You Don't Live Here

by Robyn Schneider

  “Well, Sasha, we’re so glad to have you,” she said.

  “Um, thanks,” I replied.

  All of this felt surreal and impossible, like I wasn’t really here at all. And yet, when I pictured my old high school, surrounded by businesses that were still being rebuilt after the earthquake, I didn’t feel like I was supposed to be there, either.

  I was caught between implausibilities, and so I sat quietly as the principal reviewed my transcripts, doing that pleased nod to show that I was one of the Good Ones.

  She assured us that Baycrest had a “very rigorous honors track,” with teachers that assigned an average of one hour of homework per night, and then started reviewing my schedule.

  Yearbook, of course. Honors Brit Lit. AP Euro. French 3. And, unfortunately, Phys Ed. Randall had only required two years, but here, I needed four.

  At least it’s block scheduling, I told myself. At least it’s every other day.

  “Since you earned an A in Algebra II last year, I’d recommend honors pre-calc,” Principal Mitchell said.

  I was pretty sure I’d been muddling my way toward a B-plus at best, except Mr. Hass had taken pity after my mom died. I didn’t even remember completing my final packet, and yet my grade had come back an A, just like it had in every other class.

  “Or I could stick with regular,” I said.

  “If you qualify for honors, you should push yourself,” my grandmother said. “You don’t want colleges to think you’re looking for easy A’s.”

  It was adorable she considered pre-calc an easy A. Because I definitely didn’t.

  “Honors it is,” Principal Mitchell said, typing it into her computer. “And honors chemistry . . .” She frowned, looking at her screen. “Nothing left except a zero period.”

  I couldn’t have a zero period. Already my grandmother had dragged herself out of bed at seven a.m. to putter around the kitchen while I ate breakfast and to drive me to school.

  “How about regular chemistry?” I asked hopefully.

  Math and science were my weakest subjects. But my transcript from last year was full of A’s, and my standardized tests scores were high, and I could practically hear my grandmother analyzing how every breath I took would look to a college admissions board.

  “If we switch your elective, we can make it work,” the principal said.

  My throat went dry.

  “Do that,” Eleanor instructed.

  “But yearbook—” I started to protest. My grandmother shot me a look.

  “You’ll take something else,” she said, as though it was already set in stone.

  And then she raised an eyebrow at me, as if to say, Sasha, don’t be rude.

  “We have Computer Programming or Studio Art,” the principal said.

  “Studio Art,” I said quickly, before Eleanor had me taking AP everything, with a nice, relaxing side of Computer Programming.

  “There,” my grandmother said. “Problem solved.”

  Just when I thought we were finished, Principal Mitchell handed me a slip of contact information for the school counselor.

  I stared down at it, horribly embarrassed.

  “I know you’ve gone through quite a traumatic time,” Principal Mitchell said, making her voice Warm and Understanding. “So if you need someone to talk to, Dr. Okafor’s door is always open.”

  Please, no, I thought. And then my grandmother plucked the paper from my fist and crumpled it into a ball.

  “That won’t be necessary,” she said frostily. “Sasha’s seeing one of the best adolescent psychologists in the area. So I’m sure you understand that we have this covered.”

  I swear to god, the temperature in the room dropped ten degrees.

  I could almost see Principal Mitchell’s breath cloud in front of her lips as she pasted on a fake smile and assured my grandmother that it had only been a suggestion, and one she could see was ill-advised.

  “Very,” my grandmother said, shouldering her bag to make it clear the meeting was over.

  I stood up along with her.

  Eleanor Bloom, ladies and gentlemen, I thought.

  My locker was beige, and empty, and smelled like cleaning supplies. I stared into it, trying not to think about all of the people who had used it before me. Trying not to think of my mom, standing in this courtyard, unloading her textbooks on the first day of her junior year.

  Had her locker even been on this side of the building, or was it in that bank near the senior lot? I guessed I’d never know.

