edited 6/15/2024 11:15 PM CT
 

“You have five minutes to get ready before I leave, and you’ll be walking to school.”
I rolled my eyes at my mother’s empty threat. There was no way she was going to let me walk ten miles on the first day of school, at least not after all that had happened.

Short answer: My father did not approve of me.
Elongated answer: My father saw that I was more into “girly’ things growing up. Yes, I had a Cabbage Patch Kid and yes, I enjoyed my Easy Bake Over. I was ecstatic about dresses and if I saw a unicorn hair clip you better believe I wanted to add to my vast collection. It only took one more pink and blue unicorn, clipped to my shoulder-length hair before my father pounded his fists onto an old table that was my grandmother’s and swore his head off. His tantrum continued for a few more minutes as I received the verbal equivalent of a cat-o-nine-tails.
Every word stung and every gesture sliced into my skin, but my father had more of them as he spewed out every form of obscenity about me he could. I didn’t join any sports teams, was kind of clumsy and I wasn’t outgoing. I had failed to be the man he never was as I didn’t recall my father ever playing football, but he loved watching it on TV or at the stadium. He would drag me to the game, and I would put on a believable façade, at least for the first quarter, but that ultimately failed whenever he asked me what I thought about the cheerleaders. I commented on how they looked pretty good with all matching with their synchronized moves. I then made the mistake of saying I wanted to be a cheerleader in high school.

Two hours later, he decimated the table and stormed out the front door. I ran to the window, not to hope that he would stop and turn around, but more like he’d stop and think about life and how everyone—could be different from what was “expected”. He was expecting me to be a man and charge my way through life, but instead, the caterpillar had become a butterfly…one that had some issues with her wings, but one, nonetheless.

Father did not return that night.

Nor the next night.

Mother called his mobile and received only a message to leave a voicemail. She left so many messages that it had become full at 11:30 PM that evening. I sat on the couch in the living room, not exactly waiting for him to walk through the door with a full apology but perhaps someone who was willing to listen and accept me for being the person he didn’t want to see.
It had been five days of anticipating whether he would barge through the front door or arrive with his heart in his hand. I was able to handle three days of guessing when both shoes would drop but by the fourth and fifth days, my brain was already in full panic mode. I knew he was going to blast his way in and take me down because he could. I sat at the dented dinner table with Mother, and we ate in silence. She tried to be positive, telling me that it wasn’t my fault.
I nodded as I took small bites and listened to the sounds around me—waiting for the bomb to drop.
“I am worried about him,” she said as she looked towards the front door. “I’m afraid he’s going to do something stupid.”
I almost choked on the small bite of food I had in my mouth, but I was able to swallow it. Mother looked down at her plate and then at me.
“When did you get that dress?”
“A few weeks ago. It’s been buried in the closet, and I decided I’d whip it out today.”
“Mmm-hmm,” she replied as she never commented on the things I wore. I could go from a clown costume, a three-piece suit to a short skirt if I pleased to do so. However, in front of my father, she would look at me with a dagger-like stare and motion me to go to my room and change. I argued about it the first time I wore a short plaid skirt. I raised three degrees below holy heck but went upstairs anyway and while changing heard my father’s voice reverberating off the walls. There was a time I could swear he had slapped her, but she never admitted to it, and I never pressed the question.
“It looks a little short.”
“Thank you, that’s the idea,” I replied as I reached for a roll.
“Riley, you shouldn’t wear something so short. It attracts the wrong attention.”
I shrugged with a smile.
“Are you going to wear that to school in the fall?”
“Only if I want to be hoisted up the flagpole.”
“We could work with the school administrators.”
I held my index finger up and placed down my fork. “If we did that, you might as well paint a bullseye on my back. This is high school, home of everyone looking for a target for their aggressions and insecurities. I don’t want to be that…but, if I could for one day, and not have to worry about the next…”

