Lots of people tell their stories about how they had this great English teacher who would tell them that it didn’t matter how they got it out – it only mattered what they said, what was inside. A teacher who led them to write the great American novel… or at least a marginal piece that some people bought at some time.

My English teacher told me to stick to math, because even though I wasn’t good at it, at least I kept quiet. She couldn’t stand me. She hated everything that I did, all the pieces I wrote and all the assignments I turned in. It wasn’t so much the work I did for her, it was me. She just didn’t like me. So I’m not writing this for her. I’m writing it for Bridget, who was also in that class. Fortunately for the two of us, our teacher didn’t hate her. She just hated me. Bridget was the model student, no reason to make the teacher mad. She always did the readings; she always turned in her homework. Bridget smiled when our teacher said something funny, she didn’t spill food, she made connections with the texts. But she was also subversive.

For me, the classroom experience was much different. I would come in, sprawl out in a desk, spill my stuff out all around me and ask annoying questions. They were annoying to our teacher because they were valid. I would ask about the views of gender in the societies from which the reading was taken. I would ask why we didn’t read Sylvia Plath or other women. Our teacher was a woman, for God’s sake!

Bridget agreed with me. Unfortunately, she never did so publicly. That was a lot like her though, she never did anything to challenge the norm in public. I was on my own in that class. On my own when we walked down the street. Bridget and I didn’t agree on much, least of all my writing ability. That’s why this is for her.

That year I changed a lot, mostly due to her. I was mad when she gave the right answers, because that was my role. I was the smart one, the one who always knew what was going on. I always did the readings and knew the answers. I knew the answers in this class too, but she got her hand up first. She had no shame about being right.

You wouldn’t think when you look at me that I have anything to say, at least nothing worth hearing. I’m white trash, I shop at thrift stores and everything I own is torn and raggedy. Not that I don’t have style. I know what looks good. I know what is cool and old and what is just fucking old. It takes a sharp eye. Not really, I just like to say that, to make myself look good. I haven’t got much else.

I spent my summer at McDonalds, the corporation to whom I would never give money, but from whom I would begrudgingly take a salary. Not many other places I could get a job. I may know all the answers and be a pretty good girl – I mean, I still was that summer – but I don’t look like much. When I go home, the other kids or even my mother will take anything nice that I had. We were communal like that through my childhood, but now that I had my own source of income, it was rather inconvenient, to say the least.

I live with my mother in a tiny apartment. We’re supposed to have no more than four people staying there at one time, so my mom and my dad pass us kids off all the time. My mother works as a custodian day and night at the hospital. I live with her pretty permanently, and I share a room with the other kids when they come to stay. She has her own bedroom; I share mine. There’s Kelsey, the second oldest (I’m the oldest). She’s fifteen. Then there’s Shawn, who is seven, and Carry, who is five. When they’re all in the apartment I usually share my bed with Carry, Shawn sleeps on the couch, and Kelsey either shares my mother’s bed, or if she’s in a bad mood, she sleeps on my floor (or kicks me out of my bed).

This leads us to an explanation of why I care what Kelsey says about me. She hates me, and convinces my mother to hate me too. Mom listens to her because she’s the one who brings mom drinks. Mom conveniently forgets that I’m the one who holds her hair back when she’s puking in the toilet, or that I was the one who drove her home when I was only twelve from some park where a guy had dumped her. But none of that matters, because Kelsey knows I smoke, and Kelsey thinks I should go get my own place and why don’t I have a boyfriend? As far as Kelsey is concerned, I’m the loser, even though I’m the one who brings home real food and good grades to boot.

Dad’s not much better. He’s got a pretty well paying job, but he’s still a laborer, no way around it. He would take the kids more often, but he just doesn’t have time to do more than feed them fast food and make sure there’s no snot on their noses. He isn’t at home much. He’s giving us money, but he makes the mistake of giving it to mom. Mom gives it to her boyfriend. Her boyfriend buys booze.

Everyone knows you don’t get out of your car unless you’re planning to fight. Hindsight is a wonderful thing – I could say that I was ready, I would have done it. But after talking to her, we both know that neither of us was ready for a fight. As much as I’ve taken care of my family, I’m still not strong, emotionally or physically. I’d rather just give up, but something always pushes me on.

