroom.

Yeah, I have my own bathroom now. My little sister, Lily, who's seven but talks like she's forty, says this is the best part of our new house. “We really should be grateful, Trevor. Not many children get their own bathroom. We should be grateful for a lot of things, I believe. Our family really needed the fresh start.” She's right. She's super smart. She was smarter when she was five, but then the crap happened with my mom and now she tries too hard. But she's still the smartest seven-year-old ever.

I turned on the shower, sat down in the tub and just let the water rain down on me. I love sitting in the shower. Usually do it for forty-five minutes. Just sit and think and sometimes don't think, which is just as nice. Lily says it's bad for the environment, wasting all that water. I tell her it's not wasting water; it's saving my soul. Then she says, “I have such a strange brother,” and walks away.

My dad pounded on my bathroom door less than ten minutes into my shower escape. I almost pretended not to hear him, but I decided to be nice. His year has been pretty crappy too.

*   *   *

My mom grew up in Riverbend, Illinois. That's why we moved back here from Los Angeles, to be closer to my grandma and Uncle Hank and his family. My grandpa, who was super cool because he just listened and didn't try to impress you, died a few months before my mom overdosed. He had a stroke, didn't like being weak, stopped eating, and just died. My grandma blames his death for my mom's depression. My dad agrees, which is total denial. My mom's been depressed my whole life, so it has nothing to do with my grandpa dying. Just a good excuse. I don't blame her for being depressed. Life is pointless. I'm sorry. It is. But I am pissed at her for trying to leave us behind.

I was going to be a freshman this year. I was a freshman last year in Los Angeles too. But about two weeks in, I'd said screw this, I'm not going to school anymore. My mom had just come home after months at some fancy loony bin resort, so my dad thought I wanted to stay home to make sure my mom was okay. But I didn't care. I mean, I cared about her. I still do. But I didn't care about stopping her from trying to kill herself again. Because, guess what? You can't stop people from hurting themselves. Impossible. So I'm smart enough to never try. I'm also smart enough to know my dad wasn't going to fight me about going to school last year. But after twelve months of video games and a move halfway across the country, he was fighting me this time.

“Trevor! We are walking out this door!” he yelled from downstairs. I threw on some jeans, Chucks, and a blue T-shirt that just said
FREE YOURSELF
. All my T-shirts say crap like that. People are so gullible. Free yourself from what? Exactly.

I hadn't gotten a haircut since my mom's thing. That's a lie. My dad made me get a trim two days ago, but my hair was still pretty long. Below my ears. I couldn't quite put it in a ponytail, at least not a cool one. But soon.

When I got in the back of my dad's BMW, Lily handed me a bagel with cream cheese and a bottle of water.

“Why don't you say thank you, Trevor,” my dad said.

“I was about to, but you didn't give me a chance,” I said. “Thanks, Lily.”

“Do you know what I was thinking might be a fun activity this weekend for the whole family?” Lily started. See? Like she's forty! She's blond like my mom, tall for her age, and probably will be the most beautiful woman ever by the time she's a teenager. If she becomes president someday, we'll all be lucky. “I think we should drive into Chicago, shop on Michigan Avenue, and then have dinner somewhere nice. We haven't done that yet, and we've been here a whole month. I really think that could make us feel like we belong here. What do you both think about this idea?”

“I think that's a great idea,” my dad said. He likes Lily better than me. I can't even be angry at him for this. I like Lily better than me too.

I said, “Sure, Lily. But only if I don't have tons of pointless homework that I must do for no reason.”

“Trevor, I think you're going to like high school this year. I really do,” Lily said. She's always trying to be my life coach.

When we stopped outside Skvarla Elementary, Lily turned to my dad and me and said, “Both of you have wonderful days,” and then hopped out and sprinted toward the entrance, her hair swishing and backpack spinning on her right arm. Only when she ran like that did you remember she was seven years old.

I think it reminded my dad of the same thing, because he mumbled, “I should walk her in on her first day,” and then jumped out of the car and ran after her. Later, watching him walk back to the car, he had this smile that only Lily can give him. That smile was gone by the time he got back behind the wheel. He had to deal with me now. “Get in the front, Trevor.”

“I prefer you being my chauffeur.”

“Trevor. Now.”

Lecture time. Yay. I climbed over the seat and slid headfirst into the front passenger seat before twisting around and seat-belting myself in.

“I know the move, and all the stuff with Mom, has not been easy. But in four years colleges aren't going to care how rough you had it, so you have to start buckling down. Work hard. Working hard can help you forget about things.”

I almost said,
Like working hard helped you forget your wife hated life so much she tried to off herself?
, but I didn't. Just because. Sometimes it's easier to ignore my dad than argue with him, even though ignoring him makes him think I'm listening. Which makes him think he's wise. Which annoys me. Because he's not.