That thought had come up in my not-very-good-at-word-problems brain on how, if I could start the year over, without anyone knowing me, I would indeed start on the right foot. These would be tennis shoes as high heels were a pain to deal with at school, but maybe I wouldn’t trip up as much as I had the previous two years of high school where my awkwardness, or better put, my attempts to be a “normal” guy who would have to smile and nod if someone asked if such and such girl looked hot. Yeah, sure, and her pants had a nice fit and I wanted to ask her where she got her blouse, but I kept it to myself.
So, yeah, the dream would be to walk the hallway as the new girl with a new outlook on life. I would make friends on the first day and get in trouble for talking during the teacher’s opening monologue about how they wanted the class to go. We’d look at her blankly and then laugh as if it didn’t matter. I would show everyone I didn’t want to be popular, but to look at me, I would be a part of the school body and not someone who felt they were shunned and unable to make any friends.
Of course, if I had any friends, I would never invite them to the house due to my father who would have wanted me to “be like ‘your friend’ which would have been awkward.
“Are you sure?” Mom asked.
“I don’t know. There are days when I want to do that. But I couldn’t walk out or in the front door without Dad screaming about something.”
“If you decide that’s how you want to be seen, then he will have to come around to it.”
“Over his dead body,” I replied.
I did not know how right I was.
 

