Page 8 of Counting the Days

She thought the world was greatly imbalanced, for ifeveryoneis a speaker andno oneis a listener, then to whom do the speakers speak? So, she decided to fill the vacant slot of listenerand became quite good at it. She was so unused to being asked questions that this cute guy’s genuine interest was jarring. He was making her feel like an entire person and not just a pair of ears waiting to absorb endless stories. But the answer to that particular question was going to bring down the vibe too much, so she just said, “It’s a long story.”

Before he could respond, the entire party began encroaching on their private area. Tiny had hired a photographer who, unbeknownst to Rhea and Danny, had been setting up and precariously climbing a fifty-foot ladder behind them. All the revelers were now filling the backyard and smooshing together to get into one giant group photo. Rhea and Danny quickly picked up their drinks to avoid being trampled, and just as Danny was about to ask Rhea…something, Ada screamed her name.

“I probably have to go stand with them,” Rhea said quickly.

“Of course, it was nice meeting you—” Danny said as several people pushed in between them to get closer to the camera, and the crowd carried them apart.

—

Rhea’s first day at AuburnSinclair was a study in humiliation. Her aunt’s assistant, who would grow to be like a mother to her, dropped her off in the roundabout in front of a Spanish-style building. A white façade with a red clay roof and arched entryways loomed over her.

She was wearing the mandatory uniform, a white polo shirt over a khaki skirt, but she insisted, much to her aunt’s chagrin, on wearing her old, filthy Vans sneakers over her brand-new white socks. She entered the building in a sea of other uniformed girls, not realizing she was rubbing elbows with the children of movie stars, pop stars, and sports stars. The offspring of theentire heavens were milling around her, and all she could think about was how much she hated the uniform.

She was arriving as thenew girlsmack-dab in the middle of her tenth-grade year, and she decided no one would want to talk to her. As she walked down the Spanish-tiled hallway, she sensed every girl in the whole school was already full up on friends and could not possibly make room for one more. Especially one that came fromFlorida,and not Miami or some other more glamorous part of the state; Rhea was born in Buckle Beach, which the locals unaffectionately and aptly referred to as Butthole Beach.

Being born in Buckle Beach was considered a bad omen. It was an unlucky place, the only beach in Florida to never catch on with tourists; the sand was not quite soft enough, the water not clear enough. There was an indescribable heaviness in the air that could be perceived the moment one drove past the graffiti-covered “Welcome to Buckle Beach” sign. Everyone unanimously hated Buckle Beach…except the mosquitoes. They were so great in number and so vicious that Buckle High School decided to make them their intimidating mascot.

Their little strip of land along the Atlantic Ocean was constantly thrashed by hurricanes; it did not matter if the Weather Channel felt 100 percent certain Buckle Beach would be spared. Each season, at least one hurricane would realize it was about to accidentally have mercy on the citizens of Buckle Beach, miraculously make a sharp turn, and delight in demolishing the town.

It happened so often that the locals stopped rebuilding; the solution became to “just put a tarp over it.” So, half the houses displayed blue tarps where walls and windows used to be. The residents could not be bothered to stress about aesthetics; they had bigger problems.

Buckle Beach was the epicenter of the devastating opioidpill-mill epidemic, which led to nearby towns referring to it as Butrans Beach. Anyone could show up at any of the myriad pain clinics and get a prescription for anything at all with no medical history or physical exam, as long as they paid with cash.

Rhea imagined, as she walked the halls of that pristine all-girls Los Angeles institution, that she carried the tragedy of Buckle Beach within her bones. Poverty and struggle were written into her DNA, oozing out of her pores.

She regretted wearing her dirty Vans. She thought it would be a refreshing and radical act to display who she was on her first day. She was not some pleated khaki skirt or crisp polo shirt;she was a filthy sneaker. But now that she was walking the campus, feeling the crushing weight of teenage perfection all around her, she wanted to hide who she was and just fit in. On all the feet of her fellow students were white K-Swiss, the exact brand her aunt had tried to buy her days earlier.

And maybe, if she had just accepted the damn shoes, she would have been wearing a new pair of K-Swiss with much stickier tread instead of ancient Vans with slick, worn rubber soles, and maybe she would not have slipped on a puddle of soy chai latte and landed on her back with her skirt up and her black thong underwear on display.

The nearby students gasped and froze. It was as if none of them had ever fallen or seen anyone fall in their whole sheltered lives, so they just held their breath and waited for a member of their parents’ staff to come clean it up. Rhea tried to sit up but felt searing pain in her back. She prayed for a higher power to let her die in peace, but her prayers went unanswered.

“Are you okay?” A worried voice interrupted Rhea’s self-immolation.

Rhea looked up and saw a teenage girl who was so beautifulshe was glowing from the inside out. The girl quickly pulled Rhea’s skirt down.

“Sorry, I just gotta…get…this down,” the girl said.

“Thank you.”

This small act of kindness filled Rhea’s face with the warning heat of oncoming tears.

“Can you stand up?”

Rhea tried again and this time, with the girl’s help, she was successful.

“Do you wanna go to the nurse?”

Worried the nurse would try to give her something for the pain and being vehemently against painkillers for the aforementioned reasons, Rhea replied, “No, I think I’m okay.”

“I’m Ada.”

“I’m Rhea.”

“Jenna Wheaton spilled her drink right there; I saw it happen. If you have, like, a broken bone or something, she should pay your doctor bills. I’ll be a witness if you need one.”

“Oh, that’s okay, I’m really okay—thanks.”

“I’ve complained about how slippery the floors are at Student Leadership Council meetings. I’m class president.” Ada said this without sounding like she was bragging.