Grace

September 10th, 2012

Sometimes it feels like it just doesn’t stop raining. It’s been a week and a half since the incident and only now I’ve been allowed to go back to school. It’s not like I want to anyway. Mom says that I had enough time off but I don’t think so. Therapy has helped but I still dream about it every night. It always ends the same way and I always wake up the same way; in cold sweat. Today isn’t any different.

They call Darkwood the cursed town of the world. It’s a town shadowed by rain clouds more often than not. From what I read online it’s a small town but big enough that there’s everything inside a typical suburban town would have. It’s miles east of Seattle and isolated enough to be hidden from the rest of the world. Most of the town is towards the west and to the east is a great forest that the rest of the town surrounds. It’s a unique town, being more circular than anything with this forest in the middle. The poor live directly south of it, the rich into the east and the middle class in the north, where I live, where Mom decided to move to.

The high school hugs the forest’s west entrance and I’m standing in front of it one more time. The weather is gloomy again and it makes the forest even more intimidating. It’s a stark contrast to sunny California and I miss it. As I take my first steps inside again, I see the same sights I saw before. People all hang out in their groups in their spots. By the entrance of the school is the main office where I see the drama kids again. The jocks and cheerleaders hang out close by them. My locker is near them and I only pray they don’t notice me.

The school doesn’t seem any different but I notice the memorial for Elizabeth when a few students move away from it. She was so loved. The memorial is covered with letters and flowers. Elizabeth was the most popular girl in school and now she’s gone. I gag when I remember the gunshot, the smell of gunpowder and the taste of the blood. The ringing in my ear comes back and I rush to the bathroom to hurl. I hate this.

Why did she have to do it?

Why was I there?

The stall is forced opened and I jump back, startled. I hit the body of someone. It’s Megan, the girl who invited me, the girl who made me drink so much. “What the **** are you doing back?” She pushes me down and forces me to sit on the toilet. There’s a blonde hair girl behind her recording this.

“Um,” is all I manage to say.

“It’s all your fault, y’ know? You shouldn’t have been there! It should have been you!” Megan kicks me in the chest and I hear a bop! My head hit the wall. The pain comes right after and I feel the salt in my eyes. It’s middle school all over again.

“It wasn’t my fault!” my voice cracks. I want to cry, I want to leave. I didn’t want any of this.

“Whatever,” Megan scoffs. She kicks me in the stomach and leaves, leaving me to wince in pain. The sound of the bell covers my crying for the second I break down. I thought high school was the place where I can reinvent myself. Turns out that everyone knows that Elizabeth shot herself in front of me so everyone is avoiding me. It’s only my second day and I’m reliving middle school. It’s not fair.

I run straight to the Dean’s office. Mr. Scrote is his name based on the name of the door. I frantically tell him what happened. “Megan O’Hare? Don't be ridiculous, that girl is a saint,” he laughs me off. “Everyone here is still mourning, stop spreading lies and get to class.”

He’s serious. I get up flabbergasted and walk out of his office. What is wrong with this school?

I get to class late and everyone immediately starts to whisper about me. I get nauseous right away and I want to leave but my mom would have my head if I did. I sit down next to a girl who immediately moves her desk slightly away. Great.

This goes on for the rest of the classes. Everyone avoids me, and when they don’t they push me and laugh at me. They call me, “brain guts,” and I can only endure it. I can only repress the memory of that night. Bits and pieces come back and I can remember all the screams around me. The experience sobered me up. Then all the blue and red lights flashing through the forest come through. I wonder how nobody got in trouble, not even I did. My mom never yelled at me about it.

At lunch I find the cafeteria filling up as I arrive. It’s weird, the atmosphere is different from what I remember it being last. It must be mourning. I find a round table in the corner empty, away from everyone. This is where I sit. I keep my head down in hopes that I’m not disturbed. It doesn’t work as a fluff of red hair sits in front of me. I look up and see one of the girls who were at the party. She’s pretty, really pretty. “Hey-a!” She says before I can look at her more. My first thought is that she’s going to tease me. “You’re in algebra class during 8th. What’s a freshman doing there?”

