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Chapter One
Ten Years Earlier
Being the new kid fucking sucks.
Being the new kid who arrives halfway through the semester sophomore year sucks even more. Elementary school was a little easier; kids don’t really notice a new person in their class. But teenagers, man. Teenagers are a whole different breed. They’re vultures. Pimple-faced predators. They circle you, smelling for a weakness, taking their sweet time finding the right moment to swoop in and feast, no hesitation as they rip your carcass from end to end.
“Is this really what you want, kiddo?” my dad asked over breakfast this morning. I answered into my orange juice glass that, yeah, I was sure. Maybe moving to Chicago and being stuck with my spiteful, distant mother while my dad deploys isn’t what I really want but staying in the same city for more than six months at a time, is.
I can’t blame my father—he’s a lifer in the Marines, which means moving from base to base when duty calls and setting me and mom up at the larger ones when he deploys. I didn’t mind moving around as a kid. I don’t make good friends easily, or at all, but I’mgreatat making acquaintances. I’m great at getting over the awkwardness, not caring what I say, who it might impress, or who it might offend. There’s no pressure to get comfortable, settle in, and lay down some roots when the clock is always winding down for the next move. What I’mnotgood at is confrontation. So, when Dad asked again if this was what I really wanted for the next two and a half years—to finish out my high school career at one school, his alma mater—I stared into my orange juice and offered up a fake, but resounding, “Yes.”
Since we haven’t lived outside the walls of a military base in the last fifteen years, and my dad has surely forgotten what rush hour in Chicago traffic is like, I now get to be the new girl, midway through sophomore year, who arrives two hours late on her first day.
~
Not only that, but I’m also escorted to homeroom by the principal, who looks like he is old enough to be an original founding father. The cracked leather elbow patches on his tweed sport coat scratch my arm as we walk side by side down the barren hallway. He mumbles something about my schedule and tucks the corner of a notecard under the tips of my sweaty fingers, cramped from holding up the tower of books he had waiting for me.
“We will have the janitor work on your locker while you’re in Home Economics,” he drawls, flicking his wrist to adjust a cuff link. “After class, the combination should be working, and you may deposit your books at that time, Ms. Watkins.”
“Home Economics? Or Home Room?”
“Home Economics. We pride ourselves in being one of the few schools left in the city that teaches the necessary life skills students lack: cooking, baking, childcare tasks, and light sewing.”
Cooking and sewing? While I won’t lie and pretend I know anything about either of those skills, my goal in life isn’t to be someone's 1950’s housewife—picture perfect on the outside but often trapped in a loveless marriage and a slave in your own home.
“It sounds like you’re raising excellent Stepford Wives. Teach them to cook and clean all day while their husband is at work. Make sure to have an old-fashioned prepared for him when he arrives home, five o’clock on the dot.” The corner of a book bites into my rib cage. I do my best to shuffle them to the right, letting the blood flow back to my left side as we continue our walk. “Don’t forget to air the linens and don your fairest set of pearls. A lady should always look her best.”
He stops outside the metal blue door with a vertical window so small and narrow it might as well be the door to a prison cell. The faint echo of the teacher in the middle of her lesson hums on the other side as the principal pauses, his gaze sizing me up. I can tell by his stare that I’m about to receive a lecture—it’s the same look my mom gives when I irritate her—so I take that opportunity to rest my shoulder against the cool cinder-block wall, letting it wick away some of the nervous sweat that’s gathered under the hem of my tee. I chose a comfortable outfit today, knowing it would be a shit show. My black Joan Jett tee goes well with my favorite lavender Chuck Taylors. I should have kept these ones a little more pristine, but I got bored on the long flight from Arizona. So now the entire class gets to judge the doodles of flowers and kittens, lightning bolts and cactus trees, and anything else that might wander through my ADHD mind.
“Ms. Watkins, I’ll have you know we encourage both male and female students to participate in our Home Economics course.”
Encourage being the operative word. I’m willing to bet there aren’t too many fifteen-year-old boys begging to learn how to sew baby bonnets.
He opens the door, and it creaks, echoing down the narrow corridor.
The teacher pauses mid-sentence, her head swiveling to the side at the sound of the squeaking door.
The principal pauses, gesturing for me to enter ahead of him. I shift my books in my arms and square my shoulders, walking confidently into the classroom toward the teacher with my head held high.
It isn’t until I see the feet of the first row of students sitting quietly at their desks, bodies leaning forward to see what the interruption is, that the first-day jitters take over. I abruptly stop, causing the principal to crash into me.
He teeters on his toes, the smell of the cough drop he’s been clacking between his teeth stinging my senses. I step out of his way, pressing my shoulder blades to the wall and silently begging him to go first to save me a few seconds of misery.
“Mrs. Nabb,” he bellows. “I apologize for the interruption, but this is the new enrollment we discussed earlier.”
He turns and gestures to me.
I step forward. My eyes are glued to the teacher in front of me, from her colorful, crocheted vest buttoned over her turtleneck, to her matching patchwork, floor-length skirt. “Light sewing” was how the principal referred to this class, but if this is the shit I’m going to have to learn, count me out.
My gaze moves up to her face, where I’m met with a sweet smile and salt-and-pepper hair that rests at her chin. She steps forward and starts to take the stack of books out of my hands, and I gladly let her. My arms hanging like Jell-O from carrying the weight of them around.
“I see our lockers are still acting up. Let’s set these behind my desk for now,” she says with a wink, pulling the books from my arms.
A sense of guilt fills my mind for mentally picking apart her outfit.
After stacking the books in a neat pile behind her desk, she places a hand on my back and moves us both to the center of the room. My shoes squeak with each step on the freshly polished floor, and I can feel the judgmental eyes of my fellow students following my every step. I reach my hands up to clutch the straps of my backpack, holding on tight, gaze still locked on the floor, so I don’t have to meet the stares of the students.
“Class,” Mrs. Nabb says, pulling up the note card that the principal handed her, “this is our newest transfer student, Jenna . . . Oh, wow. This is Jenna Alissandria Watkins,” she says, making sure to exaggerate the rolling of therin my middle name while raising both hands, gesturing toward me as if I’m up for auction instead of being introduced to a group of unimpressed teenagers.
