I walk the halls alone on my first day of eighth grade. I’ve been going to this school since preschool, so I’ll know who’s new. I wave to a couple people in the halls, wondering whether or not they see my binder through my almost see-through uniform shirt. It’s 7:30 in the morning because of Early Morning Latin, my first class of the year.
I unload my Captain America backpack into locker 236, bringing only a pencil, my laptop, and my Latin textbook.
As soon as I walk into Ms. B’s classroom, the whispering starts.
Why do the shirts have to be so thin?
I grin and bear it, sitting at the back of the class. She’s going through, asking names. I already know my first new student: Bair.
Forty-five minutes later, the halls are overflowing with the 142 students of the seventh and eighth grades at STAB. Some people look at me weird, but I don’t really care. I take note of my locker partner, Riley. He’s a seventh grader who almost got held back in kindergarten for reasons unknown.
This should be an interesting year.
I’m in Mme. B’s advisory, the only Spanish student. Doesn’t matter, though. I’m already fluent in French.
I sit at the blue ceramic cafe table in the back while the teacher gives pointed looks to Dawson, Ryan, Jack, and Eli because they’ve had past issues with rules.
Dawson’s been sent to the head of school three times in one year (third grade).
Ryan spends all his time with his fantasy basketball team.
Jack’s dad is the head of the boarding program at the high school.
Eli’s dad coaches the university basketball team.
Some of them consider themselves above rules, others just like breaking them. The only civil boys in this class are Stewart and Henry, computer science nerds.
The girls are half jocks, half orchestra freaks.
Gia and Peyton both seem to play every sport they let girls play.
Sam and Isabella both play violin, usually solo.
And then there’s me: the otaku, activist, and author that only really fits in with the emo kids.
Mme. hurries us out the door so her seventh grade French class can come in, and I’m once again thrown into the fray that is the blue tile hallway.
Boys pass by me, yelling “Hey, Elsa. What’s up?”
I ignore them.
My first class is English, one of my favorites. I immediately know I like the teacher, Mr. P. He lets us turn in assignments late, blow bubbles, and blast REM. His favorite band is the Beatles and he was once the singer for a cover band. We talk about music while everyone else is writing down questions about him.
I take my time on the way to Spanish because I know the teacher loves me. Sra. L has been one of my favorite teachers since last year, when I first started taking Spanish.
Somehow, after only nine months of class, I’m better than those who have been taking the class for three years.
In your face, Jackson and Lisa.
Sorry, let me back up a little bit.
Lisa is a Chinese girl who’s been my top rival in school since kindergarten. She can’t seem to grasp the concept that someone could possibly be marginally as smart as she is, let alone better than her. In truth, the only class she beats me in is math.
Jackson has been a constant pain for a solid year. He came in fifth grade, but I was too busy dealing with other bullies to really notice him. He takes full advantage of my love of my temporarily adopted country of France by trying to convince me of all the ways America’s better. At the moment, he’s failing. Oh, and he’s a homophobic, racist, sexist ass.
I go through my usual break routine: english muffin with two packs of butter, and a soy milk.
I’m about to leave the cafeteria when the principal pulls me over to a girl with sparkly cat ears and a maroon plaid tie.
Before he can say anything, I decide that this girl is what love looks like to me.
Her brown hair (slightly tangled in the ears) falls just past her shoulders, where it turns blonde. Her face is indescribable, but her blue eyes….I could write entire books about her eyes.
Mr. B interrupts my wild fantasy world with his sharp British accent.
“Elsa, this is Rowan. She’s new, and I thought you two might get along well.”
I wave and pray I’m not blushing. She waves back and walks over to me.
“Hey, Elsa!”
Her voice.
Damn.
As soon as Mr. B is out of earshot, I manage to stammer “A-actually, it’s E-Eden.”
“What do you mean? Everyone else calls you Elsa.”
“That’s because they’ve known me relatively forever, and the Eden thing is kind of a recent development.”
