My Year of Epic Rock (2 page)

The bathroom was cold, like it is whether it's June or January, and the doors to the stalls were freshly painted with a bright new coat of red paint the exact shade of a fire engine. When I locked the door behind me, I noticed the paint still felt a little tacky, like it hadn't totally dried. I'd probably get it all over my clothing, because my day wasn't already the worst ever. No one else was in the bathroom—a minor miracle, since it was usually super crowded with lip gloss–toting eighth graders, but everyone must have been too busy hugging friends and catching up.

Everyone
but
me.

Class would be starting soon. Time to pull it together. I sniffled and blew my nose on a big wad of toilet paper, and then washed my hands and used a wet paper towel to dab my eyes. I've never been able to hide it when I get upset—my eyes seem to stay red for the rest of the day—but I hoped everyone would be too preoccupied to really stare at me. It's not like Brianna would notice. She barely turned her head in my direction before.

I opened the restroom door and peeked my head out. There wasn't anyone standing outside by the water fountain right between the boys' and girls' bathrooms, so that meant no one could have overheard my snuffling and nose-blowing.

Whew!

Except I forgot to check the other direction, and as I snuck out of the bathroom, I walked right into someone's shoulder.

“Whoa!” the someone said, taking a big step backward.

I looked up and saw shoulder. Then I looked up some more. The someone was Ethan Chan, at least six inches taller than he was in June, the last time I'd seen him.

“Ethan, I'm sorry.” I blushed. Red cheeks. Red eyes. Possibly red somewhere on my shirt—or worse, my butt—from the paint in the bathroom. I was sure I looked like a disaster.

“No problem,” Ethan said.

We stood there awkwardly for a minute, then he asked, “Uh, so, who did you get for homeroom?”

“Mrs. Cook. You?”

“Me too. Cool. Um.” He kind of shrugged. Then he lifted his chin in the general direction of the stairs. Then he looked at me. I figured he wanted to get going.

“I'll see you up there,” I said to him and then started walking. He did too. Right next to me.

I took a quick peek at Ethan out of the corner of my eye. Cargo shorts. Striped black and white polo shirt with a surfer guy on the front. Black flip-flops. Mostly I noticed that not only did Ethan seem taller, but he seemed muscley-er too. His dark hair was longer than last year—you could see how wavy it was now that it hit an inch or so below his ears. It looked messy in a good way.

I felt warm and kind of weird. Maybe I was getting sick? Where was Jackson and his medical textbook when I actually needed him?

When I was in kindergarten, Ethan Chan was my best friend. He would come over to my house at least once a month for a sleepover and my mom would make special magic noodles for us. Actually they were just plain old nothing magical about them beef and macaroni and tomato sauce, but Mom said they were magic and that you couldn't eat them without giggling. She was right about that part. Ethan and I wouldn't be able to finish our meal without laughing ourselves silly. Then Ethan would put on his Thomas the Tank Engine pajamas and I'd put on my puppy dog–themed nightgown and we'd go to bed. By first grade though, the boys and girls didn't hang out so much and that was it for Ethan and the Thomas pj's. I don't think he'd want anyone to know he used to wear those. They even had feet.

Ethan was quiet all through the lobby and up the two flights of stairs to Mrs. Cook's classroom. I kept trying to figure out something to say, but I was silent too. As soon as we got to the door to our classroom, he darted in with a quick “see ya” and a lift of the chin in my direction. I smiled goofily back at him.

Then I caught sight of Brianna sitting next to Shelley, and my smile was gone. I had conveniently forgotten until just then that Shelley was going to be in our homeroom this year. At our school, your homeroom teacher is also your first period teacher, so you wind up taking social studies with them or English, or whatever. Our school isn't very big. It's not
tiny
tiny, but it's not like we have thousands and thousands of students. Everyone knows everyone, pretty much.

After Brianna learned Shelley had supposedly broken Sebastian's heart and that she'd be in Mrs. Cook's class with us, Bri talked about her endlessly, even more than she had before. Like, to the point it was kind of boring. Brianna was totally hoping Shelley would want to hang out with us this year. I said that maybe she might be too stuck-up or too shy or just too busy with all the other people who wanted to be with her, but that made Brianna mad and she told me not to jinx it.

I went and sat down in a chair next to Brianna. I couldn't really think of where else to go—it was so a part of our routine to be glued together that on the fly I couldn't begin to fathom another option. Brianna and Shelley kept up their conversation, and then Mrs. Cook walked briskly into the room. She looked around and everyone stopped talking immediately. We weren't idiots; she was famously strict, the strictest seventh grade teacher—maybe the strictest teacher in the whole entire school.

No one wanted to be the first to get Mrs. Cook's dreaded laser beam look of death students imitated when she wasn't around. Kids said she could hold the stare for a full minute without blinking even once.

Mrs. Cook wrote her name on her projector and it appeared up on the white board, and then she started talking about our year ahead. I tried to listen—I even got out my new notebook and fancy roll-y pen that I “borrowed” from my dad's desk, but I couldn't help but be distracted by Brianna and Shelley. They weren't doing anything—they were sitting quietly like the rest of us, but I was so focused on them it was like a noisy car alarm was going off next to me.

