EMERSON
Teenage Lobotomy // Ramones
I park my BMW in what seems to be a safe spot. Of course, my asshole dad shelled out enough dough to buy his mini-me a European import. Stupid waste of money. I drive it out of necessity since it's the only option I have, but I'd prefer something else, anything else, actually. I'd consider taking the bus, but no way the old man would tolerate that.
Looking around at the other cars in the student lot, the desire for that something-else-to-drive has never been so strong. The car next to mine couldn't have cost more then a few thousand dollars. My shiny Beemer cost ten times that, used. If it was used, but my dad doesn't pay for 'other people's leftovers' so of course mine is brand spanking new. It's a consolation prize for not getting me into the rich kid academy. There are a few other high-end vehicles in the lot, all parked together in a covered section. This tells me a lot about the school I'm about to enter.
There's no place more judgmental than high school, and I'm about to get judged, given the once over by the highly critical eye of the high school masses, either for what I have or what I don't. It won't matter who I am. All that matters in this micro-society is what I look like, what I wear, what I drive, and my family's fucking zip code.
Public school or prep school make no difference, the judgment is still strong in both. At the prep school, it was about name-dropping. Everyone was already a rich prick, but only those with connections made it to the top of the chain. I refused to play that game, even though my dad had the connections, so I was somewhere in the middle, even though I would have rather been ignored or forgotten.
I wonder where I'll end up in this shit-hole. Not even ten steps into the place and I'm already getting looks as I walk through the hallway to the office. Conversations stop as I walk past, eyes following my every move.
'Who's the new guy?' is running through everyone's mind. Too bad none of them will ever really know.
The first day is a late start day, which means there's plenty of time for the masses to loiter in all areas of the school. They stand around pretending to talk, but really what they're doing is sizing each other up, making alliances to survive the year-long sentence in teenage hell
I shake my head wondering how I got to be such a negative asshole. Then I remember my zip code, and the ass that's raised me.
I reach the office and a very nice receptionist prints my schedule and gives me some directions to find my first class. My thoughts are proof that I can be positive if I want to be. It is possible. Maybe this school will be different. Maybe it won't suck as bad as I expect it too.
But my negative thoughts make a raging comeback as I walk out the doors into the back quad and take in the surroundings. This is what I expected-groups of kids sit in packs all around the school, and it's clear how everyone is segregated by association not by choice.
On the steps as I pass are the brains. Who else would be wearing mostly polo shirts in muted blues and kaki with their heads stuck in textbooks...on the first freaking day of school?
The sidewalk out front is skater central as they race each other, performing stunts designed for brain damage on what my mother would call "four wheel death traps."
Everywhere I look there are clichés of students huddled together. Groups of students held hostage with their peers. Held hostage by their insecurities and their peer's expectations.
Fuck, this might actually be worse than the rich kid academy.
"You okay, handsome? You look a little green there, and green does not go with that sweater." The perky sound of a female pairs with the slight hand touching my shoulder. I turn and look down, way down, to see a bright-eyed blonde with equally bright red doc martins staring at me. She looks genuinely concerned.
"First day nerves?" she asks as her mouth makes a little pout.
Oh, hell no. I hate pouty chicks. The docs almost had me, but the pout pushed away any thoughts of getting to know her better.
I roll my eyes, "No. First day disgust." I answer as I look around the segregated quad. I have no chance at happiness in a place like this. Happiness? My inner cynic laughs at such a ludicrous thought.
"Yeah, high school does have that effect on teenagers." She nods. "I'm Chelsea, by the way. Welcome to our little version of prison."
I look back down at blondie and realize she's a social enigma. She has a fresh face free of the typical gallons of make-up most girls wear now, but her almost preppy clothes are paired with the red boots. And damn, the girl has no social filter, obviously since she didn't hesitate to come right up to the new guy, not worried about crossing any invisible boundaries by being seen with me.
"Emerson. And thanks, super excited to be here," I say with zero excitement. My head cocks to the side as I imagine what my dad would think of her. I honestly don't know because I have the feeling this girl would fit in basically anywhere she goes. That's kind of refreshing. But also a little disturbing considering my main goal in life, after music, is anarchy.
Then I take another look around, trying to decide if I should bother assimilating into any one of these groups. Hard pass. I just don't have the energy.
But then I look past the quad and out to the grassy hill beyond the buildings. That's where I find the only people at this school who might have something to offer. They all have their headphones on and sit separate from each other, bobbing their heads and not speaking. My idea of perfection.
My little companion must notice the direction of my gaze, because she comments on it immediately. "I didn't take you for the zombie crowd, but you're practically drooling right now. Interesting."
