fortunate than us. All of which I’ve managed to replace with the new Tribulations, a.k.a. being Kim Cruz.
“Oh, and another thing: my teachers assume I’m dumb,” she says.
“There is no way you read as dumb. You’re one of the smartest people I know.”
“Trust me. When even adults are thrown by the way you look, it leads to all kinds of compensatory behaviors.”
“That’s grody.”
“To the max.”
“Still beats being the seal.”
At that, Destiny claps her hands together like flippers and honks, her mouth yawning open and shut as if catching sardines.
“You even look sexy doing that,” I grouse.
“It’s my seal of approval,” she says, laughing and honking.
We make a plan to get coffee together on Sunday, at the end of Hell Week One. Just fifty-one more to bear—well, for me at least.
Change 3–Day 3
Three days as Kim Cruz, and I have to say, I’m getting the knack for maintaining a low profile. In class, I am the big black-clad blob that hovers in the back row, hunching over my desk and praying for the TARDIS to appear and whisk me away to another time. Amazingly, everyone seems happy to let me do this. Ain’t nobody got time for drawing out the shy weirdo. Which is fine by me. I am viewing this year as a prison sentence, and I will serve my time, quietly and without ruckus. Nothing to see here, folks. Keep moving.
Mr. Crowell is the one pesky fly in the ointment. He seems to think he’s an extension of Tracy, and as such, I am somehow his charge. He keeps giving me the curious-puppy-dog eyes in homeroom, and asking me way more than my fair share of questions, which if he had any memory of his teenage experience in homeroom, he would know only makes my existence more of a misery. I need to somehow communicate to Tracy (and thus him) that this isn’t a case where if I just “put myself out there,” the gang is going to discover how amazeballs I am and shower me with respect and acceptance. This is high school. Not the Special Olympics.
After homeroom, I try again to connect with Audrey. I can’t help it. To me she is worth the risk. I figure the old her has to be buried underneath her cutesy hair and glitter lip plumper. She can’t have been subsumed completely by the bitch squad.
“Hey!” I say with . . . not much of a plan past that.
“Hey?” she answers back, checking me out for about two seconds before finding something to fiddle with in her backpack.
“You look f-familiar to me,” I stammer. Stupid.
“Oh. Well. I mean, I look like a lot of people.”
“No you don’t,” I reply too quickly.
Audrey lifts her chin from her bag and takes me in again, intensely this time. I stare back into her eyes, willing her in my head to see who I really am.
I’m Oryon! I’m Oryon! You loved me. You said so. You know me! How can you not know you know me?
“I’m sorry. Who are you again?” she says finally, seeming annoyed now.
“I’m Kim. From homeroom. Kim Cruz.” (And your best friend Drew, and your first love Oryon, but whatever.)
“Kim. Good to meet you.” She extends a hand to shake mine, looking over my head as she does, as if searching for exit doors. “I’m Audrey. Anyway. I really need to get to class . . .”
“Me too, same,” I say, but she has already begun walking away. And unlike when I was Oryon, she doesn’t stop and take one last look over a shoulder to see if I’m watching her go.
Change 3–Day 5
Oh splendor and wonder. Light of all lights, joy of all joys.
Today was Central’s first football game, which brought with it a heavy case of PTSD. From my aborted, futile stint as a cheerleader when I was Drew, to the psychotic bullying by Jason when I was Oryon on the JV squad. Never mind when I was public enemy number one, pelted with corn dogs and slushies after being nearly choked out by Jason and Baron, his partner in idiocy/latent attraction. Yeah, I said it.
Just seeing the players in their jerseys (like I had been) and the girls in their cheerleading minis (still baffling how that survived the fifties) in the hallways and at the mandatory pep rally made me feel queasy and angry and fundamentally other in a way I really didn’t need.
“God, sports are dumb,” Kris said at lunch when he plunked down his Greek yogurt cup across the table from me. “On the plus side, they allow you to see just who the morons are. It’s like a douche filter. Not that I mind the uniforms. Those can stay.”
I considered telling Kris I had been a cheerleader once, but figured that would invite a lot of questioning I neither had the stomach nor will for, so instead I asked what he was into, since it clearly wasn’t athletics.
“Theater, baby!” he answered in a long trill. “Not to be a total gay cliché. But it’s kind of why I wanted to go to a regular school. You auditioning for the play this year?”
“Uh, no.”
“Shy?”
“Talentless.”
“I doubt that. You look like a woman with hidden depths to me. I bet there are lots of things you rock at.”
I smirked at the depths part. Then, for some reason, I decided to confide in him. “I do play the drums. A little. I was in a band once.”
“Gurrl, I knew it! My punk rock goddess. You have to be in the play with me. You can be part of the stage band! Total hotness!”
I considered the thought. Briefly. “How do you know for sure you’ll get a role in the play?”
Kris bugged out his eyes like I’d suggested tomorrow had been cancelled.
“My mistake,” I said, just as Michelle Hu rolled up on our table.
“Mind if I join?” she asked, politely smiling at me in a way I recognized from last year as Oryon. The “we’re vaguely in the same tribe” smile. The “join us, or suffer a long, cold social winter on your own” smile.
“Pop a squat, cuteness,” Kris said, before I could answer.
“I don’t think you’re ready for this jelly,” Michelle responded, completely stone-faced, stepping over the bench seat beside Kris.
“Respect,” he murmured approvingly, scooching over to make room.
Introductions all around (well, reintroductions for me and Michelle, not that she knew it), and then Michelle proceeded to be as cool as ever. Funny, crazy smart. The type of exceptional weirdo who genuinely doesn’t care about the lizard-brain concerns everyone else in high school seems fixated on. If I hadn’t
