Ever
Authors: Darrin Shade
Ever
DARRIN SHADE
Ever
Copyright © 2015 by Darrin Shade
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever including Internet usage, without written permission of the author.
This is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, or events used in this book are the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people, alive or deceased, events or locales is completely coincidental.
eBook formatting by Maureen Cutajar
ISBN: 978-1512208511 (pbk)
TABLE OF CONTENTS
24: Turn Down the Volume, Please!
26: Seeds Are Meant to Be Planted
28: I Know Who the Crying Girl Is…
29: You’re My Kind of Girl, Ever
30: I Know What Happens on April Seventh
CHAPTER ONE
The Outcast
I
always knew I was a misfit. When I looked in the mirror, I could see it clearly…the unconventional nose, the odd-colored eyes…the too-full lips… It was no wonder everyone stared at me. You would think I’d be used to it by now, but I wasn’t. My sophomore year was just as lame as last year, and I still felt like I didn’t really belong.
I sighed as I pulled a wooden hairbrush through my long wavy hair.
More like frizzy,
I grumbled. If only my hair was straight, if only I was blond, if only I looked more like everyone else…maybe then I wouldn’t have such a deep longing to fit in. I wasn’t a Cheerleader, I wasn’t a Brain, I wasn’t an Athlete—I was just an outlier in the population of upper-middle-class teenagers I went to school with. Most of the kids I’d grown up with looked like they’d stepped out of an advertisement for a surf camp or something—and they had more cash than my entire family put together.
To say I had teen angst was a gross understatement.
When people met me, they asked the same question, “What are you?”
Emphasis was always placed on the word
are.
The question made me feel like I was from another planet—I was an alien, considered freakish and unusual by all who crossed my path. They never failed to ask The Question, and even with all the practice I got, I never knew how to respond. I began to dread those chance encounters with my mom’s friends, with my friends’ parents, with the new cashier at the local Rite Aid…
The Follow-Up Statement was also the same every time, “Oh, what an interesting mix.”
Interesting. Right. I knew what people were really thinking. At least they were too polite to point out that I looked like a freak. My mother had blond hair, sparkling green eyes and light skin that tended to tan in the sun. From what I could tell in the few pictures of him, I took after my father. Even though my parents were of average height and weight, I had managed to miss the boat on those traits as well. Shopping for clothing was painful for me. I was so small that I could still shop in the children’s department, which drowned in disgusting pinks, purples, hearts and teddy bears. It seemed as though all the girls in my grade were physically mature beyond their years, with their push-up bras, navel rings and low-riding jeans.
I had attempted to purchase clothes like that, once upon a time. The memory made me wince. I’d felt like a little kid playing dress-up because each sexy top gaped ridiculously in the front and each pair of size zero jeans slid down my narrow hips to crumple sadly on the dressing room floor. I was overjoyed when skinny jeans became trendy because I could finally fit into something that didn’t have little bears embroidered on the pockets. Even so, I still felt like I was the only member of my tribe, and this status rendered me an Outcast.
Most awkward teenagers would probably say that there was at least a brief time when they didn’t feel this way. I wracked my brain for even the tinge of such a memory. All I could recall was a distinct feeling of
otherness.
Once I started high school, the feeling became more obvious. I was a Loner in junior high, but ever since Valerie Seaver had decided to forgive me, I wasn’t alone anymore. I wasn’t sure how they perceived me, but I was somehow still isolated while in the midst of my small group of other Outcasts. They joined me for lunch on the stairs, texted me here and there, and regularly invited me to prowl the mall with them after school.
My mom had left a pile of donuts on the table. I grabbed a handful and slipped out of the house, still engrossed in my pondering. Things had changed the day I turned thirteen and I wasn’t sure why. I think a whole week went by that I was silent, and nobody seemed to notice. Whenever I closed my eyes, I had nightmares of people I didn’t know, places I had never been… It got so I was afraid to fall asleep. Night after night, I lay awake, suffering from horrible insomnia that finally ended when I got my first period. I was so ashamed. I didn’t want anyone to know. I could still feel my cheeks burning as I stood in line at the local drugstore, my feminine contraband clutched in my sweaty palms.
After that, there was a lot of myself that I just kept…hidden. No one should have to know the scary, dark thoughts and images that flitted through my mind. I spent every second that I was home holed up in my room. It was hard to be around people sometimes. Maybe I just felt too much and everything hurt. I couldn’t even watch movies anymore, because I would end up huddled in my bed, buzzing from the emotions around me. No one understood, and as long as I kept my grades up, no one seemed to care. I guess I was fine as long as I maintained a B-average.
