"I'm not bossy. I'm the boss."
~Beyoncé
➳♀♁➳
The next week was hectic at school. We'd already taken our AP College tests - although I'd taken three, which had rendered me fairly useless after the exhausting feat - but we still had our counselors pressuring us to apply to colleges as soon as possible.
They filtered through the students one by one, starting with last names beginning with A. "L" last names fell on Wednesday.
I slipped out of my Calculus class after my teacher handed me a pass to leave, looking down at the note as I walked down the hall.
Meeting with Mrs. Raymond at 12:45.
The letters were scrawled hastily on a sticky note, written by the office secretary who was no doubt sick of writing so many passes this week.
My sandals slapped against the linoleum floor as I rounded the corner into the rotunda. My school was built like a web - the rotunda in the middle with hallways branching out. The branches all connected at the ends, leaving five small areas in between classes that were open gardens, sanctuaries you could go to during lunch or free period and breathe the open air.
Occasionally they were used for students to make out in between classes, the glass walls creating some very visual scenarios for the other students walking by. I passed Garden B on my way to the counselors' offices and looked inside to see a group of students seated on a bench, seemingly hard at work.
Helaci High was nice but it's "rival," Pemberson High, was nicer. The biggest difference was that they had a pool, and we did not. Our swimmers had to make the five minute commute to the other school to practice. I had been on the swim team both freshman and sophomore years as well as all of middle school, so I had become familiar with the layout of the opposite school.
However, having quit my junior year, I hadn't visited the other campus in nearly a year.
My phone buzzed from my back pocket.
Josh: can we talk?
I turned off the phone and shoved it - a bit angrily - back into my pocket.
Ever since the Sunday morning after the party, Josh had been begging to talk. At first I'd been nice, explaining that I would rather end the relationship. I had signed the DNR and thrown away any possibility of rekindling what we'd been.
Josh, however, did not seem to understand the fact that I'd broken up with him and continued to badger me about "hopefully forgiving" him and "putting it all in the past and starting new" because he "rully did love me."
"Rully?" you ask.
Yes, "rully."
But I had moved on. Not to bigger or better things, but just forward, away from him. I had my friends - Cora, Lina, and Park. I had Oliver, who was quickly becoming my friend - nothing more, mind you. And, I had my family.
Everything I needed to preoccupy me from wanting to be in a relationship.
My phone buzzed again, this time a different boy.
Oliver: Horses?
My eyebrows lifted. Horses?
Me: ... a traditional farm animal, originating from North America, often used by the Mongols when taking over China
I skipped down the hall. Pushing open the double doors to the counselors office, I stepped into the open space. A woman sat at a desk in front of me, eyeglasses perched at the end of her nose, click-clacking away at her computer.
"Hey, Marge," I said hesitantly, walking slowly up to the desk. Marge lifted her chin, peering at me through her glasses, nose tipped up to the ceiling.
"Who are you?" Her voice was grunt, accusatory, and not at all friendly. The very essence of Marge. She wore her grey hair up, always, in a tight bun atop her head, a pearl necklace hooked to her glasses that never seemed to leave her face even with the attachment.
There were rumors that Marge was immortal, because no one knew when she'd started working at Helaci, and it seemed as if she would never leave. Thus was Marge - the grouchy secretary that seldom left the cushiony bottom of her swivel chair.
"I'm Skylar Lane, here to meet with Mrs. Raymond," I offered sweetly.
Marge grunted, pressing a button on the phone next to the computer. "There's a girl here."
A second later, a woman's voice came from the phone. "Is it Skylar?"
Marge paused, looked at me with her nose to the ceiling glance, and turned back to the phone. "Skylar is boy's name."
I pressed my lips together as not to laugh.
"Send the girl in please, Marge," said the phone. "Have her wait outside my room until my meeting is through."
I turned to the right and slipped past the desk, heading down another short hall to Mrs. Raymond's office. I took out my phone again.
Oliver: Okay, Mrs. Textbook. I meant, how do you feel about horses?
I could almost swear that Oliver had only called me my real name twice, and maybe not even that many times.
Me: I had a traumatizing experience with one as a child. It tried to buck me off a cliff.
I sat smoothly into a small, plastic chair outside a door labeled "Room 201, Mrs. Raymond." I could faintly hear voices from through the door and figured she must have been with another student.
