Is it possible to be a prisoner in your own house?

Sometimes I just adore rhetorical questions. They tend to have much more of a condescending flair to them, which is necessary when we all already know that the answer is a solid, resounding: Yes.

If I were better at math, the exact number might be a bit more concrete- but it's been thirteenish days since high school graduation, and I had nothing to show for it: No trips to the lake with friends, no suntan lines. Not one concert at the House of Blues to see one of my favorite bands. It wasn't like I had expected any of these things to happen. No, I most certainly hadn't. I'm many things, but my sense of logic usually weeds out implausible delusions. Usually. For some reason, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and me riding off into a proverbial sunset is the only exception. (Whatever, a girl can dream.) It's just that the absence of my so-called social life was suddenly obvious to me this morning, as if I needed another reminder about everything changing.

I took off my sneakers and left them by the door in the mudroom. When I reached the canopy of lofty ceilings and windows overlooking the back deck that composed our kitchen, I became aware of how thirsty I was. I'm no meteorologist, but if my jog was any indication of what the rest of the day was going to be like, I could say with a fair amount of certainty that it'd be another sizzling and uneventful one-just like all the others I've experienced post-grad. Thank Dog for central air and Netflix binges, or I'd have almost nothing to do with my time until I'd finally be able to fall asleep or take a nap-a seemingly hard task for someone who was constantly awake.

My Dad came zipping into the kitchen, his collared shirt untucked, a mass of tracing paper nearly falling out of his hands. Pretty sure architects didn't even use tracing paper anymore and he only carried it around to make himself look cooler, but I also knew that he appreciated the simplicity of drawing things out by hand. Looking at the clock, I realized he was running late for work, and being late was his biggest pet peeve: My Dad was a perfectionist. Now, looking down at his feet where his pair of Converse laces were predictably strewn around his ankles like some kind of foot-noose death trap, I thought, OK : Maybe he was a perfectionist when it came to some things. Like being ahead of schedule, or paying bills on time.

"Did you start coffee by any chance?" He asked me distractedly, looking at his watch in intervals no less than thirty seconds apart. Before I had the chance to respond, I heard the soft beat of foot-steps behind us.

"Good Morning," Anna, my father's girlfriend-or as of last month, fiancé-said as she joined us in the kitchen. She smiled in my direction as she stood next to Dad, putting a covetous French manicured hand on his back. The large diamond sparkled assertively against the backdrop of morning light.

Ever since he proposed, Anna's become increasingly more obvious about stating her permanency in this house. As in, she stopped sneaking out of the house at the crackass of dawn to go to her own place to get ready for work. Her electric toothbrush joined Dad's and mine in the container atop our bathroom sink. She also had this propensity for adding subtle yet annoying décor throughout the house-like the abundance of unscented candles in almost every room that had a vacant table top. What is even the point of unscented candles? It almost seemed as if she was a dog (without the furrily cute aesthetic advantages of being a dog), marking her territory. I mean I guess in theory, that's what was actually happening: Anna was marrying Dad. That's a lifelong commitment-or at least a three year streak in Hollywood. Nevertheless, the change was still something I was wrapping my head around.

"How'd you sleep?" Dad asked, leaning in to peck her on the cheek.

"Like a baby." She padded over to the sink and opened the cabinet where we kept our coffee, "Dark Roast or Breakfast Blend?"

"Thanks, but I'm going to have to stop on the way. I'm already fifteen minutes behind." Anna picked up the monogrammed briefcase she'd gotten him for Christmas from the breakfast nook, gazing at him in a way that made me want suppress nausea--even though I hadn't felt the familiar waves of it yet.

"Have a great day at work," she said, bidding him adieu.

Dad hastily shoved everything into his briefcase and headed towards the garage. "I hope both of my ladies have a great day," he called out behind him, only to stop short as he reached the foyer. "Remember Thea: 6:30-that doesn't mean 6:45 or 7:00 o'clock. Don't be late."

