Anchorage

Macy Leeds was a tease and everyone in the whole school - in the entire, miniscule town, even - knew it. The athletic types attempted to catch her eye, the result being either complete failure or a shattered ego from the way that she led them on. The cheerleaders would try (and fail miserably) to copy Macy, pushing their chests out unnaturally and leaning against their lockers in the hallway, waiting for someone to notice them and take them out to a nice dinner. Everyone knew that they were frauds, though, because only Macy knew how to do it right.

Each morning of the week, she would stride through the front doors of Hampton High School and strut down the hallway with her sunglasses on the top of her head (despite what the weather outside was like) and her golden-blonde curls flowing behind her like she was some sort of Hollywood dame. She wore a lot of white, to remind people that she was pure and pristine like a blanket of snow or a baby lamb. White lace dresses, white pumps, white scarves, white mini skirts - it was nearly always white and she somehow pulled it off.

Macy Leeds was at the top of my list of people to avoid at all costs, second only to Carrie Hampton, who seemed to think that since the town was named after her ancestors, she ought to be treated like a pampered princess. I avoided Macy for an entirely different reason. She was one of those girls who held bake sales for cancer patients and gave her money to the church every Sunday. She was sugary sweet to everyone, even the people whom she knew hated her with a passion. She went out of her way to do things for people, like open doors for them, babysit their kids pro bono, and knit blankets for teenage parents with bastard children. The only thing about her that wasn't kind was the way that she led on all of the boys she dated, teasing them with promises and never carrying through with them, so as not to soil her virgin reputation. Other than that, she was pretty much perfect.

But as a rule, I never trusted overly nice people, and so, Macy Leeds was on my list.

My list of people to avoid at all costs received a new addition at least once a week, because as it turned out, high school was chalk-full of the worst people to ever inhabit the earth. I kept it posted to the wall in my closet behind my clothes, just in case anyone came around looking for proof that I didn't like them. The list had gotten rather long - especially given that I was only in my second year of high school - so when my mother was carrying out one of her routine searches of my room and found my list, she became rather distraught about the whole thing.

I had just gotten home from school, slamming the front door a little more harshly than I really meant to. I swung my backpack off of my shoulders and dropped it on the ground in the grand foyer, hoping to sneak off to my room and play music for awhile before I was forced to start on my homework for the afternoon.

"Belinda, honey, could you come into the living room, please?" That was my mother's voice and I could tell by the higher-than-usual pitch that she wanted to have a 'serious conversation'. I stood rooted to my spot, trying to think of something to say that would get me out of a talk with my mother, which would most certainly end up being uncomfortable for the both of us.

"I kind of have a lot of homework to do," I lied, knowing that I had small assignments for only two of my classes, "So...I should probably go do that."

"It'll only take a couple of minutes." I knew at that point that there was no way of getting out of the conversation, so with a sigh, I slipped out of my sneakers and walked across the white carpet into the next room.

My mother was sitting in our high-backed, ivory-colored chair in front of the roaring fireplace. She looked very calm and contemplative, which immediately told me that something was wrong and talking to her was the last thing that I should be doing. She had a mug full of tea in between her hands and there was an open issue of UsWeekly on the arm of the chair. I knew that she only ever read UsWeekly as an alibi, which meant that she had just been sitting in the living room waiting for me to walk through the door so that she could attack.

"Sit down, Belinda," she ordered, blinking indifferently a couple of times before she took a small sip of her beverage through pursed lips. I sank down into the chair next to hers, feeling the heat from the fireplace warming my cold toes. There were a few moments of silence where neither of us spoke and all that could be heard was the crackling of the logs in the fireplace.

"How is school going, dear?" she asked politely, eyeing me as though she wanted me to tell her all of my secrets (of which I really didn't have all that many).

"Oh, it's fine," I replied, just as politely, "I mean, the semester only started two weeks ago but I've been getting nothing but A's. My classes are easy and my teachers all like me." Although straight A's would have made any other parent satisfied, I could tell from my mother's disappointed expression that this was not what she wanted to hear.

"That's wonderful, darling," she nodded her head, brushing away my brilliance as though it was nothing, "Are you making any friends?"

"I already have friends, Mom," I answered, entirely uninterested in making friends with the unintelligent knuckle-draggers that attended my high school, whose only goals during their four years of high school were to lose their virginity and go to as many parties as they possibly could.

"You have one friend, Belinda," my mother corrected me, pointing out just how unsocial I was turning out to be, "and Tonia is not a very good influence on you." My mother never called me anything except for Belinda, a name which I hated; I made everyone else call me Linnie, but my mom just wouldn't bend to my will. Every time she uttered my full first name, I couldn't help but wrinkle my nose up in disgust.

