“Bummer. But there’s always tomorrow, right?”
“Right, and get this,” I say, changing the subject. “My mom didn’t take me to school today like she promised . . . of course. She arranged for the boy across the street to take me instead.”
“The Hawaiian shirt guy? With the pizza?”
“Yeah.”
“But you said he was a big ol’ nerd, right?”
“Well, yeah . . . but I guess he’s not that bad, actually. He was very nice.”
“Is he Dungeons and Dragons nerdy? Or, like, those glasses that turn into sunglasses when he goes outside nerdy?”
“Is there, like, a spectrum or something? Have you made charts?”
“Hmmm, no, I guess not. But I can!” She laughs. It’s loud in the background, clanging pans and slammed cabinets. I know it’s Lola making one of her delicious dinners, right outside Caroline’s pantry/bedroom door. I can almost see her floral apron and gray-streaked hair, and it makes me feel a twinge of homesickness, missing dinner with the Tibayan family.
“Okay, now, get this,” Caroline continues. “They put me in AP Lit.”
“What?”
“Right?”
She starts laughing, and I join in because we both know that while Caroline is a prolific reader, her taste skews more toward my stories and the romance novels she sneaks out of Lola’s room, not the works of dead white guys. She barely passed tenth grade English with a C because of her refusal to read anything but the SparkNotes for Brave New World and Animal Farm.
“But that’s awesome! I bet your dad will be happy, and it’s not like you aren’t as smart as any of those AP kids.”
“Yeah, I know! Smarter, probably, because I don’t waste my time reading something ‘important’ when I could be reading something interesting.”
I laugh, even though my chest feels tight thinking about Art of the Novel and knowing what side of that divide my silly stories are on. “Are you going to transfer out?”
“Well . . . I was. But then the counseling office was too busy. So then I went to class and Brandon was there. Brandon Briceño—do you remember him? From Yearbook?”
“Uh-huh, yeah.”
“So he was there, and we got paired together to read this William Blake poem about a chimney sweep, or whatever. And he read the whole thing like Bert from Mary Poppins, which I’m pretty sure is super offensive because of the look the teacher gave us, but I’m not really sure what the poem was about because I was laughing so hard.”
She’s laughing again now, and I try to join in.
“Anyway, yeah, I guess it probably doesn’t make sense now. You had to be there.”
And I wasn’t.
“Who did you sit with at lunch?” I ask.
“Oh, Brandon! And he brought a couple more of his friends, Michael Giles and Olivia Roswell. Did you ever meet them? They’re really nice.”
“Yeah? That’s awesome.”
“I think I’m actually going to meet up with them tomorrow after school. They always go to Denny’s on Tuesdays, and they invited me. Not going to lie, that place is super basic . . . but I don’t know, it might be fun.”
“Yeah, yeah, definitely.”
I know I should be happy that Caroline had a good first day. She’s my best friend, and it’s not like I want her to be lonely or unhappy. But it sort of makes me feel like maybe I’ve been holding her back all these years. Maybe she wasn’t okay with our solo lunches, passing my laptop back and forth. Maybe she was just waiting for me to get out of the way so she could have an exciting social life.
My eyes start to water again, and I let them this time.
There’s a knock in the background, and then the sounds of Caroline and Lola speaking Tagalog to each other.
“Listen, I gotta go now,” she says quickly. “But I still want to hear all about your day! And send me a chapter tonight.”
“Uh-huh.” That’s not going to happen.
When we hang up, I shove my computer under the bed and do my US history homework instead.
When Thomas kissed her, Tallulah felt happy.
Cheery? Delighted?
Beatific. Tallulah needed to throw away her thesaurus.
Tallulah felt like there were fireworks banging in her chest. Banging? Really?
Tallulah felt like a new woman.
Tallulah felt nothing.
Chapter Ten
I don’t write on the second day of Art of the Novel. Or the third. Or even the fourth.
And the thing is, it’s not just in Art of the Novel where I’m frozen. I don’t write outside of that class either. At first I hold out hope that maybe I just can’t write with people next to me. So I try my bed, the backyard, and the sunny spot on the couch that was becoming my favorite, but still nothing comes.
I decide to seek out inspiration. I reread Anna and the French Kiss and The Sun Is Also a Star and Simon vs. The Homo Sapiens Agenda and basically everything by the queen, Sarah Dessen. I scroll through my favorite Twilight fan fiction (Jacob and Bella). I read and then watch To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before. I binge those ancient movies with the red-haired girl, which are definitely a racist, sexist mess but also kinda good.
Most of those stories don’t have protagonists who look like me. But that’s nothing new. I usually have no problem mentally superimposing myself onto white-girl love interests.
But still, nada.
I don’t have Art of the Novel every day, though, so my week is only bookended with the demoralizing reminder that I’m a fraud. With all of my other conservatory classes, I can almost forget that I’m not actually earning my place here. I can almost feel like I belong.
For a creative writing program, I can surprisingly get away with not doing a whole lot of writing. My genre study of magical realism meets on Tuesdays, and that just turns out to be a chance for Ms. Becker, who studied abroad in Colombia way long ago, to talk about how much she loves Gabriel García Márquez. Wednesday is Book Club, and my group chooses to read and study The Hate U Give (and they don’t even stare at me meaningfully after making the choice). And then Thursday I work on the school’s lit mag, Wings. When they asked for volunteers to copyedit, I quickly signed myself up—not that there was much competition. Everyone else wanted to write.
I should be relieved, right? I should be thrilled that no one has noticed I’m not doing the one thing I’m supposed to be doing here.
But I don’t want to spend my time at Chrysalis tricking people. I want to be actually writing in class instead of just pretending to. Instead, left with no choice as the due date arrives, I send Ms. McKinney old chapters of my Tallulah story and cross my fingers they weren’t in the portfolio Mom originally sent. When I get her first feedback, little bubbles on the side of the document just like the ones from Caroline, I scroll through them slowly, my heart racing like a monster may jump out at any moment. They’re okay at first: “Nice!” and “Love this description!” But then I see “Repetitive” and a longer comment that starts with “Not sure if this is realistic,” and I stop reading. It’s all too overwhelming.
The reality of my situation follows me around like a dark cloud. When I’m driving with Sam, eating lunch with my new friends, walking the hallways that should bring me joy—it’s always there. You shouldn’t be here. You shouldn’t be here. I’m terrified at every moment that someone will find out my secret. They’ll realize my admission was a mistake and send me to the regular high school where I belong.