The door shut behind him as I was forced to bear in mind the dinner plans we made after the epic fight with my Mom. Personally, I didn't see the point of celebrating my graduation anymore: It was just a diploma written in fancy script on an ornamental piece of paper no longer representing what I was leaving behind. The rest of my class would be packing up boxes of their belongings and closing the last pages of chapters, saying goodbye to all of their friends before taking-off in different directions once the summer ended. But me? Well, I'd still be here. In Townshill. Still waiting on all that confetti to fall.

Anna and I awkwardly danced around each other in the absence of the buffer zone that was my Dad. She pulled out a carton of eggs and some shredded cheese from the fridge as I listened to the single-cup coffee maker purr and hiss-filling up my mug with coffee in the matter of thirty seconds. I hated Keurig coffee, but you know all that mumbo-jumbo about desperate times and the measures they call for. On the island, there was a gallon of skim milk Anna had taken out, so I hoped to add a bit to my coffee and be back upstairs while avoiding any uncomfortable small talk. The dark brew swirled into a whirlpool of caramel brown , and the spoon hit the sink with a thud. As I turned to walk out of the kitchen, Anna chose to break the silence.

"Thea," she called after me in her slight Southern accent. Unfortunately, it wasn't soft enough that I could've played it like I hadn't heard her, so I forced my posture into an un-receptive degree-hoping if body language amounted to anything-I'd be back in my room in mere seconds. "I'm making some scrambled eggs for breakfast. I've been craving them since I brushed my teeth last night." She cracked an egg against the marble counter, pouring the yolk into a mixing bowl stationed in front of her. "Care to join me?"

As we made eye contact, her russet eyes were colored the same as they always were: Hopeful. I even felt a little guilty: Anna was always so nice to me- so for a passing moment, I wondered what we'd talk about if I took her up on her breakfast offer. Then, behind the optimistic flicker, I saw that other look: It was only a glint, disappearing as fast as it showed its face, but I could see the pity-jumbled together with probably a little bit of resentment-and I was reminded how easy it was to shut her out. Even more, how she let me just as easily.

"I already ate." I lied, turning my back and heading towards the staircase in the foyer that led to my room. "Thanks, though."

To say I disliked Anna would be untrue: She's perfectly fine...just not someone I pictured my Dad with. They met at the grocery store three years ago, and whereas he's outgoing-the loudest laugh in the room and the ability to strike up a conversation with anyone-Anna's soft-spoken and timid. People always say that opposites attract, and I've always wondered if that has any truth to its core; wondering how the timorous teacher and the extroverted architect have enough in common to form a long-lasting relationship. But who am I to judge relationships?

As I entered my bedroom, I couldn't help it: I gasped.

My freshly painted walls still had a shock-level factor: They were so dark it almost looked like I had painted them some morbid shade of black.

Insomnia leads to restlessness, and last night said restlessness led me to the Super Store the next town over that was open twenty-four hours. There in the fluorescent lighting, I pushed an empty shopping cart around, walking up one aisle then down the next. I browsed at everything from organic baby food organized by color to the elliptical machines and stationary bikes that sat motionless in the Sports Equipment aisle.

Minutes-maybe hours-passed , but I just kept killing time, tossing some things into my carriage that I needed(shampoo, face wash) until the overnight crew greeted the incoming shift taking their places at the registers, yawning groggily as the sun started leaking sienna into the sky. In the Home Improvement section, an elderly employee just looked at me warily before going into a backroom to retrieve and mix the navy blue color I had picked from the first swatch of color samples I picked up. I decided spontaneously-right then and there-that I'd re-do my room. Maybe a makeover was all it needed to lure me to sleep, to set the tone for a change. A good change. After all, it wasn't like I'd be leaving it anytime soon.

The parking lot was basically empty except for one car pulling in and a couple others parked sporadically about; I loaded my shopping bags into my trunk. As I walked my carriage back to the carriage nook, I heard a distinctive voice behind me.

"Hey-isn't that Thea?"

My heart immediately stopped beating and sank like a dead body into the murky lake of my chest. I recognized the voice-it was Alison O'Rourke's. I hadn't noticed that the car that pulled in was Alex's white Altima, because the mini-van she parked next to had blocked it from my sight. If possible, I panicked even more as I heard more doors open and shut, as a group of Alex and her friends-my old friends-clustered around the back of her car.

