TO MY VICTORIA, IN REAL LIFE
CHAPTER ONE
THE NIGHT IS QUIET AND still, with only the soft sounds of our feet padding along the grass. Xolkar and I hasten toward the rickety old barn in the distance. A growl interrupts the stillness as a creature—half ghost, half skeleton—descends upon us, swiping his long, bony fingers in our direction.
I have it, I tell Xolkar, quickly ducking out of harm’s way. The creature, not all that bright, wallops the air periodically until I’m up again. I plunge my sword into his rib cage. The ghost-skeleton-thing vanishes quickly in a puff of smoke, inflicting little damage on me. I am a skilled night elf hunter and Xolkar’s protector on this quest. His only job is to guard the ampule, which is our key to victory.
The worgen’s coming up, Xolkar warns as we enter the barn.
Don’t worry, I tell him with an assuredness that comes easy to me in this world. We got this.
The barn is dimly lit, and piles of animal bones are strewed across the floor. The worgen doesn’t wait long, announcing himself with a mighty roar and appearing, large and looming, in front of us. I’m the size of his leg, but I’m ready, weapons clenched, fixed in my battle stance. I fear nothing, for I am—
“Analee?” my dad’s girlfriend, Harlow, calls through my bedroom door. “Dinner’s ready!”
In the six months we’ve lived together, she still hasn’t learned to pronounce my name right. It sounds wrong coming out of her mouth, too nasally. It makes me think of apple pie and cornfields and other things I’m not.
“I’ll be down in a minute!” I call back.
I blame my dad, mostly. He’s the one who decided I should be given my great-grandmother’s name despite the fact that no one at my school would be able to pronounce it the Spanish way. Imagine having to sound it out for every single new teacher (ah-nah-LEE, by the way) every single school year, when inevitably your classmates will resort to calling you “anally” anyway. That’ll give you a snapshot of my problems.
I am not Analee. I am Kiri the night elf. And I fear nothing—not monsters, not goblins, not people.
I feel Harlow hesitate by the door before she says, “Your dad says right now. Sorry.”
The worgen takes this opportunity to deliver blow upon blow. Each weakens me, seeps the life out of me until I collapse in a heap on the ground.
“Crap,” I mutter. And I’m dead. The ghost of Kiri floats to the nearest graveyard.
What happened? Xolkar, who in real life is known as Harris, asks over the computer. We’ll have to start the whole quest over.
Harlow, I type. My hands slide off the keyboard.
Dinner is fancy tonight. There are candles involved, and Harlow is using her hand-painted china set. For once, her eight-year-old daughter, Avery, is not allowed to use her phone at the table. Dad stops me when I try to turn on the TV, even though I always watch it during dinner.
“No TV,” he says.
“What?” I ask. “Like, forever?” I hate eating without TV, because I’m way too aware of my chewing volume, and Harlow feels the need to fill the silence by asking me embarrassing questions about my love life, or lack thereof.
“Just for tonight,” Dad replies.
Harlow is a raw-food fanatic. Tonight she has made us sprouted lentils with tomato and cashew cheese. She acts like this is satisfying, but once I caught her in the kitchen plowing into a bag of peanut butter cups. It was one of the rare moments when I witnessed Harlow being human.
“The table looks beautiful, Raf,” Harlow says to Dad, taking a seat next to him. I assume that by “beautiful” she’s referring to the fact that Dad put out the place mats.
“Thank you, mi cielo.” Dad takes Harlow’s hand and kisses the skin between her fingers. Gross. They’re even more lovey-dovey than usual. Once, I overheard Harlow on the phone with her friend, and she said my dad spoke to her in Spanish whenever they had sex. I tasted vomit in my mouth for two straight days after that tidbit.
Without the TV on, you can hear all the ugly sounds of people eating. Every cough, every scrape of utensils against plates, every clink of ice cubes.
“Well,” I say. “This is new.”
“What?” Dad asks. He’s trying to eat and hold Harlow’s hand at the same time, which seems highly impractical to me.
