by Callie Hart
“You might have mentioned that a couple of times before.” I snake a pancake from the stack in the middle of the table, biting into it, and Mom slaps my hand.
“Neanderthal. Sit down and eat with a knife and fork like a civilized human being. Are you gonna go over to Kacey’s and celebrate today or something?”
I sit. I use my knife and fork as directed. “No. I have a bunch of homework.”
“Do it tomorrow, love. It’s not every day you get into Dartmouth.”
“I didn’t actually get in. I got a ‘likely.’ And you read the letter. If my grades slip, they’ll rescind the offer anyway. I can’t start slacking off now.”
“Silver, one day won’t kill you. I’m sure Kacey’s mom hasn’t drained the pool for winter yet. You should put on a bathing suit and go get some sun this afternoon. You spend way too much time indoors these days. You’re looking a little vampish. You’ll start to glow in the dark if you’re not careful.”
“Gee. Thanks, Mom.” Max isn’t the only Parisi child with a Ph.D. in sarcasm.
“I’m just saying. A little R and R never hurt anybody. It’s good for the soul.”
“Ah, then I’m okay, then. Vampires don’t have souls.”
Mom points her fork at me, talking around a mouthful of food. “That has not been proven. Countless books and movies would have us believe otherwise. Now can you please lighten up a little? I’m trying to live vicariously through you, and you’re making it really boring.” She winks, and I consider hurling a pancake at her.
“Aren’t you going to be late?” I ask, checking with Mickey Mouse. “It’s almost quarter to nine. You aren’t even dressed.”
Her eyes go wide. Scrambling to her feet, she grabs her plate. “Shit! I am. I am so going to be late!”
“Jeez! No swearing, Mom!” Max hollers.
“Sorry, honey!” She flies out of the kitchen, her hair streaming out like a honey gold banner behind her, and I breathe a sigh of relief.
I’m glad the conversation ended when it did. Somehow, Mom hasn’t even noticed that Kacey and I aren’t friends anymore…and I wouldn’t have the faintest clue how to begin explaining that one to her.
3
SILVER
I used to love Monday Mornings. It’s normal to love them when you’re at the top of the socio-economic food chain. Attending high school never felt like a chore, because people worshipped me there. Once upon a time, other students tripped over themselves to make my life as blissful and easy as possible.
“SILVER GEORGINA PARISI, GET YOUR ASS OUT OF YOUR PIT BEFORE I COME UP THERE AND DRAG YOU OUT OF IT MYSELF!”
Now, on a Monday morning, however, I pull the duvet up over my head like every other ordinary student at Raleigh High, and I block out the world, cursing miserably that the weekend isn’t longer. “I’M NOT GOING, DAD!” I holler. “SCHOOL IS FOR LOSERS!”
There’s a thunderous crash in the room below me—Dad’s office—and the sound of a door slamming closed. Then comes the drumbeat of hurried feet charging up the stairs. My bedroom door opens, and I can feel my father standing there, staring at my misshapen, lumpy duvet cocoon. “Don’t you want to be remarkable today, Silver?” he asks.
“I’m remarkable every day. Everyone else’s just too stupid to notice.”
“I know, Kiddo. But the powers that be will fine my ass and take Max away if I don’t enforce a pointless secondary school education on you. So can you do me a solid and take one for the team? Your mom and I really can’t afford to lose Max.”
I throw back the covers, glaring at him. “Wow. I feel really valued. Thanks, Dad.”
He’s leaning against the door jamb, arms folded across his chest, wearing a plaid button-down shirt and the horn-rimmed, round glasses that he thinks make him look like a hipster. His dark hair, touched with grey at his temples is swept back, and…god. I squint at him, trying to decide if my eyes are playing tricks on me. Is he rocking stubble?
