by Paloma Meir
“I’ll remember.” How could I forget? It was all we had talked about over the summer and was the catalyst for our move, although she would tell her friends it was for the sunshine.
I had not meant to push the girl over the edge. I hadn’t really cared when it happened, when she made the live feed on the internet of her cutting her arms, saying this is what we all wanted.
And really nobody had wanted that, not even me, although the spectacle of it all did enliven my evening.
Her parents called the police, and though they and everyone in our small community knew it was me who spearheaded the campaign against the golden girl of my high school, there was no actual proof.
It had worked out well, I wanted to tell my mother. Life in Los Angeles, specifically the Hollywood Hills where we now lived was vastly superior to the low-key world of Seattle.
I knew not to say this to her. Better to pretend I was properly chastised. I did want the rest of my high school years to go smoothly. No more curious comments on my high school records.
College seemed the best option for my future, a good one too. I would be free of the tutelage of my parents, free to be whomever I was. I was counting the days.
“Okay, my darling,” My mother smiled, so much love she wanted to give me. A stirring of guilt, or maybe pity, passed through me. “Here,” She handed me a baggie containing Fish Oil, Vitamin B, a multi-vitamin and assorted calming herbs.
“I haven’t eaten yet.” I took the baggie from her, and slung my book bag over my shoulder.
“It has been a hectic morning.” She laughed.
It was true. We had only moved into our new home a week before. We were still living out of the boxes.
“I’ll take them with my lunch.” I smiled because that was what people did while conversing. Smiling was hard with the thought of what my lunch would be. My mother had put me on a strict vegan diet when I hit puberty.
My moods had demanded it, and, truthfully, it did even out the edges. But it was not a cure. As far as I could tell from my research, there was no cure beyond medicine, and I wasn’t going to take pills.
A real cure for the real problem beyond the symptoms of my obvious disorder did not exist. I did not let my parents, or the many doctors I had seen over the years know of the root problem.
I was dead inside and there was not a treatment plan for that.
I got out of the car and pushed my way through the throng of high school students so different from my last school. The girls all wearing raggedy denim shorts with those awful sheepskin boots. The boys belonged to the cult of Nike.
This surprised me. I had assumed Los Angeles had more individuality. My old high school in Seattle had more variety, although many had clung to the style of grunge clothes that had made my city famous when I was still a little girl.
Me? I wore a knee length A-line floral dress I had found in one of the vintage shops before we moved with black ballet flats. I felt no need to change my style to fit in. I knew that some would change theirs to follow my lead in no time.
I held the baggie of assorted pills over the garbage can at the door of my first class but thought better of it and put them in my bag to take with my lunch. I did want my time in this new world to go smoothly.
…
I surveyed the open air cafeteria at lunchtime, taking in the groups. The school was jock heavy, not interesting to me. I scanned for the popular girls, not knowing whether or not to sit with them. It hadn’t gone well the last time I had done that.
I saw across the field of the school a group of girls I knew would be the most fun, in their shorter shorts, over made-up faces, sluttishly splayed out over picnic benches. They would be the experimenters, dabbling in drugs and alcohol, sexually precocious.
Tempted, tempted, tempted but no. I couldn’t allow myself the luxury of losing myself the way that they did. Too much could be lost for myself.
I spied my group to be off to the side closest to the vending machines. Blonde, all of them. Most of the school was blonde, but these girls had the shiniest locks, with unnatural expensive looking highlights. Their outfits were the same as the others but their backpacks were Prada, Gucci, and other high-end brand names.
I didn’t squeeze into their table but sat at one over populated by second tier more studious looking girls. A few of them even wore their hair in their natural brown color.
I looked their way as I opened my bag, and took out a vile looking container of tofu veggie scramble. The prettiest girl, Cara, the one who would be only true friend and she would pay for that choice, smiled at me.
I smiled back trying not to stare. She was beautiful with her golden blonde waves that fell down her back, her bright deep blue eyes and California golden sun kissed skin.
I didn’t feel a need to initiate conversation with any of them. I knew they would come to me because my look could be deceptive and really there was nothing more easily read than a teenage girl trying to figure herself out.
I may not have been beautiful by the glossy standards of the city but I was striking all the same. Pixyish is how people described me, which was laughable because I stood 5.9 and very thin, even by their exaggerated standards.
Done with my lunch I walked to my next class behind a group of boys that I was sure ran the male end of the hierarchy. Cute from behind, jovially laughing to each other. They seemed like a nice enough bunch. But the dynamics of boys did not really interest me, too basic, primitive. Eat, play, eat, play— boring.
