What He Left Behind

I have mixed feelings as I arrive outside my homeroom class, not completely ready for my first day of senior year. My dad said that a new school in a new town means a new start. I know I could do with one of those. The thing is, we’ve been in Sacramento for two weeks now, and so far, my mom and dad have done absolutely nothing to make a new start. Instead, everything’s exactly the same as it was back in Detroit.

The bell rings and all the students pile into the class, one after the other. I wait until everyone has gone in and found their seats before I enter, briefly glancing over my dark oversized jumper, black skinny jeans and combat boots. It’s not the most fashionable outfit but it’s my first day and I don’t want to draw any attention to myself just yet. Knowing me, I’ll do plenty of that later on in the year.

I’m a year younger than everyone else in my grade. Technically I should only be a junior, but I was pretty precocious as a kid, so I skipped a year back in elementary school.

There are two seats left in the classroom, both in the far corner. I sit in the one to the right, just as my homeroom teacher, who I’m told is called Mrs. McKinley, arrives. She sits down at the desk, tossing her mid-length dark hair over her shoulder before addressing the class.

“Good morning everyone, I hope that you’ve all had a good summer,” she says with a smile far too wide for a Monday morning. She reads out a bunch of information that I in particular should be paying attention to, but I’m preoccupied. Whilst nerves aren’t generally something that affects me, I still like to know what I’m dealing with. I scan the other students in the class, trying to establish who is captain of the football team and who is president of the chess club, who is the head cheerleader and who is the most popular guy in school. Of course, some people are easier to identify than others. It’s clear that the guy with a football in his hands must be a pretty dedicated sportsman, and judging by the amount of people surrounding him, I’d say he’s popular too.

Just as I am starting to figure out the dynamics of the class, the door to the room is suddenly kicked open. It slams against the wall, making a few people jump. Everyone, including Mrs. McKinley, stops what they’re doing. The atmosphere instantly changes.

The quieter people in the class tense up a little bit. The jocks roll their eyes. The girls with perfect hair and a face full of makeup grin excitedly, trying to catch the latecomer’s eye. I thought I’d got the social hierarchy here all mapped out, but this completely throws a spanner in the works.

The latecomer is tall and slim with long dark unruly hair, chocolate brown eyes and a nose ring. He’s attractive; his facial features are strong and defined, his complexion clear. The look in his eye-liner rimmed eyes is a mesmerizing combination of menace and something else I can’t quite put my finger on. He is clad in black skinny jeans and a black short-sleeved shirt, revealing a colourful array of tattoos on either arm, which, if I remember correctly, goes completely against the school dress-code. Whilst I know it’s not right to judge by appearance, I can’t help but sense everything about this boy screams trouble.

“Mr. Hemmingway, nice of you to finally join us,” Mrs. McKinley remarks, “I hope you don’t make a habit of arriving late or you will find yourself a regular in detention, much like you did last year.”

“We all know you only give me detentions so you can spend more time with me,” he teases, smirking. “I hope you didn’t miss me too much over the summer.”

“Sit down Charlie,” Mrs. McKinley mutters, pointing to the vacant seat next to me. Charlie saunters over and I tense up, out of instinct rather than fear.

“Hey. Are you new here?” he asks casually, the smell of his cologne, which isn’t quite strong enough to mask the faint traces of cigarette smoke, flooding my nose. His voice is demanding and almost brusque but I can’t figure out if he naturally speaks like that or if it’s intentional.

I turn to face him. Seeing him up close means I notice the bruise around his left eye. It’s fading and partially covered by his eyeliner, but visible nonetheless. Yep, he’s definitely trouble. I can make out some of the tattoos on his arms. They’re colourful, which I like, but they’re pretty unoriginal too: a dragon surrounded by flames on his upper left arm, a rose, a snake, an array of mythical creatures and a bunch of gory gruesome images, typical of any male. The only one that really stands out to me is the star compass on the inside of his left wrist. All the others seem so meaningless that the compass looks out of place in comparison.

I’m about to ask him what the compass tattoo represents but he doesn’t look like the open-book sort of person. I don’t think he’d take well to my shameless curiosity.

Expectant eyes on me bring me back to the present, remembering Charlie’s earlier question.