He winks at me. “Come on. We both know you’re gonna fly the coop and be working on the International Space Station way sooner than any of us are anticipating. You’re too intelligent to wind up stuck here in Raleigh, working at the observatory. Your brother, on the other hand, possesses an average intelligence. He’s our insurance policy. If he gets taken away, who the hell’s gonna look after us when we’re old?”
“Dad.” I’m deadpan, my voice muted to a whisper. “That’s really messed up. Tell me something.”
“What?”
“Please tell me that you’re not trying to grow a beard.”
He thrusts out his jaw, rubbing a hand over the dark whiskers that are jutting out of his face. “Huh? You don’t like it? Simon and I have a bet. Whoever has the most impressive, manliest beard by the end of the month wins a hundred bucks.”
“I’ll give you a hundred bucks right now if you get in the bathroom and shave that off. I’m serious. Beards are for hot fitness models on Instagram, not middle-aged architects.”
His eyebrows rise in unison. “First, you’d better save your money. That Nova’s gonna need a gearbox eventually and that shit ain’t cheap. Second, beards are for carpenters and rugged naval captains. Everybody knows this. Third, I could be a fitness model on Instagram. I run marathons. I have abs on top of my abs. And last but not least, dearest daughter…middle-aged? How old do you think I am?”
I smirk wickedly. “From the crow’s feet and all that salt and pepper in your hair, I’m gonna say sixty-seven.”
Dad’s face is a mask of mock outrage. “Witch. Get up. Now, before I pay your brother to come in here and fart all over you. And if you’re not up, dressed, fed and out of the door in the next forty-five minutes, I’m gonna start uploading your baby pictures onto your precious Instagram, and I’m gonna tag all of your friends. Sixty fucking seven. Jesus Christ.”
He spins around and leaves, running back down the stairs, heavy footed and making enough noise to wake the dead, so he doesn’t see my expression of abject panic. He wouldn’t dare. He wouldn’t fucking dare upload my embarrassing baby photos. Dad’s reckless, though, and tends to follow through on his threats. Unluckily for me, he’s nowhere near sixty-seven; my parents were practically kids themselves when they had me, and he won’t be celebrating his fortieth birthday for another six months, which means he definitely has his own Insta account and he knows perfectly well how to use it.
Reluctantly, I drag myself out of bed and haul ass into the bathroom. My father could have threatened me with many things, but having him tag my ‘friends’ in embarrassing photos of me online? Yeah, that’s not something I can afford to even joke about.
Dad really shouldn’t have mentioned anything about the Nova’s transmission. The engine sounds rough and throaty the entire way across town, and I begin to worry that it’s gonna quit on me about a mile from school. Miraculously, it makes it, but I’m still gripping the steering wheel, praying under my breath that it doesn’t stall out in front of the entire Roughnecks cheerleading squad as I drive all the way to the back of the school parking lot.
I ignore the hard, unwelcoming eyes that follow me as I pass by the building’s entrance; I barely even notice them staring anymore, though the girls I used to hang around with, girls I’ve known since I was seven-years-old, don’t seem to care if I respond to their mean-girl act either way.
It’s started to rain as I jump out of the Nova, grab my backpack from the backseat and hurry across the lot, avoiding the puddles of standing water as I go. It’s still fifteen minutes to the bell, which means there are plenty of other students loitering outside, sitting on the trunks of their cars, rough-housing and gossiping with one another. This is the perfect time to arrive—amongst all of the other students hunched against the cold, laughing and shouting, I’m almost invisible. Anonymous. It’s easy enough to slip through the clustered groups of my peers without drawing too much attention.
There’s no avoiding the girls, though.
Melody, Zen, Halliday, and, of course, Kacey. O
But…
I don’t do it. I like to tell myself those bitches will get what’s coming to them. Karma will show up on their doorsteps one day, and they’ll pay the price for their actions, but honestly, the simple, quiet, sad truth is that I don’t want them to suffer. I miss my friends. The dumb practical jokes we used to play on each other. The sleepovers, and the silly traditions we used to share. I miss the late-night laughter, and swooning over boys, and…fuck. I miss being part of a ride-or-die group of friends who would do anything for each other.
