23

Run away
Or become a bot.
Run away.
Change your thought.

—The Square Pegs

I PUT ON MY PURPLE TANK DRESS and slip-on Star Wars Vans. I guess I’d gotten swept up in the Hill family’s passion for Star Wars when I’d picked them. My shoulders slumped as I gazed at myself in the mirror and realized I’d put my dress on backward. There went fifteen minutes of my life down the toilet.

Mom helped me with my makeup so I didn’t have to go the stupid dance all smudgy. “They’re going to play the ‘Y.M.C.A.,’ Mom,” I told her as she brushed my lids with eye shadow. “I’ll be humiliated.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, honey. You’re going to have a blast. She blew on my lids. “And if they play the ‘Y.M.C.A.,’ go get something to drink until it’s over.”

“People will make fun of me.”

“I don’t think so.”

“They will. You don’t know how mean they can be.”

She stopped and stared at me, like she was waiting for me to tell her what I meant. And I almost told her right then and there about my Great Humiliation, but when I opened my mouth, nothing came out. She would be horrified. She would cry. It would be emotional. And I couldn’t get all emotional while she was putting mascara on my pale red lashes.

She put the mascara back in the makeup bag and broke out the blush. My head shot back. “Are you serious?”

She nodded. “Yeah, you’re probably right.” She snapped the blush shut and took out the tube of lip gloss. “Why do you even have blush?” she asked as she swiped my lips with the light glossy color.

“It came with a set.”

“Can I have it?”

“Be my guest.”

“There,” she said, studying my face. “You’re beautiful.”

I turned and gazed at myself in the bathroom mirror. “Whoa,” I said. “It looks so much better when you do it. Are you available for full-time hire?”

“Nope,” she said. “Only for special occasions.”

I grimaced. “Is this a special occasion?”

“Of course, it is.” She covered her mouth with her hands. “My baby’s going to her first dance.”

“I wish I were as excited as you are, Mom.” I hopped down from the bathroom counter, and we walked out to the living room together.

Dad whistled when he saw me. “My, aren’t you perty, little lady,” he said in a southern accent.

There was a knock on the door, and Mom opened it to let Trilby in. She wore a cute pink baby doll dress and now had pink streaks in her short blonde hair. “Trilby!” I cried, and she hugged me.

“How do you do those cute streaks in your hair?” I asked her.

“Hair chalk!” she announced. She opened up her cross-shoulder bag and pulled out a handful of hair chalks. “I have purple, too. I should do yours. It would match your dress!”

We sat on the couch, and as Trilby worked on putting purple streaks in my red hair, I said, “It’s really nice that you agreed to go to the dance with Zion.”

“I’m excited to go. No one’s ever asked me to go to a dance before. And he’s so sweet.”

I smiled at her. “He is sweet. I’m glad you think so.”

“Have you discovered any new bands you like?” she asked me as she picked up a long strand of my red hair.

“I like We Are Librarians.”

“Oh my gosh!” Trilby exclaimed. “‘Banned Book’ is already one of my favorite songs ever.”

“I’ll add that one to my playlist.”

When Trilby was done, I went to the bathroom to check myself out. “You like?” she asked from behind me.

I nodded. I did like. I liked it very much.

“We’re going to go wait outside for Zion,” I told Mom and Dad as Trilby and I attempted to escape.

“Not until we get pictures,” Mom said excitedly. “But outside’s a good idea. Better lighting.”

We all four walked down the steps from the apartment while my parents debated whether to take the pictures in front of the saguaro cactus near the entrance, the line of palo verde trees by the parking lot, or the great big mesquite tree in the center of the park.

We decided to go out to the parking lot. Trilby was taking a picture of me with my parents as Mrs. Hill pulled up. Mom walked over to the car to say hi. “Zion, why don’t you get out so we can get a picture of you and Trilby?”

I thought Zion’s eyes were going to pop out of his head when he saw Trilby. “Hi, Zion,” she said, but he looked around awkwardly. And then when she put her arm around him for pictures, he seemed like he was struggling to breathe. I worried he might pass out.

Everyone else got out of the van, and I noticed that Lando’s friend Justin was with him. Not Janessa.

