Switched

by Аманда Хокинг

“Do you want to graduate, Wendy?” Ms. Page asked pointedly. “I know you don’t want to be here, but you don’t seem to be in a hurry to get out of here. Do you have any plans after high school?”

  “Backpacking in Europe,” I replied flippantly, even though I had no intention to travel. As if Matt would let me go anywhere anyway.

  “Is that why you’re not applying yourself? Because you’re afraid of what comes after?” She was desperately trying to delve into the many layers of me, but there really weren’t that many layers. People were often under the mistaken impression that I was far more complicated than I really was.

  “I’m not afraid of anything,” I muttered. I had cut my legs shaving last night, and I absently picked at the giant Transformers Band-Aid that covered my wound.

  “Wendy, we both know that’s not true,” Ms. Page admonished me gently.

  “How do you know it’s not true? You barely know me. You just met me!” I hadn’t meant to snap at her, but I was growing irritated. A headache was lurking just behind my eyes and I rubbed my temples tiredly.

  “Everyone is afraid of something,” Ms. Page insisted, trying not to let on that my outburst had bothered her. “I’m deathly afraid of spiders.”

  “I’m not.” It sounded glib, but I really wasn’t. I wasn’t afraid of any of the normal things kids were. “And even if I were, that seems like an awfully shallow examination. Like 90% of the population is afraid of spiders. What’s that prove?”

  “It doesn’t prove anything,” Ms. Page allowed. “But you make an interesting point. Nearly everyone is afraid of spiders. Except you.” She paused to let that sink in, as if I would go, oh boy, you got me there. “You make a point of trying to stand out, to be different than everyone else.”

  “Nope, I don’t,” I shook my head. “I just am different. I don’t try. It’s just the way it is. And it doesn’t really bother me.”

  “It doesn’t?” She raised any eyebrow. “Is that why you’ve gotten suspended from every school you’ve gone to for having altercations with fellow students?”

  “They don’t like me. Doesn’t mean I’m gonna put up with their attitude,” I shrugged.

  As soon as I said it, I knew I sounded like a paranoid psycho who thought everyone was out to get me, but I didn’t bother to correct it. Nobody was out to get me. Well, maybe that bitch Tegan would revel in something bad happening to me, but there wasn’t a conspiracy ruining my life. I just didn’t put up with people, and that’s why I’d gotten kicked out of every private school on the East coast.

  “We have a really diversified student body here, and I think it would be really good for you to try and make the best of it.” She was practically reciting the same speech she’d given me the first time we met, but I just nodded like it was new information. “And even if you can’t get along with your classmates, you can at least focus on your studies. If you played your cards right, you could be graduating in six months, and I know how much you want out of here.” She was playing to my weakness, and that was pretty smart of her, so I nodded more seriously.

  “Okay. I will. I’ll at least try to stay awake in class,” I amended with a smile.

  Finally, she let me go. I scooped up my bag, slipped on my shoes, and dashed out into the hall.

  When the final bell finally rang at three o’clock, I was always the first one out I pushed through the doors going outside, I heard someone calling my name, but I didn’t look back. Against my better judgment, I decided to slow down, though, and Patrick quickly jogged up to me.

  “Hey, Wendy!” Patrick gave me his goofy grin as he matched my pace.

  He was about a foot taller than me with thick, auburn hair that he was always pushing out of his face. While he wasn’t unattractive exactly, there was something too clumsy about him to be sexy. For some reason, he seemed to fancy us as friends, and he was harmless enough, so I decided to try it out.

  “Hey.” I readjusted the straps on my bag and looked up at him as he brushed his heavy bangs from his eyes.

  “I heard you got sent to the principal’s office,” Patrick sounded apologetic.

  “Word travels fast,” I grumbled.

  We had reached the parking lot at the end of the lawn, so I stopped. I hadn’t looked around, but I knew that Matt was waiting somewhere nearby to pick me up. It would’ve been an honest enough excuse that I had to meet him, but I decided to try and finish the conversation with Patrick.

  “Tegan has a huge mouth,” Patrick agreed with a knowing smile.

