RE: Trailer Trash 63 pt 4

Alicia woke up on Friday morning to the hateful bwaahh bwaahh bwaahh of her digital alarm clock, and the sheer infuriating noise of it threw

    Alicia woke up on Friday morning to the hateful bwaahh bwaahh bwaahh of her digital alarm clock, and the sheer infuriating noise of it threw her into an immediate rage. One dark-skinned arm lunged free of the covers and slapped the top to silence the thing as fast as she was able. It was time to get up, but she didn’t want to get up, and not just because she’d gotten perhaps an hour of sleep last night. Stifling dread and more anxiety than any one teen should ever have to bear were stuffed down into her chest to the point where it was difficult to breathe.

    It’s not fair.

    Casey knew about her secret crush on Tabitha, to the extent that she was able to subtly tease her about it while Tabitha was sitting there with them. Or ont so subtly. All because Alicia wasn’t careful enough guarding her words back then. She had admitted on that road trip ages ago that she was buying that F-22 model kit for someone she maybe had feelings for. It had been a stupid, reckless mistake to accidentally be too honest with Casey, just because of their budding friendship. Alicia hadn’t been careful, or maybe she had naively thought to try to keep their relationship authentic by not just outright lying, or—she wasn’t sure anymore what she thought. Bitter regret, shame, and the shock of betrayal burned throughout her insides.

    It had been a long night, last night. Alicia had been too keyed up to fall asleep, and watching the evil alarm clock’s numbers tick by past midnight and then creep into the early hours of the morning without ever managing to shut her thoughts off enough to actually fall asleep was maddening. The last glance she for sure remembered catching, the readout had displayed 5:02 AM, which meant she would be trying to operate today on less than two hours of sleep.

    Should just come out and tell her! Alicia thought as a sort of manic anger took over. Get it all over with. So that I can move on. Whatever that even winds up meaning. Of course it’s not going to go well. Nothing ever does.

    Cranky, she scrambled out of bed and then started wrenching open dresser drawers in search of pants to put on. Instead of folding her clean clothes when putting them away last time she had kind of just shoved them into the drawer, and so when she grabbed a pair of jeans and tugged the garment out of the squashed-full compartment, some other already crumpled clothes spilled out and onto the floor. She held the jeans up, jabbed one foot down a pant leg and shifted her weight upon it the moment it reached the floor, and then wobbled for balance as she tried to do the same with her other leg, jamming her side up against the dresser.

    “Ow?” Alicia mouthed, glaring at the offending row of dresser drawer knobs that had just stabbed into her side. “Ow.”

    She wanted to kick the stupid thing, but that would only make things worse.

    Probably not even a big deal, Alicia told herself. Right? Tabitha probably already knows. Elena suspected already. They probably talked about it. Maybe that’s why Tabs has been kind of distant, lately—she doesn’t want to deal with it. With ME. Who can even blame her? And, if Casey’s already comfortable kind of OUTING me like that? Or hinting at it? That means Matthew probably knows. Everyone probably knows—or, they’re about to soon. It’s not even a huge deal. It’s just that my whole life is over. Yeah.

    She had to stop for a moment to take a deep breath and shove down a rush of emotion before it escaped out as a sob.

    When Tabitha rejects me—she’ll probably be super weirded out by me even in BEST CASE SCENARIO—will I be able to draw her anymore? Will I be able to fill pages with her lovely face still? She’s my fucking MUSE. After today, will I even be able to LOOK AT any of those drawings of her, anymore?!

    Alicia felt sure having a secret crush on the girl had been a constant source of inspiration for her art. There was a whimsical giddy sort of rush imbued in the lines when she sketched out Tabitha, as if instead of pressing graphite to paper she could almost see a distant dream beneath the surface and was scratching it free one line at a time. The drawings hadn’t been explicit—the suggestion of breasts were just a pair of curved lines to show that Alicia acknowledged Tabitha wasn’t flat or anything. Even though many of the sketches were unfinished and raw she’d never been comfortable implying Tabitha was actually supposed to be naked in them, because she secretly fantasized about showing her best Tabitha drawings to the girl some day, and didn’t want them to come off as weird or creepy or as an invasion of privacy.

