aubrey; chapter one
I am the one you know
Can't look you in the eye
I am the girl you know
So sick I cannot try
I am the one you want
Can't look you in the eye
I am the girl you know
I lie and lie and lie
october
Flashlight in one hand, I track my next step through the leaves and thinning underbrush. Cigarette in the other, I cling to the only warmth on this frigid, late October morning. There’s just the hint of a brightening sky, but the sun won’t show for another hour at least.
My breaths come out in big puffs, even before I take a draw of my cigarette. I relish the calm release it gives me, if only for a moment—the grey cloud blinding me from the dying forest around me. Then I startle at the crunching of gravel up the long driveway.
I turn off my light and crouch down, the cold wet dew soaking into my jeans. The old garage door creaks open and the faded station wagon pulls in. I stay crouched until the door is fully down again.
The cracked face of my watch reads 6:18am. I wait the twelve more minutes before going back in. I carefully pick my way to the old playset, barely avoiding the broken Radio Flyer and abandoned planters, to take a seat on the one working but rusty swing, and fight the urge to get another cigarette. I have to ration them. I don’t know yet where, when, or how I’ll get more.
It’s only been a week since moving my single trunk all the way from Rochester, New York to the nowhere-town of my birth. After Mama left, I was determined to make it on my own, finally free to stay in one place, and with someone I didn’t mind finally building some history with. But when you’re sixteen (almost seventeen) and your only parent just up and moves to Georgia without you, the government is inclined to intercede and uproot you yet again and place you wherever you’re the least inconvenient. I guess I should be glad my aunt and uncle were willing to take me, otherwise I would have ended up in some juvenile home, like some depressing Annie remake. Only much less cute, and no Daddy Warbucks to change my life.
The bittersweet last draw of my cig is sadly short. I drop it into the cracking sandbox and grind it down into the sand with my shoe. I pick my way out of the forest and into the meadow-like yard. I snap a dry branch dangling at face level and toss it back into the woods.
I walk up to the back laundry door, and I carefully pull it open, praying it’ll be quiet this time. Robin noses into the crack of the door and is jittering with excitement. I immediately grab his collar to quiet its jingling, and I manage to calm him down enough to drop my coat and shoes on the crowded bench.
With a lack of attention, he quickly abandons me and trots over to lick his empty food bowl—Aunt Debbie will fill it when she comes down soon. I walk across the kitchen to the fridge and take a chug of milk straight from the carton, to mask the smell on my breath.
I hear movement upstairs—Aunt Debbie in the bathroom—so I shove the milk back in and rush over to grab my bookbag, head into the living room, flip on a light, tuck into the corner chair, pull out my chunky history book, open it at random. Thirty seconds later, my aunt comes down the stairs, a baggy, sleeveless nightgown somehow not hiding her buxom chest.
“Good morning, sweetie,” she whispers. “Did you get breakfast?”
“Yup,” I lie.
(Is it a lie? Milk can be very filling.)
She shuffles into the kitchen and starts making coffee. I go back to idly flipping through my history book.
Stomping echoes from up the stairs, then the shower kicks on, and I know my cousin Jesse is awake. Thirteen minutes later, he stumbles downstairs, long curly hair dark and wet, and he startles at the sight of me quietly staring from the corner, as if he’d forgotten I was there. Mutters a low “Morning,” on his way to the kitchen, grabs a bowl of cereal—and I wonder if he’d be grossed out if he knew I’d just chugged straight from the carton. He flicks on the TV, switches channels absentmindedly, and my aunt rushes in with a loud whisper: “Shh! Your father’s sleeping!” This is proven by the audible snoring from right over our heads.
The time gets closer and closer to seven. Jesse, somehow suddenly aware of the time, rushes around—drops the cereal bowl in the sink, runs upstairs for his bookbag, all the while Debbie harasses him “silently” to hurry up. I pack up my stuff and wait by the basement door until he finally shows, breathless, at 7:09 and leads the way down to the garage. We climb into the old station wagon, and Jesse backs us out, turns around, and heads down the long, gravelly drive. He switches the radio from the oldies station my uncle had been listening to over to a pop channel.
At fifteen over, we cruise down out of the mountains and into open fields.
Welcome to Franklin, Pennsylvania.