Lando stood next me and planted one foot next to mine. “We have the same kicks.”

I looked down at our matching Star Wars Vans. Then I grinned up at Lando. “I guess you didn’t realize you were buying girl shoes, huh?”

Lando laughed. “Check the sizing. They’re men’s.”

I smiled. “Yeah, I know.”

Lando punched me lightly on the shoulder. “Why are you so cool, Aven?”

And then I was the one struggling to breathe. “I’m not,” I mumbled, which seemed to disappoint Lando. Then I was mad at myself for acting stupid as Lando turned his attention to Justin.

“Where’s Janessa?” I whispered to Zion.

“She and Lando broke up.”

“Why?”

Zion gave me a look like he couldn’t understand why I was interested. I wasn’t entirely sure myself why I was so interested. “I don’t care,” he said. “Good riddance.”

We took about a hundred more pictures of all of us before we piled back into the van. Zion, Trilby, and I sat quietly in the back row until I couldn’t stop myself from asking the question. “Where’s Janessa? I thought she was coming with us.”

Zion mouthed at me, “I told you.”

Lando shrugged. “I don’t care. Ma never liked her anyway, so it’s all good.”

“I did so like Janessa,” Mrs. Hill insisted.

“You did not,” Lando said. “You said she was shallow.”

“Oh, well, yes, she was,” Mrs. Hill said. “She was definitely that.”

Mrs. Hill dropped us off near the gym around seven o’clock and told us she’d be back by eleven. I couldn’t believe we had to be at this dance for four hours.

“If you wanted to come back at eight, that would be okay, too, Mom,” Zion said. I nodded in agreement.

Trilby laughed. “No way! I want to dance!”

“You guys are going to have so much fun,” Mrs. Hill assured us.

The five of us walked into the gym together, and it wasn’t long before Justin and Lando found their friends and went off.

Zion, Trilby, and I sat in chairs over in a corner as far away from where everyone was dancing as possible. We sat there awkwardly until the ‘Y.M.C.A.’ came on. “I told you,” I said to Zion.

He put up his hands. “Hey, I didn’t make them play it.”

“You didn’t have to. It’s automatic. Like an automatic school dance requirement.”

“I want to do it,” Trilby whined. “Come on, Zion. Why’d we come here if we aren’t going to dance?”

Zion’s eyes darted around. “People will see us.”

Trilby jumped up from her chair. “Who cares?” Then she grabbed Zion and pulled him onto the dance floor.

“I can’t leave Aven,” Zion said.

Trilby stopped and looked at me like she was asking for my permission.

“Yes, you can,” I said. “Please go dance.”

And then they left me. Sitting in a chair in the corner. All alone. I spotted Joshua’s group not far away. I got up and walked through the dancing crowds to another part of the gym and sat down on a bleacher.

Thankfully the ‘Y.M.C.A.’ ended and another slower song came on. I sat there in my cheap purple dress and all my stupid makeup and purple hair chalk and my favorite shoes surrounded by dancing, laughing high schoolers. I wanted to cry.

I wished Connor were here. I wondered what he was doing right then. Was he hanging out with Amanda? The thought made me want to cry even more.

Lando seemed to appear from nowhere and sat down beside me. “What are you doing sitting here all by yourself?”

“Zion and Trilby are dancing.” I bit the inside of my cheek and willed my eyes to stay dry.

We sat there for a while, Lando tapping his Star Wars Vans on the bleachers to the beat of the song. “You look pretty, you know,” he said.

I turned to him, not sure I’d heard him right with the loud music. “Huh?”

He smiled and said louder, “You look pretty.” He picked up a strand of my hair then dropped it. “I like the purple.”

I didn’t know what to say. Why would he say that to me? What was he doing?

“Do you want to dance with me?” he asked me then. I stared at him, but he smiled. Then he laughed. “Can you hear anything I’m saying to you?”

“Why?”

“Because you won’t answer me.”

“No, I mean why are you asking me to dance?”

Lando scrunched up his eyebrows. “Why does a person usually ask another person to dance?”

“Why?”

“So they can dance!”

Just then Joshua walked by us and blew me a kiss. And Lando saw it. “What was that all about?” he asked me.

I shook my head.

