Autumn

by Sierra Dean

  “Um, I’m a junior?”

  “Samesies!” Marnie said with an over-exaggerated wink. Lou still couldn’t decide if the girl was trying to be her friend or was setting her up for some horrible first-day initiation prank.

  Lou really didn’t know what to tell Marnie about herself. She didn’t want to lead with the diabetes thing. It came up in due course whenever she had to jab herself with a needle at lunch, but she’d rather not start by listing her weaknesses.

  This was high school, after all—people would figure out her flaws soon enough.

  “Play any sports?” Marnie asked.

  “Not really. I was on the swim team back in California, but I wasn’t that amazing.”

  “No swim team here, sadly. That would imply the school was willing to divert funding from football to pay for a pool. I play volleyball.” As if that was a surprise given her height.

  “Cool.”

  “Let’s see your class schedule.” Marnie held out her hand, and Lou passed over the folded sheet of paper she’d received in the mail via Granny Elle. Marnie reviewed it, then stared at Lou. “Are you a super genius?”

  “No?” Lou wasn’t sure why her schedule would imply that.

  “You’re taking, like, all advanced classes.”

  “Yeah, I guess I am.”

  “So, you’re a super genius.”

  “No, I’m just… I dunno.” She took her schedule back and looked at it again, trying to see it as Marnie had. AP Chemistry, AP Biology, AP English, Spanish, Gym, Home Ec and regular math. “I’m not good at math,” Lou offered.

  “If you were, we couldn’t be friends.” Marnie laughed and continued to walk with Lou down the hall. “This is the office. Mrs. Downes will tell you where to find your locker. We’re in the same Spanish class, and it’s right before lunch. Maybe by then you’ll have figured out some fun Lou facts to tell me about yourself, deal?”

  “Deal,” Lou replied, and then Hurricane Marnie was gone, leaving Lou alone at the entrance of the office.

  After getting her welcome lecture from the school’s secretary Mrs. Downes, Lou got a small photocopied map of the school and a slip of paper with her locker number and combo on it. Mrs. Downes also gave her a note to pass along to her first-period teacher since she’d be arriving in class a few minutes late and no one would know who she was.

  Bypassing her locker entirely—there was nothing in it and she’d have time to fight with a combination later—she followed the map to the second floor where her chemistry class was located. Upon entering the lab, the entire room fell silent.

  Her new teacher, a bespectacled middle-aged man with a tidy beard, stopped his lecture and stared at her. Everyone was staring at her.

  “Sorry,” Lou mumbled, and handed the teacher Mrs. Downes’s note. “I’m new.”

  “You’re also late.” On the whiteboard behind him in severe red marker was that name Mr. Price. Mr. Price was not a fan of tardiness, apparently.

  He looked at the note and his glower lessened but didn’t fade entirely. Judging by the deep crease between his eyebrows, Lou was pretty sure frowning was a default for him.

  “Class, this is El—”

  “Lou,” she interrupted hastily. “Just Lou.”

  “This is Just Lou Whittaker. Can someone kindly tell Lou what the punishment in my classroom is for being late?”

  A few people snickered and whispered amongst themselves, and one girl with short black hair and eyes so big they overwhelmed the rest of her face raised a hand.

  “She has to wear the goggles.”

  “The…what?” Lou asked. “I didn’t mean to be late. It’s my first day.” She pointed at the note he was holding, hoping to remind him she was supposed to get a free pass on her first day.

  “I don’t accept excuses, Miss Whittaker. Any excuses. And after today you’ll never be late again.” Mr. Price walked to a large metal cabinet beside the door and withdrew a slightly yellowing pair of plastic lab goggles, tossing them to Lou.

  “You expect me to wear these?”

  “You will wear them if you plan to stay in this class.”

  “For how long?”

  “Until the bell goes. Now take a seat next to Cooper, please.”

  Before she could ask who Cooper was, a tall boy with broad shoulders and a crop of unruly brown hair raised his hand from the back of the room and gave her a little wave. She shouldered her backpack and slipped on the goggles as Mr. Price watched. She wondered if it was too late to ask about homeschooling.