    Although all of them ARE weird and creepy and a total invasion of privacy?! Alicia wanted to rake her fingers down her face. She’ll know. She’ll absolutely know I’ve been FIXATING on her. It’ll be super obvious just from how fucking often I draw her face wearing different smiles. Her neck and shoulders, the line of her cheek. What do I even DO once all of this comes out? Where do I even try to go? Hang out with the other black kids there at Springton?!

    It was hard not to panic and feel like her burgeoning high school life was all about to come crashing down upon her.

    Alicia could deal with being the other, to some extent. Although she imagined plenty of the other kids avoided her or kept their distance from her because of the color of her skin, few of them seemed to be as racist as she feared. Or at least, when they were, it wasn’t really directed her way—usually just off-color jokes about how much crime there was over in Fairfield, which as small Kentucky towns go was the nearest place resembling ‘the hood’ without going to an actual large city.

    It did rankle, and it would always bother her, but also she had gone to Fairfield middle and knew there were dozens of hoodlum kids all too eager to lean into the wrong stereotypes and pretend they were gang-bangers or dangerous thugs or hard.

    She’d always heard stories and rumors aplenty about Fairfield crime growing up, and if you believed a word any of what those black Fairfield boys said, all of them secretly had a glock hidden in their dresser or had an uncle in prison who was a Blood or a Crip. However, those were all middle school boys, and all of it was made-up middle school bullshit with no basis in reality, because in her experience all middle school boys were liars. Those same kids would also tell you they were secretly a Power Ranger, or that their gang had a secret hidden base in the sewers beneath Fairfield with an abandoned subway car, like in that Ninja Turtles movie. Fairfield was a small Kentucky community, Alicia knew it didn’t have a subway or elaborate underground tunnel systems connected to Mammoth Caves in the south. Just very normal culvert pipes and ditches and completely ordinary suburban sewers.

    Since the very first semester started she’d already felt like the token black girl there at Springton High, because there just weren’t many other black teenagers there… or in the town of Springton at all. There were four others in the whole school that she knew of, and like her—all of the black kids she knew at Springton were social chameleons. It was dismaying to realize each of them hewed towards some type of easy-to-grasp archetype. Hell, she herself was Alicia the artist, and then and the only one she actually shared a class with was Deirdra, ‘Deedee,’ a slender freshman girl with stylish Bantu knots in her fifth period… whose interest in getting to know Alicia dimmed and turned into forced smiles or indifference when it became clear they didn’t share the same taste in music whatsoever. Deedee was real into hip-hop, and had throughout first semester had established herself in tight amongst one of the half-dozen small cliques of mean white girls.

    Then, there was Marcus… which was his last name—the name printed on the back of his jersey. Alicia didn’t know his first name, and no one seemed to ever refer to him by a first name. He was a huge towering upperclassman guy with both fat and muscle in spades, one of the big intimidating football player guys here, and the first thing everyone remarked about him was that he was actually extremely funny. Alicia wouldn’t know, as they’d never personally interacted. He looked like a meathead guy to her, he didn’t seem like her type.

    Then, Spencer was a tall sophomore and he looked like a bit like the ruggedly handsome stereotypical jock guy, but was the exception to the rule and actually had nothing to do with athletics. He was instead a band kid with some kind of trumpet-looking thing called a mellophone, and a total teacher’s pet. Spencer was incredibly charming and likely would have been Alicia’s first crush at school, had she not started obsessing over Tabitha. Spencer was much more friendly and outgoing than DeeDee, and band program aside, he was also one of their Springton ‘mathletes’ in whatever stupid program that was. In the first week of school Spencer had sought her out, introduced himself, and told Alicia to come to him if she ever had any problems with anyone picking on her for the color of her skin—which was touching—and then after that, they’d never spoken a word to each other.

    Just occasional nods at each other in passing.

