The Last Changeling (6 page)

10

T
aylo
R

“How old were you?” I asked, watching the walls in the stuffy basement room. Maybe if I stared hard enough, a window would appear,
presto!
Cracks lined the ceiling, hinting at a mess of leaky pipes in the wall, and I could hear someone turning on a faucet up above.

“Eleven,” Keegan said, his desk squeaking as he nodded to Kylie. “We'd just turned eleven.”

“Wow.” I leaned forward, resting my elbows on my knees. “Was it hard?”

Keegan shrugged. “They wouldn't let me go back to Sunday school, with all those other boys. I guess they weren't worried about the priests.”

Sitting to Keegan's left, Kylie winced. “That's not funny,” she said, nervously arranging her skirt. Fat black letters covered the white fabric, spelling out slang words:
sick, weak, bomb, money
.

“It's not funny it happens,” Keegan said. “It's funny they could read news story after news story about creepster priests and still think
I'd
be the bad influence.”

“Explain to me the metaphor,” Lora said from her desk by the wall. Today she was wearing ripped jeans under a black babydoll dress—my mom's “uniform” from college. “I do not understand this
coming out
.” Her gaze traveled over each member of the group.

Besides the four of us, three other people had shown up for the weekly meeting of Unity's Gay-Straight Alliance. There were two girls in the back of the room, snuggled together like ferrets, and a boy sitting at the desk closest to the door. With his darting eyes and sweating hands, he gave off the distinct impression that someone had forced him to come to the meeting, though I was pretty sure that wasn't the case.

“It's about not hiding,” Kylie explained. “Staying in the closet means hiding who you are.”

“And maybe … playing in your mother's pumps,” Keegan added.

“You didn't do that.” Kylie smirked at him, her face losing its tension for the first time since she'd arrived.

Keegan grinned back. “You did.”

“So the closet is a metaphor for keeping oneself hidden,” Lora said, a curious intensity in her eyes.

Kylie nodded. “It's safe and warm, but it's dark and nobody can see you.”

“So when you come out, you step into the light of the world,” Lora finished for her.

Kylie's gaze traveled to the floor, to the dust gathering like tiny tumbleweeds. “And then everybody can see you.”

For a minute, everyone was silent.

Keegan repositioned himself in his chair, the desk scraping across the floor. He seemed to enjoy doing it, like maybe he was leaving his mark. “What's really interesting is, once you've revealed your true colors, people start to reveal theirs.”

I scanned the room, watching the different reactions. From the back of the room, the two girls nodded. The boy in the front clutched the sides of his desk.

“So when you came out, your parents actually told you to get out?” I tried to envision such a scenario. I couldn't imagine what kind of trouble I'd have to get into before my mother threw me out on the street.

Then again, I was a lot closer to the street than I used to be.

“Yup,” Keegan confirmed. “But it was fine. We moved in with our aunt and never looked back.” He shot Kylie a glance. “Well, I did, first.”

“What about you?” I asked Kylie, whose hands had taken to wringing themselves.

“Oh, she's only half a heathen,” Keegan said.

“What does that mean?” Lora asked.

“I'm bi,” Kylie explained. “Maybe I could've stayed at home. But after Keegan left, they were really … strict.”

“They were always strict,” Keegan said.

“They're just … ” Kylie searched for the right words. “They're just different.”

“I'd say they're pretty normal.”

Kylie ignored her brother. “I knew it was only a matter of time before they asked me if I was … you know. I couldn't
lie to them. So I called Auntie Jane and had her come get me.”

“At, like, two a.m.,” said Keegan.

Kylie lowered her eyes.

“Hey.” He reached for her. “I'm just playing with you.”

Her voice was soft, a kitten's mew. “I know.”

He turned back to me. “Seriously. They're assholes.”

A slew of horrific scenarios ran through my mind, complete with dungeon chambers and exorcising priests. Then it hit me, hard as a brick in the face. Parents didn't have to lock their kids in dungeons to make them feel worthless.