"Thea Garrity," Alison slurred for a second time, stumbling and clearly drunk; a repetitive zombie. She and Alex were never that particularly close, but then again, things were different. So, so different. Judging from the dangerously deep V cut of her dress and the smell of smoke coming from their general vicinity, they were probably on their way back from a party--most likely on Oak St--something maybe that I'd be doing with them, in my old life.

So as my former group of friends walked inevitably in my direction-as it led to the front entrance-I just bowed my head down, struggling to count the milliseconds until the moment would be over, feeling so stupid coming here in the first place. Stupid didn't even begin to cut it. Asinine. Putting the "ass" in asinine. Where's your common sense, Thea? Recently when our paths would cross, they'd all just ignore me-look right through me as if I were a ghost-like I wasn't even there. But because they were drinking, the alcohol inhibited their selective vision, prodding them to stop and stare.

As I reached where they were congested in a constellation of wide-eyed stares, Alison almost tripped over her own feet until Adam Stacey put an arm around her waist and helped her regain her balance. I braced myself as she pointed at me with her staggering, inebriated arm. I watched with foreboding as she opened her mouth, presumably in slow motion. But it was Alex's voice that pierced me moments later.

"Don't waste your breathe, Ali." she hissed. I could feel the heaviness of her black-lined eyes mulling me over with the weight of every brick ever thrown against a backdrop of glass. "Not worth your time."

After she spoke, everyone moved right along past me, ignoring me again in some unspoken agreement as Alex held my gaze for the first time in months. Indifferent and cruel, it was a stare I'd seen a million times before: It was similar to a predator zeroing in on it's prey squirming around in captivity. It was a look so often reserved for the people who'd done wrong by her, or for those who'd done nothing at all. It was the same look that was set aside for people like Lana Stanley, and now, as followed, people like me.

So ironically, when I returned to my bedroom early that morning, I continued to drive on an empty reservoir of energy, hoping that sleep would finally take over my conscience so I could temporarily find reprieve from everything that's happened since October. So I stripped everything off my walls, and poured the paint into a tray, finishing my first coat, and soon after that my second. I was too exhausted to notice by the time I was painting on a third layer that the last coating of paint would give the navy blue an almost black veneer, considerably darkening it from the shade promised on the sample swatch. Only upon giving it a second glance, could you see the undertones, could you really see that my walls were mistakenly painted the darkest shade of blue.

But that's the thing about second glances.

I walked into my room, closing the door behind me, padding across the carpet to my nightstand where I rested my coffee mug and turned up my radio.

What's the point of looking again, over-analyzing what's lying beneath the surface, only to see that there are a million shades of grey once you've painted everything black?

I never would've become friends with Alex Lopes if it hadn't been for Punnet Squares and Wrigley's Double Mint gum.

The first thing I noticed about THS during my first day of Freshmen year as a transfer student were the long corridors lined with narrow lockers. Cases flanked the halls with trophies and framed sport teams on display. Christmas decorations still hung around-worn out like deflated red balloons-throughout the school. As I took in the body of students moving about almost habitually, groups of friends -as I'd already predicted-were visibly set in stone. I'd been dreading becoming The New Girl: a girl with no comfort zones or soft places land.

After meeting with Mrs. Owens, I was given my class schedule and introduced to the principal. Mr. Hawkins was a short man with the skin the color of espresso beans and a voice so deep I worried he'd have to start fielding Allstate car insurance claims whenever he opened his mouth. On that first day of classes, he guided me through a silent hallway-the first period of the day already in session-treating me like I was a special guest on a private tour. With Mr. Hawkins as my tour guide, I saw all of things etched out on presentation boards throughout my Dad's office. As I was walking through the school though, their drawn dimensions shifted tangibly to life.

"I think you'll find that Townshill High offers the type of academic challenges and diversity that reflect your excellent transcript," his rich voice informed me as I trailed behind him through a two-story glass entryway, morning light pouring through the cafeteria overlooking a wide open common place outdoors. The ground was covered in a light layer of snow that was just beginning to stick.

