012. 10 Out of 10
At Aquino High, skipping a class is like slipping further down the totem pole.
It's Monday, and I'm not prepared.
So much has happened since last Monday that I'm not even sure that I can bear to walk into school and see a Post-It note on my locker, flapping as people walk by. It's a symbol of the concerns of my past, but now I have so much more to worry about. Now it's just something that adds fuel to the flame, that makes Taylor more confusing and my life more complex.
I wake up grumpily at the sound of my alarm at six forty five. The house is dead silent, as if I'm the only one inside even though I know that Allison and my dad are in their respective rooms, likely still sleeping soundly. Allison is meticulous about her appearance in the mornings, but she has gotten it down to an art that somehow still takes less time than I do to get ready.
However, even after I get dressed and am downstairs in the kitchen figuring out breakfast, I still don't see my sister. It's not until I'm sitting at the breakfast room table stabbing halfheartedly at a coffee cake I heated in the microwave that she appears.
"Why aren't you ready for school?" I ask, curiosity weighing out my refusal to speak to her.
She tugs at the bottom of her pajama shorts, as if suddenly she's more self-aware of them. "I'm not going to school today."
My eyes bug out. Allison has never missed a day of school all year, except a time last fall when she had the stomach flu and literally couldn't even roll over in bed without being sick. Skipping school for her was like admitting defeat to me; that I had better grades than she did and a better shot of being number one in the class. It was like skipping classes because they didn't even matter anymore.
"Why?" I ask around a mouthful of coffee cake.
"Because by now, everyone in the entire school probably knows about me and Taylor. Do you think I can bear to show my face?"
She doesn't look at me as she says it, as if she's embarrassed for even me to hear. The guilt that I'd managed to compact and shove away for most of the weekend pulses in my gut, slowly expanding once more.
"The only people who know about that are Taylor, me, and you," I insist. "And Taylor would never tell anyone—he's just as bad off as you are if people find out."
"Why are you trying to convince me to come to school? Isn't this good for you, that I get to miss class and get behind on my work?" Now she's rummaging through the pantry, opening drawers and shoving aside boxes of crackers as if she's looking for something in particular. Finally, she turns around to make eye contact with me for the first time, and her eyes bug open wider. "You're eating my coffee cake!" she exclaims.
I immediately stop chewing. "You didn't label it. How was I supposed to know?"
"So now I have to label all the food in my own house?" She swallows noisily, a sign that when she was younger indicated she was about to begin a rare fit of tears. "Is that supposed to reduce me to some mere outsider status?"
"What do you mean?" It's never been unusual for me to label a plastic bag of nuts or candy if I didn't want Allison or Dad munching on it. Dad even labels all his Tupperware with leftovers, writing feigned threatening notes in Sharpie. "Everyone labels their food."
Allison slams open the cabinet that contains our cereals and grabs a box. "I guess that's just supposed to be some other reminder that I'm adopted," she spits out as if she hadn't even heard me. "Taylor and I don't even look alike, and now someone drops the bomb that we're supposed to be twins?"
Something falls near the entrance of the kitchen. Allison and I turn to see Dad standing in the entryway, his hand open as if he expects to still be holding the manila folder that is now on the tile.
"How did you find out?" he asks quietly.
Allison and I exchange glances, and I try to portray as much fear and pleading as I can through my wide eyes. Merciless as always, though, Allison turns to Dad and tosses back her hair. "Taylor told me," she says. "Apparently Erika somehow got ahold of my adoption certificate and told Taylor, who felt obliged to let me know."
Dad is silent.
"How could you?" she screams, the first tears trailing down her face. "You knew Taylor and I were friends, and you didn't think it was necessary to tell me anything?"
I notice the loose use of the word "friends" but, judging by his expression, Dad is oblivious. Allison had told Dad nothing of her brief relationship with Taylor—either she somehow managed to feel guilt and didn't want to speak of it, or she was continuing a trend of keeping her boyfriends secret from him. Either way, Dad had never known that she and Taylor had been seeing each other behind his—behind everyone's—backs.
"I thought it was good that you two were close," Dad explains. He stoops down to pick up the folder, shielding his face from us, but not before I see the tightness of his expression. "I didn't feel a need to tell you until you were eighteen. Your mother and I adopted you when you were still a baby, and to us you're as much of our daughter as Erika is."
This doesn't stop the tears from streaming down Allison's face—most likely, I suspect, because every hope that Taylor and I might be elaborately pranking her is now gone. "How?" she asks, her voice barely above a whisper. "Why me? Why didn't the Cunninghams want me, but they wanted Taylor?"