I don't confirm or deny her suspicions so she continues on blabbing about music and bands and blah, blah, blah. I don't listen. Instead I zero in on one girl sitting on that hill--purple headphones that speak to me, non-descript grey hoodie, jet-black hair in a blunt cut with a splash of blue at the tips, and lips that are moving as her eyes are closed.
Shit. I need to see those eyes, because those lips, moving to the words of whatever song she's listening to, aren't just lip syncing. She's living those words, breathing them in, they're a part of her.
God I need to see her eyes. Do they live the words too?
"That's Zoe." The girl next to me, Chelsea, is speaking again. Had she ever stopped? "The girl you're staring at."
I look down at Chelsea once again. She's smirking at me. Awesome.
"And?" I challenge the smirk by crossing my arms.
"And, she's the queen of those bozos over there. The only one worth making an effort for."
My eyebrows bunch together. What is the little blondie talking about? "Are you one of them?"
Chelsea laughs. "Ha! As if. Nah, Zoe's my girl." She looks back over to the hill. "See all those wannabe's around her? They follow her moves. Go where she goes. Zoe, she sets the tone, the beat, and they all bob along."
"Sounds like a cult." My response sounds dismissive, but I'm actually intrigued. "Why'd they make her their queen?"
Chelsea looks back up at me, eyeing me hard. "Right now, as we speak, Zoe's got a playlist going, listening to her favs and memorizing every nuance of every breath in every song." She pauses like the little drama queen she is. "But the rest? They're all listening to her." Chelsea punctuates her point with another dramatic pause. "That's why she's the queen."
ZOE
Seven Nation Army// The White Stripes
My dad harps on the fact that High school's main purpose is an education, and maybe that was true when he was young, but now-a-day's it's more like a battlefield with hallways full of potential minefields of humiliation and aggression. Take a wayward step in the wrong direction and you might get bullied or beat down. To survive most kids huddle together in packs. But each pack, each group, each club, has someone lower on the food chain they harass or look down upon.
The intellectuals feel superior to the jocks. The jocks beat up on the skaters. The skaters spend their lunch hour jumping over curbs and verbally attacking the band geeks.
And the popular kids? Somehow, they are suspended above the masses, set apart by their uber wealth, good looks, and charm. Treated as a sort of royalty in those hallowed halls of education. Why? Because everyone secretly wants to be them. Who wouldn't want to drive a Porsche to school or take ski vacations every year to Telluride.
Where do I belong? I look over at my peers, a dozen teens sprawled out, next to me, on the grassy area to the right of the football field. We all have our headphones on as we listen to music, joyfully and purposely, oblivious to the rest of the world.
They call us the headphone zombies. Mostly because we tune out the world whenever possible and let's be honest, because most of the time we barely communicate with each other. I guess maybe we do look like a bunch of mindless zombies with our heads all bobbing in time to whatever tune is blaring through our beats.
Chelsea is tugging on my arm. She is not an official headphone zombie, she's one of those rare breeds that somehow flitters between groups, like a butterfly hopping from flower to flower.
I slide down my beats and try to ground myself back into reality. Music—my escape, my glorious ticket away, far, far away, from the real world. As long as I avoid a certain song today, that is. So far I'm still living and breathing, zombie distinction aside. If that song finds its way back to me I might just join the actual zombies.
Chelsea's lips are moving, but what is coming out of her mouth is pure nonsense. "Fifteen minutes until class. Come on, we don't want to be late."
That's the big disconnect—Chelsea wants to go to class, while I am desperate to be anywhere else.
I swat away her fingers and hunch further down into the grass. Shouldn't I get points for my super human feat this morning of getting dressed and leaving the house? Isn't that enough?
How can she expect me to walk into the school knowing that any minute I might bump into them? My heart, yeah that thought didn't help it any.
"You gotta go to class," she says taking steps away from me, and closer to the house of horrors.
"I don't think I can do it." And there it is, an official admittance of pure defeat. I am astonished as the words leave my mouth. I know I've been thinking them, wallowing in them since I left the house, but I can't believe I actually said them out loud. It's not in my nature to give in or give up.
Dylan Thomas has royally fucked me up. And that seriously pisses me off. I feel a blaze of anger replace the hollowness of self-pity.
"Zoe, you're going to have to face them sometime."
There goes the anger, and hello again self-pity.
I force myself to my feet. Chelsea is right, I have to face them sometime, because I know there isn't a chance in hell I can convince my dad and dragon lady that we need to move across the country. And no way they can afford to send me to a pricey boarding school.
I must face Dylan and his new boo.
I think I just puked a little in my mouth.
