A/N Okay I realize that this chapter is a little bit cynical (okay, a lot cynical) towards high school, so I'm sorry if it offends you. But these aren't my thoughts. They're my character's thoughts that just sort of came out when I was trying to become them. So to the Quilting Club, Pep Squad, any Claytons out there and anyone else who is ticked off at this chapter, I apologize in advance. The book won't always be like this. Happy Reading! :)
Lesson One: Don't Ever Pay $20 for Gross Root Beer. EVER.
Being a teenager sucks. Honestly, it does. You're probably sitting there thinking, "Wow, someone has a major hormonal imbalance today," but I'm speaking realistically here. I'm not another moody teen with a passionate enmity against society; I just think the truth needs to be heard, and why shouldn't I be the one to speak it? So, world, here comes a major reality check.
People are arrogant. It's in our nature, whether we openly admit to it or not. I bet half of you readers out there have already navigated away from this page, not even bothering to give my words a chance. And who can really blame you? Why would you want to be lectured by an anitsocial pariah when you could be relaxing on a fine leather couch with your feet propped up on a polished table, a bowl of popcorn balanced on one leg and the remote control on the other? When given the choice, any sensible person would select the second option.
Wait. Hold up. Did I really just insult myself in my own book? I'm pretty sure I just referred to myself as a lonely outcast. Okay, just scratch everything I've said so far. The point I'm making, or at least attempting to make, is that the human race is ignorant. We savor the things we like, and act like the things we don't are nonexistent, hence the invention of drugs, alcohol, and video games. It's like we would rather find as many ways as possible to escape reality, than to actually fix it.
High school is one of those things. Something that everyone knows is messed up, but no one bothers to change. Instead, we've just created idiotic additions to it. Additions that make it impossibly easy to become labeled as a Weirdo, Slut, or Jock. Additions like monotonously boring extracurriculars (yes, that means you, Quilting Club,) the Bitch Committee (IE, pep squad,) and of course, sports teams, which seem to be considered as life-or-death matters (really, people? this isn't the Olympics. give me a break.) Additions that make it seem like teenagers are actually gaining something from the public school regime besides headaches, panic attacks, and higher suicide rates.
As I look around Lake Crafton High's overly decorated cafeteria, I realize that homecoming dances fall right under the category of useless high school events. Tacky streamers are draped from the ceiling and balloons adorn every table. Like all the past dances, this year's theme is masquerade. Also like all the past dances, it sucks. I can't believe they had the nerve to charge 20 bucks for cheesy eye masks and generic soda brands.
Frowning disdainfully, I retreated from my position against the tiled green-and-yellow wall and decided to go join the other dateless girls loitering sullenly near the snack table. Taking a sip of Giant Eagle root beer, I roll my eyes at the couples dancing near the DJ. And I use the term "dancing" loosely. What they were doing was more like grinding up against each other. No, sort of like having sex with their clothes on. Ew. I take one more small sip of my so-called root beer before realizing that it's nasty and nearly choke on my own saliva. Double ew.
This blows. I toss my almost full can of "rootbeer" into the recycling bin and head towards the doors. My parents, who were the ones that forced me to come here in the first place, weren't expecting (AKA, allowing) me to come home for hours, but there was a Starbucks not too far down the road where I could chill for the next 4 hours. Just when my hand was about to meet the door, just when I could almost taste the freedom, a hand latched onto one of my wrists.
"Where are you going, Am?" A voice chirped. I hate it when people call me by a nickname. Is it really that difficult to pronounce four syllables? I hide my scowl and mutter a quick curse as I turn to face the offender keeping me from my sweet, sweet escape.
It was none other than Georgia Haverford, that one perfect girl that exists in some form or another in every single school in America, including mine. That one girl with the straight A's, the charming boyfriend, the excessively friendly attitude towards everyone, including me. The one that acts like their BFFs with everybody, including me. The one girl that everyone really, truly, desperately wants to hate, but just can't, including me.
"Oh, um, I was just going--" I pause, startled by the sadness in her eyes when she sees my hand hovering near the door handle. "I have somewhere to be, is all," I clarify, plastering a fake smile on my face.
"Somewhere to be? At 8:15 on a Saturday night?" Georgia brushes away my badly devised excuse with a wave of her french-manicured fingers. "Come on, silly! Everything's just getting started!"
I sigh mentally as she drags me through the crowds, my four hours of magazines and hot chocolate vanishing before my very eyes. As much as I want to slap her hand away and bolt out of there like a tabby-cat being tracked down by a rabid pit bull, something keeps me from doing it. Maybe it's because I can't stand to see the untainted hurt in her eyes that I know will be there.Grr. Curse my somewhat good heart.
