Chapter 2
ISAK
October
Three months earlier
Sometimes I look at my life like it’s a play. Since I’m never acting again, I amuse myself by narrating my everyday. Take today, for example:
Our curtain opens on Royce High, located on California’s rural central coast about a half hour north of Santa Barbara.
It’s nestled up against scrubby foothills in an older housing development and consists of an open-air mishmash of buildings dating from the 1920s to the present.
Stage left, chattering students rush to class.
Stage right, first period waits for me. The heavy 1960s-era classroom door is decorated with rainbow and BLM flags and a computer-printed sign that reads “Ms. Gaston’s English 12 and 12H. ”
The ambiance is of just-mown grass and possibility. We’ve been back for a month and a half, but the school year still feels as fresh as an unopened spiral notebook and a box of brand-new pens.
Enter our hero: Me. My hair is perfectly mussed (matte clay is the secret), and my eyes are lined with kohl.
On point. The wardrobe department, which is, uh, me, knows my style: awesome jeans—huge, black, and held up with a tight belt; my favorite charcoal T-shirt under a black dress shirt with a large embroidered black rose covering the back; and new sneakers.
I’m floating on a natural high. Even though it’s early on a cloudy, gray Wednesday morning, my face is upturned and I’m smiling. It’s going to be a great day. I know it. Hell, maybe this year will be my best one ever.
As if the director called “Action,” I’m about to open the door and walk into English class when my best friend, Zanita, glides over in full Goth regalia: black velvet skirt, black cardigan over dark gray tank top, black platform Mary Janes.
Her dyed ebony hair falls to her waist in a curtain of silk.
She’s shorter than me and slight, but her nickname is the Queen of Darkness, because her presence is powerful.
She throws her thin arms around me, giving me as big of a hug as her tiny frame can manage, especially now that I’ve shot up in height. It kind of feels like I’m being hugged by a guitar string: practically gossamer, yet resilient and strong. “Happy birthday, Isak!”
I return the hug. “Thanks.”
The Queen of Darkness kisses my cheek with a loud “mwah,” I’m sure leaving behind a Marilyn Monroe–type kiss print of blood-red lipstick.
“Sooo, what are you doing to celebrate?” It’s funny to me how someone whose usual expression makes it seem like she’s judging the world and finding it lacking actually has the personality of Elmo—perpetually sweet, happy, and curious.
Goth Elmo. That’s Zanita.
“Nothing big. I think my mom plans to make a cake. Which is what I asked for. She made me an egg–bacon–hash browns sandwich for breakfast, and I stopped at Manny’s for an Original. I’ll share with you at lunch.”
Zanita’s face goes slack, and her mouth falls open slightly. “That’s it? Isak, it’s your eighteenth. You’re an adult. You should go vote and do jury duty and buy spray paint and a lottery ticket.”
My shoulders rise in a shrug. “Yeah, but I’m not sure there’s all that much I want to do today—”
A throat clears behind me, and a familiar, husky voice says with amusement, “Happy birthday, Isak.”
Enter the main character. I mean, I’m the main character of my own life, but as far as everyone else at this school is concerned, he’s the lead. He definitely upstages everyone.
I stiffen, and various parts of my body that were not previously awake, due to it being 8:28 in the morning, are now perking up. My breaths quicken, and the chaos around us dissolves so that I only hear him.
Lachlan Doyle. The one the spotlight always follows.
And I revise my previous comment to Zanita: I’d definitely want to do him today.
Pfft. Like that would ever happen. We’ve barely talked about anything real since we were, what, ten? Eleven?
Just like me ever acting again, hooking up with Lachlan Doyle can occur only in my dreams.
I spin in my black Converse low tops and smile at him, and it’s like I’m hit with pure rays from the sun.
Wavy golden-blond hair, bronzed skin, neat white T-shirt and pressed navy blue shorts.
He doesn’t need help from the hair and makeup department.
His natural beauty shines. “Hey,” I say, and my voice squeaks.
I clear my throat. “Happy birthday to you, too.” Good.
On the second try, I sound less like a squirrel and more like a man.
He grins, and it’s the same smile he gives to everyone. One that’s big and bold, but I question its sincerity. Perhaps I know too much about him. “Thank you.”
“Wait, it’s your birthday, too?” Zanita asks Lach, her brows scrunched together.
“Yep.” Ugh, his charming voice is comfort and danger in equal amounts.
A delighted expression takes over her face. “No way, that’s wild.”
“We were even born in the same hospital,” I add.
“What a coincidence,” Zanita says.
“Our moms were friends and went through their pregnancies together,” Lachlan says smoothly, which is true. But so much lurks in the spaces between his words. So much history. So much pain.
Our moms were friends.
And so were we. I don’t even know why we stopped.
Zanita doesn’t notice his slight emphasis on the word were. She wouldn’t have a clue, since I met her after Lachlan and I weren’t talking anymore. “Wow, that’s so cool!” she says. “Who’s older?”