  “That she does.” A rebellious curl had escaped from the messy bun I had my hair in, and I tucked it behind my ears. “It was no big deal really. I just fell asleep in Meade’s class.”

  “That guy is a douche,” Patrick said.

  “Yeah, he kind of is.” I glanced around, just meaning to see if I could see Matt, but I got distracted before I could give it a serious look.

  Even though it was pushing seventy degrees, Finn Holmes had on a fitted leather jacket, that looked better on him than I was willing to admit. He was sitting on the hood of his silver Cadillac, shimmering too brightly in a parking lot full of beat up second-hand cars. When he pushed his dark hair back, he looked like he was trying to channel James Dean. That would’ve been all well and good if he wasn’t looking at me again. There was something unnerving about the way his dark eyes settled on me, and I decided that Patrick and I had chatted enough.

  “But I gotta get going,” I cut Patrick off in mid-sentence. He’d been saying something about history that I hadn’t even been listening to anyway. “My brother is waiting for me.”

  “Oh, alright, okay.” Patrick nodded and smiled brightly, so I smiled back. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  I didn’t even know where Matt was and I was already hurrying away from Patrick into the parking lot. Scanning quickly for Matt’s light blue Prius, I absently started to chew my thumb nail. When I looked back at Finn, he and his Cadillac had magically disappeared, and for some reason, that only bothered me more. I was still staring at the empty spot where Finn had been when a loud honk startled me, so I jumped. Matt was sitting a few cars down, looking at me over the top of his sunglasses.

  “Sorry,” I opened the car door and hopped in, but he just stared at me for a moment. “What?”

  “You were biting your nails and looking around. Did something happen?” Matt asked seriously, and I sighed. He took his whole big brother thing way too seriously.

  “No, nothing happened. School sucks,” I brushed him off. “Let’s go home.”

  “Seatbelt,” Matt commanded, and I did as I was told.

  Matt had always been quiet and reserved, thinking everything over carefully before making a decision. I rarely argued with him because there wasn’t a point in it, even though I tended to argue with everyone about everything. He was a stark contrast to me in everyway, except that we were both relatively short. I was barely over 5’4, and he was 5’9. He had sandy blond hair that he always kept short and neat, and his eyes were the same shade of blue as our mother’s. My hair was an unruly dark brown mass of curls, and my eyes matched it perfectly. Since Matt was a pretty intellectual guy, he was shockingly muscular. I think he had some kind sense of duty, like he had to make sure he was strong enough to defend us against anything, so he spent a lot of time working out.

  “How is school going?” Matt asked carefully.

  “Great. Fantastic. Amazing,” I lied.

  “Are you even going to graduate this year?” Matt had long since stopped judging my school record. A large part of him didn’t even care if I graduated high school. In fact, he probably preferred it. The thought of me going off to college had to terrify him.

  “Who knows?” I shrugged and started rummaging through my bag for my iPod.

  “Just to warn you, we got a call today,” Matt said. “About you sleeping in class.”

  “Delightful,” I sighed. Matt could care less about my schooling, but my aunt Maggie was an entirely different story. And since she was
my actual legal guardian, her opinion mattered more than I would’ve liked. “What’s her plan?”

  “Maggie’s thinking bedtimes,” Matt informed with a dry smirk. He had been privy to all my failed attempts at bedtimes over the years.

  “I’m almost eighteen!” I groaned. “What is she thinking?”

  “You’ve got four more months until you’re eighteen,” Matt corrected me shortly, and his hand tightened reflexively on the steering wheel. He was suffering from serious delusions that I was going to run away as soon as I turned eighteen, and nothing I could say would convince him otherwise.

  “Yeah, whatever,” I waved it off. “Did you tell her she’s insane?”

  “I figured she’d hear it enough from you,” Matt grinned at me.

  “You told her it wouldn’t work, though? And if she tries to make me go to bed then… I don’t know. I’ll take sleeping pills in the morning so I sleep through all my classes!” I announced triumphantly, as if it were a perfectly brilliant, logical idea. Matt laughed, the same way he laughed at all my ridiculous posturing.

