Instead, what I found was the most intimidating group of human beings I’d ever seen in one place. Fuck me. Those kids were cool with a capital C and twenty-seven Os. They had multicolored hair. They had piercings. They had expertly painted red lips that I could never pull off with my redheaded complexion. And the accessories—more chokers and studded belts than you could shake a flannel shirt at. One girl was even wearing denim overalls with the legs cut off and one shoulder strap undone. I wasn’t punk rock; I was Punky fucking Brewster.
At least my combat boots were vintage and my eyeliner was flawless. That I knew for sure. I’d been perfecting that goddamn cat eye since the age of ten. As long as I kept my grades up, my hippie parents never really gave a shit how much makeup I wore, or what I dressed like, or how many F-bombs I dropped at the dinner table. (And by dinner table, I mean, my TV tray in the living room.) So I stood on the periphery and tried not to stare, clinging to both my Camel Light and the hope that someone would at least admire my eyeliner art.
I watched the guys all squeezing and kneading and nuzzling their girlfriends, and I watched their girlfriends’ giant boobs bounce with every giggle.
I bet they have sex, I thought. Every one of them.
My face and neck suddenly felt itchy and hot.
Annnnd, now I’m blushing. Fantastic.
I dropped my head and stared down at my boots, which I could see with no problem at all, thanks to my complete and total lack of breasts.
Why can’t the heroin-chic look still be in? Maybe it’ll make a comeback. Please let it make a comeback.
Everyone out there looked like Drew Barrymore, and I looked like somebody drew a smiley face and freckles on one of Drew Barrymore’s pinkie fingers.
My BFF, Juliet Iha, was supposed to be meeting me out there, but after a few minutes, it became pretty clear that she’d flaked out on me yet again.
She’s probably out here somewhere, fogging up Tony’s car windows.
Juliet was dating a grown-ass man who’d dropped out of high school at least a decade prior and never seemed to have anywhere pressing to be. Without fail, that creepy fucker always seemed to be lurking around wherever we were, leaning up against his busted-ass, old Corvette like an actor cast to play the part of Potential Child Molester in a PSA from 1985. Tony definitely gave me the “no feeling,” but Juliet really liked him, and he was old enough to buy us cigarettes, so I kept my mouth shut.
Just as I was about to stamp out my Camel Light and drag my sad ass back inside, I felt two solid arms wrap around my body from behind. One snaked around my rib cage, and the other hoisted me up from behind my knees. Before I could scream, Rape! I was flipped completely upside down and plopped, ass up, on the shoulder of a giant. It wasn’t until he swatted my backside and laughed in that glorious, soft tone that made my body go all warm and bubbly that I realized I’d been captured by my immortal beloved, Lance Hightower.
Lance Motherfucking Hightower. God, he was perfection. Lance was in my grade, but he was easily half a foot taller than most of the upperclassmen and already filled out like a man. Dude had a permanent five o’clock shadow at the age of fifteen. Despite having the dark, chiseled features of a Disney prince, Lance was a punk rock icon. Every day, he sported the same effortlessly badass look: faded black Converse, faded black jeans, and a faded black hoodie covered in patches advertising obscure European underground punk bands and anarchist political statements that he painted on with Wite-Out during class. That hoodie was so well known, it probably had its own fanzine.
Topping off all that faded black packaging was an equally faded, slightly grown-out green Mohawk. It probably would have added another three inches to Lance’s already six-foot-three-inch frame if he ever bothered to style it, and the color totally brought out the green flecks in his coppery-hazel eyes.
Oh, Lance. I had been obsessing over him since the sixth grade. I admired him from afar until last year when we fatefully wound up sharing a pottery wheel in art class. The flirting that ensued was incendiary. Atomic. The only problem was that I was technically “dating” his best friend, Colton, at the time, so things never really got off the ground.
Then, a goddamn miracle happened. Colton upped and moved to Las Vegas to live with his dad right in the middle of the spring semester. I pretended to be sad for a few hours, out of respect. Then, I immediately resumed my campaign to become the mother of Lance’s children. The only problem was that Lance and I didn’t have any classes together, so all of my flirting had to be done in seven-minute increments between periods. But in tenth grade, what I was sure would be the best year ever, Lance and I had been assigned to the same motherfucking lunch period. I was going to be sporting his last name by May. I just knew it.
“Lance! What are you doing?” I giggled. “Put me down! I can’t breathe with your shoulder in my stomach!”
Lance chuckled. “That’s so sweet. You take my breath away too, girl.”
God, his voice. Like fucking angel bells. For such a big dude with such an in-your-face look, Lance’s voice was surprisingly soft and flirty. It was a total mindfuck the first few times I’d heard that sweet sound come out of that ruggedly handsome face. And the pick-up lines. I swear to Jesus he had a new one every time I saw him. I fucking loved Lance Hightower.
I giggled harder, which made my stomach hurt even worse, and swatted at his perfect, patch-covered ass. “Put me down, asshole!”
Before he could comply, we heard a sickening smack from across the parking lot, followed by a deep voice shouting, “Say it again, motherfucker!”
Lance held on tight to the backs of my thighs and swung around to face the commotion, making me even dizzier as I grabbed his waist and peeked around his side to see what was going on.
Although I couldn’t make out exactly what was happening due to the blood rushing into my eyeballs, I recognized the assailant immediately. I’d never met him, but I’d heard stories. Everybody had. He was “the skinhead,” the only one at our entire four-thousand-student suburban high school.
I’d noticed him in ninth grade because he was literally the only person I’d ever seen wear suspenders (skinny ones, called braces) to school. In a world full of studded belts and chain wallets, that motherfucker wore suspenders—the epitome of dorkiness—and made them look as scary as the stripes on a venomous snake.
A snake who was standing about thirty feet away, looming over a little skater boy who was clutching his rapidly swelling jaw and trying not to cry.
When the kid didn’t say whatever it was the skinhead wanted to hear, he buried his fist deep in Skater Boy’s stomach, causing him to lurch forward and release a noise so guttural, I assumed something important must have ruptured.
With his left hand, the skinhead yanked the guy’s head back by his chin-length brown hair and screamed into his terrified face, “Say that shit again!”
I felt like I might throw up. My heart was racing, and my head was pounding from being upside down, but all I could register was a sickening sense of helplessness and humiliation for that poor kid. I’d been raised in a house with pacifist parents and no siblings. I’d never seen anyone get hit before—at least, not in real life—and I felt that punch as if it had been dealt directly to me.
In a way, it had. That punch shook me to my core. It showed me that senseless violence and cruelty really did exist, and they came wearing boots and braces.