“Figuring out who you are?”
“Yeah, kinda.”
“I get it. It was the same way with my older sibling. They’re non-binary. I’m just gonna assume that’s fine with you.”
“Oh, yeah, it’s fine. I’m not exactly non-binary. I’m closer to genderfluid, but not quite.”
“Cool! Wanna go hang out outside? I saw this girl with blue hair who looked pretty cool.”
The blue-haired girl is the closest thing I have to a best friend: Lia.
We went to a Panic! at the Disco concert back in June, screaming our heads off to Girls/Girls/Boys, and crying in our hotel room about the speech about equal rights that Brendon Urie gave before it.
The rest of break passes comfortably wedged between the most beautiful girl on the planet and my best friend, listening to Ellie rant about capitalism again.
After we part ways (Lia and I to orchestra, Ellie to theater, and Rowan to visual arts), Lia stops right in front of me.
“So, what do you think?”
“I-I don’t know what you’re t-talking about.”
“Duh. I saw the way you were looking at the new girl.”
“It’s nothing, okay? I’m just trying to figure her out.”
“If you say so.”
This year, we’re the older half of the Mozart Orchestra, which means I get to sit in the second row of the viola section. It’s a sad and thankless job, being a viola. Nobody knows you exist; nobody hears you or notices you.
Kinda like the rest of my life.
I sit behind Natalie, the model student, determined to be better than her this year. Hunter to my right looks pretty happy to be the seventh grader sitting in the middle row with Kate instead of the back with Maxwell, Henry, and Nolan.
Unfortunately for those last three, just because the audience doesn’t notice you doesn’t mean Mrs. L doesn’t. Most of their first class consists of being sent into the commons, and being yelled at. It’s glorious.
Lunch is always the same for me: grab a roast beef sandwich from my friend Eric the lunch guy, a bag of Goldfish, and a soy milk. I sit outside, alone until Natalie and Lia arrive, and Rowan not long after. Our group hasn’t changed much since last year: the four of us (plus Rowan) on one side of the picnic table with Maeve and Pallavi, the orchestra freaks (Isabella, Emma, Sam, Jackie, and Celia) on the other. It’s always entertaining, especially when Julia decides to sit with us, showing off whatever new way she’s found to wear as little clothing as possible while still maintaining the uniform. It’s impressive. Today we’re laughing about Celia’s alpaca impersonation when we realize we’re almost late for Core 2.
I walk into math class with a growing sense of dread. This class is the reason I almost died last year.
Literally.
I almost drank bleach over seventh grade math class.
I really hope this year is better.
I’m sitting with Ryan, Jeremy, and Caroline G. Jeremy can be nice when he wants to be, but usually he just speaks in obscure memes I have yet to discover. Caroline spends the first half of class asking me questions about Satan (which I am more than happy to answer, as a proud lover of Lucifer), and the next half looking utterly lost over whatever joke Mr. L is trying to tell us. Just as class ends, I see a flash across the room.
A flash coming from a rhinestone.
On a cat ear headband.
I’m done for.
I hurry to science as quickly as I can, excited to meet Mr. W, who is supposedly the greatest teacher ever. He introduces himself as the Dank Memester. Fabulous. He makes sure he’s pronouncing everyone’s names right, and proceeds to question us about the meaning of community. Forty-five minutes later, I’m on my computer back in Mme B’s room for study hall.
I’m out the door at 2:45.
——————————–
I wake up at midnight on Thursday morning. This isn’t necessarily unusual, just a little annoying on weekdays. I know there’s no hope of sleep, so I grab my laptop and type in my password, trying desperately to fully open my eyes. As my computer logs me in, I take a couple of Gobstoppers from the stash in my stuffed animal pile. My Chemical Romance lyrics fill my screen, a constant friend through the shitstorm of my life. I know everyone else in the house is asleep, and Zoe won’t tell anyone about the candy.
