“Exactly.” She scrutinized me with all-knowing motherly eyes. “Are you alright?”
“Yeah.” I rubbed a hand over my face to snap out of whatever daze I had been in for the past few minutes. “I think the sun just got to me today.”
I climbed out of the truck, grabbed my stuff, and met her at the porch steps.
“Maybe you should stay in this evening,” she suggested softly. “You’ve been working hard. Too hard, and while I appreciate everything you do . . .”
“Mama, I’m fine.” This wasn’t the first time she’d expressed concern over the load on my shoulders, and I doubted it would be the last. I wasn’t lying to her—I was fine. Most days. Today not being one of those days for some reason.
She clucked at me again, but dropped it. She knew there was one thing I definitely got from my father. Stubbornness. Hopefully his other, even less appealing traits, would never take root.
I pushed thoughts of him out of my mind once we were inside, and I immediately raided the kitchen for something to eat.
“If you wait, I’ll have dinner in an hour,” Mama chided.
I mumbled incoherently around the handful of Lucky Charms in my mouth, and she retreated down the hallway to the bathroom. I couldn’t wait an hour, and she should have known by now that a bowl of cereal wouldn’t ruin my dinner. Despite her insistence that it would, nothing stunted my appetite since I’d hit the mammoth of all growth spurts at thirteen.
I stood at the counter with my snack and flipped through the mail. Mostly bills, all addressed to Katherine Sawyer. Some were still addressed to Mr. and Mrs. Roger Sawyer—despite the fact that my father had been dead for four years.
I stopped when I got to an envelope addressed to me. I knew what it was before I glanced at the return address. I had seen envelopes like this one in the hands of boys that had graduated before me . . . and one addressed to my own brother. It was no coincidence this envelope showed up two weeks after my eighteenth birthday.
Fucking Selective Service.
Appetite lost, I tossed the cereal box in the pantry and took the unopened envelope to my room before Mama saw it. I shoved it under a fistful of socks in my dresser and slammed the drawer shut.
I had known it was coming. I knew, like many boys my age knew. But seeing my name on an envelope containing my draft card wasn’t how I wanted this day to end.
I was not going to that hellhole. Be damned if I allowed myself to be nothing more than a name placed on a pathetic billboard sign posted outside the high school, forgotten amongst those already fallen. Be damned if I would leave Mama here all by herself.
I tilted my head back and growled at the ceiling. “Fuck it.”
I needed to go out.
I hated first days. I’d had enough first days at new schools to know exactly how much I hated them. Considering the new term had already started a week ago, being new shined an even brighter light on me and my brother than usual.
At least we were in it together. He was the only other person that understood what it was like. Only ten months younger than me, he was a sophomore this year. We would be under the same microscope within the same four walls.
Fortunately, the walk to the high school was an easy one. The dirt road on which the Maxwell and Sawyer properties were located intersected with the main road directly across from the entrance to the school. Jeffrey and I slowed long enough to study the pictures plastered on the large sign at the base of the uphill lane. Mostly young men, all dressed in army fatigues. Several with date of death written beneath their stoic faces.
That was when I first heard of my brother’s idiotic post-graduation plans.
“I can’t wait until I’m old enough to enlist,” he announced from beside me.
My head whipped around to pin him with a dark look. “What would you want to do that for?”
He shrugged. “Because I want to.”
My mouth dropped open. “You want to voluntarily enlist when we’re in the middle of a war?”
“If it’s not over by then,” he grumbled.
“God willing, it will be.”
I barely resisted the urge to smack him in the back of the head. I knew some boys had willingly joined, but mostly in an effort to avoid less desirable positions in the military, not because they really wanted to. I’d certainly never heard Jeffrey express an interest in it before.
He was only sixteen. He should be thinking about cars and girls, not playing a part in this stupid war. Maybe I would tell Ma to talk some sense into him. She was the only one that seemed able to coerce reason out of my brother. Not even Mama had that power.
