Renascence
Noun:
The revival of something that has been dormant
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I was supposed to be a good girl.
But good girls don't hang around by the dumpsters smoking cigarettes. Good girls don't take sleeping pills to sleep the entire weekend away. Good girls don't fail classes in their senior year of high school.
And yet here I was, sitting awkwardly like a pathetic loser in a winter session class to make up the credits that I would need to graduate. If you had told me a year ago that I would be here like this, fucked up and failing out of high school then I might have laughed at you.
I miss how that feels, too. I miss how it feels to laugh.
I'd moved here in the summer from Napa, California. I'd grown up in the heart of wine country spending every summer sprawled out underneath the wide expanse of the hot sun, sucking the juices of dark grapes from my fingers. I'd laughed so much back then. I'd laughed until it hurt to laugh anymore.
"You'll never be able to eat more grapes than me," Emma had told me. She was my best friend, my partner in crime — but just innocent stuff like stealing cookies before dinner and terrorizing the housekeeper. My twin sister, born only three minutes after me. And for that, I'd always been the big sister, and her, little sister. We'd run through the valley in the blistering heat waves, our long brown hair flowing behind us as we raced between the vines and the trees.
We were already eighteen before our senior year. Our mother had held us back a year when we were little. To enjoy us in our youth a little longer, she had said. But we all knew it was because she couldn't bear to be alone in that big empty house with dad lost in the vineyard all day. We would turn nineteen in the middle of our senior year, a year older but a year behind.
Emma had looked so beautiful that summer, ripe in her youth, finally growing into her delicate features. If you didn't know us back then you wouldn't have been able to tell us apart. But those who did know us knew that Emma was kinder, sweeter, more vocal, and of course, just a quarter of an inch shorter. She was the first to stick her hand out to strangers, smiling big with her dimples and saying, "Hi, I'm Emma. This is my sister Grace. We're from Craft Valley Vineyard & Winery."
"Miss Craft, please come to the front of the room and tell us a little about yourself."
The memories all faded. The summer, the thickly sweet scent of grapes, the blue open sky. And Emma.
I blinked. I was here now, shivering in a classroom in Nebraska, shaking because Emma was not here to introduce me. Emma would never be here.
The teacher, a woman that looked neither stern nor kind was raising her eyebrows higher with each passing second. I stumbled out of my seat and walked quietly to the front of the classroom.
This wasn't right. I was the shy one. I was the quiet one. I couldn't do this like Emma could.
"Miss Craft?"
I swallowed but my throat was closing.
"My name is Grace. I moved here four months ago from California." I said it all so quickly that I wondered if anyone had even understood.
"What are your hobbies, Grace?"
"Wine."
The class snickered. My face flushed red. Stupid, I felt so fucking stupid.
"Please explain to me how wine is a hobby." The teacher did not look at all amused.
"I grew up on a vineyard," I said. "I know a lot about wine."
The teacher surveyed me for a moment, probably wondering if I was trying to trick her and make a fool of her, but she seemed to believe me because a moment later she smiled.
"That's great, Grace. Maybe you can do your speech on that at the end of the winter session. I'm sure we would all like to know the educational aspects of wine."
She looked very no-nonsense after that, staring right into the eyes of all the kids who were still fidgeting and giggling.
"You can go back to your seat. Miranda, please come up. You're next."
I was back in my seat before I let myself take another breath. My ears were ringing. This stuff, walking up to the front of a classroom full of people? This wasn't really my forte. Emma would have breezed through it. She would have made everyone laugh — in the good way. With her, not at her. She would have made friends right there without ever having to shake a hand. People were just drawn to her.
But she wasn't here now. She would never be here.
I wanted to lay my head down on the desk and sleep, but the teacher just intimidated me too much. She wasn't mean, I guess, but I didn't want to cross her.
"Wow Mrs. White, how many months along are you?"
Miranda was up there now, sucking up to teacher like the little bloodsucking leech that she was. She had braided her black hair like a school girl, plaid skirt and knee-high socks to match even though the temperature was practically in the negatives outside. She was the girl that had pushed a burning cigarette into my backpack on the first day of school back in September. I'd been stuck with her the first semester of Creative Writing and now here we were again in the winter program, making up for the Fs we both got; her for being genuinely fucking stupid and me for being too depressed to care.
