The Dead Travel Fast

Chapter 3

3

I somehow managed to get to school on time. After waking up late, getting distracted multiple times, and crashing into a weird lady on the sidewalk, it must have taken a miracle for me to make it. But in the end, I did arrive at school right when I was supposed to. My group of friends did not even bat an eye when I rushed to join them, panting and red-faced. Of course, that may have had something to do with the fact that they never really noticed me.

I went to a private middle school in Boston alongside a bunch of other preppy kids with wealthy parents. It was not a “normal” school in that it had advanced levels of schoolwork and unusual methods of learning, but it still suffered from the usual middle school problems—the beginnings of the drugs, drama, bullying, and occasional teen pregnancies that would later become bigger and more problematic in high school. All in all, I didn’t feel like my middle school experience was too different from anyone else’s.

My friend group was made up of four other girls—Gigi Bernard, Katie O’Brian, Maya Sullivan, and Audrey Goldberg—and whomever they were dating at the time. They routinely switched around their boyfriends, but usually they chose them from a particularly obnoxious group of popular boys. All four girls were popular (or at least, they thought they were popular) and loud, so seeing that I was neither, I was a little different. My friends got up to all kinds of things—they had parties, messed around with boys, and sometimes would even dabble with m*******a or alcohol. I was usually around when they did stuff like this, since I was in their squad, but I rarely participated. Usually I just stood around. Honestly, I wasn’t sure why they even let me hang out with them. I guess they liked having a groupie, someone who would cheer them on but not engage with them. Or maybe I added some diversity to their group, being the only half-Asian. I couldn’t really tell; their motives were a mystery to me.

When I got to school and found my friends, who were also just arriving, I was dead tired from running and really upset after hearing voices in my head. I ran over to my friends, and gasped, unable to hold myself back, “The weirdest thing happened to me today! I was late, so I was running, and—”

“Shut up!” hissed Audrey. “Gigi’s crying!”

I stopped short. “What did I miss?”

They all ignored me. Gigi was indeed crying. Mascara running down her face, she was gasping, “I thought he really liked me! I loved him, but he—” She choked.

“I know,” said Katie. “I thought he did, too. We all did.”

Since no one was telling me what was going on, I pieced it together myself. Apparently, Gigi’s boyfriend, Sean, had just broken up with her. In fact, I could see him now—a tall, thin blond boy standing there several yards away, laughing and talking with his friends. He didn’t look upset at all. Well, I hadn’t liked him when he was Gigi’s boyfriend, and I didn’t like him now.

“He doesn’t deserve you,” said Maya heavily. “It’s his loss.”

Gigi nodded, sniffling.

I looked around, noticing that a lot of people were staring at us. I then turned back to the crying Gigi, and said awkwardly, “I’m sorry, Gigi. I know it’s hard.”

I didn’t expect the reaction that I got for that comment. Gigi looked up at me and said ferociously, “No, you don’t know! You don’t know what any of this is about, because you’ve never had a boyfriend!”

I gulped, taken aback. “Yeah, but I know you’re upset, and...”

She continued dramatically, “I bet you’re happy right now, because you’re not the only single one anymore!”

“What?”

“Oh, no one understands me!” With that, she fled, running into the building, the other three girls running after her. I was left alone, dumbfounded.

It was at times like this when I questioned my own choice of friends. I didn’t get them. I didn’t understand their values and their priorities, and they didn’t understand mine. With them, I felt like I could never do or say the right things.

But what was I by myself? Nothing. I was just some random middle schooler with no talents. I couldn’t even be considered a “smart Asian,” because my grades were mediocre. I was a shy person, and without them, I would have no friends, I would never be noticed, and I would always be alone. At least they were something that other people could associate me with.

I remembered what it was like back in elementary school. I had been friendless and withdrawn, and I had been picked on mercilessly. It was so unpleasant that when I got to middle school, I went to the loudest, most obnoxious group of girls that I could find and stuck with them. So here I was in eighth grade, still hanging onto the coattails of those same four girls.

Fortunately or unfortunately, as I sat in class for the rest of the school day, these unpleasant reflections were driven out entirely by the memories of my strange dream. How could something like that be possible? I did not believe in magic, so how could I have had a dream that had come true? And why was I hearing voices in my head?

The only logical explanation, of course, was that I was going crazy. But I didn’t want to believe that. And besides, that encounter with the stranger on the sidewalk had felt so real. It didn’t seem like I had imagined it all. Then again, my dream had felt very real until I had woken up.

I should have at least told someone about it. But I didn’t feel like I could. I was afraid that my family would think I was completely insane and send me to a psychiatrist. And, of course, I knew all too well that my friends would never take me seriously.

