SMILE
Chapter One
A new town; a new school. If your old town and your past was like mine, you’d probably be more than happy to get out. However, I definitely wasn’t. Back at Ashwood Prep, just about everyone was my friend, and I had at least three close friends. Here, I knew no one at all, nor did I have any confidence that a nerd like me would fit in anywhere. This new school, Granite Ridge High School, had a rather tricky vibe to it. Somewhat pleasant; somewhat Hellish. Compared to Ashwood, this high school was ten times larger, or so I heard.
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The very first day of school is always the most difficult. After that, everything seems to fall into routine, or so I hoped with this new one. My gut feeling, however, told me I’d have a rather difficult time falling into routine in Granite Ridge, however. Maybe it was because of my lack of friends here. Maybe it was my lack of confidence. I hadn’t a clue.
I yanked at my shoulder-length naturally black hair in the bathroom mirror for a while, until a rather nasty tangle eventually vanished from my hair. Then another and another after that. I began wondering if everyone’s hair was this terrible to brush out. After they had all disappeared, I glanced quickly in the mirror at my hair. It was rather straight and could use a bit more volume. I then found my jet-black horn-rimmed glasses and placed them on my denim-blue eyes. When I glanced again at the mirror, I noticed how slim and bony my body was and how my hair wasn’t exactly in place like it should have been.
Aunt Clara then called from the bottom of the steps, “C’mon, Delilah! The bus gets here in three minutes! Hurry!”
“Alriight!” I said in a highly irritated voice. Could she not get that I was hurrying? I then went into my room and dug up a pair of plain-old blue jeans and a white tee with huge black writing that read, “Gene’s Auto Maintenance Center. Where work gets DONE!” My Uncle Gene, Aunt Clara’s husband, owned that auto maintenance shop, so I had a summer job there as a cashier a few years back. It was quite a simple job of scanning all of the products customers bought, doing occasional price checks, and sometimes even helping others find the products they needed. The shop was immensely under-staffed, however, so I often ended up staying at least three hours after my shift and even taking over someone else’s job, such as cleaning up the place after closing or restocking the lighter products, like windshield wipers and bottles of oil. Still, I enjoyed getting out of my house and spending the week in another town.
That was the summer before everything happened. Everything that had changed my entire perspective of the world. Everything that kept me smiling every day to conceal how my heart truly felt. Everything I was afraid to show those who truly cared about me. Everything that those who were supposed to care for me actually watched happen or did themselves. A feeling of betrayal suddenly seeped in, but I put on my smile of a mask for the day.
“DELILAH!” Aunt Clara suddenly screamed up to me as I retraced in my mind the steps from my old house to this one, “The bus is coming now!” That’s when I pulled my bookbag off of my floor littered with magazines, paper plates, and other paraphernalia of a summer spent in my room and scrambled down the stairs. When I reached the bottom stair, the bus was about to leave. I darted out the door in front of the stairway and into the bus before I could even realize what I was doing. Before I could sit down, the bus driver slammed on the gas.
I fell into a seat next to another girl—a brunette with wavy hair wearing a dark-pink mini-skirt, a thin jacket that almost matched the color of the skirt, a black shirt underneath, and a neon-colored bead necklace. On her copper face were sunglasses and mauve lipstick. Apparently, this school mustn’t have had a dress code. That or it was not enforced. Despite that, however, I thought I might be able to make friends with her.
“Hello!” I greeted her delightfully with my hand out to shake. She gave me a dirty look and ignored me. “I’m new here—“
“You must be,” she said in a snide voice. Then, she pushed me out of the seat into the aisle. Apparently, I couldn’t make friends with her. I dusted myself and my bookbag off and got up.
It was rather difficult to walk on a moving bus, as you can imagine. I nearly fell on top of some guy with a black and red Mohawk and hit a tiny girl with a brown ponytail in the face with my bookbag. “Oops!” I said to her, “so sorry!” I moved on.
