Confessions Of An Angry Girl

Tracy gets up. “You’re okay, right?” she asks. I nod. “Sorry you’re stuck over here,” she says again, before Mr. Cella escorts her back across the cafeteria without so much as a glance at me.

It took only two days for the teachers to stop looking at me like some sort of pathetic freak. Which is exactly what Peter said would happen, when I was complaining to him about starting high school barely three months after burying our dad.

What was left of him, anyway.

I try to concentrate on biology and ignore the flush in my cheeks that is taking its time receding.

I sneak a glance at Jamie.

Jamie Forta.

I know who Jamie is. I know because of Peter. Jamie and Peter were on the hockey team together when I was in seventh grade and Peter was a junior. Jamie was a freshman then. Dad and I used to come to the games to watch Peter, but after getting a good look at Jamie in the parking lot after a game once, I mostly watched Jamie. The next year, Jamie got thrown off the team during the first game of the season for high-sticking a West Union player named Anthony Parrina in the neck.

Although I hadn’t seen Jamie in a year, I recognized him the second I was assigned my seat at this table. Even without the hockey gear.

I can hear the scratch of Jamie’s pencil as he draws, grinding graphite down to wood. My gaze finds its way across the pages of my book, over the table and onto his notebook. It takes me a second to recognize the upside-down image as a house, a strange-looking house in the woods with a porch and a massive front door at the top of a wide staircase. I lean over the table to get a better view. And I realize he’s no longer drawing.

I’m afraid to lift my eyes from the page. When I do, Jamie is looking at me, his pencil in midair. Again, the flush rises from my chest, up over my neck and into my cheeks. Before I look away, I think I catch the slightest, tiniest, most minuscule glimpse of a smile in his eyes.

“That’s a really nice picture,” I whisper, unable to get any volume.

He looks at the pencil and shakes his head at its wrecked point, dropping it next to his notebook. He reaches into his pocket and draws out a dollar as he gets up from the table and starts toward the food. Apparently he’s learned to keep some of his money for himself, rather than give it all to Angelo.

“You should be studying,” he says with that hint of a smile in his eyes, and walks away. I feel the heat intensify at the sound of his voice, making the skin on my face tight with imaginary sunburn. He disappears in the rush of upperclassmen who have just come in from the cafeteria courtyard to get food before the bell rings.

I close my book and put it in my backpack, hoping to spy a piece of gum at the bottom somewhere to erase the dryness that goes along with humiliation. I rifle through my new makeup bag, which Tracy put together for me (“You can’t go to high school without a makeup bag”) and find an old piece of partly wrapped gum stuck to a busted eyeliner (apparently I got her hand-me-downs). I take the eyeliner out with the gum and separate the two, deciding the gum looks clean enough to chew. Weirdly, it tastes like lipstick. I rifle a little more, searching for something to help me find solid ground again. My fingers brush the eyeliner sharpener.

I take the sharpener out and look quickly over my shoulder for Jamie, who’s in line waiting to pay for a coffee. I grab his pencil and jam it into the sharpener, twisting and twisting and twisting, watching the yellow wood shreds peel off and fall to the table. I take his pencil out and look at its now-sharp point. The bits of eyeliner stuck in the sharpener have left a few electric-blue stains, but the point is truly perfect. I quickly put it back where I found it, looking again just in time to see Jamie turning away from the cashier to start back to the table. The bell rings. I grab my bag and run.

blunderbuss (noun): clumsy person who makes mistakes

(see also: me)

2

“MY GRANDMA SAYS it’s better not to be beautiful, because then you have nothing to lose. And you know that the guy who married you married you for the right reasons,” Stephanie says.

“Or you just know that he’s ugly, too,” Tracy responds.

“I assume the level of conversation in the room means that everyone has finished his or her exam?” Mr. Roma says from his position by the blackboard. “Ah, Robert still has his paper, girls, so no more talking until he’s done. You have ten minutes, Robert. Is Robert the only one?”

No one else says anything. Robert looks up, catches my eye and winks. I look away. Tracy and Stephanie laugh.

“Enough, girls. Let the man finish.”

“Genius takes time, Mr. Roma,” he says.