  All around me, students stopped to say hello to each other. To hug, or ask about each other’s summers as though they hadn’t already seen the pictures. Everyone was ridiculously well dressed, in this studied I’m-not-trying way. Even the boys in sweatpants wore the expensive kind that were all zips and slouch. Some of the girls had on fake eyelashes with their messy buns and festival shorts, or maybe they just had permanent lash extensions.

  I was surrounded by the chatter and laughter of a school that I somehow went to, but in no way felt like mine. There was a horrible tightness in my chest, and I didn’t know how to make it go away. I had too many AP classes, and a random elective I didn’t want. My plan to quietly join the yearbook staff was ruined, and I had approximately three seconds to come up with a new one.

  My grandparents were expecting me to flourish here, like a houseplant they’d coaxed back into bloom. But what if, despite their coaxing, I withered instead?

  I didn’t really have anything to drop off, but standing at my locker made me look busy and not alone, so I rifled through my backpack, pretending. I was testing my combination one final time when I saw Adam from next door, and the girl who had picked him up in her fancy car.

  They were on the opposite end of the courtyard, both wearing sunglasses, and they were laughing hysterically at something. The girl’s head tilted back, her hair loose and flowing. I couldn’t stop staring. She was so effortless, so perfect, in a slouchy black sweater and army-green pants and lace-up boots, a tote bag draped over her shoulder. She swatted at Adam, and he twisted out of the way.

  They seemed comfortable together, like they’d known each other their whole lives. When they crossed the courtyard, I could finally hear every word they were saying.

  “Bullshit,” Adam accused. “You’re making that up.”

  “For real. He broke into the British Museum and stole like a million dollars’ worth of dead birds,” the girl insisted. “Out of everything you can steal from a museum, that’s what he took. Taxidermy.”

  Adam laughed, shaking his head in disbelief. “I hope they called him the Birdglar. Get it?”

  “If I say no, can I pretend you never said it?”

  They were so close that I might have called out to them then, saying hello, remember me, with the dog? but I didn’t, because what if they stared at me blankly, or what if they weren’t people you could just talk to unprompted?

  And then the bell rang for homeroom, and the sea of students swallowed them up completely.

  I made it through homeroom and first period pretending to be wallpaper. Honors pre-calc was dull but bearable, because at least math teachers didn’t make you partner up or report on what you did over the summer.

  And then I had English. There were already class copies of Jane Eyre on the desks. It had been the summer reading. Well, the first fifty pages at least. I sat down, watching everyone else choose seats together. Baycrest, with its nine hundred students, was tiny compared to my old school, but even at Randall, honors students were their own particular subset. I recognized a boy from my pre-calc, who was complaining to his friend how Jane Eyre was a “girl book.”

  I rolled my eyes. And then I spotted Friya, who was wearing a flowy sundress and arguing with a cute, dark-haired boy who had just taken the seat next to hers. I thought about waving hello, but didn’t in case she didn’t remember me.

  “Seriously, Nick,” she whined, her voice carrying. “Can’t you sit somewhere else?”

  “Who else am I
going to cheat off of?” he said, and then promised, “I’m kidding.”

  A haughty girl wearing the tightest ponytail I’d ever seen slid into the seat next to mine. She unzipped her pencil case, unloading a ruler, three highlighters, and a mechanical pencil, and lined them up with intense precision.

  “Come on, Friya, it was a joke,” Nick pleaded.

  I couldn’t not look—they were practically a soap opera.

  And then Friya glanced in my direction, and her eyes lit up.

  “Sasha, oh my god!” she said, at earsplitting volume.

  In a second, she had extracted herself from her desk. As she hurried over, the whole class stared at me like suddenly I was fascinating.

  “Hey,” I said, wondering what was going on.

  “Michelle, would you switch seats with me?” Friya asked the girl next to me, turning on the charm. “Please? It would be, like, the most amazing favor.”

  “Whatever,” the girl muttered, clearly unhappy about packing up her pencil case.

  “You’re the best,” Friya told her, and then happily turned toward me, taking possession of her ill-gotten seat. “Seriously. I’m dying. How perfect is it that we’re in the same class?”