  “Hey,” she greeted as she climbed onto the rickety metal stool next to her new lab partner.

  “Hey.” He looked down at his notebook, barely meeting her gaze. She wasn’t sure if he was trying to pretend she wasn’t there, or if this was the only way he could keep from laughing at her.

  “I want everyone to look beside them,” Mr. Price directed. “Say hello to your lab partners for the remainder of this year.” Some people clapped and high-fived, a few others groaned with disappointment. “Nobody moves, nobody complains. I will not accept any changes to these partnerships, so get used to it.”

  Lou could already tell Mr. Price was going to be her favorite teacher.

  “I’m Lou,” she said, trying to lure her now-partner into a conversation.

  “Cooper.” He flipped open a blank notebook and wrote the date in the top right corner.

  “Just Cooper?”

  “Aren’t you just Lou?” he reminded her.

  “Touché.”

  Finally he looked at her, propping his chin on one balled fist. “So you’re the new girl, then.”

  “Unless there’s another one. If so, I hope her day started better.”

  “I was expecting something…different. You don’t look like an Eloise.”

  Lou grimaced. “How did you know my name?”

  “I’ve got friends in high places,” he replied with a coy smile. “Namely, one who works in the student records office.”

  “So much for maintaining my anonymity.”

  “Yeah, good luck with that in this town.”

  “Awesome.”

  “So, you’re not hideous. I was expecting you to be hideous.”

  Lou stared at him, her mouth hanging slightly open. “I beg your pardon?”

  “I mean, the goggles aren’t helping. Especially with your mouth open like that. You kind of look like a fish.”

  Her mouth snapped shut.

  “Yeah, there you go. Not hideous at all.”

  “Why would you think I was hideous?” she asked.

  “Eloise is not an attractive girl name. At least not in this century.”

  “Cooper is a dog’s name.”

  Cooper smiled and pointed across the room to another big guy, whose dark hair was much neater than Cooper’s. “Rex.” He pivoted and pointed to a thin, shorter guy with dark glasses and dyed black hair. “Max.” Then to the acne-scarred kid with long blond hair. “Duke.” His wandering finger settled on a girl with curly red hair and freckles. “And Princess.”

  “No.” Lou stifled a laugh. “You made that up.”

  “I did not.”

  As if to confirm his story, Mr. Price asked, “Princess Collins, who is your partner?”

  “Libby Antonelli.”

  “No.” Lou’s mouth hung open.

  “So don’t go telling me I have a dog name.”

  Lou mimed zipping her lips, then immediately ruined the image by asking, “Has anyone ever told you that people in Texas are insane?”

  Cooper stuck his pen in the corner of his mouth and smiled. “Lady, you ain’t seen nothing yet.”

  Chapter Six

  Cooper wasn’t exactly sure what he’d expected Eloise Whittaker to be, but a pretty, pert-nosed, adorable girl had not been it. He also hadn’t expected her to talk to him.

  Apparently no one had gotten to her yet, otherwise she wouldn’t be wasting her breath.

  Popularity was a precarious thing in high school. It was hard to come by
but easy to lose, and he didn’t want Lou to be labeled a social pariah just because she was ignorant enough to talk to him. Yet he wasn’t quite ready to tell her associating with him was popularity suicide.

  It was nice having someone—especially a girl—talk to him willingly. The guys on the team talked to him because he was a good running back and they needed him to win games. Mia’s friends talked to him because they didn’t care about popularity to begin with. Teachers talked to him because that was their job.

  Sure, Lou was only talking to him because Mr. Price had made them lab partners, but he would take a nice conversation where he could get it. Talking to solely his mother and sister wore thin after awhile.

  When class ended, Lou removed the Goggles of Shame, the deep red creases around her eyes making her look like an unmasked Lone Ranger.

  Realizing she was about to leave and he might soon lose any chance to keep talking with her, he caught up to her at the door. “What class do you have next?”

  “AP Bio.”

  “Do you know where it is?”