I suppose now, in hindsight, it’s stupid to miss that. As it turns out, I never really had it. I thought I did. I would have bet money on the girls having my back. In the end, they are the ones who betrayed me the hardest, though.
I have to pass them to get into the building. I already have my headphones in, so I crank up my music and make sure to keep my chin high as I stroll past them. I will not hurry. I will not look away. I will not look ashamed. I will not give them the satisfaction.
Zen says something to Halliday, obviously about me. Her mouth is turned down, her nostrils flared, and I remember that same look being on her face the day she found that her dad had been cheating on her mom for a year—the fury and the disgust had poured off her like heat from a flame. I’d been the one to soothe her pain that night, and many nights after, too. I’d brought over gallon tubs of Ben & Jerry’s, and watched lame teen dramas, and listened to her while she’d ranted. The other girls had come by too, but I was there every night. I was a constant source of comfort to her when it felt like her life was ending, and the tear in her heart would never heal. And now she’s looking at me, the same way she looked at her father.
Halliday—silly, sweet, strawberry blonde Halliday—giggles, furtive eyes cast in my direction, and I recognize malice and spite there, where before there was only ever empathy and kindness. I don’t know what’s wrought this drastic change in her, but I’m brimming over with sadness as I take the first step up the stairs that lead into Raleigh High.
Billy Joel sings into my ears about rainy nights in Paris and the sitting by the Seine in the European rain, and out of nowhere I feel something hit my arm—light, barely a contact at all. I almost ignore it, but out of the corner of my eye, I see whatever hit me fall to the ground…and it’s a cigarette butt. Still lit, though smoked down to the filter. The cherry glows, flaring red, before the rainwater on the ground soaks along the paper, putting it out.
What the fuck?
I look back at the girls. I can’t help myself. My gaze meets Kacey’s, and my ribcage squeezes like a vice as a curl of smoke slips out of her mouth. Melody titters, elbowing Kace, and my ex-best friend fucking winks at me. Her green eyes are blazing with defiance, and I’m reminded very clearly that Kacey Winters earned her nickname: if you’re lucky enough to find yourself on the right side of the Ice Queen, life can be a marvelous thing. Find yourself on the other side of the line she’s drawn in the sand, however, and you’ll quickly be suffering from frostbite.
My expression’s appalled, I know it is, but I can’t keep it from my face. Slowly, I stoop down and pick up the cigarette butt. My feet carry me towards the girls, unbidden. I can’t fucking stop them. Billy Joel falls quiet as I remove the earbuds and clear my throat. I address Kacey. “You smoke now? Leon must love that.”
Leon’s been her boyfriend since freshman year. Already on track for a swimming scholarship, Leon’s the clean-cut, extraordinarily focused, wholesome type. No alcohol. No drugs. Definitely no smoking. Since he was fourteen years old, his only vice has been Kacey.
Melody rolls her eyes, inspecting her French polish. “Fuck. She’s so out of touch. It’s a miracle she even knows what day of the week it is.”
“Grow up, Mel,” I snap. “The rest of the world grew out of talking about people and pretending they weren’t there back in middle school.”
She looks stung. Immaculately dressed, thick auburn hair styled in flawless beach waves, Melody has always spent way more time on her appearance than she ever spent developing a mind of her own. She looks to Kacey to see if she should retaliate, but Kacey doesn’t spare her a sideways glance. She’s far too busy lasering holes into my skull.
“Leon and I broke up. I’m with Jacob now. Hope you don’t mind.”
Bile rises in my throat. My reaction hits me hard, too quick to rein it in. I can’t fucking breathe. “You aren’t serious?” The words are little more than a startled gasp.