Dad shrugs. "I didn't ask. To me, it wasn't important. A precious baby girl needed a home and we were happy to provide one." He rifles through the folder in his hand, straightening the papers inside, before straightening and saying, "You girls need to go to school. We can discuss this in more detail later, okay?"
"I'm not going," insists Allison stubbornly.
"Of course you are. You don't skip school simply because you're adopted. Lots of teenagers are adopted, Al. It's nothing to be ashamed of."
"No, it's not," she sniffs, wiping away a tear that has trickled to the tip of her nose. "But other things are."
In typical father nature, Dad doesn't ask questions. "If you need a wellness day, I understand," he says. "I'll email your principal. Erika, you'd better still be going. And after school today, we're going to talk."
I resist the urge to groan as I finish my coffee cake and throw my backpack over one shoulder. While Dad usually isn't harsh about punishments, it's almost worse to have to endure his tone of disappointment while he lectures.
I almost forget about the Post-It notes as I drive to school, trying to balance guilt with shame with curiosity. Once I climb the stairs to my locker, though, it's impossible to shove the concept into the back of my brain, because a bright blue ten is pasted right in the center of the metal door.
"Wow!"
As if she has a radar for high rankings, Celia has slithered up to my side. She cocks her head to one side as she inspects the note, almost as if she were wishing it was fraud, before she adds, "Finally, Erika! Welcome to the club."
I shoot her a fake, tight-lipped smile as I swing open the door.
"Still no clue who it is?"
"No." I don't have time for her games this morning. "Listen, Celia, why don't you go track down some other tens, okay? I have to study before first period."
To her credit, she seems to get the hint, and she slinks around the corner, disappearing from sight. Frustrated, I yank out my calculus textbook and balance it in one hand as I shut the door again.
The number ten is written in the same handwriting that all the notes before have been written in. Despite everything, I suddenly want to know more than everything who my secret admirer is and why he's so bent on hiding. Why wouldn't he just admit his crush on me by now?
The school day is terrible considering the fact that Allison is absent and I don't have to deal with her bossiness. All day I find myself looking for her in the halls, and I almost wish I'd see her glaring at me so that I'd know she wasn't at home, curled up in bed crying. She has no one to turn to right now and I can't imagine what that pain must feel like.
The Post-It note haunts me, too, but I know better than to go to Taylor looking for answers. Even after what happened between us Friday night, I know he'll refuse to tell me anything.
During calculus class Spencer and I don't exchange a word, and in English we sit next to each other awkwardly as we take notes. He catches my eye once or twice and I try to manage a smile, but all my attempts are met with stone-faced solemnity. He can't possibly be planning or ignoring me forever, and yet here he is.
I run after him as English class ends, grabbing his sleeve just outside the door. He turns around but doesn't look overly surprised to see me.
"What is it, Erika?"
I brave his somewhat cold tone and take a deep breath before diving in. "I know you're upset with me," I say before he can get another word in. "But don't you think this is a little much?"
He doesn't say a word, just continues to study me as if he can't quite believe what I'm saying.
"Come on," I insist. "We've both done stupid things. I mean, you helped Taylor cheat on Brynn last summer! Don't act like you're an angel."
"You and I remember that summer very differently," he says. I wait for him to elaborate but he doesn't. Instead, he levels my gaze for another few seconds before saying, "I have to go to my next class."
And then he's gone.
I want to yell after him but can't risk attracting attention. Shoving my hair away from my face, I walk in the other direction, as far away from him as I can. Everyone's insistence that their version of last summer is right is wearing down on me.
Still, Spencer's words follow me. I attend my last two classes with half my usual attention span and then check out for the day. I don't care that at Aquino High, skipping a class is like slipping further down the totem pole. Allison's missed the whole day and frankly, our competition is the least of my concerns right now.
The second I get home I hurry up to my room, ignoring Allison sitting on the living room couch curled up in a blanket. After I dump my backpack on my bed I shove open my nightstand drawer, rifling through the papers inside for the letter.
It's gone.
"Allison!" I bulldoze back down the stairs and into the living room, coming to a stop right in front of her. "Where did you put my letter?"
"What letter?"
My hand instinctively raises to my temples and I massage them. "The letter in my nightstand. I know you took it. You saw it this weekend when Cassidy and Brynn were over and you snuck in later to steal it."
