K Y L I E
In the mirror, a girl with black hair stared back at me. She was wearing a leather skirt and leather boots and a tight white t-shirt. She smiled. Or I smiled. I never knew where I began, and she finished. Or even if it was the other way around.
On my bedside table, my phone vibrated. I ignored it. Allora needed to calm down. I would be ready soon. Breakfast was a thing of the past after all. I couldn't remember the last time I had sat down for toast. I had fought long and hard for just a bowl of cereal, but Lydia and Sylvia had been clear. Starting the day with a peak of sugar was simply unacceptable. What had I been doing during the night that could possibly make me hungry in the morning? I hadn't known how to answer that, so no breakfast for me and less waiting for Allora.
Soon enough I was grabbing my bag and leaving. It took me a while to actually leave the house because my mothers had made a case of living in somewhat of a palace when they moved in together years ago, before they had me or even the idea of me. I didn't mind the size. I could run away from home and still be home. I could pretend the world had ended and I was the last person on Earth. I could have as many imaginary friends as I wanted without the fear of being found talking to myself. I could not be found.
I got in my car, a Mercedes Lydia had gotten me when I got my driver's license. Sylvia had turned a blind eye to the fact that it had been my third attempt. Lydia and Sylvia, Sylvia and Lydia. I had never struggled to know what to call them. Mommy or mom or even just mother had never had the pitch it deserved because both Lydia and Sylvia were of the opinion that becoming a parent didn't mean losing their identities. I didn't mind this either.
By the time I got to school, Allora was already there, leaned over her car with a cup of coffee in her hands. She had a good coffee machine at home, but still nothing could stop her from getting a soy latte on her way to school every morning. She thought it was sexy. I thought so too. Allora made reusable coffee cups look like a high-fashion statement.
I walked up to her. The highlighter on her dark skin shimmered under the morning sun, and like always, she was dressed as if she had a meeting at a handsome law firm right after school. She didn't.
"You're keeping me alive in those jeans!" I said, looking her up and down. " I mean, look at you! I'm weak! You're weakening me."
Allora offered me an amused and handsome frown, "Shut up. You look delicious."
I smiled, "Right, ready?"
Allora shook her head but followed me into the school building all the same. Like always, school was a show I hadn't bought tickets for but had been offered nonetheless and then forced to go to for twelve years straight. We hadn't even made it to our lockers and already the sound of hysteria beamed in our ears. I rolled my eyes.
Zoey and Daisy were a bad sugar rush. Every day something excited them. Their favorite writer released a new book? They squealed. A tv show they liked got renewed for a new season? They squealed some more. Some boyband announced new tour dates? Oh, look at that! Look at them go!
They needed to calm down and they needed to do it fast. They couldn't read a book or watch a show or listen to a song without making it their whole personality. It became their reason for living. It was unsettling. They also couldn't seem to wear anything other than graphic t-shirts and old people's sweaters. I was sure Daisy was colorblind. She mixed too many patterns, too many colors.
We walked past them. It was 8 a.m. They were singing some lame generic song from some lame generic boy band. I wasn't even sure the band was still together.
"Come on..." I whined. I made sure to do it loud enough for them to hear me. No one should have to wine so loudly. They seriously needed to calm down.
They stopped singing altogether, their eyes suddenly turned to me, face red.
I smiled, "Thank you."
It was a bitter smile. I didn't care.
"It's 8 a.m." Allora said, an elaboration I didn't think was needed.
"Sorry," Zoey said with an apologetic smile on her lips. She had an ugly t-shirt I wouldn't be caught dead in.
We kept walking. First period. English with Mr. Wyatt. I didn't know who Mr. Wyatt was. I was guessing he didn't know who I was either. This meant a good impression was needed. First impressions were everything. They stuck to you like wax.
I wasn't exactly the sharpest pencil around. I wasn't even sure if that was the saying. I knew I was easy on the eyes. I knew sometimes I could have my way with words – a handful of corporate dinner parties every year did that for you and my mothers knew that when they forced me to go along. This meant I knew how to act like I was the sharpest of them all, even if I wasn't. I knew I did better if I wasn't being expected to fail from the beginning. I thought probably everyone did.
Allora stopped in front of me. She was standing under the door frame.
"What?"
"English just became a lot harder," she said, suddenly on the go again. I knew what she meant without her having to say it. With Allora on the move, there was nothing between me and Mr. Wyatt.
Mr. Wyatt, a man in his roaring twenties, was a walking distraction. I had always imagined someone on the board made sure men like him weren't hired as teachers. He could be more than qualified, and still, at the end of the day, someone would say, no, that man breathes sex, he can't be a teacher.
Someone had failed when Mr. Wyatt was hired. He was standing behind his desk, fumbling with a bunch of CDs in a white dress shirt and a pair of black suit pants, and all of it screamed, there is a body under this! I was sure students shouldn't be aware of their teachers' bodies.
"God must have been pretty tired after she was done doing that," Allora said, her head slightly pointing at Mr. Wyatt as she sat down. Allora thought God was a woman. I thought God wasn't real.