"Mom. I'm okay with just one friend. Seriously," I attempted to explain to her, "I don't need any more friends." I watched as she seemed to struggle with herself internally, taking a large gulp of her drink so that she could hide her indecision. Finally, she let out a dramatic sigh and fished a piece of paper from between the pages of UsWeekly, throwing it at me. As I picked it up, I noticed that it was my list of people to avoid at all costs. I felt heat rise to my cheeks immediately.

"Were you going through my things?" I demanded to know, giving her an accusatory glare as I crumpled the piece of paper in my fist.

"What else was I supposed to do, Belinda?" she wondered, a pout starting to work its way onto her face, "You're so secretive. You never tell me anything. I just want to make sure that you're being safe and taking care of yourself."

"Mom, that's an invasion of my privacy!" I stood up from my chair in a rage, watching as my mother flinched away from me.

"I'm sorry, Belinda, but clearly you're having a difficult time with the other kids in school," she tilted her chin upward, trying to show that she was not deterred by my childish behavior, "I mean, you have a list of people that you go out of your way to avoid. That's not healthy, sweetheart. Are you...are you being bullied?"

"No, I'm not being bullied!" I shouted.

"And a lot of the people on that list are nice people, Belinda," she pointed out, tightening her slender hands around her mug, "Macy Leeds? She helped raise money for the church just last week by organizing a car wash and a bake sale. You even have Pastor Daniels on there, for goodness sake! What did he ever do to you, except try to lead you down the path of righteousness?" I decided to keep my opinion of Pastor Daniels to myself, not wanting to tell my mom that he gave me the creeps because he leaned in too close when he spoke to me and his breath smelled like asparagus covered up with after-dinner mints. Not to mention, he was only thirty-three and he was already balding.

"I have my reasons," I told her, no longer yelling and more just wanting to get out of the room as quickly as possible, "But I'm not struggling, Mom. And I'm not being bullied."

"When was the last time you made a new friend?" she questioned me, her voice still dripping with concern and a slight frown wrinkling her features.

"That's besides the point."

"Answer the question, Belinda."

I hesitated before answering, knowing that the last friend I had made was Toni and we had been friends for the better part of six years. I figured that I could just lie to my mom and tell her that I had another friend, but then she would make me invite them over for dinner or something ridiculous like that. And then, of course, she would know that I had lied to her.

"You know what? I'll try to make a new friend," I promised, knowing that my promise would certainly fall short because I was horrible at keeping promises and even worse at making friends.

"Really? Do you mean it?" my mom wanted to know, hope springing up in her eyes.

"Yeah, sure," I agreed, assuming that I would never hear the end of it, "Since you're worried about me." Without warning, she set her mug on the side table and pulled me down onto the chair for a hug. Awkwardly, I returned the embrace by patting her on the back in what I assumed was a comforting manner. Once she let me go, she held me at arm's length and gave me a smile, which quickly faded into a reprimanding gaze.

"Now go do your homework."

+

It was ten twenty p.m. and I was lying on my bed, throwing my pillow up at the ceiling and catching it when it fell back down. I had shut myself up in my room shortly after the conversation with my mother, and I hadn't even gone down to have dinner when my mother announced that it was done. I felt strange eating dinner with my parents lately, because we had just hired a cook who now made all of our meals. I wasn't even allowed to eat school lunches anymore; instead, my mother had the cook prepare my lunches, which were delicious, but still weird.

My family was what one would call "wealthy". In fact, we lived in the high-class region of town, in a three-story house that was built in the early eighteen-hundred's and had been in my father's family for over a century. Of course, changes had been made to the house to make it withstand all of those years, but it was essentially the same house. If you asked me, it was way too much room for only three people.

Everyone in the town knew my parents, and so everyone knew who I was, by extension. My mother was the head of the town council, my father worked in retail as the Regional Manager of Retail Sales of a store chain called Merle's, which sold things like clothing and kitchenware. He was the regional manager of the stores in the entire eastern half of the United States, but his office was in a large, fancy building a couple of towns over. He constantly had to make trips to different states to pay visits to each store and see how they were doing. I didn't mind much, though; I still saw my father quite a bit.

There was a tapping on the glass of my window, which caused me to automatically leap into the air off of my bed. My heart nearly stopped as I sidled over slowly to peek out of my curtains and make sure that I was just hearing things. As slowly as I possibly could, I pulled my black lace curtains aside and was met with the sight of a face pressed up against my window.

