Page 91 of Something in Between

I want to text back: “Everything is A-OK! I’m fine! Why wouldn’t I be fine? Danny still has bruises and we’re all being called FOBs, it’s just great. Hooray! Our deportation defense hearing is coming up soon. Sometimes I wish I hadn’t pressured my parents to get a hearing so fast. We might all be kicked out of the country we love. Everything is super awesome, Royce! Don’t worry about me! I don’t miss you! Not at all! You don’t want to tell me what’s going on with you, so why should I tell you what’s up with me?”

But I don’t say anything.

I just retreat further into myself.

I look at my shoes when I walk the hallways. I don’t say hi to anybody. Almost everyone at school knows about my situation now. I know what they’re thinking when they see me.

Ha! You thought you were so smart, and now look at you. You suck. You’re no one. You’re nobody. You’re dirt! You’re not from here! Go home! Go back to Asia or wherever you’re from!

Except when I do look up once in a while, the faces I see are smiling at me. Friends say hi and stop and talk.

But when I’m alone again, I keep hearing the voices, the negative self-talk telling me that I’m worthless. I keep seeing my brother’s wounded face, and Mason’s sneer.

I miss my friends, but it seems they don’t miss me.

* * *

It’s almost the end of January and Kayla’s still avoiding me at school. When I do see her and bring up what happened between our brothers, she changes the topic or finds some excuse to go somewhere else. So I continue with my routine of going through the motions. Cheer is done as basketball season is over now. There’s still the occasional pep rally, but the tension between Kayla and I makes things awkward for the whole team.

The only peace I find is in doing well with my schoolwork. I meet with Mrs. Garcia again, and she tells me what she discovered concerning financial aid for students like me. Most elite colleges make admissions decisions without considering the applicant’s need for financial aid. Need-blind admissions, it’s called. The only schools that guarantee full financial aid to “international” (noncitizen) applicants are MIT, Harvard, Princeton, Yale and Amherst. A few, like Columbia and Stanford, are “need aware” for noncitizens, which means they’ll make an exception and provide aid for international students that they really want at their school.

“Basically, if they accept you, they’ll make every effort to ensure you can enroll in the fall,” she says.

It’s a ray of hope, but it’s not something I can count on. I have to get in first, and who knows if schools like that will want a student like me, National Scholar or not. I just feel like a burden. I’m glad I’d applied to a few of those colleges though, including Stanford. I guess I’ll find out in April.

* * *

I’m walking down the hall from Calculus to English later that week when Lo stops me.

“Jas. I know you and your family are hurting, but you don’t have to completely shut down. You can respond when other people talk to you.”

I feel awful. “Am I that bad?”

Lo nods. “You’re that bad. My brother hasn’t caused any more problems, has he?”

“No,” I say. “He sort of follows my brother around now once he found out that so many cheerleaders came to Danny’s rescue. It’s actually kind of funny.”

“Yeah. He doesn’t stop talking about that,” Lo says. “You hear about Kayla?”

“No. We’re sort of not talking right now,” I say. “I think she’s embarrassed about what her brother did.”

“I thought you guys were tight.”

“I thought so too. Do I even want to know what’s up with her?” I shift my heavy English textbook onto my other hip.

“Yeah...she and Dylan broke up. It was pretty messy. Happened a few days after my party, right before the band left on tour again.”

“Really?” I say, my heart sinking a little at the news. I feel bad they broke up and I can’t believe Kayla didn’t tell me. When she’s having boy problems, I’m always the first person she calls.

“Yeah, Dylan took it really hard. He even threatened to leave the band and skip the tour. Poor guy. Julian’s trying to sort of win his soul back.”

“Why?” I ask. “Why would they break up? She was so happy with him.”

“I heard she’s seeing somebody else,” Lo says. The passing period bell rings, sending all of the students scattering. “Hey, I gotta go. Please quit acting like a stranger. You’re not. You’re Jas, and you’re awesome,” she says, heading for a door at the end of the hallway.

If I’m so awesome, how come my best friend won’t confide in me and I can’t get my boyfriend to spend any time with me?

Like I said, I don’t believe these two things are related, but together, they definitely bum me out.

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