She’s right, I’m the only freshman in that senior class. “I uh, took high school math classes in middle school,” I reply faintly.

“I didn’t even know you could do that, wow, cool,” she giggles and extends her hand out for a handshake. “My name is Emily.” I take her hand and shake it but I don't tell her my name. Maybe she doesn’t know who I am. “You are?” Emily asks as she looks at my ID on my lanyard. I look at hers as well. Emily Crowe, a Senior.

“Grace.”

“Gracie, what a pretty name,” she smiles. “Let me be the first to introduce you to this awful school.”

“What do you mean?”

Emily takes a look around, giving me a chance to examine how long and fluffy her crimson red hair is. She wears a white sweater and light blue jeans and I notice a black and red bandana wrapped around her wrist. Emily looks back at me, “Nobody here cares. Everyone here is out for themselves so don’t worry about the kids that are being mean. I’ve noticed the way they were looking at you. I’m sorry for what happened.”

Great, she knows. “Oh, um, it’s okay.”

“It’s not,” Emily frowns. “You’re new here and nobody wants to be your friend for something that was out of your control. It’s s****y, but that isn’t gonna stop me from being your friend.”

“Huh?”

Emily smiles, “Consider me your first friend.” She turns to her side and points to the table closest to the cafeteria entrance. There’s a group of people sitting there and laughing. I assume these are her friends. I first notice the girl dressed in goth, the guy in a green parka, a mean-looking blond hair guy and a skinny black kid. “Whenever you feel comfortable, feel free to stop by and sit with us.”

“Okay,” I say weakly again.

Emily giggles and gets up from her seat. “It was nice meeting you, Gracie. I’ll see you around.” And just like that my first friend walks away to join her table.

She’s an odd one. Emily was too friendly to me or maybe just friendly enough. I don’t know, I can’t tell. This whole day has been a mess and it’s all I can dwell on for the rest of the period. I keep wondering about Emily’s intentions. There has to be an ulterior motive for saying hi to me. Why would she be friends with me? I’m ugly, I don’t know how to do my makeup, I have thick glasses, braces and I spend all my time playing video games. Emily is pretty and popular. I didn’t even have any friends in middle school.

The school days pass and for some reason, nobody tries to avoid me. They still don’t talk to me but nobody is disgusted by my presence. Then my last class of the day comes, algebra. Emily says hi to me when she walks in and sits across the room from me. The seats are divided to be on both sides of the room with the teacher lecturing in the middle. I sit in the far back and Emily sits in the front across me.

A boy with shaggy brown hair comes in and sits next to Emily. She seems pleasantly surprised by his arrival. She calls him Cody from what I hear. He wasn’t at the lunch table earlier. Our eyes meet for a brief moment and I feel a wave of intensity coming from his eyes. His glare makes me turn away in fear. I look again for a moment but Cody’s attention is towards Emily.

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Class ends and Cody is the first one to leave. Emily is physically annoyed by this. She stops me before I can leave class, “Gracie, wait up!”

“Yeah?”

“What are you doing after school?”

“I’m going home, why?”

“Want to go to my place and hang out? It’ll be a good place to meet some people, whaddya say?”

My mom would have told me to go for it if it wasn’t that I betrayed her trust by going to the party. If I ask her I’m sure she would say no. Luckily Mom is a nurse that works her butt off to keep us float so she won’t be home until late. That’s how it is most nights. “Sure, I just have to be home by nine.” I figure if I could ever get the answer to why Elizabeth died, maybe I can understand why it had to be in front of me.

I need to find out why.

“Not a problem!” She smiles, “C’ mon we gotta meet with my friend Sara.”

I follow Emily to the upper floor of the school which I haven’t visited yet since I don’t have a class up there. It’s much spacious up here although I don’t have time to look at the details. We stop by the locker of the goth girl that was sitting by the cafeteria table. She dresses so dark and has blue streaks in her hair. Sara is the complete opposite of Emily. “Hey, Ems,” Sara says closing her locker. “She Gracie?” she asks as she eyes me up and down.

