My Father Never Lied

“Rebecca Ann Shanahan, get down here and don’t make me drag you down myself – you know I will!”
My emerald eyes flew open as I wordlessly groaned a reply, not moving from my much-too-comfortable bed. My alarm clock was beeping at its highest volume, but I ignored it, too tired to move in the least. I allowed my eyes to close again before I was shaken, and not exactly gently. I groaned again and realized that my alarm was silent before I opened my eyes and looked into the eyes of my father, a mirror of my own.
“Come on or you’ll be late for your first day of school! You’re going to be a junior!” His eyes seemed so bright and excited, an exact opposite of the dry annoyance that shone in my own.
I sat up and looked at him, “You seem to be excited enough for the both of us,” I snapped, “Oh, I have an idea! Why don’t you go for me?” I rolled my eyes at him and laid back down, listening to the sounds of my father walk away. Smiling softly, I closed my eyes, assuming I had won. Apparently, I was so tired that I fell asleep again – unsurprisingly, since I had been out all last night. But my sleep did not last long, as I was jolted awake by freezing water poured straight onto my face. Naturally, I shrieked and literally jumped out of bed, much to my father’s amusement.
“Works every time!” He laughed and walked out of my room with a final warning of what would come if I even thought about going back to bed – “In fact, don’t even think about thinking about it!” I could almost feel the amusement radiating off of him as he walked downstairs, hopefully to make my breakfast.
As usual, I attempted to avoid the picture frame that stood on my nightstand. And, as usual, my eyes were drawn to it. I stared at the picture, a shot of a little girl with brown hair and eyes that were too dark to tell what color they were, smiling at the camera in a little denim dress. She sat on the lap of a well-dressed, clean-shaven man with flaming red hair and jade-green eyes. He had a silly grin on his face, his eyes telling the person behind the camera that he couldn’t be happier. He had one large but gentle hand on the little girl’s shoulder – tiny in comparison to the hand that lay upon it – and had his other arm around a woman with piercing ice blue eyes, a contrast to the long, wavy, dark ginger hair that was such like the little girl’s. The trio was sitting on a swing bench that looked to be placed from the ceiling of a back porch, in front of what looked to be an absolutely gorgeous day, cloudless blue sky and all. They looked so incredibly happy together that it made me angry. I knew that my anger was divided between each person in the photo – my mother, for leaving when I was only four and a half. My father, for allowing her to leave me and our happy family. I was even angry at the younger version of me, for not realizing sooner that it was going to happen. Even knowing that I could not have done anything was not enough to prevent my fury. I shook my head irritably at the photo as I did every morning, and turned my back on it.
I picked out a pair of old jeans, ripped at one knee, a white tank top and a grey hoodie to go over it. Dressing quickly, I drew a brush down wildly tousled reddish-brown hair, automatically taming it to simple waves. Between my eyes and my hair, those who knew my mother told me that they were confused as to whom I looked more similar to. I liked this. Confusing people is a hobby of mine. Yawning again, I walked down the stairs to my father and my breakfast. I was more enthusiastic to the latter. My father sat across from me, talking about something that was of no interest to me. I automatically tuned out, focusing on eating my oatmeal. I checked my watch and my eyes widened. I cursed softly – but apparently not too softly, for my father protested – and grabbed my backpack. I was about to silently walk out the door to the bus, when I glanced at my father and caved. On school mornings, he annoyed me to no end, but I still loved him deeply. I walked over to him and kissed him on the cheek, telling him how much I loved him and that I would see him after school.
“Have a great day, hun. I love you too,” he kissed my forehead as I hugged him, and he sent me off to the bus, knowing that if I lingered any longer that he would have to drive me. And I knew how much he hated that. At this point, many wondered why I didn’t have my driver’s license; sixteen was a legal driving age in Wisconsin. Simple explanation: I failed the test. My father won’t let me anywhere near a steering wheel of any sort, and probably won’t until I’m at least twenty-one. I bolted out the door and ran top speed to the bus stop, cringing as it prepared to pull away. My anxiety turned to relief as the bus driver saw me and waited. I ran as fast as I can, a breathless, grateful smile to the woman driving.
“Thank you so much, Barbara.” I said, my voice airy from running. The driver smiled warmly at me, her eyes kind.