I hoped Mrs. White would see right through her, but she didn't. No teacher was immune to Miranda Cox's charm. To me, a person who knew what she was really like, her last name was laughably ironic.
"I'm seven months along. My husband and the faculty didn't want me taking the winter session, but I'm pregnant, not handicapped. I wanted to teach while I still have the chance."
I hadn't even realized Mrs. White was pregnant. I'd always assumed she was just a little on the plumper side. Then again, I've only known her for about three and a half months.
Miranda was smiling so hard that I wanted to punch her. She engaged Mrs. White in the stupidest conversation.
Boy or girl? What are you going to name him? What hospital? Wow, really? My dad's one of the leading surgeons there! Oh by the way, did you know that I'm a fucking slut?
I shut my eyes. I wanted the class to be over already. I wanted to get home and get into bed and sleep and sleep until high school was over.
One by one, all the kids that had failed some class in the first semester went up to the front and told us about themselves. I'd been going to school with these kids for an entire semester and I couldn't even remember half their names, much less their hobbies.
Mrs. White partnered us up into groups of four and had us all talk about our plans for the future. The classroom was buzzing with "college" and "career" and "travel" and other things I just couldn't see for myself. A year ago I would have said Yale. I would have said it because that was what Emma had always wanted and whatever Emma did, I did too.
I could hear Miranda's whiny voice in a group a few seats over. She was undoing her braids as she talked. "I applied to NYU so it's really important that I make up the credits," she said, running her hands through her hair. The three guys in her group were all commending her for pursuing higher education.
She just wants to go there so she doesn't have to fuck morons like you in middle-of-nowhere Nebraska anymore.
I felt a hand on my arm. It was a girl from my group. Her hair was dyed all pink, and her fingernails were neon green, but her eyes were kind. I used to wonder how she got away with it, but I guess being the Police Chief's daughter had a lot to do with it. Small towns are so weird.
"What do you want to do after high school?" She asked me.
"I want to go back to Napa Valley and continue the family business."
It was a lie. There was no more Craft & Edge back in California. Dad left us in his grief. Mom brought me here to live with my grandparents. The vineyard and winery had been sold and renamed by the new owners. I couldn't go back. There was nothing to go back to.
The class ended when Mrs. White rang a stupid little bell on her desk. She told us all to be prepared because the real work would start tomorrow. I wasn't surprised to find myself groaning with the rest of the class.
Then I was the first one out the door, shrugging my winter coat on as I passed a sea of gray school lockers. The kids behind me were all hanging back, chatting and joking with the people they've probably known since kindergarten. I was never going to fit in here.
I turned a corner sharply, eager to get to my car before Miranda could catch up to me and stick another cigarette on me. I was rushing so quickly that I ran right into a brick wall — no, wait - it was a
person
. A very tall person.
"I'm sorry," I mumbled. I was humiliated to find that I'd been knocked to the ground.
A big, slender hand reached out to help me up. Nervously, I took it and got to my feet.
"Are you hurt?" A male voice asked.
My heart was racing from embarrassment, but when I looked at him, it stopped.
For a moment the world stood still. The sun and the grapes and Emma all came rushing back. The car crash in August, the blood in my mouth, sweeter than any grapes. Emma in the passenger seat singing along to the radio. The truck had hit us so suddenly. The music had stopped. The world had stopped. Just like this.
He was staring at me, his brown eyes flecked with green and gold. His voice was low, quiet and deep. His hand was warm. His words were kind.
"Are you hurt?" he asked again.
I pulled my hand from his and bolted.
---
"Grace? Grace, wake up, honey."
It was Mom. I could make out her slender form in the darkness. She was wearing the beige silk robe that she had worn everyday back home in the valley. I could almost pretend for a moment that nothing had changed.
Grandma switched on the light and stood at the doorway. She looked concerned.
With the light on I could see the pink walls and the white furniture that was not mine. This was Mom's old room, from when she had been a child. Grandma hadn't altered it at all.
"Come on down for dinner, Grace," Grandma said. She walked away, leaving me in the kiddy pink room with Mom.