    The last black kid she knew of here was Trey, and Alicia didn’t even care what grade he was in; she thought he was a greasy creep. He was a thin, reedy slacker kind of stoner type trying—and failing—to grow facial hair, who wore Bob Marley shirts and those knitted ‘reggae’ beanies, and used an incredibly phony Jamaican accent with everyone. Either because he thought he could get away with it, or because it was a constant source of amusement to himself, or maybe both. He always hung out with a pair of doughy white guys that each looked like chubby versions of Shaggy from Scooby-Doo, and together they all always smelled like either cigarette smoke or exceptionally skunky weed. From what she’d overheard through Casey and Bill, Trey was actually from Pittsburgh. Not Jamaica.

    So; I can be black! I can be Alicia the artist! Alicia fought to keep from cussing out loud as she rifled through the other dresser drawers in search of the top she wanted to wear today. I CANNOT also be the ONE lone gay girl in all of Springton. I just—no. I can’t. I fucking can’t. That’s one line too far. I really can’t. I don’t think I can deal with having all of that on me.

    For the past few months, Alicia had been mentally mapping some predictions on how everyone might react. First and foremost on her list of those who would support her wholeheartedly was Mr. Peterson, because in her eyes, he was just cool and alternative like that. The big brawny art teacher would one hundred percent be behind her, and be the one to go to if any of the kids did start bullying her, or persecuting her, or whatever it is high school jackasses did when they discovered someone might actually be gay.

    Second, would probably be my dad, Alicia thought, feeling the spike of panic begin to subside. All along he’s been… low-key genuinely paranoid about the thought of me eventually bringing home a boy, or God forbid, getting pregnant someday. Feel like him hearing that I’m maybe into girls would just be a huge relief for him. Mom, on the other hand… she’d be disappointed. Honestly real disappointed. She would hide it, and put on a show of how it’s my life and yeah if I’m really, REALLY sure, then that’s how it is and she supports me… but yeah, she would be disappointed. I can tell.

    Her Art Club group of friends would tease her about it, because that was what they did with everything, and honestly it seemed like they maybe probably already knew. Which was why Casey was already putting out provoking lines like that. If it was before, Alicia suspected Elena would have cut ties with her, but perhaps now she thought Elena might not treat her that much differently. Not if Elena’s mentor figure in all of the ‘goth’ stuff was Ziggy, who was openly a lesbian. Ziggy of course would be ecstatic to have her apparent suspicions confirmed, but honestly Alicia didn’t really even like Ziggy that much. Ziggy was an extremely abrasive person, and Alicia didn’t imagine their personalities would ever mesh well enough for them to become friends.

    “I just want—” Alicia groaned as she checked her mirror and finished getting ready for school. “I don’t even know. I just. Can we not do this?! Not today?!”

    Some sort of relationship with Tabitha in the future would be nice, and it was one of those things to idly fantasize about. But, Alicia did not want to sacrifice the holding pattern she was in now for that super slim chance. She was happy, now—or happy enough. She felt pretty content with where her high school life was at. There were her close friends and then there was Art Club peoples; with everyone she felt like she belonged, much more so than she’d dared to hope back when starting school.

    Really, REALLY don’t want to. To toss all that away, and start over from scratch…

( Previous, 63 pt 3 | RE: Trailer Trash | Next, 63 pt 5 )

/// Some gay panic for you all. Actually don't plan on drawing this subplot out much more than this, want to speedrun collide it into a big mess. Because, why not? High school is supposed to be an endless fountain of drama and angst, but readers won't have stomach for seeing it come up nonstop between the different characters.

RE:TT is no longer publishing with Aethon, but I haven't (yet) been able to claw any of the rights back from Webtoon. Best I was able to manage was getting my name removed from it in some places, as I don't want to be associated with their slop. Publishing with someone else has significant hurdles as now that RE:TT has been published before and had a launch, it is now apparently used goods and other indie groups aren't real enthusiastic about picking it up. It goes without saying that if someone DID go for the rights, it would be for Amazon KU, and so I would have to stub RE:TT everywhere.

So. For now RE:TT is back to being just my fun side project and I'm not going to keep wasting inordinate amounts of time negotiating endlessly with publishers and stressing out over all of that. I just want to be writing. I'll try to scrape by enough to live on through my other fic publishing with Mango, since we have a rebrand sort of thing in the works over there. I don't know. It's been a real rough few months, just want to put all of it behind me and keep the storylines moving forward.