Outcast (11 page)

No kid likes having her birthday on a holiday, but especially not at Christmastime. I, like all others in this situation, felt gypped out of a true celebration. My birthday present was one of the gifts under the tree. The day always seemed like an inconvenience to the family, an interruption of the true holiday they wished to celebrate.

My fifteenth was no different than any other from the past. Grace came over earlier in the day to give me a gift—an olive branch of sorts—and to spend some time with me. Seeing her that day made me realize that our friendship was as strong as ever. She seemed genuinely interested in my vacation.

“Were there tons of hot guys there?” Grace asked while flipping through a fashion magazine.

I studied the scrolled-out Gustav Klimt art print Grace had gifted me as I considered her question. I thought of Flip—what he had to stomach with his dad—and I felt a little sorry for him.

“I met this one guy who was pretty nice,” I finally said.

Grace sat upright and put the magazine down. “So,” she said with anticipation. “Tell me about him.”

“He’s just the son of one of my aunt’s friends.”

“Was he cute? Did he dress nice? What’s he like?” she asked, prodding me with her foot.

“He was…” I thought about what Flip was. Not cute. Not hot. Not any of the things Grace appreciated in a guy. “Sad.”

“Sad?” Disdain tainted her voice and she made a face. “How…attractive, Noelle.”

“It wasn’t like that,” I said, thinking of the forged connection Flip and I shared—one Grace could never understand. “He was just different. Nice.”

“Whatever,” she said, returning to her magazine.

“Did you have a good time at Trina’s party?” I asked to change the subject and alleviate the awkwardness.

“It was fine,” she said unconvincingly.

“You didn’t have fun?” I don’t know why I pushed her. I didn’t want to hear all the gory details of Trina’s party. Or did I? I supposed I wanted Grace to mention
Chad
. Was he there? Who did he talk to? Did he hang around with Trina? Did they kiss?

“I don’t really want to talk about it.” Grace shrugged me off.

I let it go. Best not to know what happened.

At night, I was forced to go to church. And it wasn’t just any service, it was Midnight Mass.

When we arrived, the place was lit like the inside of a museum display case, bright against the starkness of the chilled night. The moment we entered the warm insides, I could smell the melting wax of candles and feel the piousness in the air.

We shimmied down one of the aisles, taking a seat on the hard pews. I yanked at my skirt as I kneeled, completely uncomfortable dressed in anything other than pants. When I finally sat back, I flipped through the missal, then glanced around the church lit up with twinkling white Christmas lights, a life-sized nativity scene at the alter. As my eyes flitted around, they stopped on him, and my heart seized.
Chad
was looking right at me, and when our eyes met, he gave me a brief and sad smile. I heard myself take an audible breath.

“You okay?” my dad asked.

“No,” I said. “I need to…”

I suddenly felt hot and faint. I didn’t finish my sentence. Instead, I clambered out of the pew and into the cooler air of the vestibule. I knew, behind my back, my mother was giving me a reproving look. I didn’t care. I felt the prickle of tears at the corners of my eyes as I stormed past the fonts of holy water and sloshed a hand through one, sending a small shower of droplets to the floor in blasphemy.

My heels clicked against the floor, and my skirt billowed out behind me, as I pushed open the church doors and made my way down the steps into the brisk night. I leaned against the railing and cried. Huge sobs choking my throat. What had I done?

The winter break slipped by without episode. Aunt P stayed out of sight for the remainder of the holiday. The winter break moved along too quickly. Like a breeze in the stifling heat of summer, it was gone in an instant. Suddenly, New Year’s Eve fell upon us, and another year had come and gone. Grace invited me over for a sleepover where we played Wii, ate popcorn and ice cream, and talked about boys. She brought up
Chad
.

“He’s so hot,” Grace said.

I felt my heart rate speed up and remembered how our eyes met in church.

“But Trina…” Grace played the rest of her sentence out in her thoughts.

I needed her to finish. Trina what? Kissed
Chad
? Is his girlfriend now?
What?

My mind filled in the gaps. I watched Grace as she daydreamed about
Chad
. I studied her as she spun a curl around her finger, knowing what I had given up for her. All the while, knowing he could have been mine.

January. School returned with a vengeance.