I would be wrong.
Chapter Three
Tired at the end of my first day with a full load of AP classes I made my way across the football field to the lab where the Physics Club met. I wasn’t terribly interested in science but it came easily to me and impressed the colleges.
The lab was one of those long free standing bungalows that looked more like trailer than an actual classroom. On a positive note, the structure was new and a blast of air-conditioning hit me when I walked in the door. It was welcome. Los Angeles was hot in a way I had never experienced before and the high school was sprawling across the flat treeless campus; too much walking. I understood why the students always carried a bottle of water in their hands.
I sat down at a long desk in the back and surveyed the students. A nerdy group— no surprise there. I was sure it was the same across the whole country. They would be shy, witty and fun in their own peculiar way but not interesting — too earnest in their emotions. Too easy to twist and besides, I generally liked their company. Not everything needed to be harmed.
I looked to the front of the room as the students quieted down and took their seats. A boy stood at the front by the chalkboard. The president of the club I assumed. He was not like the others.
He stared at me and I stared back. He wasn’t dressed like the other students and he did not have the sun-starved look of the indoor crowd of kids that would join a Physics Club.
I recognized him as one of the boys I had walked behind after lunch. He wasn’t in his Nike gear anymore. He wore vintage looking jeans with the selvage showing on the cuffed bottoms and a button down navy short sleeve shirt, much more Seattle than Los Angeles.
But it wasn’t so much his outfit that drew my attention but him. He had olive toned skin, dark lustrous hair that he wore in a tousled way with the front being a little longer. He ran his fingers through it as he watched me with his large dark deep-set eyes.
I looked down at my desk and did not look up again as he ran through the schedule of the club. The plan was intensive. This would not be a club for those who only wanted to mark it on their college applications. In fact some of the experiments he described sounded better suited for graduate students. I was amused.
I heard him but did not see him at the end of the meeting when I was picking my bag up off the floor.
“Hello, I’m Serge. Are you new here?”
“Yes,” I looked up at him from my crouched position and couldn’t formulate another word in my mind.
&n
bsp; “Well…Welcome…Here’s the list of activities,” He handed me a stack of papers as I sat back up in the chair and stared at him. I hoped with my mouth closed.
“Thank you.” I took the papers but he did not move. I felt a little happy about that even though I knew I wouldn’t be able to hold up my end of the conversation with all the blood rushing through my body at light speed.
“You should sign-in.” He looked through the pile of papers and pulled out a blank one that was definitely not a sign-in sheet.
I realized he wanted to know my name and I could not hold back my smile. I looked down at the floor as I took the paper from his hand.
“You should put all your contact information on it…So I can keep you updated.” He said as I scribbled all of the information out on the paper.
“Okay.” I handed him back the paper and stared. I didn’t want to but I couldn’t stop myself.
“Okay.” He said and I laughed, stood up and walked out of the room glancing back over my shoulder to see him frozen in place, still looking at me.
I managed to squeak out a goodbye before running across the campus to my mother’s waiting car.
…
“Celena,” My Mother yelled as I ran up the stairs to my room. “Would you like to help me with my project? I’m a little stuck on getting the numbers on recidivism…and you’re so…good at research.” Her voice trailed off.
My computer skills were something that scared her since the incident. My laptop had been installed with tracking software after the girl had harmed herself by agreement of all the involved parties when the police were called in.
I bypassed them all within an hour of getting it back after the month long punishment of having all my technology, even my guitar and art supplies, taken away.
“Maybe later, lots of homework.” I didn’t have any homework. It was the first day of school.
I did like assisting her. She directed documentaries my father produced. The one she was working at that time was about the turnstile-like nature of the prison system.
It was all very fascinating but left me with a sick feeling. I knew that if I didn’t watch myself carefully I too could end up in the loop of being in and out of the system.
“Okay, maybe later.” Her voice cheerful for her part in the game we played where I was the sane daughter and she was the doting mother.
She was the doting mother and my father did the best he could. This is not a story of neglect or abuse.
I ran upstairs, not to avoid anything but to embrace my inner workings.
I slammed the door to my box-filled room that would stay that way until my mother gave up and put everything away for me and opened my computer to the secret world where I could be myself or at the very least make an attempt to know the truth.
I logged on to my account at sociopathicworld, with my username selenaslinks. Not my proper name spelling, but the forum appreciated alliteration.