So I burst into tears. But I was still glaring at her, even as my face was getting wet and I was turning to go. She grabbed my arm and told me to get in the passenger’s side, and without thinking, I did. Nobody ever took care of me. I always took care of other people! She drove out of the parking lot, then asked me where I needed to be. I calmed myself, giving her directions to my work.

Bridget, in all her glory, never told me why she did that. It was just one of the many things that needed to be done. Some things, she told me, are inexplicable.

The teacher also noticed it, and because it was only a month or so into school, she thought this was always how I was. This was how she came to hate me, and to love Bridget. And she did love Bridget, as much as I hated her. The hatred I had for Bridget was a well-kept secret. I didn’t have very many friends at school because I didn’t have time for them. But I still did lots of things the other kids did. I partied with them and they knew me as well as I knew them. We weren’t a close bunch, but we had been together for four years, so everyone mostly knew everyone else. Bridget, being new, didn’t know us very well. We all kind of rolled our eyes at the “new kid” and avoided inviting her to parties.

But this party, she found out about. Maybe someone was feeling charitable; maybe they wanted to fuck her and decided getting her drunk was the best way. At any rate, I went to my friend Michelle’s party at her house one weekend, and there was Bridget. She was holding a beer, and even though her face showed total calm, I could see that in her eyes she wasn’t sure about being there. She saw me, and nodded. I nodded back, and walked past her.

Was she checking me out? That was the question that ran through my mind, and apparently a few other people’s minds, because I got a lot of questions about it myself. Nobody thought it was right, I mean, dykes don’t dress that nice, and they certainly can’t dance. She could dance. I saw her, I danced as near as I could get without looking suspicious. I just wanted to see!

One beer. That’s all she had. One beer. I, on the other hand, got rather wasted. My ride ended up leaving me, but I didn’t care. Why not drink when nobody cares when or even if you come home? It ended up that Bridget got me in her car at some obscene hour of the morning, and drove off.

She drove us to the school, I assume because she didn’t know where I lived, and stopped the car. I got out, or so she says, because I don’t remember much after getting in the car. Yeah, at this point the story doesn’t really become mine anymore. I remember getting in the car at the party, and I remember fighting her and what came after. That’s about it. I got pretty fucked over at the party.

She finally got me off of her, and sat on me, pinning my arms to the ground. I was muddy, but warm from all the energy and booze. She was talking to me, but I didn’t want to listen. I screamed at her all of the insults I could think of, then I told her why I hated her. She took all of my answers, she made me into the white trash freak that I was trying not to be, that my intelligence was the only thing keeping me from becoming white trash.

Bridget, to her credit, screamed right back. It was unfortunate that I wasn’t listening, because in retrospect I think I would have liked to hear it. She tells me that she screamed about how lonely she was and how beautiful I am and how she could never match my smarts, so how dare I complain? We both screamed at each other until somehow she fell on me, cutting my words off with a kiss. We kissed, we rolled around, and it was the best thing that ever happened to me. On the dark, in the ground, we discovered each other and then ourselves. We ran back to her car, jumped in the back seat and kept going. The night may have been cold, and perhaps it is crass to mention this, but we were as warm as if it was summer. Our movements were still angry, frantic and hard. But that was the best time I had ever had with anyone. People don’t get it: sex is wonderful with a person you love, but sometimes it’s even better when it’s with someone you hate.

Then she showed up at my house around dinnertime. She knocked on the door, and my brother answered. I was totally mortified – I didn’t want anyone to see my house, let alone her. And it all came flooding back, what happened the night before. I didn’t know what to say. We went out to her car, and sitting inside, I shyly took her hand. It was a risk, but well worth it. We talked, and since then, we’ve been together.

But that’s not to say there haven’t been problems. Which is why I’m writing this memoir of sorts for her. We’ve been fighting off and on, mostly because we’re from such different places. I need to figure out what’s important to me, and what’s not, because I’m still at McDonalds, and I’m still taking care of people who are not my responsibility. This is for her because she has made my life mean something. She has pushed me into a whole new frame of mind. She very well may have been my salvation. Now I have to salvage myself.