Falling From Grace (5 page)

“Here you go, sugar.
 
Have a great first day!” she said in a sing-song voice, a broad and cheerful smile stretching across her pretty round face.

I snatched it out of her hand and stepped backwards, trying to get as far away from the cooing, the syrupy sweet endearments, and the pair of jade-green eyes that I could see staring at me from the corner of my eye as quickly as possible.
 
I backed up…right into a wall that had not been there a minute ago.

I turned around to see what it was that had obstructed my escape, and ended up giving one of my best glares to a button.
 
An expensive button, judging by the logo stamped on it.
 
There were many of them, too; I counted them, my gaze going higher, the look in my eyes becoming less mean and more…confused.
 
Five buttons later, I was staring into a pair of gray eyes nestled in a face that I didn’t recognize
—
not that I could have recognized half of the faces at Heath anyway—but I thought I had made mental images of every senior here, if only to know who to avoid.
 
He was new.
 
He had dark hair.
 
He was tall.
 

He was…beautiful.

“Um’scusemesorrygottago,” I quickly mumbled with no breath, no pause, and no thought as to what I sounded like.
 
I had spent a lifetime staring into the perfection that was Graham’s face, and not once had I ever been at a loss for coherency.
 
Yet here I was, mush-mouthed, a gigantic bird’s nest in my hair, and an eager and willing audience that included Graham just 6 feet away.
 
And so I did what any reasonable person would do in such a situation.
 

I bolted.
 

I felt like such a coward, but self-preservation screamed at me, urging me to go, pulling me away as quickly as my feet could carry me.
 
I found an empty girls restroom as far away from the office as possible, threw myself into a stall, and felt my breathing stumble and falter as I sat down on the seat, locking the door as my backpack tumbled to the ground by my feet.
 

My chest rose and fell like a teeter-totter; I couldn’t seem to find a pace that mimicked normal breathing.
 
It seemed that the more I focused on doing it as naturally as possible, the more odd it felt, out of place.
  

How many breaths per minute were enough to keep you alive?
 
How many would be enough to get you to start hyperventilating?
 
Where among those numbers was I?
 
Not wanting to lose this inner battle, I concentrated on trying to keep the burning in my eyes from unleashing its fire in the form of tears instead.
 
That seemed to be easier.
 

I hadn’t cried in school since the seventh grade, when Patricia Daniels had lifted my shirt in front of the entire junior high student body…and I wasn’t wearing anything underneath.

Oh God, why did I remind myself of that?
 
The heat that rimmed my eyes was growing ever stronger.
 
I needed to think about something else before I turned into a bawling, babbling mess in the girls’ bathroom.

I looked down at my hand and saw my class schedule, still clutched in my grip, now wrinkled and crushed by hands that had balled up into frustrated little fists.
 
I hadn’t had enough time to put it away before I bumped into
him
.
 
Its sterile and benign print beckoned.
 
I might as well look it over while I sat here in self-inflicted purgatory.

I had homeroom with Mr. Frey, French with Madame Hidani and Calculus with Mrs. Hoppbaker.
 
I was pleased so far.
 
Mr. Frey was always asleep during homeroom, so I could be late if I wanted, and walking to school would most likely make me late.
 
Madam Hidani was a transplant from Hawai’i who somehow mastered in French Literature and ended up teaching in our small Ohio town.
 
Her fluent and flowing French, coming out of that exotic face always made me smile.
 
Just to throw us off a little more, she had even done the hula while singing in French!
 
Then there was Mrs. Hoppbaker, who was probably the largest woman in all of Heath, and never failed to point out that fact to us every year.
 
I felt a bubble of laughter form in my chest when I thought of how she had introduced herself to us at the beginning of last year.

“Good afternoon students.
 
My name is Mrs. Hoppbaker, and I’m so big, I’ve got two parking spaces reserved for me; one for my car, and one so I can get in and out of it.”

She always did her best to make math fun and had it not been for her, I probably would have never been accepted into the Calculus program she taught in the morning.
 
It was going to be tough, but she would make it a much more pleasant experience than
—
I scanned down the list…

Ugh.
 
Fourth period science:
 
Biology II.
 
Not that I hated dissection or bodily examinations.
 
I’m the furthest thing from squeamish.
 
Rather, it was the teacher Mr. Branke that made me ill.
 
He liked to touch all of the female students.
 
And I mean all of them, including me.
 
It wasn’t the kind of touching that’d get you arrested, just the kind that made you feel uncomfortable.
 
His unwanted attentions had earned him the nickname “The Octopus” because of how it seemed as though he had eight arms, and each one of them somehow managed to touch you all at the same time.
 

I had hoped for the only other Biology teacher at Heath, Mr. Yost, but he required you to take a placement exam before allowing you in, and I’m not one of those naturally gifted braniacs.
 
I’m not an idiot, but I’m not MENSA material either; seeing Mr. Branke’s name on the schedule confirmed what I already knew: I wasn’t cut out for advanced biological sciences.

Fifth period was English Literature, which was a sleeper class with Mrs. Muniz.
 
I had read all of the books on last year’s fourth year syllabus, so I knew there would be nothing new learned there.
 
Sixth period was a surprise, however.
 
Theater?
 
