Title: Surviving Exile
Author: Anisky
Summary: Based on my little "Finding Solace" vignette. Lizzie and Miranda enter high school, and change isn't always good.
Rating: R: For cursing, eating disorders, drug use, and sexual/lesbian themes (I kinda think the drug use pushed it over the edge in this chapter).
Disclaimer: Miranda, Gordo, Lizzie, Kate, etc all, do not belong to me. They are the property of Disney Channel.
Reviews: Yes please. All flames will be put towards my annual campfire where I roast yummy marshmallows.
A/N: Ahh, we finally get to the action! Please read and review.
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Chapter 5: Intricacy
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I walked along beside Lizzie and Gordo, dragging my feet and falling a bit behind. It was two days later, a Friday evening, and I had agreed to hang out with them at the mall. I had met them only twenty minutes ago, and already I was feeling awkward.
Lizzie had been cheerful. "Miranda!" she had exclaimed, letting go of Gordo's hand to run over and hug me. "Finally! I missed you!"
"You've seen me every day in school," I said, still in a sour mood from my lousy week and trying to mask how my heart leapt when she hugged me. I tried to stay cheerful but it was hard in the face of four years of this sort of misery.
"Not for long," Lizzie pouted out with a pout, letting go of me and stepping back. "And I barely got to talk to you on Tuesday. Is everything okay?"
Sweet, friendly Lizzie was genuinely concerned. I glanced over at Gordo, who was avoiding my eyes. I hadn't spoken to him since that day in biology, and though he'd said that he wanted to talk to me, he hadn't made much of an effort.
Lizzie was my best friend, and so was Gordo, really, so of course I told them the truth.
"Things have been kind of rough," I admitted. "High school is… harder than I thought. I'm having trouble meeting people, and Kate's in all of my classes. She's been an absolute nightmare."
"Really?" Lizzie raised her eyebrows in surprise, and I was of course surprised that she was surprised.
"What, like this is news?" I'd asked with a laugh.
Lizzie and Gordo shared another look.
"Miranda…" Lizzie trailed off and looked at Gordo desperately for help.
Grudgingly, he'd looked at me and spoke. "Kate and us, we came to an… understanding, this summer in Rome. A truce."
I'd stared at them in shock. "A truce?" I asked numbly.
"Yeah," Lizzie said, forehead furrowed in confusion. "I can't believe she's been that bad to you. Are you sure--"
"Of course I'm sure!" I cried. I couldn't believe that I was hearing this. "She's been making fun of me nonstop in my classes, she's knocked into me and tortured me during lunch—I can't believe you guys are friends with her again!"
"Calm down, Miranda, we didn't know," Gordo told me. Lizzie looked close to tears.
"I'm sorry, I didn't think she'd do that, I'll talk to her…"
"It's okay," I mumbled, feeling bad that I'd made Lizzie feel so bad.
They both promised that they would talk to Kate, though I couldn't believe that it would do any good. We had looked at each other without knowing what to say for a few moments (why were all of my days filled start to finish with awkwardness now that high school had started?), and had begun decided to start meandering around the mall.
And now, of course, here I was, dragging my feet behind them as they walked along hand in hand. They were still friendly with me, of course, because to them nothing had changed, really. But I felt so out of place. They were together and I felt like I was invading their date. They were adapting to this strange new world of high school and leaving me in the dust.
I stared at Lizzie's golden hair and felt sorry for myself.
"How do you do it?" I asked her later, earnestly, she and I were pawing our way through a clothing store while Gordo had retreated to the bookstore. "How do you meet people? At lunch people just sit with everybody they already know and there's no time in classes."
"Well everybody was new, so it was easy to meet people before school as long as they looked like freshmen," Lizzie said with a little giggle. "I've heard that clubs are a really good way to meet people, though. I'm joining the school newspaper, and a community service club, and yearbook, I think. You should do those with me! Or Glee Club or something, you were really good when you did that in middle school, remember?"
That was a thought. "As long as I stay away from theatre," I said with a giggle.
