S K Y L A R
The line for the cafeteria moved excruciatingly slowly or nothing at all. If it kept on going like this, I probably would have to go to Spanish without any food in me, which was probably not a good idea, because I hadn't had anything to eat for breakfast either.
I had slept in. My dad had to come wake me up, which never happened. Most days I didn't even need an alarm. I woke myself up, the stress of the day anticipating itself on me, and activating my fight or flight response. Not this morning.
This morning, I could have slept well into the day, probably because I had been writing well into the night. Mr. Wyatt had asked for another story. I had been beside myself. Writing was an out of body experience and I had been wanting to escape myself for years.
My life had become a dichotomy of writing and not writing, and I was slowly losing control over it. More than once, I had caught myself writing dialogue on the margins of textbooks during class or losing track of a teacher's explanation in favor of playing out an idea for a new scene in my head. I was definitely losing control.
In front of me, so was a bubblegum group of girls. They had been losing it since I had gotten in line behind them, all of them wearing nice makeup, and nice clothes, and nice shoes, and nice perfume, and nice everything. They were losing it over the Cheer Sectionals happening in a few weeks, because apparently their coach had changed the routine last minute.
They had been dragging their coach's name through the mud for a while. Apparently, he had called a girl fat the other day at practice and told another one she needed to shave her legs as soon as possible.
I had wanted to be a cheerleader in my freshman year but hearing that, I was glad I hadn't even tried out for it. At the time, the reason why was the same as always: my parents. They thought that kind of environment would rot my brain and turn me into a full-on bimbo. I was fourteen, and I had spent the summer obsessed with Elle Woods from Legally Blonde. I wanted to be a bimbo. Instead, I had become a nerd with no redemption arc, no self-actualization. My brain hadn't rotten, but I wished it had.
In front of me, Kylie Green cut the line with Allora and Edward. I opened my mouth to say something and then closed it again. Kylie hugged one of the girls, the one who had been called fat during practice, and whispered something in her ear that made her smile. Allora and Edward went on talking about college admissions, or at least Allora did.
Edward turned around and said to me, "We're not trying to cut in line, I promise. We already had lunch. We'll get out of here in a second. Is that okay?"
I nodded, and he smiled before turning to Allora again to say, "Sorry. Go on."
By the time I got my food, a turkey sandwich wrapped in cling film and a green apple, there was barely half an hour left before the bell rang. All the tables were full, and I had no intention of standing in a corner, turning red, and wishing I could become wallpaper â no one ever looked at the cafeteria wallpaper â so, to the toilets I went.
I locked myself in a stall like I usually did, and finished my food in peace, leaning against the door, reading the scribbles written in sharpie on the wall. One of them said, Allora is a slut. Another one had the names Jacob and Vanessa written inside a heart, except the name Vanessa had been scratched out, and replaced with Ashley, which, surprise, surprise, had also been scratched out, this time, in favor of Harper. I didn't know who any of these girls competing for Jacob were but suspected they were cheerleaders because someone had written in angry handwriting, fuck you, V, you can't even do the splits.
I laughed. I wanted to get a sharpie myself and scratch Allora's name to replace it with Jacob, but I didn't. Vandalism probably wouldn't look good on my student record. Instead, I finished my food and walked out to wash my hands on the sink. By the time the bell rang I was already on my way to class, and someone was following me.
"Please tell me you didn't have lunch in a toilet stall."
I turned around. Kylie was walking behind me, a frown on her face, her makeup matching her red turtleneck and the nail polish on her fingers.
I turned back around and said, "Okay."
"Okay what?"
"Okay, I won't tell you I had lunch in a toilet stall."
"Cause you didn't, right? Please tell me you didn't." She was horrified.
"I didn't." I had been horrified the first time I did it too, but the alternative had proved more horrible, again, and again.
"Show me what's in your bag."
We had reached our classroom, but none of us moved to go in.
I said, "No."
She asked, "Why not?"
"Because."
"Just show me."
She reached for my backpack, and it slid off my shoulders like it had a will of its own. Kylie opened it up to find nothing inside except for my books.
She looked at me in horror yet again, and asked, "Where's the nasty turkey sandwich I saw you get?"
"Why do you know â"
"Why don't you just eat in the cafeteria like everyone else?!" she asked, handing me back my backpack. I threw it over my shoulder again. She grabbed my chin, "Did someone hurt you? Is that it?"
My face went red, "No, why would you say that?"
"You look like you got punched in the face, Sky."
"I didn't get much sleep last night." I hadn't had time to put on my mom's concealer this morning, but I didn't think anyone would notice. Mom and dad had been out of the house by the time I got downstairs, and at school I was like a dead animal on the side of the road. No one looked at me for long. I had no idea why Kylie Green, of all people, should be any different. She had never been before.