I would have screamed immediately, but I recognized the face and quickly opened my window to let the person in.

"Did I scare you?" Toni wanted to know, a devilish grin across her features as she climbed into my room and I shut and locked the window behind her.

"No," I lied, feeling a blush creep up my cheeks, "What are you doing here?" Toni immediately looked offended by what I had assumed was an innocent question.

"Can't I just come and see my friend?" she snapped, taking a pen out of her pocket and taking steps toward my closet, "Besides, I have someone that I have to add to the list."

"The list isn't there anymore," I informed Toni, following her into the closet as she searched behind my clothes, "My mom found it and now thinks that I'm being bullied."

"You are being bullied, Linnie," Toni snorted, "By Princess Carrie and her surgically-enhanced clones. Not to mention, that prick boyfriend of hers. What's his name, again? Brad? Broad?"

"It's Brandon," I corrected her quietly, "And I am not being bullied by those people. We just have differences because I'm a genius and they're idiots who are never going to leave this town or graduate high school, for that matter. That's all."

"Yeah, whatever you say," Toni rolled her eyes at me, someting which she had a habit of doing, "Anyways, where's the list now?" Instead of giving Toni an answer to her question, I moved around her to get at the bookshelf in my closet. I quickly pulled out an unassuming red book, opening it to reveal that it was hollowed out, and retrieving the slightly crumpled piece of paper from inside of it. I quickly handed the piece of paper to Toni, who had a sly smirk touching her lips.

"You are an evil genius," she told me, before taking the list and leaving the closet to fling herself across my bed.

"I try," I shrugged my shoulders, a smile involuntarily appearing on my face, "Who are you adding to the list?" I crawled onto my bed and leaned back against my pillows, while Toni laid on her stomach across the bottom of my bed, scribbling a new name at the end of the list.

"Harper May Collins," Toni replied, finishing up her writing and handing the list back to me. I stared at the name written in Toni's scratchy script, my brow furrowing slightly at the most recent addition.

"Why? What's wrong with her?" I wondered, remembering that Harper May Collins had been in my pottery class last year and she had always been helpful and nice.

"I kissed her boyfriend," Toni said, as she rolled over onto her back to stare up at my ceiling, a blank stare taking over her expression. My mouth twitched in irritation at Toni, who was constantly causing trouble and then adding people to the list whom she had wronged. I felt sort of bad for Harper May Collins, but I didn't say anything to Toni about it.

"Why'd you do it?" I wanted to know, gazing down at the list of names so that I wouldn't have to look at my best friend. I knew Harper May Collins and I knew her boyfriend. His name was Theodore, but everyone called him Teddy. He was sixteen-years-old and a good kid for the most part, aside from his nasty nicotine addiction, which I knew for a fact that Harper didn't know about. Teddy wasn't the type to cheat on his girlfriend, though, especially Harper, who he seemed so smitten with. But I knew Toni, too, and she seemed to have a way with people, making them do things that they wouldn't normally do.

"I don't know," Toni finally answered my question, shrugging her shoulders at the ceiling, "I felt like it." That wasn't a good enough reason for me, but I left it at that. I could tell from the stony expression on Toni's face that that wasn't the whole story. Maybe she even felt bad for what she had done. Either way, I had nothing to say to her, so I stood up from the bed and walked to my bedroom door.

"Where are you going?" Toni wondered, propping herself up on her elbows to look at me.

"I'm starving. I haven't eaten all day," I told her, though that was only part of the reason that I was leaving the room, "I'm going to go get some food."

"Grab me some leftovers of whatever dinner was tonight," Toni requested, laying back down to resume her staring, "Your new cook is amazing." I nodded to let her know that I'd try and see if there were leftovers, before I tip-toed out of the room and down the dark hallway. My room was on the second story, so I made my way down the staircase and into the kitchen, where there was still a light on and voices were coming from the room. As I neared the entrance to the kitchen, I recognized the voices to belong to my parents and so I paused before entering the kitchen.

"...and it's clear that she's struggling in school." That was mother, telling my father all about how I was being "bullied". I couldn't help it when my eyes rolled.

"That's impossible," my father retorted with a small laugh, "Linnie's brilliant. There's no way she's getting anything below A plusses and if she is, there's a problem with the teacher." A smile snuck onto my face, because my dad (unlike my mom) appreciated that I was smart and he took pride in me.

"School isn't all about grades, Alex."

"That's exactly what school is all about, Dawn."

