“Hell yeah,” she says. “Those bitches be crazy. Faulkner’s easy. Just do your homework, stay out of the way of the mean girls, don’t join any gangs, and you’ll be ahead of half the class by Labor Day.”
I can’t help but laugh at the thought ofmejoining a gang. “I’m being a drama queen,” I say. “It’s dumb. I’m sure I’ll be fine. Let’s talk about something more exciting. Like your dorm room. When do we get to see it? Are you ready to meet your roommate in person?”
*
The next day comes too fast. It seems like one minute I’m sitting on the dock with Meghan, swatting mosquitos and talking late into the evening until the light finally leaves the sky at nine o’clock, the way we’ve done all summer. The next, I’m rudely thrust into reality, otherwise known as the courtyard of Faulkner High. I can see the front doors, but I’m not brave enough to elbow my way through the crowd to reach them. Instead, I stand next to the giant statue of a weird, six-legged cat, hoping it will distract anyone from noticing how tall and alone I am.
At times like these, my invisibility is comforting, and I don’t want to be noticed. But I usually hate it. At my old school, sometimes I just wanted to stand up and scream, “I’m right here! Someone say something to me!” Or wear something crazy to school, or smoke in the bathroom, or dye my hair purple. But I could never do something like that. The thought of all those eyes on me is the only thing worse than no one looking at me at all. Plus, people just don’t do that kind of thing in Connecticut.
I remember something I said to the guy who walked away from me. In the dark, after too much to drink, he was the safest thing I’d found in a long time. Someone anonymous, someone whose name I never had to know. It felt right to tell him things I would never admit in daylight, even to my closest friend.
We lay side by side on the bank of the lake, catching our breath between kisses, with the infinity of space above us. “Do you ever feel like you’re screaming into that abyss up there?” he asked, his hand making a broad stroke across the sky. “And the louder you scream, the less people hear you?”
“I whisper into the abyss,” I said.“If one day I stopped talking altogether, no one would even notice. I’d slowly just disappear, and when someone asked who used to sit in that desk, or whatever, no one would be able to remember.”
His knuckles brushed up my side.
“I’d remember.”
It felt like a promise at the time. Like it meant something. But that was one drunken moment. Here, there’s no one to remember. Not even an empty seat where I used to sit.
Everyone else mills around, texting their friends to find out where they are, shrieking at the top of their lungs when they find each other, as if they haven’t spent the whole summer texting and hanging out at each other’s houses. Guys hug their girls, slap hands with each other. Everyone seems to know where they belong and who they belong with.
I try not to be bitter. Mom can’t help it that she had to sell the house, that she couldn’t afford to keep up our lifestyle on one meager income. I wanted a fresh start too—not just for me, but for her and my little sister. I just didn’t imagine that would include moving all the way to the deep south to live with my aunt. I didn’t even think ahead far enough to imagine a new school.
A big group of guys swaggers through, everyone moving away from them like they’re afraid they’ll get jumped if they don’t. This isn’t awe. It’s fear. I’m pretty sure one of the guys has a prison tat on the back of his shaved head. Okay, so there’s the gang Meghan mentioned. Now I just have to pick out the mean girls, so I can avoid them, too.
I clutch the straps of my backpack and follow in the guys’ wake, though I feel like I’m marching down death row, each footfall of my Converse on the pavement ringing in my ears. The gang veers off to the left while I stand staring up at the front of the old, decrepit building. The sound of skate wheels on pavement catches my attention and I turn, drawn to the sound like it’s a siren song calling me toward safety. A puff of smoke rises from the skater’s mouth, and I catch a whiff of an earthy aroma that I’m pretty sure is marijuana.
“Toto, we’re not in Connecticut anymore,” I mutter, returning my attention to the door. Not that I really would have inserted myself into the skater’s group, anyway.
Just push the door open and step inside.
Here goes nothing. The school mailed my schedule earlier this summer, and I have the entire thing memorized, but I don’t know my way around. I push on the metal bar to open the door, and it swings open to another set of doors with a camera over each one. I hit a buzzer and a monotone voice ushers me in. With a click, the doors unlock, and I step into the insufficient artificial cool of the air-conditioned building.
I stop dead in my tracks when I see three guys swaggering toward me. These are the guys people will step back and let pass out of awe. These are the guys that turn heads, the guys that make pulses flutter and panties drop. The one on the left is tall and dark-haired, with pale skin and a slight frown on his face. The one on the right is taller, with a bulky build that isn’t entirely muscle. But it’s the one in the middle that has me frozen to the spot, my mind slowing, my ears echoing as if I’m underwater.
His dark blond hair curls around his ears like he forgot to get a haircut all summer. His teeth are white and straight as he laughs at something the big guy said. His eyes are sparkling, crystal blue, crinkled at the corners. His skin is golden, like honey, as sweet as a kiss stolen under an inky sky full of stars while people laugh at a bonfire down the shore of the lake. His hands are calloused but gentle, his breath hot against my neck as he whispers,“God, you’re tight.”
The blood drains from my face, and I can’t move.
All I can see is him.
This can’t be happening. Meghan told me it was a party for college students on summer break and those who had graduated and were heading off to college somewhere. The only high schoolers brave enough to crash were rich kids who go to Willow Heights. I’d told her about the anonymous guy, the kiss that turned into so much more. It would have turned into losing my virginity to a stranger while drunk if the guy hadn’t suddenly taken off, leaving me to stumble back to the fire confused and alone. She said he must have been a college guy who realized how young I was.
But no. It’s him. I want to die. Oh my god, it’shim. Because of course he goes to my school. Of course my shit luck is just that bad.
The blood that drained from my face comes rushing back, and I can only hope they mistake me for a statue as I stand frozen in place. Becausehere he comes, strolling through the deserted hall, looking like he owns the place. I’m pretty sure he looks like that wherever he’s walking, though. He’s gorgeous in the “I don’t care what I look like because I know I look like a teen idol” way.
His eyes sweep in my direction, and I could be mistaken, but I think a flicker of recognition flits across his gaze before disappearing. But maybe not. It was awfully dark that night on the lakeshore.
“Hey, New Girl,” he says, his voice a slow, refined southern drawl that makes a shiver explode across my skin as if it stores the memory of that night in every cell. “Are you lost?”
I blink at him like a complete idiot, trying to remember what I’m even doing here.
He points to a sign that saysOFFICE.
“Office,” he says, grinning like he knows his presence is responsible for my loss of functioning. So, he thinks he’s funny. Big freaking deal.