It was the next day before I received a response from my friends to the e-mail I had sent. The response was in the form of a phone call at two-o’clock in the afternoon.
I was sitting on my bed, working on my French homework when the phone rang. Normally, I wouldn’t have bothered to answer, but my roommate had left and was expecting a call.
“Hello?” I asked, preparing to give the “I’m sorry, can I take a message” speech for my roommate.
“Veronica?” a voice asked. Instinctively, I slipped into what my friends have started calling ‘glazed-over’ mode.
“Uh, yeah?”
“Um, hi, it’s me, Kyla,” the voice explained. I felt my stomach clench with fear. Kyla and her roommate, Geraldine were the two friends to whom I had spilled the secret.
“Uh, hi,” I replied, unsure of what else to say.
“Hi,” Kyla repeated. I could tell from her voice that she was nervous. “We, um, got your e-mail,” she informed me.
By her use of the word “we,” I assumed her roommate was there in the room as well.
“Yeah, and we think she’s full of shit,” Geri’s voice sounded in the background.
“Shut up!” Kyla hissed at her roommate. I chuckled softly –as I always did at their interactions –but said nothing more.
“Anyway,” Kyla tried to continue, hesitating slightly. Before she could, however, Geri interrupted again.
“Like I said, man, it sucks,” she shouted.
“Shut up!” Kyla repeated. “I’m trying to do this tactfully.”
“Screw tact!” Geri shouted back.
I laughed outright at this. Kyla sighed.
“As I was saying,” she continued. I pictured her glaring daggers at Geri. “We, um, well, we thought it was a nice story.”
“Huh?” I asked. This time I didn’t have to pretend to be confused. I was genuinely lost.
“Your e-mail,” she clarified. “It’s an…an interesting story.”
I wasn’t sure how to react at first. “Um, it’s true,” I told her. My stomach was getting butterflies again.
Kyla forced a nervous laugh. “Sure it is,” she replied. “True, right.” I heard Geri laughing in the background –not convinced either.
“Really,” I told her. “It’s true.” There was a long silence. I sighed. “Listen, I can’t talk about it over the phone. I’ll come over there, okay?”
“Okay,” Kyla replied skeptically. I heaved another sigh and hung up the phone. Then I searched around for my sneakers so that I could head on out.
The walk from my room to Kyla and Geri’s wasn’t a long one, but I had plenty of thinking to do. I didn’t know what to tell them. I didn’t know how to convince them that I was telling the truth. I began to wonder if I was making a big mistake. A cool wind blew past me, and I ran a hand through my hair in a gesture of frustration.
“VERONICA!” someone shouted in my direction. I paused reluctantly and turned around. A thin, dark-haired girl was springing towards me, calling my name at the top of her lungs.
When she reached me, she stopped, pausing to catch her breath. “Hey Ronnie,” she greeted, and I winced at the nickname. Eiranne was nice but she was…well…there just weren’t words to describe her. None that I know, anyway.
“Hi,” I replied. “Hey,” she repeated. I wondered vaguely if the conversation would progress. “Where ya going?” she asked.
By this time I had reached Kyla and Geri’s building. I pointed upwards –in the general direction of their room. “Up there,” I informed her.
“Cool!” Eiranne cheered happily. “So am I.”
I nodded and wondered if Eiranne would end up knowing my secret, too. I wasn’t sure if I wanted that.
Together, we headed up the stairs. I wasn’t in a chatting mood, but Eiranne obviously was. I remembered my “training” with my mother and pretended to listen to what she was saying. Thankfully, it didn’t take long to reach our destination. Eiranne knocked on the door, and after a few seconds, Kyla opened it.
“Uh, hi,” she greeted. “Come in.” She opened the door as far as she could past the clutter that filled their room. Geri sat on the bed in the far corner.
“Howdy,” Eiranne greeted Geri and Kyla as we entered. I smiled.
“So…what’s up?” Kyla asked after no one had said anything for a few minutes. Eiranne sat down on the bed Geri wasn’t on and shrugged.
“Nothin’,” she replied. “Just wanted to come by and see how you all were.”
I was nervous. “Um, maybe I should go,” I began. Geri and Kyla protested this.
“No, stay,” Kyla pleaded. “Please.”
“You can tell her,” Geri told me, gesturing towards Eiranne. I was reluctant, but, after a few more minutes of threats and pleadings, I gave in.
“I guess you better tell her, then,” Kyla decided, gesturing towards Eiranne, who looked confused. I felt bad for her.
“I don’t know where to start,” I told them. “But I’ll try.” I took a deep breath and decided the beginning would work. “My parents found me when I was a baby,” I began.
“Found?” Eiranne asked.
“Right,” I replied. “Found. My father was on his way out of the house and literally tripped over me.” I began to recall the story for them. As I spoke the scenes of the story I knew so well played over in my mind.
I had been left by whoever my real parents were on the doorstep. My mother had become very attached to me, and she and my older brother were very protective of me.
At first it had seemed I was a normal child. I didn’t cry and more or less than my brother and I seemed to fit into the family fine. But when I reached school age and went to kindergarten and first grade, they began noticing “weird stuff” about me. I picked up on concepts very quickly. The teachers were pleased with me, praising my parents for their smart daughter. But my parents saw I was different, and tried to convince them.
“When I was seven,” I told Eiranne, “I was permitted to skip a grade, and that’s when it happened.”
“What happened?” she asked, and leaned forward in her seat. I heaved a sigh. I hadn’t really wanted to demonstrate, but if it would prove it, it was the only way.
“I started third grade at the age of 7,” I explained. “But the first day was horrible. The kids were mean, and they teased me because I was young. I got scared and this happened.
As I spoke, I was focusing inside of me, concentrating. Over the years, I had learned to control this ability. It was hard, and took intense concentration.
I felt a numbness in my scalp. My hair grew longer and changed color. Within seconds it was down to my knees. Instead of its normal dark, bland color, it was now a vibrant red-orange that made it seem as if waves of fire were coming from my scalp.
I shut my eyes, not wanting to see their horrified expressions. I felt a sharp but dull pain in my spine as I grew at least a foot taller. Thankfully, the room had a high ceiling. My eyes tingled slightly, and I opened them to see my skin grow lighter until it was almost bleach white. I blinked as the bright fluorescent light above hurt my now sensitive eyes. They were a pale but bright blue –a sharp contrast to the dark nothingness they’d been before.
Eiranne, Geri, and Kyla had identical shocked expressions on their faces. Soon, I thought sadly, those would turn to fear and then hatred. As I had seen many times before.
Slowly, I returned to my “normal” self. I decided there was no need to scare them anymore. I scanned the room with my once again dark-brown eyes with the same thought running through my head that I’d felt since the previous night: Would they still accept me or not?
