Select (Select #1)(20)
I had intentionally arrived early so I could adjust. I hadn’t slept at all last night, going over the rules again and again, telling myself I would be able to mask all my differences. Don’t speak in whispers, listen closely while shutting out surrounding noise, don’t act on what hasn’t yet happened. Tamp down my reflexes in sports, my hyperfocus in class. Essentially, quash all my natural instincts. Most important to maintaining the plan: keep that imaginary wall firmly in place between them and me. If I got overwhelmed, I would be less in control, and unexpected things could happen like they had at Barton Springs.
Since that night, there seemed to be a sanction placed on me. Angus hadn’t called. I had imaginary conversations with him. I would tell him what was going on and he would reassure me that I could do this, that it would be fine, that I’d come back for Relocation. Within the confines of my pale bedroom, I could barely breathe—my chest hurt so much with shock. I wrote him several texts, then deleted them.
Liv ignored me. Honestly, I was relieved that she never knocked. I’d only have to shove her away. I tortured myself by replaying events again and again, hating myself that I’d let this happen.
My eyes flitted from my lap to the bodies passing by the car. Hopefully my white Prius blended in fine. Already I could tell the student body was one hundred times more diverse than at my almost-all-white private school. From the few girls I saw, I knew my clothes wouldn’t fit in. I wore my usual uniform—black and more black Alexander Wang. They wore athletic shorts and baggy T-shirts with flip-flops—the official shoe of Austin, Victoria had once scoffed. More cars poured into the parking lot. I needed to walk to class before there was a crowd.
The sooner I started, the sooner I could come back. Relocation was set for June, so at the very most I had a school year in front of me. I’d just go on autopilot and this would be easy.
As soon as I set foot outside the car, it was like a dam broke. A tide of noise and smells overwhelmed me. There were too many people, and I was too nervous.
I felt the onset of the rash on my arms. Just keep your head down and walk. I tried to ground my senses by taking in small details of my physical surroundings: the broken pavement, LOYAL FOREVER written on the face of the school. To me the high school was depressing in its austerity, a decades-old facility composed of concrete-block buildings.
I found my first-period classroom. I was the first student there. An African American woman around my parents’ age looked up from her desk and smiled at me automatically, then did a bit of a double take before hiding her reaction. It was obvious she was expecting me, and I wondered what she’d been told.
She walked only partway over to me, as if she didn’t know whether I minded being approached. “Hello! You’re Julia? I’m Mrs. Bartell.”
“Hi. Yes, I’m Julia.” I nodded. I practiced not looking at her too long or too intently even though I needed to concentrate on what she was saying and how to make my reply sound normal. After a summer away from school, this type of playacting and slowed-down conversation was taxing.
Mrs. Bartell had short hair and wore dangling chandelier earrings that almost dwarfed her small shoulders. Her eyes were friendly, and I decided to be open-minded as long as she wasn’t nosy. The main energy coming off her was motherly and sincere, and thankfully my heartbeat responded by slowing. I was safe for the moment.
“Welcome! You can have a seat wherever you’d like.” It felt to me like she was making a concerted effort to behave normally. I wondered how all the kids were going to act if even the teacher was anxious around me. I looked different from the rest of my family so that bought me some time, but soon enough the kids would know who I was. I felt my cheeks redden and then reminded myself it didn’t matter what these people thought of me. I just needed to try to blend in as best I could, all while not breaking into the rash. And maybe I was being paranoid. There was no way everyone in Austin had heard of us.
Kids began to walk in, loud and in throngs. This atmosphere felt much more laid-back than at St. Philip’s. I could feel the myriad emotions that came into the classroom with the students, and I tried to hold their noise and feelings at arm’s length. I bent down to my bag to check my phone for no reason other than it kept me from looking at anyone. I noticed conversations halting as the students saw me. At this point they saw only an expensively dressed new girl who had some exposed tattoos.
“I heard there were a ton of them.” Without looking in their direction, I picked up on the conversation of the two girls across the classroom.
“No, I heard there weren’t that many. But he told her they all looked exactly alike.”
“I heard he was in a prison cell with them. Oh, and that he got hurt.”
They shut up abruptly. The moment I realized who they were talking about, my gaze landed on the doorway. And there he was.
I’d been told it was called the oddball effect—an evolutionary advantage, the ability to slow things down in order to make decisions in critical moments. It felt like everything in my view came to a standstill. And then inched slowly forward.
John was flanked by two big guys, but he was the tallest and leanest. They had been laughing, but John stopped in his tracks when he saw me. He recovered quickly, though, and kept walking. To my surprise it appeared he was going to be the one to pretend we’d never met. He took a desk in the back row. His friends kept talking and placed themselves in front of and next to him.