Finally, I found my own seat at the very back of the bus. All around me were these kids who looked as if they didn’t belong anywhere else. Some wore torn-up jeans that could have easily been mistaken for Capri’s at first glance and shirts with holes in odd spots. Others wore thick black eyeliner and all-black. There were also a few with the greasiest hair I’d ever seen in my life. This section of the bus seemed immensely lifeless; there obviously wasn’t much conversation around here. This must have been the misfit section…
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The very first day of school is always the most difficult. After that, everything seems to fall into routine, or so I hoped with this new one. My gut feeling, however, told me I’d have a rather difficult time falling into routine in Granite Ridge, however. Maybe it was because of my lack of friends here. Maybe it was my lack of confidence. I hadn’t a clue.
I yanked at my shoulder-length naturally black hair in the bathroom mirror for a while, until a rather nasty tangle eventually vanished from my hair. Then another and another after that. I began wondering if everyone’s hair was this terrible to brush out. After they had all disappeared, I glanced quickly in the mirror at my hair. It was rather straight and could use a bit more volume. I then found my jet-black horn-rimmed glasses and placed them on my denim-blue eyes. When I glanced again at the mirror, I noticed how slim and bony my body was and how my hair wasn’t exactly in place like it should have been.
Aunt Clara then called from the bottom of the steps, “C’mon, Delilah! The bus gets here in three minutes! Hurry!”
“Alriight!” I said in a highly irritated voice. Could she not get that I was hurrying? I then went into my room and dug up a pair of plain-old blue jeans and a white tee with huge black writing that read, “Gene’s Auto Maintenance Center. Where work gets DONE!” My Uncle Gene, Aunt Clara’s husband, owned that auto maintenance shop, so I had a summer job there as a cashier a few years back. It was quite a simple job of scanning all of the products customers bought, doing occasional price checks, and sometimes even helping others find the products they needed. The shop was immensely under-staffed, however, so I often ended up staying at least three hours after my shift and even taking over someone else’s job, such as cleaning up the place after closing or restocking the lighter products, like windshield wipers and bottles of oil. Still, I enjoyed getting out of my house and spending the week in another town.
That was the summer before everything happened. Everything that had changed my entire perspective of the world. Everything that kept me smiling every day to conceal how my heart truly felt. Everything I was afraid to show those who truly cared about me. Everything that those who were supposed to care for me actually watched happen or did themselves. A feeling of betrayal suddenly seeped in, but I put on my smile of a mask for the day.
“DELILAH!” Aunt Clara suddenly screamed up to me as I retraced in my mind the steps from my old house to this one, “The bus is coming now!” That’s when I pulled my bookbag off of my floor littered with magazines, paper plates, and other paraphernalia of a summer spent in my room and scrambled down the stairs. When I reached the bottom stair, the bus was about to leave. I darted out the door in front of the stairway and into the bus before I could even realize what I was doing. Before I could sit down, the bus driver slammed on the gas.
I fell into a seat next to another girl—a brunette with wavy hair wearing a dark-pink mini-skirt, a thin jacket that almost matched the color of the skirt, a black shirt underneath, and a neon-colored bead necklace. On her copper face were sunglasses and mauve lipstick. Apparently, this school mustn’t have had a dress code. That or it was not enforced. Despite that, however, I thought I might be able to make friends with her.
“Hello!” I greeted her delightfully with my hand out to shake. She gave me a dirty look and ignored me. “I’m new here—“
“You must be,” she said in a snide voice. Then, she pushed me out of the seat into the aisle. Apparently, I couldn’t make friends with her. I dusted myself and my bookbag off and got up.
It was rather difficult to walk on a moving bus, as you can imagine. I nearly fell on top of some guy with a black and red Mohawk and hit a tiny girl with a brown ponytail in the face with my bookbag. “Oops!” I said to her, “so sorry!” I moved on.
Finally, I found my own seat at the very back of the bus. All around me were these kids who looked as if they didn’t belong anywhere else. Some wore torn-up jeans that could have easily been mistaken for Capri’s at first glance and shirts with holes in odd spots. Others wore thick black eyeliner and all-black. There were also a few with the greasiest hair I’d ever seen in my life. This section of the bus seemed immensely lifeless; there obviously wasn’t much conversation around here. This must have been the misfit section…