You Don’t Know Me but I Know You

by Rebecca Barrow

  “Thanks.” Olivia dropped her messenger bag on the floor and hopped up. “Audrey, right?”

  “Yep,” Audrey said. “I love your hair.”

  Olivia touched a hand (bitten violet nails, thin silver band on her middle finger) to her head. Her licorice-black hair was cut short so it fell around her ears, with strands of aqua blue peeking out, and neat bangs snipped high across her forehead. “Thanks,” she said again, offering another shy smile that made deep dimples appear in her cheeks. “I like yours, too.”

  Audrey smiled, trying to figure out the best way to coax this girl out of her shell without pushing too hard.

  But then Olivia spoke again, in a voice that sounded musical once it got going. “My dad didn’t like it so much,” she said. “Which is why I moved here with my mom after the divorce was final.”

  “Oh,” Audrey said. “That’s, um—”

  Olivia laughed, a bubbly sound. “I’m kidding, of course,” she said. “Not about my dad not liking my hair, because he did threaten to send me to my grandmother in Taiwan if I kept up the weird hair and piercings, but the divorce thing isn’t true. Although my parents are divorced, but I moved with my mom because . . . well, she’s my mom. And also because my dad didn’t appreciate me changing my last name to match hers. And besides, if I’m not with him, he can’t send me to my grandmother, which would be a disaster because she doesn’t know I’m gay yet and I think she might have a heart attack when she finds out.”

  “I see,” Audrey said. Initial judgment revised: Olivia Lee was clearly not shy.

  “Did you take those?”

  “What?” Audrey followed Olivia’s gaze and turned back to the computer, where her photographs now filled the screen. “Oh. Yeah, I did.”

  Olivia nodded, pushing her cat-eye glasses up her nose. “They’re really interesting.”

  Interesting. Translation: they’re not great, but I’m a nice person, so I’m not going to say anything. “Oh, I don’t know,” Audrey said. “I’m only learning, and my composition is completely—” She cleared her throat. Don’t bore her to death. “What do you do?”

  “Draw, mostly,” Olivia answered, but she was still looking at Audrey’s photos. “I like this one,” she said, tapping her finger on the computer screen. “Who is she?”

  The picture that Olivia was pointing at was of Rose: Audrey had taken it when they were getting ready for the party the other night. Rose was peering into the mirror in Audrey’s room, her mouth hanging open as she painted shadow over her lids, a green that Audrey had managed to catch the shimmer of. The framing was all wrong, though, and the whole thing was overblown. But it was such a rare moment to see—Rose with her guard completely down—that it was special, maybe, and Audrey almost felt wrong letting this new person see it. Like she was giving her something she hadn’t earned yet.

  Audrey clicked out of the program. “That’s Rose. You’ll get to know her.”

  “I will?”

  Audrey smiled. Well, she’d get to know exactly however much Rose chose to give. “Oh, yeah. She’s my best friend.”

  “Oh, right. She’s pretty.” Olivia turned to Audrey, nodding seriously. “They’re great pictures. Honestly.”

  “Thanks,” Audrey said, and then, changing the subject, “So, let me tell you about Kennedy High.” Nothing made her more embarrassed than talking about her work—she dreaded their monthly crit sessions in class. Like it wasn’t bad enough pulling apart her pictures by herself—listening to other people do it usually felt like having her insides spilling onto the floor for everyone to pick at. And worse than that was the showing they did at the end of every semester, where Audrey got to see exactly how far behind some of her classmates she really was.

  “Rule number one,” Audrey said. “Don’t believe the graffiti in the second-floor bathrooms. It’s not true at all, I swear.”

  FIVE

  Audrey guided Olivia through the lunch line and into the maze of tables, giving the new girl a rundown as they went. “Lunch is thirty-five minutes, and we have the same period as the seniors,” she explained. “But they get to go off campus, so we are the only ones stuck in this beautiful place.” Audrey kicked the metal leg of a bright-orange chair. “As you can see, the theme in here is Give-You-Nightmares Bright.”

