The Mary Shelley Club, Goldy Moldavsky [e ink ebook reader txt] 📗

and the one that I should’ve been—the normal, happy-go-lucky girl—felt like an imposter.

I was trying to do all the things I was supposed to. I was forcing myself to go to parties and meet people and gossip with Saundra in our corner of the lunchroom. And maybe it would’ve worked at a different school, but at Manchester, I stuck out. I couldn’t blend in in a place where everyone was a perfect specimen, carefully curated to belong like priceless museum pieces. After the attack, I had been labeled a freak at my old school, and now it was following me here.

But I couldn’t tell my mom any of that. Instead, what came out was, “You don’t get how alone I feel.”

With those words, I felt the mask I’d chosen to wear to survive Manchester—to make my mother think that everything was okay—starting to slip. I could feel it coming down with the tears. I wiped my cheek quickly before my mom could see. But my voice betrayed me.

“Mom, what happened last year … it changed me. It turned me into…”

My throat tightened before I could finish. And there was no point hiding the tears anymore either. Mom cupped my no-doubt blotchy, red face in her hands.

“You went through something that no one should ever have to go through,” my mom said. “There is nothing wrong with you.”

I bit my lip to try to stop the tears from coming and nodded.

But there was something wrong with me. It clawed at my insides, desperate to get out. Like the chestbuster from Alien. It hadn’t burst out of my rib cage yet, but people could tell. No matter how well I wore the mask, people saw it. Lux saw it better than anyone.

“I know starting at a new school is hard,” Mom said. “But it’s going to get better. You just can’t go picking fights.”

“I know, I’m sorry.” When my mom hugged me, I leaned into it. She smoothed my hair with her hand and it instantly made me feel better.

“My little Jamonada.” She sighed. “Wanna watch a scary movie?”

I smiled into her shoulder.

 10

THE NEXT DAY at school was a nightmare.

When I walked into a room, people did one of two things: They either started talking about me among themselves, or they stopped talking altogether. It was one thing to choose not to associate with people and another thing to have them actively shun you. The dominoes had been set up in AssHead’s office and Lux’s penny loafers had kicked them all down.

I got to Women in Literature early and took the corner seat in the back. I watched as my classmates filed in, all of them spotting me, all of them electing to sit in the seats farthest away from me. Even Thayer, the only person I’d actually had a conversation with, steered clear of my shame corner. I was an island, and the longer the desk next to mine stayed empty, the more it seemed to glow with glaring obviousness.

Class had already started and Ms. Liu was writing something on the board when Bram walked in late. I watched as he saw the empty seat next to me and searched the room for another. But there wasn’t one. He walked over to me with a resigned expression.

As he sat down, I got a whiff of pine and lime. His shampoo. Against my best efforts, the scent brought our kiss back to the forefront of my mind. If I could’ve cast the memory out of me with holy water, I would have, if only so that Bram couldn’t see how fiercely it was making me blush. I wondered if he could tell what I was thinking about and began blushing. Then I wondered if he ever thought about it, even by accident, and blushed even harder.

No, he probably never thought about our kiss. Which was a good thing, because it almost meant that he hadn’t told Lux about it either. For that, I was grateful.

“Term paper time!” Ms. Liu announced. “Your topic is: female authors and their male protagonists.”

Thayer Turner’s hand immediately shot up. “Can we have partners?”

Ms. Liu sighed. “Fine, you can partner up with the person sitting next to you.”

I ducked my head down, face burning. The only way this day could get any better was if the ceiling crashed on top of me. I expected Bram to beg the person on his left to partner up with him, or to raise his hand and tell Ms. Liu he was in the wrong seat today. But out of the corner of my eye, I could see Bram staring straight ahead as if he hadn’t heard Ms. Liu. It seemed like he wasn’t going to put up a fight.

The guy sitting in front of me glanced back at us and snorted. Apparently, he found it hilarious that I had to partner with the boyfriend of the girl I’d allegedly tried to stab in the art-supply closet. Like Bram, I stared straight ahead and tried to ignore him, but I was relieved Bram hadn’t made a scene. By the time the bell rang, I had finally worked up the nerve to speak to him. I turned to Bram, but he spoke first.

“I’ll write the paper,” he said. His voice was deeper than I expected, the low rumble of a train over tracks. It was weird, having kissed him without ever having heard him speak.

“Shouldn’t I help?”

He swept the books off his desk and stood. “No.”

By lunchtime, my phone was blowing up with new memes about me. Only this time, instead of me snatching Lux’s hair out, these memes depicted me as a raging maniac with a pair of scissors. In one of the memes someone had placed a picture of my face over that of Lupita Nyong’o from Us, sporting golden shears. I had to give them credit for good taste.

I shoved my phone into my pocket and tried to feel grateful that at least no one