“Anytime, Miss Rebecca. I know your father – cheerful thing, but despises driving you to school!” She winked and nodded at me to sit.
I nodded, and walked down the aisle to sit with my best friend, Miranda, who had saved me a seat. I placed my backpack on my knees and hugged her, as much as two people sitting side by side on a crowded school bus could hug.
“I missed you, Randi!” I grinned happily as she returned the excitement. We caught up on the summer – parties, boys, vacations, the normal. Of course, she and I barely ever got invited to parties, for Miranda was always made fun of for the way she dressed – she had her own trends and style, which did not make her well liked – and I was always made fun of because I was the girl with no mother. Of course, the story of my mother’s departure had been exaggerated to the extreme, but I was done attempting to correct people. I let them decide what they wanted to think. It wasn’t up to me anymore. If people wanted me in their lives, they’d find a way to put me there.
It takes half an hour for my bus to get to school, but even that wasn’t late enough. Randi and I were still talking non-stop as the bus pulled into school and we hauled our backpacks over our shoulders and squeezed into the aisle to get off. I thanked Barbara again, ignoring the snickers that my peers gave me, and headed off to class with Miranda.
Luckily, we were both in the same homeroom, and therefore would have many classes together. I knew that people were staring at us – particularly juniors and seniors – as my best friend and I walked through the well-known halls still chattering, and Miranda probably did too, but we didn’t say anything.
As we walked into homeroom B203, we looked around, seeing posters of animals, the scientific method, wildlife habitats and more, and knew that our homeroom teacher, Mr. Cichocki, taught science. I was about to ask Miranda to please tell me how in the world our teacher’s name was pronounced – her older brother, Aaron, had had him three years ago – but she pulled on my sleeve and pointed. My question was forgotten as we hurried over to multiple cages by Mr. Cichocki’s desk. Miranda went up to talk to a black-haired man, walking around the room adjusting things. I couldn’t exactly tell how old the boy was from where I was standing – not to mention he wasn’t facing me – but I figured he was probably a senior, helping out Mr. Cichocki. That senior… he looked good. With jet black hair that was combed back, and just a few strands flopping on his forehead, in perfect contrast with the brightest, most beautiful sky blue eyes I had seen in my sixteen years on this earth, that boy was beautiful. He had stubble, but just enough to look good on his high cheekbones. I was still staring as my friend came back, grinning happily and motioning to me.
“Come on, Becs! Don’t you want to see Mr. C’s rats?” She laughed and took a black and white rodent out of the cage. She crooned at it and petted it, and it wasn’t long before I had his other rat, this one orange and white, in my arms as well. For reasons that my father could never understand, I loved rats. For years, I had begged him and pleaded to him about getting a rat, to no avail. It was not until I was nine years old playing with a rat at a pet store and accidentally dropped it onto his shoe that I figured out that my father was deathly afraid of rats. It was my good luck that I happened to have a homeroom with rats and a hot senior helper, I thought, grinning happily, loving school so much more.
Students began to walk in looking just as tired as I had felt that morning, trying to find their seats, having no interest in the rats or any of the other animals that Mr. Cichocki kept. Smirking, I gently elbowed Miranda, careful not to disturb the rat that had made itself comfortable on the back of her neck,
“I guess their parents didn’t pour water on them this morning!” I joked, having already told her about my morning. We both giggled and continued to play with the rats. After a few minutes, we returned the rats to their cage and explored the other animals. Besides two rats, Mr. Cichocki had a snake, a guinea pig, a rabbit, two birds, and fish. We began playing with the rabbit, when the bell rang and we hastily got to our seats.
The black-haired senior went to the head of the room to address the class. Propping my head on my hand, I stared at him and flashed him a big smile. A date wouldn’t be a bad way to start off this year. Mentally assessing myself, I didn’t really find anything he wouldn’t like – I was thin, I had thick hair that even the most popular girls would die for, a great smile, bright eyes… Yeah, this boy was so mine.
“Good morning everyone,” The boy started off, “Welcome to homeroom B203. I’m Mr. Cichocki, your homeroom teacher and science teacher.”
My jaw dropped faster than you could say that’s no senior.
I turned to my right to look at Randi, silently begging for some inkling of surprise to show that I wasn’t alone. I found nothing. In my mind, I swore like an Irish sailor, cursing myself for my stupidity. Mr. Cichocki was probably laughing at me inside his own mind. I forced myself to focus as my incredibly good-looking homeroom teacher explained the rules of his homeroom that were recited by every teacher, every year on the first day of school. He continued for a minute or so, before taking attendance.
