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Sophomore Year
IT’S SURPRISINGLY EASY TO
completely transform yourself. I had my
contacts. I had new clothes that my mom did not help me pick out at Kmart. I
had finally figured out my hair, after fourteen years of frizz and headbands.
Finally let my bangs grow out, instead of that perpetual in-between state they
had been in for years. I pierced my ears at the mall during one of our back-to-
school shopping trips, little rhinestone studs that sparkle just enough to be
noticeable. Mara got her second holes done before it was my turn, just so I
wouldn’t be afraid.
I don’t put on much makeup. Just enough. Lip gloss, mascara. I don’t look
slutty or anything, just nice. Just normal. In my normal, fashionable jeans that
fit me right. A simple T-shirt and cardigan that doesn’t hide the curves I
finally seem to have grown into over the summer. I just look like someone
who’s not a kid anymore and can make her own decisions, like someone
about to start her sophomore year—someone who’s not hiding anymore.
I slip my new sandals onto my bare feet before I head out the door.
“Oh my Lord!” Mom shouts, pulling on my arm before I can leave. “I can’t
believe how beautiful you look,” she squeals, holding me at arm’s length.
“You can’t?”
“No, I can. I just mean there’s something different. You look so . . . so
confident.” She smiles as her eyes take me in. “Have a great first day, okay?”
Mara got a ride with Cameron, whom she started hanging out with again
toward the end of the summer. So I wait for her on the front steps of the
school. People look at me as they pass. It’s strange. I’ve never been seen like
this. As a regular person. I test out a smile on this one girl I’ve never seen
before. As an experiment. Not only does she smile back, but she even says
“hey.”
I spot another lone girl walking up the steps. Just as I’m about to try it on a
new test subject, I stop short as she looks up at me, her dark, dark eyes
burning against her warm, tanned skin, her black hair shining in the morning
sunlight.
“Amanda, hi,” I finally say, taken back by her presence—by the hot sinking
feeling her presence leaves in my stomach—by all the memories of the past, of
growing up together, of her and Kevin, and Kevin, and Kevin, and Kevin.
Stop,
I command my brain.
It can’t quite stop, but it slows down just enough for me to try to smile
anyway. Because all of that is in the past, I remind myself. It’s not something I
need to think about ever again. And Amanda has nothing to do with it
anyway.
“I guess I forgot you’d be going here this year.” Smile.
She moves in close to me, so close I want to back up. And then quietly, but
firmly, she hisses, “You don’t have to talk to me.”
“No, I want to—”
“Ever,” she interrupts.
“I don’t—I don’t get it.”
She shakes her head ever so slightly, like I’m missing something
completely obvious, and then smiles coolly before shoving past me. I turn
around and watch in disbelief as she walks away. I hardly have time to worry
about it, though, because the second I turn back there’s Mara, shouting, “Hey,
girl!” with Cameron following along behind her. Mara kisses me on the
cheek, and whispers in my ear, “You look A-MAZE-ING. Seriously.”
“Hey, Edy,” Cameron says, looking off somewhere past me.
“Hey,” I mumble back.
Mara frowns a little, but she’s used to it by now. Cameron and I are never
going to be friends.
“All right, you ready?” she asks me, her face glowing with excitement, her
short cranberry hair framing her features perfectly.
I take a deep breath. And exhale. I nod.
“Let’s do this,” she says, locking her arm with mine.
After homeroom, it’s trig, which makes me want to scream already. Then
after trig, it’s bio. Stephen Reinheiser is in my class. I can feel him looking at
me, staring with his glasses and his fresh haircut and his brand-new clothes—
his trying too hard—craning his neck eagerly, begging for me to look up at
him when it’s time to pick a lab partner. I quickly turn to the girl next to me
and smile, as if to say: I’m friendly, I’m normal, smart—I’d be a great lab
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