After sitting through boring classes all day and receiving my homework for the next couple of weeks, I joined my friends outside of school, and we milled around there for a little while. I apologized to Gigi (even though I still wasn’t sure what I should be sorry for). Her only reply was a despondent shrug.

“You’re going to need to redo your makeup,” said Katie. She squealed. “We’ll help you!”

“I’m so ugly it won’t even make a difference,” was Gigi’s response.

“No, you’re not!” the other three cried. “You’re beautiful!”

“Don’t say that about yourself,” I added.

Maya whipped out a case of makeup and started to shuffle some items around. “All of my stuff is old,” she complained. “After I touch up Gigi’s makeup a bit let’s go to the makeup store and buy some new stuff.”

I hated that store. I never bought anything there, it always took forever for my friends to buy anything, and I felt weird just standing around waiting for them as the clerks asked me again and again if I needed help. Also, everything there was wildly overpriced, and though my parents had a lot of money, they had told me over and over again not to waste it. “That place can be expensive,” I said weakly, hoping to get out of another trip to the makeup store. “Why don’t we—”

“You don’t get it, you don’t even wear makeup,” said Audrey.

“I know, but what I was going to say was—”

“You should try wearing makeup,” Gigi told me pointedly. “Why don’t you wear makeup?”

“Um…I don’t need it?”

That was the wrong thing to say. “Ugh, rude!” Katie said. “Are you saying that we do need it?”

“No, I—”

They had already moved on to the next subject because a group of boys had just sidled over. “You aren’t going to buy makeup,” said one of the boys as he put his hands over Katie’s eyes. “Because I’m going to walk you home! You need someone to protect you, ha ha.”

“No, I don’t! Aw, Travis, stop it,” Katie giggled, grinning ear-to-ear as she wrenched herself away from her boyfriend.

As the other boys made similar clumsy gestures of affection to Audrey and Maya, I thought about the fact that even though the other girls teased me for never having a boyfriend, I really did not want anyone to make comments like that at me. How on earth could they possibly think that these eighth-grade boys were romantic? Maybe I just didn’t understand the whole romance thing.

“Let’s all walk home together,” suggested Declan, Maya’s boyfriend.

“Yes!” said Maya. “It was so fun yesterday!”

“Let’s do it again!” said Audrey’s boyfriend, Kyle. “I brought a pack with me!”

The others cheered, but I grimaced. Yesterday, my friends, their boyfriends, and I had all walked home together, and to my surprise, they all stopped in an alleyway to smoke some cigarettes. I had never even touched one of those before, so I was shocked when Kyle pulled a pack of them out of his bag and offered them to us. My parents—particularly my dad, who was a doctor—were very anti-smoking, and they would have freaked out if they’d seen me anywhere near a cigarette. The others had helped themselves, but I hung back and refused the proffered pack.

“What, you don't want one?” Kyle said.

“No, it’s fine, I’ll pass.”

“Why not?” Maya said. They all looked at me.

“I don’t know. I just don’t want one.”

“Forget it,” Travis said. “Maybe Asians are too busy studying to smoke.”

That made me mad, so I’d taken one and tried to not gag. I hated the smell of cigarette smoke, and it didn’t help that I kept having visions of what was probably happening to my lungs.

I’d stuck it out for the sake of not alienating myself, but now that I was in danger of going through that experience again, I decided I’d have to make myself absent. If I walked home with those boys as well as my friends again, I might have to accept another cigarette, and I honestly was not sure if I would be able to do it. So when everyone started to talk over their plans to go to a restaurant together, I said, “I don’t think I can go with you guys.”

“Why not?” Gigi asked suspiciously.

“I just remembered that I need to get home soon,” I lied. “My mom wants me to do something.”

They all exchanged looks. I wasn’t quite sure what those looks meant. “See you later, then,” said Maya.

“Bye.” I turned around and hurried away, carefully staring ahead. I hoped my excuse wasn’t too lame. I didn't think it would occur to anyone that I was trying to avoid cigarettes, but I could never tell what they were thinking.

Retracing the route that I had taken to school in the morning, I spotted the exact spot of ice that I had slipped on after running into that weird woman.

I turned a corner and saw my house looming above the street. It was an elegant house, half-hidden by the shrubbery in the front yard. My parents kept it in pristine shape, both inside and out. There were a few large rose bushes in the front, the kind that were usually quite pretty, but now looked ugly and bare in the winter.

I noticed that there was a figure standing amongst those rose bushes, poking around like they were looking for something.

I started to run, wondering if this person was trying to break into my house. As I neared my front yard, I saw that it was a woman. She started to peer through a window, and, despite my usual tendency to avoid confrontation, I yelled, “Hey!”

The woman stood up straight in the middle of the bushes and turned around calmly to face me. I was now running from the sidewalk into the yard, hoping to catch her before she ran away. But she stood completely still—almost too still—and when I saw her face, I stopped dead.