“Say here if you’re here, don’t say anything if you’re not,” He earned a soft laughter at the joke that I had only heard about a million times as he found his list and prepared to begin. We obviously had a fairly large class – I counted seventeen people before I heard, “Reed, Miranda? Ah, here you are. I had your brother a few years ago, Aaron, right?” She nodded, and right after her was me. “Shanahan, Rebecca?” I told him that I preferred to be called Becca and he nodded and changed his list. He bit his lip and looked at me. “Are you related to Ben Shanahan?”
I couldn’t say that I hadn’t been expecting the question – my father was well known. Even so, it took me a moment to find my vocal cords as I realized that the best looking man in this room was talking to me, “He’s my father,” My voice was slightly choked – my voice was teasing me. My eyes saw only him as he nodded knowingly.
“Ah, I’ve heard a lot about you then,” He winked at me as if to say we’ll talk later, and moved on. “Spinlock, Ashlie? Hello, I had your brother, Arthur, didn’t I? Good man. Yarod, Parker? Your sister, Angel, is a junior as well, right? I believe I have her too this year.”
I honestly don’t think that there one person in this homeroom that he didn’t know a relative of. But they were mainly siblings he knew – I was the only person who he knew a parent of. But that was understandable. I was an only child.
Mr. Cichocki went on to talk about the way things work at Clearview High School in general – not that we’ve heard it two times before when we were freshmen and sophomores or anything – before allowing us a chance to take a look at our schedules. Automatically, I turned to the right and Randi turned to the left, holding our schedules side by side. We had first period – science with Mr. C of course – together, along with fourth period – Gym on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, and FicLit Club on Tuesdays and Thursdays. We had seventh period – History together too. During second period, I had Senior Language Arts while Miranda had Calculus. During third, I took Spanish and Randi had Language Arts. And sixth, I had Senior Trigonometry and Randi took her French. Ninth period is normally spent in homeroom, but we can go wherever we need to… or in some cases, want to. It’s a study hall. We can read, work on homework, get on the computer, and sometimes hang out in other homerooms. Study hall is a lot more fun than it sounds. FicLit Club – or Fiction Literary Club – is basically a club where you can write fictitious stories or poems and have them read over by a teacher. This way, she tells us what we could make better. We both chose this course because Miranda and I absolutely love writing.
In Clearview, we’re allowed to share lockers with someone that we trust. It’s not exactly recommended, but it’s allowed. Naturally, when lockers were assigned, Randi and I shared a locker – I took the top section and she took the bottom as we were used to doing for the last few years. There was no question or comment about it.
We put our backpacks in and Mr. Cichocki sent us off sent us back to the room for first period. In my school, whatever homeroom you’re in, that room is your first period. It’s just the way it goes, no questions asked. He handed us a sheet of the rules and Randi and I rolled our eyes at each other – we hated this part. Rules are incredibly boring. In my humble opinion, the only reason rules were made were to be broken. But that’s just my way of thinking.
After that, he introduced us to his animals. The two rats that Miranda and I played with were Caramel, the orange one, and Fudge, the brown one. The little black and white rabbit was Pepper. The snake was Cinnamon – you can guess what color he was. The birds were Sugar and Spice. Sugar, obviously, was white, and Spice was all different colors – reds, blues, greens, purples, yellows, and so many others. Mr. Cichocki told us that he was a macaw. The guinea pig was Esmeralda. We’re not sure why Mr. C didn’t stick with the food theme, so he told us that she looked like an Esmeralda. I think she looked like a guinea pig. But again, just my way of thinking.
When he was done with that, the period was almost over, seeing as he had used some of first period for homeroom. He let us ask questions about him for the remainder of the period. Of course, being the idiot that I am, my hand shot up.
“Mr. Cichocki… how old are you?” The small chatter silenced instantly, and everyone in the classroom – including Miranda – stared at me like I had just grown a second head. “What?” I asked, throwing my hands up in an innocent gesture. Mr. Cichocki couldn’t help but chuckle.