I bypassed the board and went straight to my private messages. I had quite a following after what had happened with the girl. In fact the board had egged me on in my attacks on her.
I don’t think I would have gone quite so far if they hadn’t pushed me but I take full responsibility. The board’s manipulations weren’t lost on me. Whether I was truly one of them or not, I did understand their mindset and could play them harder than they could ever play me if I wanted to.
I ignored the messages from my legion of fans. I always did, except when I was live-blogging my one-sided game with the girl who cracked. I seldom commented on the forum, always more of a lurker.
But I had made a friendship with the woman who ran the website, known only as Q. She had started the website a few years before with hopes of enlightening society about the benign nature of most sociopaths. She was smart to have made the forum of her website locked and invitation-only because it proved the opposite of the message she was trying to deliver.
selenaslinks: I met a boy.
q: Boring don’t message me again until you make something interesting happen.
selenaslinks: Maybe I’m not one of you. Maybe the sun does make a difference. Maybe I’m just crazy.
q: Go ask that girl what you are.
selenaslinks: Fair
q: I don’t have any answers for you but whatever you are be careful, you’re my star pupil. Stay off the boards.
selenaslinks: Why don’t you just take them down if you don’t approve of them?
q: Like you they make my life more amusing.
selenaslinks: Thank you.
q: Okay Selena I know you want to do this tell me about your day I’ll pretend I’m interested.
selenaslinks: I know you are its funny how you’re the only one that really knows me.
We chatted for about an hour, normal talk. Q would lower her veil of being the Queen of regulated evilness and just be human. The relationship we had was an odd one but in retrospect not harmful.
She was a good person for someone lacking a soul.
I would have spent longer talking to her but my phone beeped with a text. The first in months. The fall-out from the incident in Seattle had rightfully turned me into a social pariah.
It was Serge asking if I received the club’s papers. I replied that I had, that he had handed them to me. I giggled while texting, not something I was used to doing.
For a moment I had hope that maybe I was okay, maybe my dark moods had stayed in the grey city far north of where I sat. I had experienced mellow periods before but never one as long as this one had been. For the previous two months I had felt even.
It would not last and the crash from the hopefulness would make it even harder but sitting on the floor of my room that day, anything seemed possible.
A few minutes later he texted me a physics joke. I texted him back a silly knock-knock joke. Back and forth we traded very bad jokes. His were all science related. I began to wonder if he were on the Autism Spectrum.
It wouldn’t have made a difference. I liked his attention, even if the jokes never extended into conversation.
I put my computer and technology away after he ran out of jokes, picked up my guitar and gently played until my mind melded with the melodies. Meditative, my mother had been right about that. My guitar was worth all the vitamins, good diet and regular exercise my parents plied me with.
Chapter Four
On a Saturday a month later, I was sitting on my bed, my guitar in hand, summoning the energy to play it. The feelings had come back, sneaking up on me. I felt a little low, my thoughts beginning to race around my head, tumbling into negativity. A heaviness filled my body as if any movement would be too much.
The sunlight I loved, an annoyance. The fresh start in the new school, dull. People were the same everywhere. These ones a little prettier, a little worldlier but still the same with their cloying desire to fit in.
I hated being able to see past the facades, almost jealous of the way everyone else accepted each other at face value. Why had I been born without that ability?
My phone beeped. I knew it was Serge, even though I had made other friends. He texted me at least once a day, always with a science joke. At school he would wave to me, sometimes he would look like he was coming my way to talk but he wouldn’t follow through.
I watched him not understanding, which was a change of pace for me. The others were like robots, so easy to predict their every movement. He seemed comfortable with others. In fact he was quite popular with all the different groups of kids liking him.
What wasn’t there to like? From everything I heard and I listened to everything everyone said like a spy in their house of love, Serge excelled at everything he did and was called straight edged at the time. A dream boy, really.
He did have his demons, as I would come to know but he hid them from all, wanting to keep up appearances. His family was very top tier East Coast. I assumed that’s where the reserved quality came from.
But I didn’t know any of that the day I sat on my bed pa
nicked that my period of calm was coming to an end. I looked at my phone to see that he was saying that he was standing in front of my home and wanted to come inside.
He lived down the canyon from me and I would see him running up and down the street with his two best friends, Danny and Brendan. I knew that on the weekend he would continue his run alone to the end of the cul-de-sac and stand in front of my house as if he were resting.
I had thought of inviting him a few times before but his shyness with me was interesting to observe. I enjoyed watching it play out, seeing him try to build his courage.