Then again, from the time Jeffrey was old enough to understand her absence as a mother, he’d never really listened to her. Jeffrey was alive and well now only because I’d been there to make sure he ate, bathed, and went to bed at a decent hour. I’d taken care of him his entire life, and I would continue to take care of him as long as he let me.
Jeffrey going to war was not acceptable. But considering I had nearly three years before I needed to worry about that, and I had only three minutes before I got thrown to the wolves, I decided to compose myself for the more pressing of the two issues.
The school was small—much smaller than our last one in Norfolk. As if she had nothing else better to do this morning, the secretary was waiting for us when we pushed through the glass doors to the office. Within a matter of seconds, we were each given our individual class schedules and locker assignments, and ushered to our first class with a good-natured, “Good luck!”
Jeffrey mumbled a good-bye in my direction before taking off toward the sophomore and freshman wing, leaving me to face the curious upperclassmen alone. I kept my head down as I navigated the narrow hallway, glancing up every so often to spy the numbers posted outside the classroom doors.
Eyes and whispers followed my every step. My skin flushed from the unwanted attention, but I ignored it all under a mask of indifference. I’d worn the mask for years, and it felt comfortable. This wasn’t my first rodeo—though I hoped it would be my last.
I got through three classes before I started to lift my head between bells. It was then, stopped outside my locker, that I spotted a familiar face.
Ben Sawyer’s eyes locked on mine as he passed by me, and I offered him a shy smile. Perhaps one corner of his lips tipped up—I’d like to think it was a smile, but I was more inclined to call it a scowl—before his eyes darted away. I stared at the back of his head as he disappeared into a sea of students.
Had he actually seen me?
Because the scowl that may, or may not, have been on his face a moment ago was an unexpected change from the grin I got on Saturday when he reminded me of who he was.
The boy next door. The one that taught me to hook a worm and climb trees. The one that helped me home when I missed that jump on my bike, and skinned my knee. The one that, just thirty-six hours ago, reminded me that my first kiss was courtesy of him.
I swallowed my surprise, wiped the confusion from my face, and buried my nose in my locker with intent. I had been looking for . . . something.
“You’re new.”
I pulled my head out of hiding and met a pair of vivid blue eyes. Auburn hair fell in waves around her pretty face, and rested on her shoulders. Her hand shot out to pry the schedule from my fingers. She glanced it over before shoving my math book into my locker and slamming the door shut.
“Jen Anderson,” she offered. “We only get thirty minutes for lunch. Come on.”
I fell into step with the girl with a nod. She seemed harmless enough, but I balked at the obvious “new” label that must have been stamped on my forehead. Before I could say anything, her lips were moving again.
“What’s your name?”
“Ana.”
“Ana . . . Maxwell, right?” She laughed at the bewilderment on my face. “It’s a small town, honey. Everyone knows everyone else’s business around her. We’ve all heard about your mom, and that you and your brother are living with the Maxw
ells. It’s nothing new.”
“Oh. Well, that’s good to know.”
“I don’t live too far from you,” she added. “We’ve got the house right behind the grocery store.”
I nodded my head like I remembered the location of the store. I didn’t, but I took her word for it that she was close to me. I liked that thought, especially if she really was as nice as she seemed.
“Sucks when my mama needs something,” she continued conversationally. “Can’t tell you how many times I get sent to the store for sugar, or milk, or the occasional emergency bag of potatoes.”
A giggle bubbled out of me as we pushed through a set of double doors and emerged into a large room of chaos. Dozens of long, picnic-style tables bridged the room, from one end to another. Half of the tables were already taken by students, while the rest of the students stood in the food line. Individual conversations merged together, and hit my ears as a low rumble.
I pried my gaze away from the chaos when a puke-green plastic tray was shoved into my hands.
“This way,” Jen ordered. “Stay away from the meatloaf if you don’t want to spend the afternoon in the nurse’s office. It’s only good when you have a test you want to get out of.”