As I made my way to my locker before first period, I saw
Chad
and flushed with nervousness. Then I saw he was with Trina. My stomach plummeted from suicidal heights and hit bottom with a sickening smack. Loathing settled in as I watched him hug the locker next to hers. They acted much more intimate than before the Christmas break. It made me bristle. Something happened over the holiday. Something occurred in the short time we were all away from school. I continued to torture myself by watching, fitful and jealous. He was interested in me first. If it weren’t for Grace, he would be talking to me, leaning against my locker, smiling deliriously at me.

I sank back against a locker across the hallway. Trina closed hers, and the two of them turned to leave. Trina spied me. Her smirk was laden with retaliation. My jaw clenched, my stomach tightened, and my hands curled into angry fists. I needed to get back at her. Somehow. 

I spent the second semester of my sophomore year in the throes of my studies. In World History, I immersed myself in the
Roman Empire
; I analyzed and dissected the literary devices used in
To Kill a Mockingbird
; algebraic equations took on a sudden intrigue that I’d never noticed before. Of course, all of this was a mere diversion from the budding relationship between
Chad
and Trina.

I had once opened a fortune cookie that delivered the message
appreciate what you have now so as not to miss it once it is gone
. I had thrown it away, thinking it was stupid, written by a hopeful novelist who missed his calling and was stuck writing fortune cookie messages for a living, spelling out his own regrets to innocent diners at Chinese restaurants. I should have kept it. I finally understood what it meant.

Watching
Chad
and Trina together in the hallways was torture. I seethed with jealously and there was nothing I could do. I had lost my chance. As much as I wanted to project the blame onto Grace, it was my own doing. She didn’t twist my arm to turn him down. She didn’t even know he had asked me out. If I had been honest with her, maybe she would have been okay with it. Maybe she didn’t care as much about him as I believed she did. There were all of those
maybes
when the truth of the matter was she would have cared. She would have been devastated, and I saved her the trouble of heartache and betrayal. As a result, I suffered my own misery. I guess that was the price of friendship.

To avoid
Chad
and Trina, I took Photography instead of Acting. I was the only girl in the class, surrounded by a group of boys who were frightened to even speak to a girl in any capacity, whether it was a classmate, a waitress, or really anyone of the female persuasion. There was one exception: Henry Olson. It was obvious from the first day of class that he had a crush on me.

Henry, to say it gently, was scientifically inclined. He loved biology and physics, but chemistry was the bomb. He wore high water pants that revealed his drooping tube socks, and he was the only teenager who found a pocket protector stylish. He definitely knew the laws of physics because he gravitated toward me immediately.

Mr. Carson let us choose our seat on the first day of class. Henry chose to sit next to me. He must have picked up a
Star Trek
transmission that I, too, was an outcast. After measuring the chemistry between us, I figured he found me to be the most compatible partner for him. He introduced himself immediately and explained concepts to me seconds before Mr. Carson said them. When Henry’s prophetic ability proved correct—and it always did—he turned to me and smiled.      

I didn’t need the association with someone like Henry in or out of the classroom. But he was nice. And, unfortunately, he didn’t give me a choice.

“Do you mind if I sit with you?”

It was lunchtime. Henry hovered over our table. Grace eyed him suspiciously.

I hesitated, but Henry either didn’t notice or didn’t care. He sat down before I said a word. Grace looked at me to answer the questions that scrolled across her face. I knew what she was thinking: it wasn’t good for our image to have Henry eating lunch with us. What did I care? Trina and
Chad
feasted on each other at the other side of the cafeteria anyway. What more did I have to lose?

“Mr. Carson doesn’t know what he’s doing when he uses plastic developing tanks. Stainless steel is far more preferable.” He jumped right into a conversation.

“Henry, this is Grace.”

“Hi.” He tore through the food on his tray and kept talking like the intro never took place.

“They have hardier properties and are so much easier to clean. I don’t think any of the pictures we’ve taken this year are going to be of optimal quality if he continues to use those worthless plastic tanks.”

Grace’s look screamed a painful
Help! Get us out of this situation!
My eyes darted to
Chad
’s table, partly out of jealous habit and partly because I didn’t want him to see me with Henry.
Chad
’s gaze caught hold of me and latched on for a moment. His mouth lifted into a barely-visible smile, then he looked away. The severed connection crushed me. I put a chokehold on my tears by turning my attention back to the table. 

