Double zing.
The first tear to sneak out of my left eye was considerate enough to wait until they were out of sight. I stayed in the bathroom and cried for twenty minutes. That was a luxury I would only be able to afford for the next twenty-four hours, because the magical world of mascara was about to be introduced into my life—and crying with mascara on is definitely not worth the extra pain and suffering it causes (as I’d soon learn).
I took a minute to examine myself in the mirror. Was I really so unfortunate looking that I deserved this kind of attack? I mean, I was normal. I wasn’t a stick-skinny girl with fake boobs (which I think looks ridiculous by the way), my boobs were proportionate to my body and my nose was fine. In fact, I rather liked my nose. It was smallish and maybe curved up a tiny bit at the tip but not so you could look up my nose or anything. I had dark, dark brown eyes and dark brown hair, very fair skin and freckles that crossed the bridge of my nose. I was average height for my age, I thought. I don’t know when you stop growing but I was five foot six. Maybe I could even be considered tall?
But not in that moment. As I stood there in the bathroom after being humiliated by Sandy Carson, I felt like the smallest person in the world. Ugly, uninformed, and completely lost in a world where superficial bitches reigned supreme. Apparently.
The next day I showed up to school looking like a confident, empowered, mature, dynamic, completely self-actualized …
Prostitute.
Overcompensate much?
That’s right, I’d taken all of my allowance and bought foundation (the wrong shade), lipstick (Hooker Red, naturally), blush (more like Moulin Rouge Regret), mascara (who knew you could look like you had spiders living in and around your eye sockets), eyeliner (hi, raccoon—I think we share a grandparent), and powder (to seal it all in like an embalmer).
On an attractiveness scale of one to ten, I ranked somewhere between zero and your average made-up corpse. Six weeks after the wake.
I didn’t even make it to first period before getting my marching orders: straight to the principal’s office to explain why I thought it was appropriate to look like a clown on steroids. From there, I was questioned about my homelife and whether there had been any recent “emotionally traumatic” events; once this Law & Order SVU–type questioning had determined that nothing drastic had triggered this “acting out,” I was ordered to the bathroom to wash my face.
Of course I couldn’t have just made it to the bathroom in solitude. I passed right by Sandy and the girls on my way there. And of course they laughed at me, even though I kept my head down and avoided eye contact. And of course Sandy shouted after me, “OMG, your head and neck are two completely different colors!”
What I thought:
This is all your fault, you evil bitch.
What I said:
Nothing.
I raced to the bathroom before my tears could make the Twister game that was my face degrade completely into the look of a notorious crime scene. I desperately just wanted to get this shameful crap off my stupid big fat head—who the hell did I think I was anyway—but without any makeup remover, using the awful detergent-like soap in the bathroom, it took forever to clean it away. It felt like I’d laid it on an inch thick, and I rubbed so hard and so fast, desperate to remove it all before someone entered the bathroom to ridicule me further. By the time it was all clean, my face was red and raw, puffy and swollen. Which led me to start crying harder than ever. And when I was all cried out, I swore to myself I’d never make a mistake like that again.
Everything in moderation, I told myself. (To which I’d later add including moderation.) Also, I realized, whatever your knee-jerk reaction is when something hits you down where it counts, you’re probably better off doing the exact opposite.
So, yeah. The respect and admiration of the popular crowd was as alien to me as self-respect and perspective is to the Real Housewives of Anywhere Ever. And this Facebook fiasco was only the latest in a string of unfortunate experiences collectively known as “my existence.”
Of course I could untag myself later, at least on Facebook, but the damage was done. Two things were certain: I would not miss Jemma, and I would not miss Hamilton High.
It never gets better or worse.
—ELVIS COSTELLO
“This Is Hell”
CHAPTER
2
“Please turn your music down!” Mom called from downstairs.
Enjoying the sanctity of my room, I contemplated for a moment pretending I didn’t hear her, but then she’d just come upstairs and fling my bedroom door open, one eyebrow cocked, a smirk veering left that says: We both know damn well you heard me.
I know this routine. We’ve done this dance.
I turn the music down.
Packing sucks. Moving sucks. Turning my music down sucks. Everything sucks. You’d think I’d at least be able to rock out while I painfully and methodically box up my belongings against my will.
You’d be wrong.
My parents have tried to spin this move every which way, to the point that every time I find myself in the kitchen with one of them, I preemptively cringe at whatever uplifting nonsense they’re about to spew at me.
“This could be the best thing that ever happened to you.”
Really? Thanks, Captain Cliché.
“It’s a fresh start.”
Yay. A chance to be the same outcast at a whole new school!
“You’ll make new friends.”
Because that’s so easy to do when everyone already made their new friends freshman year. And what about my old friends? What about the fact that I was leaving everyone I knew in the entire world?
Parents never get it.
I understand that we have to move. I’m not being a brat about it. My dad got a promotion—that’s good. My sister, Noel, is off at college, so even if we stayed here, the house is too big. It’s always been too big, because I think my parents wanted a third child, but that sibling never materialized. So now that it’s just me, it’s that much more obvious.