I followed her through the line, choosing the turkey sandwich over the mystery meat at her suggestion. By the time we paid and exited the line, most of the tables had been claimed. I fidgeted with my tray as I worried over where I would find a seat.
“Ana . . .” I turned at the sound of my name, and found Jen sitting at the end of a table a few steps away. She pointed to an empty seat across from her. “Sit.”
I slid onto the plastic bench with a grateful sigh, and tossed a smile at two other girls sitting with us.
“That’s Megan,” Jen said, pointing to the brunette beside me. Her head nodded to the blonde to her left. “And this is Heather.”
The girls smiled at me, and I finally started to relax. I picked up my sandwich, but waited to take a bite. “Are you all juniors, too?”
Jen and Megan nodded, their mouths full of food, while Heather volunteered, “The fun juniors.”
I took a bite, and pinched my brows together in request for more information.
“We’re not part of the geeks . . . or the stoners . . .” Jen’s finger swung around the cafeteria, pointing out the different cliques as she named them. “We definitely do not belong with the brains, not with Miss C Average over here”—she tapped Heather in the ribs with her elbow—“or the jocks . . .”
“We’re cool enough to get in to most of the senior parties,” Megan volunteered hurriedly, cutting Jen off.
“We have fun, but not too much fun,” Heather added. I followed her gaze to the corner of the cafeteria, where I spotted a couple reclined against the wall in a very questionable position, their faces pressed together in what appeared to be a sloppy kiss.
“Some people at this school have taken the whole sexual liberation thing a little too far,” Jen groaned.
As I looked away from the couple, I spotted the table in the next row over. Every school had one—the hub for the most popular and best looking. The stereotypical mix of every clique in smaller doses to make them the envy of the entire student body. Just enough jock, mixed with just enough brain and a touch of bad . . .
“That over there,” Megan whispered over my shoulder, “is SC High’s version of royalty. Annnd sitting in the corner, next to the window . . .” I spotted him before Megan finished her statement, and I blinked in surprise. It couldn’t be him. “. . . is the prince of them all . . .”
“Ben?” I blurted, at the same time all three girls gushed, “Bennett Sawyer.”
His eyes lifted out of the notebook in his hands as if he’d heard us, though I didn’t know how that was possible—not at that distance and with all the other conversations in the cafeteria. While Jen and Heather quickly spun around in their seats, and Megan dropped her head in feigned aloofness, I unflinchingly met his gaze from across the room. He held it for a second, a faint smile touching the corners of his eyes before he turned to say something to the girl beside him.
“I heard him and Tracy got back together at Vince’s party Saturday night . . . again,” Heather volunteered with a groan.
I peeled my gaze away from Ben’s profile to study the chic-dressed, porcelain-faced brunette beside him. “Who’s Tracy?”
Jen snorted. “Biggest bitch in Stone Creek, if you ask me.”
“But she’s pretty . . . and popular,” Megan explained. “They have been hot and heavy since the summer, much to the dismay of every other girl in school.”
“Yeah, but they never stay together,” Jen scoffed.
“He doesn’t date anyone but her,” Megan countered Jen.
“Only for a week or two at a time,” Heather added. “Probably the longest he can put up with her bitchiness.”
“He always ends up getting back with Tracy eventually,” Megan explained to me, picking up on my confusion. “And while every other girl in school would gladly date him, he doesn’t seem interested in anyone but her.”
“She must have cherry-flavored tits, or something,” Heather grumbled.
“Or something,” Jen agreed conspiratorially, and my stomach soured at her not-so-subtle suggestion.
I tossed my half-eaten tater tot onto the tray. “Let me get this straight. Ben is . . . Mr. Popular?”
All three girls nodded enthusiastically.
“Ben Sawyer?”
“Bennett Sawyer,” Megan corrected with a smile. “Have you not been paying attention?”