I caught Keegan's gaze and held it. “I'm sorry.”

He laughed. “I'm not.” His eyes were glued to me, but I got the impression he was talking to Kylie. “Bad things happen to everyone. You either care about what other people think or you realize their hang-ups have nothing to do with you.”

Kylie sniffed, raising her head to face the group. “People hate you and they haven't even met you. But it's better than the alternative.” She ran her hands through her hair, the dark strands shining in the fluorescent lights. “Because when you're hiding, all you do is hate yourself.”

–––––

After the meeting, Kylie caught up with Lora on the school's front lawn. “Come shopping with me,” she entreated, glancing at me as she wheeled down the walkway. “Unless you have plans.”

“I do not,” Lora replied, eyeing me as well. I blinked back at her, unprepared for the sudden onslaught of sunlight. “But I have to tell you,” she continued, “I'm developing an aversion to crowds.”

Kylie laughed. Keegan snuck up behind her and put his hands over her eyes.

“Don't!” She sped away, nearly running into a pack of Unity's elite. Alexia Mardsen towered above the pack, surrounded by a halo of cigarette smoke.

For a moment Kylie froze. Then, lifting her head, she looked into the eyes of Unity's queen bee and glared.

Alexia took a long, exaggerated drag on her cigarette and exhaled. I couldn't help but watch the movement of her lips. The girl made our cheerleaders look like band geeks. With her pale brown skin and black, wavy hair, it wouldn't have surprised me to learn she'd descended from the Amazons. To date, I'd heard she was part Black, part Puerto Rican, and part Japanese, but I couldn't have said for certain. Anytime someone asked her what she “was,” she made up a different answer to toy with them.

The only labels she liked were on her clothing.

“Just passing through?” she said to Kylie, stubbing her cigarette out on a tree.

Kylie held her gaze before moving on. Keegan hissed dramatically.

Alexia just smiled, like they were entertaining her.

“What was all that?” Lora asked when we'd gained a good distance from the pack.

“Party politics,” Keegan said. “We have a long-standing rivalry with the Populari.”

Kylie giggled, returning her attention to us. “One of the many reasons we don't go shopping in crowded malls.” She flashed a mischievous smile. “We have better places to be.”

“Siberia?” Keegan offered.

“Thrift store shopping—”

“Spelunking—”

“In Old Town.”

“Yes,” Keegan said stuffily, “rejected rags from the seventies look just like the fall line from Dolce and Gabbana.” He stuck out his hip in a surprisingly good impression of Alexia.

“Ignore the nonbeliever.” Kylie linked arms with Lora. “It totally works if you have
imagination
. And if we don't find what we want, we just make it.” She ran her fingers over her skirt.

“You made this?” Lora asked.

“She makes everything,” Keegan said. “She's a witch! Burn her!”

Kylie laughed. “So you wanna come?”

“I'd love to,” Lora said. “Lend me a minute?”

“Sure.” Kylie nudged me in the side before leading Keegan away.

“You don't have to ask me,” I said, watching the twins race along the walkway. I really didn't want to spend the evening without Lora; I still had the acute fear that sh
e was going to disappear. But I knew I'd reach a new level of psycho if I insisted on tagging along.

“I know,” Lora said. “We just haven't discussed—”

“I know.”

“And I don't want to overstay.”

“You won't.”

“You're right.”

“I didn't mean it like that.” I clenched my jeans in my fists, hating that I could never find the right words. I couldn't tell her she could stay forever. Was that even a promise I could make? But I couldn't put a time limit on her visit either. “What I mean is, you could never overstay.” My gaze traveled to the oak branch arching above her head, curling like a claw toward her hair. “I want you to be safe—”

“It's not your responsibility.”

“Lora. You're not inconveniencing me.”

It seemed, for once, that I'd said the right thing. She nodded, reaching up and grabbing the branch. It looked like she was shaking hands with the tree. I remembered I used to do that sort of thing, back when I was a kid and the guys wouldn't have mocked the shit out of me for it.