Not to be mean, but the one good thing about being at a new school is that nobody knows I’m related to Noel—therefore, no one knows how uncool I am by comparison. Don’t get me wrong; I love my sister. It’s just that everybody loves my sister. For my entire life, I’ve been overshadowed by her.
Noel is pretty much perfect. She has thick, gorgeous, wavy brown hair with natural highlights that regular people pay a fortune to get. Frizz? She’s heard of it … but never had it. And don’t even get me started on her eyes. They’re like cats’ eyes with Bambi lashes. Now that I think about it, that’s a perfect analogy, because she’s almost cartoon perfect.
She’s taller than me and skinnier than me, yet she’s still muscular in awe-inspiring, completely unfair ways. Her sense of style has always been unique, yet fashionable; she’d never be caught dead in anything that says “Juicy.”
(BTW, have you noticed you never see sweatpants with “Classy” written across the ass?)
(Second BTW, have you noticed people who wear sweatpants are never actually sweating? Take note, people: If you’re not planning on sweating, don’t wear the sweatpants.)
(Final BTW, I swear: If you are planning on sweating, and it’s not because you’re going to the gym, maybe you just shouldn’t leave the house.)
If Noel were just pretty, that would be one thing. Wonderfully (for her) and unfortunately (for me), she just happens to also be good at freaking everything. Grades? Check. Singing? Better than your average American Idol finalist. Dancing? She was head cheerleader, and since cheerleading has basically evolved into insanely amazingly choreographed dance routines, yes, you could say she’s also amazing at that.
I could also run down all the sports she can play or list the awards she won at school or mention the three college scholarships she was offered and it would all be true, but what always mystified me more than anything else was for two people who were sisters … how completely and utterly differen
t we were from each other. Total freakin’ opposites.
Noel and I are nothing alike, and sadly, we were never close. In fact, I’m pretty sure if we weren’t related she wouldn’t even talk to me.
How do I know? Because she once told me exactly that. Point blank.
I remember it clear as day and that was a rough one. And given all the rough days I’ve had, it takes a lot for one to stand out.
So there was no love lost between us when Noel went to college. My mom has always said we aren’t close because of the age difference and that in a few years it’ll all change. My dad says it’s because my sister is “stuck up” and he’d “take the brainy girl over the beauty queen any day.”
Great, Dad. Thanks for saying what I was already thinking. I look forward to your self-esteem workshop!
Honestly, my dad is awesome. I know he means well. He’s actually really cool. (Don’t tell him I said that.) He treats me like an adult and tells it like it is. Always has. The family drama in our house has always been pretty underwhelming and limited to “someone” not doing her homework before she watched Pretty Little Liars or “someone” getting her nose pierced (that hole really should be closed up by now) or “someone” missing her curfew (curfews are totally unconstitutional, by the way—check out the Fourteenth Amendment).
Anyway, my dad’s a lawyer. He works a lot and I guess the bosses noticed because that’s why they’re moving us out to Los Angeles. He’s going to head up their entertainment law department. I guess that would be the silver lining of my life as I know it being completely upended—great weather year-round. Well, that and the fact that hopefully he’ll represent some cool famous people who occasionally find themselves in hot water, like Lindsay or Britney or Selena, and then I’ll meet them and of course they’ll need stable, non-Hollywood friends so we’ll become instant besties and then through them I’ll meet (and marry) Robert Pattinson.
(What, like you’ve never had a crush on someone? Someone who was famous? Someone who you’ll never meet?)
I’ll try to stay in touch with my friends from home—we’ll Skype or FaceTime when we can, the rest of the time we’ll talk, we’ll tweet, we’ll text. But how many sad faces can one send before it just becomes redundant? Not to mention that every time I even use an emoticon, I hate myself just a little bit more. And add to that, they’re all so basic: happy, sad, crying, confused. Where’s the emoticon for “utterly defeated”? Add that bad boy in and maybe I’ll come to the party.
Emoticons aside, I’m just fooling myself if I think everything isn’t going to change and most likely the move will also cost me my friends. Amy’s heart necklace says “BFF” and we’ll promise to stay in touch, but the truth is this: One thing is king when it comes to high school friendships, and that thing is geography. What’s that they say about real estate? Location, location, location? Same deal. Without proximity and day-in, day-out contact, the friendship is toast. Burnt.
I’ll be starting sophomore year at West Hollywood High. It’s supposed to be a good school from what I hear, but school is school: one big popularity contest. There’s always a nonsensical hierarchy among students, much like that of Louis XIV’s court (which we do study at some point, but the irony is lost on the students). You know what else is a popularity contest? Popularity. It’s stupid and random and based not on talent or skill but on rank—a rank decided upon by no one deserving to make that determination.
But that’s how it is. And that’s why I’m not looking forward to the move. And probably why I’m packing slower than I should be. (Though it might go a little faster if I could turn up My Chemical Romance to a volume that could be heard by humans and not just dogs.) I know my subconscious also is slowing me down to delay the inevitable. Instead of swiftly sifting through my stuff and deciding what’s coming with, what’s being donated to Goodwill and what’s going in the garbage … I’m looking at pictures, moving things from one area to the next, and just generally prolonging my misadventure.