The first day of school can be filled with fear and happiness. The fear of past experiences and memories clouds over what should be a new experience. That was even more so as I stepped out of my room in my mandatory school uniform: a rather cute number with a green tartan, tie, and a white blouse. I placed a small blue and pink pin in the center of my tie. Maybe I’d be forced to remove it, but then I’d just move it to my purse or backpack. I liked the uniform so much mom bought four of them so each day they would look pristine. Together with a black backpack and my brown suede purse.
“You look cute,” Mom said, causing me to shudder.
“What? I can’t compliment you?”
“It’s just a bit…weird.”
“What’s weird is seeing you parading around in a nightgown, skipping around while singing ‘Let It Go.’”
“I’ll accept your compliment.” I hoisted my backpack up and looked at the ground for a moment.
“What’s wrong, Riley?”
“Just thinking…kind of wondering what Dad would have thought of all this. Would he have come around to accept me?”
“Hard to say, Riley,” Mom replied as she grabbed her purse and car keys. “It’s hard to say.
Three months prior, my father was found in the park with multiple gunshot wounds to his chest and face. He looked so bad I was not allowed to see him. I wanted to look at him to get the closure I thought I could have. If anything, I wanted to come out and show him who I really was, like a grand debut, but all I got was financial gain. Yes, the insurance money was helpful, but it couldn’t replace what could have been.
I was thinking about it all with rose-colored glasses. However, I knew in my heart of hearts that my father would have stifled and turned me away or at least shipped me off to one of those school programs from which you never return the same way. So, as heartless as it sounds, I thought that this was the universe’s way of passing out karma and sometimes it has a strange way of turning out. The ‘turning lemons into lemonade’ kind of thing.
We moved away from my hometown and traveled across multiple states to start anew, as Mom kept putting it. Our new house was in the suburbs. It was not as big as our previous home, but I did get a large closet for a new wardrobe. We took truly little with us; just enough that would fit in the back of an SUV. Mom said the old house held onto too many memories and it would be devastating to wake up each day in the shadow of the tragedy of what happened to my dad. I had a few nightmares of a gang of armed and faceless thugs breaking through the windows in order to ‘finish the job’. Those dreams made me agree with her and we left that life behind.
Mom had me enrolled in a private school, Westing Academy, and while I loved the uniform, I hated the name. I had practiced all or the things I would not do on my first day: I would not attempt to make any instant friends; I would avoid the equivalent of a turf war with any cliques; and I would not grin like an idiot to anyone. I would just follow my class schedule.
Thankfully, said schedule did not include gym, because everyone knows how bad gym class is regardless of your sex. If you were a guy, you would be pummeled by a dodgeball or slammed against the ground in a ‘mock game of football’ by some guy who makes Roddy Piper look like a malnourished pawn. If you were a girl, then you were subjected to a barrage of gossip, emotional bullying, and that one girl who assumed she was the princess of the locker room.
The ride to school took us right into the heart of the city and up to a campus with multiple, two-story buildings. It looked like a college, complete with a tree-shaded quad and one building devoted to the cafeteria, or in this case, like a food court. I decided I would bring my lunch to avoid being trapped in yet another line.
We had a few lines that morning. The first one was the drive to get onto campus, and the second one going to the office for a secondary check-in where they gave me a “helper buddy”, not their words; they had said “student escort” but that sounded just as bad.
“Welcome to Westing,” said the girl with short black hair and glasses. Her uniform was a bit droopy on her, as if it was one size too large as she kept tugging on her skirt. “I’m Darlene Evers.”
“Riley Prescott.”
“Rocking that skirt, eh?”
“I like it.”
“I’ll have to have you meet up with Julia Pines,” Darlene leaned in closer, “she always makes a change to her uniform. Sometimes the staff ignore it, but other days they freak out and she gets reprimanded.”
“Like detention?”
“Her family are big donors, so no.”
I nodded.
“The school likes to tie new students to someone who can show them around for a day or two. Let me know if I’m crushing into you too much.”
“Crushing?”
“Getting in your space. I used to live by the rule that I’d not embarrass myself at school, but you know, it’s going to happen no matter what I try to do so I might as well let it happen.”
“Okay,” I replied.
“I won’t cramp your style any more than I have to. First things first, be advised about the building next door. You have homeroom here. It’s also the homeroom building of a lot of the Westing Warrior Cheerleaders. Trust me, you don’t want to meet them, but they’re going to see you and immediately pass judgment.”
“So, it’s no different than public school?”
“It’s worse. They seem to never go to class and are always off to some tournament or competition. I wanted to be one. Tried out, but I didn’t cut it.”
Darlene opened the door and we walked into a cavernous hall with enough space to drive two cars through it. The hallway was a sea of students except for a section on the left side, where the flow of traffic had a large divot in front of a group of girls who were in a different kind of uniform.
“There’s a football game tonight, so they can wear their cheerleader uniforms. Try to ignore whatever they say. If they feel something gets under your skin, they’ll use it against you.”
I tried to avoid looking at them, but they saw me.
“Hey there, newbie. They got you paired with Dyke-lean?”
“It’s a nickname I’m not happy with, but I don’t let it bother me,” Darlene said in a monotone voice.
“Where you from?”
“Eastside, just moved.” I thought since they were asking, it would be a good gesture to respond.
“As if we really cared.”
“I appreciate your heartfelt and caring welcome to me,” I replied. “Have a good day,”
I walked away with Darlene without looking back.
“How did you do that?”
“What?”
“That,” she replied with her mouth wide open in shock.
“I walked away.”
“No, how did you avoid not wanting to deck her?”
“Still thinking about it,” I replied as we turned the corner.