This isn’t my first day. Indeed, it is my fifth, and it seems the “new kid smell” has worn off of me, because everyone is finally leaving me alone. No teachers asking, “Oh, were you named for the Bread song?” and “Where did you last leave off?” Nobody asking where I’m from, what do my parents do, am I going to join the basketball team.
No, thank you. Get away from me. Fuck you.
And that seems to have done the trick.
Now it’s just nosy glances and whispers, thanks to my stellar first impression. I don’t think anyone recognizes me, from before. It was such a long time ago. And I mean, I know what a cute and charming little girl I was. I know what I’m like now. I don’t recognize me either.
Still, there are so many fairly familiar faces here. It’s eerie, like a character recast in a show you don’t follow. I don’t remember anything about them, just see the vague shadow of their eight-year-old selves hidden in and behind spotted teenaged faces.
Like this girl beside me right now. I think I can see behind the bodacious profile a skinny, pale girl with stringy blonde hair and a too-big smile. There’s just a flash of a memory: running around the blacktop on a cold, windy day, and I try to warm her up by hugging her so tight she turns purple. She smiles the entire time.
I think maybe her name’s Lindsay?
I’m angled in my chair, curled up against the wall, trying to hide the fact that I’m just doodling in my notebook.
First period is Trigonometry with Mr. Zelinsky (I know because it’s perfectly printed up in the left-hand corner of the chalkboard) and I can honestly say I’ve never been so lost in a class. I’m an okay student, especially for having moved around so much. I can pick up on things fast, I actually like doing homework—and school has been the one constant in a life of inconsistency. All the schools have the same classes, practically the same curriculum. Even some of the teachers have doppelgangers of themselves in each district I’ve attended. It’s all very normal, predictable, safe.
But I have rarely felt as stupid as I do in Trig. I mean, I used to be in the advanced math classes. I was a whiz with fractions. I started Algebra in sixth grade. Whatever happened to that?
I miss Spelling. When was that taken out of curriculum? I’m so good at Spelling. Give me any word. If I’ve read it, I’ve got it. It feels like having a superpower, if just a small, everyday kind of superpower.
Circumference.
Perpendicular.
Aerodynamic.
Isosoles. Iscosoles. Isoceles. Isosceles. That doesn’t look right.
Now what do I have?
The bell rings. Mr. Zelinsky reminds us of homework. I don’t write it down.
School hallways are the same everywhere. Even in Nebraska.
You’ve got the Neurotic Overachievers, a study in determination and dexterity as they weave briskly around the swarm while balancing a tower of books over which they can barely see.
You’ve got the Hyper Extrovert, who must have missed that day in Kindergarten when we learned about “Walking Feet” and “Inside Voices.”
You’ve got the Perpetually Disgusted who, if approached or looked at or heaven forbid touched in any way, will curse your descendants and soil your name.
And you’ve got the Living Dead, wading through people like the sludge of the Swamps of Sadness.
I take my time getting to my locker, fiddle with the stupid lock then toss it into the very back. What have I got that anyone would want? Some loudmouth dude and his buddies gather around the locker next to mine. I grab a book—doesn’t matter which one—and duck out of there fast, right next door to my English class.
I sidle into the room behind some giant, curly mop-headed kid who smells like the inside of a gym sock. Ms. Weissman, a tall young woman—maybe late twenties—is still erasing last period’s grammar lesson.
After our introduction last Friday, I decided to avoid her as much as possible.
I’d already been subjected to her unbearably sweet introduction in front of the class (and it was only second period) but then during the quietest moment in class, when the rest of them were all taking a quiz, she walked straight up to me and hunkered down next to my desk. It made her a whole head shorter than me and gave me the feeling of being talked to by a kindergarten teacher.
She slid a frayed school copy of The Scarlet Letter onto my desk.
“Hey. Aubrey! So we’re about halfway through this book, The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne. We take a quiz every Friday covering the chapters of the week, and we’ll have a paper at the end of the unit. Since you’re joining us in the middle, you can just start reading from chapter thirteen, and after class I can give you a quick summary—
“It’s fine. I know it.”
She smiled. “Yeah, you heard of this one?”
“I’ve read it.”
“Oh, for one of your other classes?”
“No, just . . . for fun.”
I wasn’t going to tell her we hadn’t a TV at the time, that I’d gotten so bored (and cold) at home that I’d hike three miles into town to the library and, after sifting through the mystery garbage and romance trash, settled for the only thing with any kind of substance: the Classics.