Zoe’s my twin sister and real best friend. She’s a little more popular than me, and goes to a different school (for who knows what reason). We came out together (to a not-exactly-accepting but also not-exactly-unaccepting set of parents) in seventh grade, and have double-dates with our girlfriends. We make jokes about being platonic soulmates, and we support each other through everything.
She’s one of the few reasons I’m still alive.
I hum our theme song to myself while I click around aimlessly on AO3, hoping something new will show up on my favorite tag. Just as I’m about to log in, I hear her singing behind me:
“No better you than the you that you are.”
She sings this to me whenever she thinks I might be depressed. It’s annoying, but in a cute, twin sister way.
“No better life than the life we’re living.”
She’s my world.
———————
We officially wake up six hours later to the sound of our older sister forgetting her earbuds after turning on Madoka Magica. We laugh as quietly as we can before working up the motivation to get ready, eventually dragging ourselves to the overstuffed closet.
“It’s so full because it has to hold us, too.”
“Z, what did you drink last night?”
“Water, and you know it.”
It’s all I can do not to cry from laughing so hard. I need to start sleeping more. Her school doesn’t have a uniform, so her side of our closet is mostly lilac, while mine is full of maroon plaid skirts, white button-downs, and gray jumpers.
We pick out each others’ accessories like always: rainbow hair tie for me, gold headband for her. At the last second, she holds out a pair of navy-blue cat ears.
“Thought you might want these.”
How could she know?
Jordan’s curses (probably about some minor food-related accident) pull me out of my mini panic attack. Probably for the better. I clean off the lens of my rainbow glasses as I rush downstairs for my daily dose of Nutella waffles.
——–
The drive to school takes fifteen minutes, passed by shuffling through various Hamilton songs, rapping cabinet battles between the four of us. My siblings and I have become our own little family, since three of us are LGBT and our parents aren’t exactly allies. Zoe and I sit in the back of our brother’s Prius, laughing while Jordan stumbles over the words to Guns and Ships. Unfortunately, Zoe’s laughter doesn’t last long. Guns and Ships was her song when she was dating Baylee. Baylee’s mom found out about them and made them break up. For days, Zoe wouldn’t even talk to me, all I could get out of her was ‘we are waiting in the field for you.’ I liked Baylee a lot. She had red hair, black glasses, and wouldn’t be caught dead without cat whiskers drawn on her face.
——–
I’m almost late for EML because Caleb got stuck at a light after dropping Jordan off at the high school. I rush to my locker, but still take the time to organize everything. If I don’t I’ll only hurt myself. Latin is still pretty boring, but I can correctly pronounce most things now. After class, I run into Rowan at the library kiosk. Without looking up, she holds out a book: The Darkest Part of the Forest.
“Does this sound any good?”
I take the book from her and read the inside cover. It actually does sound really good.
“Yeah, I might have to read this one.”
She looks up, startled, the surprise instantly covered by a smile.
“Omigosh I love your ears! Where did you get them?”
“I don’t know, my sister gave them to me.”
“They’re so much bigger than mine. I wish I knew where to get a pair.”
“I’ll ask her later.”
“Oh, she doesn’t go here?”
“No, not sure why, though. Guess people wanted to keep us separated. She goes to HGS.”
“Oh. I still hope I can meet her sometime.”
“Shit.”
“What?”
“We’re late for advisory.”
It takes her a moment to process, but fear quickly covers her perfect features.
“Uh oh. I should probably go.”
“Me too.”
We both rush away, but when she glances back at me, I can see that she’s blushing.
————-
“Guys, we need to decide on an advisory team name for the field trip to Triple C in October.”
Thus begins an all-out riot between the eleven of us.
“Super Boulle!”
“Dumboulledore”
“Istanboulle”
“What about Sunset Boullevard”
“Dawson, give it a rest. All you did was look up classic movies.”
This is going to take a while.
———–
My first class is history, so it’s back to Ms. B’s room.