A half-hour later, I stepped out of my homeroom class with more information on how the student body worked. Tragically, it was like my old school, as much as I wanted to disagree with Darlene, it was all the same. The only difference was that no one knew me and could not judge me for past events.
“How was homeroom?”
“One of the cheerleaders, Darcy or Marcy.”
“Darcy, the stress is on the ‘c’.”
“She loves to be the center of attention.”
“Yep,” Darlene replied as a tall and skinny guy stopped in front of us. “Hey, Andy. Riley, this is Andrew, Andy, Kozawaski.”
“Hey,” Andy replied as he gave us a slightly coy smile.
“Andy’s not part of the welcoming committee. But since he is here…” Darlene turned back to Andy and motioned for him to speak.
“First day?”
“Yeah, Darlene’s showing me around.”
“You’re in good hands. Maybe I’ll see you later.”
“Sure, that’d be great,” I replied with a slight smile. “Got to get on to my next class. Don’t want to be too late on my first day.”
“Have a good one,” he replied as Darlene pulled us away.
We walked some steps away and I pondered looking back at him but stopped myself.
“He likes you,” Darlene whispered as she prodded my side.
“He doesn’t even know me.” I replied as I took a quick glance back at Andy and then back to Darlene.
“Even more of a reason for him to fantasize about you. I’m sure he’s already planned out the perfect date, prom, and perhaps a wedding venue.”
I gawked at Darlene and then shook my head.
“You don’t want to think about it, but it gets in your head. It’s like a mental ‘MASH’ game taken to its conclusion. I once got one from James Milton. He moved at the end of last year.”
“Sorry, Darlene.”
“Eh, it was okay. We were completely opposite. He was a kind of a dead serious dude in public but when it was just the two of us, he was a loving gentleman. The problem was that while at school he never talked to me, he just gave me notes and I got tired of being ignored in public.”
“That can be a problem.”
“Yeah, but you won’t have to deal with that with Andy.”
“This is where you tell me the downside.”
“No downside…expect, he’s not, you know, popular.”
“I can deal with that.”
“Yeah, less competition. If he asked you out, go for it.”
“I’ll think about it.”
“I mean, if he does then you’ll want to walk around school with him and I understand, I wouldn’t want to be the third wheel.”
“What is that?”
“I don’t know. My stepmom said it was the same as being the fifth wheel.”
“Which means?”
“I’ve forgotten. I’d think three or five wheels would be safer than two or four, depending on where you were driving. More stability, a greater way to navigate right corners and to keep you from crashing.”
I nodded.
I wanted to think Andy was still looking at me. I wanted to feel his gaze on me.
CD skip moment! I had no idea why I was thinking that. It was the first day and it was best to not get attached to anyone without really knowing them. I did look at the other guys and nodded when they acknowledged me and some of them barely had their shirts on, allowing the t-shirt beneath to be visible…along with some visible pectorals. A few of them looked like they had deliberately ordered their blazers two sizes smaller, so their forms were on display.
“Who do you have for your next class?”
“Mrs. Reynolds,” I replied as I glanced at my schedule.
“Lucky you. Andy’s in that class too. I hope the best for you, and I would like to say I like your pin. It’s kind of nice to have a kindred spirit here.”
“Really?”
“I came to, as they say, to start over and be who I wanted to be. It hasn’t exactly worked out the way I envisioned it to be. But maybe with both of us being here.”
“Yeah, yeah. This is great.”
“Does Andy know?”
“I’ve been too afraid to say anything. I can deal with insults, slings, and arrows but getting personal…I’d rather retreat to the library or sit in a classroom.”
“Why?”
“This is a closed system and people are, you know, morons.”
“I’ve dealt with worse.”
“What’s worse than high school?”
“Family,” I replied as I took one more look over my shoulder.

When lunch came around, Darlene took us to the lunchroom, and I decided to sit down at a table that was near the center of the room. Darlene sat on the other side of the table and looked around with a nervous look in her eyes. Other students glanced at us and shook their heads.
“What’s wrong?”
“We should pick as new table.”
“Why?”
“We’ll, because—”
“Hey, new girl!”
“I have a name,” I replied as I looked up to see the cheerleader clique step around our table with their trays.
“So, what is it?”
“It’s ‘Your Majesty’,” I said as I took another bite of my sandwich.
“Well, your royal bitchiness, you’re sitting at our table.”
“I didn’t see your names engraved on the top or the side. Must be somewhere…”
Darlene looked like she was about to faint.
“This has always been our table.”
“Pick a new one,” I replied.
“I said get up!”
“You’re right, Darlene, it is all the same thing,” I announced as I looked at Darlene, stood up and then slammed my elbow into the ‘owner of the table’. She flew back and collapsed to the ground.
The other cheerleaders backed away, except for Darcy, who tried to slap my face.
I punched her in the stomach, and she doubled over.
“Anyone else or can I get back to eating?”
The first girl got back up and charged me. The past feelings of my father’s words during the fights with mom sparked an action in my brain and I fought back, perhaps a bit too hard, maybe, but it felt good to release all of the pent-up rage I had towards my father. A rage I was unable to show him when it was possible.
The other girls placed their lunches down and ran from the room.
“You are going to get suspended. That’s excellent street cred, by the way.”
“Thank you,” I replied as I straightened out my skirt.

