Chapter 1 — The Dream Changed

A boy threw his backpack on the table, and I flinched. No one seemed to notice, so I huddled down in my chair. If I got lucky, then no one would talk to me today. I got lucky most days. On occasion, one of those bad days would come when someone remembered that I existed and bothered me.

The teacher came into the room and took up residence at the front. She glanced around at us with the trademark mixture of disdain, exhaustion, and hope that I had come to associate with her. Well…with most high school teachers, actually. I figured they all lost sight of their hope around their third or fourth year teaching.

Dreams always changed like that, ruined by reality.

Mrs. Clint started talking, and I tried to focus on her. I liked English the most of all my classes, mostly because by the time senior year rolled around, English consisted mostly of reading. I didn’t have to do group projects or pretend like I gave a damn. Good thing, too, since I failed at both of those things.

That day, however, she decided to make it fun. I hated when teachers decided to do that. “Fun” usually described something I’d rather stab myself in the throat than do. I quickly realized this was no exception when she started explaining the game that she wanted us to play.

Mrs. Clint divided the class into two teams and then told us that we’d be going over our vocabulary words. She set two dry-erase markers down on the desk up front and called two people up. When they knew the word that went with the definition, they needed to grab their marker and give the answer.

I considered crawling underneath my desk and not coming out. If I stayed quiet enough, maybe no one would notice me.

“All right,” Mrs. Clint said with a grand smile plastered on her plastic-looking face. Something about the red shade of her makeup always made her look like a doll to me. It shined in the overhead lights and matched her 1940s outfit a little too well. She dressed the way a schoolteacher would have several decades ago, the ones in old ads in newspapers. I couldn’t fathom why, other than she liked the way it looked. “Who wants to go first?”

No one volunteered, and I started to slide further down in my chair. Horrible images of her calling on me started to pop into my head, each of them more ridiculous than the last. I knew that nothing bad would happen when I got up there. It would take a special psycho to think they could get away with it.

Mrs. Clint called on two people and went to sit at her desk. She pulled out a laptop and started typing furiously on it, trying not to look over at us. I didn’t pay much attention to her, though. She would call out the definition of a word, and the people up front would respond.

Much like any game, almost everyone got heavily involved once the competition started. They had to win, even if it meant fake wrestling the boy standing next to them.

I kept one eye on the clock, hoping that time would run out before she got to me. Sadly, no such luck.

“Whilda?” Mrs. Clint called, looking right at me. “Your turn.”

Curses ran through my head as I stood up and felt everyone’s eyes turn to me. I imagined that they were judging me for the skirt I wore or the fact that my sweater swallowed me. Basically, any stupid thing that a person could judge another for, I pictured them judging me for.

“Harold?” Mrs. Clint said. “You can go against her.”

The boy that came forward looked about as happy to be there as I did. He stood at the front with his arms crossed over his chest, glaring at the back wall. I tried not to look at anything, because all those faces staring back at me had my heart stuttering. I didn’t want their attention.

“All right, are you two ready?” Mrs. Clint asked.

We said nothing.

She read the definition, but I couldn’t hear the words over the way my heart thundered. Neither Harold nor I went for the marker at first. But then he grabbed it, probably thinking that he had to, and said, “Trepidation?”

“Yes, Harold.” Mrs. Clint smiled. “Good job.”

Everyone on my team stared at me like they had just scented fresh meat. I shuffled over to my chair and slid in. The boy in the seat behind me leaned forward and said, “You always try that hard? I’m surprised you haven’t graduated already.”

I sighed. So, this is what today is going to look like.

***

After school, I started walking home. My chest felt tight, like it always did after a day like today. My heart hadn’t settled down until lunchtime, and by then I had to navigate the cafeteria and find a spot to sit where no one would bother me. I ended up sitting outside under the overcast fall Texas sky, hoping it wouldn’t rain on my book. I needed it for book things.

It had started to rain sometime during last period, so I walked in the drizzle, my hair already plastered to my face and my skirt sticking to my legs. I had chosen it because I liked the way it flowed when I walked. The hem of it flared out with every step, and I found it amusing. The soft colors also caught my eye. The skirt itself was a light blue, but it had swirls of pink and purple in it.

