Juniors Read Free

not so much.
    Now, for example, with a show set in Hawaii on the brink of its debut, Melanie is a close, close, super-close friend.
    When my mom and I visited my grandparents—who passed away four and seven years ago—Melanie would have her come to dinner parties. She was Melanie’s actress friend. I was never invited (rich people seem to have a no-kids rule), and my mom would come home feeling slightly proud and slightly degraded.
    â€œI’m kind of like a circus monkey,” she once said, having had to perform one-liners all night about the famous people she has come across in her career.
    Whitney looks back and smiles at me, just slightly. I can’t tell if it’s a smile recognizing our family connection or if it’s a kind of sly grin, telling me she’s lying and she shouldn’t be so far behind. Why is she so far behind? Is she not as experienced as I’d imagine her to be? Or maybe she’s back here because nothing bad can touch her.
    Her brother, Will, is a senior. He’s her male equivalent, looks-wise, yet even more large and magnetic, pristine. My first week of school, I happened to pass him, thinking that he’d know who I was because of my mom. “Hey,” I managed to say. He lookedat me as though he wasn’t sure if I’d spoken or burped, and he kept on walking.
    â€œWalk if you feel like you’re living your life to its fullest potential,” Sheri says in a soft voice.
    I don’t move. Whitney doesn’t either. Of course we don’t. We’re seventeen. I hope to God this isn’t my fullest potential.
    On the other side of the partition, I hear the dribbling of basketballs and feel like our little world is being intruded upon. Sheri turns the music up.
    â€œNow,” Sheri says, “walk if you’ve ever done anything illegal.”
    An easy one. Mostly everyone walks. I’m sure we’ve all had a drink, even the peer counselors.
    â€œThis week,” Sheri says. “Walk if you’ve done something illegal this week.”
    It’s Tuesday. I rack my brain for something, anything. Jaywalking perhaps, not using my blinker. Other people walk, and they all happen to be good-looking, as if only beautiful people can have such bad fun. They’re looking around with smirks on their faces. What have they done? I have always known that my life was a little predictable, but for the first time, I see it as totally disappointing. Whitney walks. I’m farther behind her now. What has she done in just two days? Mike turns around and gives her a knowing look that I don’t think anyone else was supposed to see. I want to walk too. I want to seem interesting. No—I want to
be
interesting. This
is
a race, and I am far behind. And then I remember something. I guess it’s not technically illegal, but whatever—it’s against the rules. I proudly take five steps. I’m in the gym, and I’m wearing black-soled shoes.
    â€¢Â â€¢Â â€¢
    When I get home my mom tells me something that brings me back to today’s exercise, our crossing. I think of what I had felt during the truth walk—wanting a change, wanting something, anything, wanting to belong here, to just speak up. For me, it wasn’t about getting real and confessing, it was seeing what little there was to be said.
    When my mom tells me what’s about to happen I experience a rush and then a kind of crushing. I’m stunned into silence—the what, why, when, whaaaat???? of it all stuck to my dumb tongue.
    My mom tells me we’re moving to 4461 Kahala Avenue. The home of Whitney West.

2
    I IMMEDIATELY H AD TO GET ON MY BIKE AND RIDE OUT of Enchanted Lakes to clear my head. I rode through the other sections of Kailua, a town I know and love. I can’t say that I love our house, though. I ride back into our neighborhood and park my cruiser in the carport and look at our dark town house, which sits alongside a