forehead so her mother would know never to force her to go to another dance.
Her mother didn’t understand. “Don’t be antisocial, Bethany,” Mrs. Caleb said when Bethany tried her excuses. That was how, in the last two weeks of middle school, Bethany was forced to go to every special eighth grade function. The awards ceremony. The class barbeque. Field day. Orientation. Now, instead of wishing she could join Brittany Bowden and the Young twins and the rest of the popular kids, she sat there feeling sad. She would never be popular.
In Bethany’s thirteen-year-old eyes, a person was either popular or unpopular. She couldn’t imagine it any other way. There were the perfect, socially normal people with lots of friends at the top, then some people who were fairly successful at the friendship game in the middle. Then there were the slugs at the bottom, the disgusting creeps no one wanted to be near, never mind be friends with. Nathan Javovich was one. And Bethany was another. She didn’t want to think of her best friend as a slug, but Jana was kind of geeky and fat and therefore at the bottom of the popularity ladder with her.
Bethany had a diary back in those days, a fancy one with blank pages and a drawing of an artist’s palette and brushes on the front that someone had given to her because they knew she liked art. She remembered writing in it, “I’ve tried to be like them, and they rejected me. Fuck them. I’ll be what they hate.” It was the first time she’d used the f-word ever. After writing that, she’d ripped out all the pages and threw the journal away. Fourteen ninety-five at Barnes & Noble, in the trash. Along with it went her ability to communicate with words.
Jana moved two weeks after the end of eighth grade, and Mrs. Caleb became irritated with Bethany “moping around the house” all the time. “Why don’t you call up Brittany Bowden and get together,” Mrs. Caleb suggested one day. In response Bethany went up to her room and blasted heavy metal music. After several days of similar incidents, Bethany began to like the music she had started playing solely to annoy her mother.
Soon Bethany began to wonder if her parents noticed any strangeness about her behavior at all. She was pretty sure she was acting differently than before, but her parents seemed to be ignoring it. Darlene didn’t even seem to notice, but she was gone almost every day, having gotten her license and a new car on her seventeenth birthday. One day Bethany decided to only wear black and see her parents noticed that. They didn’t. Most days she wore a black tank top and a long black skirt with a pair of combat boots, despite it being the hottest summer in five years. She wanted to suffer.
She bought dark gray eye shadow and heavily outlined her eyes with black eyeliner. That got some attention. “Honey, with that much makeup you look like a whore. Go wash it off,” Mrs. Caleb had said at dinner that day. Mr. Caleb glared at her until she left the table.
The next day Bethany went out and bought black hair dye, and after she dyed her hair and applied her heavy eye makeup, she went down to dinner. Mrs. Caleb didn’t say anything about it. Bethany had won. But her parents still never mentioned the metamorphosis she had undergone. It seemed to be a taboo subject.
Bethany refused to go on Mrs. Caleb’s annual school shopping trip and instead browsed the church thrift store in the center of town, finding clothes that looked anything but preppy or fashionable for the school year to come. She decided that if she was going to be unpopular, it would be on her terms, not for some personality flaw everyone else saw in her. They would hate her for looking like a freak, for looking different.
Mrs. Caleb bought Bethany an entire fall wardrobe at Abercrombie & Fitch, spending almost six hundred dollars. She left the bags outside of Bethany’s perpetually closed bedroom door. After a few days Bethany took the clothes into her
Her mother didn’t understand. “Don’t be antisocial, Bethany,” Mrs. Caleb said when Bethany tried her excuses. That was how, in the last two weeks of middle school, Bethany was forced to go to every special eighth grade function. The awards ceremony. The class barbeque. Field day. Orientation. Now, instead of wishing she could join Brittany Bowden and the Young twins and the rest of the popular kids, she sat there feeling sad. She would never be popular.
In Bethany’s thirteen-year-old eyes, a person was either popular or unpopular. She couldn’t imagine it any other way. There were the perfect, socially normal people with lots of friends at the top, then some people who were fairly successful at the friendship game in the middle. Then there were the slugs at the bottom, the disgusting creeps no one wanted to be near, never mind be friends with. Nathan Javovich was one. And Bethany was another. She didn’t want to think of her best friend as a slug, but Jana was kind of geeky and fat and therefore at the bottom of the popularity ladder with her.
Bethany had a diary back in those days, a fancy one with blank pages and a drawing of an artist’s palette and brushes on the front that someone had given to her because they knew she liked art. She remembered writing in it, “I’ve tried to be like them, and they rejected me. Fuck them. I’ll be what they hate.” It was the first time she’d used the f-word ever. After writing that, she’d ripped out all the pages and threw the journal away. Fourteen ninety-five at Barnes & Noble, in the trash. Along with it went her ability to communicate with words.
Jana moved two weeks after the end of eighth grade, and Mrs. Caleb became irritated with Bethany “moping around the house” all the time. “Why don’t you call up Brittany Bowden and get together,” Mrs. Caleb suggested one day. In response Bethany went up to her room and blasted heavy metal music. After several days of similar incidents, Bethany began to like the music she had started playing solely to annoy her mother.
Soon Bethany began to wonder if her parents noticed any strangeness about her behavior at all. She was pretty sure she was acting differently than before, but her parents seemed to be ignoring it. Darlene didn’t even seem to notice, but she was gone almost every day, having gotten her license and a new car on her seventeenth birthday. One day Bethany decided to only wear black and see her parents noticed that. They didn’t. Most days she wore a black tank top and a long black skirt with a pair of combat boots, despite it being the hottest summer in five years. She wanted to suffer.
She bought dark gray eye shadow and heavily outlined her eyes with black eyeliner. That got some attention. “Honey, with that much makeup you look like a whore. Go wash it off,” Mrs. Caleb had said at dinner that day. Mr. Caleb glared at her until she left the table.
The next day Bethany went out and bought black hair dye, and after she dyed her hair and applied her heavy eye makeup, she went down to dinner. Mrs. Caleb didn’t say anything about it. Bethany had won. But her parents still never mentioned the metamorphosis she had undergone. It seemed to be a taboo subject.
Bethany refused to go on Mrs. Caleb’s annual school shopping trip and instead browsed the church thrift store in the center of town, finding clothes that looked anything but preppy or fashionable for the school year to come. She decided that if she was going to be unpopular, it would be on her terms, not for some personality flaw everyone else saw in her. They would hate her for looking like a freak, for looking different.
Mrs. Caleb bought Bethany an entire fall wardrobe at Abercrombie & Fitch, spending almost six hundred dollars. She left the bags outside of Bethany’s perpetually closed bedroom door. After a few days Bethany took the clothes into her
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