Infinite (Strange and Beautiful, Book 1) (2 page)

Mom used to be in choir in high school. I found that out from
Grandma Sawyer (Mom’s mom). Apparently she was really good (got to sing solos
and was even a lead in one of the school musicals), but I’ve never really heard
her sing out loud. She usually sings under her breath when we’re in the car.

As for me, I sing out loud and clear, and I don’t really care if
I’m any good or not. I get told to shut up my siblings most of the time, but I
tend to just ignore them the same way they usually ignore me.

As I’ve mentioned several times
already, I have a brother and sister. Skylar just turned eighteen, and now she
thinks she can do whatever she wants. The weekend after her birthday, she came
home with a pierced eyebrow and a tattoo. Mom looked horrified, and Dad started
yelling. There wasn’t anything he could do about the tattoo, which was of a
butterfly—typical Skylar—on the small of her back (a.k.a. a tramp stamp), but
Dad demanded that she take out the piercing or she could get out of the house. I
don’t think he was really serious, but I certainly wouldn’t want to test him.
Skylar yelled and cried and finally stomped upstairs, slamming the door behind
her.

 The piercing was gone the next
morning. Or so my parents thought. She was really wearing a clear retainer, but
it’s not really noticeable unless you’re up close, so Skylar’s been avoiding
getting near our parents for the last month and has been wearing her hair down
around her eye when she’s in the house.

Skylar and I don’t talk much. I think she’s
embarrassed by me to tell the truth. Whenever her friends come over to the
house, she always tells me to get lost, but she can be nice when she wants to
be. She taught me how to do my makeup when I was twelve. Of course, after Dad
saw it, he made me go wash it off because I was too young to wear makeup. (He
said something about it making me look like a harlot. I had no idea what that
meant at the time, but I surmised it wasn’t a good a thing.) Instead, I started
wearing it when I turned fourteen. Not very much. Mostly just lip gloss and eye
shadow and occasionally mascara. I tried to wear eyeliner once, but I poked
myself in the eye and haven’t been brave enough to try it again.

Skylar likes to wear a lot of makeup.
Honestly, I think she looks a bit ridiculous because she always looks like she
has two black eyes, which is really just a shame because she has really pretty
blue eyes, which I guess she got from Dad except his are a bit darker and
duller than Skylar’s. My eyes are green, like Mom’s, but with little flecks of
gold. Luke’s are a blue-green mixture of Mom and Dad’s eyes.

Anyway, Skylar is starting her senior
year. She’s really excited about it, but I think it really has more to do with
going away to college next year. She wants to go to art school. Dad doesn’t
really like it. I’ve heard him complaining to Mom about it, but she says that
it’s Skylar’s decision, so he doesn’t complain to her about it. She sent off
all of her college applications last week. She applied to one school she really
wanted to go to, one she would be okay with going to, and then one safety
school. I think she’ll get into the college of her choice, though. She’s
really good at drawing, painting and photography. I’m kind of jealous, though,
because I have to struggle just to draw a decent stick figure.

My brother’s name is Lucas, but we all
call him Luke—unless he’s in trouble. Then Mom or Dad can usually be heard
yelling, “Lucas Sawyer Granger!” I think our parents say his full name more
than Skylar’s and mine combined, which is fine by me because I hate hearing my
full name (Cecilia Noelle Granger). Not because I dislike my name or anything,
but anytime I hear that I know I’m really in trouble. I usually only get as far
as being called Cecilia, and I take that as a warning. Skylar really hates it
when our parents call her Skylar Beatrix. She hates her middle name. Not that I
can really blame her. I love Grandma Granger, but I’m glad I wasn’t named after
her. Beatrix just sounds too much like Bellatrix, which, of course, makes me
think of
Harry Potter
. Sometimes I think Skylar’s crazy enough that she
could fancy an evil wizard without a nose.

Luke’s named after Mom’s family. Their
last name is Sawyer. I’m not named after anyone, though, and I’m fine with
that. I like having my own name instead of something recycled from the rest of
the family. I guess it’s a tradition, but I think I’ll let Skylar and Luke
carry it on.

