Forever for a Year(8)

5

Carolina makes a vow

So I totally ran out of history class the moment the bell rang, without looking at the new boy, because I knew he hated me for not saying thank you. I didn’t blame him—I would hate me if I were him. I mean, I did hate me, and I was me.

Fifth period was lunch. I was supposed to meet Peggy in front of the cafeteria and wasn’t really paying attention to anything except getting there when this really, really, really weird thing happened. So weird! This boy leaned up against the lockers like he had been waiting there all day, and said, “Hey, you.” I looked at him. I wish I hadn’t, but I did.

I shouldn’t even call this boy a boy, because he was definitely not a freshman. His face had scruff on it and he wore a thin black tie. Who wears a tie to school if they don’t have to? He wasn’t handsome, not really ugly either, but with his wide chin and long forehead he kind of looked like he should have lived one hundred years ago. Like on that HBO show about gangsters from the 1920s. He should have had a toothpick in his mouth, but he didn’t. “You’re the freshman who wrote that article in the Riverbend Review last spring?” the scruffy boy with a tie on said. He didn’t blink when he looked at me. His eyes looked very mature and very fast. Like he was taking photographs with them. Like he was having dirty thoughts. Gross. I wanted to run, but instead—

I said, “Yeah,” even though I should have said no. But I don’t lie. Almost never, anyway. Because I had written an article for the Riverbend Review. The local paper had asked me, after the junior high principal recommended that they ask me, to write an article about what it meant to be a kid in Riverbend. Except all the horrible stuff with my dad had just started, so all I could write about was how kids didn’t get to be kids very long in the world now. Obviously, I didn’t talk about my dad directly. Just that every secret about sex and life was just a Google search away. That sort of thing. I didn’t think anyone had read the article besides my mom and brother. Especially not some weird man-boy.

“My name is Alexander Taylor. I’m a junior. You interest me.” He talked slowly, so intense, like he was trying to brainwash me. Then he said, “Your name is Carrie Fisher, right?”

“Carolina Fisher.”

“Interesting. You’re too young for me right now, but maybe I’ll say hello again in a few months to see if you haven’t been turned into one of the masses. Until then, Miss Carolina.” And then he nodded at me and walked away.

I wanted to take a shower just for having been near him, and I told myself I would never speak to or look at Alexander Taylor again. Such a weirdo.

*

I met Peggy just as we planned, and we went inside the cafeteria, which had puke-yellow walls, and found a table near the food line, which is where the freshmen sit because it smells like dead animals and soap. Only seniors are allowed to drive off campus, so there were, like, nine hundred people stuffed inside, and it was sooo loud, like everyone in the room was screaming at the exact same time. Groups like yearbook club and chess club met in classrooms during lunch, and some people had lunch sixth period, so I’m probably exaggerating about there being nine hundred people. And I promised not to exaggerate. I know. But sometimes it’s just how it FEELS, even if it’s not how it is, you know?

Seven other freshman soccer players joined us at our table, also just as we planned, and then some other freshman girls that we didn’t know too, but they sat at the end and just looked at their phones. Soccer season wasn’t until the spring in Illinois, but we’d all gotten close during summer camp practices. Peggy and this girl Kendra, who was the best goalie I had ever played with, were both on the fall club team with me, and our mothers were going to rotate driving us to practice.

I spent the rest of lunch talking mostly to Kendra. She was quiet, and new like the new boy, except she was at summer camp, so she wasn’t new to us. She’s black. Or African American. I wish I could ask her what’s the better way to describe her. Or I wish we were all the same color. The best, however, would be if we were all a million different colors. The best. I know it’s impossible, but I think sometimes you have to think about impossible things.

My dad would always tell me I was a “thinking addict,” because I would ask him questions about everything. And then he would give me an answer, and I would ask two more and then three more. Even when I realized that he didn’t know any more, I kept asking because I wanted him to go find out and tell me because not understanding drove me crazy. I used to love when my dad called me that because he said it with such pride. He said it was our greatest bond. He said it was how he knew I was his daughter. But now that I hate my father, I kind of hate that I’m a thinking addict.

Near the end of the lunch period, Katherine—you know, Peggy’s whack-job sister—stomped over to our table, pointed at Peggy and me, and said, “You two, come here.”

I really wanted to say: Nobody tells me what to do! But I didn’t. I always do what people say, sort of, which is pathetic. I want to change this about myself, but I didn’t know if I could start right then. So I just got up and followed Peggy, who followed Katherine to a lunch table on the other side of the cafeteria. Shannon Shunton was sitting there with the four other most popular eighth graders. Emma Goldberg. Jean Booker. Raina Bethington. And Wanda Chan, who used to be a geek like me until she started to dress like a slut. You know, super-short skirts and super-high boots. I suppose all these girls were the popular freshman girls now. Does it work like that? You just get to carry your membership from one grade to another? Even one school to another? DO NOT CARE ABOUT THIS! This is dumb. I just wanted to go back to the soccer table. I thought I was going to faint standing there, waiting for Shannon Shunton to yell at me or not look at me or something just as mean. My whole head was turning into bumblebees that wanted to fly out of my eyeballs and kill me.