I slunk lower into my seat. Was anyone staring at me? Did anyone notice that everything about me was completely, totally, awfully different?

I sat there and wondered how I was going to make it through the next seven hours. Then I remembered that, thankfully, I didn't have to. School always dismisses early on the first day of classes, right at 10:30. It's kind of a joke of a day, but at least I didn't have to deal with lunch.

Ugh, lunch!

I'd eaten lunch with the same person every single day for years: Brianna. Except if one of us was sick or the time in fifth grade that Brianna got to take an entire week off school to go with her grandparents to their timeshare in Hawaii.

At our school, we have a special table in the cafeteria set aside for kids with food allergies that everyone calls the peanut-free table even though it's for all allergies, not just nuts. It's cleaned off carefully between every lunch period, and the lunch aides stroll around and check on the people sitting there, although I'm not sure they would even know what to do if one of the kids got sick, except run and get the nurse or stand there and panic.

I used to sit at the allergy table when I was younger, but when I got to fourth grade, Brianna convinced me to convince my parents that if I didn't get to eat with her wherever we wanted, I wouldn't eat at all. At first Mom was completely against it, but I heard Dad trying to persuade her when they thought I wasn't listening. He almost never pushes Mom when it comes to anything that has to do with my allergies, but I guess that's because he saves all his fight for when he really disagrees with her. Finally, Mom gave in. As long as I always only ate food from home. As long as I promised—swore up and down—never to trade anything in my lunchbox for someone else's food. “Not even a banana!” Mom said, about a thousand times.

I don't even really like bananas.

But it was fine. Nothing bad ever happened. I always sat with Brianna, and she terrorized anyone who wanted to sit near us into leaving their peanut butter and jelly or egg salad sandwiches in their bags, or at least shamed them into eating at the other end of the table. I just sat there, doing nothing, and watched as she bossed everyone around. Talk about easy!

Also, you know what looks really gross? Egg salad.

Those few hours in Mrs. Cook's class felt endless, but finally the bell rang for dismissal. I made a big show of very slowly putting things away in my bag and ducking my head, even pretending to sharpen an already sharp, brand-new pencil so I'd seem busy and wouldn't have to catch anyone's eye. I didn't want people to notice my friendless state.

When I finally looked up, Brianna was gone. Shelley too. I was one of the last people in the room. I waited another minute and then walked out of class and out of the building as quickly as I could without breaking into a run. I didn't stop until I hit my house.

It was quiet inside when I let myself in, dropping my bag, shoes, and keys all in a pile on the floor by the front door. Sometimes on our first day of school, my mom is home and so is my dad if his teaching schedule allows it, so there're a lot of questions about how it went and what happened and all that. But Mom had reminded me earlier that she had to take Jackson to a dentist appointment and Dad was on campus, so it was just me and Pepper.

I turned on the computer we have in the corner of our kitchen and thought about trying to chat with someone, but I was the first one home, so there wasn't anyone around. And who would I even try to contact? I wasn't all that close with anyone else anymore, because I'd seriously spent so much time with Brianna. She and I used to hang out sometimes with Jody Fernandez and Chrissy Russo, and I had actually been tighter with Jody before Brianna came along, but then somehow it just got easier for Bri and me to pair up, and I spent less and less time with Jody and Chrissy. Not to be mean, exactly. It just somehow happened.

I moped my way up to my room, aimlessly, stopping to look at my leopard print–trim bulletin board. It was filled with all sorts of stuff—funny cartoons, a “Well-behaved Women Seldom Make History” bumper sticker that Grandma gave me, Dad's ticket to a Nirvana show back in 1993, a photo of me drumming from the summer I went to
Girls! Rock! Camp!

But most of all it was filled with pictures of me and Brianna being silly together. I felt like the way girls feel in songs when they sing about a boy leaving them. How come no one ever sings a song about a friend leaving you for a newer friend? This had to hurt as much as a romance ending, right? Or maybe a guy breaking your heart
was
worse. In which case, remind me never,
ever
to fall in love.

I had the impulse to pull every photo of Brianna down and rip them all to shreds, but I couldn't bear to do something so…final. And then I had a brilliant idea: I should try to
talk
to her instead of acting like it was the end of the world.

It was understandable that she was excited about her big trip to Italy and getting to know Shelley, especially since Brianna had been so obsessed with her the whole previous year. That didn't mean she thought I was suddenly a worthless speck of dirt.

The achy feeling I'd had since this morning eased up a bit. I didn't want to text her. Private was the way to go. I checked the time. Brianna's bus would have dropped her off at home by now. I almost ran back to the computer. There was a green circle next to her name. She was home!

“Are you there?” I typed. My words stayed in the window for a second…then two. Still nothing. Three…silence.

Then she wrote back, “Here but on the run TTYL.” The green circle next to her name turned gray, and the screen read,
Brianna
is
offline. Messages you send will be delivered when Brianna comes online
.