“Alright, so everyone pick out a workbook. If you’re in Latin, pick a different color from your Latin book. I’ll give you one of the magical name tags for you to mark yours. Put your name and Classical Foundations 8 on your tag. Here’ the basic synopsis of eighth grade history…”
I manage to tune out everything else, hopefully Pallavi will let me copy off of her later. I spend the rest of class thinking about the other students in it:
A blonde boy near Mr S’s desk (the regular Latin teacher) who I don’t recognize. This has to be either Bobby or Alec.
Cole, all four feet of him, is near the window, doing god-knows-what on his computer. I get the feeling he’s one of the moderators of 2021getdank, the Instagram page making fun of our grade.
Amrit. I don’t know her very well, even though we’re in all the same classes. I know that she’s from Hong Kong and is distantly related to Gresham.
Pallavi is sitting right across from me. Her life is made of puns, roasts, and jokes that are mostly racist towards herself. She’s one of the few exceptions to the privileged white kid norm at our school.
David was new last year. I though he was cool until he started asking me to list genders, and said ‘so I could put literally anything before the word gender and it would work. Hey guys, I’m tablegender.’
Caroline G is sweet, if a little ditzy. She acts interested in the weird, random stuff I tell her about (including, but not limited to Satan and good websites to play sexist cooking games).
Sophie H was new is fifth grade, but seemed to miss school every other day last year. This is all I know about her.
Thomas can go jump off a cliff for all I care.
Seppi’s kinda cool. He’s not a total asshole, but he can be. He’s the tallest kid I know, to the point where I have to look up to talk to him. He’s pretty smart sometimes.
Emma is a dancer and violinist with crazy blonde curls and this really cool white streak. I’ve been trying to convince her to be Rogue for Halloween. She’s really sweet, and a great ballerina.
Lucas “Piller” P. Wow, where do I start? Guy’s totally clueless, but means well. He’s not very smart, only kinda popular (not that I care), and he’s a grade-A jock. Still, he’s not that bad.
Ryan is having a conversation with Thomas and Seppi, probably about their fantasy basketball drafts or something.
Erica is the other new girl this year. She’s your average white girl as far as I can tell.
Tomas is hilarious. He makes memes, mostly, and his favorite work is rekt.
Nick is cool, I guess. He’s nice, sometimes, but spends too much time trying to be like everyone else. My couple of friends have decided he’s gay. Honestly, he’s been dating Gresh since like second grade.
Henry’s part-nerd, part-jock. On one hand, he makes movies with his twin brother. On the other, he’s a soccer superstar who ran a mile in four minutes back in fourth grade.
Kyia is possibly the second-nicest person I know. She’s super religious, but doesn’t force it on anyone. She always knows when someone needs a hug, and is always there to give them one.
————-
Spanish is mostly uneventful.
Oh, yeah, except that we have an essay due at the end of September telling everyone everything about ourselves.
This should be fun.
I decide to get started right away, since she’s actually letting us.
I open my Google Docs account and create a new document: Ensayo: Quien Soy Yo?
One thing I love about Sra. L’s projects is that she gives us a sheet with questions to answer. I do well with questions. If I just had a template, I would crash and burn, but with questions I know what I need to say.
The first thing on the list is an introduction, since this is an oral report.
Hola. Me llamo Eden Maximoff. Yo quiero hablar de mí. Van a aprender como soy y quiénes son mis mejores amigos. Van a aprender porque me gusta escribir, y quiénes son mis cantantes favoritos. ¡Espero que te gusta!
(Hello. My name is Eden Maximoff. I want to talk about myself. You’ll learn what I’m like, and who my best friends are. You’ll learn why I love writing, and who my favorite singers are. I hope that you like it!)
—————-
Break would have been nice if Rowan wasn’t busy with an art project. She spends a lot of free time in Mr R’s room, working on her painting. All I’ve heard from her about it is that it’s an ocean during a storm. I hope she’ll show it to me when she’s done.
