Mind Blind Short Story: Maybe This Time

Maybe this time would be different.

. . . It wouldn’t. 

I knew that it wouldn’t, because nothing about MacCleason High School was any different that it had been at South Garfield High or Eastridge High or Kimball Junior High. My senior year of high school was going to be exactly the same as all the years and schools that had gone before it. After that? 

The bell rang, shrill and insistent, and I hitched my bookbag higher onto my shoulder so that it didn’t get yanked off by the students jostling around me in the overcrowded hallway.

After this year lay freedom. All I had to do was keep my head down, my grades up, and my ability concealed. Of course, that last objective would’ve been much easier to accomplish in the pre-internet era.

“Pervert.”

Someone rammed their shoulder into mine as they passed. They disappeared into the crush of other students before I could identify who had whispered the word, but it didn’t matter. As soon as one person knew at my school, everyone knew. At least I had secured my bag in advance.

“Witch.”

Another attack, this time to my other shoulder by a different student, with enough force to send me stumbling backwards. My back slammed against the lockers, which rattled with metal applause at my assault. I pressed myself against them with the clinging desperation of someone walking along a skyscraper's edge and waited until the hallway cleared. I’d be late for my very first class, but better late than sent to the nurse’s office again.

Nothing was different.

* * * *

If the hallway of MacCleason was an open battleground, then its cafeteria was a Colosseum. Instead of five-minute passing period skirmishes where participants fought and then retreated to class, lunchtime consisted of drawn-out gladiatorial duels between different social groups. Instead of swords and cudgels, students used glares and whispers as their weapons of choice. I didn’t have the armoring of friends to defend myself, but I could at least pretend to be unwounded.

Movies always made high school cafeterias seem routine and structured, each clique knowing their place and table. Real life wasn’t near that tidy, especially at MacCleason where our class schedules differed by the day. The best tables were claimed by whichever conqueror managed to escape class earliest, shoving their still-open notebooks into their backpacks and only pretending to write down the homework. Pack up to slow or stay to ask the teacher a question, and you were stuck next to the garbage cans (all of which were missing lids due to having been, I assumed, repurposed as make-shift shields).

Only one table ever remained completely unclaimed. Its leg lock been broken since the 1980’s, so you had to sit at the far and keep almost perfectly still in order to avoid it closing up on you like a beartrap. Most lone wolves tried once and then never again, their pride fatally wounded by the laughs of other students when the table folded around them. After my third day at MacCleason, however, I’d claimed the table as my own. The seating situation felt metaphorical to me, poetic even, that I needed to go unnoticed by even the furniture in order to survive. Thankfully, I was good at staying still.

“Why does she dress like that?” This whisper came from the table to my right, where a boy with wavy brown hair and freckles (good looking, in a bland, Sears-catalogue way) was eyeing me with malicious curiosity.

I sighed and resisted the impulse to roll my eyes. Every one of my schools had someone like him, the kid whose only identifiable trait was being “funny” and thus saw me as new material for his standup routine.

“I’m empathetic to the plight of Ments, really,” the boy claimed, his sly tone revealing that his progressiveness was just setting up for a joke. “They don't decide to be born freaks. But, like, no need to become a cliché, you know?”

“Shhh!” a girl giggled. “She’ll hear you!”

“Don’t you mean she’ll see me?” he said. “That’s what they do, isn’t it? Spy on people?” He raised his voice, making sure I heard him despite my refusal to look his way. “Hey, Morticia! Wear some color!”

“Stop it, Will!” This time, the girl sounded more afraid than amused. “She’ll really hear you, okay?”

I took another bite of my pizza, which now tasted like ashes (although to be fair, cafeteria pizza usually ranked as sawdust even when I was in a good mood). A quick glance at the clock showed me that it was almost one pm—there were still five minutes until the bell rang, but it was late enough that I could leave without looking like I was running away.

I stood slowly, just so that Will and co. didn’t realize they’d chased me out, and dropped the crust of my pizza into the lidless trash can. Will frowned, unhappy with how my lack of reaction limited his comic banter.