Throughout the tour, Mr. Hawkins nonchalantly mentioned the wireless microphones and smart boards being used in every classroom, the twenty acres of athletic fields, the planetarium-as if my Dad hadn't already pitched them to me in means of justifying our move to Townshill in the first place. I was no stranger to the fact that Clarity, Inc had played a major role from an architectural perspective in guaranteeing that THS was the best state-of-the-art, public school system out of all the surrounding districts. Everything about it, as I discovered on my private tour with Principal Hawkins that very first day, screamed modern and expensive.

Safe.

"You'll find a list of clubs offered in the packet Mrs. Owens gave you," he said to me as we stopped outside a class room labeled on my schedule as "Block A: Honors Biology, Michael Augustine". According to my timetable, we were in the Gold Building, one out of three distinguished by color: Red, Blue, and Gold.

Moments later when I was standing in front of a room full of my peers, I decided that there were very few things in life I hated more than being in the center of attention, ranked in no particular order of preference: 1.) Chapped lips 2.) The safety seal on tubes of chapstick 3.) People walking too slowly in front of you, especially in the grocery store.

"I'd like you all to give a warm welcome to Dorothea Garrity," Mr. Augustine said.

I take that back. Having all eyes on you certainly had to be the worst.

My new biology teacher was young and wiry, sporting a sweater vest, skinny jeans, and heavy specs. First reaction? He might be a hipster, and they were almost as scary is standing in front of a classroom with all eyes on you. Someone in the back of the class predictably snickered at the mention of my full name. I got it, really I did. Dorothea's certainly no Jacqueline or Samantha or Amanda. A few curious heads appraised me, while others seemed completely disinterested.

"I'm sure you'll be on your best behavior," he added sarcastically, handing me a glossy textbook that had to weigh at least five pounds, "and demonstrate to our newest addition that my AP BIO class is composed of only the most brilliant and respectful students that Townshill has to offer".

"Don't'cha think that's pushing it, Mikey?"

I followed the bottomless voice to discover it belonged to a jock donning a blue and gold letter man jacket.

"I told you once before Seamus,' Mr. Augustine said as he walked towards his chestnut podium to pick up what appeared to be a class roster, "my first name is reserved for when you score a proficient or higher on your MCAS. Or lead the Wildcats to the finals. Whichever comes first."

A girl sitting in the very back row scoffed. "I wouldn't bank on either." Her comment was followed by a murmur of snickers. Without looking up from his clipboard, Mr. Augustine replied in another hue of distracted sarcasm.

"You're unwavering cynicism's as lovely as always, Alex."

"You're going to have to break that down for her Mr. Augustine,' Seamus retorted, announcing every syllable in his professional name as if to prove a point. "Alex doesn't understand the meanings of words that have three or more syllables."

There was more playful laughter as the girl crumpled up a piece of paper and chucked it in Seamus's direction. "Just try not to choke on Friday,' she said, a ghost of a smile slick on her face.

"Alright, settle down guys," Mr. Augustine said, turning his attention-to my complete and utter dismay-back to me. "While I have your undivided attention Alex-a rare thing indeed-allow me to introduce you to your new lab partner, Ms. Garrity."

Sure enough, there was an empty seat adjacent to Alex's, who was now directing her concentration at her phone.

"The texting can wait. Unless you want me to confiscate your phone and take another selfie to set as your background," He paused for five seconds. "For the second time this month."

"Oh, I learned my lesson: I have a passcode now." Nevertheless, she tucked her phone into the handbag sitting on the chair beside her.

"I'm sure Dorothea would appreciate if you removed your purse from her chair."

It was then that Alex made direct eye-contact with me for the first time since I'd been introduced to the class: her eyes-perfectly lined in kohl-sized me up and down, unconcerned. The moment our gazes locked, it hit me like the third strikeout: Although her hair was highlighted now, and she had a deep tan, it was the same girl who traipsed into our backyard last April. The girl my Dad had dubbed as trouble.