  “I told her it wouldn’t work,” Matt assured me. “But I thought it would be best if you let her tell you the rules, and then you yelled about not obeying them. Then you both agreed to some kind of compromise where you pretty much do whatever you want.”

  “Yeah, that is usually what happens,” I yawned and looked out the window. We were rapidly approaching our new house, buried on an average suburban street amongst a slew of maples and elms. “I hate this town.”

  “It’s a beautiful town!” Matt sounded shocked at my complaint.

  “I guess.” I shrugged, and the scenery did look pretty. Overall, it was an okay town, but I just hated moving. Maggie and Matt probably hated it just as much as I did, and they only ever did it for me, so really, I was the one that had the least to be pissy about.

  “You promised you were really gonna try here,” Matt reminded me, almost pleading with me. We had pulled up in the driveway next to the butter colored Victorian that Maggie had completely fallen in love with.

  “I am!” I insisted. I disappointed people constantly, but I could never stomach disappointing Matt. “Did you see me talking to that kid? His name is Patrick. And he’s kind of a friend.”

  “Look at you. Making your very first friend at the ripe old age of seventeen.” Matt shut off the car and looked at me with veiled amusement.

  “Yeah, well, how many friends do you have?” I countered evenly, and he just shook his head and got out of the car, so I quickly followed after him.

  “That’s what I thought.”

  “I’ve had friends before. Gone to parties. Kissed a girl. The whole nine yards,” Matt said as he went through the side door into the house.

  “So you say.” I kicked off my shoes as soon as we walked in the kitchen, which was still in various stages of unpacking. After as many times as we’d moved, everyone had gotten tired of the whole unpacking/packing process, so we tended to live mostly out of boxes. “I’ve only seen one of these alleged girls.”

  “Yeah, cause when I brought her home, you set her dress on fire!

  While she was wearing it!” Matt had pulled off his sunglasses and looked at me severely with his deep blue eyes.

  “Oh come on! That was an accident and you know it!” I protested.

  “So you say,” Matt countered and opened the fridge.

  “Anything good in there?” I asked hopefully and hopped onto the kitchen island. “I’m famished.”

  “Probably nothing you’d like.” Matt started sifting through the contents of the fridge, but he was probably right. I was a notoriously picky eater. While I had never purposely sought out the life of a vegan, I seemed to hate most things that either had meat in them or man-made synthetics. It was odd, and incredibly irritating for the people who tried to feed me. “Oh. We have plain yogurt.”

  “Oh yum!” I clapped my hands together. It was one of the big generic tubs of it, and he tossed at me. I opened the drawer next to my legs and pulled out a spoon. I’d probably eat the full tub in one sitting, and I’d still be starving afterwards. It was maddening.

  Maggie appeared in the doorway to the kitchen, flecks of paint stuck in her blond curls. Her ratty overalls were covered in layers of multi-colored paint, proof of all the rooms she had redecorated over the years. She had her hands on her hips, and she didn’t look too happy to see either of us, so Matt cautiously shut the fridge door.

  “I thought I told you to tell me when you got home,” Maggie glared at him.

  “We’re home?” Matt offered sheepishly.

  “I can see that,” Maggie rolled her eyes, and then turned her attention to me. “I got a call today from Ms. Page.”

  “Sorry,” I said gulping down a spoonful of yogurt. “Isn’t it nice that you don’t have a job so you can get calls during the day?” She narrowed her eyes at me.

  “You know that I don’t work because I can’t work. You are a full-time job.” Maggie crossed her arms over her chest.

  The thing is, I don’t think she’s exaggerating. All the time she’s had to spend getting me in and out of school, cleaning up my messes, and moving us around, I don’t know how she would’ve had time to establish a career. Luckily, my loony mom and dead dad left us with enough money so she didn’t need to work.

  “Sorry,” I repeated and looked down at my yogurt, stirring it slowly. “I talked to Ms. Page and I promised I would try harder.”

  “We’ve heard that before,” Maggie said wearily.

  “Well, yeah… but I am really trying,” I insisted and looked to Matt for help. “I mean, I actually promised Matt this time. And I’m making a friend.”