Ugh.

I put my chin in my hands, covered my eyes, and started to cry. Again.

I don't even know how long I stayed like that, but I didn't look up until there was a jangle of keys in the front door and I heard Jackson asking Mom how the dentist was so positive that Jackson didn't have a tooth abscess, since he definitely had a bitter taste in his mouth.

“Like a salty lemon,” he explained, his words sounding garbled because he probably had his mouth wide open to show her. Typical Jackson.

Mom sighed deeply and ignored him. They came into the kitchen and she noticed me sitting in front of the computer.

“Oh, good, Nina, there you are,” Mom said, walking toward me. “Since you're both home, I wanted to go through your piles of clothing from the summer and see what you've outgrown so we can give it away.”

Then she noticed my teary face. “What…?” she said.

I turned my head away from her.

“I'm fine,” I said, wiping my eyes on my sleeve.

“What's wrong, honey? Did something happen at school?”

Jackson raced over to stare at me. “Your eyes are all red.”

“Yeah, thanks. I know. I look like a big, stupid, ugly loser!” I yelled and stood up. The chair rolled back onto Jackson's foot.

“Ow!” he yelled.

I didn't even say sorry as I raced up to my room. I heard Mom calling my name, but I ignored her and slammed the door behind me as hard as I could. Of course it's about as thin as a piece of cardboard so the slam sound isn't very dramatic. I wished it had made the loudest, most awful sound in the world.

Amazingly, considering my mother's personality—laid-back and hands-off is so not her style—she didn't follow me and insist I talk to her, so I spent the next hour lying on my bed with the pillow over my face. It was past noon when she knocked on my door to see if I wanted lunch.

“No, thanks,” I yelled through the pillow.

“Nina, come on, have something. I made lasagna.” Mom was trying to sound pleasant and calm, even though I'd bet she was frustrated that I wasn't telling her what was going on.

“I'm not hungry,” I yelled back, even though my stomach was telling me otherwise. The last thing I'd eaten was a sliver of French toast at breakfast.

“You have to eat,” Mom said, more firmly this time.

“I will. Later.”

She didn't say anything else and walked away. I waited until I was sure that Mom and Jackson were done with lunch before going into the kitchen and making myself a plate of leftover lasagna.

“Warm it up first!” Mom called out from some other part of the house. How did she know what I was doing anyway? I gritted my teeth and took the plate back to my room—something that totally bugs Mom—without heating it up. It didn't taste all that great cold, and I was half nauseated, but I took a few forkfuls anyway.

I spent the day doing nothing except walking past the computer every few minutes, hoping Brianna's green dot would reappear. I tried to chat with a few other girls, like Alexis McCann and Jody, both of whom only asked where Brianna was once, but the whole time I just felt awkward and weird. A huge
thing
was missing.

I used to think it was so funny that everyone was always saying how Brianna and I were inseparable. Her mom called us “two peas” when we hung out at her house. Brianna was “pea one” and I was “pea two” and everyone at school—even adults—always asked me, “Where's Brianna?” if I went anywhere without her. But it was still a shock to realize how little time I'd spent with other people. If I had known that “Best Friends Forever” meant “Forever, or Just Until a Cooler Best Friend Shows Up,” I would have made more of an effort to branch out.

I sat down with Mom, Dad, and Jackson for dinner that night, even though I didn't really want to. But refusing to come to dinner is not really an option in our house, unless you're sick, like sick with strep throat and a fever and a weird rash in the shape of Canada, not just sick with a cold.

I saw Mom giving Dad a
look
. Yep, they'd been talking about me.

Dad said, “How was your day, honey?” in a fake, overly enthusiastic way. He was, like, the worst actor ever.

My mom's eyebrows were going up and down like she was sending him a secret code. The two of them were ridiculous.

I made a big show of pointing to my mouth and how I was still chewing my chicken, and then I took a giant sip of water and wiped my mouth on a napkin before finally answering, “Fine.”

“Were your teachers nice?” Mom asked me.

I shrugged, “No clue. We were only there for a few minutes.”

There were a few more totally boring questions: “Do you think that Mr. Dwyer will start with kickball in gym?” “Were your new sneakers comfortable?” “Did Mrs. Cook mention how much homework you'll be getting?” “What day do you have art class?” But I sat and ate and didn't talk so much as grunt and mumble, and after a while everyone stopped trying to get me to chat it up with them.

Jackson was happy enough to tell our parents about his day and the cool gadget that Will had with him that the teacher took away because it was too loud. For my brother, that's really big news. Admittedly, his day sounded a hundred times better than mine. At least it didn't end in tears or a state of friendlessness.

After dinner, I went back to my room and, standing on tiptoes on my desk chair, dug out Gingey, my old stuffed gingerbread man that I keep hidden in a box up high in my closet. He was missing his eyes and nose and was so matted he wasn't even soft anymore, and his fur was more of a dirty brown than chocolate brown.

I lay in bed holding him as tight as I could and cried until I finally fell asleep.