***
My beats are not an accessory. They are an appendage. These babies have become a part of me, of my person, of my humanity. They may give me a zombie-like disposition on the outside, but on the inside they make me who I really am. The music flowing out of the speakers and into my soul speaks more about me than anything else possibly could. It doesn't hurt that they simultaneously drown out the masses around me.
Today, that is the only reason I'm still alive. It's the only reason my broken heart hasn't given up and just stopped its own internal rhythm.
I follow Chelsea into the halls of hell, my eyes glued to the floor and keeping watch of her feet taking one step after another just ahead of me. I refuse to look up. I refuse to listen to the chatter and gossip surrounding me as it most certainly is. Not today. Not tomorrow even. God, hopefully never. I have never wanted a high school scandal to erupt as badly as I do right this minute. Please. Somebody leak a sex tape! Take the freaking focus off of me!
My face is on fire, so I know it's as red as Chelsea's Doc Martin's. Shit. Way to blend in, Zoe. I close my eyes for a split second, trying to take a deep breath and calm down, taking in the words to the song and trying to gain some strength from it. ...no more...That's when I crash right into Chelsea.
"What the hell?" My voice is hushed as I pull the beats off of my head. And that's the biggest mistake I could possibly make at this moment in time. Because I also listen, I also hear the whispers swirling around us. And I look up.
The death blow is imminent.
They are both in front of us. Leaning against the lockers. Lips attacking each other in a frantic, not meant for public display in a high school hallway type of kiss. This is it. The last thing my eyes will take in. The last thought I will have is one of a broken heart. A cracked and bleeding heart. The white Stripes were wrong. The words didn't bleed from me. They were stolen by this demon and his new girlfriend.
"Dylan. Could you possibly have less class? I mean, I knew you were a complete ass hole, but this is really lowering the bar." Chelsea is shouting at him.
I just want to go crawl away and wait for the bitter end.
"Oh, hey. I didn't see you guys there," Dylan says. "We were just heading to class."
... ashes...
There must be something stirring in the universe, because just as Dylan's asinine non-apology leaves his lips, Hozier starts playing. I hear the words and their truth seeps into my blood. If I've died from a broken heart, then don't bring me back to life. If I have to die a metaphorical death to find that peace, then this is the moment my soul is reborn.
"Sure, Dylan. That's exactly what it looked like. You keep on 'heading to class.' See how that works out for you." As soon as the words come out of my mouth, I turn to go down the hallway towards my class. My beats go right back home, where they belong, and I hold my head up as I leave. I drown in the lyrics, mouthing the words as my new anthem. I let them drive me forward, away from where my old soul just died. Away from where my new soul rose up and conquered. ... voices died...
As I walk, my eyes catch something, or rather someone, standing in the hall. I glance over and see a guy, one I don't recognize, dressed in the designer shit found right off of a runway in Milan. Blue sweater probably made from the baby hairs of endangered kittens, brown suade loafers that no doubt cost more than my Beats. His hair is perfect, warm brown tones with clean cut sides and a swoop on the crown. He could rock a Mohawk if he ever decided to go rogue. As if.
My eyes work their way to his. That's when his eyes catch mine. ... it had a power...
Those rich, brown eyes say something to me. Is it fear? Is it disgust? I know it's neither but the emotion is so strong I almost start sweating. I want to turn away from him, to keep the newfound fire in my eyes. All you have... But I can't look away. I can't break the eye contact that's gripped me like a steal vice. My lips are moving to the words unconsciously now. The words of the song speak life to me, as if there is a secret message I need to understand. ... love's ache...The eyes looking at me stoke the small fire that I feel burning inside. And I let it burn.
Somehow, I look away. I keep walking past this guy without glancing back. And I make it to the place I need to reach. Chemistry may not be a glamorous place, but the fact that I just walked through the gauntlet of hell and made it to the other side is monumental. Walking into this classroom is a new Zoe. One that won't let the broken heart over Dylan kill her. Won't let the rumors drown her. One that is ready to fight with everything I have, everything I am, to rise above these high school assholes.
The line about never taming demons blasts through my ears, causing me to square my shoulders and stand tall.
Yeah I think my demon just chewed through her leash. Watch out, Easton High students. This shit just got real.
Well...what did you think of these two??? Eye contact can be electric and I think that's what happened between Emerson and Zoe. We'd love to hear your thoughts!
Thank you so much for your votes and comments! Feedback is so helpful as we continue to write. Any thoughts as to what's coming up next? Let us know! And don't forget to check out My Bloody Valentine over on catrinaburgess profile! A new chapter should be up tomorrow!!
The Ramones are punk staples. But I think Emerson is about to get a music education when Zoe gets her hands on him! The White Stripes have the perfect sound to get Zoe going. And don't worry, Hozier is coming up next!