Keeping my grades up wasn’t going to be easy. I had Mr. MacFarlane for math and he had it in for me. I checked my phone and realized that I was going to be late if I didn’t hurry. A cool blast of coastal fog stung my face as I rushed out to my car. Ugh, I had some wicked cramps today. It seemed like they got worse every month. I flew down the hill, steering with my knee as I lit my cigarette. Usually, a cigarette took my mind off the pain. I crammed my little gray Civic into a spot on the steep hill reserved for those of us who couldn’t afford a parking pass. I took a final drag and flicked my cigarette butt into a trashcan as I walked past the Lexus, Mercedes and BMW-laden student lot. That the students drove more expensive cars than the teachers escaped no one.
Eyes downcast, I ducked past the sea of Cheerleaders, Jocks, Brains and Candy Girls. I jerked open my rusty brown locker and retrieved my textbooks. As I stood in front of my zero-period algebra class, I fought the same internal battle that I had engaged in since the first day of school. God, I hated Mr. MacFarlane. I knew I was in trouble the moment he set his beady eyes on me. On that fateful day, he called on five unlucky girls to compute the very complicated equations he had scrawled on the blackboard. He told us that when we solved them, we could sit down. Never one to volunteer in class, I was riddled with panic as I approached the looming symbols. The feel of the chalk on my sweaty palms was dry and aversive. Cheeks flaming, I stood frozen as the minutes dragged on. The last girl standing, I was finally allowed to return to my seat, my equation untouched, trying valiantly to ignore the smirks and the whispers.
After that, Mr. MacFarlane droned on about how some students lack the foundational skills necessary to pass the course. I had pasted a slightly interested look on my face and stared through him, pretending I was elsewhere. When the bell rang, I fled. Now, as I considered the urge to ditch, I could feel my anxiety rising. My heart pounded so hard, I had to double check that it was not visible through the fabric of the black tank top I always wore. I took down my hair and let it wrap around my face, like a velvet curtain hiding me from potential shame.
My desk was the last one in the row closest to the door. This location was convenient because it allowed me to slip in last and run out first. Unfortunately, the chair was slightly cracked and occasionally pinched me in a very delicate area as I feigned interest in the midterm review. I pulled out my text, my beat up black notebook, and my mechanical pencil. Mr. MacFarlane paced the aisles, waiting to pounce on some poor unsuspecting soul who had the bad luck to make a mistake under his watch.
MacFarlane paused for a moment but then moved on. I breathed a sigh of relief that I had dodged another bullet of public humiliation. When the bell rang, I was out of that room so fast the theme song from
Speedy Gonzalez
went through my head. A series of boring classes followed. Finally, I reached the eye of the storm—lunch period.
Our spot at the top of the stairs was a good vantage point. I studied my peers as though they comprised the chimpanzee exhibit at the zoo. Someone was always trying to groom up the hierarchy. Val and two other girls had recently taken to joining me for lunch, which confused me at first, but I didn’t mind. After all, being part of an Outcast group was better than being a Loner. Still, I was kind of amazed that Val wanted to be anywhere near me after what had happened between us.
During her parents’ divorce, Val’s behavior became erratic. And scary. I had pinky sworn not to tell anyone about the cutting. But when I saw Val’s wrists, I was so worried that I told our school guidance counselor. What ensued was a very public screaming match after school that day. Well, match wasn’t the correct term because it implied that there was an exchange. No, I just stood there, tears streaming down my face, as my best friend called me a liar and a traitor in front of a captive audience. Welcome to Outcast-hood. For both of us.
When Val came back from some kind of in-patient therapy center, she wouldn’t return my calls, texts or letters of apology. It hurt. She befriended Dara and Naomi and completely ignored me at school. Then out of the blue, a couple of years later, she plopped herself down on the stairs like she and her two friends had been eating there for years. Things had seemed shaky, but I thought things were on the mend.
At first.
Val had changed. Really changed. I felt like I was walking on eggshells around her, but I figured that an awkward friendship was better than nothing. Whenever we hung out, Val talked about progressively morbid topics. It was like a contest. Whoever could be the most negative or depressing, achieved some sort of intangible status among us. I tried not to play. Sometimes, I got sucked in and, even though I found that I could easily dominate the conversation, being good at this game just felt wrong. Something grew inside me, causing my confidence to soar until it suddenly lost momentum and shrank inside me, like a deflated balloon.
