Chapter Text
She is so fucking tired of this shit. Years and years of running, of never having a stable home, of getting attached to people and places just in time to leave them – she is so fucking tired of this shit. When her parents tell her they’ll be moving soon, Natalie Scatorccio thinks this: that she is so fucking tired of this shit. It’s been like this from as long as she can remember. Her parents would park the trailer somewhere and stay there for a few months. Then, just in time for Natalie to never really settle in at school or with her peers, they would decide it was time to go. It’s not like they care about how she feels, anyway – her father has always loved the bottle more; her mother has always been too scared to do anything. By now, Nat should be used to live at the margins of society, used to always run away from her father’s problems – but every time it happens, she crumbles to pieces.
It happens like this, always: she comes back from school, and when she enters the trailer, her mom is on the ground. Sometimes her nose is bleeding, sometimes her lips are. Most times, the eyes are swollen. A few steps away from her, Nat knows she’ll find her father: his knuckles are bruised, his eyes filled with fury. When it happens – like this, always – Nat already knows: they’re leaving.
And that’s what they do. While they’re leaving Newark behind, Nat thinks that staying in its outskirts hasn’t been so bad – it’s been better than many other places, and people were mostly nice to her. She didn’t make any friends, no. She rarely does. But people didn’t care about what she did – they didn’t care about how she dressed, how she talked or what she drank. That’s more than she could have asked for. Now, instead, she’ll have to start all over again, like she always does. Wiskayok – that’s where they’re going. She’s never really heard of it, but her father knows people there, people that can hide him from his problem with what Nat can only imagine being some kind of fucked up criminal organization – so they’re going there, and she doesn’t know what to expect, and she’s terrified.
She’ll turn eighteen in a few months. This means that soon enough she’ll be able to get away from her parents, but it also means that, before that, she has to deal with her senior year of high school. That feels like a nightmare. She always feels behind in class – and she is. During her life, Nat has changed at least three school every year, which hasn’t exactly helped her already low academic skills. The idea of starting all over, in a place that she doesn’t know and most likely is a small town, it’s gut-wrenching – she feels tears prickling behind her eyes at the mere thought of it, but she can’t let her parents see how vulnerable she is, so she shifts her gaze out of the window and spends the rest of the travel like that.
Sometimes, nightmares become reality. A couple of days has passed since her arrival in Wiskayok, and Nat is confident enough to say that she has been right about everything. It is a small town, and it is full of bigots, and it is, to put it simply, a shithole. So yeah, the 1996 Award for Worst Choice of the Year goes straight to her parents – after all, they have started winning it when they decided to have a daughter and have then never stopped.
It's Monday morning. Nat’s standing in front of Wiskayok High School: from a certain perspective, it kind of looks like a circus. She assumes by now that it is the only school in town, so everyone goes there: rich daddy’s girls, dumb jocks, artsy little brats, and the always-present nerds. There, one can really find all levels of society – and see how they behave around each other. It’s a freakshow, an experiment. She can’t bear the thought of being a part of it, and she certainly isn’t prepared for what lays ahead.
The courtyard is packed with students: she knows she should go over there and at least try to get to know someone, but she simply can’t. No one has taught her how to care about people, and she doesn’t know how to start doing it now. When the bell rings, Nat decides she’s going to wait outside a few more minutes. She has just lit a cigarette, and she prefers going in after everyone else, anyway. So she stays there, and she doesn’t fail to notice a couple of students staring at her. They take in her looks, her attitude, her smoking habit, and then they turn around, giggling or judging – all levels of society, yeah, but she might just be the first outsider to ever step foot inside Wiskayok High School.
She takes two deep breaths – air for the lungs, smoke for the brain – and just when she’s about to find the courage to step inside the building, someone crashes right into her. She stumbles to stay on her feet, her cigarette falling from her lips.
“What the fuck—” Her voice is deep and throaty like it always is – only this time, it’s also pretty pissed.
“Oh, God— Sorry, I’m so sorry!” A storm of dark hair turns in her direction, and Nat doesn’t have time to reply before the girl adds, “Are you okay?”
She’s carrying a giant duffel bag over her shoulder, which alone explains why she bumped so hardly into her and why Nat should understand and simply let it go – but Natalie Scatorccio doesn’t know how to let go of things, and so she doesn’t.
“Why don’t you fucking look where you’re going?” She clenches her fists, staring at the other girl.
If Nat’s mind was clear and not clouded by dark thoughts, she would be taken aback by the fact that the girl doesn’t seem to flinch at her words – instead, she even takes a couple of steps towards her. “I’m really sorry. I’m late and I didn’t see you, I— Did I hurt you?”
Nat fails to register the genuine worry in her voice, and the only thing she takes in are those steps closing up to her. She violently steps back, her voice rising. “Get the fuck away from me.”
After a few seconds of silence, the brunette nods briefly, and with an expression Nat can’t really place a name on, she leaves her, running inside the building.
Fucking great, Nat thinks. If this is how it’s going to be, this year will be the worst year of my life.