Becca has her laptop camera open, talking to it, introducing everyone (except me). She started vlogging last spring, and I kinda wish she hadn’t. She made one about our play, The Jungle Book, and cut out everything that had me in it, even the things she let Rosalie film.
—————
We’re finally getting real pieces for orchestra when Mrs. L drops the bombshell.
“We’re going to have a Halloween concert this year.”
Mayday, man down. Say what now? We’ve never done anything that early in the year, there’s no way we’ll be ready.
“I know it’s a little early, but I think we can pull it off. We’re starting today with a piece called The Haunted Carousel. Take one and pass it through your section.
The piece is easy enough, lots of Gs and Ds, simple stuff.
“Alright, I want you to imagine you’re out walking in the woods at night. There’s fog, and all the trees are dead. Then, you see it. An old, broken-down carousel.”
Mrs. L’s great at giving us images that can move with the music, help us feel the rhythm and the notes. I can practically see the old horse going around in circles as the first violins play what sounds suspiciously like slowed-down carnival music.
It scares the hell out of me.
You see, I have this thing about…..
the C-word.
You can probably guess what it is.
————
Lunch is pretty normal, Maeve panicking over bees and trapping one under her empty juice glass.
——-
I have English again, ready to do whatever it is we’re supposed to do today.
“Alright, guys. We’re going to listen to an audiobook made about the Trojan War, everything leading up to the Iliad.”
Because the Iliad isn’t the story of the Trojan War.
“You should probably take a couple of notes, just here and there, important stuff.”
Dang, I like this guy.
I take out a piece of notebook paper and start doodling. Nothing in particular, just a mess of straight lines in the margins.
—————-
Math class once again. This year is going to go by very slowly.
“The warm-up is on the board. We’ll look at it in about ten minutes.”
Easy algebra. Finishing it quickly gives me a chance to take in the other 19 kids in the class.
Amrit, Jeremy, Pallavi, Dawson, Caroline G, Rowan, Thomas, Emma, Ryan, Tomas, Sam, Nick, and Henry.
Celia loves llamas and orchestra more than life. We were in the same elective last year, making light-up stuffed animals. Hers was an egg with tentacles.
Ken is new, a Chinese boy with limited English, but great photo editing skills.
Sami used to play cello, but quit because he didn’t want to be the only cello in our grade like he was last year. He’s generally sarcastic, but he can be pretty nice.
Katherine has a kind of power. Her family’s been going here for generations, and her dad runs admissions.
Bair is a comp-sci nerd, like the twins and Stewart. He’ll fit right in here.
Natalie is bossy, sarcastic, and hypocritical. She’s also the only thing standing between me and the title of Ultimate Viola. She’s one of my best friends.
Mr. L has us fill out a survey about our summer and we then have to graph everyone else’s results. The only interesting observation is the last question:
Is math beautiful?
My answer: No, but different people have different opinions and viewpoints. I don’t find it beautiful, but that doesn’t mean nobody can.
His response when grading: :(
I was one of two people to say no.
The other?
Caroline G.
———–
Study hall is full of writing and watching to see if Isabella ever even enters the room.
She doesn’t.
—————–
The first Friday of school is Convocation, which means I can sleep in. School starts at 9:00 and ends after two hours of speeches and songs. Afterwards, Zoe and I usually go get frozen yogurt at Bloop.
I pick up my chapel buddy Rowen at her fourth grade classroom. This is her first year going to Convocation. We walk down to the gym together, flanked by the rest of her class and their buddies. We take our seats (conveniently located directly in front of Rowan), and wait for the ear-splitting sound of bagpipes. The bagpipes are a school tradition, and are played as teachers and twelfth-graders enter. It only stops once every student and parents is seated, and the teachers circle the gym dressed in black. That’s the only thing I like about this: I get to run out of the building shouting 'death eaters everywhere!’