Lizzie laughed.
We met up with Gordo at the food court. Both of them got pizza, but I didn't get anything. Both of them looked concerned; they remembered what had happened in middle school.
"You're sure you're okay?" Lizzie asked me.
"I'm fine," I insisted. "I've already had dinner."
Lizzie looked at me suspiciously.
"I did!" I said again, irrationally annoyed that she did not believe me. Of course, I was lying, but the fact that my best friend didn't trust me still annoyed me.
I knew it didn't make sense, but I was too depressed from school (and maybe, I admitted in a tiny part of my brain, too dizzy from not having eaten) to bother being rational.
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"Wow, you've got it bad, don't you?" I was hanging out with Jessie before classes a week later. Lizzie had just walked into the hallway, and I realized that I had been staring at her.
"What?" I asked, blushing and shifting, quickly taking my eyes off of my friend.
Jessie had already managed to follow my gaze, however. "That girl. The blonde chick. You're into her, aren't you?"
"Lizzie? What? Of course not!" I stammered. "No, no, Lizzie is my friend from middle school. My best friend. She's dating my other best friend, Gordo."
"Gordo, a guy?" Jessie asked.
"Yes, of course a guy!" I exclaimed.
Jessie snorted and looked at me in a maddeningly condescending way. "There's no of course about it," she said. "You're in high school now, Miranda. You're going to see lesbian relationships. A couple gay couples, too, but more of them are in the closet. Guys don't have the luxury of being protected by straight male fantasies." She rolled her eyes.
"But, I mean, we aren't," I told her. "We're just friends."
"So you said. If she's your best friend, why doesn't she come over here?"
I looked over again. She was talking with a group of people I didn't know. Gordo wasn't with her, but I recognized the red haired girl I'd met last week. Chelsea.
"She just hasn't seen me," I said.
"Why don't you go over there?"
"Well, I'm hanging out with you."
Jessie laughed. "You're sweet, Miranda. Even if you are in denial."
I scowled. I was not!
"Anyway," she continued, "why don't you come over my place tonight? My parents are out, and the whole gang is getting together. Most of us from lunch, and a few of us who you don't know yet, too. It'll be fun."
"Sure, why not?" I shrugged. I gave her my phone number right as the warning bell rang.
My day went much as those before had. My teacher piled homework, I felt awkward and tried to figure out how to find more friends and failed, I tried not to think too much about what Jessie had said, and Kate was still a horrible bitch. I wondered whether or not Lizzie had talked to Kate yet, and what both of them had said. It wasn't a conversation that I could imagine.
I went home and did my homework and Lizzie called me and asked if I wanted to hang out with her and her new friends. I told her that I had plans but didn't tell her what. It never even occurred to me to invite her to spend time with Jessie, Joey and the others. The two worlds were just too different.
And though I felt bad admitting it, even to myself, I did feel a little ashamed of the "weirdoes" that I had fallen in with.
Jessie called me soon after to give me directions to her house. It was within walking distance, so I didn't need a ride. I decided to talk half an hour to finish my homework so that I wouldn't have to worry about it after I got home. I figured that Jessie and her friends would be there for a while. As soon as I was finished, I grabbed my purse and headed down the stairs.
"I'm going out, Mom," I stuck my head into the other room to tell her.
"Where?"
"To a friend's house."
"Whose?" she asked.
"A new friend. Her name is Jessie."
"With Lizzie?"
I sighed. "No, she's busy."
"What's this Jessie's phone number?" My mother demanded.
"I don't know," I told her.
"What if I need to get in contact with you?"
"If you bought me a cell phone," I started to say, but Mom cut me off.
"A cell phone? You are too young to have a cell phone," she told me.
"I'm in high school!" I argued.
"The answer is no, and that's final."
I sighed. "I'll be back later."
"Not so fast, young lady!" my mother exclaimed.
I wearily came back into the room. "What?" I asked her.
"What if I need to get in contact with you? If there's an emergency?"