"Well, she isn't making any friends," my mother argued, clearly upset that my father was taking my side in the debate.

"She already has Toni," my father pointed out, echoing my exact thoughts.

"But she needs to make more friends, so that she can grow and expand her circle," she explained to him with a sigh, "Alex, she's at a very fragile stage right now. She's becoming a young woman and that's going to bring a lot of new issues into her life." I nearly gagged when my mother started talking about me becoming a young woman. I especially cringed when she referred to me as fragile.

"So? Everyone has to go through that. What's your point?"

"I'm just trying to say that maybe this isn't the best time to tell her about...you know." My mother's voice got quieter after that, causing my eyes to widen and my ears to perk up. She made it sound as though they were hiding something from me and I immediately wanted to know what it was. They had no right to hide anything from me, especially not since my mother had been snooping around in my room only hours before.

"We don't have a choice," my dad told her, "Catie isn't doing well at all, and she can't provide the proper care that Chase needs. You know what has to happen, Dawn, even if you don't like it. We have to tell Linnie." There was no further discussion on the subject after that, but my curiosity was piqued. I had no idea who Catie or Chase were, but I was suddenly determined to find out. Trying to regain my composure and pretend as though I hadn't heard their conversation, I pushed open to swinging kitchen door. Both of my parents nearly jumped a foot in the air when I walked in and froze in front of them.

"Is...something wrong?" I asked them, very non-chalant about the whole thing.

"Belinda, what are you doing down here at this hour?" my mother wanted to know, looking as white as a ghost. My father was sitting at the little table in the kitchen, eating what looked like steak; he was less shaken up about seeing me, and offered me a smile.

"I'm hungry. I didn't have dinner," I explained, my stomach growling to back up my story.

"And whose fault is that?" my mom raised an eyebrow at me, "I called you down to dinner and you didn't come."

"I wasn't hungry at the time," I responded, getting a small chuckle from my father in return, "What was for dinner, anyway? Toni wants some of the leftovers."

"When did Toni get here?" my mom folded her arms across her chest, demanding information from me, "You didn't tell me Toni was coming over."

"I didn't know she was," I shrugged, going over to the pantry to dig around a little bit, "She climbed in my window."

"You see, I told you she was a bad influence," my mother pointed out to both my father and I, "A respectable young lady wouldn't go climbing in through people's windows."

"Relax, Dawn. She was just having fun, I'm sure," my father immediately came to Toni's defense, before turning to me, "We had steak, but there isn't any left now. I'm sure there's plenty of food in the cupboards, though."

"Yeah, I'm sure I'll find something," I nodded, immediately happening upon some potato chips and cookies, both of which I grabbed from the pantry eagerly.

"You're going to rot your teeth, Belinda," my mom told me, sticking her nose high in the air.

"She's hungry. Let her eat what she wants," my dad commanded, watching as my mother became nothing short of indignant.

"You two are always teaming up against me," she complained, "I'm going to bed now." With one last glance at the both of us, she left the room, the door swinging on its hinges behind her. I shook my head and sighed, looking to my father for an explanation as to her behavior.

"She's alright. She's just had a long day, what with the council planning on building a new park in the city," my father explained as he finished up his late-night snack and took his dish to the sink where he rinsed it off. He then turned back to me and stuck his hand in his pockets, looking as though he wanted to say something but remaining in awkward silence for a few moments.

"I want to talk to you about something, Linnie," he began, looking around the kitchen.

"Okay, I'm listening," I replied, eager to hear him spill his secrets as I opened up the bag of chips. He seemed to struggle with himself somewhat, before he spoke again.

"You know...it can wait till tomorrow. We both need some sleep," he suddenly said, causing my face to fall in disappointment, "So...make sure that you come back home right after school tomorrow." My father was acting strange, even I had noticed; to me, that meant that this news was going to be shocking and he wanted me to be prepared for it. Instead of begging him to tell me, I decided to respect his wishes, even though it killed me to do so. He turned on his heel and went to leave the kitchen, pausing in the doorway to speak to me again.

"Good night, Linnie. Tell Toni I said hi," my father ordered, "Oh, and...make sure to turn the light off when you leave the kitchen." With that, he left my sight and I was left to wonder what could possibly be driving my parents crazy. I knew that I probably wouldn't be able to sleep that night, because whenever I didn't know something, it ate me up inside. I would lay awake all night, just thinking of all of the possibilities.

When I got back up to my room, Toni had fallen asleep. As quietly as I could, I set the snacks on my dresser, turned out the lights, and slipped into my bed.

And then I waited impatiently for morning to come.