I wondered what they would say if I told them how well I knew him. Well, how well I used to know him. What would they say if I told them we used to ride bikes, go fishing, and chase fireflies every day in the summer? That we had once gone swimming in the creek in our underwear? That he was the first boy to ever kiss me? That I was ninety-nine percent sure I was the first girl he ever kissed?
Not that any of that mattered. Not anymore. While I had some memories, one thing had become very apparent to me in the past two minutes. The Bennett sitting across the cafeteria now was not the same Ben I made those memories with.
What had happened in the five years I’d been gone?
By the end of the week, I had settled into a fairly consistent routine. I spent time with Mama every free minute I had, when she was awake. Since that was increasingly less and less, I nagged my brother about his plans to join the Army like any good sister would. I did my designated chores before and after school every day. Afterwards, I helped Ma with dinner, and learned a few things about cooking and baking.
I’d adjusted to my new classes, and established friendships with Jen, Megan, and Heather. I learned that Travis Winter was the other boy that was working on the barn roof with Ben . . . Bennett . . . whatever he went by these days. Unlike Ben, Travis didn’t completely ignore me at school. Twice now, I caught him winking at me in the hallway. I stopped just short of grimacing both times.
And Ben . . .
I had come to the conclusion that the boy I used to know had been replaced by a traitorous lookalike masquerading as a popular jock. Though I had missed his football-catching skills by a few months, there was no missing the talk of the upcoming baseball season. Apparently Ben had a shot at a scholarship, and everyone had an opinion about it.
His swing needed to improve if he was going to be taken seriously; he had a hell of a swing, and they’d be crazy to not want him. No way would they pick up a small town country boy; if anyone could make it out of this town, it was him. University of North Carolina was his best shot—that one everyone agreed on.
By the time the last bell rang on Friday afternoon, I couldn’t wait to have two days off from school, just so I didn’t have to hear about Ben and his stupid scholarship anymore.
I couldn’t merge the two versions of him in my head. The Ben that once convinced me to eat dirt “sprinkles” on an ice cream cone was not the same Bennett that swaggered through the hallways at s
chool every day. Nor was he the same boy that had knocked me over with an armload of boards, and shuffled nervously when he later reminded me of who he was.
“What are you doing this weekend?” Jen asked me while I retrieved the books I would need to take home.
I shrugged. “Nothing, I guess.”
“If you want to get out Saturday, we can go to The Pit for some ice cream. I usually meet Meg—”
I looked up when Jen abruptly stopped. I followed her wide-shot eyes over my shoulder to find Ben propped against the lockers, facing . . . me? I swept a look around to confirm he wasn’t looking at someone else. From the grin on his face as he watched me, I assumed he found my confusion amusing.
“Hi,” he drawled, definitely to me.
“Hi?” I gave him a look that portrayed my confusion clearly. It had been a week, and he hadn’t spoken to me since the day I arrived. Why bother now?
He either didn’t notice my reservation, or he chose to ignore it. “How was your first week?”
“Okay. Considering . . .”
His eyes narrowed slightly. “Considering what?”
“It’s not easy starting a new school.” I could have tacked the word, duh, onto the end of that statement, but he seemed to absorb the message without the added insult.
He shifted his feet, placing a little more distance between us, before shoving his hands into his pockets. “I suppose. You’ve made some new friends, though.” His gaze swung over my shoulder. “Jen, right?”
When no response followed, I peered over my shoulder. My new friend wordlessly bobbed her head as if she had just been addressed by a member of the Beatles rather than a classmate. I rolled my eyes at her, but she didn’t notice.
I turned back to Ben, and his gaze swung to me, completely unaffected by Jen’s reaction.
“Seems like you’re adjusting well . . .” He trailed off as a group of loud senior boys passed by, calling to him. His arm shot out to slap hands with one of them. Trevor? Vince? I couldn’t remember his name, but I knew I didn’t like him.
“Hurry the fuck up, man!” one of them called over his shoulder. “The girls are waiting!”
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