"I'll call you from her house and give you the number," I told her.
She agreed, though she didn't look very happy about it. "Do it immediately when you get there," she instructed me, "and be home by ten o'clock."
I gaped. "Mom, that's way early! I—"
"You are fourteen, I am your mother, and you will be home at ten or you're not going out at all," she said severely.
I sighed. This was not an argument that I would win.
"And what about dinner?" she asked.
"I'm eating at Jessie's house," I said.
"You haven't been eating since halfway through the summer," my mother complained. "I don't like how thin you're getting."
"I've been eating plenty! Just not so much at home, that's all."
She sighed, and I left. It wasn't far to Jessie's house.
"Miranda, hi," Jessie greeted me. "Glad you could make it. C'mon." I quickly called my mother. Jessie led me upstairs to her room, where a group of people was gathered. It smelled smoky, but in a nice way, and I assumed that she had been burning incense.
I knew Joey, Eli, Will, and Cassie, but there were a guy and a girl who I didn't know. The guy was short and had dark hair and dressed in a similar style to the others, spiked hair and punk clothes. The girl had long, light red hair, and dark eyeliner.
"This is Derek, and Elena. Guys, this is Miranda. She's a freshman."
All of them, including Will, had stopped calling me "fresh meat." Thankfully it did not seem as though Derek or Elena wanted to do that.
"Hey," Will said casually. "Want some?" He held out something that I realized with a jolt was a joint.
"Um, no, thanks," I said. I was shocked. I was still in that innocent, rule abiding middle school student mindset. Drugs were bad and I couldn't imagine why anybody would do them.
"You sure?" he asked.
I steeled myself for the much-promised peer pressure as I repeated, "No, thanks."
But he just shrugged and passed it to Elena, who put it between her lips and inhaled deeply. The tip became brighter and burned more quickly. She held her breath and passed it to Cassie. After a moment, she let out her breath, full of smoke. It reminded me of a dragon. I watched, fascinated.
I don't know quite what I expected. For them to go insane, maybe, and start hallucinating. But they stayed surprisingly normal. They laughed a lot, and were a bit forgetful, and made a few odd statements, but it was much more minor than I had expected.
Still, it made me uncomfortable.
What they didn't tell me in middle school health class was that the pressure didn't usually come from people head-on telling you to do something. I just felt left out, odd for being sober in the midst of everybody being stoned. I knew that I could not go home high. I couldn't even imagine what my mother would do. Even grounding me for the rest of high school didn't seem severe enough for her.
So it was barely nine o'clock when I decided to leave. I don't even remember what excuse I gave, but it didn't matter, everybody was stoned enough that they didn't find it that odd.
But after the encounter with my mother I didn't want to go back home so early, so I just wandered around the neighborhood. It was nighttime, and the fall air was beginning to become chilly, especially as I was still halfway accustomed to the Mexican heat. I hugged myself and was along the road near the movie theatre when I saw her, getting out of the car.
At first glance I just saw the blonde hair and thought it was Lizzie, since my mind was still on her, but my heart sank when I saw on second glance that it was Kate. Damn it. I began to turn around, having no desire to run into her while I was alone at night.
But I paused when I realized the she had slammed the car door and was now walking away. It looked like she might be crying. To my surprise, whoever was in the car simply drove away instead of going after her. Unless Kate had moved, it was quite far away from her house.
I don't care, I told myself. She's been making my life miserable. If she's left alone at night, it's just what she deserves.
But when she walked into a nearby alley, I didn't know why, but I found myself following her.
She was sitting on the ground, leaning against a brick wall, crying and looking so crumpled that I couldn't believe it was Kate. I just stood there, staring, having no idea what to say.
She looked over and saw me. "What do you want?" she asked bitterly.
"Are you okay?" I found myself asking.
Kate tried to push away her tears. "Why do you care?" she asked, looking away.
I was asking myself the same thing. "I don't know."
"Then go away."
I have no idea why I didn't, but I couldn't just leave her there. "Do you have any way to get home?"