He continued talking, telling me he'd put a call in to the football coach to see if I could play even though they'd started practice a couple of weeks ago. I used to love football. I have a pretty good arm. Played quarterback in eighth grade for the park district team. But football just doesn't interest me anymore; it's so serious and ridiculous at the same time. Dad just wanted me to make friends, which I suppose would have been nice if I could snap my fingers and have super-cool friends who weren't full of crap. But the long-drawn-out process of making friends, being fake and generic so you don't scare anyone off, just seemed like such a headache. I'd rather play video games and talk to Lily.

When Dad stopped outside Riverbend High School, he said, “I love you, Trevor,” and for a second he seemed real and vulnerable and awesome, so I said, “I love you too.”

But then he added, “Keep your head down and work hard,” which was a clich
é
and meaningless and pointless. So I didn't hug him, just flung open the door and walked inside without looking back.

*   *   *

I had to go to the front office since I arrived after first period started. The lady behind the desk asked why I was late. I wanted to say something clever and over her head, but I couldn't think of anything, so I just said, “Missed the bus.”

The office lady asked if I had my class schedule. “Yeah, of course,” I said, only to realize that I didn't. I had left my backpack at home. Or maybe in the back seat. “Actually, can you print it out?” She nodded and handed me a copy of my schedule, a map of the school, and a hall pass. Hall passes. So insulting. Just let kids go where they want and figure it out. Or give adults “life passes” so they can't wander off. Because I guarantee you, right this second, more adults than kids are in places they shouldn't be.

Riverbend High School had two major wings, east and west. The east seemed to have all my classes, including first-period biology. Connecting the wings was a long hall, with the cafeteria and library on opposite sides. The gym, pool, and auditorium were north, down another long hall.

When I found the biology classroom, I thought about not going in. What was one more day, right? Then I thought: Exactly. What was one more day avoiding the inevitable? Might as well get this crap started and over with. So I walked inside. All the kids, in eight rows that were four desks deep, turned to me. The teacher kept talking, not noticing or caring that I was entering or that the rest of his students had stopped paying attention to him. Mr. Klenner was old with greenish skin and a baggy neck, like some giant frogman. Maybe I just thought that because he was a biology teacher.

There were two empty seats. Remember when I said all the kids looked my way? Well, that wasn't exactly true. One didn't. At least not for more than a second. A girl with brown hair. One of the two empty seats was next to her, and for some reason I decided to sit by her even though it was closer to the teacher.

After I sat down, I realized everybody was back to taking notes. Which I couldn't do. Because my bag was in some undetermined place. I didn't care. I'd just daydream about better stuff.

Then two sheets of paper and a pencil appeared on my desk. It was the brown-haired girl, but by the time I turned to mouth
thanks
she was already back to staring ahead. As pathetic as this sounds, what she did was one of the cooler things anyone had done for me in a long time.

I felt I almost had to start taking notes or else it would be an insult to her cool thing. So I did, even though it made me a robot brainlessly writing down crap a teacher said so we could regurgitate it to him later. Pointless! Why can't people see this? Someone should realize how absurd school is and make it better.

I would do it if I cared. Which I don't. But I do care about being cool back to people who are cool to me, like the brown-haired girl. I'd have to figure out a way to repay her.

 

3

Carolina's first day doesn't go according to plan

Okay, listen: Even though science is my worst subject, first-period biology—my first class of high school ever—started perfectly. As it should have, since I had been envisioning it all summer. Most other classes come easy to me, like Spanish, or I find them really interesting, like history, but I knew I was going to have to work extra hard and pay extra attention in biology.

Which I was totally doing until this boy showed up late to class and sat right next to me. He was a new student. Definitely didn't go to junior high with us, which most kids at Riverbend High School did. And he didn't have a bag or a notebook or anything, so I gave him a pencil and some paper to take notes with. Not because I cared about him—I mean, I'm nice, but the real reason I did it is I just knew if I didn't give him paper, I would be thinking the whole class how he didn't have any, and then I wouldn't be able to concentrate.

So why couldn't I concentrate now? This was sooo frustrating. It was the first day of classes; I needed to start off good! Start off WELL, I mean.… See, I was a mess! What was going wrong? I was so prepared! Wait a minute. I totally know what was happening: The new boy was staring at me. He had to be. Definitely.

But when I glanced toward him, he was staring ahead at Mr. Klenner, even writing stuff down. Ugh. Why did I feel so weird? Was there something weird about HIM that made me feel weird? I stole tiny, bitsy glances out of the corner of my eye. Mmm. Okay, he was cute. That's just a fact. He had dark skin and a chin that looked like a sculpture. Oh, what a corny thing to say. Though I guess it's true. But there had to be something about him besides being cute that was making my brain unfocused. He probably looked like someone I knew. Or maybe I met him once. That had to be it, right? He just felt sooo familiar.…

Oh my gosh. Wake up! Just listen to the teacher, Carolina! Listen. Listen. Listen.

Which I totally did, except when I was thinking about the new boy and what his name was and where he was from and if he was going to thank me for giving him sheets of paper at the end of class.

Which he didn't. Because after class ended, I lingered there at my seat for an extra couple of seconds, even though I'm usually fast to leave so I can get to my next class on time. But he was even faster than I was, so he left and didn't say anything.