One of the Boys

"Lydia, I still can't grasp why."

I stared at Annabelle from across the dinner table, Eliza sitting to the left of me with her husband, Anthony, beside her. To my right were the other farmhands: Joey, Walt, and Kevin. All of them were in their twenties to thirties, so they could slightly keep up Annabelle's whole ordeal about who I decided to sit with at lunch.

"What's so wrong with them?" I asked, stuffing a spoonful of potatoes into my mouth.

"Making friends, Lydia?" Eliza asked. I looked at her, and since I figured I'd have a knife chucked at me if I talked with my mouthful, I nodded. She smiled in approvement, the hope for me that she had growing from that one nod.

Honestly, the guys were, well, amazing. Even Sapia, who seemed like a bit of an asshole from Engilsh class. But hey, I had no room to talk. They were quick to accept me and my tomboyish ways, which I found to be a real shocker. It was hard to accept a girl as a redneck or tomboy or whatever damn label they had these days, but they did without question. I felt lucky for the first time in days . . . or years.

"Lydia, hanging around with them isn't going to get you many friends," Annabelle said, stirring her mashed potatoes around her plate with a fork. Just eat them, you freakin' twig, I wanted to scream across the table.

"And I should care why?" I asked as I continued to eat.

"Well, you do want friends, don't you?" she asked.

"I've got some."

"Why don't you like these guys, Belle?" Kevin asked. I wished the damn farmhands would have stayed out of it. They didn't know me, they didn't know the guys.

"They're disgusting, they're immature, they're filthy," she replied, wrinkling her nose in disgust.

"Well, then they meet my requirements exactly." I grinned at her, and she looked appalled that my standards were so low.

"You're such a boy!" she shrieked. I slammed my spoon and fork down onto my plate as I shoved my chair back and stood up. Every inch of my body was screaming at me to run over there and knock her senseless.

"That's enough!" Anthony yelled, his deep, commanding voice quieting the table and delivering a tension to the air. Eliza fidgetted in her seat, setting her silverware aside and standing up. Although she only lost her composure for a moment, I noticed it, and it proved to me that she wasn't all tough like the front she put up. I wanted to grin at the thought, but I clamped my teeth down on my gums to fight it back.

"Both of you, please," she requested, but she didn't seem as ordering as before. "Annabelle, I expect better of you," she added before turning her eyes onto me. "But you . . . "

Her voice trailed off, making me grimace. "What about me?" I snapped.

"I don't expect much from you," she retorted, the tough front returning to her face. I gritted my nails into the wood table before smashing the chair into place. I walked away from the table, heading toward the stairs as Anthony and Eliza called after me. I heard the shuffle of boots against the kitchen tile as the farmhands stood up and headed back outside. Although I heard it all, I ignored it all at the same time. If Eliza didn't expect much from me, then she shouldn't expect to see me turn around and take a stern talking like a good girl.

I headed to my room, slamming the door behind me and yanking open my dresser drawer. I searched through my clothes for the pack of Marlboros, needing something to calm my nerves. Upon finding them, I felt more at ease than I had been. The only thing was that I had no good place to smoke one. My only probable location was the roof, and because I needed to feel smoke fill my lungs, I opened the window and climbed out.

I sat down carefully against the black shingled roof, pulling my lighter and a cigarette out of the pack. Lighting it up, I put the cigarette to my lips and took a long drag, feeling relief swirl throughout me. I blew the smoke out into the night air, watching it fade out and disappear.

I knew I wasn't accepted here. In fact, I wasn't accepted anywhere. Maybe in Sapia's group at school, but anywhere else? Nope. My parents were more accepting than these damn foster parents, and they weren't even around half the time to say so. I took another drag before looking up at the stars, wishing they'd fall back into the darkness and allow the sun to appear on the horizon, when I'd have to get up and leave for school.