She finds her classroom fifteen minutes later than she’s supposed to. She hasn’t realized how late it was until it was too late, and now she knows she has just managed to screw everything up on her first day here. She knocks weakly on the door and doesn’t even wait for an answer before grabbing the knob and opening it. As soon as she sets foot inside the room, everyone’s head snaps up in her direction. All of a sudden, at least fifteen students are staring at her, and she only feels worse when she meets the teacher’s eyes. Even though there’s a smile plastered on the woman’s face, Natalie can sense something else entirely when her gaze falls briefly on her punk clothes. It’s something dangerously close to disdain – something she’s so entirely used to.
“You must be Natalie.” The woman says after a moment. “Take a seat. And please, remember that class starts at 8:00 am sharp.”
Hyper-aware of her own presence, Nat simply nods at those words, and proceeds to find a seat in which she can bury herself alive. She crosses the room, looking around, and— Well, shit.
There, in the back row, she finds no less than the reason she’s late – that girl. Yeah, one could argue that the girl didn’t do anything to make Nat be late, but their brief encounter had left the blonde so upset that she had felt forced to take a few minutes to calm down. In her mind, it was somehow her fault.
When their eyes meet, the brunette offers her a small, apologetic smile – which disappear as soon as Natalie rolls her eyes, snorting quietly. There actually is an empty spot next to the girl, but there’s no way that Nat can deal with her for a full hour. She decides instead to sit next to a girl with curly blonde hair who’s been smiling creepily at her since she came in – from bad to worse, she thinks while sitting down.
“Hi, I’m Misty!” The girl’s tone is high-pitched and a little more enthusiastic than Nat believes it should be. “I’m so happy you’re here. You’re going to love this place, you know? Everyone is so great, I can’t wait to introduce you to the others – to my friends, I mean! They’ll love you. Maybe you could even—” She keeps babbling much longer than Nat’s willing to listen to her, so she just shut down her thoughts completely and let the girl finish her monologue, which roughly ends with a: “Natalie, right? Can I call you Nat? Would that be fine to you?”
It takes her a few moments to realize that it’s her turn to speak. She’s honestly a little taken aback, a little creeped out, so she simply mutters a dull, “Sure.”, hoping it would make the girl stop talking – which it does.
If Nat didn't have so much on her mind at the moment, she might notice the enormous grin on Misty's face, which, well— isn’t exactly normal. But she does have thousands of thoughts swirling around her mind, and the last thing she needs is something else to worry about.
She spends the rest of the hour staring at the chalkboard, dissociating every other time. The teacher doesn’t seem to notice it, and that’s the only thing that matters. When the bell finally rings, Nat feels as if the weight of the world itself has been lifted from her shoulders – a little over-dramatic, maybe, but that’s how it always feels. Every time she starts attending a new school, every time she has to sit in a new classroom full of strangers, Natalie Scatorccio ends up feeling like this: drained.
It's easy to understand why the ringing is like music for her ears. She’s already on her feet, bag slung over shoulder, when the teacher calls her out, “Natalie, can we have a word?”
She groans a little but manages to hide it. Then she nods, and slowly walks towards the teacher’s desk. She notices the other students slowly leaving the room, but she doesn’t realize that not everyone has left.
“Listen, I’m very sorry about being late—” She starts saying, that being the only reason she can think of for being kept here.
“That’s now what I wanted to talk about.” Miss Lawson, the teacher, interrupts her, “Although I will need you to be on time in the future, there’s something else we need to discuss.”
Nat frowns a little, worry bursting in her chest. Has she done something wrong? Have they found out about her father’s problems with the law? Do they know something about her situation at home? A knot of fear and sadness forms in her throat, but she still manages to say, “Al— Alright then. What is it?”
“We’ve been checking your school records before your arrival. We’ve noticed you’re a little behind with the program…” She says it casually, flipping documents – probably of Nat’s academic career – between her fingers, as if she isn’t confirming to her what she always feared – her not being enough. “We do understand the background you come from, and we’ve decided to assign you a tutor that will help you catching up with school.”
Nat’s gaze widens. “A what?!” The feeling of not being enough is immediately replaced by the humiliation of having to be babysit by someone she doesn’t even know, “Why?!”
“I’ve just told you.” Finally, Miss Lawson looks up to her. She’s not smiling, but her eyes aren’t cold either; still, Natalie feels a pang of humiliation in her stomach, “Trust me, it is for your best interest.”
As if being the new, punk girl at school wasn’t bad enough, she’s now also going to be the difficult kid who doesn’t know how to handle herself. If she could, she would scream right now. Instead, she keeps silent, not even replying to the teacher, and waits for her to continue.
“Charlotte, please.” Charlotte? Natalie frowns once again. Who the fuck is Charlotte? She realizes a few moments later that they aren’t the only two still in the room. Someone else is now shifting behind her, and before she can turn to see who it is she looks at the teacher standing up, saying, “I’m sure your time together will be a source of growth for both of you.”
And then she leaves, and Nat is forced to turn around. What she sees next doesn’t please her at all.
“Hey.” There she is— dark hair falling on a round, full face; deep brown eyes that Nat has hated from the moment she first saw her this morning. She wants to run away. Why does it keep getting worse and worse? The girl smiles at her, again, and Natalie thinks that she cannot take this kindness any longer – it’s just… fake, or at least she thinks it is. Why shouldn’t it be? Why should someone be kind to her? “I’m Charlotte, but you can call me Lottie. I will be your tutor for the rest of the year.”