Discovering Her

Air was the perfect picture of a lesbian, the kind you’d see in pictures. Except for one small problem. She didn’t like girls. She had girls ask her out all the time. She turned them all down. But, all the guys avoided her. Because they thought she was lesbian. Everyone called her Air, but her full name was Arabella, a name which she hated with a burning passion. She ran a hand through her bleached white hair that sat on her head in a mop. All her friends told her that she rocked the short haircut, so she kept it, even though she didn’t really like it. It had been her mom’s choice to get it short.

“Ugh,” I mutter. “This isn’t turning out right.” What is it missing? I wonder. Should I switch it to first person? Is it too cliche? Stupid Hazel, I curse myself. You’re supposed to be a writer. That’s what writers do. They write. Well, before this, writing had never been hard. But this project was being particularly elusive. God only knows why. At any rate, it was time for school.

“And,” I say, rubbing the bags under my eyes. “This is why I should sleep instead of hanging over the computer like a drug addict over cocaine.”

“Haze— oh, hi honey. You’re already up.”

“Yep,” I say. “Something like that.” I shove my laptop into my bag for use after school. My mom works, a full time job as a lab technician. I get picked up at six but school ends at four. That’s two hours to do whatever. For me, whatever means hiding in the girl’s restroom and typing. Hence my shitty social life. And, as for the storyline of Discovering Her, the novel I’m working on, I won’t have any luck with a new kid at school, as there hasn’t been a new kid at Giovani High since freshman year. I’m currently a junior. Next year, I’ll be a senior. And then, who knows? I might go to college, I might not. I haven’t decided yet. For now, I’ll reluctantly sit through seven hours of classes, and then I’ll sit in the bathroom and write for the next two.

First period. English. The best period of the day, but painfully tedious. I learned grammar up to college honors over the past few summers in the hopes of improving my writing. Now I have to sit through the class without actually learning. Not good planning on my part. Oops.

Next to me is Joli Brown, a cheerleader whose cup size is only matched by her ego. She’s got a boyfriend named Horace Green (his name is even more stupid than he is, which is saying a lot. His report card is all Fs, except for PE, his only A plus).

All sides of the classroom are filled with drooling teens. Half of them doodling, the rest of them a mix between picking their noses and actually taking notes. I am in the former (not the nose picking, the doodling...). My blank notes paper is filled with character sketches of Air and her future girlfriend, Hira. Air has her short bleached hair, six piercings on each ear, and wears all black. She’s really tall, unlike Hira, who is short with dark skin and long braided hair. Hira comes in as a new student and makes a ton of friends. Air assumes that she doesn’t stand a chance with Hira, until Hira is raped by one of the boys and cast out of the popular club. Now with the unfair reputation of a slut, Hira starts becoming withdrawn. She runs into Air when she starts skipping lunch and finds Air in the restroom. The rest is just development and shit. And, Hira’s parents are homophobic, all that crap goes down, etc. All I have is that. I haven’t really figured out the ending yet.

“That looks really nice,” someone says behind me, making me jump.

“Th-thanks,” I say, turning to see the face of the person who just complimented my art. I turn to see a girl I haven’t spoken to before. Her name is Mia. She has black hair with blonde streaks and skin the color of a Starbucks latte. Her eyes are a startling color, somewhere between blue and green. Like aqua, but more powerful. She hasn’t said a word to me in my life before this. I smile. “Thanks.”

“No problem,” she says. I see her go sit down a few tables away and a boy next to her says,

“Why are you talking to the weirdo?” I look down quickly.

“Danny, come on, she’s not that bad.” I bite down on my tongue so hard that I start bleeding. Is Mia Kingston standing up for me? Hazel Lovecraft (yes, like the author. My mom was a big fan. I’m pretty sure she married my dad for his last name. Maybe that’s why they didn’t work out.)? It can’t be. This isn’t happening.

“I mean, look at her,” Danny says. “She’s obviously some kind of lesbian slut with that fuckin’ hair.”

“Girls can have short hair too, Danny, come on. You’re being ridiculous.”

“Why are you standing up for her?” Good question, Danny. I don’t know.

“Dan—”

“Let’s just... forget it. Okay? Come over tonight. We’ll study.”

