From Hereafter: A Collection of Memoirs

How to Speak

The Oxford High School experience, both at the time and in hindsight, is completely black and white. It's the beginning of the Wizard of Oz, completely monochromatic, and utterly cold. Each day was a nightmare brought to life. 

There were very tiny, close-knit groups of friends, never interacting with anyone outside of the group due to everyone not in the group being the group's enemy. I did not even have a group. I had two friends. Those people were the only two people I ever spoke to. At lunch we sat at the very front of the cafeteria with several other people who did not fit in. It was the only table in the entire room that was not full. I was a total, complete outcast, and looked like one, too. I wore all black every day, had super voluminous, bright red hair, dark makeup, and a lip ring. I had no desire to be considered popular. I liked not fitting in, it was my thing. I had pretty bad social anxiety anyway; I was either too shy or too awkward to be able to hold a regular conversation. Then again, I wouldn't have known what a regular conversation entailed at all, because if anyone ever spoke to me, it would be someone making a joke to me that insinuated that I slit my wrists or self-harmed.

Everybody knows that teenagers can be deadly. They destroy each other without a second thought. There are no such things as consequences. For some, high school can be traumatic and humiliating. I thought myself immune to that, but I wasn't blind to everything that was happening to others like me at OHS.

Every day after lunch my time at Oxford High School would be over. I would wait in the office downstairs for the bus to go to my second school for the second half of the day: the Educational Center for the Arts. 

The school had several programs for talented and gifted students: music, acting, visual arts, and dance, and then there was writing, the smallest group by far, consisting of only thirty-three students. They let in between five and eight people each year out of hundreds of applicants. I was unusual in that I did not know the writing program existed until my sophomore year, so I applied, interviewed, submitted portfolios, and got accepted for my junior year. Because I was a first-year there, everyone assumed I was a freshman.

Only four other kids from OHS attended ECA for the second half of their days. There was Chloe and Tyler, both juniors with me, both in the music department, though they were both actors as well. Chloe starred in plays at actual local theaters, and she was currently working on her Dartmouth application. We all sat at a long conference table while we waited. At the end of the table always sat Delaney, one of the most popular seniors at school. She was extremely outgoing and really funny and sarcastic. She had bleached blonde hair in a pixie cut. She was cool because she was turning eighteen soon, she worked at a pizzeria, and she already had her license.

Lastly, there was a sophomore Mariana who was a dancer. She wore plain athletic clothes in solid colors. She never wore anything with a pattern or brand name on it. Every day, even in the winter, it was just a tee shirt and athletic shorts or pants, and her light blonde hair was always in a tight ponytail. While we waited she always stood and did stretches or twirls. She was extremely fit and athletic. Delaney always called her "buff."

The first day of OHS in junior year was the second day of ECA, where the first day was only introductions, so I still had no idea what to expect from the other students there. I assumed that the whole world viewed me the same way that I was viewed in OHS. I did not even have the capacity to think otherwise, or to consider anything else, it simply was that way.

I was totally lost and terrified. I wanted to ask the others about what would happen when ECA gets out—when and how to find the bus again, if it's the same bus, if the bus comes back to OHS or goes somewhere else, but I knew if I spoke up everyone would just stare at me and wonder why I'm talking.