  “It’s great,” I said, cautiously returning her smile. I was so confused by what was happening.

  Ms. Meade went over the syllabus and then assigned a discussion topic. Friya immediately scooted her desk toward mine. On the other side of the room, the boy she’d ditched tried to get her attention.

  “You have an admirer,” I said, since she didn’t seem to notice.

  “Oh my god, ignore,” she said, lowering her voice. “Ex-boyfriend,” she explained, as soon as our teacher was out of earshot. They hadn’t even been broken up for a week, and when he’d sat down next to her, she’d almost died.

  “You’re my literal savior,” she announced.

  “It was nothing,” I said, embarrassed. After all, I wasn’t the one who’d had to move seats.

  “For real though,” Friya insisted. “Girls helping other girls is, like, the most important thing. Right?”

  And then she smiled at me, like we were already best friends.

  When the bell rang, Friya grabbed my arm and pulled me past her ex-boyfriend.

  “Can we talk?” he called.

  “Later, Nick, okay?” she yelled over her shoulder, and then confided, “That’s not happening ever.”

  We reached the entrance to the quad. I paused, waiting for Friya to make an excuse to go her own way, to say she’d see me around—and then I worried that she was expecting me to say it first.

  “Cole’s going to be so excited I found you,” she said instead, smiling. “Just wait.”

  I followed her gratefully into the quad. And there they were, like an Instagram come to life: Cole, with his sunglasses on, an entire delivery pizza box on his lap. Whitney, scrolling through her phone, earbuds in. Ethan tapping out a rhythm on his Latin homework, using mechanical pencils as drumsticks. Ryland was nowhere to be found, but maybe he was just buying lunch or something.

  “Eat me,” Cole said, doing a high-pitched voice as he flapped the lid of the pizza box.

  “You’re a child,” Friya told him, but she reached over and grabbed a slice anyway.

  “Sasha!” Cole said. “How’s life as a freshman?”

  But he was grinning. Teasing.

  “I’m older than you are, you snotwaffle,” I retorted, sitting down next to him. It was the only empty seat. I took out my turkey on wheat, trying not to stare enviously at everyone else’s slices of pepperoni mushroom.

  “Where’d you get the pizza?” I asked, impressed.

  “Ordered Postmates and pretended it was for a teacher,” Cole said, looking smug.

  “You ordered it to class?” Whitney asked skeptically, picking off her pepperoni and piling them onto Ethan’s napkin.

  “’Course not. I have free period before lunch,” he said, leaning back in his seat.

  “I thought you had Computer Programming,” Ethan said with a frown.

  “Nah, I’m the student aide. But Mr. Varma’s so chill, it’s basically free.” Cole shrugged.

  His hair was perfect, again. A golden swoop, defying gravity, with this little front piece that just brushed the edge of his eyebrow. The sleeves of his denim shirt were pushed above his elbows, and his pale khaki shorts revealed long, tanned legs dusted with blond hair. His leather sandals were practically falling apart, but his sunglasses were flashy gold Ray-Bans.

  He was like one of those actors you see on television playing high school students, and you scoff, because teenage boys never look like that. Except Cole did. He was the kind of attractive that needed a warning label, because I wasn’t mentally prepared for his bare leg to be inches from mine. I felt fluttery and strange, and I was hyperaware of the way he reacted to everything and everyone. I didn’t know how I was sitting here, but I had better get it right.

  This was definitely a table of popular kids. Never mind that Friya was in my honors English or that Cole was a Computer Programming aide, which sounded unspeakably nerdy. I could tell from the way they carried themselves, from how relaxed they all were, sitting here as though they were holding court. Somehow, caring about academics wasn’t a disqualifier at Baycrest, the way it had been at my old school. At Randall, the cool crowd had been the boys who bused in from Central and always had weed, and the girls who partied with them and were forever getting dress code violations.

  “Hey, Sasha?” Cole said. “Can I ask you something?”

  “What?” I said nervously.

  He was going to ask me to leave. I was sure of it. Something about not enough seats at the table, and sorry, and then I’d have to slink away in front of the entire quad and would never be able to show my face again.