“Yeah,” I reply bluntly, cautious to the fact that trouble is something I’m supposed to be avoiding from now on. I’m not sure befriending this boy is a sensible move.

“Where are you from?” he continues.

“Detroit.”

“That’s rough. What’s your name sweetie?”

“Noelle Fisher.”

“Charlie Hemmingway,” he tells me, reaching out his hand. I extend my hand begrudgingly to shake his, but he takes me by surprise and raises my hand to his lips, gently kissing it. Clearing my throat, I pull my hand from his grasp. His arrogance is already frustrating me and it’s only been two minutes.

“Go easy on her Charlie,” a voice from behind me warns, “Don’t scare her off just yet.” I turn around to see a boy with brown hair, slightly shorter than Charlie’s. He is wearing grey jeans and a black shirt and he has two lip piercings. To anyone else, he would probably look intimidating.

“I’m just being nice,” Charlie chuckles.

“Sure you are,” the boy says dubiously before turning his attention to me, “I apologise for my friend here. I’m Stanley.”

“Noelle,” I tell him and he nods in acknowledgement before Mrs. McKinley silences the class again and hands out our timetables. I browse through my classes, which are exhausting just to look at, let alone take. Because my GPA is fairly high, I’m encouraged to take AP classes and to take academic classes rather than more creative ones. It doesn’t bother me overly, since I find academic classes easier anyway. The only exception to that is photography.

Photography has been a passion of mine since I was a kid. I’d drive my family crazy constantly shoving my camera lens in their faces. I’d take pictures of everything, obsessed with capturing every moment and saving it for future reference. My teachers back home were always telling me that one day I’d make a great lawyer or doctor or managing director, but all I ever wanted to do was take photographs.

I’m out of practice now though, and there aren’t many moments worth capturing in my life anyways. So maybe I will end up being a lawyer or a doctor or a managing director like everyone said I would. I’m too impulsive to plan ahead and take things more than a day at a time, however. Every plan I make somehow end up crumbling so I’ve pretty much surrendered to my fate, whatever that may be.

After a short while, the bell rings and everyone rushes to escape. Charlie and Stan are the first ones to leave the classroom, making a beeline for the door without anyone daring to get in their way. Scoffing, I gather my things and head in the direction of the door, only to get called back by Mrs. McKinley.

I take a seat by the teacher’s desk and a pretty brown haired girl sits next to me.

“Noelle this is Amber. Amber, Noelle is new to Sac High so I thought maybe you could show her around and make sure she knows how things work here,” Mrs. McKinley suggests.

“Sure,” Amber agrees, smiling warmly, “You just moved into town?”

“Yeah, I came here from Detroit during the summer,” I inform her.

“I know you two have a lot of classes together,” Mrs. McKinley continues, “So if you need anything Noelle, just ask Amber; she’ll help you with whatever you need.”

“Thank you,” I say as Amber and I stand up and head out the door into the crowded hallway. I’m still wrapping my head around just how big the student body at this school is compared to at my old school. I shouldn’t be so surprised; anyone with any sense at all avoids Detroit like the plague, and anyone that stays in Detroit lacks the sense to actually enrol in school. Those that didn’t enrol weren’t missing out on much in fairness. I often wondered whether my teachers back home had even earned diplomas themselves.

“I see you met Charlie and Stan,” Amber observes, a knowing look on her face.

“Charlie seems like a bit of a character,” I muse.

“You could say that,” she remarks, giggling a little. “He and Stan are inseparable. They’re in a rock band together. They get in trouble a lot. You don’t want to get on the wrong side of them. I speak to Stan now and then and he’s decent when he wants to be, but Charlie’s a whole different story.”

“Is he popular?” I ask, genuinely curious.

“Not popular as much as infamous, mainly because of the trouble he and his friends get into. Charlie’s different to his friends though. Stan’s the sort of person that will go looking for trouble for a laugh. With Charlie, trouble just seems to follow him around. The girls are all over him. The guys either want to be him or kill him. No one wants to piss him off. He’s a tricky one to get your head around.”

“He’s kind of hot,” I acknowledge.