  Maggie tried not to let on how much that simple fact delighted her. She wanted to hang on to her anger so she could punish me, but she looked to Matt to corroborate my story.

  “She was actually talking to a guy. They were smiling and everything,” Matt admitted.

  “Like a guy guy?” Her smile was growing and I could tell she was on the brink of gushing. The idea of this guy being a romantic prospect hadn’t crossed Matt’s mind before, and he suddenly tensed up, looking over at me with a new scrutiny. Fortunately for him, that idea hadn’t crossed my mind either.

  “No, nothing like that,” I shook my head. “He’s just a guy. He’s kind of goofy, I guess. I don’t know. He seems nice enough.”

  “Nice? Goofy?” Maggie really wanted to hug me. “That’s a start! And much better than that anarchist with the tattoo on his face.”

  “We weren’t friends,” I corrected her. “I just stole his motorcycle.

  While he happened to be on it.”

  Nobody had ever really believed that story, but it was true. To this day I couldn’t really explain how I had done it. I had just been thinking that I really wanted his bike, and then I was looking at him and he was listening to me. I don’t know. At any rate, that story is exactly how I lost my driver’s license.

  Theoretically, Maggie could’ve gotten a lawyer and fought it, but she thought I deserved it. Besides that, I think both she and Matt felt safer knowing I couldn’t drive.

  “So this really is gonna be a new start for us?” Maggie couldn’t hold back her excitement any longer. Her blue eyes had started to well with happy tears, and I did my best to try not to look irritated by her obvious joy. “Wendy, this is just so wonderful! We can really make a home here!”

  With that, she literally squealed and dashed over to me. She hugged me so tightly and so suddenly she almost knocked the yogurt from my hands, but I don’t think she would’ve cared. For the most part, I tended to barely tolerate hugs. I looked reproachfully at Matt over Maggie’s shoulder as she squeezed me to her, but his eyes were warning me not to say anything. I had a habit of ruining moments like this for Maggie, but I had promised to work on accepting them.

  “I’m so proud of you!” Maggie gushed into my shoulder. Then she realized she was leaving out Matt, so she loosened her grip on me just enoug
h so she could extend an arm back to him. “I’m so proud of you both! Come on, Matt! Group hug!”

  “Yeah, Matt, group hug,” I added dryly and forced a smile.

  Matt tended to be just slightly fonder of physical contact than I was, but he smiled and did as he was told. Maggie pulled him in close and we made an awkward tri-hug. Somewhere in the middle of the discomfort, I had actually managed to enjoy myself.

  2

  They had given me a study hall fourth period in an attempt to help me catch up on my work, but I had been using it for napping. At one end of the library, buried amongst the reference books and an out dated card catalogue, they had a few round tables scattered about. That’s where study hall was held. The librarian was at the other side of the room, and she would occasionally come check on us, but she didn’t really care what we were doing. The room was massive with insanely high ceilings topped with sky lights, and there was this constant sound of white noise, so she couldn’t hear anything we were saying anyway.

  Unfortunately, I had promised to crack down on my studies, so I felt obligated to actually do that. I had briefly considered sitting at a table by myself, but Patrick was already down there, sitting alone, so I thought I had better join him. It was all part of my initiative to fit in and act like a normal teenager. Since I spent most of the time or somewhere else napping, I hadn’t really noticed any of the kids that had study hall with me. That meant that I hadn’t noticed Finn, either, who slunk in a few minutes after I did and took a seat at the table behind me.

  “So what are you working on?” Patrick asked me jovially, as if schoolwork were an amusing topic. He had his English book open to The Lottery by Shirley Jackson, a short story I had also been assigned to read. It was like five pages long, but I hadn’t gotten past the title.

  “Um, English,” I decided. I needed to read it anyway, and since that’s what he was working on, maybe he could help me. “I have to read that too.”

  “It’s pretty weird,” Patrick assured me with wide eyed seriousness.

  There was something tremendously innocent about him, and despite myself, I found that kind of endearing. “I’m gonna warn you. I’m a little shocked we read this in school.”