Monday morning at breakfast before school, something monumental happened.
Felton sat next to me.
The moment he settled into the seat, chewing contently on his Pop Tart, I turned and stared at him with wide eyes, my mouth hanging open. He continued to chew for a while, completely clueless to my stare, until eventually he realized that he was being watched, and he glanced over at me. He swallowed heavily and shot me a look, one eyebrow going up. “What?”
“You’re sitting next to me,” I said, awed. He squinted, confused.
“And?” he demanded, rolling his eyes. “Are you too exclusive now that you’re dating the kid who lives next door?”
“No,” I said hurriedly, afraid to make him leave. My brother and I were definitely not close, but there was rarely a time where he even acknowledged my existence, so I didn’t want to scare him off. “No, it’s okay. So, what’s up?”
“Um,” he said. “Breakfast?”
I nodded slowly, looking away and making a face, going back to eating my cereal. He finished eating and pushed his paper plate away from him, a thoughtful expression on his face. I watched him out of the corner of my eye, curious.
“Okay,” he said suddenly, turning to me. “I know I haven’t been very brotherly to you lately.”
I nearly choked on my own spit. I stared at him, wide eyed, but he wasn’t done speaking yet.
His hands were up as he gesticulated with his monologue, as if it was practiced, but my brother wasn’t the kind of person to do things after really thinking them through first. “I kind of feel bad, you know, since everyone kind of freaks out about what you wear and whatever, even though it’s kind of seriously weird and I still think you belong in the circus, but still. I guess I should have been more friendly toward you, and I feel bad. I was talking to Aubs last night and she told me that you thought that I didn’t even know you existed and I just want you to know that I’m always looking out for you even though you don’t think I am and that I’ve nearly gotten into fights with six football-playing guys to get them to back off from making fun of you. So. Yeah.”
I blinked.
He stared down at his plate, grimacing. I was in shock.
Did that just happen?
I pinched myself.
“You’re awake, dorkface,” he told me, rolling his eyes, and I knew this was real.
“Wow,” I said.
“Yeah, I guess I can be a bit of a nice guy sometimes,” he admitted, rolling his eyes at me. He shot me a grin, his eyes more open than I had seen them in a while, and there was something there that I couldn’t even read. “You know, you’re not the only one in this family that acts like someone they aren’t sometimes.”
I wore strange clothes and did stupid things sometimes, but Felton wore a face that had us all fooled. Even me. Even our parents. I could tell right now that the person I was looking at now was my brother, just not the one I was used to. The one I knew was stupid and hated me and wished that he was anywhere but here. But this one . . . he looked smart. Tired. No; exhausted.
That’s when I realized that I didn’t even know who Felton was. That maybe I was the one that should be apologizing.
“This doesn’t mean that I’m going to start wearing a skirt and painting your nails and asking you about your love life,” he quickly told me once he felt me starting to get sappy, making a distasteful face. “I’m just saying that I care about you, sis. Even if you dress like a circus escapee and are dating the weirdest kid I’ve ever met.”
I looked at my brother, really looked at him. The kid that brooded and acted like the stupidest guy in the world was all but gone. I was looking at a guy with dirty blond hair and the same eyes as mine but he wasn’t wearing the expressions I was used to. He was smiling, relaxed, if a little disturbed because I was staring at him like he was behind bars in a freak show. It’s hard to explain, really—I knew how easy it was for me to pretend, even for me to be someone else entirely. I never thought that Felton might have thought that it was just as easy, and that he was hiding just as much from the world as I was.
I did it because I was afraid someone would hurt me. Felton did it because he knew everyone would just underestimate him anyway, and there was no reason for him to try.
For the first time in a long time, I leaned over and gave my big brother a hug.
“I’m sorry,” I said, and he knew what I was sorry for. He shrugged but he hugged me back. When I pulled away after clutching at him for so long, he wasn’t pretending anymore. He was just sitting there, looking exhausted, with that same sad smile on his face.
“Don’t be, Lee,” he told me, shrugging. “You’re the one that made me realize that I shouldn’t have to pretend. That it was okay to be myself.”
“I don’t even,” I started to say, uncomprehending anything right now, but he shushed me, rolling his eyes again.
“I let everyone tell me who to be,” he told me, shrugging like it was no big deal, like there wasn’t any reason for me to think about the seventeen years of getting to know my brother that I wouldn’t get back, because that brother wasn’t really who he was, not all the way. “I kind of let myself believe that I was as stupid as they thought I was.”
“What are your grades?”
“Better than yours.”
I grimaced.
He laughed and nudged me so hard that I nearly flew off of the chair I was sitting on. “Don’t take it personal.”
“I’m still in shock,” I told him.
“That’s okay,” he said. “You have all the time in the world.”
