I'll Be Here

disgusted with myself.  There’s a sensation like I’m falling and about to take flight all at once.  Everything spins. 
    With shaking legs, I sit down on the edge of my car’s hood and lean forward to rest my face in the palm of my hands.  Should I look for a paper bag to breathe into?  Is a panic attack the same as hyperventilating?  Where would I even get a paper bag?  Mom uses those reusable cloth bags and I’m not sure that will work because I’m not even clear on what the purpose of the paper bag is—it’s just something I’ve seen in movies and on television. 
    Some guy who looks like he might be homeless is meandering awkwardly down the sidewalk and he pauses in front of me to ask if I’m okay.  He’s got a patch over his eye and he’s wearing a grimy pair of underwear on top of his pants and he’s concerned about me .  Lovely.

 
     
     
    If you have to wear a tie on vacation then you’re visiting the wrong kinds of places.
    ~Jake Beagle

 
    CHAPTER SEVEN
     
    This morning the conversation with Taylor looms large in my mind as I find a parking space and walk through the main doors.  I wait in front of Allison’s locker because on Wednesdays we both have study hall first period and we usually walk to Mrs. Shaffer’s classroom together. 
    Today she doesn’t show. 
    The reason she gives when I pass her desk is fuzzy—something about an overdue assignment and having to stop at Sabine’s locker to grab a book.  For once I recognize an excuse for what it is. 
    Sabine and I normally see each other in the hallway after third period but she whisks by me without even waving in my direction.  All I get from the masses is a sea of eager stares and deafening sniggers.  I’m sure that I hear my name and when I turn there’s a confusion of girl with their hands shielding their whispering mouths.    
    So this is what being a leper feels like. 
    In less time than it takes a potato to sprout leaves I’ve gone from Dustin Rant’s girlfriend to this.  This thing that no one wants to talk to or even look at.  I probably have barnacles growing from my eyelids.   
    The only people that want to have anything to do with me are the hoard of gossips who want me to spill my guts to them so that they can spread more untruths about me around campus.  In an unfortunate bout of friskiness I tell Marie Vellar to go “suck it” when she corners me in the bathroom between the stalls and the mirror and asks if Dustin and Taylor and I had ever had a three way.  As it turns out, those catty girls are my last link to high school society. 
    Taylor doesn’t exactly have a reputation for being easygoing once she starts a “thing” with someone.  I don’t know why I’m surprised.  I saw this happen to Aubree Tahan junior year.  She nicked Taylor’s car in the parking lot and didn’t leave a note.  When Taylor found out about it, she practically ruined the girl’s life by spreading a rumor that Aubree had slept with the entire basketball team.  Not surprisingly, Aubree opted to spend her senior year at a small private girl’s school on the outskirts of town.    
    In Sociology we have to choose partners for an in-class project about stereo-typing and racism.  Normally this is the type of thing I don’t even think about.  But today my insides tighten as I hesitantly scan the classroom for a savior.  He comes in the form of Nate—a  lanky black kid with over-large jeans slung low on his hips and slight lisp who nods in my direction and claims the desk closest to mine. 
    Nate plays on the basketball team.  He’s not a starter but he’s decent.  Back in middle school we were required to fulfill a certain number of community service hours and Nate and I worked a beach clean-up together.  We shared a trashbag for collecting the garbage and I let him eat the fruit roll-up from my lunch.  We haven’t really talked since then but I guess he remembers the fruit roll-up.  It was strawberry flavored. 
    “Thanks,” I mutter when he flips his textbook open to the page our teacher has noted on the board. 
    Nate smiles.  I notice that he has a gap between his two front teeth and that he smells like cinnamon.
    “No problem,” he says and then he looks down at his book and grimaces.
    “What’s wrong?”
    When he looks up at me he’s got this tight smile on his face.  “Oh, you’ll love this.”  He laughs.  “Question number one: Have you ever felt like an outcast from