“Guess.” His gaze met my own, and we stared at each other. He smirked at me and I smirked back. I was always excellent at ages. Somehow I knew what people’s ages were, if not very close to it. Even if they looked younger or older, I seemed to know. I studied him and first picked a base age – in other words, an age average people would guess him to be, which in my opinion would be twenty. Then I studied his torso – extremely lean, but kind of hard to tell… so add about two or three years. I’ll go with three. Looking at his face, his eyes were bright, so I’ll add about one year. His stubble was about one year as well. But, he was also older than he looked, I could tell. So I added ten years.
“Thirty-five,” I said confidently. Everyone in the room burst out laughing, including Mr. Cichocki. I blinked at them. “What?” Under habit, my head cocked to one side. Mr. C held a hand in front of his mouth, hiding his laughter. It was obvious that he was trying to calm himself down, perhaps to calm everyone else down. Both efforts were vain.
“I’m twenty-seven, Rebecca,” He said quietly, still laughing. Of course, the class had just begun to calm down, when he said that. Howls of laughter started up again, worse than before. My cheeks felt like they were struck by a match. I could hear the whispered taunts of my other classmates.
“Nice going, dweeb.”
“Yeah, your psycho mom would be proud!”
“How stupid can you be?”
The match flew from my cheeks to my eyes as tears stung them and my vision blurred. You see, I don’t cry very often. Therefore, whenever I do, it does everything but literally burn my eyes from my sockets. In other words, it hurts. I was thankful that my desk was close to the door as I got out of my seat, grabbed my books, and walked out the door from the harsh words of my classmates, and the humiliating laughter of my homeroom teacher. My only relief was Miranda, who never laughed, and stood up to go after me when I pushed open the door and ran to the bathroom. I could hear the laughter increase as I closed the door, and a welcome silence greeted me. I hurried into the bathroom to plan my next move. But I didn’t have long – after about seven minutes, the bathroom door opened, and I froze.
“Becs?” Miranda called softly. Had it been anyone but her, I would’ve stayed silent and hid. But I opened the door, my face covered with salty tears.
“What do you want?” I murmured, my voice thick from sobbing. My long brown hair stuck to my cheeks awkwardly. My best friend said nothing, but wrapped me in a hug. I hugged her back as she handed me a tissue and let me wipe my face. She took my hand.
“Come on,” She said quietly. “We’ve gotta go back.” She started to lead me back out of the bathroom, but I resisted.
“Are you crazy? I can’t go back in there! Not with everyone laughing!” Tears slid down my face once more and Randi drew another tissue from the box and this time wiped my face herself. She met my glassy emerald gaze with her own soft brown.
“Come on, Becs, you’re stronger than this. No more tears,” She smiled weakly and hugged me again, “It’s second period. That’s Mr. C’s period off, and he’s expecting us,” She looked at me shaking my head and sighed, “After his door slammed and you were gone, Mr. Cichocki felt really bad. He got really worried about you. He would’ve came for you himself if you had chosen a co-ed place to hang out and cry,” She winked at me, “Why is it always the bathroom people go to? Why not an empty classroom or the janitor’s closet?”
I made a face at her and allowed her to drag me back to my homeroom after grabbing a few tissues for the road. She took me down the hall to B203. Thankfully, it was enough into second period that no one I knew was around. Embarrassed, I walked in behind Miranda with my head down. I forced myself to look up, and saw Mr. Cichocki smiling at me comfortingly.
“Something tells me, my dear, that you aren’t the most popular girl in the school,” he said gently, meaning well.
I scoffed, “You think?” More tears slid down my face and my voice cracked on the last word. He patted the seat beside him… not-so-ironically right next to the rat cage. I smiled weakly – he must have seen me earlier. I did as he wanted and sat down. Mr. Cichocki nodded, and Randi left the room. Silently, I swore. I looked after my friend longingly until the door slammed shut, and my gaze shifted to my feet, almost ashamed. Here I was, sixteen years old, and I had cried and ran out like a toddler with a temper. My teacher did not say anything, which made me force myself to look up at his bright blue eyes. Bad move. He met my eyes and seemed to lock my gaze with his own. I felt compelled to continue looking.
“So, you want to tell me what happened dear?” His voice was gentle, making my heart beat faster. I shook my head rapidly. I did so not need this for my first day of school.