Luke likes sports. He used to play baseball and football, and
he’s pretty good at both, I suppose, but last year he quit playing football
because he liked baseball better. Dad was kind of bummed because he prefers
football, but I think he’s mostly just glad that Luke plays some kind of sport
since Skylar and I were never good at or interested in them. I try to make it
to most of Luke’s games to try to cheer him on even though I really don’t
understand a lot of the rules. At least baseball is easier to follow. I asked
Dad to explain football once, and he tried. But I just didn’t get it, so he
finally just told me to be quiet so he could watch.

Luke is a junior, and he can’t wait
for next year. Dad’s pretty sure he’s going to get a baseball scholarship, and
Mom likes that too because, like I said before, she likes to get stuff for
free. I guess there’s nothing wrong with that. I like free stuff too.
Especially when it’s samples of food at the grocery store. Those are always
great.

I don’t think Luke cares much about scholarships. I think Luke’s
mostly just like Skylar and anxious to go away to college.

Luke and I don’t talk much either. He
usually just tells me to shut up and go away. He’s kind of grouchy, really. I
once heard Skylar tell one of her friends it was because he had a lot of pent
up frustration. She then said he should just steal one of Dad’s
Playboy
magazines (Ew!) and lock himself in the bedroom and beat out his sexual
frustrations (Double ew!). That was really kind of scarring to hear because I
don’t need to know that 1. Dad has
Playboy
magazines or 2. Luke is
sexually frustrated.

Gross. That line of thinking is enough
to cause nightmares and result in years of therapy. By the way, did I mention
that sometimes I give away too much information without even realizing it?

On a safer note, I will be starting high school this fall. I’ll
admit that I’m a little nervous, and it doesn’t help that my brother and sister
both told me to pretend like we’re not related. If ever there was confirmation
that I’m a complete and utter spaz that would be it.

Luckily, my best friend, Tegan, will be there with me. She’s one
the few people that, despite knowing I’m a bit odd, really understands me.
Having her by my side will help ease some of the first day jitters. I just hope
I don’t get lost. Or, worse, stuffed in a locker.

My first day of high school began much in the
same way as every other school morning; which is to say that it began with a
lukewarm shower. This was not because I enjoyed less than warm water, but,
rather, because Skylar and Luke were of the belief that, because they were
older than me, they had seniority, and, as the youngest, I was to be last in
line to the bathroom.

Complaints were made, of course. Mom’s solution?

“Take your shower in the evening. Then you’ll have all the hot
water you like.” This was said, naturally, in her most sensible
why-must-children-overcomplicate-things voice.

This was a reasonable option, yes, but there was just one hitch:
my chestnut brown hair—as Skylar once described it—usually lay flat and, let me
just say it, lank, but after a night of sleep, my hair was a complete and utter
mess. It stuck up every which way with knots and tangles; the words haystack,
pigsty and bird’s nest were the most often used descriptions. There were even
claims that if there was a contest for worst case of bed head, I would win, hands
down.

Even more embarrassing, I still had to use the same apple
scented detangler Mom had been buying for me since I was little. At least it
smelled good. So, while my hair refused to hold a curl on a good day—Mom once
took me to get a perm and it only lasted, you guessed it, one day, which was
probably for the best—it was a voluminous, unmanageable mess after a night of
sleep.

So, while a shower in the evening sounded completely practical,
it was not. So, a lukewarm shower it was.

After a less than soothing shower, that did at least manage to
wake me up (because who wouldn’t be shocked into wakefulness by cool water?), I
fumbled through dressing in the outfit I’d chosen the night before: dark washed
Capri pants and a blue scoop neck t-shirt with a white tank underneath that
peaked out at the top and bottom of my t-shirt. It was nothing special or
fancy, but it was comfortable.

Then I went downstairs where Mom was making “the most important
meal of the day!” This was a point of contention between Mom and Skylar. While
Mom was all about piling a stack of pancakes or scooping scrambled eggs and
bacon onto a plate, Skylar typically pouted and complained, “I don’t like
breakfast. Besides, it’s too fattening.”