  She waved at the girls they sometimes chilled with at parties. “That’s Lilia and her group,” Audrey said to Olivia. “They’re cool. And those guys by the windows? They’re our friends, when they’re not being complete assholes. The blond one throwing pretzels, that’s Cooper.” She turned to Olivia and raised her eyebrows. “You’ll get to know all about Cooper. And see the one trying to catch the pretzels in his mouth?”

  Olivia nodded, looking a little bemused. “Yeah?”

  “That one would be my boyfriend.” Audrey shook her head. “Trust me, he’s not as annoying as he seems right now. Although I’m beginning to wonder.”

  She headed toward their usual table. Rose, Jen, and María were messing around and laughing; a shiny red apple flew from María’s hand, narrowly missing Rose, and Audrey felt herself smile. “Come on,” she said, sensing Olivia’s hesitation. “I’ll introduce you to my friends.”

  She wove her way between the tables. “Hey!” Dropping into the seat next to Rose, Audrey nodded at Olivia, trying to let her know without words that it was okay for her to sit. When she did, Audrey turned back to the girls. “This is Olivia. She’s new. We’re in art together. She just moved here from . . .” Shit. Was it Philadelphia? Fort Worth?

  “Florida,” Olivia filled in.

  Right.

  Jen and María leaned in, the cross and crescent moon pendants around Jen’s neck making music, while Rose gave a halfhearted wave. Audrey picked up her fork and twisted it into her noodles. “This is Jen,” she said, pointing so Olivia could follow. “That’s María, and sunshine here is Rose.” She jabbed a finger into her best friend’s arm in the hope that it might get her to at least feign interest. “Don’t be scared of them. They only look mean.”

  “Except for Rose,” María said with a laugh. “Don’t get on her bad side.”

  “Shut up,” Rose’s automatic snap back came, and Audrey glanced at Olivia, half expecting her to be ready to flee.

  But actually, she was laughing. “I’ll remember that,” she said. “Rose.” Her head tilted to the side. “From the pictures, right?”

  Audrey stared down at her food, across the table at María, anywhere except at Rose. It wasn’t that Rose didn’t like having her picture taken—more that over the years, Rose had featured in most of Audrey’s photographs and had lately started saying, “If you don’t put the camera down, I will smash that shit up myself.” Meant with love, Audrey was sure.

  Rose’s sigh echoed in Audrey’s ear. “I’m going to guess yes,” she said, her voice surprisingly soft. “Thank you, Audrey.”

  “I’m sorry,” Olivia said quickly. “I didn’t mean to—you shouldn’t be mad. They were beautiful.”

  Audrey waited to see how Rose reacted, absorbing Olivia’s compliment. A pink flush appeared on Rose’s cheeks, and when she said, “Thanks,” it was short and high.

  That was the thing with Rose: most people thought she was a bitch. (Or at the very least bitchy.) And maybe she was (who wasn’t?) but often it was shyness that made her snappy, short-tempered. But you had to really get to know Rose to know that about her, and Rose kept her circle small. So most people watched from afar, simultaneously disliking her and wanting to be close to her. It was a strange thing for Audrey to watch, being on her side of things—the one person Rose ever opened up to, told secrets not even Jen and María were allowed to know. But it also felt kind of nice—like Rose didn’t belong to anybody but her.

  She knocked her foot into Rose’s leg under the table. “Hey,” Audrey said, a lilt to her voice. “She doesn’t bite.”

  María launched into an interrogation of Olivia that took up the rest of the lunch period: Why had she moved from Florida to New York stat
e? Did the ring in her nose hurt? What about the bar through the top of her ear? And what was her schedule like?

  Audrey picked at her food as Olivia talked about her mom’s new job at an art gallery in the city, how New York was her real home and the year in Orlando was a failed experiment. The holes in her ears hadn’t hurt but the nose ring had, enough to make her cry, she said. And she didn’t know her schedule yet, but she had a lit class next period, America in the Twentieth Century or something.

  “That’s my class,” Rose said. “With Dr. Bennett?”

  Olivia fished inside her messenger bag and produced an illustrated notebook, the cover filled with pencil-shaded magical creatures. “That’s what it says,” Olivia said, running a finger across the inside cover. She looked up at Rose and smiled. “At least I’ll have one nonhostile.”

