Twilight G.S.

1.3

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I woke up looking as if I'd never touched dry Arizona soil, nevermind lived under its blinding sun most my life. Nor could anyone guess that I came from local tribal stock, eleventy times removed on the Swan side of the family. This would do nothing to buddy me up with the townies, just fill me with a vague sense of guilt for having been away for so long.

Bags unpacked to find I'd been sent across state lines with only half my personal effects, and no maternal figure from whom to borrow makeup. OH MY GOD JUST KIDDING I AM NOT THAT GAY (it would melt in the rain anyway bitches). Not on my first day of school, at least. I even took out the safety pins, at the behest of the good Sheriff. I still looked like a kid from a city. Maybe not Phoenix. Maybe New York. I just needed those hipster glasses and tight jeans - excellent holiday giftlist fodder just in case I had any further trouble Not Fitting In. It was actually kind of exciting. I pondered future fist-fights over my bowl of Oates-Aplenty (I did not make that up, it seriously says that right on the box, fffffff). What injuries I would receive, which teachers would look the other way during locker-room rape.

I assume these are the same thoughts country teens have when transferring to a big scary city school, although their nightmares probably involve knives and drugs; mine just had wedgies and a teenaged infinity of lonely Saturday nights stretching far into the future wherein I am a dateless blob pretending to care about basketball in front of the television's ethereal blue glow. Basketball, do you hear me? You would wake up in a cold sweat, too.

Teeth brushed, stiff new jacket wrapped tight against the cold fog, I followed Charlie out the door. "They're going to call attendance." I whined at his back. "And they're going to say Bernardo. And I'll never survive." You'd think I was telling him they'd ritually sacrifice the science lab gerbils, and maybe they would! I felt like any moment could be Children of the Corn, but it was probably just the weather crawling across my nerves.

"Get there early and introduce yourself to the teachers, then." Charlie Sr. winked at me before ducking into his cruiser. He honked his horn and waved good-luck-kiddo. Probably one of those rare moments he got to be the smug parent who knew tough situations were actually good for a growing man's development. Or some shit. I would short-sheet his bed later.

It was just me and the penis-compensation-mobile for a good forty-five minutes, creeping down the sort of paved roads in the shit visibility. My stomach actually sank when I saw the building, panicked I'd taken a wrong turn.

Imagine this: 700 kids in my graduating class, near on 3,400 in the whole school. And Forks, Washington? 600 at most in the entire school ever. The foremost worry, before being the stick-out-like-a-sore-thumb new kid, before even being the gayest thing to hit this small town since sliced bread, was the possible absence of advanced art courses. I mean, one's social life is bullshit compared to scholarly achievement. This was my LIFE my parents were fucking with. My FUTURE. My CAREER.

I am Jack's raging bile duct.

I climbed out of the truck smelling like gasoline and tobacco, which was probably the equivalent of coating oneself in deer piss to go hunting, but wearing the bright orange sock on your head anyway. And in this scenario the deer aren't colorblind. What, you ask, is the bright-orange headsock a metaphor for? Why, my subtle-as-a-hooker-in-church, roaring, beastly truck of course! The radio worked but who would want to compete with that lovely guttural engine? The Hood at my old block would have been sooo jealous.

I seriously am developing a crush on my truck. IT'S JUST SO MANLY AND OBNOXIOUS.

Something else that made me long for extended artistic education: this whole town was surrounded by trees. Everything was green and washed in mist, and by memory it would be all settled in that cold cloud-filtered daylight. After the rain, every leaf and twig and black scrap of bark stood out like High-Def TV. This is called atmosphere. Pay attention my babies. And the school - the school itself was so small and quaint in adorable dark red brick (like in England or something!) that I was zig-zagging from utter despair to manic artistic delight.