The thing about my sister was she was almost always on a diet.
Her reasons were unfathomable to me. Maybe it was just an inferiority complex
or maybe I was just biased, but Skylar was gorgeous. Long, chocolate instead of
chestnut (or so she said) hair, pale skin and eyes so blue that strangers had
been known to stop and compliment them. Also, she was already pretty slender. I
mean, she wasn’t bone thin, but that wasn’t a bad thing. She was tall—or at
least, taller than me—and just a bit curvy. I would have loved to have curves,
and would have gladly traded with Skylar on many fronts, but, alas, that was
not possible. Although, with all of the diets, I was half convinced that she
was going to turn into a walking skeleton that I would eventually have to call
Skeletor.

Of course, I would have only called her that behind her back
because, as demonstrated on the girl down the street that went after Skylar’s
then boyfriend, my sister could throw a mean punch. I did not wish to be on the
receiving end of one of her nose-breaking punches. Mom was so embarrassed by the
incident while Dad was furious. Luke, like most boys, thought it was cool, and
I just felt queasy after seeing the blood smeared across Skylar’s knuckles.

So, while Skylar glared and picked at her biscuits and gravy,
Luke and I were for once in agreement and tucked right in. Luke went back for
seconds, but one plate was more than enough for me. Then, after collecting my
messenger bag while Skylar and Luke got their things, we all toed on our shoes
in the front foyer while Mom started giving out hugs and kisses and
encouragements to “have a good day” and “behave” and to “learn something new”
by way of goodbye.

Skylar and Luke mostly shrugged her off, but I hugged Mom back
happily. I liked hugs, and no one around our house liked to give them often.
Perhaps that was why Skylar and Luke were resistant now; maybe they didn’t know
what they were missing. They usually acted the same way when we went to visit
our maternal grandparents, who were also huggers. I always looked forward to
the abundance of affection and liked to think I stored it in my memories to
carry me until the next familial gathering.

Sometimes, though, if I really needed a hug, I’d ask my best
friend, and Tegan would give me one without complaint because she was, after
all, the best. She never seemed bothered in the least by the fact that most
everyone else thought I was weird either.

I met Tegan Tyler on the first day of elementary school. She was
the only person in our kindergarten class who would talk to me. Not that I
could necessarily blame the other kids because I tended to either  talk a
lot—either at them or to myself—or hardly at all. That was just normal for me,
so I didn’t know that other people would consider it weird.

Tegan, though, she was just really nice, and she let me tell her
stories. She even laughed in all the right places. We found out at the end of
the day that we rode the same bus, so we sat together. I think we became best
friends that day. I knew it took most people a while before they became best
friends, but Tegan was the sweetest person I ever met, and probably the first
person that didn’t think I was annoying. I loved her instantly.

Even though I was nervous about my first day as a high school
student—and had lost sleep in favor of babbling in my newest private notebook
because of said nerves—I was anxious to get to school and see Tegan. I knew if
she was there then it couldn’t be all bad. Besides, her older sister, Tierney,
would also be there. She and Luke were the same age and in the same class,
though they didn’t travel in the same social circles. Tierney, like Tegan, was
also incredibly nice. In fact, that was true of the whole Tyler clan.

Besides Tierney, Tegan had two younger siblings, a brother and
sister named Tanner and Tatum. Their parents, Trista and Travis, were, aside
from an apparent fetish with the letter T, not only also extremely kind but
also very cool. I asked them once if they would adopt me if I changed my name
to something beginning with a T. I was thinking either Tessa or Topanga—the
latter inspired by too many nights at the Tylers’ watching DVDs of
Boy Meets
World
. I never got a definitive answer from them, but they did laugh. In
the end, I decided it would probably hurt my parents’ feelings anyway if asked
to change my name. After all, they must have named me Cecilia for a reason, and
they probably wouldn’t give up their parental rights.

After the hugs and kisses from Mom, I followed my brother and
sister out to their cars. Skylar’s was a 2003 silver Ford Taurus that Mom and
Dad helped her buy the previous year. She’d been saving for a car since she
started working at sixteen. Skylar called it her baby and christened it Topper.
Probably because it had a sunroof. Luke got Skylar’s old car, a blue 1999 Dodge
Neon, that previously belonged to Mom. Skylar called it Trusty Rusty while Luke
usually just called it “a piece of shit.”