The New Rules

But you're, like, pretty

Zadie was infatuated with many things.

She loved the impending tango of a rainstorm; her shrivelled skin after a swim in the ocean, and the sound of her baby cousin Mia giggling at absolutely nothing. But if someone asked her if she'd ever been in love, like with a living, breathing person not related to her, she'd have to say no.

Zadie walked towards her locker where her friends were sitting on the ground, backpacks sprawled in the center like pillows on a bed. Her friend was glued to her phone texting or snapchatting, her spine curved like a candy cane, her best friend Nikita was blabbing about how much she was going to miss her boyfriend Cooper, once senior year ended. Nikita with her toothy smile, long legs, and shiny dark hair, would have no trouble rebounding in college, but she was one for dramatics.

"You're so lucky Z," she said, as Zadie threw her bag into the middle of the pack. "You have no one to say goodbye to this year. I can't imagine living without Coop."

Zadie rolled her eyes, and took out her English lit novel to read: Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. She read the first line: "It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife." She closed the book, and rolled her eyes so far back inside her head, that it hurt. Zadie was not the first to admit that it didn't bother her that she wasn't in a relationship, nor that she had a serious one yet.

Mostly, high school was divided into steady relationships, random hook-ups and the rest of the bunch just fumbling around trying to gain some practice before college. She didn't require the uneducated groping of a teenage boy, one who would press on her body like a child hitting every elevator button hoping to find the right floor.

"But you're like, pretty," people would say, sizing her up, looking at her outer layers, the same way a person examines a lemon before they put it in their cart at the grocery store, as if physical attractiveness was the only thing that made someone desirable. Zadie knew her outsides were okay, although, she didn't think much of them; truthfully she was scared it was something inside her that was broken. She lay flat, so her head was rested on her backpack, and noticed Zion and Poppy, a freshman couple making out against the lockers across from her. Zion was as tall as an oak tree, and just about as thick, while Poppy, a tiny, gangly thing looked like she was about to get crushed, and yet, they seemed like they couldn't keep their hands off each other despite their physical differences.

"Your hair seems to be growing back, you'll be able to pull some of it back for prom?" Jess asked, letting go of her phone for a rare minute.

"Yeah," Zadie reached for the back of her neck self-consciously, "I'm not sure

what I'm going to do with it."

When Annie was towards the end of her cancer treatment, Zadie shaved her head. One afternoon, after coming home from the hospital, the smell of death still lingering on her clothes, and all she could think of was her mom, sucking for air, her skin the colour of rotting celery, so she grabbed her father's clippers and shaved it off. When she felt the prickly hair after, and looked in the mirror, she felt free and hideous; it was the least she could do. When her father came home that night, he didn't say anything, he just kissed her on her semi-bald head and went upstairs. It was later that night, like always, that she heard him sobbing in his room.

Four days later, her mother passed.

With the funeral, and burial, she missed a week of school, and when she returned, she walked the halls with a buzz cut. Students and teachers who knew about Zadie's mom, were sympathetic especially Nikita and Jess who decorated the inside of her locker with photos of her family. Friends told her she was brave, and her teacher said she looked like Natalie Portman in V for Vendetta. It also gave her presence when working on the reform, when they took her photo in the news, her lack of hair gave her authority, listen to my voice, don't look at my beauty; someone even called her a revolutionary.

But there was always the person who didn't know, like pimple-faced Eric who while in biology class, shouted, "Like Zadie!" when her teacher Mr. Carmine was explaining how asexuality works, and how some people don't like men, or women. The class erupted in laughter, and Zadie stood up, walked over to him, grabbed him by shirt, while he giggled nervously, until she threw him on the ground, and leaped on his body. Mr. Carmine had to run over and pull her off, while her class cheered her on. Eric never made that joke again, and Zadie got three-weeks of detention, as Mr. Carmine made sure to lighten the sentence.

"I think it's time you go all out with your appearance," Nikita said, as she added brow gel to her perfectly coifed brows, "It wouldn't hurt to put in some effort. Prom is your last memory of this shithole."

"My aunt Cheryl drank too much champagne at my mom's birthday last weekend and told my sister and I that if we learn how to give a good blowjob, we'll stay forever stay betrothed," said Jess. "My father almost passed out."

"Thanks guys," she said. "I'll try to work harder on my brow arch, and practice on some popsicles since apparently those are secret to all great things."

"You don't have to be sarcastic, we're just trying to help," said Nikkita, as she

jumped on Zadie and gave her a hug. "I gotta go to class. Love you, even when you look like a freak." Zadie stared at her reflection in the screen of her phone. She sometimes wondered if asshat Eric was right. Was she built to never love anyone?

She opened Pride and Prejudice again and read the second line. She wanted to believe not every first impression was the whole story.