The Thing About the Truth

by Lauren Barnholdt

  “No.” He shakes his head. “I don’t expect that, I just . . .” He looks shocked that someone would be mean to him, and for a second I feel bad. I mean, I am being a bitch. And if it were anyone else, I would tell him that I’m new and that’s the reason I can’t show him where the room is. And let’s face it, I’m a little on edge today, which is definitely affecting my mood.

  I can’t feel too bad, though, because honestly? Probably no one’s ever been mean to him in his life. Probably he’s used to just smiling at people and having them fall in love with him and do whatever he wants, like he just did with the secretary.

  I know his type. I’ve handled his type. I’m at this stupid school because of his type.

  “I’m sorry,” Isaac says. He’s still looking at me, and he shakes his head again like he doesn’t know what just happened, like he wants to start again. “I just—”

  “I can show you where the room is,” the girl next to me says. She stands up and starts to gather up her bag.

  “There you go,” I say. “See? It all worked out.” I go back to reading my book. Honestly, now I just want the both of them to go away. I need to focus on my meeting and making a good impression on my guidance counselor. Now that I’ve been kicked out of one of the best prep schools in the country, my college recommendations are going to be doubly important.

  Isaac follows the pink-haired girl out into the hallway. Good riddance.

  “Ms. Romano?” the secretary asks. Now that Isaac and his good looks have disappeared out the door, she’s back to being all frosty. “Mr. Lawler will see you now.”

  “Thanks.” I put my book back in my bag. And then I step into my guidance counselor’s office, ready to make a good impression and take the first step toward getting my future back on track.

  Before

  Isaac

  This school is completely fucked up. Seriously, what the hell is going on? Is this how public school is going to be? People just being mean to you for no reason? That girl in the guidance office was just . . . I don’t know.

  I guess I expected people to be a little rude because of who my dad is. At my old school I didn’t have to worry about that, since no one really gave a shit. Everyone’s parents were important. In fact, there were some kids who had celebrity parents.

  But a lot of people get all weird about it. There are people, like that secretary back there, who fall all over themselves trying to be nice to you. And then there are people who go out of their way to show you that they’re not going to give you any special treatment. So I knew public school would be different, but I didn’t expect to encounter it during my first minute here.

  I knew I shouldn’t have worn my new sneakers today. Way too flashy.

  “So, are you, like, a transfer?” The girl showing me to my homeroom is blabbering on and on, but I haven’t been listening to her because I’ve been distracted, thinking about that girl in the office.

  “Yeah,” I say, looking around the hallway. “I’m a transfer.” Obviously, she hasn’t heard about me. Which is to be expected. This whole starting public school thing was a little sudden. My dad’s spinning it so that it seems as if he’s sending me to public school to make a statement about education or some shit. But the reality is I got kicked out of my last school, and I’m sort of at the end of the line when it comes to private schools. It was either here, or boarding school overseas. And when that possibility came up, I pitched a fit.

  The numbers on the rooms are going down as we walk: 119, 117, 115. . . . Hell, if I had known it was going to be this easy to find my homeroom, I never would have even asked for help.

  “Where’d you transfer from?” the girl’s asking.

  “Hotchmann,” I say. She looks at me blankly, so I add, “It’s a boarding school in New York City.”

  Her eyes widen. “Wow,” she says. “How’d you end up here?”

  “My dad thought it would be a good idea.”

  She nods. She still has no idea who I am, although that’s probably going to change soon.

  We’re in front of the room now. “So, here we are,” she says, giving me a bright smile.

  I peek inside. The desks are filled with kids sitting, chatting with friends, looking through their bags, texting on their cell phones. There’s no teacher in there yet, which is good. The last thing I need is to walk in and have some teacher make a big production out of things. I hate big productions. My life has been an endless string of big productions, and I’m over it.

  I turn back to the girl with pink hair.

  “Thanks for walking me,” I say. “What’s your name?”

  “Melissa.”

  “Well, thanks, Melissa.” I give her a smile and then head into the classroom. No one looks at me, and obviously I don’t have any friends to sit with, so I pick a seat in the middle of the room, deciding that sitting not too close to the back and not too close to the front is a good idea.

  As soon as I’m in my chair, the guy in front of me turns around and glares at me. Jesus Christ. People really are not too friendly around here. I might have to go public with this, start some kind of blog or some shit. Tell everyone that public schools really are subpar, that the people here are dangerous. Seriously, the first time I see a knife, I’m writing an exposé.

  “That seat’s taken,” the dude ahead of me says.

  “Oh, really?” I ask. “Because it doesn’t look like anyone’s sitting here.” I’m figuring this place is kind of like prison. You have to make sure that you stand up for yourself right off the bat; otherwise these pricks will walk all over you. I put my notebook on the desk, not really able to believe that I’m staking out my territory in a suburban public school homeroom.

  He narrows his eyes at me. “Who are you?” he demands.

  “Isaac,” I say, deciding it’s best to leave my last name out of it.

  “You’re new?”

  “Yeah.”

  He nods like he can accept this. “What do you play?”

  “What do I play?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Sports or women?”

  He considers. “Either.”