Allison pushes the blanket further up to her chin. "I have no idea what you're talking about."
Exasperated, I storm away, leaving her to watch TV in misery.
I never snoop, much less in Allison's bedroom. But today is an exception because all of a sudden, we're crossing more lines than we ever did before. Once I slip inside and lock the door behind me, I shove open her nightstand. Empty.
I move to her desk and open a few drawers, but when I try the one in the middle it's locked. Frustrated, I jiggle the handle for a few seconds before my mind flashes back to a time in elementary school when we were searching for secret cabinets in her room. We found one under her desk, and I try it now to see it falls open easily. A small white key drops into my hand.
As quickly as I can, I try the key in her desk drawer, but my hands are shaking so hard that it takes me a few attempts before the locking mechanism pops open. I slide out the drawer and find a few sheets of paper inside—my letter is sitting at the top.
I take it and shove it into the back pocket of my jeans. Then, because I'm fuming that she dared steal something so private, I begin to shuffle through the rest of the papers in her drawer.
Someone shakes her bedroom door handle. My head shoots up and I realize how criminal-like I look, crouching in front of my sister's desk with a hidden key and clutching her papers.
The knob jiggles again. "Allison?"
It's Dad. Exhaling in relief, I grab the rest of the papers from the drawers and slam it shut, hiding the key back in its spot. I scurry through the Jack and Jill bathroom to my room, shove my stolen goods into my nightstand, and race back to Allison's room to unlock the door for Dad.
"What are you doing in here?" he asks.
"I came to see if Allison was here." I feel terrible lying to him, but I have no choice. "Was the door locked?"
"Yeah." She steps inside and shuts the door behind him. "We need to talk."
"Another time? Please? I'm really busy right now."
He opens his mouth to protest but I shoot him such a begging expression that he concedes. "After dinner."
Nodding, I head back to my room as quickly as possible. Locking my door, I reach back into my nightstand and collapse onto my sheets with the papers. First I open the letter, smoothing it in front of me as I read the somewhat faded handwriting. The creases on the paper are all still pristine from where it had originally been folded; I'd read the first few lines when I'd received it and then shoved it away, never reading it again.
Erika,
I figured you deleted my number and I couldn't get this all in a phone message anyway, so I couldn't think of a better way to get in touch with you. I get that you're mad at me right now, but I hope you know that I never meant for it to end this way. I treasured what we had this summer, and I never wanted it to end. You're the smartest, most beautiful girl that I know and I loved every second I spent with you. You made me think about everything—how the way works and how my actions can affect that. Which is why I made the decision I did when Taylor started asking me to cover for him.
I refused about four times before the night that everything went down. Finally he kicked me out of our room that night, insisting that he had a stomach bug and didn't want me to catch it. He begged that I don't let anybody else in the room because he didn't want anybody to see him so sick. So I crashed on the couch and when you and Brynn came downstairs I tried to be a good friend and do what he told me to do.
I never knew he'd be in there with Allison. Maybe I should have suspected, but I honestly trusted him. He's my best friend. Still sort of is, despite everything. I don't know if that makes me a bad person, but somehow I'd like to believe that one mistake doesn't totally define us.
Anyway, if that's the only reason you hate me now, if that's the only reason why you haven't answered any of my calls or texts, then I thought I should explain. If there's another reason...well, I've racked my brain and stayed up all night and can't think of anything else that would ruin the perfection that was us. I still care about you. A lot. I thought you did, too. Please let me know if you forgive me, because it's eating away at me so slowly and painfully and I don't know what I can do to make it stop.
It's signed from Spencer.
Resting my head back on the headboard, I shut my eyes and try to breathe. I hadn't tried to get in touch with him at all since the incident, and when the school year had started I'd shunned him as if we'd never even known each other. At the time I'd thought my cruelty was justified, but it turns out it wasn't. I didn't know anything. I'd never known anything.
I fold the letter back up and set it aside, wondering if it's too late to try and make amends. Then I reach for Allison's stack of papers and began to flip through them.
At first I think they're all plain white notecards, because most of the sheets are blank and the ones that aren't only have telltale scribbles—maybe part of a shopping list of a fragment of a math problem. Just as I'm about to give up, a scrap of a sheet falls out of the stack. I squint to read the sloppy handwriting, which looks like it had been written in pencil. Someone, I figured, had probably scribbled it on a shred of notebook paper during class and shoved it my sister's way.
It's not you who has my heart anymore, Allison. I'm in love with your sister.
- T