Behind her, Luke Martin was helping Mr. Hernandez prepare a movie for us to watch.
I looked back at Kylie, "Can I go in now?"
She stretched her arm in front of me, and said, very seriously, "Having lunch in a toilet stall is not normal. You have â"
"A problem, yes, I know," I said, "I don't know what else you want me to say."
She dropped her arm, and I walked to my desk at the front, only to have her follow me, and take the seat next to me. I rolled my eyes.
"Please just let this go."
"I can't," she said, taking her books out of her bag. "It's like when you see an accident on the road. As a citizen, it's your obligation to stop and help. It's illegal not to."
"I'm not an accident on the road." I was a dead animal.
"You're a fucking car crash, Sky," she stopped me. "You know you can have lunch with us, right? I know we're probably not the most engaging conversationalists, but we definitely smell better than the school's toilets."
"I think the problem is that I'm the one who's not an engaging at all."
I didn't know why I said this. People like Kylie were the reason I always felt so invisible at school and why I wanted to stay that way. She was funny, and interesting, and exciting, while I was boring, and dull, and exhausting to be around. I had been told all this by other people throughout the years. I had never any idea of who I was, only who I needed to be, and so it was nice of them to let me know these things.
Next to me, Kylie laughed, "You're kidding, right?"
"Not really, no," I said.
"Sky, you're the best student in this entire fucking school. What do you mean, you're not engaging? Say that again and I'll slap you across the face, I swear."
"Having good grades doesn't really make me interesting, does it? It just makes me very good at doing what people tell me to. If anything, I'm a very well-trained monkey."
"Shut up," she said, shaking her head.
"It's true," I said with a smile. It felt good to say it out loud, to bring the fraud in me to light before anyone else could. "Remember what Tristan said in Mr. Wyatt's class? How it's where we start and not where we end up that really counts? How meritocracy is a lie fed to us to protect the interest â"
"Of the elite, yes, I remember."
"Well, I keep thinking about it," I confessed. "I thought he was wrong, but he's not, is he? I'm a suburban white kid with parents who work corporate jobs and can afford sending me to college. I don't have any real merit of my own, because it's not really about merit, is it?"
"Sure." She shrugged. "The world's fucked up. Everyone knows that. But I don't think that's what Mr. Wyatt was talking about. I don't think he was trying to be political."
"So you think it's where we end up that matters?" I asked, but she shook her head.
"No, we end up dead. I think it's the journey, everything in between, life, I don't know."
"Oh." Oh!
"I'm probably wrong."
"No, you're not," I said. "You're right. Why didn't you say that in class?"
She shrugged, "I'm not good with words, not like you."
"You're President of the Student Council." I had voted for her.
"That just means I'm popular." She shrugged again. "Anyway, you're having lunch with us from now on and you're coming to Jacob's party this weekend."
I swallowed hard, "I don't think so. I'm not good around people."
"How do you know? I've never seen you around anyone."
"Exactly. I don't know how to talk to people."
She rolled her eyes, "You're talking to me."
"And I'm not doing good, am I?"
"You're doing great," she stopped me. "I used to think you were a stuck-up bitch."
"You did? Why?" I had actually been told I was a stuck-up bitch before during a group project gone wrong â most group projects went wrong for me â so this wasn't really a surprise. Except I'd never had a group project with Kylie, and even if I had, I wouldn't think being corrected on her grammar would offend her as much as it offended others.
"Cause if I was as smart as you are," she said, "I probably would be a stuck-up bitch."
"I'm not, though, am I?" I asked. I didn't mind being boring, but I didn't want to be a bitch. I didn't want to be the kind of person that went around making other people feel bad about themselves, especially considering how good I was at doing it to myself.
"A stuck-up bitch? No, you're not," she said.
I smiled in relief, "Probably because I'm not as smart as you think I am."
"I heard Mr. Wyatt call that story you wrote for class a very fine piece of writing," she said, not very impressed with my silly little imposter syndrome, "You're even smarter than I thought you were."
My face went red again. Class begun. Mr. Hernandez pressed play on the movie and told us we were going to be quizzed on it next week. Kylie took notes in pretty handwriting and underlined the important things in prettier colors, and every now and then, she took out her phone and answered her messages under the table. She always had messages to answer to.
I took my notes in a hurry and in pencil because I didn't trust myself to ever do anything right at first. Everything I did became definite only after other people approved of it. This included me as a person, or like I had told Kylie, a very-well trained monkey. Like my notes, I had come to be in a hurry and in pencil, prone to erasure and revisions, if need be. This need being whatever the education system deemed necessary.
When the bell finally rang, I turned to her, and said, "I'm sorry, but I really don't think I'm going to Jacob's party."
She got up and smiled, "I'll pick you up at yours."
I shook my head, "You don't know where I live."
"I'll find out."
And she did.