Twisted Fate(20)

I shrugged.

“Listen. We got just a little more time to get through and then I swear to God, Tate, I swear. Look at me. After that you can go be a professional skater or an astrophysicist or whatever the heck it is you want to be, but here at RHS you gotta. Chill. Out.”

“Why?” I didn’t mean to sound like a snot or to just be contrary. I really was just curious. “I mean why do I have to stop all the things I do?”

“Because when you apply to schools you will have a disciplinary record that makes you look like someone who can’t handle the organization and pressure of academia. You’ll look like someone very inconsistent—why do you think? I’m not worried that Letorno is pissed about something or that you might fall and get hurt boarding in the halls. I don’t care what you wear or if you don’t wear shoes. I don’t care about that stuff. I know you’re competent at what you do. I know you understand things really quickly and you want to go outside instead of reviewing things in class. But I just care about you being able to leave Rockland and go where you’ll be happy and get a good education and be around people who will appreciate you for who you are.”

I nodded. No one had said anything like that to me and it actually made sense and I really did want Richards to feel better. I did. But I honestly didn’t know if I could do what people at school wanted. That was Ally’s job.

I shrugged. “I’m not one of those girls who does what everybody wants,” I tried to explain, and for some reason my voice came out all hoarse and weird.

Richards nodded. “Yeah,” she said. “Exactly. I see what’s going on. There’s the problem right there. Thinking that there are kinds of girls who do kinds of things. Let me ask you something: You might not be doing what other people want, but are you actually doing what you want?”

I shrugged again.

She said, “You know, Tate. There are no kinds of girls. That’s something people make up to get women to behave in certain ways. Something people make up so they can control what you do.”

“The slut or the virgin,” I said. I knew about that stuff. I knew there were double standards. Big deal. I didn’t think I really had any part in those things.

“Right,” she said. “There’s lots of stupid ideas about girls, but we don’t have to pay attention to them, because they don’t make sense. And the more we ignore them, the more we tell people they’re wrong when they try to tell us there are two ways of being, the freer we all get. Got it? This attitude of yours doesn’t make a lot of sense either. You’re not going to become some obedient, weak person if you just follow some of the school rules so you can get into a good college. You’ll still be yourself. You use what the school gives you to get somewhere else. Hell, Tate, I don’t think you could get a bad grade if you tried. But you can sure make yourself get stuck here by other means, and you seem to be working hard at it. You don’t have to wrestle with being a certain way, with being good or bad. You’re just who you are.”

“Okay. But who I am is someone who skips classes and skateboards in the hall.”

“Look,” Richards said. “You don’t have to prove anything to anyone. I understand that you have different feelings at different times. I’m just saying, don’t let some weird idea about how girls are supposed to act dictate the way you live. You don’t have to be a tough guy all the time. You get what I’m saying?”

“I guess.”

She sighed and offered me a Twizzler. When I declined, she said, “Take it! For God’s sake, it’s an acquired taste. You have to at least try it!”

“You know everyone hates black licorice, right?”

“Because they’re philistines,” she said, winking. I loved that she always used that word. I never knew what it meant until I met her.

I took the licorice from her, took a tiny bite, and smiled politely even though it tasted terrible.

“Now, seriously. Listen. And listen good,” Richards said. She leaned in close. “There used to be a time when girls weren’t allowed to get an education at all. Women weren’t allowed to go to college; and when they were, they had to go to segregated schools and study things like home economics. We only got the vote about one hundred years ago.”

“Your point?”

“My point?” She looked really annoyed.

“Okay. Okay,” I said. “I get your point.”

“If you want to be the tough girl, you go out there and you rule. You understand me? You go get the best grades and work hard and cruise your way to making a real change in the world. Not this stupid part you’re playing, being the bad girl—okay? There are not two sides to this equation. It’s one problem we all gotta solve together.”

It kind of shocked me to hear her say it so plainly. Or I guess even say it. No one had ever talked to me like that before. I felt goose bumps up and down my arms.

She looked at me for a long time. “Oh, Jesus, just give me that thing back.” She took the licorice out of my hand and chucked it in the garbage. I had taken a kind of nanobite out of it. “You kids have no taste.” She laughed. “Are we good, Tate?”

I smiled at her. “Yeah,” I said. “I think we are. I’ll . . . I’ll think about it.”

I walked out of there and for some reason all I wanted to do was go talk to Ally. I mean I suddenly wanted to grab her hand and run with her out into the woods and tell her she didn’t have to be the way she was. Neither of us did. I thought of going home and rearranging our room—finding some stuff we both cared about to put up on the walls instead of having it be this demilitarized zone down the middle and warring posters and objects in every corner of the room.