the good sense to sit up and put his unwashed feet on the floor.
“Aren’t you going to introduce us?” Dad asked, nodding toward Alissa.
I reluctantly, and hastily, made the introductions, as I pulled on my jacket, dying to get out of there.
“Hey, Alissa,” Dad said coolly, just before we were going to leave, “do you know where we might score some good weed?”
Her eyes were full of judgment as she gave a snotty laugh and snapped, “What?” Suddenly, she was above smoking the occasional joint.
“C’mon,” I begged. “I’m starving.” And I finally dragged them out of the discomfort zone known as my room.
I wanted to take my parents into town, but Dad insisted on staying on campus. “How often do we get to come here?” he said.
So much to my misery, we ended up at the small café in the student union.
When we sat, Dad was preoccupied with appraising the students, reading the bulletin board, and getting up to chat with any professor who would walk through. Mom kept eyeing me questioningly.
“Did you get a perm?” she asked. Her earlier tone of disbelief had morphed into simple annoyance.
I nodded.
I knew what she was thinking. I didn’t even ask her if she liked it.
“Just don’t forget who you are, honey, okay?” she said, trying to be understanding, but still sounding very, very annoyed.
How could I ever forget who I was? My classmates were constantly pointing it out.
Like right that very second. A jock from my class, Judd Watson, walked in with his entourage. As he passed my table, he cracked, “Freak alert!” to the hilarity of his cronies.
Mom grabbed my hand and softened. I was glad. I didn’t need her judging me too. “Are you making friends, honey?” she gently asked.
I just shrugged. Her comfort made me want to wipe off my make-up, let my hair go back straight, put on my overalls, hop in their van, and leave Hillander behind for good.
“Jill doesn’t need to be friends with these stiffs,” Dad said. “She’s smarter than them all put together. They’re probably all Republicans anyway.” Dad’s familiar, proud smile took over his face. “Plus, we didn’t send her here to make friends. Your grades with a Hillander education—there will be no stopping you in this world, honey. You’ll leave every one of them in the dust.”
Then I knew—suffering through Hillander’s hellishness would be easier than living with my parents’ disappointment back in Georgia. So I stuck it out. When it came time to choose roommates for the next year, I boldly put in for a single, which sophomores rarely got. But miraculously, mine came through, most likely because every girl in the school doubled up with someone, anyone, so as not to get stuck with me.
So I spent the next three years in the solitary confinement of a single room, every night, every weekend, and every holiday. Yes, even holidays. My parents considered sending me a bus ticket for holidays an outrageous expense. So since they wouldn’t go out of their way to bring me home, I never bothered to save up to buy a ticket myself. And no girl would be caught dead being seen with me, never mind inviting me to her home during breaks. So while most families were carving up a turkey carcass during Thanksgiving, I was sitting in my dorm room. Alone. I would while away many of those hours studying, eating and sometimes I even cut myself.
The cutting started my first year—probably because it was my most traumatizing year, and probably because I wouldn’t ever let Alissa see me cry. My pain and rage had to come out somehow, I guess. The first time I did it was when I came into my room one day to find her reading my journal, ridiculing it out loud to one of her friends. In it, I had written fictional fantasies of how I wanted my life to turn out, what I’d like my “dream guy” to be like, and my opinions on everything. I even made lists, like this one:
Things I want to accomplish in life
1 Skydive
2 Be a good mom
3 Start a charity
4 Start a magazine
5 Travel to all seven continents
6 Fall in love
7 Find a friend
8 Become more likable
I’m proud to say that to date I’ve accomplished #4, #6, #7, and #1, not very long ago for a feature story in Jill. The list is etched in my mind still, as are the emotions I felt when I heard Alissa’s mockery and peals of laughter. It brought back the agony of every social rejection I had withstood at Hillander in one moment.
Alissa was so focused on making fun of my journal that she hadn’t even seen me standing in the doorway. Before she could spot me, I crept back out of the room, so furious and upset that I locked myself in a bathroom stall. I remember sitting there numbly just waiting for the tears. But they wouldn’t come.
Then I noticed a shard of metal sticking out from the broken toilet paper dispenser. I wiggled the metal back and forth, back and forth, until it snapped off. I ran my fingers over its edge, cutting my forefinger slightly, and watched intensely as the blood trickled down my hand. Strangely, it felt good. It felt cathartic. It was a relief.
Pathetic, I know. But it was the only way at the time that I would become distracted from the pain of being an outcast. As often as four nights a week, I’d hole up in the bathroom, now using a Swiss Army knife instead of the shard of metal, and cut—not enough to make the blood gush, though. No, I became an expert. I had practiced just the right touch. Just enough to make it hurt. Just enough to forget the real pain in my life.
I was bright enough to know that it was stupid. And I tried my best to taper off with other distractions, like music—and magazines.
When it was slow in the library, I’d pore over the glossies and mock them in my imagination. As I flipped through each page, examining each zitless face, each rail-thin frame, each blindingly white smile, I’d feel a well of disgust flood my soul. First, because I really resented not being anything like the models. But mostly, I was disgusted because I cared.
And I’d get angry looking at the flawless clothing. The perfectly applied make-up. The “dream guys,” who were all Ken doll doppelgangers. I’d take the bogus quizzes, laugh at the puffy celeb profiles, and make note of the lameness of the advice from the “expert” columnists.
Then one night, in a frenzy of boredom, I started to describe what I hated about these magazines, and what I’d be interested in reading about. One sample entry:
The latest Seventeen came in today. Why oh why do I subject myself to its inane, evil pages? Why do all these rags keep telling people how to be better? What if there were a magazine that just let girls feel okay about themselves? What if there were stories about useful things, like how to live with someone you loathe?
Knowing now that Alissa was reading my journal, no matter where I hid it, I started to write to her directly, planting items that would infuriate her.
Girls can be so phony. I was in the bathroom today when I heard Alissa’s best friend, Tracy Fisher, talking with Alexandra Hunt. Tracy was saying how she couldn’t believe Walt would date someone like Alissa, that they were totally wrong for each other, and that Alissa was looking fat lately, too. I mean, even though it is true—she has put on a few pounds—that’s nothing that a good friend should say, right? I think I’m better off not having any friends here…
I smugly snickered inside when Alissa had a huge fight with Tracy a few days later, and they stopped talking altogether. And I felt a terrific sense of satisfaction noticing her eyeing her figure, and frantically weighing herself, from that day forward.
That’s when I realized how dense Alissa was. She never figured out that I knew she read my journal, even when I out and out addressed her.
I remember writing