Author's Note: Another long one! Hope you like it. Thank you to those who have reviewed so far, and to those who haven't, please do!
I don't sleep. No matter what position I'm in, a bruise is always hitting the couch. And with each murmur of pain comes a vision of Jude—Jude in the dress, clutching his swelling cheek; Jude cowering in the corner, bits of broken plate on the ground. When I hear birds starting to chirp I duck into the bathroom and wash my face. I wish I could call Jude again, but I put Brandon's phone back last night. There's nothing to do now but come up with a plan to get to him.
It's more than ten miles to San Ysidro. I could walk it if I had to, but they'd figure out I'd left before I even got there. And I'd never arrive in fighting shape. I have no car, no money for a taxi, and no access to a bus schedule. Since that basically leaves sprouting wings, I'm feeling pretty well and truly screwed. But I have to get there. Jude's waiting for me.
Everyone is coming downstairs now. The kitchen is chaos, people talking, food being served, plates clinking. The plates just remind me of Jude, and the whole scene puts me in a worse mood than ever. I see coffee left in the pot on the counter and make a beeline for it. Everyone goes silent so fast it's almost funny. Apparently the Foster teenagers don't drink coffee.
I'm not a Foster. And I definitely drink coffee.
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Everyone is talking on the way to school, but I'm not listening, and I don't have anything to say. I can feel my mouth getting drier, and I find myself rubbing the bottom of my sleeve between my thumb and forefinger. It's sort of soothing. The ride is short, and all too soon the car is slowing to a stop. I've done this before; Jude and I have been in 7 new schools, not counting Juvie, in the last 6 years, but it's never easy. And this time I have a bruised face. And I don't have Jude.
A warm breeze hits me as I get out of the car, and I just stare at my surroundings. I've never seen a school like this. The schools I've been to are basically cinder block and metal cages in concrete parking lots. These school buildings are white stucco with red tiled roofs. The whole school is lined by a sandy beach, and the wind is rustling the fronds of the palm trees. Kids are running into the ocean, surfboards under their arms. Girls in pink sweaters are talking to boys in khakis.
I'm going to Malibu Barbie Charter School.
Lena makes sure I have my class schedule and says something about my teacher being a lot of fun. I can't stop staring at the sky. It's unnaturally blue. She walks off and I turn to Brandon.
"You go to school here?"
"Yeah," Brandon shrugs off the question like it's no big deal. I don't know if he's embarrassed or just doesn't understand why I'm asking. "So…Your classroom is over there. You'll find it okay, right? I have like 20 minutes before class and I want to go practice for the music finals for my competition."
I nod, but as he walks off I immediately become aware of the glances and stares coming my way. I clutch my notebooks more tightly to my chest, wishing I could disappear. I know it looks desperate, but anything's better than this, so I call out to Brandon to wait, and follow him to the music room. He's playing a piece on the piano. Something he wrote himself. It's sort of light. Pretty. He says it's about the time his moms asked him if the twins could come and live with them. I don't really understand that. There are songs that are made to sound pretty, and songs that tell a story, but the ones that tell stories, well, tell stories.
I finally give up and ask him, "How is it about that? It doesn't have any words." He begins to play each part for me. Each hand plays something different, a different person speaking, or a different part of the conversation. He talks me through the piece; as he speaks, as his moms speak, as the twins speak, and then his hands play the whole conversation, all of them speaking together. I can hear what he's talking about. The pieces do sound better together. It's nice, and I tell him so. He just says,
"There's still something missing."
I refuse to let myself wonder whether he's speaking metaphorically.
"Wait…your moms asked you if the twins could move in with you? Were you going to say no?" I can't believe they would actually ask him. And if they did, why would he say yes? He had two moms all to himself.
"Nah, I mean, I don't know—I guess I figured there was enough to go around," he says.
"Enough of what?" I ask, really curious now.
"Everything." He says it so simply, and I know what he means. He's not just talking about food, and space, and hot water. He means love. He means caring. How many children would recognize that, and offer it to other kids?
The door opens and a tall, pretty strawberry-blond comes in to the music room. She and Brandon kiss, knocking me straight out of my admiring reverie. Good, it's nice that his fire hydrant is marked. I don't ever want to go there again. His girlfriend, Talya takes me to our classroom. We have the same teacher, the "fun" guy Lena was taking about.
I guess he's fun. I don't know. He cracks jokes and stuff but they're mostly about the readings, which I haven't done. I think the book is about a man who turns into a bug. They keep saying "Metamorphosis." I wonder if that's really the name of the book, or just the fancy word they use for something changing into something else. I wonder what it would be like to wake up as a bug. I mean, you'd basically spend all day rooting through garbage to find food and trying to avoid getting stepped on, right? That has an unsettling familiarity. I guess there's a reason they say horrible things will "squash you like a bug." But they also say cockroaches can survive anything. I wonder if it's better to survive, knowing you're a cockroach, or to die knowing you're something a little less repellant.
"Did he participate in his own transformation? Did he will it? Did he want it to happen? Or was it something that happened to him?" Timothy's words are buzzing lazily around my ears. I hear something clinking and look over to see a car key hanging from the belt of the boy at the next desk. I just have time to shout inside and to smile at the boy before I hear Timothy calling my name.
"Callie? I know you haven't read the material yet, but what would you do if you suddenly woke up and found yourself living a nightmare?"
The class turns their heads to look at me. I freeze. I can't believe he just asked me that. Has no one told my teachers that I'm a foster kid? Even if they haven't, do you think the new girl with the bruised face is the best person to ask about living a nightmare? Gee, Mr. Timothy, I don't know. When I woke up and found out my mother was dead I had to throw my clothes in a trash bag and leave the only home I'd ever known. Is that enough of a nightmare for you? Is that the proper protocol to follow when you find yourself in one?
Thank God, the bell is ringing. I seriously don't know if I would have left the room, cried, or punched him. Instead, I pick up my notebook and follow the kid with the car key down the hall. I've found my ticket to Jude, and I'm going to get it punched no matter what.