She gave me a look. Not just a look that said, what kind of teenager reads The Scarlet Letter for fun? A knowing look, like she could in fact see straight through me. Into my eyes and right to the shivering gangly girl who’d brought a blanket and crackers to the library.
I hate that look.
“Were you in college prep classes in your old school?”
I hate it when adults ask you questions they already know the answer to.
“No,” I chided.
“Well, if you don’t mind reading it again, just to refresh your memory. Please speak up if you have any thoughts on it. Just don’t give away the ending for the others, alright?”
Then she winked at me.
I’m sure some would call her “approachable” and “inspiring.” To me, she’s just another “fixer” to be avoided.
Today, we’re discussing 19th century Puritan morality and the irony of the innocent. From my back-row seat I prop open the book to chapter 24, finish it for the third time, and start over from the beginning by the time the bell rings.
I think Ms. Weissman got the memo, and has agreed to ignore me. Thank God.
In Biology, I look like I’m paying attention, but I’m really just watching this woman’s bra strap slip ever-so-slowly down her shoulder, until she fixes it and the race begins again.
I slip into History, narrowly missing an encounter with those of the hyper persuasion. I take a guess at which is my seat, and drop my stuff loudly on the desk. Nobody minds. It’s just as loud here as it is in the hall.
“Bridget said she saw him at Kenny’s last—”
“—wasn’t even touching her, and she totally freaked—”
“—swear I was going to die if she made me read that out loud—”
“—so behind on stupid Scarlet Letter. It’s so boring—”
“Shuskey. Hey, Shuskey—Quit staring at the new girl. What, are you in love with her already?”
Like a bad tick, my head swivels at “new girl.” I’m met with the back of some blonde’s head and the annoying smirk of a guy I recognize as the loudmouth dude from earlier.
“Shut up, Erickson!” the girl hisses.
She turns back around, and the first thing I notice is how cute her nose is. It’s the little button kind that curves up, like a doll’s. It’s gone bright red, along with her plump cheeks. Even so, she looks me square in the eye.
“Did you happen to go to James Byrd Elementary as a kid?”
“Idiot,” Erickson interjects. “She’s a new kid. She’s from New York.”
We both silently agree to ignore him.
“Yeah, I did.”
Her face breaks into a big smile. “I knew it! You’re Aubrey Evans!”
Beneath my shock, I’m vaguely aware of Erickson’s dumbstruck face just behind hers. I try to smile, but I think it might be a wince. “Yeah.”
“You probably don’t remember me. I’m Nicole Shuskey. We were in kindergarten and first grade together.”
Flashes of a pool party, blowup volleyball, a yard bigger than our whole apartment building. A chilly winter birthday party decorated with bright pink cut-outs of Strawberry Shortcake. Riding down the big, metal slide together, because she was too scared to go alone.
“Nikki,” I breathe.
Her smile widens, and I remember those dimples. “Yeah! Well, no one really calls me that anymore.” She looks a little embarrassed admitting it.
“Oh, sorry.”
“It’s okay. You can call me whatever.”
The Asshole Loudmouth interrupts again: “Yeah, Whatever. You guys dating yet, Whatever?”
I’m sure Nikki can’t help herself when she whirls around violently. “Will you butt out, Erickson?”
I know better than to engage, especially with his type. He knows he’s good-looking, popular, probably an athlete, so he’s not only used to but demands attention. Any kind will do. It’s always the same. Don’t acknowledge these losers.
I pierce him with my deadest stare. Seriously, do you have nothing better to do? Do you have an allergy to silence? Do you have so fragile an ego that you need to insert yourself into every scenario?
“Quiet, please,” the teacher raised his voice. We all turn back to the front.
I can feel two sets of eyes on me. I’m so consciously aware of Nikki and Erickson behind me that I sit up straighter, actually make a pass at taking notes.
If she remembers me, what does she think of me now? Hair chopped, clothes baggy, shoes holey. How do I compare to the memory of the pretty little girl with soft, curly brown hair? Is she disappointed? Repulsed? Indifferent?
At the bell, she taps my shoulder before I’ve finished gathering my stuff.
“I’m headed to lunch next. What about you?” She says it all in one breath.
I pull out my schedule. “Uh, yeah, I have lunch, too.”