“I didn’t realize that vampires were allowed out during daytime!” he said. “Anyone got a crucifix? I wanna try an experiment—for science!”

Don’t acknowledge. Don’t react. Keep your head down. Graduate.

“My pasta has garlic in it,” one of Will’s friends offered.

Graduate. Then you can work to change things. Just graduate, and then you can . . .

A wet noodle hit my cheek, sliding slowly down until it plopped onto my shoulder. Will snickered as one of his friends breathed out “oh shit.”

‘Oh shit,’ indeed. Without peeling the noodle from my clothes, I marched over to Will’s table. All looked nervous, except Will, who smiled brazenly at me as if his dimples were capable of defending him.

Even his smile faltered, however, when I slammed my open palms onto their table. At this point, the entire cafeteria was watching, the lunch ladies getting ready to call for a teacher, but I was past the point of caring.

“I was going to ignore you, Will,” I said in a low voice. “You were a juvenile shit not worth my time.”

“Whoa,” Will's smile faltering. “Overreact much?”

I smiled back at him, slowly, predatorily, and his smile disappeared altogether. “I was going to ignore you, Will,” I repeated, emphasizing his name. “But it’s clear that you’re super into me given how hard you’ve been trying. So, congratulations. You’ve caught my attention.”

The girl who’d previously urged Will to be quieter bristled at my words. “Uh, my boyfriend is not into you.” She squared her shoulders and met my gaze. “Freak.”

I almost admired her courage. Almost. Mostly, though, I appreciated her giving me more ammunition. I ran my gaze down and back up her body, coolly taking in her baby pink polo and crisp white tennis skirt, as well as the National Honors Society badge on her backpack. I smirked.

“You’re his girlfriend?” I drawled, injecting all the disbelief I could muster into the question. “Interesting. You’re not who I saw with him last . . .” I trailed off at the last minute, then turned back to smile sweetly at Will. “Well, I can’t blame you. She doesn’t seem like much fun.”

“Babe, she’s obviously making shit up!” Will exclaimed as his girlfriend glanced over at him, her blue eyes now wary. “She just said that she’d been ignoring me before now!”

I wiggled my fingers playfully as I headed towards the cafeteria exit. “Call me!”

I could hear Will and his girlfriend still arguing as I left. Somehow, I managed to keep my chin high and avoid looking at anyone until I made it to the handicapped bathroom, the door to which I only barely managed to lock before my shaking knees gave out completely and I collapsed onto the cold tile floor.

Food stains come out of black fabric easily enough. The human versions, alas, weren’t so easily removed.

* * * *

“Your principal called.”

My mother had shoved the pile of dirty laundry onto the floor so that she had room to sit on the living room couch and thus catch me the moment I stepped through the front door. I ignored her, making my way to the kitchen where, sure enough, the sink was already piled high with a new stack of unwashed dishes. I forced myself to glance down at the recycling bin; a new whiskey bottle sat precariously atop of last night’s smashed glass. The new bottle was still half-full, which meant she was trying to quit again.

“Principal Gavin said that you threatened a boy. Made up nasty lies about him and his girlfriend.” My mother’s footsteps followed me into the kitchen.

I rolled up my sleeves and grabbed the dish soap. The dishwasher had been broken since Christmas as I hadn’t yet been able to find a new parttime job after my boss at Tim’s Carwash had learned that I was a Ment.

“Look at me!” My mom’s hand gripped my shoulder, forcing me to turn around. She looked tired, defeated, her eyes red-rimmed glazed over with whatever she’d drunk to make the pain of my existence go away.

Familiar, unwelcome guilt made me look away again. Her hand moved to gently touch my cheek, the same cheek that had been hit by a noodle earlier today at lunch. I flinched. Her eyes widened, and her hand dropped.

“Hope, you can’t keep doing this,” she said.

“I know.”

“You promised that this time would be different.”

“I know.”