All of which is why I find myself going through an already donation-designated box my parents threw together on behalf of my sister. Some clothes, old CDs she already ripped into her iTunes library, her diary, some junk from—
Wait.
Her diary?
Holy crap, Noel kept a diary?
I guess I really don’t know her that well. Gorgeous, talented and smart—yes, she was all those things, to my undying irritation. But she never struck me as particularly introspective.
I wanted to give that some more thought, but I was too eager to open the diary. Of course, this was a deep moral dilemma that I wrestled with for a solid, well-considered eleven seconds before opening to the first page, which read:
HOW TO BE A HATER
In retrospect, it’s hard to recall my exact thoughts on reading those first few pages. They seem to blur together somewhat now. Here’s what Mom likes to call the Reader’s Digest version, which is some term she uses for a book that’s been cut down to its basic story:
Noel’s diary—or at least the few dozen pages I read—was like a self-empowerment guide of sorts. Stuff that had been passed down to her from some girl named Alexa Derringer who was apparently older, wiser, prettier, thinner, sluttier, and better-all-around than Noel—who knew that was even possible? This diary was apparently some kind of legacy passed down to the next protégé each year. It explained how she stopped being so sensitive, how she learned to stop putting up with bullshit. It was a virtual guide on how she became strong and popular and self-assured. Flipping through the pages, I couldn’t help but think some of this stuff could really come in handy:
Don’t make that stupid duck face in your photos. Just don’t.
Her reason was tied to someone named Samantha Jacobsen and her much-mocked modeling debut in the Delia’s catalogue. I knew the exact face that she meant. That stupid, lips-pursed face-pose that every girl seems to have in at least three of her Facebook photos.
Noted. I wouldn’t make that face in photos with my friends. Once I had friends.
Don’t say “deets.” If you ask me to “tell you the deets” I will withhold them from you on principle.
That was so like Noel. Ruler of cool. Arbiter of what makes or breaks you. Her example stemmed from an unfortunate (for the boy) incident where some guy tried to pick her up in an Exxon parking lot after being rejected in front of her for a pack of Parliaments. When he tried to get her number, he asked for her “digits,” so he could text her “the deets” about some party that night. She’d rather drink a bleach cocktail while watching her parents have sex than attend that party.
(Thanks for the visual, sis.)
Her next rule came from an incident with Lana—my art teacher, remember—who she apparently couldn’t stand. Ugh, that figures.
Turns out she thought Lana was always trying to be “down” with the kids, and she said “OMG” during class one day, inspiring ridicule galore.
Text “OMG?” Fine. Say “OMG” out loud? No. It’s the same amount of syllables as the words you’re abbreviating. You sound like an idiot.
Poor Lana. She meant well. And I had to admit, Noel had a point there. I’d never do that. Actually saying OMG out loud should only happen if you’re being ironic or asking your phone for directions to the Oklahoma Meerkat Gardens.
So I guess we do share some DNA after all. You just can’t tell. Like Alec Baldwin and all the other Baldwins.
When anyone asks you if you hooked up with a guy, just roll your eyes and laugh. This way you simultaneously avoid looking like a prude or a slut.
She’s kind of a genius. I mean, this is exactly the kind of stuff that I’d hope she would tell me if we were close and I was starting a new school … which I was. It was almost like having a virtual big sister—one who liked me.
Who knows? Maybe she left the diary behind for me to find it. Maybe it was her way of wanting to help me.
Don’t wear pigtails. If you’re not on a Disney show or a porn star (or both), there is no
good excuse to wear pigtails past the age of twelve.
Don’t wear tiny shorts and Ugg boots unless you’re trying out for a Wet Seal catalogue.
Don’t go out with a guy who wears his pants below his ass. The only way you should see a guy’s underwear before you’ve kissed him is if he’s a Calvin Klein model.
She would know. She did go out with a Calvin Klein model. But she’s right. I don’t know what the deal is with guys wearing their pants like that. It looks ridiculous. I know it’s like a “gangsta” thing, but I’ve heard the real story is it actually started in jails. Guys would wear their pants like that to signal they were “available” and, more important, willing. (Even more reason not to date a guy who wears his pants like that.) Though I doubt the guys who wear their pants that way at school have any idea where it all started. I just watch too many documentaries. Sadly, my brain retains useless trivia way easier than Algebra II.
I put the diary down and looked at the box of Noel’s clothes. Behind it were three other boxes—all clothes, all much cooler than mine. Before I even knew what I was doing, I’d stopped packing my stuff and started unpacking hers, trying things on, seeing what fit.
I thought,
What’s the big difference if I keep them, right? They were going to charity anyway—she obviously didn’t want them. Maybe some of my wardrobe can go to charity instead? Maybe I need a makeover? And maybe I already have everything I need right in these boxes? Who’s to say I can’t be just as cool as Noel at my new school? Who would know I hadn’t been cool all my life?
Granted, I had no interest in being a “hater” per se, but I didn’t want to be a total loser when I made my fresh start. I thought, This diary could be my roadmap to cool.
Confessions of a Hater Page 2