  “Lacrosse and basketball.”

  He nods again, like this, too, is acceptable. “And what about girls?”

  “I play them.” It’s true. I do play them. Not in a completely jerky way. I just like to have fun. And something tells me this dude will appreciate that.

  “I’m Marshall.” I’m not sure if that’s his first name or his last, but I reach out and shake the hand that he’s offering. “You should stick with me,” he says. “I’ll show you around.”

  I think about it. He looks kind of like a jock meathead, but that’s probably not the worst crowd to fall in with. Not to mention that he’s the first person who’s actually been nice to me.

  Actually, no. That’s not true. Melissa or whatever her name is was nice to me. Which means that girl in the office was an exception to the rule.

  Still. Beggars can’t be choosers.

  “Cool,” I say to Marshall. And just like that, I might have my first friend.

  Before

  Kelsey

  Okay, so the meeting with Mr. Lawler doesn’t exactly go so well. You get kicked out of one school, and people think you’re, like, some kind of criminal or something. Getting kicked out of a school isn’t a crime. I haven’t been sent to prison or anything.

  I mean, you work your whole life for something, and then just like that, it’s gone. Your previous record means nothing. Does Mr. Lawler even care that I’ve been an honor student my whole life? Or that I’ve been involved in tons of extracurricular activities? No. He only cares about one thing. That I got kicked out of Concordia Prep.

  Which really shouldn’t even be any of his business, when you think about it. This is a public school. Which means that it’s open to the public. Any random person can just enroll here no questions asked. So why should they get to know all about my past history?

  If it were up to me, I wouldn’t have
told them I got kicked out of my old school. Why not just pretend I transferred? But my parents were all about telling them the truth. Which is ridiculous. It’s no one’s business but my own.

  Anyway, Mr. Lawler spent all this time telling me that I needed to really make sure I stayed focused here, and that it was the end of the line for me and blah, blah, blah. If you want to know the truth, I think he was kind of getting off on being some sort of disciplinarian. It was actually slightly disturbing.

  I tried to tell him that he was preaching to the choir. No one wants to do better at this school than I do. I need to do well. Even better than before. Otherwise there’s no way I’m going to get a scholarship to a good college. And if I don’t get a scholarship, I won’t be able to go to college, since my parents can’t afford to send me.

  I wish I was good at sports. Girls who are good at sports are so lucky. They don’t even really have to worry about their grades. The academics standards for athletes are totally ridiculous—you have to have, like, a C average or something.

  But I’m horrible at sports. I always preferred books to baseball. Or basketball. Or any kind of ball, actually.

  Which is why it really sucks that I have gym first period. What kind of satanic person decided that someone should have gym first period? Actually, who decided to have gym in schools at all? I get the whole thing about physical activity, but really, does anyone get a workout during gym class? Sigh.

  I’m usually not such a negative person, I swear. It’s just that I’m really out of sorts this morning.

  The good news is that since it’s the first day, we don’t have to get changed or anything.

  We all just troop into the gym and up the bleachers, and sit there while the gym teacher, a young blond woman named Ms. Fitzpatrick, announces that we’re going to get our height and weight measured.

  I’m stunned to realize that there are boys sitting on the bleachers.

  “Excuse me,” I say to the girl sitting next to me. “Is this coed gym?”

  She looks at me like it’s the dumbest question ever, nods, and then turns back to her friend. Huh. I’ve never had coed gym before. At my old school we had girls’ gym and boys’ gym. Nice and separate.

  At least our weight isn’t going to be announced to the whole class. They’re calling us up one by one and then recording our height and weight on a form. Not that I’m embarrassed by my weight. Ever since getting kicked out of Concordia Prep, I’ve hardly been able to eat due to all the stress.

  I pull open my bag (Michael Kors, very chic, which I got at this consignment shop down the street—I almost didn’t buy it because it cost two whole weeks’ allowance, but now I’m glad I did, since my parents have taken my allowance away along with everything else, so it was good that I spent it when I had the chance) and pull out the book I’m reading, this very exciting romance by Jennifer Crusie.

  I used to get embarrassed that I read romance novels, especially when everyone at my old school was reading classics and literary fiction and then getting themselves all worked up about the real meaning of Freedom by Jonathan Franzen and if it counted as a real literary work when its sales numbers just screamed commercial.

  But the minute I got kicked out of Concordia Prep, I decided to stop caring about stuff like that. I realized that it doesn’t matter what the people around me think. The only thing that matters is what the admissions boards think.

  I’m just getting into a really good part of the story (and yes, by “good part” I mean sex part—it’s actually making me kind of embarrassed, if you want to know the truth. Not that I’m embarrassed by sex, but it’s kind of weird to be reading a scene like that with tons of people around you) when someone sits down next to me.

  Like, right next to me. Like, way too close for comfort next to me.

  The person’s leg is touching mine.

  I slide down the bleachers a little bit, my eyes never leaving the page.

  “What are you reading?” the person asks.

