Chapter One: Shelley's a Mess
“We deal in the darkness, scavenging for any shred of hope to cling to, like vultures starving for a future. We are the lost causes and the hopeless cases. We are a group of teenagers needing a place to fit in. We are the Forgotten Generation.”
--found in the journal of Shelley Underwood, aged 18.
It was a normal day for Shelley Underwood. Her hair was messy, brown tangles framing her pale face; her bangs fell into her eyes, which were rimmed in thick, smudged eyeliner. Her bony shoulders were buried beneath a ratty blue sweatshirt, which was frayed at the cuffs that she so frequently pulled at. As she walked through the halls of Phillips High School, headed to the next prison cell of the day, she bit her bottom lip. The action made some people look thoughtful, or cute, or alluring; it made Shelley look neurotic. As she slipped into a desk, her bag dropping to the ground with a muted thud, she coughed weakly and suppressed a shiver.
“Oh, imagine that,” one of the girls remarked, smoothing her thick blonde hair with her manicured fingers. “Shelley’s wearing the same clothes as yesterday. And the day before that. And the day before that…” The group of girls she spoke to giggled, covering their candy-pink lips with equally fake nails. Maybe some girls would have defended themselves, but Shelley just sunk into her seat and dropped her eyes to the ground.
“Don’ le’ them bother you,” a dark-skinned girl to her right said kindly, her accent thick.
Shelley cast her friend Fayola a semi-grateful look, but she still pulled self-consciously at her old sweatshirt. “They’re right,” she murmured quietly, her eyes back on the linoleum tiles.
“God will determine that.”
Shelley sighed and chewed at one of her nails, which were yellowish beneath a thick coat of chipped burgundy polish. The brittle nail broke, and tried to spit it out as discreetly as she could. Despite her attempt, one of the girls nearby gave her a look of disgust and opened her mouth. Luckily, the teacher walked in before she could say anything.
Mr. Vaughn, her fourth period English teacher, was a god, at least in Shelley’s mind. The youngest teacher on campus, he had a way with words that would make even girls like Madeline Nelson stop texting long enough to listen to a lecture (or at least pretend to). Sighing pleasantly, Shelley leaned onto her desk and caught his stern gaze over his thin, rectangular spectacles. He didn’t look at her long, of course, but Shelley still tried to delude herself as she watched the way his mouth formed words. Her brain wandered, imagining how those words would feel formed against her skin… She sighed again, staring contentedly as she daydreamed, one hand propping up her face.
“Shelley,” he was saying, and it sounded so sweet. “Shelley… Shelley…” She smiled softly, wanting to be able to say his name in reply. “Shelley!”
Shelley started, her wide eyes blinking quickly. “U-um, yes?” she stuttered. Suddenly, Mr. Vaughn seemed very close, and Shelley pulled at her sleeves to hide her arms.
“Shelley, you’ve been having these instances all week. Is there something you need to talk about?”
“I—no—everything’s fine,” she said quickly. “I’ve just… not been feeling well.”
His eyes softened, and Shelley melted. The expression of concern on his face was so cute… “I’ll give you a nurse’s pass,” he said.
Shelley’s eyes widened again. “N-no, I’m fine,” she insisted.
“Nonsense,” he said, already scribbling on a slip of paper. He thrust the paper into her hands, and she couldn’t exactly say no. Frowning, Shelley stood, pulling at the hem of her sweatshirt, and started off. “Shelley,” Mr. Vaughn said, making her halt and turn. “Take your things.” She obeyed, gathering her worn backpack and the notebook she hadn’t even opened yet.
Shelley stepped into the courtyard a few moments later, squinting against the sun. She couldn’t go to the nurse, but she didn’t want Mr. Vaughn to know that, so she headed to a stairwell on the other side of campus. It was always deserted, since the building hadn’t been used for years, and she usually spent her lunch or free period there reading.
Today, though, it wasn’t deserted. A thin boy was leaned against the wall, his face stained with blood. Shelley stopped, but her shoes scuffling against the ground had already caught his attention.
“…hey,” he said after a while.
Shelley swallowed, her hands itching to tug at her sweatshirt. “Hi…”
“You should probably go.”
“What’s wrong with you?” she asked. She recognized that look of resignation; that was the look an outcast wore.
He pointed to himself. “Fag,” he said simply.
Shelley nodded, moving to sit next to him. “Want my nurse’s pass?” She extended it to him, and he took it, brushing blonde bangs from his face to read the note.
“I don’t think the nurse’ll believe that my name’s Shelley, no matter how queer I am,” he said, his voice dull. Shelley liked it, though; it was different. Unique.
“What is it, then? Your name.”
“…I’m Quincy.”
Shelley smiled. It was small, but it wasn’t fake, and that was surprising even to her. “It’s nice to meet you, Quincy,” she said genuinely.
Quincy smiled. It wasn’t much of a smile; he barely turned up the corner of his lips. Still, though, it was welcome. “You too,” he said quietly.
An awkward moment passed then. Shelley didn’t know what she should say, or what she could say. Whether he was gay or not, Quincy was still a boy, and Shelley knew what to say around boys even less than she knew what to say around girls.
Eventually, Quincy said, “I should clean up…”
“Yeah. Yeah, that sounds good,” Shelley agreed, watching as he stood and dusted off his jeans. “I’ll see you around?”
Quincy cast a wry smile over his shoulder. “I doubt it.”
With that, he left Shelley to herself. Alone, she pulled out her library copy of Jane Eyre. She’d read it nearly seven times now, but it never seemed to get old. Sometimes she wished she could be more like Jane, who was so often chastised for her outspokenness, but she never could get a quick, witty remark to leave her throat. Instead, she’d just stare at the ground. But when she read… when she read, she could at least pretend for a while.
The school day dragged on. Shelley did her best to avoid being anywhere near Mr. Vaughn’s classroom, going so far as to take the long way to her last class of the day, Anatomy. Luckily, she didn’t have any other classes with Fayola, so she didn’t need to face that barrage of questions until tomorrow. Unfortunately, she did have her eighth period with Madeline Nelson, the undisputed Queen of Phillips High. She may have only been a junior, but she had the whole school wrapped around her perfectly manicured finger.
“Move it, Stick,” Madeline said coldly, brushing past Shelley. One of the girls she was with laughed and told her what a “good one” that was while Shelley flopped into her seat.
She couldn’t wait to get out of this hell…
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