I tried to call my mother to come and pick me up, but she never answered her phone. I was sent home with Darlene driving.
“Is she going to kill you?”
“Grounding, probably.”
“The office will send an official e-mail.’
‘I’ll try to get to it before she does.”
“I’m glad you’re here, Riley. Whatever it was that brought you here, it’s like you were meant to come to Westing.”
“I don’t believe everything happens for a reason.”
Darlene nodded as we pulled into the driveway.
“I’d invite you in, but it’s probably gonna be a scream fest until I can explain everything.”
“Good luck, Riley,” Darlene replied and then pulled out of the driveway.

I looked back to the house and adjusted my clothes. How was I going to explain this? I brushed off the scenarios I had in my mind as all of them ended badly. I would bravely walk into the house, announce myself, and clamp explain why I was home three hours early.
I opened the front door to see the living room was in complete shambles like we had been robbed.
“Mom! Mother!”
I ran through the house back to her bedroom to see her crying in front of a mirror.
“What happened? Were you attacked? Do we need to call the police?”
“No,” she replied as she shook her head.
“Then what happened? Why is the living room and your room all destroyed?”
There were clothes and things scattered everywhere as if someone was trying to find something valuable. I scanned the room and saw something that looked out of place: a multi-folded piece of paper lying on the side of the bed. I could see my father’s handwriting,
“Mom, what is this?”
“It’s from your father. I he wrote it.”
“It…it’s a suicide note.”
Mom nodded.
“Why would he have…this?”
“Because your father was suicidal.”
I glared at her and then looked back at the note.
“I’ve changed my mind. Give it to me, Riley, you don’t want to read it.”
Which, of course, made me want to read it more.
My eyes darted back and forth between the scribbled cursive and my mother as I tried to keep three feet between us.
“Why?”
“He was confused about life, Riley, and he didn’t want help.”
“But he wrote this letter. It’s a freaking scream for help, mom!”
“He didn’t want outside help.”
I looked up to my mother. Her face was a mix of sadness and resentment.
“You know more than you want to tell me.”
“I do.”
“You’re not going to tell me, are you?”
Mom sat down on the bed and kicked away all of the clothes that were on the floor. “Your father went out the night he disappeared, and he went to the park, the place where we used to talk about things when we were your age. I met him there and confronted him about the note and he admitted he did not know what to do and that he failed at everything in life he thought was important. I tried to comfort him, but he refused.”
Mom sighed and I sat down on the other end of the bed.
“I didn’t fight for the gun, he let me take it from him and I shot him.”
“You what!” I jumped up from the bed and cowered in the corner, unable to believe my mother could be a cold-blooded killer…and would I be next on her list.
“He asked me to.”
“He asked?”
“If your father had killed himself, then we would have lost everything. His life insurance, pension, everything carried a line that everything would be lost if he took his own life.”
“You shot him multiple times?”
“He asked me to. He was thinking about us.”
“Us could have included all three of us.”
Mom nodded.
It was a lot to take in and process, so much. That I’m still trying to understand it all.
“What happens now?”
“I’ve rocked back and forth on this so much, Riley. Did I do the right thing the first time, was I being true to what he wanted or what I thought was best for the two of us? There have been days when I wanted to march to the police and tell them everything, but they would not have understood him. They would have said he had a mental disease that could have been controlled. Controlled, yes, but never healed.”
“He saw a lot of himself in you and didn’t know how to express himself. It was his option. I wished there was a better one.”
“Me too,” I replied as I looked once again at the mess of my mother’s room. “I made s friend today…maybe a boyfriend too, not sure.”
“I think he would have loved to meet them.”