"Hey girls, Am is going to join us, isn't it great?" Georgia declares once we reach her giant group of friends. I give a meek wave, but by the less-than-enthused looks I get, I assume the only one that thinks my arrival is great is Georgia. As much as I loathe admitting it, Georgia is the closest thing to a friend I've got, and for some reason, her being my pity friend is worse than having no companionship at all. And I can forget talking to her friends; they aren't nearly as nice as she is. They put on fake smiles, though, and even tell me I look pretty tonight, which, unless one of them is a Russian spy here to take over the US, is probably the biggest lie they've ever told.
I'm not half as pretty as any of them. And don't worry, I'm not one of those girls who thinks she's hideous but is actually beautiful. God gifted me with lots of great things, but beauty is simply not one of them. I guess I've come to terms with that. I mean, when you go through your whole life with hair too curly, eyes too green, face too freckled, and cup size WAY too small, you get used to it. Besides, the dress I'm wearing isn't anything special either, just a tight black number with only one sleeve and a bow tied in the front. Plus, I don't even own a decent pair of high heels, so I feel exceptionally ridiculous in the black flats that are way too small for me.
After about an hour of standing awkwardly next to Georgia, my feeling of good hearted-ness has all but disappeared. I'm starting to get desperate to get out of there. ASAP.
"Georgia?" I yelled over the Kanye West song blaring through the speakers, "I have to go to the bathroom. Be right back." Guilt overwhelms me at the thought of what I'm about to do.
"Oh, alright, but hurry back. They're going to play the Cha Cha Slide soon!" She flashes me a huge grin that I try my best to return. She'll forget about me soon enough anyways, I remind myself.
"Don't forget to try the root beer!" She calls after me. "It's amazing!"
Needless to say, my guilty emotions were gone in the blink of an eye. I nearly tackle two people to the floor in my hurry to flee the school. Finally, after taking a detour to avoid being seen by Georgia, I arrive in the crisp early October air. It's about ten degrees too cold for so early on, but that's Pittsburgh for you. I wrap my beige peacoat tighter around me, wishing I had thought to wear tights or at least a scarf, and blow hot air onto my hands The road is eerily silent for a Saturday night, with next to no one on the road and not a single soul roaming the streets but me. The stores on either side of me are either closed for the night or deserted, and the only sounds to be heard are the whistling of wind in the trees and my own feet shuffling down the sidewalk. I shiver, but it has nothing to do with the cold. Maybe I should have stayed at the dance. The idea of walking two miles home from Starbucks gets less and less relaxing the more I think about it. Just when I'm contemplating turning back, I hear the screaming.
"No, stop it!" A girl shrieks. "Quit fighting! You're scaring me."
I perk my head up, suddenly alert. I look around for the source of the commotion, but I see nothing. Nothing but me. Shaking my head, I figure it must be the temperature playing with my emotions. After all - -
"It doesn't have to be this way!" Its a guy this time, interrupting my train of thought. I heard it that time. I definitely heard it. The girl lets out a squeal again, and I realize that something is horribly, terribly wrong. My eyes dart around, but there's still no one. I reach into my coat pocket for a cell phone, my hand shaking, but it's met by a movie ticket stub and a ball of fuzz. Crap. Slapping my hand to my forehead, I remember that my phone was in my silver clutch, which I just so happened to leave at the dance. Could I have been any stupider?
I look around again hopefully, but no such luck. Looks like I'll have to handle things myself. Again.
"Stop! It doesn't have to be this way," The guy repeats, and the girl yells something too, but I can't make it out. I bolt down the street towards their voices, peering into every alley along the way. Finally I locate the fighting, in a dark side street a few feet away from me. I duck behind a nearby trash can, my heart thrashing vigorously in my chest, and I cautiously peek around it.
I can just vaguely make out the silhouettes of two men, wrestling on the pavement. A guy, maybe a year older than me, is fruitlessly trying to yank them apart, while the girl I must have heard yelling is standing off to the side, cowering behind her hands. I cringe when the fighting gets more violent, and one man is socked viciously in the face by the other. The recently-punched man gropes about for a weapon and finds a trash can lid. He lifts it above his head triumphantly, pinning the other man to the ground with his fist.
"No, stop! Please," the guy begs, but he's too late. I let out a whimper when the metal is brought down brutally onto the defeated man's head, forcing him into unconsciousness. Oh my god. This is some serious business.
Suddenly, the victorius wrestler staggers to his feet, his nose dripping with blood, and advances towards the boy. It's too dark to make out their faces in the dark, but something about the boy plucks a chord in my mind. He's familiar. Somehow.