A cunning, sour smile tugs at Kacey’s mouth. Mom used to call her Snow White when we were little. All that jet-black hair, her rosebud lips, and the permanent pretty red blush to her porcelain-skinned cheeks. If she could see her now, she wouldn’t call her that anymore. Kacey bears more of a resemblance to Cruella de Vil with this nasty sneer plastered across her face. “Why wouldn’t I be? Jacob’s hot. He’s captain of the—”
“You know what he did, Kacey. You were there.”
Her shoulders are tense, and for a second I see something shift in her—a fleeting shadow of doubt in her otherwise steely eyes. In a split second, it’s gone, though. She opens her mouth, about to speak, but—
Thunder rolls across the parking lot. Deep, reverberating thunder that vibrates up through the soles of my boots.
Kacey looks over my shoulder, and the other girls follow suit. Halliday’s mouth actually falls open as another rumbling, rolling wall of sound splits apart the morning air, and I realize that it’s not thunder after all, but the snarl of a powerful engine. The sound cuts off, and I grind my teeth together, already knowing what I’ll see when I turn around.
“Monday morning. Loud and clear. Nowhere else I’d rather be.”
He’d had a motorcycle helmet at his feet in the hallway.
“Who the fuck is that?” Zen mutters. She’s pouting, which means she’s seen something she likes and she’s about to lay claim to it.
At the end of the day, I’m a flawed human being, so I bite. I turn, even though I don’t want to, and I see him there, less than fifty feet away, sitting astride a matte-black Indian motorcycle with his helmet resting on top of the tank. He’s wearing a leather jacket and faded scruffy black jeans—I can tell from here they’re not the kind of ‘distressed’ pants you buy that way. They’re scruffy from extensive wear and tear, which is a little more respectable, I guess.
His dark hair is thick and full of waves, shielding his face from view as he looks down at the phone he’s holding in his hand. I’m locked in place, feet cemented to the ground, breath lodged in my throat, waiting for him to lift his head. For his hair to fall back and give me a proper look at him…but then I’m flooded with a strange sense of panic, and I’m moving, fingernails digging into my palms as I hurry away from the girls and I hurtle up the steps, and into the building.
Zen shouts something behind me, but I don’t know if it’s at me or to the guy sitting on the motorcycle; her words are nothing more than a blur of sound. Inside, weaving my way through the heaving press of bodies in the hallway, I can feel my pulse all over my body, pounding like a determined fist against a wall, trying to break its way through.
I have no clue why I had to run.
I just couldn’t stand there, waiting to see his face. It felt like pure torture. It felt like waiting for the world to end.
By lunchtime, the whole school’s buzzing with the news: not only has a new student enrolled, but he looks like the frontman of a rock band. He’s covered in tattoos. He had a knife confiscated from his bag in first period. He squared up to Travis McCormick in the locker room and threatened to knock his teeth out.
The rumors grow wilder and wilder with every retelling, and I know I’m on borrowed time. I am going to run into him at some point. The population of Raleigh High isn’t all that big, and the guy who showed up on that motorcycle was no junior. He was a senior, which means we’re in the same year and bound to be in at least one class together. I do not, however, expect it to be my A.P. physics class.
I was never a front row kind of student. Before, I was always most comfortable sitting in the middle row, in the middle of the room, where I had plenty of room to see and be seen. Now, thanks to the fact that my classmates like to throw shit at my back and launch spitballs into my hair, I can be found on the very back row, tucked out of the way, usually in a corner if I can help it. I arrive early to class whenever I can, and I bolt for the door first, too. Easier to get in and out as quickly and quietly as possible.
I arrive at the last class of the day, my brain a little foggy from the overheated library where I ate lunch, and I don’t even look up as I make my way into the back-left corner of the room. I nearly have a heart attack when I dump my bag on the desk, seconds from sitting down, when I look up to find someone sitting there…at my desk.
His leather jacket is hung over the back of the chair, and his legs—how the fuck did I not notice his legs?—are stretched out in front of him, protruding into the aisle. Christ, I must have stepped over them in order to plunk my backpack down on the surface in front of him.
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