“Dan, I already told you, after we graduate! Jesus! Can’t you listen to me?” As I sit there and listen to this exchange, I mentally file it away for use in Discovering Her. What if my life turns out just like Air’s? I laugh at myself when I think that. No way. I’m not that lucky. I let my eyes drift back towards Mia. She’s bent over her notes. She’s in the group that actually does the work. How’d she end up with the likes of Danny and Kyriah and the other popular kids? She’d fit in more with Opal and Ryan and Ariel. Those three are the “nerds”. But, I concede to myself, Mia is too pretty to be in a nerd group. Not to say that Opal, Ryan, and Ariel aren’t. Mia just has a... a vibe. I don’t know how to put it. She’s likeable.

The rest of the school day passes in a blur. A slow motion blur, but still a blur. I got a C on my science test. Nothing else notable happens in any of my other classes. I didn’t eat lunch. It sucks, being a vegetarian who doesn’t have time to make their own meals. The only lunch option available was a soggy salad and a piece of bread that had more in common with a rock than actual food. The hot lunch entry was beef tacos. Despite my intense aversion to meat, the sight of the kids eating it made my mouth water. If only...

I had to go vegetarian two years ago. I was developing a rash all over my arms that itches like Hell. My mom took me to the doctor, who dismissed it as acne and hormones until they ran a test a week later and found out that I had some kind of reaction to meat. Not sure what. Some chemical or something that naturally occurred in processed meat. Unavoidable, incurable, and all that bullshit. Ever since then, I’ve been subsisting on salads and tofu. It’s great, but I really miss beef tacos.

Lesbian, vegetarian, antisocial writer, insomniac... I’m going to have a great Tinder profile.

The bell rings for the end of an unusually long last period. Music theory. My mom insisted I join choir, even though I can’t sing, and music theory is choir’s stunt double. It’s required than anyone taking a music class has to take music theory as well. I never knew someone could spend an entire class period talking about the quarter note. A-freakin-mazing. I learned absolutely nothing.

Anyway, it’s now time for my favorite part of the day. Sitting in the bathroom and writing.

Okay, so where was I...

Air walked into her first period with no notion of what was about to happen. She sat in her chair and stared blankly at the whiteboard. Written on it was

Welcome Hira! Who’s Hira? Air wondered. As she puzzled over the words on the board, the teacher walked in, along with a new girl. She was a full foot shorter than Mrs. Jones, with long braided black hair down to her ankles. Her coffee colored skin shone. She sat down alone at one end of the room, and was instantly swarmed by Becky, Rita, and the Jonathans. They were called that because their names were both Jonathan. Jonathan King and Jonathan Stewartt. With two Ts.

“Hey girl, how you doin’?” asks Rita, flipping her curly blonde hair.

“I- I’m doing fine,” says Hira. “Who are you guys?”

“These are the Jonathans, their names are both Jonathan, and this is Becky, my best friend.” Becky raises a hand to her wavy maroon hair. The hair bounces as if jumping on a trampoline.

Here we go, thinks Air while she brushes eraser bits off her paper. Another beautiful girl wasted away in the popularity contest. Kind of sad, really. But there was no time to dwell on that. There was class, work, all that. Boring shit. Not nearly as fun as watching Rita interact with Hira. But it was necessary. It had to be done. She writes several lines of notes about infinitives, participles, and gerunds. Infinitives are super easy, she decides. Way easier than social interaction. Why hasn’t her mom agreed to homeschool her after last year? Last year when she was expelled? Sometimes her mom had a hard time catching a hint. Humans are annoying. Best to interact with as few of them as possible.

Anyway, the bell was about to ring. Air shoved her work into the basket right as the bell rang. She swung her back over her shoulder. Perfect. Only six more periods to go.

Oh shit, someone’s coming. The bathroom door makes a hideous sound as it opens, making it easy to tuck your feet up and make it look as though the room is empty.

“Oh my God, Allie. I am so sick of Danny! He is such an asshole sometimes.”

“What happened?” asks another girl, presumably Allie.

“Okay, so, I said hi to that girl, um, I think her name is Hazel, and he was all like: ‘oh my God why are you talking to the weirdo?’ And I was like, what the fuck man, what did she ever do?”

Holy shit holy shit holy shit.... it’s Mia.

“He’s so dense sometimes, Mia. It’s okay, girl. But... why were you talking to her?”

“I saw her drawing. It was badass. Seriously. You should have seen it.” My face flushed and I was suddenly glad they couldn’t see me.

“Hey, maybe we could... invite her to sit with us or something. Cause, I mean, if she can draw good.. that’s cool, right?”

“Yeah. I agree. Screw Danny, anyway.”

“Yes girl, let’s do this. Totally.”

My muscles tensed in... fear? Excitement? Was I really going to be in with the popular girls? And Mia? Is this really happening?