“Listen, Henry. We have some studying to do. So if you don’t mind…”

“No, go ahead.”

We waited for him to take his tray and leave, but he didn’t. Instead he dug right into his fish sticks, consuming them like they were top quality filets of sole. Grace and I ogled one another; her eyes pleaded with mine, mine with hers. I shrugged. We didn’t know what to do. I started to say something else to dissuade Henry from remaining near to us, but he cut me off. “So, do either of you have boyfriends?” A chunk of fish stick stuck to the corner of his mouth.

We looked at one another and completely lost it. Henry may have been an embarrassment, but he was comic relief at a time when I definitely needed it.

The moment I hoped would never arrive finally did.

“Trina and
Chad
are dating.” Grace greeted me as I arrived at her house for a study session. My stomach sank, and I didn’t know how to respond. I had to comfort Grace. But the news had sucker punched me in the face, and I needed support, too.

“That’s terrible,” I said, choking down a sob.

Grace tried to mask her own hurt. “It’s okay. I mean, what made me think that I could ever get someone like him anyway?”

“Don’t say that.” I attempted to be sympathetic.

“What do you mean? Look at us. We could never get good-looking boyfriends. No one’s interested in me, and the only guy interested in you is that Henry geek from your photography class.”

Us
? Since when did this turn into an
us
? I felt offended that she would include me in her category of losers. I desperately wanted to tell her about
Chad
, but I held my tongue.

“Henry’s a nice guy.” I covered my anger and defended him all in one breath.

“Nice maybe. But still a geek.”

She made me angry. Who did she think she was? Emma Watson? She had no right to label Henry. Yes, he irritated me. And yes he was not the best-looking guy in the school, but she was passing judgment on him like Trina & Company did to us. I refused to put up with it.  

“A lot of people probably say the same thing about you.”

“Are you calling me a geek?” She cocked her head to one side and crossed her arms defensively in front of her.

“I don’t know. No.”

“Then what did you mean?”

“You said it yourself. We’re outcasts. Who knows what people say about us?” I included myself in the comparison to cushion the blow.

“We’re not geeks,” she insisted.

“But you’re treating Henry like Trina & Company treat us.”

“She doesn’t treat us like that anymore.”

“No, because she’s too busy rubbing
Chad
in my face.” Oh God! Oh God! Did I just say what I thought I said?

“What?” Her eyes screwed into a puzzle.

I hoped that I had imagined the words in my mind, that they didn’t actually spill from my mouth.

“She’s gloating about the fact that she’s with
Chad
and we’re all alone. That’s all.” I hoped I covered my blunder well.

“That’s not what you said. You said she’s rubbing it in
your
face.”

“I meant our faces. It just came out all wrong.” I tried to sound aloof, like the slip-up was a simple confusion with syntax. I fiddled with my backpack to avoid making eye contact with her.

“You like him.”

Two thoughts ran through my head. Either I continue the charade, risking the possibility that the whole truth would make itself known, or I simply admit I like him and be done with it.

“No, I don’t. I just really hate Trina.”

My answer sent Grace on a whole other subject. “She’s not that bad, you know.”

“Actually, she is.”

“Obviously
Chad
doesn’t think so.”

“He just doesn’t know her yet,” I said mostly to myself.

Henry continued to join us during lunch hour. He attempted to entertain us with useless trivia we would have been better off not knowing.

“You two need to have more vitamin C in your diet. You know that the sailor’s disease, scurvy, occurred as a result of a lack of vitamin C. I’ll get you both some orange juice.”

And off he’d run to the cafeteria line and return with two containers of orange juice. Grace, who was initially annoyed with him, suddenly seemed intrigued by his quirkiness and protective behavior.

“You know what causes freckles, Noelle?” He stared at the dots that sprinkled my face while shoving goulash into his mouth.

“No.” I self-consciously covered my face with my hands.

“They appear when the sun activates your melanocytes.”

“I think they’re just genetic.”

Grace acted enthralled by the information. “How do you know all this stuff?” she asked him.

“Books. And I watch
Jeopardy
.”

Grace smiled a little too boldly at him. He smiled back. I supposed now that Henry paid attention to her instead of me, he was no longer as bad as she first thought. Maybe Henry was the diversion Aunt P. described.