Pearl whined at my feet. I slipped her a green bean, which she rejected, spitting it out on the Persian rug.
“Um, can I be excused?” I asked.
“Sure, sweetheart,” my grandfather said.
I took my plate over to the sink and started rinsing it, out of habit.
“Just put it in the dishwasher,” my grandmother called.
The dishwasher. Right.
I escaped up to not-my-room, trying not to freak out, but freaking out anyway.
I stared at the shopping bags in the corner, full of fresh notebooks and new jeans, everything waiting for tomorrow, when I would make my Baycrest High debut.
Please, I begged the universe, let it go okay.
And then: Please let me be the girl my grandparents think I am, for the next two years at least.
It had all been fine while I was playing Boo Radley in my mom’s childhood bedroom all summer, reading by the pool and talking to no one except Dr. Lisa. But the truth was, I was terrified of what my classmates might see when they looked at me. Terrified that expensive sweaters and a blank slate wouldn’t be enough to prevent a repeat of my catastrophic middle school years.
Back in seventh grade, when Tara was at the peak of her campaign to make my life miserable, she’d told the entire locker room that I’d made a move on her at a sleepover. What had actually happened was our friends dared me to kiss her during a game of Truth, Dare, Double Dare. But she’d left that part out. The part where everyone had giggled and insisted that we absolutely had to. She’d twisted it out of proportion, making me sound like I was so horny that I couldn’t help myself. “And then Sasha lunged at me,” she’d said with relish, as everyone listening gasped.
I hadn’t lunged at her. I’d just crawled across our circle of sleeping bags and gone for it, rushing before I chickened out, or before my nerves overtook me. But it didn’t matter. I wasn’t on trial, I was automatically guilty.
“No wonder her boyfriend dumped her,” Tara said with a smirk, as though daring me to say otherwise.
I didn’t. I let Tara have the first and last word, and everyone took their cues from her.
For the rest of the semester, the other girls in my PE class had run shrieking into the next row of lockers, covering themselves theatrically while I tried not to cry. I’d squeezed my eyes shut and promised that I wasn’t looking while they changed, that I would never, ever look.
Except I did look, sometimes. When our friends had dared me, I’d gotten a secret thrill at seeing what it was like to kiss a girl. Even though it was just a game. Because, honestly, I was curious. And then I’d let the kiss linger a second too long, and Tara had pulled away, and in that moment, I had inadvertently revealed a piece of myself. A piece that she’d seized with glee and used to torment me.
She’d told my boyfriend I didn’t like him. That I was too scared to tell him myself. But I did like him. And that’s what was so confusing.
Kissing Tara had felt no different than kissing a boy. So I’d pushed it down, and tried to forget, because it wasn’t a big deal that I’d been excited to kiss a girl. I thought boys were cute, so I focused on them instead.
Still, the truth would spring up every so often, appearing in my peripheral vision in the form of long, tanned legs, or a laugh that sounded like music, or an actress on TV, or a pretty girl on Instagram. I pretended to be transfixed by their cute dress, or their amazing lip gloss, but just as frequently, I found myself staring at boys, with messy hair and skinny jeans, and it wasn’t because I wanted to know where they shopped.
I never said any of my fears aloud. Because I didn’t want to be that girl again, crying in a toilet stall in the middle school locker room, hearing the taunts and whispers from the other side of the thin metal door. So I put on blinders, and I shoved it down, into the secret parts of myself that I didn’t share with anyone.
It never went away, though. Every time I thought a boy was cute, I was intensely relieved. Liking boys was easy. It was not liking girls that was hard. But I did it.
Still, carrying the truth around was exhausting. At least being invisible was safe. The alternative—being seen—was terrifying. And being seen as a girl who liked other girls? I’d gone through that hell once. I didn’t think I could survive it again. Especially here, with my grandparents sticking their noses into everything. Especially now, with the way things were since last year’s election.
My old town had been conservative, the kind of place that voted overwhelmingly Republican. It was stuffed full of churches we didn’t attend, and while my high school had featured three different religious clubs, there hadn’t been a Gay-Straight Alliance.
Bayport was the same shit, only wealthier. Half the town had voted for President Trump. Maybe they’d done it because he promised to save rich people lots of money. Or maybe they had deeper, moral reasons. But fifty-fifty weren’t odds I wanted to chance. Especially in high school, which is already a uniquely hellish social experiment.
I wasn’t sure how my grandparents would react, and I wasn’t planning on finding out. Not after what I’d just heard at the table. Two years. I could be the granddaughter they wanted for that long.
Chapter 8
BAYCREST HIGH WAS JUST DOWN THE hill from my grandparents’ house, and even though it was close enough to walk, my grandmother insisted on driving me.
We got there early, to meet the principal and make sure there weren’t any issues with my schedule. And it felt so strange, walking this campus with my grandmother. I couldn’t stop thinking about my mom, or how all of my firsts would be without her.
Like my first day as a high school junior. Baycrest was a collection of white mission-style buildings, all crushed against the back of the canyon. Palm trees sprouted along the pathways, and bright sprays of bougainvillea scaled the walls. The quad was full of circular café tables, topped with sky-blue umbrellas.
It looked like a resort. Or maybe a country club. Instead of fluorescent hallways, there were stone pathways and courtyards. The classrooms featured tinted windows, just like the luxury cars in the parking lot.
Eleanor dragged me toward a low administrative building with a bronze plate announcing that Baycrest High was a Blue Ribbon School, which made it sound like a prize-winning pie.
As she pulled open the glass doors, I caught my reflection. My flat-ironed hair, my minimal makeup—because I wasn’t sure if the girls here thought it was trashy or try-hard to wear eyeliner. I’d spent an embarrassing amount of time choosing an outfit. I’d wanted something sufficiently neutral, which would neither stand out nor define me as any one particular thing. Finally, I’d gone with my new high-waisted jeans, my Vans, and a slouchy, cream-colored button-down I used to wear to work at the museum. It was boring and basic, but it did the job.
Still, I was convinced I was missing some small sign that would mark me instantly as an outsider. Some glaring error that would make girls scrutinize me in the hallway, cataloging all of the ways I was wrong.
The administrative office was overly air-conditioned, which was a bad omen for the rest of the day. I sat there shivering, wishing I’d brought a sweater while my grandmother filled in about a million forms.
“Mrs. Bloom? I’m Principal Mitchell.”
“So nice to meet you,” my grandmother said, shaking the principal’s hand.