At around two in the morning I leave a sleeping Sky to go up to the living room. I turn on the TV, lay on the couch, and put it on the comedy station. But I don't laugh at any of the antics on screen.
Eventually I drift off, but I wake around six when I hear something.
It's my mom getting coffee.
"Oh Tamara," she says, rubbing her eyes when she sees me. "What are you doing up?"
"Couldn't sleep," I mumble.
"Well, you're still going to school," she tells me.
"I know." I say, and we don't speak anymore.
I go down to the basement, feed and let out Sky, and then get dressed upstairs.
I'm relieved when it's time to go school, and even let my mom drive me with Julia so I'm early. Julia talks the whole way there while I stare vacantly out the window, watching the grey world pass by.
I arrive in class before both Blake and Garrett so nobody is in my seat. I put my backpack on my desk and then look down at my hands, but my peripherals detect life as the room slowly fills up.
The anthem comes on, and then the announcements.
We have algebra worksheets in Math, which keeps me busy for the period.
Apparently we started a new project in Art yesterday. Mr. Savoie briefs me on it; we're supposed to depict an ocean scene using watercolor and salt. The salt absorbs the water and pigment, leaving negative space.
Sounds easy enough. I draw a crab from memory and spend the rest of class painting it.
Next up is Language Arts. Barnhart tries to drop hints about what Shakespeare we'll be doing, but no one bites. "A Disney film is based off of it," He says. "Where a young man just can't wait to be king." I get that he's talking about The Lion King, but I don't say a thing.
Finally he caves and tells us, "HAMLET! HAMLET!"
Several of the students groan. Nobody except the theater nerds, like Vanessa McKay, can stand Shakespeare. Probably because you need nonstop footnotes to understand anything that's going on. Freshmen year we had to read Romeo and Juliet, but we got to watch a movie from the 60s that was based on it. It showed Romeo's bare ass, and I guess Juliet's tits were in a background shot if you looked really hard. That shit had the entire grade in a tizzy.
Last year, when we had to do The Merchant of Venice, there was nothing scandalous to look forward to. It's so boring that a movie version doesn't even exist.
Barnhart passes out copies of Hamlet and then makes us take turns reading aloud. Aside from Vanessa (who makes a big show of enunciating every word, which is pretty insufferable but the other students all tolerate it because she's allegedly hot) everyone reads it in a monotone. I'm no exception.
I have to read the line: "Sit down awhile, and let us once again assail your ears, that are so fortified against our story, what we two nights have seen." It ends up sounding more like a question than a statement, because I don't know what the hell is going on.
There's thirty-one students in my class. I follow along enough to keep track of when I'll have to read again, but don't absorb a bit of it.
Eventually I have to speak again and I say: "'Tis gone! We do it wrong, being so majestical, to offer it the show of violence; for it is, as the air, invulnerable, and our vain blows malicious mockery."
God, I hate Shakespeare.
Finally the hour I've been dreading comes along. My heart pounds as I walk towards Bio, and continues to do so even when all I'm doing is sitting at my desk, waiting for class to start.
Mike arrives just as the bell rings, and doesn't even look at me when he comes in. What an asshole.
Mrs. Cox has us doing yet another worksheet. She must be feeling lazy today.
Oh well, time to tackle questions on microbiology. The first one is listing all the taxonomy, which is easy if you use the stupid mnemonic King Philip Cried Out, "For Goodness Sake!"
I can answer most of the sheet without consulting the textbook.
A few minutes before Bio is about to end, I hear Mrs. Cox say my name: "Tamara, Michael. Come here."
I go to her desk. She has our project spread out on it and is tapping it with her pale pink fingernails. Her polish is chipped. It only adds to her haggard appearance.
I feel Mike come up behind me. I can't help but remember what it was like when he was kissing my neck the other day. I feel myself getting flushed just thinking about it, so I force myself to stare at Mrs. Cox's horse face.
"You must have known this was unacceptable to turn in," Cox is saying.
"Why?" I say, even though I already know the answer.