Oliver: I'm deeply sorry to hear that. Sounds like something straight out of a scary movie. "Horrific Horse Strikes Back."
I laughed. Oliver and I had been texting here and there the past week. Mostly him boasting about how lucky I was to have a date with the Oliver Manning this Saturday. Every time, I told him he was full of shit.
Me: It truly scarred me for life. The very fact that you mentioned it has sent me into a bodily shock, rendering my lower body paralyzed. I'll never walk again.
I pressed send and waited, tapping a fingernail against the screen absentmindedly as I looked around.
I'd been to the counselor's office only a few times. They called all the students in twice a year like this to convince people that if they didn't take as many AP classes as possible, they were headed nowhere in life. Harsh, yes, but somewhat effective. I'd taken three this year thanks to good old Mrs. Raymond. I also dreaded seeing Mrs. Raymond, thanks to the three AP's she'd convinced me to take, so it all came full circle.
Oliver: I was going to apologize, but saying sorry to Sorry just seems redundant. I was simply mentioning horses because I happen to be on one at this very moment.
I was unsure of whether or not to believe him. I hadn't known Oliver long, but I did know that he tended to say things in riddles. He was blunt, but there was always a double meaning to things.
Just as I was sending, "What?", the door to Mrs. Raymond's office opened. Out stepped a redhead I'd seen a few times around school. She stepped aside, smiled at me through cherry red lips, and walked away. Mrs. Raymond appeared at the door after her.
"Hi," I said, awkwardly smiling. I stood swiftly, shoving my phone in my back pocket and entering the room when she waved me in.
The room was small. There were two windows on the far walls, framed by lacy curtains, a large bookshelf occupying the entire right wall, and a corner desk on the opposite wall.
She motioned to a chair that was right next to the open door, and I sat in it. It was uncomfortably cushioned and dug into my butt. Mrs. Raymond sat in her desk chair and swiveled around.
"So how has school been treating you, Skylar?" She asked, a big friendly smile plastered across her cheeks.
"Good, for the most part," I said. "Classes have been hard but not impossible."
She nodded. "Yes, I was peeking at your grades just before this and liked what I saw. You're a very dedicated student."
I really wasn't, no more than the average Joe, at least. She must have missed my C+ in Calculus when she was looking through the grade book.
Mrs. Raymond turned to pull up a tab on her computer, filling the room with clicking from the keyboard.
"So, we're calling students in this week to go over senior classes."
I nodded. "I haven't given them a ton of thought yet," I admitted, "but I definitely want to take the AP Literature class and the least amount of math as possible."
Mrs. Raymond laughed. "Yep, I was like that too. Loved English and hated math." She moved to the side and pointed at the screen. "So these are all the available classes. First, we like to ask the students what they're interested in doing as a future career, and try to pick classes based off those necessary requirements."
She looked at me expectedly.
"Um," I started. "I'm still a bit undecided."
I really hadn't given much thought to my future. What seventeen-year-old had, anyway? I barely felt qualified to choose what restaurant to eat at, much less my entire future.
"That's totally fine," Mrs. Raymond said, clapping her hands in some sort of testament to my inadequacy. "Then we'll just pick based on interest."
The rest of the thirty-minute slot was spent picking out random classes and stressing me out further about the fact that my future was still a blank slate.
I left feeling much worse than when I'd stepped into the office.
In my head I started a list.
To Do List:
1) Find out where the fuck my life is heading.
I was going to procrastinate on that one, I could already tell.
As I left the office, Marge made a slightly disgusted noise in the back of her throat.
"Good day to you, too, Marge!" I yelled over my shoulder as I began walking back to my class.
The rest of the school day was just as depressing as the counselor's visit had been, both Lina and Cora sick, leaving me to eat lunch in the library by myself.
Now that I wasn't with Josh, I definitely wasn't welcome at the popular table. Some of the girls there may have been my friends, but we weren't close enough for me to risk my pride by sitting with that group. I would have sat with my Lina's boyfriend and his friends, but without Lina it just seemed weird. And Cora, despite her popularity and immense array of boy toys and friends, went wherever Lina and I went, sitting wherever we chose to that day.
But, alas, they were both sick and keeping me posted every hour on the horrendous details of their illnesses.
