As I Wake Read Online Free PDF Page A
Author: Elizabeth Scott
it, and I go to school in black jeans and a black shirt with black boots whose tall, pointy heels make my ankles feel wobbly. I don’t like the clothes, but Jane is happy to see me in them, says, “Ava, honey, you look—you look like you! I guess you’ll blend right back in, won’t you?”
Blend in? If Ava wanted to blend in, she should wear brown and gray and shoes that don’t have heels that make sharp clipped noises every time I take a step. Also, her bag is covered with scrawled words like PEACE and HATE and LOVE and FUDGE! written in bright colors. It looks messy and screams “Look At Me!”
“I don’t want to take this,” I say, because I don’t. I don’t want carry it; I don’t even like it.
Jane looks surprised, but happy, and says, “Are you sure?”
When I nod she goes into her room and comes back with a simple gray bag. “I kept this after we went shopping before last term, hoping you’d—well, I guess for once we agree on something you’re wearing.”
“You don’t like my clothes?”
“Oh no, no, I—I know you like them,” she says.
“But I don’t.”
“You don’t?” she says, and when I nod her eyes widen, hope gathering, and she says, “Maybe you—do you feel something when you put them on?”
More distance from who I’m supposed to be. And also, my feet hurt. “Like what?”
“Like—upset, maybe?” she says, and I realize she sees something in these clothes, sees her own memories in them and that something—whatever led me here—is tied up in an Ava she hasn’t told me about. One who dresses in clothes Jane doesn’t like.
Who goes to school and lives a life that Jane could know nothing about.
My head starts to hurt.
“No, nothing like that,” I mumble, and when she asks me if I’m fine I say Yes and Yes again and then “YES, I said YES okay?” when she asks for the third time and she flinches, but then smiles so bright and says, “That’s my girl,” happy and scared-sounding all at once and I realize she’s told me nothing but happy stories, that all I know is that Jane loves Ava and Ava loves Jane, but that can’t be all because even happiness has its tiny bits of bitter in it.
I don’t know how I know that, but I do. I can feel the beat of that truth inside me. Taste it bitter on my tongue.
Sometimes, like now, I don’t think I want to know who I really am.
15.
LAKEWOOD DAY is a series of light-colored buildings smoothed together in a circle and surrounded by neatly trimmed grass and small areas where flowers and neatly trimmed trees bloom, decorated with people standing, sitting, slouching.
All of them are talking and as Jane asks if she should come in with me, question filled with hope in her voice, I can’t do anything but stare.
Everyone seems so . . . I don’t know. Full of energy but not on edge. Ready, but not suspicious. There is ease here, there is hope and fear and lust and anger, every emotion, and so thick I can almost smell them, but one thing is absent.
Fear.
I hadn’t known I’d expected it until now, and without it, I feel . . . lost.
I don’t understand these people.
I want Jane to come with me, to be watched like the few adults I see are, to give me time to think, to understand why here, why school—and I do know that word, I do—seems so wrong.
A place so not what I understand in a place beyond memory, in a place I can’t reach but can feel.
I turn to her, but before I can speak there is knocking on the car window, not hard but eager, and I hear voices saying, “Ava!!”
“Hi, girls,” Jane says, rolling down the window and I inhale perfume and am enveloped in black-clad arms, in voices saying my name and greeting Jane, in the smell of perfume and hair; black, brown, and a shade in between, that wraps around me too.
And that’s how I meet Greer, Olivia, and Sophy. Ava’s friends.
There is more hugging as I get out of the car, hands moving away from me to wave at Jane as she drives away, and then
Blend in? If Ava wanted to blend in, she should wear brown and gray and shoes that don’t have heels that make sharp clipped noises every time I take a step. Also, her bag is covered with scrawled words like PEACE and HATE and LOVE and FUDGE! written in bright colors. It looks messy and screams “Look At Me!”
“I don’t want to take this,” I say, because I don’t. I don’t want carry it; I don’t even like it.
Jane looks surprised, but happy, and says, “Are you sure?”
When I nod she goes into her room and comes back with a simple gray bag. “I kept this after we went shopping before last term, hoping you’d—well, I guess for once we agree on something you’re wearing.”
“You don’t like my clothes?”
“Oh no, no, I—I know you like them,” she says.
“But I don’t.”
“You don’t?” she says, and when I nod her eyes widen, hope gathering, and she says, “Maybe you—do you feel something when you put them on?”
More distance from who I’m supposed to be. And also, my feet hurt. “Like what?”
“Like—upset, maybe?” she says, and I realize she sees something in these clothes, sees her own memories in them and that something—whatever led me here—is tied up in an Ava she hasn’t told me about. One who dresses in clothes Jane doesn’t like.
Who goes to school and lives a life that Jane could know nothing about.
My head starts to hurt.
“No, nothing like that,” I mumble, and when she asks me if I’m fine I say Yes and Yes again and then “YES, I said YES okay?” when she asks for the third time and she flinches, but then smiles so bright and says, “That’s my girl,” happy and scared-sounding all at once and I realize she’s told me nothing but happy stories, that all I know is that Jane loves Ava and Ava loves Jane, but that can’t be all because even happiness has its tiny bits of bitter in it.
I don’t know how I know that, but I do. I can feel the beat of that truth inside me. Taste it bitter on my tongue.
Sometimes, like now, I don’t think I want to know who I really am.
15.
LAKEWOOD DAY is a series of light-colored buildings smoothed together in a circle and surrounded by neatly trimmed grass and small areas where flowers and neatly trimmed trees bloom, decorated with people standing, sitting, slouching.
All of them are talking and as Jane asks if she should come in with me, question filled with hope in her voice, I can’t do anything but stare.
Everyone seems so . . . I don’t know. Full of energy but not on edge. Ready, but not suspicious. There is ease here, there is hope and fear and lust and anger, every emotion, and so thick I can almost smell them, but one thing is absent.
Fear.
I hadn’t known I’d expected it until now, and without it, I feel . . . lost.
I don’t understand these people.
I want Jane to come with me, to be watched like the few adults I see are, to give me time to think, to understand why here, why school—and I do know that word, I do—seems so wrong.
A place so not what I understand in a place beyond memory, in a place I can’t reach but can feel.
I turn to her, but before I can speak there is knocking on the car window, not hard but eager, and I hear voices saying, “Ava!!”
“Hi, girls,” Jane says, rolling down the window and I inhale perfume and am enveloped in black-clad arms, in voices saying my name and greeting Jane, in the smell of perfume and hair; black, brown, and a shade in between, that wraps around me too.
And that’s how I meet Greer, Olivia, and Sophy. Ava’s friends.
There is more hugging as I get out of the car, hands moving away from me to wave at Jane as she drives away, and then