"Surely," she said, lazily picking up her over-sized bag off the chair. I took a closer look: Was it a Birkin bag? Seriously? I'd only ever seen them in chick flicks(Remember the time Logan gifted Rory one on Gilmore Girls? Not that Jess ever had to overcompensate his feelings for her with the material things in life, but I digress.)

I took my seat, pulling a brand new notebook out of my backpack. "Now, do you prefer to go by Dorothea, or something else?" I heard Mr. Augustine ask as I fished around for a pen. "A nickname?"

"People usually just call me Thea." I replied, scribbling down the date, anticipating the moment when all eyes were no longer on me.

Then, in a snigger so gentle only I could hear it, Alex said, "Thank God."

Clearly, our seating arrangement would not forgo the social margins of being lab partners. Whatever. It wasn't likely we had anything-other than the absence of a lab partner-in common anyways. She seemed like the type of girl who had a constant circle of friends around her, certainly with level of exclusivity that didn't leave space for New Girls like me.

I concluded very early on that I'd be fond of Mr. Augustine: his sardonic sense of humor balanced out the density of Biology. He was unmistakably intelligent, and at times could be very demanding, but he also didn't take himself too seriously. Based upon his funny yearbook picture (He dressed for the occasion as a mad scientist-crazy hair and everything) I got the vibe that he was generally well-liked by all of his students, and my theory was only proven right as time progressed.

My theory that Alex and I had nothing in common was also proven right as time progressed. We went weeks without speaking-I diligently took down notes and completed our lab assignments. And Alex usually just sat on her phone, texting or playing games. I often wondered how she even got into the class. Then again, if I was the New Girl, then she was the Girl Who Always Got What She Wanted. I'm sure part of me should have felt infuriated that I was doing all of the work while giving us both the credit, but my focus was only to get a good grade. After all, an excellent GPA was my focal ticket out of Townshill. So we came up with a system: We kept to ourselves, and I did all of the work, and our unspoken agreement seemed to work.

For a little while, at least.

"A moment of your time please?" Mr. Augustine asked Alex and I several weeks later, stopping us as the bell rung and the rest of our class filed out. I panicked with a sinking feeling whether or not I had flunked his last exam. Instead, he waved around my Punnet Squares lab I submitted the day before.

"I know this may come as a shock, but I'm more than just a pretty face. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems to me that there is an unequal division of labor when it comes to your labs."

"Meaning?" Alex asked hotly, staring down at her chipping pink nail polish.

"Meaning, that I think one of you may be putting more-if not all-of the effort into your assignments. The point of having a lab partner is to work together, and I can't let this continue if only one of you is doing the work."

He kept saying one of you while looking at both of us, but it was clear that Mr. Augustine believed that Alex was the one of us who was slacking off. Mostly because I didn't want anything to jeopardize my grade, I spoke out.

"We're doing the same amount of work. I write down the notes and Alex types them up and sends them to me. If we have questions, we discuss via email." Believable enough, I thought. Especially given I had to come up with it on the spot. Unrelated: How come that never happened with witty comebacks?

"See? Can we go?" Alex asked while tapping her foot, looking more annoyed than her standard level of annoyance.

Mr. Augustine just held my gaze for a moment or so, looking skeptical but giving me time to change my mind. There was only a tiny of glimmer of a disappointment in his eyes when I confirmed my stance.

When we were out of earshot, Alex stopped abruptly. "You didn't have to do that. I can take care of myself." This was the closest thing to a conversation the two of us had ever had in the weeks since I had started at THS. She was staring me down as if I was challenging her otherwise.

"I know." I shrugged. I put a backpack strap over my shoulder and returned her glower with what I hoped was an equal look of audacity, but it probably just ended up looking like a watered down version of Resting Bitch Face. Withering glares have never been much of my forte.

Alex gave me a single look-like I was some closed book she was turning the pages to try and figure out-then turned on her heel and walked away. No thank you, no goodbye-I hadn't expected anything more from her, honestly. And as usual, the next morning in class she was on her phone and didn't spare a glance in my direction as I took my seat next to her's. It wasn't until after Mr. Augustine started his PowerPoint that she tucked away her phone and nudged me on the arm, holding out a green and white package.

"Want a piece of gum?"