The Plan (Troyler AU)

Homeroom Conversations

My name is Amayah Ember Tiegan. I know, a bit of a handful, but my mother picked it for it’s symbolic meaning- Amayah means ‘night rain’, and I was born at 11 o’clock at night on November 13th, during the biggest rainstorm the Midwest has seen in the past 18 years- it still holds the record. Ember has no meaning- to my mother. To me, it means that I am tough, willing to burn offenders, that I am strong.

Seeing as Amayah is not the proper name for me, I go by Ember instead. You see, I quite like the story of my name- just not the name itself. Amayah is not a name that fits me- a short, easily angered girl who favors ancient bookstores and the scent of fresh ink scrawled across a notebook page over her iPhone.

So, now that the pesky introductions are over, I’ll continue into my story, where such casualties are not as necessary.

It all starts in a miniscule, rundown house on the very outskirts of Grand Rapids, Michigan. Let me tell you something about Grand Rapids, Michigan.

It’s comprised entirely of fakes.

Girls who blow crimson, lipsticky kisses to boys whose religion (or lack thereof) requires them to be perpetually tethered to the television screen. Mothers whose idea of good children are girls in Catholic school uniforms and boys who participate in the mathletes. It's a fairly basic town, like one of the charming little suburb areas you see in movies. However, like most of the charming little suburbs you see in movies, underneath the facade is a writhing mess of secrets and subterfuge.

There's one high school, Jackson Rose High School. The teachers are mediocre, the students are horrendous, the food is frighteningly unintelligible, and the campus is beautiful. Jackson Rose isn’t that bad, when you're like me- invisible. My own teachers barely know my name, I can get away with anything.

However, for anyone else, it's a spiraling pit of despair.  The entire student body (at least the people that matter) is completely,  unquestionably homophobic. You have to make friends within your first week there or consider yourself a goner for the next four years. The girls are the most deceptive, judgemental people I've ever seen- they take one look, fix their opinion, and then you're done. The boys are idiots-obsessed with fumbling around with a football and nothing else.

There are a few people I think would be okay enough to befriend but they are always incredibly shy. Making friends has never exactly been my forte- people have a tendency to avoid me.

Like I said earlier, this story takes place in a monotonous house with a sagging porch and peeling paint on the outskirts of Grand Rapids. At the moment it all begins, it is five in the morning on September second- the first day of school.

I’m sitting at my desk, in pajama bottoms and an old tank top, my sketchbook in front of me. Echosmith plays softly in the background, to help me stay in the zone of drawing. I move the ivory pencil in meticulous, delicate strokes, biting my lip in concentration.

A sudden, loud knock resounds against the door, surprising me so much that my hand wobbles forward and leaves a dark streak of pencil going through the bird I had been drawing. “Ember! Get up! It’s your first day of school!” Mom chirps through the door.

I fake a moan, acting as if I were still lying in bed, muddled from a good night’s sleep, as I guiltily eye the 3 coffee mugs that kept me going through the night. “Okay Mom!” I holler back, frowning at the drawing. Sighing, I shut the sketchbook and clean up my supplies, turning up the music a little louder. Changing my clothes, I make faces in my ancient, stained mirror as I tug a brush through my hair.

The stairs creak ominously as I race down them, pecking my mother on the cheek in greeting and grabbing a piece of buttered toast off the table, darting out the door as fast as I can.