“This whole . . .” I motion around the table with my fork. “Arrangement.”
“I think it’s nice to eat like this,” Harlow says. “Like a family.”
“Don’t get me wrong; it’s very wholesome and all. I’m just wondering why.”
I wait for Harlow to tell me that she read about it in one of the family life blogs she follows. They all have cutesy alliterative names, like The Garrison Gang or The Cooper Crew. And the families are super-white, like Harlow is, with skin the color of cottage cheese.
She doesn’t mention a blog, though. She looks at Dad, and Dad lets go of her hand. That’s when I get the feeling that something horrible is about to happen, more horrible than a worgen trying to eat my face off.
“You want to tell them?” Harlow murmurs.
Dad smiles. “You can do it.”
“Are you sure?”
Okay, this isn’t cute anymore.
“Mom, just tell us!” Avery explodes.
Harlow looks at the two of us with her fixed placid smile.
“Girls,” she says, “your dad and I . . . we’re getting married.”
Avery shrieks. Dad beams. I take a bite of lentils.
Somehow, on the outside, I manage to maintain my composure. The inner me is screaming, throwing paintings off the walls, shattering hand-painted china. Dad and Harlow have known each other for a total of eleven months. ELEVEN MONTHS. Their relationship is barely the equivalent of a human toddler.
It’s absurd. It’s too fast. It’s . . . wrong. Dad and Harlow don’t go together. She belongs with the type of guy who wears a man bun and is self-employed and visits ashrams to rediscover himself. Not Rafael Echevarria, insurance salesman.
It doesn’t matter. There’s no way this wedding is going to happen. Since Mom died, Dad has plunged headfirst into this relationship without thinking things through. It goes against his risk-averse nature as an insurance salesman. Enter Harlow, and every one of his rules for sane living has gone out the window.
I am fully confident that this fling with Harlow is an existential crisis and one day soon his brain will start to work again. They’ll have a long engagement until Dad comes to his senses. Or until Harlow meets her true kumbaya-chanting soul mate.
See, I like Harlow enough as a person. I just don’t want her in my life anymore.
“How many people are you inviting?” Avery asks. “Can I invite Isla?”
“It won’t be a big wedding,” Harlow says. “Maybe fifty people or so?”
“Fifty?” I repeat. The panic bubbles in my belly. “Did you say ‘fifty’? Or ‘fifteen’?”
“Are you wearing a white dress?” Avery asks. “Do Analee and I get matching dresses? Are we in the bridal party?”
Harlow wraps her toned arms around Avery and kisses the top of her head. “You two are the bridal party.”
“Fifty or fifteen?” I ask again.
“How about a congratulations?” Dad lowers his chin and gives me the stare. He uses it when I’m in panic mode and I forget to behave like a normal person. Which is a lot of the time.
“Congratulations,” I echo with what little feeling I can muster. “And when will this joyous occasion take place?”
“Three months,” Harlow says, beaming.
Seriously, fuck my life.
Harlow gets up to give me a kiss too, but my brain is too busy to let the rest of my body respond. I hate the thought of Dad and Harlow’s im
pending marriage, but the wedding itself is doomed to be a nightmare.
The ceremony will be all eyes on me walking down the aisle. I’m picturing myself wobbling in high heels in front of Harlow’s perfect friends, and then I’m picturing myself falling in high heels in front of Harlow’s perfect friends.
There’s also the reception, where I’ll have to dance. I don’t know how to dance at all, especially when it comes to my arms. I don’t know whether I should lift them up or keep them at my sides, but isn’t it too stiff if I keep them near my sides? Why do weddings and dancing go hand in hand? Why do you have to jerk your body around in rhythm to demonstrate happiness? Also, I won’t have anyone to dance with, so I’ll just be Harlow’s pathetic ugly stepdaughter who sits alone in a corner while the bride and groom feed each other vegan, gluten-free cake.
“Analee, I do have a small favor to ask of you,” Harlow says, back at her seat.
I say nothing. I’m not sure what is about to come out of her mouth, but I know that doing a favor for Harlow won’t amount to anything good.
