Sydney is the one person who knows how much I’ve struggled the past few years. There’s part of me that knows her interest in me is probably driven by a desire to be tragedy adjacent. But there’s another part that’s grateful to just have someone around. I haven’t told her the truth about the painkillers—not exactly—but I have told her that I do have plans to get more involved this year. It all starts with the Chronicle.
I take a steeling breath, nodding. “I have my proposal ready.”
“Awesome, I think you’re going to kill it, and then next year you’ll get to be editor-in-chief.” I reluctantly accept her high-five.
We walk through the clusters of students and my eyes track them all. I see Emory and his jock friends, all in their letter jackets despite it still being hot outside. A few kids say hello before side-stepping to give me space. As we head down the sidewalk, I can’t help but notice everyone taking great care to give me a wide berth. Their smiles are friendly, if distant. There’s a twinge of pity on every face, and some people won’t even meet my eyes.
I grab Sydney’s arm to get her attention. “What’s that all about?”
“What’s what all about?” She’s got her eye on Tyson Riggins, who is leaning against the brick wall by the main building. He’s adorable, and if social media is accurate, very much already taken by a girl at another school.
“Everyone is looking at me,” I explain, eyes warily taking in the students around me. “And they’re all giving me room. I know I have the gimpy leg and all, but it’s not like that’s new.”
“Uh,” Syd says, looking around, “this is pretty much how people have always treated you. You were probably just too stoned to realize it.”
I turn to her, mouth parted in surprise. “Seriously?”
Wow.
I’d known I was out of it. Almost all of my high school experience up to now can be described as just that—high. Months and months of sitting in the classroom, walking the halls, lost in a delicious fog of sweet nothingness, and this is probably only scratching the surface of things I’ve missed.
It’s so much worse than I thought.
Before I can process this information any further, the bell in the tower tolls, signaling that we have five minutes to get to class. Syd gives me an apologetic smile and peels away, heading toward her homeroom. I do the same, taking the path toward the same homeroom I’ve had for three years now, but everything is different this year. My mind is clearer, like I can see things in a way I haven’t in a long time. I run two rough palms over my cheeks, wanting more than anything to go back to my safe place, back to when I didn’t realize how people looked at me. And the thing is, I could do it. I have enough meds stashed away in various hiding places in my room that I could probably medicate a small village. It would be so easy.
No.
The dead, nothing-eyed quiet girl isn’t who I want to be anymore. I’d made a commitment to see this year through, clear-headed and decidedly present. For one reason or another, my life was spared that night.
It’s time for me to start living it again.
2
Reyn
It’s weird how things always look bigger in your memory.
For the first time in three years, I stand under the entrance arch to Preston Prep, and it seems strangely smaller than it had freshman year. Back then, the quad seemed fucking enormous. The halls felt infinite. The bell tower looked like a skyscraper. Sometimes I’d walk into this place and feel like it was indestructible, with its solid pillars and sharp steps.
Now, it all just looks like any other hunk of stone and mortar. Like I could pull a hammer from my pocket and just start chipping this shit away, bit by bit, and watch it crumble.
The school is definitely old, but it’s also a mixture of historic and new. From the ancient oak trees in the quad, to the stone bell tower, all the way to the shiny office furniture and state-of-the-art technology. Preston is two worlds merged into one. The end result is traditional, old-school elitism, combined with new world power. The students leave Preston with the ability to take over the world.
Now I have to see how, and if, I can fit back in.
I run my hand over the smooth mahogany railing as I climb the steps of the main building. I’m an hour early for my nine o’ clock meeting with the headmaster, since I was already out of bed and doing pushups three hours ago. I was so sure my first morning back was going to be full of sleeping in, dicking off, and not doing drills for once, but it turns out to not be so easy. Nothing felt right or okay until I’d rolled out of bed, hit the floor, and started counting. There was a split second, right between my thirty and thirty-first pushup that I almost longed for the familiar feeling of some jackass instructor yelling down at me. I would have even gone for my old academy’s customary sunrise run
if Fucking Jerry, the captain of our gated community’s security, hadn’t parked his golf cart across the street and just sat there, waiting.
Jerry is the lovechild born of a slow-witted barbarian who fucked the very concept of spite. He’s also a retired deputy police chief who's high as kite off his own little nugget of imagined power. Naturally, he’s had it out for me since I drove through the gates. Messing with him would actually be a great time, if not for the fact that Fucking Jerry is a short fuse with ties to the local sheriff, and is also stacked. The guy could have me kissing pavement before I even had a chance to say ‘dime-store police brutality’.
Fucking Jerry.
Since I still have some time to kill, I decide to reacclimate myself to Preston’s hallowed halls. As I wander around, I get the same feeling of wrongness as I had trying to sleep in past five. Like someone should be watching me, telling me where to go, breathing down my neck, telling me I’m garbage. It’s a crawling, slimy sort of feeling that gives me the impulse to stick close to the walls.
The main foyer of Preston Prep looks the same, with the wall of headmaster portraits looking down in stern-faced disapproval as I pass through. I note the steely eyes of Headmaster Hamilton—great-whatever of Hamilton Bates—and pause to raise a middle finger at his painting. In my brief stint as a freshman at this illustrious institution, Hamilton Bates had been only a year older than me, but was already the Prince of the Devils and Head Fuckboy by then.
I can only imagine how insufferable that sentient jerkoff got by his senior year.