"Don't interfere, kid," the man drawls, even though he's probably only a few years older than the boy (in his twenties, probably,) his speech slurred by his rapidly swelling lips. "This is adult matters. How would you like it if I got all tangled up in your business, started playing with your Hot Wheels and action figures, hmm?" The man edged closer towards the boy threateningly, a sneer on his wet face.
"Bring it, WInston," The boy taunted, forming his hands into fists. "I eat punks like you for breakfast."
"Stop it, you two!" The girl cries, finally emerging from where she was hiding in the shadows. "And get away from my brother, Winston. He didn't do nothing to you."
"Oh, so he's your brother is he?" The man, Winston apparently, smiled mischeviously, turning his eyes back to the boy. "The last time I heard, you were just business partners. You meant nothing to each other. I wonder what else you're hiding from me, Clayton," Winston smirked, making sure to emphasize his last word.
"Don't you dare call me that," The boy presumably Clayton, growled. I almost sniggered at the name. Clayton, seriously? No wonder he doesn't want to be called that. What on this good earth his parents were thinking when they named him that, I have no idea. "No one calls me that, especially not you, dick head."
Clayton (oh wow it is difficult to take him seriously right now) throws the first punch, but Winston easily dodges it, even laughing at the pitiable attempt. Winston carelessly shoves Clayton into the brick wall, his victim's head making a loud crack that causes me to cringe. With Clayton down for the count, Winston heads towards the girl, and immediately I want to do something to stop him. Anything at all. But I know it would be no use. Reading every book ever written may make you smart, but believe me, flipping pages does nothing to strengthen your muscles. I must be her same age, and what good would I be against that ruthless man anyways? I mean, come on. He just shoved a minor into solid brick basically for the hell of it! Maybe I'm just a horrible person or something, but I couldn't muster up enough courage to make myself known to them. Instead, I did nothing but watch as Winston slowly walked, no, more like prowled, towards the girl.
It was too dark for me to make out the features of her, but I could assume she was scared out of her mind. And she has every right to be.
"This is a beautiful sister you've got here, Clay-man," Winston purred, tucking a strand of the girls jet black hair behind her ear. The girls icy blue eyes darted back and forth, searching for an escape, and Winston latched onto her wrist, as if reading her thoughts.
"Don't touch me," The girl demanded, her voice surprisingly steady.
"Ooh, and fiesty too," Winston said suggestively, his fingers running up her arm.
"D-Don't you get any c-closer to her," Clayton, who was finally getting up from the floor and rubbing the back of his head warily, warned. My eyes grew wide with shock when I saw Clayton pull something from his jacket pocket. Something that glinted softly in the streetlight, with a wide handle and perfectly sharpened blade. "I'm n-not asking you. Get away from her, o-or you'll regret it. Get away. Now."
"Make me, kid," WInston replied, oblivious that he has turned his back on a "kid" with a dangerously pointy toy. And then Winston caused his own death; he grabbed the girl by the waist and pulled her close to him.
And I did the stupidest thing I could do, even worse than leaving my phone at school. I screamed.
Now before you judge my intelligence, let me defend my IQ. It was just all too much. The dagger piercing Winston's flesh, the widening and then glazing over of his eyes as life trickled out of him, the loosening of his hold on the girl's wrist, the way his pallid shell fell to the ground: It was all too much for one night.
As soon as the strangled shout left my throat, I clapped a hand over my mouth. The boy, the murderer, looked up at me from his place kneeling by Winston's corpse, his mouth dropping to form a small O. And all of a sudden I realized that I know this boy. I know the killer. Xavier Whitman. As embarrasing as it is, my first thought was "Xavier's real name is Clayton?" I mean, it really isn't that weird, people go by their middle names all the time, but Xavier didn't strike me as a Clayton even the tiniest bit. No wonder he has tried to keep his birth name under wraps for so long. I would have too.
Without another word, I bolt up the street, sending a trash can clattering to the pavement in my rush. My lungs are burning from the cold and my nose is running like crazy, but I push on, putting as much distance as possible between myself and whatever the hell that was. Although I see no signs of anyone pursuing me, I don't slow down until I arrive at my orginal destination, Starbucks.
Breathing so heavily it hurts, I plop down in a cushioned chair near the lit fireplace, feeling all at once like puking, crying, and even laughing, at the unlikeliness of it all. Inside the cozy coffee shop, everything seems unreal. There is no way that just five blocks away, a man is dead. And the killer and his accomplice are on the run somewhere. It's insanity. But it happened. It happened, I'm sure of it.
Oh my god. Oh. My. God. OH MY FREAKING GOD! This is real, I witnessed a murder! Me, Amaryllis, just saw the worst of all crimes being committed. I'm nearly hyperventillating, and I don't even care that the bored-looking barista behind the counter is staring at me like I just grew a second head. Go ahead and glare at me. Take careful notes. This is what you would look like too if you just watched a man get stabbed in a dark alleyway.