The senior class president this year is Evans, whose sister is in ninth grade. She gives a speech on a letter her kindergarten teacher sent her in fourth grade. Last year, Chris did a speech on a boy he knew who died of a seizure three years ago. That one actually made me cry. Hanz was the fourth student to die in the space of three years. Six years ago, Merriweather and Jackson died in a plane crash, the next year, Katherine died of anorexia. She got a dedication in last year’s yearbook, as she would have been a senior.
We sing the school song, and the high school orchestra plays Illumination, a song I was supposed to help them with, but I got cut yesterday.
After the whole thing is finally over, I meet Caleb and Zoe outside, pulling into the South Side shopping center, location of both my orthodontist and the best frozen yogurt place in town. I get my favorite: ice cream sandwich gelato and cake batter frozen yogurt with mint chips and Swiss Rolls. The girl at the counter is wearing a Hamilton t-shirt. Do not throw away your shot.
Yeah, right, because it’s that easy.
I sing My Shot to myself as we walk out, passing the fortress of pain and blood that is my orthodontist.
The drive home is uneventful, and Zoe and I quickly lock ourselves in our room.
I put My Chemical Romance’s album Danger Days into my CD player (yes, I have a five-disc changer in my room), and turn to track 2
“The future is bulletproof, the aftermath is secondary. It’s time to do it now and do it loud. Killjoys make some noise!”
It’s so much fun to violently shout nanananana at someone.
Two songs later and we’re belting out SING, not caring who hears.
“Sing it for the boys, sing it for the girls, every time that you lose it sing it for the world. Sing it from the heart, sing it till you’re nuts, sing it out for the ones that’ll hate your guts. Sing it for the deaf, sing it for the blind, sing about everyone that you left behind. Sing it for the world.”
I find most of my inspiration in music: MCR, Fall Out Boy, Panic! at the Disco, Troye Sivan, Twenty One Pilots, Hamilton, Avril Lavigne (one of these things is not like the others).
Suddenly, Zoe stops laughing and changes the disc.
She found the mix CD I made called 'My Theme Songs’
Uh oh.
Most of it’s fine: Wild Things, Bright, YOUTH, Time to Dance, innocent stuff.
With two exceptions:
Scars to Your Beautiful by Alessia Cara
I Wish I Was Someone Better by Blood Red Shoes
“Maybe we have made her blind so she tries to cover up her pain, and cut her woes away…”
Without warning, she grabs my right arm and pulls up the sleeve of my blue sweater as far as she can.
A faint strip of red goes from my wrist to my elbow, spelling out words no longer readable. Unfortunately, they can’t exactly pass as class notes.
RIP Em: 7-4-16
I did that a week ago.
“What….”
There’s nowhere to run, so I run inside myself, retreating into my mind, locking her out. It’s not like there’s anything she could say to change it, it’s already been done, Em is already dead, and she can’t go back and save them.
I don’t realize I’m crying until she wipes the tears from my face.
“E, what happened?”
Just like that, everything that I’ve been holding back since July 4th, 2016 comes out, shorter in words than it was in thoughts.
“I had this internet friend named Em. People bullied them for being genderfluid. Nobody got them but our little group. We all had issues, but we were there for each other. On the fourth of July, we got an anonymous message on our ThisCrush from one of our members saying they hadn’t done it yet, but they were going to do it that night. We all panicked, trying to figure out who it was. We narrowed it down to Em and Kate. Everyone posted love for Kate, but forgot about Em. Em deleted all their posts on both the group account and their personal, they deleted their profile picture, and stopped responding to messages. By the time they died, I was the only one still on. I feel like it was my fault. I could’ve told the others to send them messages, to give them some love, too. But I didn’t. If I actually cared, I would’ve found other ways to contact them, send them virtual hugs, stay up all night with them if I had to. But I didn’t. I just watched the fireworks and cried.”
The rest of the night passes in silence, wrapped in my twin sister’s arms while I cry into her shoulder.