“With all due respect, Mr. Cichocki, I’ve been through a lot, and it’s only second period,” I said quietly, meeting his eyes with so much confidence, it hid my true feelings of desperation. Even so, he smiled and nodded.
“Understandable. We shall talk later, shall we not?” He smiled and pulled out a piece of paper to write my pass with. He signed it and handed it to me, “I’ll see you in study hall, Miss Becca. Now get to class!” He winked and walked to open the door with me following. I felt a little more respect for him than I had before as I looked at the paper that was given to me and hurried off with my books to room A153, senior language arts.
As I pulled open the door, I quickly realized with some fear that I was the only junior in the classroom. I blinked as I looked around, searching for even one familiar face in the room. Nothing. I tried to be as quiet as I could, tried to be undetectable. After all, he wasn’t facing me. But my theory became proven once again – teachers do in fact have eyes in the back of their heads.
“You’re late, Shanahan,” It was the first day of school, and already I was in more trouble than I had ever been used to. Life is not fair. I could almost feel the stares of the seniors who were glad that it was me who was late and not them. Again, life is not fair.
“Sorry, uhh,” I glanced at my schedule. Mr. Ross? Never heard of him, and I’d heard about a lot of teachers here. Must be new? But then wait… how did he know who I was? I shook it off, realizing that I had just completely stopped in the middle of a sentence, right in front of an English teacher, “Mr. Ross. I have a pass.” I showed him as such and he pointed to a seat… right up front. Oh, this should be fun. Now as I said, I love writing, and I’d say that I was good at it, as well at grammar and all that, but still… the front seat was amazingly intimidating. Especially since I didn’t know anyone. But there was nothing I could do, I hurriedly did as I was told, stuffing my books quickly under the desk.
“Now, as I was saying,” He shot a death glance at me, which I automatically cringed away from, “This year we are going to be delving further into our Language Art journey and take a better glimpse of how sentences are structured, as well as the much loved vocabulary!”
I fought to refrain myself from rolling my eyes. ‘Delving further into our language arts journey’? This guy had some serious problems. Still, I smiled like I cared about learning what we were going to learn in March or so. I’ll forget by Friday anyway. As always, we got a rule sheet and a syllabus, and all that. Nothing new since second grade. At least this day would be easy. Respect other people, do your homework, don’t talk back, the usual. I wonder if teachers think about how annoying that is? I mentally sighed and smiled through it.
Mr. Ross apparently was new to the school this year. He moved from telling us “How things will work in this classroom” to “Let me tell you a bit about myself”. He graduated from DeSales University in Pennsylvania, where he was born. He told us that we were going to be studying a lot of poetry just because he loved it. That I wasn’t too upset about that – poetry is my specialty as well. He tried to get more information in – as if we cared – but the bell rang again. Smiling just a little, I grabbed my books and got out of that room as fast as I could.
I all but ran back to the B wing and into my Spanish class, careful not to be late. Peering in the door, I smiled and walked in. Besides Randi, I do have one other friend. She’s a senior, so we don’t talk much. We’re not best friends, but she’s good company. She knows the truth about my mom, and she’s one of the few – well, the only one besides Miranda – who doesn’t really care. But I always knew that Spanish was her only weak spot. Therefore, she took the same level of Spanish I did. Still grinning, I sat down next to Hanna after greeting her with a hug. We went through the whole “How was your summer?” gig that everyone goes through in the beginning of school. There’s only one thing that sets Hanna and me apart is our popularity. As I’ve mentioned before, I’m not too popular. I have Miranda and Hanna. That’s about it. Hanna is probably one of the most popular girls in the school. I know her friends, but I don’t talk to them. I’ve heard what they about me, especially to Hanna. But Hanna stands by me for some reason. Now, some would think that it would lead me straight to popularity. But people continued to believe what they wanted to believe, and even the most popular girl can’t stop the rumor train. And also as I said before, I’m past trying.
“You grew your hair long! I love it!” She played with my hair as I laughed at her. She always made me laugh, no matter what. I wish I talked to her more often.
“And you cut yours! I like it like this! I’m so glad you let it down.” I watched as she shook her curly blonde hair around in response.
“I can’t hit people with it anymore when they annoy me!” We both laughed until the door slammed. We jumped simultaneously with wide eyes.