"Religion doesn't have a place in science," she responds.
"Well then," I'm feeling bold. I grab a sharpie from out of her pencil cup and use it to strike out all the Bible verses. "What about now?"
"Hmm," she goes. I can tell she still isn't on board.
So I keep talking: "Look, I dunno. I didn't really think it was anything abnormal. That's just what we talk about in my house."
"The apocalypse?" Mrs. Cox says incredulously.
I don't back down. "Well, my dad's a pastor."
"Oh, right," She frowns, but she's caving. I can tell.
"There's a lot of other useful information there." I remind her.
The bell rings and she sighs, "Just don't do it again."
"I won't," I say, and almost run into Mike when I turn around. You're fucking useless, I think to myself, and give him a look.
I go back to my desk, grab my backpack, and leave. Mike is waiting for me outside the room.
"Your dad's a pastor?" he asks.
"Yup," I stop walking to stare at Mike. "Your girlfriend messaged me," I shift my backpack onto one shoulder. "She's a real bitch."
"She's not my girlfriend." He says.
"Whatever," I don't want to get into semantics.
I head for the stairwell and then the cafeteria. I go outside and begin to walk towards the traffic lights.
"Hey!" Someone yells at me before I can leave the campus. I turn around and see Mike. I keep walking to prove a point, but my heart's hammering as he catches up to me. He grabs my arm.
"Hey." He says again, and I actually look over at him. "I'm sorry."
"For what?" I want to know.
"I don't know, everything,"
"Well, that's pretty vague."
"Whitney is a bitch."
"No shit." I say, and start walking again.
He follows me across the street.
"Where are you going?" He asks me.
"Home. Gotta let Sky out."
"Can we stop at to the store first?"
"I mean, you can do whatever you want," I tell him. "But I'm kind of on a tight schedule."
"To see your dog?" He kind of laughs and pulls out a cigarette.
Hmm, right, he's a delinquent. "Can I tell you a secret?" I ask.
"Yeah, sure," he lights up.
"So I stole Sky from a guy, but he caught me yesterday, and I think I might have killed him."
Mike gives me a look. I can tell he doesn't believe me.
"No, really," I say.
"What?" He exhales slowly. "How does that even happen?"
I give him the Reader's Digest version. "I found Sky a couple days ago, she was chained up and left out in the cold. So I set her free, and she followed me home. Yesterday I was out on the trail with her and we ran into her owner and he was pissed. He took her from me, so I jumped on him, and then he pulled a knife on me, so I kicked him in the face a bunch of times."
"Holy shit," Mike says.
"Yeah." It feels good to finally confess. "I didn't see him get up, and he was pretty bloody when I left."
"Jesus," he swears. "Do you get into fights a lot?"
"No," I admit. "This is the first one."
"I mean, I've been in a few," Mike muses. "But I never thought I killed somebody."
"I mean, I must not have done anything that bad. I don't think there's been anything on the news. I feel like everyone would be talking about it if they found a body… or he told the cops."
He shakes his head. "I haven't heard anything. I think you're in the clear. But damn, I gotta say, I wasn't expecting that when you said you had a secret."
"What'd you think I was going to say?"
"I dunno," he shrugs, then laughs. "That you had a boyfriend or something? Not that you think you might have murdered someone."
"It would have been manslaughter," I say. "I was just defending myself."
"Yeah, I guess," he relents.
"And no, I don't have a boyfriend. I already told you that." I remind him. "But do you have a girlfriend?"
He shakes his head.
"Then what's Whitney?"
"She's just a friend." He says. "Who wishes we were more, I guess. We've hooked up a few times."
"Gross," I say.
He gives me a weird look. "Wait," he says. "You're not…are you…?"
"Not what?"
"That wasn't your first time, was it?"
I feel myself turning red. "Uh," I say. "I guess so."
"Really?" He looks surprised. "You don't look like a virgin… I mean you also don't look like a slut."
"Then what do I look like?" I ask.
"Like a normal person." He says. "For the most part."
By now we're almost to my house.