  She held up a flimsy piece of paper showing a map of the school. “Somewhere on here? If I’m late for that one, do I have to wear a dead frog on my head?”

  Cooper laughed. “No. Miss Olson will be a breath of fresh air after Mr. Price, I promise. She’s really nice. I took that class last year, I’ll walk you.”

  Lou appeared visibly relieved. “Thank you.”

  “So, Libby said you’re a junior, but you’re taking senior-level chem?” He phrased his observation like a question.

  “I did pretty well in it at my old school. Guess they figured I was at the same level as the seniors.”

  “But not smart enough to skip to senior Bio?” he teased.

  “And miss this thrilling journey of dissecting a frog?”

  “In senior Bio we get fetal pigs,” Cooper boasted.

  “Wow. Color me impressed.”

  “Do you need to stop at your locker?” he asked.

  She looked down at her new chemistry textbook, a hefty tome that promised to cripple someone in the class before the end of the year. “I’ll manage okay until lunch.”

  “Brave.”

  “I’ll consider it my warm-up before gym.”

  Cooper stopped them at his locker and tossed his chem text inside. He almost offered to keep hers there as well, but thought better of it. Things might get awkward when someone explained she shouldn’t be talking to him. She might end up abandoning her textbook rather than bothering to ask for it back.

  Perhaps he was letting his imagination get the best of him, but he had a feeling Lou wasn’t going to be psyched to get walks to class with him after the day was over.

  As he led them down the stairs and towards the biology classroom, he noticed a few people staring, sharing hushed discussions. Even if he hadn’t been present, people would have been talking about Lou’s arrival, but he was pretty sure they wouldn’t have the same I guess no one told her expressions.

  Lou was quiet, playing with the strap of her bag and trying to balance the big textbook.

  “Here, give me that,” Cooper said without thinking, and collected the chemistry book from her.

  “Thanks.” She dug in her bag and pulled out a granola bar, tearing open the foil and taking a big bite. It was one of those cookie-themed ones with mini chocolate chips and tiny artificial marshmallows in it.

  “Did you skip breakfast?”

  She shook her head and finished chewing before explaining, “I have to eat a lot during the day.” Her small, shy smile indicated there was more to the story, but he figured she would have shared the rest if she’d wanted to.

  “This is you.” He nodded to a wood door with a small window.

  “Thanks for the escort.” She held out her hand, and for a second he thought maybe she was going to touch him, but instead she reclaimed her textbook.

  “You planning to butt in on any other senior classes today?” He tried to play down his hopefulness, but it managed to creep in anyway.

  “Sadly, no. I think if I could have gotten into middle school math I would have, but it’s all eleventh grade stuff from here on out.”

  “Well, Lou Whittaker, it’s been a pleasure. I hope those lines around your eyes fade by lunch.”

  He replayed their conversation in his mind a hundred times between first period and lunch. Since it was the only real interaction he had with another human being he wasn’t related to, it didn’t seem too pathetic to let it be the highlight of his morning.

  In algebra, people moved desks to avoid him, leaving him at a two-seater by himself. During gym, one of the basketball players pretended not to see him during their warm-up run and tripped him, sending Cooper sprawling face-first to the ground. It wouldn’t have been so bad if they’d been in the gymnasium, but Mr. Lyons had opted for an outdoor track run. Cooper’s elbows got the worst of the road rash, but he did manage to get a big scrape on his cheek. Mr. Lyons told Cooper to pay more attention while he was running. In English he avoided any issues by taking the seat right in front of the teacher’s desk so he didn’t have to see if people were dodging him or not. This resulted in someone calling him a brown noser, but it was hardly the end of the world.

  The truth of the matter was, up until meeting Lou, he’d been totally okay with the idea of coasting through his last year of high school with blinders on. His family had never been popular, but things had gotten worse since the whole situation with Jer. Before that, people had at least feigned politeness around Cooper, being pleasant to his face but talking about his family when he wasn’t around. Now, the hostility had gotten more aggressive as if people needed him to know he wasn’t liked.

  He’d gotten the message loud and clear. Reminders weren’t necessary.

