Serena
I’m not ready to talk about Davey. Not yet.
But if we’re going there, then you need to know the whole story.
You need to know how it started. Because, believe me, the end is harsh.
No happy ever after. No handsome prince or fairy godmother to save the day.
If you think about it – most fairy tales are really horror stories.
All my life, I’ve been the face of Serenity.
The blonde-haired, blue-eyed mascot. The perfect face of the perfect town.
Every anniversary, every damn birthday I’d get wheeled out to cut a cake, wear a party hat, pose in some stupid dress, decorate an Easter egg or carve a fucking pumpkin.
All the while, smiling till I wanted to puke.
I’m Serenity’s most famous daughter. People think they know me.
Just like people think they know Serenity Falls.
But they don’t. Not really. They only see the surface.
Serenity and me, we’re like the original ugly sisters, pretending to be Cinderella, trying to force our crusty old feet into that delicate glass slipper.
Chopping off our toes and crushing our bones to keep up the illusion of perfection.
But nothing in life is that perfect.
The other kids hated me, for a start. Let’s face it, there’s nothing kids hate more than someone who gets special treatment, who thinks they’re better than everyone else.
I’d like to say I didn’t, not really. But maybe I did, a little.
When people tell you you’re wonderful often enough, it kind of soaks in whether you want it to or not.
I sure as hell got the special treatment at school. Shunned, mocked, pushed and shoved in the corridors, backpack spilled, books trashed, sneakers stolen so I had to walk home, feet burning on the hot tarmac.
‘You think you’re so perfect?’
‘You’re not better than us.’
‘Eat shit, princess.’
I tried to be humble, kind, anything but a princess. But most lunchtimes and breaks I’d hide in the toilets or find a bench in a far corner of the playground and eat my lunch alone, hoping no one would walk past and knock it to the ground.
Until one day, another kid joined me.
I’d vaguely seen him around. He was a lanky, pale kid.
Patch over one eye (lazy eye, I guessed) and thick glasses.
One of those kids who was too pathetic even for the bullies.
One of the ‘Whatshisname’ kids. They drift through school, and no one remembers them.
They’ve become so good at blending into the background it’s like they barely exist.
‘Hey,’ Whatshisname said.
I didn’t glance up. He sat, without asking, and nodded at my peanut butter and jelly sandwich. ‘You like that?’
My first instinct was to respond, Of course, idiot. That’s why my mom packs it for my lunch every day. But the truth was, I didn’t. I hated peanut butter, but whenever I tried to tell my mom she would just smile and say: ‘Nonsense. It’s a good all-American lunch for my good all-American girl.’
Most days I threw half of it away.
‘Not really,’ I said, and flushed, like my mom could hear me.
‘Yeah – I see you chuck it in the trash every day.’
I stared at him. ‘You watch me.’
‘I watch lots of people. I’m good at watching.’
Yeah, really, I thought, with one lazy eye and those thick glasses.
He reached into his lunch bag and pulled out a giant doorstep of a sandwich.
‘It’s ham,’ he said matter-of-factly. ‘I hate ham.’ He held the doorstop out. ‘Wanna swap?’
I hesitated. Was it a trick? Had he spat in it or put something revolting in the sandwich? Was I being set up? I glanced around in case someone else was watching us.
‘I haven’t put a booger in it,’ he said.
Like he had read my mind.
‘O-kay,’ I said.
Gingerly, we swapped sandwiches. I took a bite of the doorstep. It was good. Whatshisname had already demolished one of my peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.
We ate silently, and that’s all we did. No small talk. No exchange of names, although I was pretty sure he knew who I was. It was kind of weird. Not awkward. But weird just the same. Once we’d finished lunch, he said, ‘Thanks,’ got up and left.
I didn’t really expect to see the ‘weird kid’ again.
But the next lunch break he turned up at the same time.
And the next, and the next. Unlike me, he had different sandwiches each day, but we always swapped.
‘I only really like peanut butter and jelly,’ he explained.
‘But Mom hates it so we can’t have any in the house. ’
‘Doesn’t seem fair,’ I said.
He’d shrugged. ‘When Mom makes her mind up, that’s it.’
I sighed. ‘I know the feeling.’
‘No,’ he said in an odd tone. ‘You don’t.’
He didn’t say any more that day, but I learnt more about his mom as time went on.
I also learnt his name was Milo, he was an only child like me, and he lived on the other side of town.
I wouldn’t call it the poorer side because there aren’t really any poor sides in Serenity Falls.
But maybe the less grand side. Smaller town houses, more usually occupied by couples and single people.
He never mentioned a dad, and I learnt more about that eventually too.
We became friends in that careless way that happens sometimes. Friendship by osmosis. And maybe a touch of desperation. It wasn’t like anyone else was going to be friends with either of us.
Milo was easy, in his own slightly weird way.
To start with, we only hung out at school.
Then we began to walk home together. It was the longer way for Milo, but he didn’t seem to mind.
Eventually, we started to meet up out of school and, once or twice, he even came back to my house, although my mom reacted like I’d dragged in a stray, starving cat. I never went to Milo’s house.
In a perfect world, Milo’s friendship would have been enough.
But in a way, it only served to exacerbate the ache of loneliness and isolation I felt.
I still longed for the acceptance of the other girls, the popular, hot boys.
Nor did it change the deep-seated resentment that boiled inside me every time my mom signed me up for some new town event or celebration.
I’d done my bit. I didn’t owe the town anything any more.
‘Say no,’ Miles said to me one day when I bitched about the upcoming Pumpkin Patch Party.
‘What?’
‘Tell your mom no. You don’t want to do it.’
I stared at him. He might as well have suggested I fly to the moon or run naked through the streets.
‘I can’t.’
‘Why not?’
She would be mad, I thought. She would shout and cajole and then maybe cry.
Emotional blackmail was Mom’s thing. Dad mostly stayed out of it all.
My parents had a traditional/old-fashioned kind of marriage.
Parenting was strictly the woman’s job. Dad did his bit by going to work and paying the bills.
I guessed the Conservators would be disappointed if I didn’t show up but … what could they really do?
I shook my head. ‘No, I can’t.’
‘So, why not make it her decision.’
‘What?’
‘Make it so you can’t do it.’
‘What? Throw a sickie or something?’
His good eye – the non-lazy one – gleamed. ‘I have a better idea.’
Mom was pissed as hell. She stared at me in horror, taking in my shorn hair, cut jaggedly to my chin and dyed jet-black. Then she burst into tears.
I enjoyed my victory for a week. And when I say enjoyed, I mean my mom refused to speak to me, Dad gave me confused, anxious glances and I was grounded. Literally confined to my room when not in school and banned from going outside so no one would see me.
It couldn’t last. Of course. Real life. On the seventh day, Mom bought me a wig, threatened to give away all my books and my TV, and I buckled. I stuck on the stupid wig, went out and smiled for the cameras till my cheeks felt like they had rigor mortis.
But something had changed. I had got a taste of rebellion. Of being someone different.
And I liked it.