“Hola, me llamo Señor Crawley. ¿Cómo está ustedes?” My teacher spoke enthusiastically as he entered the room. Hanna and I stared at him from the front row like deer in headlights. We both knew Spanish and we knew what he was saying, but he hadn’t heard the language for so long, it became somewhat foreign.
He decided to take pity on us and he spoke English for the rest of the class, explaining the rules, which I made snarky comments to Hanna in response to. I mean seriously – “Smoking is prohibited because books can catch on fire.” Are they joking?
My friend and I were still laughing when the bell rang too soon. With a call over her shoulder that she’d see me tomorrow, we went our separate ways – her to the E wing, and me to the A wing. I’ve been in FicLit Club since I was a freshman, so I knew Ms. Kitsen, the teacher, pretty well. I strolled in casually, looking for my best friend… who wasn’t here yet. Her walk was just a little bit longer than mine though; she should be here soon.
Meanwhile, my name was called happily and I was smothered in a hug from a woman who was about seven inches shorter than me. Smiling, I leaned down and hugged my teacher back. She was short, but she was generally young and she looked good. It wasn’t a huge surprise that all the boys liked her… a lot.
“Hi Ms. Kitsen!” I couldn’t stop grinning. “How was your summer?” We all talked to her like she was one of the students. Then again, she looked young enough to be one of the students. She told us how she wasn’t let in the teacher’s lounge the first year she started teaching here.
“It was great! I went on vacation to Juneau, Alaska in July! Can you imagine it? Seventeen hours of daylight! Now that’s something to write about, Miss Becca!” She laughed and turned to the door. I followed her gaze and grinned at Miranda, who made a mad rush for Ms. Kitsen.
“I missed you!” Randi laughed as she encased our teacher in a hug. Ms. Kitsen is the only person Miranda is taller than. I happen to be taller than both of them. Miranda’s naturally short. With my father at 6 feet, 8 inches, I’m naturally taller than most. At 5 feet, 11 inches, people tell me I should go for basketball. I tell them enough jocks do that. I tell them my specialty is writing.
Finally, class got started. Miranda and I both smiled as we sat next to each other, where she had put us. She knows us well. She told us the rules that Randi and I both knew by heart in record time, and we instantly got out notebook paper and pencils. My friend and I have completely different writing styles. She liked to twirl her curly red hair around her fingers and jot random things down, to make a big production later. I took time and forgot the notes, creating everything in my head.
After half an hour, I finally got something written on paper. I hid it from Miranda though – I was going to keep this one to myself.
“Becca, why don’t you read to us what you have so far? I know it’ll be good, coming from you!”
Or maybe I wasn’t going to keep this one to myself.
Ms. Kitsen meant well. I know she did. But I couldn’t refuse her. So I smiled nervously at her and stood up with my partly filled paper. Shooting a nervous glance her way, I began reading.

“I never knew you.
I thought I did.
You knew me well.
I didn’t matter to you.
You promised you wouldn’t leave.
I believed you.
So young and naïve!
I haven’t forgotten you.
You remain with me, haunting me.
Suddenly, I do not depend on you.
Suddenly, I know I’ll be okay.
I am my father’s daughter –
Nothing more.”

I bit my lip and sat down cautiously. It definitely wasn’t my best work. But it was apparently good enough for Ms. Kitsen, because she clapped enthusiastically with Miranda, which motivated the others to clap too. I smiled weakly, feeling color rush to my cheeks, but this time under better circumstances.
“Now Becca, what were you thinking about when you wrote that?” Ms. Kitsen asked curiously, although I knew it was for the good of the class. And because I knew it was coming, I knew exactly what to say.
“I was thinking about a very good friend of mine, someone who I lost. And I let my feelings out in saying that I don’t need her anymore and I know that.” My reply was confident, but a total and complete lie. My teacher smiled and nodded, satisfied, telling the rest to take a hint from how I wrote to keep writing on their own. But, as I suspected, Miranda wasn’t as satisfied as Ms. Kitsen. She took out a scrap piece of paper and wrote furiously on it before sliding it over to me.
“It was about your mom wasn’t it?” She wrote. Biting my lip, I nodded and stuffed the note into my pocket. I had planned to write something else before we left, but I barely got a line down before we were dismissed, and I stuffed my poem into my pocket before Miranda and I headed to lunch. And not too soon – I was starving.