“You have nine minutes, Robert.”

I suddenly remember the answer that I needed for the fifth question, and I become convinced that I failed. But I’m always convinced I failed, and it has yet to happen. The class has been sitting in silence for two minutes when a note lands on my desk. I can tell by the way it’s folded that it’s from Tracy.

Students are not allowed to bring cell phones or smart phones or anything like that into classrooms. This drives a lot of people crazy, including Tracy, who is addicted to texting and IM-ing. But I couldn’t care less about the ban because a) I’d rather get a nicely folded note with words that have all their letters than a stupid text any day of the week; b) I hate people who cheat, and cell phones make it really easy to do that; and c) I don’t have a cell phone. Tracy thinks it’s really lame that I’m so far behind the curve.

I was going to get one before school started this year, but other things came up. Like death.

I try to open the note without making any noise, but Mr. Roma hears me. He raises his finger to his lips to silently shush me, but he doesn’t get up to claim the note and read it out loud, which is what he did yesterday to Stephanie. Instead, he gives me a frowny smile. Apparently, Mr. Roma still thinks I’m a pathetic freak in need of sympathy even if Mr. Cella does not. I look down at the note.

What did you do to that guy at your table in study hall? He asked me where your last class was.

My heart stops. Where’s your last class? can be code for several things: Where do you want to meet so we can walk to practice together? or Where should I meet you so I can sell you those drugs? or Where can I find you so I can beat you up? Since Jamie and I aren’t on a team together—I’m not on one yet and, in fact, I don’t think he’s allowed on any team anymore—and I have no interest in buying drugs from him—not that I know he actually sells drugs—that leaves one option. But that doesn’t make any sense, either. All I did was sharpen his pencil.

I turn to Tracy. Did you tell him? I mouth. What? she mouths back. I point to the note and mouth my question again, more slowly this time. She nods seriously and then shrugs at my panicked expression.

“What was I supposed to do? He creeped me out,” she whispers.

“Was he mad?”

“Kinda—”

“Tracy Gerren! Enough! Go sit by the window.”

Tracy rolls her eyes, gathers her things and heads toward the back of the room. “Thanks a lot,” she mutters in my direction. Robert places his paper down on Mr. Roma’s desk with a flourish.

“I am officially finished, ladies and gentlemen. You are free to talk.”

“Sit, Robert. And be quiet. In fact, everyone stay quiet until the bell rings. I’ve decided that I like this class best when it’s silent.”

Three minutes until the bell. I have no idea what’s going to be waiting for me out there. I feel sick to my stomach, which gives me a great idea. I slide out of my seat and head toward—Mr. Roma’s desk. Robert tries to grab my hand as I walk by. He smells like cigarettes. I ignore him. I’ve been ignoring him since sixth grade.

“Mr. Roma, I know the bell’s about to ring, but I need a lav pass.”

Mr. Roma hands me the pink pass after writing the time on it without so much as a raised eyebrow.

I guess there are some benefits to freak status after all.

* * *

I’m in the bathroom by the gym—the bathroom farthest from the school’s main front doors—when the final bell rings. Two girls are smoking in a stall at the end. It’s hard to breathe. I wait until they leave, and then I wait a few more minutes. It’s still hard to breathe. I wonder if I’m having one of those panic attacks my mom is convinced I get now. To distract myself I read the graffiti on the wall, which says Suck it, among other things, in hot-pink nail polish.

Such originality here at Union High. Such excellent use of vocabulary.

When I can breathe again, I leave.

The halls are basically empty. I go to my locker. I get my books. I grab my French horn out of the orchestra room so I can practice later, and I leave by the front doors because there’s no other way to leave at the end of the day; they funnel us out through the front to keep an eye on us. I’m waiting at the crosswalk when I see him on the other side of the street. He isn’t holding any books. The crosswalk light goes from the red hand to the silver guy, and I’m afraid to move, but I do anyway. I get closer and closer and closer, but he doesn’t say a word. In fact, I just walk past him as if I don’t see him, and a few seconds pass. My legs are still moving when he says, “Rose.”

I’ve never, ever heard anyone say my name like that in my entire life. I didn’t even know that was my name until he said it like that.

“Yeah?”