“Awesome! Do you want to sit with me and my friends?”
I guess I stare blankly at her too long because she takes half a step back and lowers her eyes. “Oh, only if you want. If you’ve got another group to sit with, that’s totally fine. I just—”
“No, not at all,” I cut her off. Pause and realize that may have sounded like I was saying no, I didn’t want to sit with her. “I mean, I don’t sit with anyone. Uh, but yeah, I’d like that. Thanks.”
She smiles again. She’s got such a sweet and feminine smile. I can guess how pained and awkward my own is.
“Awesome! I need to head to my locker first, it’s just right here . . .”
She chats pleasantly about classes as we roam around to her locker, then to mine, then over to the old gymnasium-turned-cafeteria. Nikki keeps talking, all the way through the line.
“They’re all pretty chill. So many of us have the same lunch together this year, which is pretty awesome. Ben is technically in study hall this period. His lunch period is the one after ours, but he almost always comes over to hang out with us.”
Not until we reach the table in the farthest corner do I realize that she hasn’t once asked me a question about myself.
“So,” she extends one hand to the guy sitting at the table already. “This is Curley. He’s also in our grade. This is Aubrey. She’s new.”
Curley’s face lights with acknowledgement and he finger-guns me. “Hey, you’re in my English class!”
Indeed, he’s the guy I walked in behind today, reeking of fresh BO. Thankfully, I can’t smell him from across the table.
“What am I, chopped liver?” Nikki glares at him.
“Nah,” Curley smirks, “you’re teacher’s pet. You don’t count.”
“Shut up!” Nikki starts lobbing peas at him. He clumsily deflects, and is hit in the face several times.
“Curley, don’t be a slob.” A very pretty punk girl, dripping in chains and mascara, swats at the back of Curley’s head, dislodging a pea from his hair. “You put the food in your mouth,” she says in a too-loud chant usually reserved for the deaf or the dense and chomps her teeth quite audibly together. It makes me wince, but Curley just seems to grin wider and shrink down in his chair.
The girl plunks herself down across from me, looks me dead in the eye, and says, quite bluntly, “Who’re you? Where’s Ben? BENJAMI—oh. ‘Sup.” A lanky and bespeckled guy with a Beatles haircut and zero expression sits down next to her, a clunky wooden hall pass in hand.
“Guys, this is Aubrey. She’s a junior. It’s only her first week, so be nice.” She spares a furtive glance at Curley, who’s still eating. “Aubrey, this is Bethany and Ben. They’re seniors.”
Ben just kind of rolls his lips in an awkward acknowledging way that has nothing to do with a smile, and Bethany nudges him sharply with her elbow.
“She said nice, Benjamin, Jesus,” Bethany says, taking a spoonful of potatoes. “So, where you from?”
Nikki pipes up and answers for me, “Actually, Aubrey used to live here when we were kids. We were friends in elementary school!”
From the look on her face, Bethany’s opinion of me plummets. “And you came back?”
“It wasn’t by choice.”
“Where’s Travis?” Curley asks through a mouthful of potatoes.
Nikki pipes up, “He said he had to take his grandpa to the doctor today.”
“When did he say that?” Bethany asks with narrowed eyes.
“He mentioned it the other day. He’ll be back tomorrow.” Nikki waved it off.
“Who’s Travis?” I hear myself ask. I have no idea why.
Nikki opens her mouth to answer, but Bethany jumps in, with an over-the-top, high-pitched, mocking voice: “Only the coolest, raddest, cutest, punkest—”
Nikki gently shoves Bethany’s lunch tray. “He’s a nice guy, and I think you’ll really like him, Aubrey.”
“Much more friendly than our Ben here, thankfully,” Bethany says.
“What?” he mutters, completely clueless.
She bats him on the arm. “Could you be more dense? Sorry about these man-pigs. Wish I could say it’s uncommon behavior.”
“Well,” I push around overcooked peas and carrots, “you gotta sit somewhere.”
“This one gets it.” She leans in as if confiding in me. “I’d sit completely alone if it didn’t make me look like a total psycho.”
Well, she’s already managing that. What I wouldn’t give for a tableful of Bens right now.
My watch reads 12:11. Only three hours and four minutes until I can leave this hellhole.
Only 394 days until I can leave for good.
Read the next chapter here.
