A girl in tight black jeans and heavy makeup lowers her eyelids and runs her tongue over her teeth. She’s obviously used to attention but is confused as I walk past. Not interested.
My first stop is the front office, where I collect my schedule, and the principal hands me a thick spiral-bound book. ‘Student Handbook’ is even emblazoned across the front cover. I can’t help but let out a laugh.
“Is this serious? An actual handbook?” I ask.
“Absolutely, Mr. Vance. Guidelines and expectations are an important part of the student culture here, and you being new in our midst doesn’t release you from that responsibility. You’re expected to know and follow what’s contained in that handbook. If you do, I’m confident it will help you have a successful end of your senior year.”
I nod slowly, as I back up from the desk. Holding the handbook up, I give a smile.
“Then I guess I should get to reading. Sounds like compelling stuff.”
Sweeping out of the office, I walk across the school to where he directed me to my first period class. I slip into the first open desk and flip through the handbook.
A few seconds later, a sharp intake of breath to the side brings my eyes over to the door. The girl from the pink and white bedroom is clearly not happy to see me sharing her first class of the day.
She recovers quickly and lifts her chin, looking past me as she hurries to her own seat. A few seconds later, the teacher comes into the room in far more of a flustered rush than the early hour justifies. He sets down a stack of papers and folders, sifting through them for a few seconds before he looks up and sees me. A bright smile crosses his face.
“That’s right. We are welcoming a new student today. Everyone, this is Talon Vance. He just moved into town and will be joining us for the rest of the semester. Talon, would you like to stand up and tell everyone a little something about yourself?”
“No. But thank you,” I answer.
He stares back at me for a second, blinking a few times.
“Alright, then. Well, have you gotten a chance to look around and get used to the school?”
“No, sir. This is my first class of the day. I haven’t been here very long.”
I see people around me snicker, and out of the corner of my eye, I see the girl shift uncomfortably in her seat and roll her eyes. She leans to the side and murmurs something to a girl who hasn’t taken her eyes off me since I sat down.
“If you’d like, I can have somebody bring you around and get you acclimated. I’ve looked over your course work from your old school, and it seems you’ve got the hang of things. Missing a class shouldn’t cause you any trouble,” the teacher continues.
“I should hope not. I think last semester’s advanced calculus studies adequately prepared me for a high school trigonometry course.”
“Good. Now, let’s see.” He looks around the classroom, and his eyes brighten again. “From what I understand, you live next door to another of our class members. Since you are probably already familiar with each other, she’s a perfect choice. Wren, I don’t think you need today’s review session. Why don’t you take this hour to bring our new friend around the school?”
She looks like she wants to protest but can’t come up with anything to say. Finally, she nods.
“Yes, Mr. Whittaker.”
“Great. Then you two run along, and the rest of the class and I will have a little heart-to-heart on what happened with the final exam in December.”
She gathers her books to the sounds of the rest of the class groaning and whisks past me through the classroom door into the hallway. I follow her with my backpack slung over my shoulder. She stands with her back against a bank of lockers across the hall, her arms crossed over her chest, and stormy gray eyes narrowed at me.
“You may want to work your hostess skills,” I tell her. “I don’t feel adequately welcomed.”
She pushes away from the lockers and starts down the hallway. “This is the math hallway. On the opposite side of the building are the science and computer classrooms and labs. I’ll show you the gym and theater.”
“I don’t think that’s necessary.”
“Mr. Whittaker sent me out here to give you a tour of the school,” she says.
I step up a little closer to her. Her skin is pale to the point of being translucent, and my fingertips tingle with the compulsion to touch the side of her face. But I don’t.
“My last school had an Olympic-size swimming pool, an equestrian center, and an observatory. I think I can handle four hallways, a gym, and a theater.”
I walk past her, but she doesn’t move.
“Why do you do that?” she asks.
I turn back to her. “Do what?”
She takes a few steps toward me. “Talk like that. You shift the way you speak, depending on who you’re talking to. You go from sounding like you’re forty when you’re talking to the teacher to being rude and sarcastic to me. It’s like you don’t know who you are.”
The muscles in the side of my neck tighten, and I lean closer to her.
“I know exactly who I am. If that happens to be someone who knows how to handle the situation I’m in, then so be it.” Even as I say it, I’m not completely sure I know how to handle this. “Now, finish showing me around or go away so I can wander alone by myself.”
“Why bother? You seem to have it under control. After all, it’s just four hallways, gym, and a theater.”
I smirk. “True. So why don’t you show me somewhere interesting? Like where everybody hooks up.”
Bright color splashes across her cheeks.
“There isn’t anywhere like that here,” she says.
“Of course there is. There’s somewhere like that at every school.” I move closer to her, and she steps back, so I take another step. She ends up with her back against the lockers behind her. “A place where kids go when they need a little time together. Somewhere dark and secluded. Where no one will see them.” I lean in so I can whisper in her ear, “We can explore it together.”
5
Wren
My breath swells in my lungs. I can’t seem to get it to move in and out the way it’s supposed to. Talon is so close to me, I can feel the heat radiating off his body, and his breath touch the skin on the side of my neck. He leans down to talk to me in a low, controlled voice. My skin tingles, and there is a second where it’s like the awareness of where I am disappears. Finally, I snap out of it.
“I don’t know anywhere like that,” I insist.
He gives a snort of derisive laughter and steps back from me.
“Of course you don’t. I should have known,” he mutters.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I demand, but I know exactly what he means. He’s right, not that I’ll confess that to him.
“You’re too much of a prude. Show me the theater,” he says.
Before I’ve completely processed the sudden veering in the conversation, he swaggers off toward the front of the school. I follow after him, and soon we slip through the heavy double doors at the front of the theater. It’s dark inside except for the illumination of a single spotlight in the center of the stage. A boy sits on a wooden chair directly in the center, shaking and stumbling his way through a monologue.