“I would be really happy if you would be my maid of honor.”
Dad’s purposely staring down at his plate because he knows, he knows, this is too much to ask. This is Harlow’s idea, and he went along with it because he’ll do whatever she wants. That’s how desperate he is for the stupid piece of paper that will tell him he legally has her.
“I, um . . .” I can’t think of a polite way to let her down. It’s hard to say no to Harlow when she’s looking at you with those big eyes that are not quite blue and not quite green. Avery has a matching set, but I have my mom’s eyes, shiny and black.
“It would really mean a lot,” Harlow says. “I was hoping maybe you could write something for the occasion. Your writing is so beautiful and honest—”
“Can I think about it?” I interrupt. I need to buy time so that I can figure out a reason to say no.
“Of course,” she says. She scoops a pile of mushy lentils onto her fork and feeds Dad like he’s a baby bird. He opens his mouth and takes a bite, barely hiding a grimace. This is the curse that Dad has passed on to me. The inability to say no to people, especially to people like Harlow who always expect a yes.
CHAPTER TWO
MY WRITING JOURNAL WAS NEVER meant for anyone’s eyes but my own. Harlow found it a few months ago when she was dusting my room, and she made a huge fuss over it. She came across some particularly lovestruck entries, and when she asked who they were about, I lied and told her Justin Bieber. She accepted this without question, thereby proving she knows nothing about me.
I like writing more than talking because I can unleash Analee onto the page without feeling worried or awkward. Reading my work out loud would defeat the whole purpose. I don’t think Harlow quite gets it, but she loves the idea of me reading my work to all her friends so she can show them what a generous and beloved stepmom she’ll be.
Harris: when is the wedding?
Me: Three months.
Harris: hmm.
Me: I need to think of a way to back out. Maybe I can get myself sick before the wedding.
Harris: you can’t miss your dad’s wedding.
Me: I can lick some raw chicken and get salmonella. Or eat some shrimp from Seaport Grill. They have mice, but they pay off the health department to stay open.
Harris: i have a better idea.
Me: What?
Harris: you can go to the wedding.
Me: Or I can make fake vomit! There are a bunch of recipes online.
Harris: or you can go to the wedding.
Me: Harris, stop being reasonable and come up with some actual suggestions!
Harris: what if you had someone up there with you? for moral support?
Me: Like who?
Harris: like, i don’t know. someone you talk to every day, someone who just helped you defeat the nightmare creature in legion.
Me: You don’t actually want to come to this shit show.
Harris: weddings suck, but they involve a lot of eating, which i’m really good at.
Me: I’m not sure I can bring a guest.
Harris: no biggie. just throwing it out there.
Me: Don’t you think that would be weird? Going to a wedding together?
Harris: we can always meet before that. the wedding doesn’t have to be THE BIG MEET.
Analee’s Top Five Embarrassing Facts about Her and Her Best Friend, Harris
1. We’ve never met in person.
2. We’ve never talked to each other beyond messaging on the computer.
3. Neither of us knows what the other one looks like.
4. Most of what I’ve written in my journal is about him, because . . .
5. I’m hopelessly in love with him.
It sounds stupid, but even though he’s never met me in person, Harris knows me better than anyone else in the world. He knows all of my weird social phobias, like how I can’t use a public restroom unless it’s completely empty, and how I always eat lunch in the library by myself ever since the Incident with my ex–best friend, Lily.
Recently he’s been asking when we can meet. He offered to come to me, even though he lives in Seattle and it’s almost a six-hour flight to Florida. I change the subject every time he brings it up. It’s not that I don’t want to meet him. I’ve imagined the way it could go, thousands of times. How we could meet at sunset on the pier, and he would run toward me and pick me up like I weighed nothing more than a paper bag. He would be handsome, maybe not as perfect as Xolkar, but dark and striking.
I know that real life doesn’t live up to the fantasy. It would be way too much pressure, knowing that Harris paid hundreds of dollars and traveled across the country just to see me. It’s asking for disappointment, really.
Me: Maybe. I don’t know.