When he left for school, I was still sitting there, thinking. I was wondering how my brother was so different, how I hadn’t seen it, how he had been able to keep up an act, and I realized that it was kind of the same thing with my dares. I would do anything for my dares, even if someone dared me to be someone else—someone like Aubrey telling me to dress funny. But maybe I just loved those dares because I was waiting for someone to dare me to be who I wanted to be. To be who I was. I think I forgot about who that was over all this time, just like Felton had.
I thought about it for a long time.
Eventually, though, Quinton came by to pick me up, and I wandered into school. I saw my brother but I didn’t say hi. I kept walking, and I didn’t stop until I was sitting in my first class of the day.
I should have realized what Felton said was foreshadowing one of the hardest days of my life. I should have realized that today was too surreal, and today was going to be the day where everything was going to be tested.
I should have realized a lot of things.
I guess I was so blind to so many things I thought I could see clearly.
I didn’t know until it was too late.
~*~
I guess word got around the school a little bit about Quinton and me, but I didn’t really notice it until lunch, when I was standing at my locker and I could feel people staring, pointing. I could nearly hear my ears ringing with all the words they were saying about me. I breathed out a long breath and tried to calm myself down, telling myself not to freak out. I shoved my books into my locker, but there were just some voices I couldn’t block out.
I was hyperaware that Quinton and his friends were all gathered around his locker down the hall from me, and they were all laughing and talking. I could hear them clearly, like their voices cut through the rest like a butcher knife just to get to me.
That’s how I heard it.
“So are you seriously going out with that weird chick?” one of the guys demanded to Quinton, who was standing there and playing a game on his phone. I surreptitiously looked over in time to see Quinton look up, startled, as the guy continued, “She’s way too weird, dude. I don’t know about her.”
“She’s kind of a downgrade.”
“She’ll turn you into a freak or something, dude.”
“Yeah, bro,” another piped up. “She might make you wear mismatching colors and turn your boxers into an accessory.”
All of the guys but Quinton burst into laughter, and Quinton just stared at them, obviously speechless. My stomach turned as I looked at him desperately, waiting for him to say something, but he didn’t. He looked shocked, disbelieving. But he wasn’t saying anything.
This could have been one of those cheesy movies. The high school kids make fun of the girl who dresses weird, all that stereotypical jazz. It hasn’t been that way here in Waltham for the entire time I had been here, but now I was wondering if my brother had a hand in that, because apparently he had been fighting for my side. But there was no one fighting for me now. I looked back at Quinton, waiting, but he didn’t say anything.
I felt my heart breaking a little bit as I fell from the clouds. I didn’t want him to let me down like this.
I didn’t care what he said. As long as he just said something . . .
He just stared at them, horrified.
“She’s such a freak,” one of the kids muttered, and the others laughed. Quinton’s eye twitched and his lips went thin, but he said nothing. His silence was like a sharp knife, piercing me right in the heart.
Freak.
It took me back all of those years ago, back into middle school days that seemed too hard to remember when I tried, but it was effortless now. It felt like yesterday when the kids giggled about my weight. Called me a freak because of my imagination. Told me to my face that I was ugly and I was never going to get a guy, and if I did they wouldn’t want me, not really. I could hear them laughing. Maybe I was just hearing Quinton’s friends.
I was just a freak.
“Stop,” Quinton snapped at them, looking angry, his voice loud enough that the entire hallway turned to look at him. His hands were fisted and he looked like he could tear the world apart, but mine was already shattered on the ground. “Shut the hell up!” he barked again when one of the boys kept laughing. But their laughter was echoing through my ears, their words seared into my memory. I slowly closed my locker door, my stomach sinking.
I was still that same freak, that nerd, that total loser. I didn’t want to hate myself for dragging Quinton down with me.
I could see my brother starting toward the group, his face stone because he heard them, too. Felton. I never thought he cared, but he had been my guardian angel the entire time, fighting my battles for me, protecting me from the trouble I cause for myself. He was protecting me from myself, but I hoped he knew that he couldn’t do it forever. That one day I was going to take a deep breath and realize that these dares that I do, the dare that I am doing . . .
It’s all just so dumb.
I was still that same girl.
That weird freak.
I bit my lip.
Quinton was mad. Felton was mad. But I was just standing there and staring at them, feeling so stupid.
Freak.
I turned around and I walked away. I kept walking, didn’t stop when I hit the front door of the school, or when I hit the street. I kept walking until I made it all the way home, and I let myself in. I walked up the stairs, thankful that my mother wasn’t home to see the tears that ran down my face as I went into my room, prying open the closet. I looked around at all of the random articles of clothing in it, biting down so hard on my lip that it was becoming painful, but I couldn’t really notice. I was breathing so sharply that it was all I could hear.
I stared at my closet.
I was crying.
I took a step into the closet, breathing deeply.
And then I started to rip it all apart.
~~~~~~~~~~
I wish this chapter didn’t suck as much as it does, but oh well. Beggars can’t be choosers, I guess.
My last first day of high school is tomorrow! FINALLY.
I hope everyone has a good school year!
x Riley