“Yeah. She’ll be joining us today.”

“Cool, I’m Sara,” she waves. “Hope you like us,” Sara laughs.

“Nice to meet you.”

I follow the two girls into a hallway that leads to the commons where all the seniors hang out. This is where the student parking lot exit is as well. I can see the entire forest in this area. Emily ignores everything as she takes me to her Red Honda.

“Did you hear that Alyssa hooked up with Carlos? Emily says to Sara when we get into the car.

“What?! No way! What happened?”

“They were hanging out at the campsite when things got hot, if you know what I mean,” Emily giggles. “Who would have thought? I wonder if your brother is mad Carlos got to her before he did.”

Sara laughs, “Andrew wouldn’t care.”

This is high school gossip. It’s exactly the kind I expected from all the movies I watched to prepare for High School. I don’t have anything to say so I just listen to whatever the two have to say. They talk about the ridiculousness of the actions some of the girls are taking to be the new Queen Bee. Now that Elizabeth is gone there is a huge power struggle going on. Sara counters that nobody cares about that stuff anymore since Elizabeth died.

“It’s a front for their own selfish desires,” Emily answers.

Emily takes us to the northern part of town near where I live. She lives in a street that is hugged directly by the forest. “So what's inside the forest?” I ask.

Sara shakes her head, “besides a campsite on the far east, nothing.”

“There’s the treehouse,” Emily says quietly.

“Really, nothing?”

“Yeah, it’s really easy to get lost in there so nobody goes in. I think people explore a little to do drugs and **** but nobody goes that deep inside,” Sara clarifies a bit more.

“So where does everybody hang out?”

“You’ll always see someone from school at the Diner at the entrance to the town. There’s Darkwood hill, we go up there sometimes. Mostly everyone hangs out at the campsite inside the forest. It’s far away from everything that nobody bothers us there. Other than that everyone’s always at someone’s house. I mean, that’s what we’re doing now.”

Emily pulls into her driveway without me realizing we’re already here. Her house looks as if it might have three stories but I’m not sure. The inside is even prettier than mine. It’s all nicely decorated, Victorian style. Her parents must have a real taste for style. As I look around, I don’t see any pictures of Emily’s mother. Just of her father and who I assume an older sister who looks just like her. Sara goes to the kitchen and Emily tells me to follow her to her room on the second floor.

“What the ****, Andrew!” Emily shouts when she opens the door to her room. “What are you doing here?!”

I walk behind Emily to see what she’s shouting about. “Ah, Emily sweetheart, let’s get this orgy started, yeah?” Andrew says with a bottle of what I think is alcohol sitting in a giant red bean bag chair in front of the bed.

“Get the **** out!” Emily shouts. “You pull this **** every time,” Emily almost laughs. She isn’t mad at all even though she yelled. It’s as she already expected this.

“Alright, alright,” Andrew says standing up and then he looks at me. “Who’s the 12-year-old?”

Emily sighs. “This is Gracie, she’s new to our school.”

Andrew shifts his eyes down to feet and slowly travels his way up. He has familiar eyes. They look like Sara’s. This must be her brother that she was talking about in the car. My stomach tightens. “She’s that girl that got all of Elizabeth’s brain all over her, is it?” he says.

“Andrew!” Emily shouts. This time there was real anger behind them. She’s sticking up for me even though she doesn’t know anything about me.

Andrew’s words bother me but not as much as I thought they would. I remember back to that night. Andrew was the one who took charge of the situation and was the one who dealt with the police. I don’t think the police ever found the party as he shut the thing down in an instant and told them it was an outdoor party. It’s probably because of that, that I’m not in trouble.

“Is Chris and Cody not coming?” Andrew asks.

“No, Chris is with your dealer and Cody is doing whatever,”

Sara comes up from behind us with a few glasses and a bottle of vodka. “Oh shit, Sara, you’re here too.”

“Fuck off, Andrew,” Sara laughs.