"Are you going to buy anything or what?" The barista snaps at me. Buy something from her? That would be asking for a death sentence. By the way she is sneering at me, I wouldn't put it past her to slip some arsenic into my vanilla steamer. I uncertainly get to my feet and shakily walk to the counter, as if in a dream.
“No,” I quip, sounding more confident that I actually was. “But I could use your phone.” The barista rolls her eyes, but she must have detected some sort of seriousness in my tone.
“This better not be another joke, punk,” she warns, very reluctantly handing over her cell phone.
“Thanks,” I say curtly.
I hold the phone for a minute in my hand, hesitating. I just saw a crime. The worst crime in the book. So three numbers should be brought first and foremost to mind: 9-1-1. Yet somehow, those are the last numbers I feel like dialing. I had recognized the murderer. He went to my school. He wasn't a terrible person. He didn't have a choice. He was only sixteen. Did I really want to send him to juvy? Did he even deserve it? I wasn't so sure about anything right at that moment. Trying not to act too rashly, I decide to hold off on the police.
I flip open the phone and call the only person that I know will have my back: Ash, my older brother. We’ve been friends ever since I can remember, even if we basically spend all our time together arguing. I swear, he’s better at making a point than someone with a Major from Harvard Law. But no matter how often we fight, no matter how much we claim to hate each other, I’m always there for him, and he’s always there for me. We share little to no physical resemblance, and personality-wise we are not exactly twin-like either. Even though we are practically best friends, we couldn't be more different. For example, Ash has a social life, whereas the only person I talk to besides family is my terrier, Motorola, and Georgia I guess. Ash has made out with five separate girls in a single night, whereas my sexual activity is about equivalent to that of a snail. Ash goes out to party every weekend, whereas the only place I go is the kitchen, to get more cookies, and then I go right back to the hidey hole of my room. AKA, Ash is not a nerd, whereas I most definitely am.
Which is why I’m incredibly worried about Ash not answering his phone. He’s probably at some tremendously loud Seniors-only “Homecoming Sucks” party, playing strip poker or lounging around in a hot tub somewhere. I count five rings, and I let out a sigh of relief when he answers on the sixth.
“Hello?” He says gruffly, not bothering to hide his annoyance at my call. “Look, this better be important, Amaryllis. I’m a bit busy.”
“It is important,” I claim defensively. “I need you to come pick me up from the Starbucks a few blocks away from the school.”
“Can’t you just walk home?” He asks, but I can hardly hear him over the pumping music and din in the background. “I’m at a party.”
“I know. But it really is important. I can’t walk, not after what happened. Please, just come get me,” I whined, crossing my fingers that he would obey. There was a long pause.
“Fine,” he sighs, “but you better have a damn good reason for this crap. I’ll be there in five.”
And that is why I love my brother. He’s gone before I can even thank him, and he pulls up in front of Starbucks within the promised time range. I hop into his navy blue pick-up truck, the one he uses to carry his lawnmower around in the summer, when he gets landscaping jobs. I buckle my seat belt, but Ash makes no move to drive away, hands not even on the wheel.
“Well?”
I struggle, wondering how much I should tell him. Would he even believe me? I trust him, but would I trust him enough to accept that he watched someone get murdered in an alleyway? I wasn’t so sure. Maybe a kernel of truth would be the best.
“Well,” I repeated after him, not meeting his icy blue eyes, so much prettier than my green ones. “The dance sucked. Big surprise there, right? So I was just going to come here and sit in Starbucks until it closed, and then walk home. You know, to please Mom and Dad and all. Have you ever had the caramel hot chocolate there? It is totally amazing. And the homemade whip cream? Nothing better, I swear by it. You know, I have a funny story about—“
“Amaryllis,” Ash cuts me off.
“Right, right, the story, sorry,” I said, trying to stall for as long as possible. I loathed lying to him. “Well, I heard some screaming while I was walking, and there was no one around, so naturally I got all freaked out. So I look down this alleyway and there’s some man getting mugged. It was pretty grisly, I guess, the victim was all bloody and beat up. I ran away before I could see anything else. Maybe it’s stupid but it freaked me out, and I-I just—“ I added some more confused blubbering, which wasn’t all that hard since I actually was really freaked out.
“Amaryllis,” Ash interrupted. “It’s okay. Just don’t go out down here in the dark anymore, alright?”
“Yes, Dad,” I joked.
“Good,” he grinned, flicking the engine to life and backing out of his parking spot. “And I know how much you love going to dances with Georgia, but you have to finish your homework first!”
It felt so, so great to laugh again.