  I look over, and lock eyes with the guy from this morning, Isaac Brandano. Up close he’s even cuter than he is from far away, which you’d think would be impossible. His dirty-blond hair falls over his forehead, looking deliberately mussed. His jawline is perfectly chiseled and strong, and yet he has a tiny bit of stubble, like he didn’t shave this morning. He’s wearing a button-down shirt, but the top button is undone, and I can see a little bit of his chest. It looks hard. And tanned.

  There’s a tiny scar going through his eyebrow, saving him from looking like a total pretty boy. He’s so hot that it kind of takes my breath away. Of course, I’ve probably been reading too many romance novels. Not to mention I’m sure that he’s a total shit. And guys who are total shits do not turn out to be anything but total shits. At least, not outside the pages of books.

  “None of your business,” I say, and then scoot farther down on the bleachers.

  He scoots after me. “Listen,” he says, “I think we got off on the wrong foot. I’m Isaac.” He puts his hand out. I ignore it. “And you are?” he tries.

  “Not interested.”

  “Not interested in what?”

  “Going out with you.”

  “I’m not . . . I wasn’t . . . I’m not asking you out.”

  “Then why are you talking to me?” I shut my book, using my finger to hold my place, and look up at him. “Let me guess, because you can’t stand thinking that there might be someone at your new school, or in the world, who doesn’t like you?”

  “Why don’t you like me?” he asks. But he doesn’t seem upset about it. In fact, he seems almost curious. And he’s smiling.

  And then I start to feel a little bit bad. Because even if he is a jerk, I am being pretty mean to him. Besides, I know this really has nothing to do with him. This is all about Rex, and what happened between us, and why I allowed myself to get so wrapped up in him that I got kicked out of school. So I’m about to tell Isaac that I’m sorry, that it’s been a weird morning, and that I have nothing against him.

  But before I can, he says, “Let me guess. I remind you of some guy who hurt you?”

  I’m so shocked, it takes me a moment to respond. “Excuse me?” I ask finally.

  “Some guy,” he repeats, “who hurt you. I remind you of him, right? Maybe you dated him, or maybe you just admired him from afar, never being able to work up the courage to ask him out? And now I’m here, and so you’ve decided that I’m going to be the punching bag for whatever that dude did.”

  I swallow. Hard. And then I feel tears filling my eyes. I look away so he won’t see, but it must not be quick enough.

  “Hey,” he says, “I’m sorry, I was just messing around with you. I didn’t mean to make you upset.”

  “You didn’t make me upset,” I say. “But in the future, I’d really appreciate it if you just. Left. Me. Alone.” And then I get up and move a couple of rows down the bleachers. The nerve! Who does he think he is, talking to me like that? I’m glad that I didn’t apologize to him. I pretend to keep reading, but the words are getting all blurry because my eyes are still a little teary. Whatever. It doesn’t matter. I’m not really in the mood to read anymore.

  Before

  Isaac

  I shouldn’t have done that. It’s just . . . that girl annoys me for some reason. The way she seems all uppity and too good for people, and yet there she was, reading a fucking romance novel.

  A romance novel! In gym class! Who does that? Only people who are trying to prove that they’re way too cool, like they’re making some kind of statement about how they don’t care what people think. I mean, the cover alone. It has a picture of shoes on it. With cherries or hearts or some shit sprinkled all around.

  I’m debating whether or not I care enough to follow her down the bleachers and try to apologize, or if I’m sick of her attitude, when a girl’s voice yells, “Hey!”

  I turn around. It’s another girl. One with long dark hair and a tight blue sweater.

  We had a dress c
ode at all of my old schools. School uniforms, with ties for the boys and long skirts for the girls. The whole bit. The girls would get around it by hiking up their skirts as high as they could, but there was only so much you could do. Most of the time we had to wait until the weekends to be able to really see any skin.

  But this chick, the one on the bleachers who’s calling my name, is just begging to be checked out. Her sweater is so tight and low cut, her boobs are practically falling out of her pushup bra.

  “You’re new, right?” She’s sitting at the top of the bleachers, and she gets up and leaves her group of friends, walking down toward me.

  I see that romance novel girl glance over at us with a disgusted look on her face. She probably hates this girl just because she’s in touch with her sexuality. Girls who are stuck-up and uppity hate chicks who are in touch with their sexuality. They think it’s antifeminist or something.

  “Yes,” I say. “I’m new. Isaac Brandano.” I take her hand and help her down the last few steps. “And who are you?”

  She giggles and sits down next to me. The bottom of her sweater hikes up a little bit as she leans in toward me, and I can see a tiny strip of back. It’s tan. And not that orange, fake tan shit that girls think is hot and makes them look like a Jersey Shore wannabe. This is real tan. Suddenly I’m in love with this school. And this girl.

  “I’m Marina,” she says.

  “Marina?”

  “I was conceived on a boat.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah.” She leans in even closer, and I get a whiff of her perfume. “I love the water.”

  Everything she says is sexy. I’m already thinking of her in a bikini, lying on the bow of my—well, my dad’s—boat, sunning herself. I glance out of the corner of my eye, over to where that girl is still reading her stupid romance novel and pretending she’s not listening to my conversation. She’s so transparent. She’s completely listening and wanting to know what’s going on.