Andrew laughs and Sara closes the door behind us. “Right then, anyone wants to get high now?” he says holding up the bag. There’s some green stuff inside but I don’t know what it is.

Emily walks up to him grabbing the bag. “At least you made yourself useful.”

We sit on the floor of Emily's room while she takes out a blue and pink glass pipe looking thing. Andrew laughs for some reason while taking the green stuff out of the bag. “You have the gayest pipes, Emily.”

“Um, what’s that?” I open my mouth for the first time.

Sara is the only one who doesn’t stare at me. “Jesus, Emily, where do you find this girl? How old are you, Grace?”

“Uh, 14?”

Andrew packs the green stuff into the pipe and Emily and Sara laugh. “Right, well since you’ve been living under a goddamn rock for 14 years,” he raises the pipe so I can see it clearly. “This is called marijuana, it gets you high and you smoke it like this, yeah?” Andrew gets out a lighter and lights the weed and proceeds to smoke it.

This is the first time I ever have seen marijuana. I can smell it almost immediately. It smiles like pines but at the same time, it doesn’t. It’s a really strong smell and almost citrusy. I don’t want to be here anymore. Weed is illegal.

Andrew passes it to Sara, who inhales it for like…twenty second straight and she passes it down to Emily. Emily and Sara exhale at the same time and then it gets passed down to me.

I shake my head and scoot myself back.

“What’s wrong?” Andrew asks. “You don’t want to try?”

I shake my head again.

“******* a’ man, where did you find this virgin *** girl, Ems?!”

“Andrew, be nice!” Emily sticks up for me again.

“Why did you bring Ellie’s brain guts here?” He says opening his bottle of alcohol and taking a drink. Those words bother me again. It causes me to see the quick flash of red and the taste of iron when it happened.

“Andrew, how many times did I tell you not to drink and smoke?” Sara complains.

Andrew smiles and says, “Stop acting like my moms, Sis.”

Emily is staring at me and smiling. “You’re really innocent, aren’t you Gracie?” She says.

“Um, I guess.”

“You haven’t done anything, huh?” She asks again. “Y’know that’s special in this town. Going to that party must have been the craziest thing you’ve done in your life.” Emily waits for my response but I can only nod. She’s right, however. I thought nothing would make me cooler than going to a party a Senior invited me too.

“How come you’ve never done anything, Grace?” Emily asks me.

“I don’t know. I just…sometimes get scared. I’m shy.”

“We call tell,” Andrew says smoking more. “You’re a virgin yeah? Why not lose it now…with me?”

Sara punches him in the chest for me. “Don’t be a pig, I’m sure Grace has better standards.”

“Wow, I’m hurt,” he says taking a drink.

I giggle.

“She laughs, she isn’t a robot. That’s good!” Sara laughs.

“So…what do you say, Grace? First time for everything, right Virgin girl?” Andrew asks again.

I smile and shake my head. “No, I think I’ll wait until the right person comes along.”

“Aw **** that, that’s just fairytale bullshit.”

“Don’t judge her Andrew; at least she’s better than all those damn freshmen sluts walking around. Don’t worry, Grace, I was the same your age too,” Emily says.

I laugh.

These are pretty cool people. I don’t mind that they are all weird from what I’ve seen, they’re nice people. I can tell even Andrew’s a nice person despite what he has shown me. He’s just acting tough.

Emily takes me home an hour later. Mom isn’t home yet which is amazing. I smell too much like weed even though I didn’t smoke any.

In bed, I think about the day and Emily’s kindness. She’s serious about being my friend so maybe I don’t have to be all alone again. I can honestly say I’m excited about school tomorrow. I at least know three people enough to call them by their names.

Maybe they’ll let me sit with them at lunch.

Despite all that, the only thing that creeps in my mind is the intensity that Cody’s eyes brought when we first locked eyes in class. I couldn’t keep my eyes away from him, always occasionally glancing over to him.

These thoughts make me feel something I have never felt before. My chest feels like it’s being stepped on.