“Have fun,” I said, when what I really wanted to do was stay and watch her move like a memory of my former self.

“Thank you.” She hesitated, like she was waiting for something. Then she gave a tiny bow of her head and chased Kylie and Keegan across the lawn.

Weird day.

But I had no idea how weird it was about to get, because the minute my friends were gone, Alexia beckoned to me.

Me.

The guy she hadn't noticed in four years. Now she was staring at me with the calculated expression of an owl about to swallow a mouse. And she was alone.

I ambled over.

“Yeah?” I said, looking around for hidden cameras.

“What do you think you're doing?” she demanded. “Is there some new hazing ritual I should know about?”

“Excuse me?” It was, for the moment, the best I could manage.

“Oh please.” She rolled her eyes. “Do you have to feign innocence?”

Do you have to talk like you're better than everyone else?
I thought, fully empathetic to Kylie's contempt. Being a haughty, self-entitled beauty queen was bad enough. But Alexia wielded her words like a weapon, cutting down anyone who challenged her.

“What do you want?” I asked.

Alexia pulled a gold Zippo from the pocket of her skin-tight jeans. She flicked the flame in my face. “I want to know what your game is,” she said, lighting a new cigarette. “One minute you're playing lapdog to Brad Dickson, and the next you're playing civil rights in the basement. Something about that doesn't add up.”

“What are you talking about?”

“What's the bet, Taylor? Fifty bucks if you get Keegan to profess his undying love to you?” She pushed me with her palm. “A hundred if you can turn Kylie straight?”

Her voice drilled into my brain. I stumbled back, trying to escape it. “You're kidding, right? You think I'm friends with them because of a bet?”

“I don't think you're
friends
with anyone,” she said with a sly little smirk. “You haven't had friends in years.”

Gee, Alexia. Tell me what you really think.

She exhaled slowly, smoke circling her head. “You've been moping around since sophomore year, playing the part of the loner, and
suddenly
you decide to join the soccer team? Methinks you've grown tired of eating alone on your little swings.”

My guts twisted. I didn't know what was worse: the fact that Alexia knew I'd been eating alone, or the fact that she was right about me. After two years of being totally and completely alone, at school and at home, I
had
wanted to make friends with the guys on the team. I just hadn't realized I'd be risking my soul in the process.

And I wasn't Brad's lapdog.

I'd
never
be Brad's lapdog.

“Look, you can think whatever you want,” I said, meeting her gaze. “I joined the soccer team because I'm good at it.”

“Yes, you are,” Alexia drawled, in a way that implied she wasn't talking about sports. “Once you settled in with the gorillas, I thought I knew what your game was. Then you go and get tangled up with the basement brigade—”

“I
like
them.”

“The redhead, maybe. You don't exactly have closet-case written across your forehead. But you're much too smart to go after Kylie and risk the backlash—”

“I wouldn't care,” I said, standing at my full height in an attempt to gain back some of my pride. I was furious at her callous dismissal of my friends. “You know why?”

She raised her eyebrows.

“They're cooler than you,” I said.

Something flickered across her eyes then, something like fear. She recovered quickly. “Fine. Plead ignorance. But you need to understand something, Little Boy Blue.” She stepped closer. “Important things are happening at Unity. You can't keep jumping between the carriage and the Camaro without getting crushed beneath the wheels. My suggestion? Pick a side.”

–––––

When night rolled around, I flopped onto my futon, ready to just listen to Lora's voice. I didn't even care what she talked about. Circus clowns, dragons. Prehistoric tap-dancing lizards. Her voice was so soothing (not to mention
sexy
), it wouldn't matter.

Unfortunately, she didn't appear to be in a talking mood at the moment. She was sitting cross-legged on my bed, staring so hard at her homework that I doubted she was really absorbing anything. Maybe her time with the twins had made her realize I wasn't all that interesting. Or maybe she was just waiting for me to talk to her.