I turned down my street and paused. All the houses lining the road seemed to stare back at me, silently asking what I was waiting for. My house sat in the middle, and it would only take me a few minutes to get there and step into its warm and dry interior. Then I wouldn’t have to deal with anyone.

Each house was modest in size and had a gate large enough that even a huge man wouldn’t be able to climb over it. At least, on my side of the street. The other side looked emptier to me, because they didn’t need the gates. They didn’t need to keep anyone out of their houses like us humans did.

All their houses looked quiet since it was only early afternoon. They were probably still sleeping, so they had heavy curtains over their windows and their lights out.

When I was little, I’d asked my mother if they were vampires. She had laughed, pet my hair in that affectionate way of hers, and told me that no, Nightmares were something entirely different, but that I didn’t need to worry about them as long as I stayed inside after the sun went down.

My hand tightened on the straps of my bag, and I looked away from those houses back to mine. It looked the worst of all the houses on the human side of the street. The gate had rust spots on it, and several of the spikes had fallen off the top. But we all knew the gates existed purely for show. If someone wanted to get through, it wouldn’t take that much time.

I started walking again, keeping my head down. The rain had picked up, and my clothing had become thoroughly soaked.

When I reached the gate, I set my hand against the fingerprint scanner. Rain made it glitchy, so I had to wipe it off with the bottom of my shirt before using it. When that still didn’t work, I used my body to block the rain and pressed my thumb against the pad once more.

Dad and I needed a new scanner, but he’d never fork over the money. He’d rather leave the gate open than do that.

The little red light at the top turned green, and the gate started to swing open. I looked down the row of similar fences, all topping seven feet, and then glanced across the street. The houses just sat there, looking innocuous. I wondered what it felt like to live without bars around you.

I stepped through my gate and closed the door. The locking mechanism sounded, securing me inside.

The front door had another fingerprint scanner, but that one had broken years ago. Dad and I used keys, nothing more, to get into the house.

“Whilda?” Dad called when I opened the door.

My shoulders curled in. “Yeah, Dad, it’s me.”

A second later, my father appeared in the doorway to the kitchen. He wiped his hands on a towel and stared at me. For what felt like several minutes, he just ran his eyes over my soaked clothing, examining the way my hair plastered to my face. I tried to stand still and not fidget, knowing that he would just eye me while I did that as well.

“Go to your room,” he said. “You’re making a puddle on the floor.” With that, he turned around and went back into the kitchen.

My heart slowed down.

Dad worked as a chef for a restaurant in town. He had the busiest shift, the morning one, so he got home before I did most days. He cooked gourmet breakfasts and lunches all day and then usually came home and acted like I had done something wrong for being at school.

I rushed down the hall and to my room. It faced the front of the house, but I figured it was worth it to be as far away from my father as possible. I changed into my pajamas and then sat on my bed, not looking at anything, missing my mother profusely.

Her picture had been tucked away in my nightstand so that my father wouldn’t find it. I looked just like her, at least my face. She had been Puerto Rican, and my father was German, so I didn’t look exactly like her. She had darker skin and hair and eyes than I did. My skin looked tan year-round, and I had her facial features, but I looked white. I had my father’s blond hair and light blue eyes, but my mother’s short stature and wide hips. I’d look more like her if I could put on five pounds.

Because I hated looking like my father, I’d dyed my hair blue. He hated it, and I regretted the decision the second it had been done. Not because I disliked the blue, but because I felt like pissing my father off more than necessary would just cause me more trouble.

I looked toward the window and out at the onslaught of rain as it started to pick up. I could hear it drumming against the roof, and the wind knocked branches against the windows, making it sound like someone was screaming.

For a moment, I pictured what my mother would’ve done if she hadn’t died. She wouldn’t have let me stay in this house. I knew that. She probably would’ve gotten the gate fixed, if we didn’t live in the same apartment that we used to.

Sometimes, I missed my mother so fiercely that it actually ached. Like someone had carved out my heart and laid it on the desk. Other times, she felt like a dream that I’d had a long time ago. A dream that had died when reality came to visit.

Shaking my head, I put aside all those foolish thoughts and reached for my backpack. I could wish for my mother all day, and I could hide in my room until night came, but that wouldn’t change anything. I’d lived in this house for years, with that man, and I’d survived so far.

Instead of whining and moping, I might as well do something useful. Like math homework and reading.

At the very least, I couldn’t worry about anything else when I focused on algebra.