Harris: just think about it, ok?
Me: Ok.
Harris: but for real this time.
Me: Ok.
CHAPTER THREE
SOMETIMES I THINK MY LIFE can’t get any worse. My mom is gone. My dad is remarrying a lifestyle guru. My future stepsister is a pint-size pain in the ass. My only friend is someone I’ve never met in real life.
Then I find out that today we get our lab partners in biology. And we have to slice open a bullfrog. It’s a good lesson, I suppose. A reminder that things can always get worse, even when you think you’ve hit bottom.
First of all, I don’t understand why these barbaric practices are still being allowed in high school science classes. A diagram of the frog’s anatomy would more than suffice. Or maybe they could make some kind of plastic frog replica with fake body parts. I just don’t get why everyone’s okay with the massacre of poor, defenseless animals for a lab experiment that nobody will remember in five years.
Secondly, I hate working with people. I’m not a people person, to say the least. I’m always so concerned with what to say to them that my brain goes blank, and I feel like I’m hovering outside my body, watching this weird, mute freak who looks like me but has lost any semblance of personality, and everyone else is also watching the freak, and then I’m back in the freak’s body, feeling all these eyeballs fixed on me, and I panic even more.
Mr. Hubbard, our science teacher, has taught at our school for forty-eight years. He’s so old that his classroom still has a chalkboard. Every other teacher uses a computerized whiteboard, but Mr. Hubbard refuses to get with the times. While I appreciate his unabashed retro-ness, it’s sad to see an old man with wrinkled, yellow chalk-stained fingers.
A bunch of assholes at our school have placed bets on when Mr. Hubbard will die. Everyone started getting in on it when he had to get his hip replaced at the end of last year. It’s so gross. I bet the kids betting on him would be the same ones crying the hardest at his funeral, trying to show everyone how much they cared. That’s one of the many reasons I hate everyone at this school.
I always get to class as early as possible, so that I can journal before the lesson starts. Writing is
my happy time. I can let myself daydream about Harris, which takes a lot of mental fortitude, considering I don’t know what he looks like. I know the basic facts that he’s brought up casually in our conversations, and which I’ve not-so-casually burned into my brain: brown hair, brown eyes, medium build. He works out a lot, because he used to be thirty pounds overweight. He told me he’s really self-conscious about his stretch marks, and I wanted to tell him that I would find them beautiful, because they’re a part of him, and I love everything about him.
Except, he can’t ever know that. Harris is the only person on the planet who understands me, and what we have is too important for me to screw up. And I would screw it up. If I met him in person, I would get all tongue-tied and stupid. So I have to do the sappy thing and express my unrequited love in a journal he’ll never read.
The class starts to fill up quickly after I’ve written a few lines. The science classroom is set up with two-person tables, and I’m the only one who’s sitting at a table alone. Lily is sitting up front with Chloe. Chloe is part of Colton’s crowd, but she and Lily became close after Lily and I split apart. To add salt to the wound, Chloe is infinitely cooler than I am. I’m short and round; she’s long and thin. I spend my summers working at the local Dairy Queen; she and her family stay at a villa in Tuscany. I have zero friends at this school; she has dozens. I am a nerd; Chloe is a goddess. I could go on.
The worst part of it all? Chloe’s actually a nice person. She can’t even be one of those stereotypical mean girls you bash without guilt, and it makes me hate her more. Why would Lily ever be my friend again when she can have Chloe? It’s like she has upgraded from microwave hot dogs to prime rib.
I flip to the next page in my journal with unnecessary force, almost ripping off the bottom corner. Instead of writing about Harris, I draw a picture of Lily getting hit by a bus. She is an assortment of limbs scattered on the page. Her hair, glossy brown waves with gold highlights, is flying through the air along with her detached head.
I can be an angry person. Sometimes.
I scribble over it until the page is a giant blob of black ink. Lily is saved, the image of her destruction permanently erased, because I miss her as much as I hate her. Ever since she chose Colton over our eleven-year friendship.
Analee, in Real Life Page 1