  Audrey held back her snort. Rose, nonhostile? That was a nice idea.

  Jen grabbed Olivia’s notebook and studied the rest of her schedule. “You’re in my biology class,” she said. “And Spanish.”

  “I’m in Spanish, too,” Audrey said with a smile. “This is working out good for you.”

  Olivia nodded, her gaze focused somewhere past Audrey. “Yeah,” she said. “It seems like it is.”

  The bell rang then, sending the cafeteria into a scramble as everyone hurried to their next class. Rose followed behind Audrey as they took their trays over to the trash. “Hey,” she said. “You hardly ate. You okay?”

  Audrey frowned at the leftover food on her tray and pressed a hand to her stomach to quell the queasiness stirring within. “I think I’m coming down with something,” she said. “I’ve been feeling sick since last week.”

  María pushed past them, laughing. “It’s called a hangover,” she said. “You little lush.”

  Rose laughed, too, and Audrey wanted to join in, but the most she could manage was a halfhearted smile. Because she had been feeling sick all weekend, maybe even before that. And she was dead tired all of a sudden. And her boobs were spilling out of all her bras.

  Lining up all those facts like that made Audrey feel stupid, like someone had given her a checklist of clichés and she’d run through them all, ticking every box.

  But they were clichés for a reason.

  Audrey left her tray and threw her bag over her shoulder, following her friends out into the hall. It’s probably nothing, she told herself. No need to panic.

  Right. Tell that to the alarm bells screaming, shrill and insistent, in the back of her mind.

  SIX

  Audrey stared blankly at her math homework, chewing the end of her pencil. If only they could figure out brain switching and María’s mind could do this work for her.

  “Audrey?” There was a knock on her bedroom door, and then it swung open a few inches, enough for Adam to step one foot inside. “I’m ordering dinner; what do you want?”

  She sat up on her bed, knocking her notebook onto the floor. “What are we having?”

  “Thai.” Adam came fully into her room, waving a menu. “From the place on Charleston,” he added. “Your favorite.”

  Audrey’s stomach rolled, and she clenched her teeth. Normally she would’ve snatched the menu right out of his hand, pretending like she was going to order something other than her usual tom yum soup with chicken-and-vegetable spring rolls, but the thought of any of it made her feel like she was about to throw up. “You know, I’m not hungry right now,” she told Adam. “I’m not feeling so great.” That part came out before she could stop it, and she wanted to kick herself. Now Adam would tell her mom, and her mom would come upstairs, and she’d have to lie even more because no way in hell was she about to admit what she was thinking it might be.

  “Really?” Adam pressed the back of his hand against her forehead. “You don’t feel warm. I don’t think.”

  Audrey squeezed out a laugh. “Who are you, Florence Nightingale? Your idea of sick is when you ate too many hot dogs at a baseball game. I’ve seen you drink a beer because you thought it would help with your allergic reaction to a banana.”

  “Hey, I can be nurturing,” Adam protested. “Don’t you remember that time I brought your mom soup when she had the flu?”

  “That was, like, three years ago,” Audrey said. “And you only did it because you’d just started dating, and you needed her to think you were sweet. And”—she put up her hand—“before you start denying it, you told that story at Mom’s theater party last Christmas, so don’t even.”

  Adam ran a hand through his dirty-blond hair, giving her a sheepish grin. “I need to learn to keep my mouth shut, don’t I?”

  Audrey nodded solemnly. “Yes.”

  “All right, point taken.” Adam turned to leave, then paused in the doorway. “You want me to bring something up? Toast, ginger ale . . .”

  Audrey shook her head. “I’ll come down in a minute. Thanks, though.”

  Adam closed the door on his way out, and Audrey flopped back over onto her stomach. As much as she teased him, Adam was sweet—the first of her mom’s boyfriends to ever last past a couple of dates, the first to be invited into their house for dinner. Certainly the only one who’d ever gotten to know Audrey well enough to learn her favorite takeout and that she liked her orange juice with pulp. The fact that he also happened to be twelve years younger than her mom paled in comparison to all that, not that it’d ever bothered Audrey. She was already well accustomed to a less-than-normal life: Adopted? Check. Movie star parent? Check. Mother with fair skin and red hair about a thousand degrees removed from her own brown skin and mass of curls? Check and check. So in the grand scheme of things, the age gap was kind of boring.