Lachlan and I lock eyes on each other, and his hazel gaze is so familiar it hurts. “I don’t know,” I admit. “I was born at night. I think around nine.”
“Then I’m older,” Lachlan says. “I was born at 10:01 in the morning on October 1. Easy to remember: 10:01 on 10/01.”
Of course he’d be memorable like that. I press my lips together and nod. “Cool.”
“Okay, I just wanted to wish you well.” Lachlan gives me another look—one that I want to analyze late at night—then slips into the classroom. I watch him go.
The bell rings like a blunt force to the skull, jarring as always. Our cue to exit the stage.
“So you’re really and truly not doing anything tonight?” Zanita asks as we follow Lachlan into the classroom. Portraits of long-dead authors—thankfully not all cishet white men—line the upper walls, and a smart board stands front and center.
“I really and truly am not. All my friends will be in rehearsal,” I point out, as I take a seat and stow my bag on the floor. “Including you.”
What pangs in my stomach? There are none. I don’t miss acting one bit.
Zanita stiffens. “True. You would’ve been cast if you tried out. Ms. Laurent loves you. I bet she’d have cast you as Hamlet.”
Isak Hammond couldn’t portray himself believably on a reality show.
“I’ll pass on being the Prince of Denmark,” I say, forcing a laugh. “Actually, I do have plans to get a tattoo,” I whisper as she sits next to me and takes a purple pen out of her forest green velvet bag. “I made an appointment for this weekend.”
The Queen of Darkness squeals and quickly stifles it, her hand flying to her lips. “OMG so cool. Do tell.”
“Happy birthday, Schmoopy,” Mom says, coming out of the kitchen with a small, homemade birthday cake ablaze with candles and setting it before me on the dining room table. A paper party hat is perched on her head at a jaunty angle. I’m wearing one, too, although the elastic cuts into my chin.
Do I wish she wouldn’t call me by a childish nickname? Most of the time, yes. But not right this second. My chest expands, and I’m content. “Thanks, Mom.”
My mom’s dark hair is in a neat bob. Her pale skin has laugh lines around her brown eyes and the corners of her mouth from a lifetime of smiling. She’s wearing leggings and a ripped Pearl Jam shirt. She’s my favorite person on the planet.
The scent from my favorite dinner—meatball sandwiches with homemade marinara and melted cheese on toasted sub rolls—still lingers in the air.
Sandwiches for breakfast, lunch, and dinner today—win.
I’ve opened my presents of soft heather gray cashmere yarn and smooth wooden knitting needles.
Not being in rehearsals, I’ve got time on my hands, and I itch to create.
Plus, I can sell my scarves and hats online and make a little money.
Mom sings “Happy Birthday” to me, slightly off-key, then takes out her phone and records me blowing out the candles.
“I can’t believe I’m the mother of an adult.
I’m clearly barely an adult myself,” she says.
I don’t remind her that she’s forty-three, which is not “barely” an adult.
She eyes me. “Though you were born going on thirty.”
“Maybe.”
She kisses the top of my head, and I want to wiggle away, because she’s been doing that since I was a little kid. But if it makes her happy, I guess I shouldn’t complain. I hit the jackpot in the mom department.
After all, she has never once complained about how difficult it was to raise me. A working single mother who fought my dad for custody and then handled everything herself, she’s efficient and organized and still has a good attitude and is loving.
When I came out to her as pansexual, which I thought might be a … thing, even if I hoped it wouldn’t be, she just shrugged. “I knew you weren’t straight when you were six, Schmoopy.”
So, yeah. My mom is cool.
“Is there anything else you’d like for your birthday?” Mom asks as she cuts the yellow cake with chocolate frosting and serves me a generous slice on our chipped orange Fiestaware.
“I made an appointment to get a tattoo Saturday evening,” I say, sitting at the edge of my chair and digging into the dessert.
She doesn’t need to know about the, ahem, adult products and entertainment I bought.
“Last appointment of the day, only time they could fit me in. If you wanted to chip in toward that, I wouldn’t say no, but you don’t have to. I’ve been saving up.”
Mom serves herself a piece and joins me, her eyes rapt. “Oh yeah? What are you getting, and where?” Her enthusiasm makes me grin.
As I describe the design I have in mind, I notice how quiet the house next door is.
Our home is old, and I suppose it’s charming.
It’s also paid for, since it was my great-grandparents’.
With two acres of property in the vineyard countryside, we’d be landed gentry if the place were bigger than 1,300 square feet.
As it is, we have two bedrooms, two bathrooms, a kitchen, and a living room.
The house next door—built close to ours, back when there was an attempt to develop this rural area into a town—is three times the size of ours, plus they have one of those garages that has an extra story on top, so they could rent it out.
They don’t, because Lachlan’s Uncle Norman lives in it.
Four generations, including Lach, somehow survive under the same roof.
It’s odd that I’m just as ill at ease with it being quiet over there as when it’s, well, not quiet. I wish I didn’t care about what goes on at the neighbors’, but I do. Maybe the whole family’s out for Lachlan’s birthday. I hope they are. He deserves something good.