  Flipping open his agenda, he scanned the calendar. His eighteenth birthday was in just over eleven months.

  When he turned eighteen, nothing was going to matter at all.

  He’d seen what happened to Jeremy. Any hopes he’d had of a normal future went out the window on Jer’s eighteenth.

  Now it was all a countdown to August 6 and the inevitable.

  Chapter Seven

  As promised, Marnie found Lou in Spanish and insisted they sit side by side. Lou didn’t argue. If this girl wanted to adopt her as a friend, she wasn’t going to turn down the companionship. She didn’t know anyone in Poisonfoot, so Marnie and Cooper’s easy acceptance of her went a long way towards making her feel a tiny bit more at home.

  “Soooo,” Marnie said, leaning across the aisle. “How was your first morning? What’s the news, the gossip? Who do you like, who do you hate? Tell me everything.”

  “Well, I’m not a fan of Mr. Price,” Lou admitted.

  “God, isn’t he awful? He’s been a nightmare since his divorce. That man needs to get laid in a powerful way.” Marnie flipped her hair over her shoulders. “That said, he’s pretty hot in an old-dude way. Maybe I’ll ease his suffering.” She winked.

  In that moment Lou decided Marnie wasn’t out to get her. It wasn’t the bad joke, so much, but her willingness to say something so potentially scandalous to someone she barely knew made Lou like her. Marnie reminded her a lot of Priss—bold and carefree. The exact kind of girl a quiet loner like Lou needed to balance her out.

  “I met a boy,” Lou said shyly.

  “Ohhhh, Miss Lou, you must tell me everything. I know them all. Who is it? Tell me so I can start planning the wedding.”

  “He’s in my chem class.”

  “A senior. You dirty girl.”

  “Says the woman who just offered to mercy boink a teacher?”

  “Ahh, you were paying attention.” Marnie gave a big grin.

  Lou went on, “His name is Cooper.”

  Marnie’s giddy, cheerful expression vanished. The color drained from her face, and she shook her head as if trying to chase off Lou’s words. “Cooper Reynolds?”

  “I don’t know, he never told me his last name.”
>
  “Oh, sweetie. Cooper Reynolds is so off limits he’s like Area 51.”

  “He has a girlfriend?” Lou was struck with the horrible notion he might be dating Marnie herself and Lou had committed the ultimate girl no-no before lunch on her first day.

  Marnie snorted. “No. No one in their right mind would date a Reynolds.”

  “There are more of them?”

  “Just Cooper and his whackadoodle sister Mia now. But they had an older brother.”

  The emphasis on the word had was a loaded implication that something dreadful had happened to Cooper’s older brother. Lou didn’t really want to know, her own loss still fresh in her mind. She was worried she might empathize too much with someone else’s pain.

  “So… I’m sorry, I don’t get it. He’s really cute.”

  “A bear cub is cute, New Girl, it doesn’t mean you should cuddle with it.” Marnie continued her story while Señor McDougal wrote his name on the board. “Look, I don’t want to dissuade you from meeting new people, just the opposite. I want you to fit in. And you can’t fit in if you’re friends with Cooper Reynolds. You sure as hell won’t fit in if you tell anyone else you like him.”

  Lou was crestfallen. Aside from Marnie herself, Cooper was the only other person who’d said two words to her that day. He’d carried her book, for crying out loud. It was the cutest thing to happen to her since someone had requested to dance a slow song with her in the ninth grade. Cute things didn’t happen to Lou often. She’d wanted to savor this.

  “What’s wrong with the Reynoldses?” she asked, hoping the answer was good enough to convince her to steer clear. From what she’d seen of Cooper during their forty-five minute acquaintance, nothing had screamed psychopath to her.

  “Their mom is the town sheriff.”

  “Okay…that’s bad?”

  “Well, no. I mean, she does a good job, otherwise we wouldn’t keep electing her, but still.”

  Lou wasn’t sure what the but still part meant, so she just nodded politely.

  “Like, I don’t want to tell you who to be friends with, Lulu, but don’t be friends with him.”

  “Miss Jackson, am I interrupting something?”