"What's wrong with you, Miranda?" Her voice using my real name sounded strange, though it was almost too tear choked to sound like her anyway. "I bet you're just relishing this, watching me cry in an alley."
It was strange, because I wanted to relish it, but for some reason I didn't. I didn't say anything.
"Fine, if you won't go, then I will." She stood up and turned away from me, stalking her way down the alley.
"Kate, wait!" I called, and ran after her. I grabbed her wrist.
"Don't touch me!" she shrieked, turning around and facing me with wild eyes. "Don't touch me, you freak!"
"Kate, calm down!" I told her. Why didn't I just leave her alone like she was telling me to? It would be so much easier. "How are you going to get home?"
"I'll walk," she said bleakly, turning away from me to hide her tears.
"Why don't you go somewhere and call to get someone to pick you up?"
Kate snorted. "Who?" she asked. "My parents are off in Europe, and my sister is out with friends. She won't be home for hours, if at all tonight."
She looked so bleak. So human.
Lizzie had seen something in her. Could there be more to Kate Sanders than met the eye?
"I'm sure she'd come pick you up if you called her," I said carefully.
She laughed the unhappiest laugh I'd ever heard. "Don't count on it."
I let out a breath, having no idea what to do. Kate had stopped crying, mostly, and was wiping her tears away. Both of us seemed at a loss for what to say. For some reason I couldn't leave her here, but I also didn't want to offer for her to come home with me.
"What happened?" I asked her. I didn't expect her to answer, but for some reason, she did.
"Fucking asshole," she muttered angrily. "He just wanted one thing from me."
My eyes went wide.
She looked over at me and smirked, but it was a far cry from her usual smirks. When she spoke her voice was quiet. "You're so innocent, Miranda, aren't you? Just like Lizzie."
No. I was not much like Lizzie. I didn't know why, or what had changed, but for some reason she and I were no longer like each other.
"Did she…" I trailed off.
"Ask me why I was being so mean to you at school? Yes, she did."
I couldn't help asking, now that Kate was acting human, like a real person who could feel and answer and didn't just exist to make my life a living hell. "Why?"
She looked up at me, but instead of answering asked me a question. "Why are you out here, alone, at night?"
She'd told me the truth, and I figured I might as well do the same. "My friends were all smoking pot, and I…" I trailed off.
"Not with Lizzie," she said.
"No," I agreed.
"And you refused, then left, didn't you?" She closed her eyes and continued before I could answer. "Yes. Of course you did. As I said: innocent."
I just stood there.
She looked at me. "You've lost weight," she said. "You're so thin."
I felt much too happy about her saying that, though I could not believe that it was true.
"Look at you," she whispered. She wrapped her fingers around my upper arm. I stared at her, stunned, so confused about what was happening. "You're a stick. It would take nothing at all to…"
She trailed off.
She smelled slightly like the room Jessie's room, slightly of alcohol. It suddenly occurred to me that she had used drugs tonight. But why had she refused that boy, gotten so angry that she had left the car? I'd always heard that girls were more vulnerable to being taken advantage of when they got drunk or used drugs.
She was so close. She was all wrong—too tall, too curvy, to be Lizzie. But something about the night, and her blonde hair, and for a moment they melded in my mind.
It was the same moment that it happened. I don't know whether she leaned in or I did, but a moment later, we were kissing. I closed my eyes and saw Lizzie's face, though Kate tasted nothing like I imagined Lizzie might. Kate's mouth tasted of alcohol and strawberries and something else, I didn't know what.
We pulled back, both at the same time. She looked as shocked as I felt. She backed away from me, quickly, releasing my arm.
"Go away," she whispered in a choked voice. I backed away and then turned, stumbling down the alley in shock.
"Miranda!" she called after a few seconds. I turned, so unsure, still close enough to still see her clearly by the grimy street light.
"What?" I asked dumbly.
"If you tell anybody," she told me, looking me straight in the eye, "I will kill you."
I believed her.