Work Text:
The thing about growing up hopeless in a small town is that at some point you forget there’s a world outside it.
It’s easy to get lost in the mindless monotony of the day to day grind–get up, brush teeth, signal the train, go to school, write essays, signal the train, go to sleep, get up–Ellie knows her world. She knows the edges, feels them clearly defined and pressing into her skin. She pulls the limitations of a Squahamish over her body like a blanket, using it to block out the chill of the larger world. And maybe she’s not happy, but she sure as hell isn’t sad, and that has to be worth something.
And yet—sometimes she’ll catch herself thinking. Of a college outside of Washington. Of a world beyond Squahamish. She’ll wonder what would happen if she signaled the train to stop, climbed on, and never came back. Of who she might be if she ever took that first step. Then she stumbles back inside after signaling the late-night train, tucks her dad under his yellow blanket, and remembers her boundaries. She remembers small-towns and small-town girls never change. And in the morning, she gets up and does it all again, and doesn’t let herself think too much about what it means to want.
But sometimes small towns shift. They expand or shrink, and in some small way are suddenly irrevocably changed. A new pastor sweeps into town with his family, effusive and endless in his faith, and the town accepts them only through a love of God. Because these people are poor and foreign and speak Spanish in their home, but they’re kind, and the eldest daughter is so lovely! And so the little town of Squahamish changes, but not much, and soon it’s like Pastor Flores has been there for years.
Ellie is aware of Aster, in the way she is aware of every non-white kid in their predominantly-white school. She sees Aster in the halls, beautiful and brilliant, and finds herself wondering about the other girl late a night. But such curiosity about the new girl is natural, and if Ellie thinks too much about her smile and the way her hair smells–if when Aster sings it seems like she’s the only one in the room–well, everyone else thinks Aster is pretty special too. It’s only natural.
And Ellie knows, in that deep down and inescapable way, that she’s too strange for this town. That she will always be that little girl from China who had to learn to speak the language—that sad, quiet girl whose mom died. But she wants to fit in this small place, she’s comfortable. She’s unwanted, but she likes it that way. So she writes other people’s essays for a quick buck, and signals the train so that her Dad doesn’t have to leave the house, and never dreams too far. And she definitely, absolutely, never thinks about how much she would love to kiss Aster Flores.