“We can’t move again. This school is your last chance, otherwise you’ll need to get your GED, and colleges don’t—”

“I know.”

My mother sighed. “Are you even going to tell me what happened?”

“Does it matter?”

Her shoulders slumped. “I suppose not. The principal was convinced that you threatened those other students. He said that you won’t be suspended this time, given that you’re likely still adjusting to the new school, but to consider this a warning strike.”

I didn’t need to ask how many strikes I would get. Real life wasn’t baseball, and most of my past schools hadn’t even bothered to issue a warning before “strongly suggesting” that I enroll elsewhere. And so, I’d switched schools, again and again, as having an expulsion on my record would ruin my most my chances of qualifying for university scholarships. Although still unfair, Principal Gavin’s offer was the best that I’d ever received.

“It won’t happen again,” I promised, turning my attention to the sinkful of dishes.

My mother hesitated before leaving the kitchen. “Need help drying?” she asked.

I shook my head.

Once she had left, I looked back down at the recycling bin. Sure enough, the whiskey bottle was gone.

* * * *

The military canteen wasn’t all that different from MacCleason High School’s cafeteria, except that it was in a tent instead of the old gymnasium and instead of high schoolers, I was surrounded by deployed meatheads. Location was different as well: North Korea instead of the Illinois.

Just like in high school, however, I now sat alone—as a UN rep for the new initiative, I had to make sure that the soldiers didn't view me as biased. Sit with the Ments, and I risked the Norm soldiers seeing me as only looking out for “my own kind.” Sit with anyone that wasn’t a Ment, and I’d be accused of ignoring the same people whose lives I wanted to better.

It was fine. I was accustomed to sitting alone.

What I was not accustomed too anymore was the feeling of a noodle hitting my cheek. My head snapped up from where I’d been sorrowfully contemplating the dismal and suspiciously gray food on my tray. Something wet and smooshy had fallen down the collar of my uniform; I pulled out a squashed ravioli.

Someone snickered.

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. Don’t acknowledge. Don’t react. Wait for the right moment, and then make them change.

The laugh ended abruptly. I looked up to see the leader of the mixed-Ment taskforce towering over a seated soldiers at the table next to mine, his hand wrapped around the back of the other man’s neck.

“Let’s take a walk, Private Randalls,” he told the other man, whose cheeks drained of color at his commanding officer’s too-bright tone.

Wiseman’s smile was lopsided as he looked at me. Roguish, my mother would’ve described it, now that she had swapped her alcoholism with the much healthier addiction of historical romance novels. I felt Wiseman’s mind press against mine, asking for permission to converse. I allowed it and was surprised by how loud his voice was inside my head. As a Telemetrist, I only ever saw things and had only communicated with a Telepath on a few occasions.

I’ll make sure that this type of behavior doesn’t repeat, ma’am. Permission to deal with it myself?

I nodded, appreciating his call not to draw more attention to the fact that I’d been pelted with a cheese-stuffed noodle. It was only my second day assigned to the Korean front; I couldn’t afford to have my already questioned authority undermined even further (ergo, my decision to eat alone).

“Move it, Randalls!” Wiseman barked.

As he escorted the ravioli-thrower from the canteen, his thoughts touched upon mine once more: Apologies, ma’am. Randy’s always been a slow shooter. Most of us learn by second grade not to throw food at the pretty girls, no matter how much we crave their attention.

I wasn’t certain how to respond to that. Part of me was flattered (fine, extremely flattered) by Wiseman’s description, but I didn’t appreciate him brushing off Randall’s behavior as the usual military refrain of “boys will be boys.” I settled for pursing my lips and levelling Wiseman with the disapproving look that I normally only brought out to quickly close meetings. To my disgruntled surprise, he only chuckled at my glare.

Message received, ma’am, he thought teasingly. Next time, I’ll wait for you to call me pretty before returning the compliment.

My eyes lingered on the tent flap for a long moment after he’d left, a single thought springing to my mind unbidden . . . That maybe, just maybe, this time would be different.