“Anyone know what’s for lunch today?” I asked her as we walked. She shrugged in response. I smiled and steered her over to our locker. We got our things for the rest of our day – it was a small load now, but I knew later it would grow with the books we’d get. I wanted to get into the habit, not to mention see how long it would take. We made it to the cafeteria to set our stuff down just as the bell rang.
“You can get your lunch first. I’ll stay here with our stuff.” I offered. Miranda and I learned quickly that if one of us didn’t stay with our things, they got stolen. So we alternated between days who would get lunch first. While Miranda was in line, I took the poem from my pocket and read it once through. Why did I read that? Hell, why did I write that? I never talked about my mom, wrote about my mom, never even thought about my mom. So why was I breaking all of those rules in just a few hours?
It took about five minutes for my friend to come back so I could go get lunch, and as I stood in line, I wondered why my mom meant so much all of a sudden. I glanced at her picture – so what? I do that almost every day, whether I mean to or not. Maybe it was because I was getting older, and the fact that she meant so little to me… meant more than I thought. How I could forget the woman who gave birth to me in only a few years. How I could get used to not having her around. Is my daughterly instinct acting up? I sighed and stepped into the cafeteria, choosing my food quickly but carefully, and getting out of there and back to Miranda. I sat down across from her, watching her finish her food as I started mine. I had known Miranda since we were in third grade, and we became instant best friends, two lone wolves forming their own little pack. We trusted each other, and did everything for each other. I would put my life in her hands, as well as lose my life for her. I could only hope she felt the same.
In what felt like seconds, the bell rang and I had to say goodbye to my friend to head back over to the A Wing for Senior Trigonometry. I couldn’t freakin’ wait. It went surprisingly well – my teacher Mr. Jacobs was amazingly boring, but he seemed nice. He at least seemed nicer than my math teacher last year. Before I knew it, that period had passed too. I couldn’t wait to just get to History and get out – my day was incredibly boring so far and I knew it. Some teachers loved me; some teachers hated me. Some teachers couldn’t wait until I arrived in their classroom; some teachers counted down the seconds until I was out. Some teachers were there for me for anything, school related or not; some teachers wouldn’t feel remorse if I failed their class. Story of my life.
I sat down in History and waited for my friend to get in here. Mrs. Taylors was not a new teacher here – Hanna had had her for a teacher last year – so I felt just a little more comfortable as I saw her sweep into the room. Before I could comment on her joviality, I saw someone else scurry into the room. I laughed as Miranda sat down next to me, but paid attention as our teacher began to speak about the “exciting” world of History. Hadn’t I heard this before in about four other classes about four other subjects? But for some reason, Mrs. Taylors made her spiel so much more interesting. It was like you could feel her interest in the subject and it was infectious. A piece of paper was thrust in front of me, similarly to FicLit.
“History is gonna be fun this year.” I laughed as I read it and wrote back hurriedly.
“Definitely. But I hope we don’t have to memorize a lot of dates. You know I suck at that.” Miranda returned the smile I gave her when she read it. After that, we paid full attention to our enthusiastic teacher.
“I’m not going over the rules, because I’m sure you know them. Besides, that’s history.” Mrs. Taylor grinned and a small few of the class, including me, smiled back at the little joke. She talked to us about what we were going to do this year – I was so thankful that she mentioned that we didn’t have to worry much about specific dates – and then the bell rang, causing us all to jump in surprise and confusion. Where had that time gone? Miranda and I got up and walked together back towards Mr. Cichocki’s room.
Due to the five other classes I had gone through, I didn’t even think about the awkwardness that I would feel walking into that classroom until I finally did and got stared at by nineteen pairs of eyes – Mr. Cichocki was polite enough to engulf himself in work the second he realized what everyone was staring at. Disciplined by years of endurance, I literally tuned them out and sat down, deliberately making a fake conversation with Randi.
“So how was your first day of Calculus?” I asked much-too-curiously even though we had went through this over lunch. Thankfully, she caught on quick enough and answered as if it was never mentioned before.
“It wasn’t bad. Mr. Bacit wasn’t boring, just like you said. How was senior trig?” That turned a few heads from the others who had gone back to their work. People are generally interested when they hear you’re smarter than them. But when they realized it was me, they turned away quickly. I smirked slightly in return.
“Mr. Jacobs is boring, but he seems pretty nice. But honestly, I don’t think he particularly cares if we pass or fail.” I shrugged a little.