"I'm feeling things," I said under my breath, sitting down too.
Someone behind me tapped lightly on my shoulder.
"Sorry, can I borrow a pen?"
I turned around. I wanted to say I wasn't a stationery shop but then I saw his face. Jacob Miller had been the captain of the football team since freshman year, and I had been keeping my distance since.
It wasn't that I wanted him away - I wanted him very close - it was just that I didn't chase boys. I didn't even like running. Boys chased me. It was just the way things were.
"Yeah, sure," I said.
I grabbed a pen and handed it to him. His blue eyes stared back at me. I had always found it hard to look blue-eyed people in the eyes. They were too intense. Too clear. Too knowing.
Jacob smiled and took my pen. His face had built-in smugness. His mouth fell slightly to one side and his jawline had been sharpened into making you think he was always about to smirk. It was cute. He thought he was winning every situation he found himself in, and I loved catching people in a lie.
I turned back around. He tapped my shoulder again.
"Sorry," he said when I looked back. "This pen doesn't work."
"That's impossible." It was. I had bought it yesterday and it had worked just right when I used it to track down my calories of the day.
"Oh, you don't believe me?" He was smirking. "Then try and write your number down."
I almost laughed. I hadn't been this excited all summer.
"Good one," I smiled instead. "But next time try asking my name first."
Dreams don't work unless you do, right?
He was about to answer me when Mr. Wyatt started talking in front of the class.
"Right, I'm Mr. Wyatt. I'll be your English teacher this year," he said. It was the beginning of a speech I couldn't put myself through. I had been doing this since primary school. I knew all the dos and don'ts. Every year got harder, they said. And we had to work, they said. And not use our phones in class, please, thank you.
Someone knocked on the door. Not just someone. Skylar Clark, less likely to ever be late to anything ever. I looked at the time on my phone and smiled. She was late. Little Miss Know It All had just lost one of her treasured superlatives.
"I-I'm s-sorry I-I'm late," she started, eyes on the floor, chest rising and falling too fast, and too much. I wanted to tell her to breathe and be done with it. Had she missed the bus and ran all the way to school instead?
No. Her lip was swelling up and the tights she always used under her checked skirts were ripped on the knees. I wasn't a fan of Skylar, but I wasn't a fan of that either. It was hard screwing up walking when you were always looking down at the floor. I doubted she had done that to herself. Skylar didn't like looking up, at least not in the school hallways.
Mr. Wyatt looked as if someone had run up to him and given him a good shake. His hands had stopped writing on the board midsentence.
1st Semester Readi
"It's okay," he said. "You can go sit."
Somewhere someone had written a story like this and sold the movie rights for a million dollars. Girl meets boy in a museum (I bet Skylar went to museums). Girl falls in love with boy by the end of the exhibition. They have steamy hot sex on a small toilet stall. Girl goes back to school. Boy turns out to be her teacher. Audience gasps.
Or maybe, just maybe, Mr. Wyatt was just reacting to the fact that Skylar seemed to have been pushed down a flight of stairs. I thought any streaming service with at least half a brain would prefer the first one.
Skylar looked up eventually, and said, "Thank you. It won't happen again." Then she dragged herself to the only seat left. Right in front of Mr. Wyatt's desk.
"I like my movies with popcorn," Allora whispered next to me, reading my mind.
Class resumed and eventually ended too. Mr. Wyatt shouldn't be allowed to teach without a bag over his head, but I doubted someone would listen to me, and even then, I would have been distracted by his body all the same.
"Wait, wait," Mr. Wyatt said. "What, you think you'll get away without homework?" He was fumbling with the CDs in his bag again.
"What do you mean!?" This was Luke Martin. If one day Luke stopped showing up to class, I would perhaps consider the big man up there. "It's the first day of school. You don't even know us. How come you hate us already? I thought we were doing great so far."
Luke was an asshole. He was incapable of saying anything without joking. He was a bad sitcom that kept being renewed and was always playing when you turned your tv on. I almost caught myself waiting for the laugh track whenever he opened his mouth.
"Don't worry, it's not a big deal. I just want you to listen to some good music. Get inspired," Mr. Wyatt said, handing out CDs to everyone. "These are from the library, so please don't ruin them."
"I didn't even know we had a library," I told Allora as we took our CDs and left, offering Mr. Wyatt our very best smiles. The man was a sex scandal waiting to happen.
"I worry sometimes," Allora said, but she was smiling.
"If you were my homework, I'd do you," someone whispered in my ear then.
I turned around. It was a bad joke but not on him. In front of me, Jacob smirked. I wondered what had taken him so long.
"I wish I could say the same, but girls like me don't really do homework," I replied, smiling as I slid my arm in Allora's.
"Seriously, you won't give me your number?" He had raised his eyebrows now.
"Just find me on social media," I said.
"But I don't know your name." How did he not know my name?
"It's there too," I said, turning around and walking away smiling.
I was already winning.