Cora: coming out both ends, friends. both ends
I didn't want to ask her to elaborate.
Choosing a table at the far end of the library, I plopped down and pulled my lunch bag out of my backpack. I was reading a historical fiction book about ancient Egypt and munching on baby carrots when someone collapsed lazily into the chair next to me.
"This place is like a labyrinth."
Park. He wore a green MSU windbreaker and kaki shorts, his feet draped over the table top.
I poked his feet. "You really shouldn't have those up there. Also, where did you learn a word like 'labyrinth'?"
He rolled his eyes and smiled. "I can be smart sometimes, too, you know."
I laughed. "What's your GPA, again? Oh, right, 2.8." I made a tsk-tsk noice, playfully punching him in the arm. He grabbed my hand when I did this, and held it for a second. My heart skipped a beat and my smile dropped. His hands were cold.
I shook my head and attempted changing the subject. "So are you lost or something?" He raised his brows quizzically. "I mean, how'd you end up in the library?"
He laughed, exposing a perfect set of white teeth. "I was trying to find a book for my English class." He looked at the one I'd discarded on the tabletop, picking it up and inspecting the title. "Maybe I'll just take yours instead. Nefertiti."
He flipped it open to read the inside cover.
"It's about a ancient Egyptian Pharaohs," I explained. "Gods and love, you wouldn't like it."
He put his hand to his chest, a face of faux hurt. "I bet I would love it. Gods - I'm practically one myself. And as for love? Been there, done that."
"Oh yeah?" I asked, eyebrows high and taunting. "You've done love? You, the guy I've seen break the hearts of an entire tennis team?"
He scoffed. "That's not love, that's messing around."
"Exactly," I retorted.
His face got more serious. "You don't know everything, Skylark. I know more about love than you'd think."
The room was enveloped with an uncomfortable silence.
"Park-" I was about to say, when a shrill ringing interrupted me. The bell.
Park didn't say anything else, only got up from his chair and walked smoothly away, leaving me confused and uncomfortable and the tiniest bit relieved.
Saved by the bell.
I got up and sat through my last two class periods repeating my conversation with Park the whole time.
He never showed emotions, least of all to me. He'd always been smooth, cold, and cocky. Nothing touched him. Sure we were friends, and sometimes I saw little glimpses of a kind and responsible guy, but Park didn't show his feelings.
All of my questions remained unanswered, and slowing in their motivation, when I slid into my car at the end of the day.
Boys, I thought dismally.
When had my life become so revolved around them in the past few weeks? I'd ended one relationship, started another, and noticed something shifting in one that had already existed.
My life was changing, and I could feel it. I wasn't against it, of course, it just felt weird when everything around me was evolving, and I was staying the same.
The sun was beating down, the weather dry and hot. I put all four windows down as I sped out of the parking lot, the wind whipping my hair back. I crushed the button to the radio on with my finger, singing along as a random pop song filled the car.
It felt oddly like summer, and made me long to finally be out of school.
Three more weeks, I told myself. You can do this.
I parked the car in my driveway, hopped out, and skipped to the door. The sky was smiling and it was a good day. Although my friends were bedridden, I pondered on heading down to the park or maybe to the river, bringing a sketch book and just enjoying the outdoors.
I turned the knob and opened the door, still singing the lyrics to the song from my car.
"How did it come down to this? Going through your call list," I sang the Beyoncé song loudly, not worrying about anyone hearing me as I was home alone. "I don't wanna lose my pride, but I'ma fuck me up a bitch."
I closed the door behind me, swinging my car keys on my pointer finger. I shrugged my shoulder and my backpack dropped to the floor.
"Know that I kept it sexy, and know I kept it fun," I continued to sing as I crossed the living room and into the next. After shimmying my hips and executing a perfect corkscrew, I was half way through the next line of the song when my eyes finally looked around the room. My legs froze and instantly my face heated up like black cement on a summer afternoon.
A conversation played out in my head from not all that long ago.
"Skylar, I know your brother. I've been to your house before."
There was nothing I wished more in that moment than to disappear into a black hole and never see human beings again.
"What's worse," he started singing, mocking my dance moves, "lookin' jealous or crazy, jealous or crazy?"
Oliver Manning was standing in my kitchen.