  But he flapped the pizza box at me and inquired, in a growly monster voice, “Do you wanna eat me?”

  “Yes, please,” I said, reaching for a slice. The pizza was almost gone, and I felt bad, since Ryland wasn’t there yet. I didn’t want him to show up and think I’d taken his seat and his lunch. “So, um, where’s your friend Ryland?” I asked.

  Everyone stared at me, puzzled.

  “He doesn’t hang out with us,” Whitney said disdainfully, as though it was obvious.

  “Oh,” I said. And then I stuffed my mouth with pizza, wishing I hadn’t said anything.

  “Can I put up a poster here?” someone asked.

  It was Adam’s girlfriend. She was carrying a stack of glossy posters advertising a club fair. There was something uncommonly magnetic about her, even here. She’d taken off her sweater, revealing a black bodysuit that scooped low in the back, exposing the sharp, tanned wings of her shoulder blades. Her bun was loose and casual, and her tote bag made her seem sophisticated and older. She looked amazing, and I couldn’t figure out how she’d done the bun, no matter how much I stared.

  “Go for it,” Ethan said, scooting aside so she could reach the pillar behind our table.

  “Hey, Lily, want some pizza?” Cole asked, using his monster voice as he flapped the box lid.

  Lily. The name fit her perfectly.

  “You should audition for Avenue Q,” she told him, taking the last slice.

  She made no move to sit down, and I realized with disappointment that this wasn’t her lunch table.

  She only stayed a moment, chatting with Ethan about their history essay.

  I knew I was eavesdropping, but there was something about her. Something special. It was like she was drawn in pen while everyone else was in pencil. And I couldn’t figure out how I was the only one who noticed.

  Lily and Ryland were in my Studio Art class. They were sitting together, and Lily glanced up when I walked in. Our eyes met for just a second, and she actually looked disappointed to see me, as though whatever impression she’d gotten from afar was terrible.

  I didn’t think I’d had time to even make a first impression yet, but apparently I had. And it sucked. Awesome.
I fought down a stab of frustration as I slid into an empty seat.

  Lily bent her head and said something to Ryland, who snorted. Between his glasses and cardigan and oversized backpack, there was something much geekier about him now than there had been the night we’d met. When he reached into his backpack to dig for a pen, he had to unload a stack of graphic novels.

  Mr. Saldana, our teacher, was every inch the city aesthete, from the unnecessary scarf wound around his neck to his graying stubble to his shoulder-length hair to the tweed vest buttoned over his T-shirt and jeans. He built furniture in his spare time, apparently, and explained how carpentry was an underappreciated art form as he handed out the syllabus.

  “I see some familiar faces from Art Theory and Mixed Media. And some new ones,” he said, staring at me, and then at a boy with blue hair who was gnawing on his sweatshirt strings.

  He explained that we’d start with sketching, and then would move on to charcoals and eventually paints.

  “We’ll end the semester with a gallery show featuring your work,” he said. “You can submit assignments you’ve completed in class or pieces you’ve been inspired to create on your own time. Sculptures, collages, photographs. Just no performance art—”

  He raised an eyebrow at a boy who was all nervous energy and black hair dye, and a couple of people laughed.

  “And the only requirement is that everyone must contribute something,” he finished. “Which leads me into our theme for the semester: put yourself out there, even in just the smallest way. In order to criticize art, which is another important component of what we’re doing here, you must understand how brave it is to create anything at all.

  “So,” he said, clapping his hands. “What are we doing when we look at art? We’re attempting to understand not just the piece in front of us, but the world itself, from a different point of view.”

  He handed out a sheet of paper. “And how do we do this? We must learn the grammar of art. In your English essays, you must discuss foreshadowing and metaphor, yes? In here, when we consider a piece of art, we’ll use these criteria.”

  He motioned toward the sheet of paper.

  “Let’s try it out, no pressure. I’m going to put some art on the projector. Stuff you’ve seen. Really famous pieces. What is it about them that speaks to you?”