  She dug her hands into her covers, listening to Adam’s footsteps going down the stairs and into the kitchen. She’d better do what she needed to quickly.

  Audrey jumped up from her bed and kicked her way through the clothes blanketing the carpet to get to her desk. Her planner was already flipped open to the day’s date, and she licked her finger before flicking back—a month? Two?

  The kitchen was too far away from her attic room for her to hear any voices, but the bottom step of the second staircase had a loud creak that let Audrey know whenever someone was on their way up. She only had to listen for it.

  She yanked out the second drawer in her desk, where she kept her birth control pills. This pack was almost half empty, so—she counted on her fingers, looking up at the ceiling. Eleven days ago was a Friday, and yeah, they’d stolen an hour in Julian’s bedroom with the door locked, but that wasn’t it. That couldn’t have been it, because that would be way too early for her to know. Right?

  They were always careful: Audrey took her pill every day like clockwork, had been since the trip to the doctor with her mom last January. If they ever thought they needed more than that—like the time Audrey got a shot before her vacation—then they used condoms. Always, always.

  So stupid, she thought. How could we be so stupid?

  She couldn’t imagine what would happen if It was happening. What her mom would say—God, what Rose would say. She’d be so— Actually, Audrey didn’t know what she’d be. Would she be more disappointed in Audrey’s foolishness, or annoyed? Shit.

  She closed her eyes. She couldn’t pretend this wasn’t happening.

  “Audrey, honey.” Her mom’s voice floated up, and then there was the telltale creak. “Are you okay?”

  Shit.

  Audrey grabbed her phone and typed a text to Julian: Need to talk. Call me when you get this.

  His response came back almost immediately: At practice, what’s up?

  She inhaled sharply. How to phrase it so it wouldn’t sound like drama? Come over later, she settled on typing.

  She managed to press Send and place her phone facedown on the desk a second before the door opened and her mom entered, her hair twisted up and held in place with a pencil. All these years and it was still the same shade of rich red that Audrey saw in the red carpet photos online. “Hey,” she said gently, “Adam
said you’re not feeling good. Do you feel sick? Headache?”

  Audrey looked at her mom, worry wrinkling the skin around her eyes, and felt her stomach twist again. “I’m fine,” she said. “It’s nothing, honestly. I’m coming down now.”

  Laura smiled, tipping her head to the side. “Okay. I’ll fix you something—apple slices and crackers.”

  “Oh,” Audrey said. “Like—”

  Her phone vibrated twice in quick succession, and without thinking she snatched it up to look. They were both from Julian, the first:

  Everything okay? I’ll swing by when we’re done. (If Izzy ever lets me leave.)

  And the second:

  I love you.

  “Like what?” Laura said.

  Audrey clasped her phone tightly as she stood, smiling at her mom with a brightness that she definitely wasn’t feeling. “Apples and crackers,” she said, starting toward the door. “Like when I was little.”

  At the sound of the doorbell Audrey jumped off the couch, earning a look from Adam. He glanced at his watch pointedly. “Do I have to ask who that is?”

  “Nope.” She opened the front door to Julian, standing there with his hands jammed into his pockets and the wind whipping his dark hair into his eyes.

  “Hey, I came as—”

  Audrey didn’t let him finish, grabbing his arm and yanking him inside the house. “Upstairs.”

  “Audrey?” Her mom’s voice floated out of the kitchen, and then she stepped out, a beer in her hand. Her eyebrows rose when she looked past Audrey, and she raised the bottle to her lips. “Hi, Julian.”

  “Hey,” he said. “Sorry, I know it’s late.”

  She dipped her chin in a nod, her gaze floating to her daughter. “He’s right, Audrey,” her mom said. “It’s nine.”

  “I know.”

  “Don’t we have rules about school nights?”