Chapter 8: The future is...something
Still reeling from the reveal, Hailey attends the Future is Bright party
This is chapter 8 of The Other Side of the Ocean. You can also start at chapter 1, go back to chapter 7, continue to chapter 9, or access any chapter using the table of contents.
I feel lost and confused. Dad is not my biological dad. I don’t want that to matter—it doesn’t matter to me. But I need to process this. Dad, who taught me how to ride a bike. Dad, who comes to pick me up from school anytime I need a ride, and who talks to me for hours about our observations of human behaviour. Dad, who hugs me and makes me laugh. He’s my dad.
We’re family. Nothing has changed.
But now I have questions. Dad, who did all those things for me, became my dad and met Mom after I already existed. What does that mean? What happened? Is that related to why we pretend his side of the family doesn’t exist?
Were they just never going to tell me? I know in my heart this changes nothing about how I feel, so, does it even matter?
I shake my head, finding relief in the cool air that greets me as I walk from my parents’ car to the front doors of our high school. It’s time for the Future is Bright party.
Even though, right now, the future doesn’t feel bright—it feels murky, confusing and stressful. Or so blindingly bright that it actually hurts, like a headache.
I look at my phone. Five more hours before I have to choose where I’m going to study next year—and, more importantly, in some ways, what I’m going to study.
Almira and I meet at our agreed upon spot in the atrium, where we can barely hear each other over the intense buzz of about two hundred students chatting, voices so big they expand to the cafeteria, the library, the halls leading off to the gym and offices, and all the way up to the skylight ceiling above us before landing, slightly lighter and softer, in the grand school atrium.
For Almira and I, it’s not school and the academic future that we talk about.
It's the past—eighteen years ago in the past, to be exact, when my mom met my dad and must have told him she couldn’t follow him back home even they did fall in love because—she was already feeling love, for me.
“Your mom was pregnant with you when she met your dad?”
Almira repeats it at a whisper, which isn’t that far off from her usual volume, but I really have to strain to hear her over the hum and buzz of the event around us.
“So what does this mean? Was she dating someone and then left them for your dad? They did seem to make a really special connection from that journal entry you read—like love at first sight. But deep, true, real.” A wistful look takes over Almira’s face.
“I don’t know what it means, or what happened.” I pull Almira aside, closer to the refreshments table, where it’s surprisingly less busy, despite how hungry I’d think everyone is. “I mean, it doesn’t mean anything changes—I love my parents, both of them, and this doesn’t change anything. But I—” A big arrow pointing to school sweaters catches my eye, and I finish my sentence. “I’m confused.”
About how my parents got together, and the role I played in that. In why they didn’t tell me. In what happened. In what’s going to happen next year—where I am going to go, what am I going to study? And what’s going to happen next—do we talk about this? I don’t think I can pretend I don’t know. But if I tell them, well, how do I tell them?
“Almira, Hailey!” Sandra waves at us from beside the large arrow. “Come pick out your sweaters!”
Almira and I step forward like zombies, suddenly recalled to the purpose of the event around us.
“Just pick any colour and your size,” Sandra explains, gesturing to a giant vat of school swag. “Then grab whichever of those badges represents your postsecondary plans.”
Postsecondary plans.
“I don’t suppose one of those badges says, ‘Undeclared’?” I half mutter, joking.
Almira laughs, probably happy to see my sense of humour still works.
I didn’t mean to be heard, but Sandra answers with a surprising level of support and sensitivity. “Actually, yes, there’s a badge for people who are still figuring it out.”
I think she means people who aren’t planning to go to school and are still figuring out an alternative—not me, who’s got to be the only person who applied six times, got accepted six times, and still hasn’t chosen an option.
I’m almost shocked it didn’t happen sooner, but just then, my head gets light, my heart beats fast, and I think, I’m about to have another episode.
And then, somehow, it stops. Someone says something and it’s like my heart forgets to keep beating too fast as I process what’s happening two feet away from me.
“Who’d have thunk Hailey would be holding an ‘undeclared’ badge after all those trips to the school counsellor?”
I freeze.
“Yeah, so many trips to the counsellor, and she still doesn’t now what to do?”
I turn slowly, deliberately, vaguely recognizing the two students who seem to have no idea that two feet is not that soundproof at all, even in a room filled with this many people.
They keep talking. “Maybe those visits weren’t for guidance—maybe they were for mental health.”
“Mental health? Better hope Ms. Fortier knows what she’s doing.”
Panic grips me and keeps me rooted, mouth shut.
Almira steps closer to me, staring ahead at the pair of students who are now leaning against the refreshments table, laughing. She stands taller and does something that makes me stare at her in shock and appreciation.
“You know we can hear everything you’re saying, right?”
What she said wasn’t rude, or said rudely, but it was said loudly—loud enough for everyone nearby to realize that Almira raised her voice for the first time maybe ever. About five seconds later, when two hundred of voices are done whispering that Almira spoke louder than a whisper, the entire atrium full of grade 12 students and teachers turn and stare at us, hungry for details. Sandra stares, wide-eyed, uncharacteristically speechless.
My temperature skyrockets and I start sweating. Is this really happening?
Thank you so much, dear readers, for reading another section of The Other Side of the Ocean! As a special treat, we’ve published sections eight and nine simultaneously. We hope you enjoy as we root for Hailey!
This is chapter 8 of The Other Side of the Ocean. You can also start at chapter 1, go back to chapter 7, continue to chapter 9, or access any chapter using the table of contents.