Don’t cry don’t cry don’t cry.

Was high school going to be four long years of me trying not to cry?

“Why did he do that?”

I kept shaking my head, my throat too constricted to speak. I couldn’t hold it in any longer. I jumped up and ran through the crowded gym until I got to the door. I banged my hip against the handlebar so hard it would probably bruise later and burst through into the warm night air.

I ran along the sidewalk until I reached the empty football field. I ran up the concrete steps, stumbling on one, scraping my knee and twisting my ankle. “Ouch,” I groaned, sitting down on a bleacher. I rolled my ankle around and pain shot through it. “No,” I said quietly to myself as a tear ran down my cheek. That last thing I needed was to hurt my foot.

I sat there on the bleacher overlooking the empty field. There were no sounds except for a few crickets chirping. I realized I was sitting in nearly the same exact spot where Janessa had sat the day before—when she’d looked at me like I was something she’d found between her toes. Janessa with her perfect hair (mine looked like I traveled exclusively via roller coaster); her perfect makeup (unlike my uneven everything); her perfect clothes (non-name brand clearance rack for me); and her perfectly manicured nails.

I heard approaching footsteps and then a soft voice below me say my name. I stayed quiet, not wanting Lando to know I was sitting here crying by myself like some weirdo in the middle of the empty bleachers. I considered diving to the ground and lying flat until he left.

“Aven, I can see you up there,” he said.

I attempted to wipe my wet cheeks on my shoulders as he walked up the steps to where I sat. I hoped my makeup wasn’t running down my face. Then again, it would be hard to tell in the dark.

Lando sat down next to me. “Why’d you run off like that? Was it Joshua?”

I shook my head. “I didn’t feel well.”

“Like how you didn’t feel well at the mall?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean why don’t you say what’s going on instead of hiding?”

“I’m not hiding,” I said, thinking about how I’d just considered diving under the bleachers. To hide. “I get claustrophobic in places with a lot of people.”

“Why did Joshua blow a kiss at you?”

“Why did Janessa break up with you?”

“Nope. Answer my question first.”

“Because he’s a jerk. Now answer my question.”

“She didn’t. I broke up with her.”

I stared at him. “Why?”

“Because she’s a jerk.”

“What did she do?”

He shrugged. “Nothing specific. Sometimes she would just say something about someone that would rub me the wrong way.”

“Like what?”

“Like . . . mean stuff.”

“About Zion?”

“Sometimes.” I knew he was looking at me, though I could barely make out his eyes in the dark. He shook his head. “But we don’t need to go into it.”

I stared down at my hurt foot. “We don’t have to. I can guess what kinds of things she said.”

“Like I said, she’s a jerk.”

I turned my ankle around and grimaced. “A pretty jerk.”

“Nah,” Lando said. “She wasn’t so pretty to me after a while, you know? Like the ugliness inside starts to spread to the outside.”

I thought about how I’d thought Joshua was so cute when I’d first seen him. Now the look of him made me feel sick. “Yeah, I know.” I put my foot down and tried to press a little weight on it. I grunted in pain.

“You do something to your foot?”

I nodded as I tried to turn my ankle again. “I twisted it when I walked up the steps.” More like sprinted up the steps. No, more like teleported up the steps.

“Here, let me see.” Before I could stop him, he picked up my foot and set it on his lap. He removed my shoe, and I prayed fervently my foot didn’t stink.

Lando squeezed around my tender ankle, but it felt like he was squeezing my heart instead. I tried to take slow steady breaths as he wrapped his hands around my ankle and put pressure on it. My chest felt like a hummingbird was flying around in it. “How’s that feel?”

“It hurts, but I think it will be okay.”

He frowned. “You scraped your knee, too.” He reached up like he might touch my knee, but I threw my leg down before he could. “It’s fine. I’m fine.”

I grabbed my shoe from him with my toes and tossed it on the ground in front of me. I slipped my foot in and shot up from the bleachers. “I gotta go,” I said and started limping down the steps.

Lando stood. “Where are you going?”

“I gotta go home,” I called back.

“But we’re your ride!”

“I gotta go find Zion.” I didn’t look back at Lando as I got to the sidewalk and ran away as fast as my throbbing ankle would allow.