I didn’t even know we had a Drama program! But there it was in black and white, with a Mr. Calvin Danielson listed as the teacher.
 

I knew I hadn’t chosen an elective at the end of last year, hoping that on the off chance that there was nothing else, I could have a free period, but Theater?
 
Seriously?
 
What did I know about the arts other than the plays I had read?
 
I could understand their emotions, sure, but to physically act them out?
 
If I couldn’t lie with a straight face to my dad, how would I manage lying to an entire audience?
 
Maybe I could be a stagehand, a techie—I’d be the person pulling the curtain or handing out props.
 
As long as we didn’t have to get up on stage, I’d be fine.

The sound of the bathroom door opening and the clunking of heavy soles on ceramic tile yanked me from my thoughts.
 
Giggling and talking accompanied the interruption.
 
I recognized one of the voices immediately, even though I had never spoken to her in my life.
 

Erica Hamilton’s voice filled the bathroom with its presence, and did nothing to detract from the air she gave of money, power, and popularity.
 
We were a lot alike in some ways, I suppose.
 
Most people avoided her like the plague, too.
 
Well, most sane people anyway.
 
The difference between the two of us was that while people avoided me because I was odd, they avoided her because of how mean she could be if you dared to cross her.
 
It was the main reason she was as popular as she was.
 
No one felt brave enough to stand up to her; beauty and money were intimidating things.

And she was certainly beautiful.
 
The ice blue eyes that glared past heavy lids were so full of malice, one often felt like they had no choice but to continue to look at her for fear of havoc she’d unleash if you did not.
 
Her smile was full, but upon closer inspection it was plain that she did so through gritted teeth, as though expressing genuine pleasure was somehow painful or annoying.
 

I stared at her, trying to find a reason to like her, if only to make it easier to see why Graham had chosen her.
 
Did she have a redeeming quality of some sort that I didn’t see that Graham did?
 
Everyone knew she was rich, and obviously she was beautiful and popular, but was that it?
 
Graham had never been
that
superficial… On second thought, she did remind me of one of Graham’s favorite actresses who was always casted as the cold, calculating high school villain.
 
Maybe that was it.
 
He liked the beautiful girls with the flawed personalities.
 
I was just flawed.

“Did you see him?
 
Oh my GAWD, he was beautiful!
 
HAWT!” Erica gushed.
 
“I think Graham was getting jealous that he was staring at me for so long.
 
Oh-Em-Gee, those EYES!
 
I swear, they were so amazing!
 
It felt like he could see right into me!”

Another voice replied, “I know!
 
He stared at you for, like,
ever
!
 
Like you were something he wanted to eat!
 
And Graham should be jealous.
 
Hell,
I’m
jealous!
 
He’s not the cutest guy in school anymore!”

More giggling filled the room.

I wanted to gag.

“Speaking of Graham, did you see that freak friend of his?
 
She ran right into that new guy and it was like she bounced off!
 
He repelled her like he had some super power against freakiness or something!
 
Hawtman!” the other voice laughed.

I could see Erica through the crack between the door and the frame of the stall.
 
She was staring in the mirror at her reflection, a twisted smirk on her face.

No.
 
Her eyes were focused somewhere else.
 
She was staring…

At me.

She could see me, knew I was there.
 
She pulled up her lips into a very cruel smile and spoke, “Graham and Grace aren’t friends anymore, Becca.
 
He ended their friendship a couple of weeks ago when I told him it was her or me.”
 
She began messing with her hair.
 
The long, blonde strands shimmered like spun gold, even under the fluorescent lights of the bathroom; the type of hair that Graham always said he hated, but the exact same hair that he had been playing with just a few moments ago.

A snickering-snorting sound followed.
 
“He chose you over his best friend?
 
Girl, he must love you.
 
Those two have been tight since diapers!”

Erica nodded, still staring at me, the cruel, warped smile distorting the beauty of her face.
 
“Of course he loves me.
 
He told me that there’s no one else who makes him feel the way that I do, that he trusts more than me.
 
He said there’s no competition when it comes to me and how he feels.
 
And really, why would there be?
 
I mean, look at me!
 
I at least look like I have girl parts!” she cracked, pushing her breasts together and making a moue with her lips, winking
—
whether at her own reflection or at me I didn’t know.

Girl parts
—
apparently another reason why I wasn’t quite fit to play the part of Graham’s girlfriend and Erica was.
 
I knew that I wasn’t curvaceous.
 
In truth, I was more like the rectangle to her oval; corners where there should be curves.
 
I had breasts, but they just weren’t made of quite enough of the stuff that guys liked to gawk at.
 
I’m fairly certain that I look passable in a bathing suit, but I’d never grace the cover of some swimsuit magazine.
 
I didn’t really think that that had any bearing on Graham and me, but looking at Erica’s body, how her little pink top and her brown corduroy skirt hugged her shape, I understood that I wasn’t physically attractive to Graham either.
 
It just kept piling on, didn’t it?

Erica put her hands down and started digging through her bag.
 
“Did you know that she told him she was in love with him the day he ended it?
 
He told me about it afterwards and we laughed at how pathetic that was.
 
God, she’s desperate.
 
He even told me how he always felt sorry for her because her mom had died and everything
—
but that just proves what a good guy he is doesn’t it?
 
So goddamn charitable.