Suddenly, I heard a bunch of kids laughing to each other. I looked over where the sound was coming from and the laughter stopped abruptly. I turned away, and heard it again. Their subject of humor was obvious and I sighed, forcing that sinking feeling away from my stomach. Of course, my father never knew what I went through each day at school. If he did… he’d bang a few heads together. It’s for this reason that he doesn’t understand why I just don’t like school. He just placed it with a teenage dislike. But he could never know. I wouldn’t let him.
It wasn’t long before I sensed someone behind me staring at me intently. I glanced at Miranda before turning around. She was smiling, an obvious sign that it wasn’t evil classmates from Hell. I turned to see my homeroom teacher smiling at me and beckoning towards me. Without response, I got up and walked towards him.
“Feel like helping me clean out the rat cage in the hall? It just consists of taking out the wood chips and replacing them.” He shrugged, glanced meaningfully at the girls who had just laughed, and looked back to me hopefully. Shrugging, I obliged.
“Might as well.” I glanced into those eyes of his, not for the first time since I learned his position in the school thinking about how amazing he looked. Whatever higher power is up there should not have allowed such a beautiful man be so off-limits. Why did he have to be a teacher? Of all things? I sighed and followed him out the door.
As it turned out, “helping” was me holding both rats while my science teacher cleaned out the cage. I laughed quietly as Caramel scurried from one arm to the other as Fudge was content to simply relax on the back of my neck. I enjoyed the moments of silence that I shared with my favorite animals, not caring about anything else just then. I was so caught up in it, that I almost didn’t hear the overly-casual question that Mr. Cichocki threw my way.
“So why are you so disliked anyway?” The question and the way it was asked was obviously designed for me to answer it just as casually without any thought to what he was asking or what I was saying. That was one of the easiest ways to just get the truth out of someone. When someone’s guard is down, they won’t lie. And Mr. C picked the precise moment to launch it. Unfortunately for him, I registered the question before I answered. I looked up to see him looking at me, a small smile on his face. I allowed the silence to stretch, not answering his question, but rather staring into those eyes that personified the summer sky. In his gaze, I felt protected, almost as if he alone could stop any harm that came my way.
Mentally shaking myself at the really… lovesick thought, I actually thought about the question he had originally asked me. Why should I tell him? It really wasn’t a common reason. I wasn’t overweight, nor was I a know-it-all. I was disliked because of a rumor about the lack of my mother. Not really a legit reason, but it apparently was a reason nonetheless. I didn’t want to tell him, but at the same time I did. And I figured he’d find out anyway.
“My… mother.” I said slowly, thinking everything out before I spoke. “She left me and my dad. A long time ago, when I was four. I barely remember her – I spent a lot of those years with my dad.” I smiled softly at the thought of it. I had always been a daddy’s girl. And with the exception of my first four years on this earth, I didn’t really have a choice. And I really didn’t care. “But rumors flew about my mom – that she was a crack addict and had me from a one night stand. She didn’t like me, so she went off and tried again with another guy. That she killed herself because she couldn’t take being with us.” I was surprised to hear my voice crack, but I refused to cry. Not again.
“That’s horrible.” He whispered, although I barely heard it. My next action that I was surprised at was that I laughed. I actually laughed. It wasn’t a happy laugh; more like a bittersweet tone. But, nonetheless, I laughed.
“None of them are true of course.” I replied, shaking my head. But then, for the first time since I had told myself, I realized that I didn’t know this for sure. My mother had just up and left – technically, she and my father were still married. My mother didn’t bother with a divorce. But I forced myself to believe once again that she had not left us for any reasons that my classmates had created.
I hadn’t noticed that Caramel had stopped running between my arms until he suddenly scrambled from the perfect resting spot my clasped hands made to the other side in my vocal pause.
“I’m sorry.” He reached out to put a hand on my shoulder, but I flinched away instinctively. I shrugged apologetically – I didn’t like people touching me. “I’m sorry,” He said again. Again, I shrugged.
“Not your fault.” I said quietly. He opened his mouth to say something else, but just then the bell rang. Miranda came out carrying both of our things. I smiled, thanked her, and handed the rats back to my science teacher before heading towards Miranda and my locker, feeling strangely close to Mr. Cichocki. And I really wasn’t sure if I liked the feeling.