Tell Me Three Things(3)

But something did kill her, and I’m not stronger. So go figure; maybe there’s a third kind of person: the ones who never recover from high school at all.





CHAPTER 2


I have somehow stumbled upon the Only Thing That Cannot Be Googled: Who is SN? One week after receiving the mysterious emails, I still have no idea. The problem is that I like to know things. Preferably in advance, with sufficient lead time to prepare.

Clearly, the only viable option is to Sherlock the shit out of this.

Let’s start at Day 1, that awful first day of school, which sucked, but to be fair probably sucked no more than every other day has sucked since my mom died. Because the truth is that every day since my mom died, she’s still been dead. Over and out. They’ve all sucked. Time does not heal all wounds, no matter how many drugstore sympathy cards hastily scrawled by distant relatives promise this to be true. But I figure on that first day there must have been some moment when I gave off enough pitiful help me vibes that SN actually took notice of me. Some moment when the whole my life sucks thing was worn visibly on the outside.

But figuring that out is not so simple, because that day turned out to be chock-full of embarrassment, a plethora of moments to choose from. First of all, I was late, which was Theo’s fault. Theo is my new stepbrother—my dad’s new wife’s son, who, yippee, is also a junior here, and has approached this whole blended-family dynamic by pretending I don’t exist. For some reason, I was stupid enough to assume that because we lived in the same house and we were going to the same school, we would drive in together. Nope. Turns out, Theo’s GO GREEN T-shirt is purely for show, and of course, he doesn’t have to worry his pretty little head about such petty things as, you know, gas money. His mom runs some big film marketing business, and their house (I may live there now, but it is in no way my house) has its own library. Except, of course, it’s filled with movies, not books, because: LA. And so I ended up taking my own car to school and getting stuck in crazy traffic.

When I finally got to Wood Valley High School—drove through its intimidating front gates and found a parking spot in its vast luxury car–filled lot and hiked up the long driveway—the secretary in the front office directed me to a group of kids who were sitting cross-legged in a circle in the grass, with a couple of guitar cases spread around. Like this was church camp or something. All kumbaya, my Lord. Apparently, that can happen in LA: class outside on an impossibly green lawn in September, backs leaned up against blooming trees. Already I was uncomfortable and sweating in my dark jeans, trying to shake off both my nerves and my road rage. All of the other girls had gotten the first-day-of-school memo; they were wearing light-colored, wispy summer dresses that hung off their tiny shoulders from even tinier straps.

So far, that’s the number one difference between LA and Chicago: all the girls here are thin and half naked.

Class was already in full swing, and I felt awkward standing there, trying to figure out how to enter the circle. Apparently, they were going around clockwise and telling the group what they did with their summer vacation. I finally plopped down behind two tall guys with the hopes they had already spoken and that I might be able to take cover.

Of course, I picked wrong.

“Hey, all. Caleb,” the guy right in front of me said, in an authoritative way that made it sound like he assumed everyone already knew that. I liked his voice: confident, as sure of his place as I was unsure of mine. “I went to Tanzania this summer, which was totally cool. First my family and I climbed Kilimanjaro, and my quads were sore for like weeks. And then I volunteered with a group building a school in a rural village. So, you know, I gave back a little. All in all, a great summer, but I’m happy to be home. I really missed Mexican food.” I started to clap after he was done—he climbed Kilimanjaro and built a school, for God’s sake, of course we were supposed to clap—but stopped as soon as I realized I was the only one. Caleb was wearing a plain gray T-shirt and designer jeans and was good-looking in a not-intimidating sort of way, his features just bland enough that he could be the kind of guy who I could possibly, one day, maybe, okay, probably not, date. Not really attainable, no, not at all, too hot for me, but the fantasy wasn’t so outrageous that I couldn’t revel in it for just a moment.

The shaggy guy sitting right in front of me was up next, and he too was cute, almost an equal to his friend.

Hmm. Maybe I’d surprise myself and end up liking it here after all. I’d have a great fantasy life, if not a real one.

“As you guys know, I’m Liam. I spent the first month interning at Google up in the Bay Area, which was great. Their cafeteria alone was worth the trip. And then I backpacked in India for most of August.” A good voice too. Melodic.

“Backpacked, my ass,” Caleb—Kilimanjaro-gray-T-shirt-guy—said, and the rest of the class laughed, including the teacher. I didn’t, because as usual I was a moment too late. I was too busy wondering how a high school kid gets an internship at Google and realizing that if this is my competition, I’m never getting into college. And okay, I was also checking out those two guys, wondering what their deal was. Caleb, his climb up Kilimanjaro notwithstanding, had a clean-cut frat-boy vibe, while Liam was more hipster cool. An interesting yin and yang.

“Whatever. Fine, I didn’t backpack. My parents wouldn’t let me go unless I promised to stay in nice hotels, because, you know, Delhi belly and all. But still, I feel like I got a real sense of the culture and a great application essay out of the deal, which was the point,” Liam said, and of course by then, I had caught on and knew not to clap.