“Yeah, and he knows it. And more to the point, he won’t let anyone forget it.”

“I got that impression,” I admit, “If only his attitude was half as appealing as his appearance.”

“Oh trust me,” Amber assures, “You haven’t seen the half of it yet.”

---

When I arrive home, the house is silent which can only mean that today wasn’t a good day for my mom. I kick off my shoes and put my bag down on the kitchen table, looking around for any sign that my mom has gotten out of bed today. There isn’t one.

My house is smaller than the one we occupied in Detroit, thanks to the insane cost of real estate in this city. The front door opens into a small hallway. Through the door on the left is the kitchen and living area which feels cluttered because it’s so dark, and because we haven’t finished unpacking yet.

On the right hand side of the room there is a small bathroom tucked underneath the staircase. Upstairs, there are two moderately sized bedrooms separated by a bathroom, and that rounds things up. It’s nothing extraordinary but excessive living quarters would be redundant in a family that fails to do much ‘living.’

When I go upstairs to my parents’ bedroom, the curtains are still shut tight and the lights are turned off. My mom is buried under the blankets, her knees pulled up to her chest as though she is trying to make herself as small as physically possible. I crouch beside the bed and reach out to touch her, gently nudging her awake. She stirs and groans inwardly before opening her eyes.

I know my mom hates being woken up, but I know her doctor hates her staying cooped up in her room all day. Mom’s struggled with functioning like a human for most of her life. She’ll have a phase of being on the up and then falter again, but she hit an all-time low last year and has remained there ever since. A part of me feels sorry for her. I know how hard it is to get out of bed when you want nothing more than to disappear. But I force myself to. Because what other option do I have?

“Hey momma,” I whisper, stroking her hair soothingly. She is quiet for a second, taking some time to adjust to her surroundings and wake up. She sits up painfully slowly, reaching her arm out to open the curtain a bit and let some light in.

“How was your first day?” she asks with little expression.

“It was okay,” I tell her, “Are you gonna get dressed for me?”

“Mm-hm,” she agrees with minimal enthusiasm.

“Okay. Come downstairs when you’re done,” I instruct, leaving the room and shutting the door behind me.

Once I’m downstairs, I sit down at the table and take out my books so that I can make a start on my homework. Much like my mother, I have my own bad patches, so I try to get ahead of the game on good days so that I don’t fall behind.

After fifteen minutes or so, my mom comes down the stairs. She’s dressed and looks like she’s ran a brush through her hair. Robotically, she puts the kettle on and attempts to make a cup of coffee. I watch her carefully, aware that she often gets confused and muddles things up, even when it comes to the simplest of tasks.

I feel like my mom could be really pretty if her life was different. She has high cheekbones and large electric blue eyes and a button nose, a petite figure and natural blond hair. Maybe in an alternate universe she could have been a model.

But the fact is, it’s not an alternate universe and my mother is not pretty. Her hair is tangled and unhealthy and her lips are chapped and her fingernails are chewed raw. Her face is sullen and there are dark circles under her eyes and her skin is not glowing and clear as it could be if she looked after herself properly.

It’s her eyes that get me though. They say that eyes are the window to the soul, but when I look her in the eye, I see nothing. Her eyes are dark and empty, as though I’m staring into an endless void, which is probably how she views the world from the miserable rut that she’s stuck in.

My dad says I have to be patient with her, but patient isn’t a word many people would use to describe me. I’m tetchy and even rash at times. He also says it’s not her fault, and that I need to look after her, but it’s easy for him to say. He works long hours for a huge national company based in Stockton, which is about an hour away, so he’s not the one that’s stuck looking after her all the time. I guess selfless isn’t a word you’d use to describe me either.

At around 8pm, my dad arrives home. According to him, he needs to make a good impression at his new job, hence why he works two hours excess to what he’s contracted. There’s always an excuse with him though. If it’s not because his bosses are giving him grief then it’s because he’s working on a massive upcoming project. I think the more likely reason is that he simply doesn’t like being in the house.

He heats up his dinner which I left in the microwave and then he asks me the standard questions about school while he eats. I should appreciate that he makes the effort to ask but, to be truthful, it’s such a forced effort that I’d rather he didn’t ask at all.