I’m too excited to write now. Maybe I’ll finally have something to do besides sit in the bathroom! Holy shit!

The rest of the two hours passed faster than the speed of light. Before I knew it, I was getting into my mom’s sky blue sedan, covered in about eighty different symbols. I’m pretty sure she didn’t know what half of them even meant. She had a cross country sticker, even though I’d never been in cross country in my life. I had convinced her last year to get a rainbow. Not sure if she knows why, but, oh well. Some things can’t be changed.

The next day brought a flood of pouring rain. Is it really only Tuesday? Ugh. This week is longer than the neck of a giraffe. Hey, that was a good analogy. I’ll have to save that for later.

In first period, Mia walked up to me. I kind of expected it, but it was thrilling nonetheless.

“Hey,” she said shyly, tucking a rogue strand of hair behind her ear. “Uh, how are you doing?”

“I’m doing okay,” I say. “You?”

“I’m doing good,” she says. “So, do you want to, like, sit with us at lunch today? If you don’t, like, have something else.”

“That would be great!” I exclaim. “I will. Thanks.” Mia grins and walks back over to her table. Danny gives her a what the hell? look, and she just shrugs him off. Feeling victorious, I start doodling more character sketches of Discovering Her. On the next blank page of my sketchbook, I draw a picture of the two girls holding hands. I’ve gotten lots of compliments about how great my art is, but if you compared it to my friends in Utah, it was utter shit. Yeah, I used to live in Utah. I went to an art school. It was awesome. But then, two years ago, my mom lost her job. The only other employment option for her was here, in some obscure Idaho town. It struck me as weird then, and it’s still weird. My conclusion was that she wanted to be far away from Dad. Dad left a while ago, and my mom gained custody of me. Which, I have to say, I’m extremely glad about. My mom divorced him for a reason. The only good thing about this state is the potatoes. Me and my mom never have a day in which one of our meals doesn’t involve them. They’re everywhere. But, Idaho isn’t so bad. The other option was Italy. And I was like, what the hell, Ma? Italy? No way. So, Idaho it is.

Lunch came fast. Soon enough, I was standing in the middle of the lunchroom, more in common with a lost dog than an actual human.

“Over here,” Mia beckoned. I turned and saw a table full of all the popular people. Was this really happening? A fresh wave of white hot anxiety washed over me. This was happening. I was going to sit at the same table as Mia Kingston. Holy fucking shit. I slid into the seat next to Mia, my sketchbook clutched to my heart like a life vest. This. Is. Absolutely. Terrifying.

Joli and Horace are both here, along with Danny (I don’t know his last name, sue me... I can’t know everyone...) and Allie Omar, the girl from the bathroom. There’s also a girl who catches my eye immediately, she has short black hair and a studded leather jacket. I think her name is Erin. I’ve seen her around. I didn’t know she hung out with the popular group.

“Hey, guys,” Mia says. “This is...” she trails off and looks at me. “Hazel, right?” I nod. All the people at the table are staring at me. Danny has a soggy cafeteria french fry hanging from his mouth. I swallow hard.

“Uh... hi?” I say.

“Hey,” says Allie with a sympathetic look. “Mia says you’re good at drawing.” I look down.

“I guess,” I say.

“Let’s see it,” says Erin. I open my sketchbook to the page I drew earlier, of Air and Hira holding hands. I didn’t really want to show them this one, but, there’s no helping it now. Erin, Allie, and Joli are all eagerly hung over my shoulder like an unwelcome cape.

“Holy shit, Mia, you weren’t kidding. This lady can draw!”

“I told you,” Mia says with a smug grin. "She's badass."

"So, is she going to, like, stay here?" Danny asks. Mia shoots him a glare sharper than a new pencil.

"Fuck yeah, she's going to stay here," Erin says. "She's awesome." I bite my lip. Why is everyone being so nice to me? My art isn't that good. And why now? It can't just be Mia. I went from no friends to a ton in.. what, two days? How is that even possible?

This must be some kind of school project. Acts of kindness. Something. Maybe the principal, Mrs. Morrison, put them up to it. Yeah. That must be it.

This is not real. I look at Mia, who smiles at me. My heart flutters. I’ve had a crush on Mia for, what, two years now? No. Longer.

I notice I’m not the only one skipping lunch. Erin and Mia are, too. Interesting. Danny, meanwhile is eating about three trays worth of French fries and greasy potatoes. Yes. Today’s lunch is loaded baked potatoes. Filled with the meat of a half-dozen cows. For real. There’s more meat than actual potatoes.

**UNFINISHED**