by Emme Rollins, Julia Kent, Anna Antonia, Helena Newbury, Aubrey Rose
“I have government. I failed it my senior year, and now, of course, I’ve got Mr. Ruth,” Carrie said. We all made retching noises, as if on cue. His reputation had preceded him. During orientation, we sat with some repeaters, and they called him Mr. Ruthless. Carrie had complained about him at the lunch table every single day that week.
“I’ve got him next semester,” Aimee grumbled. More appropriate retching noises.
“So, what have you got again?” Aimee asked me.
“Chemistry.” I sat up, blinking my eyes at the brightness. “And a headache. Does anyone have an aspirin?”
“Are you kidding? It’s easier to get crack here than it is to get aspirin!” Carrie exclaimed.
Aimee laughed.
“It’s true!” Wendy tossed her wrapper at the garbage. She missed. ”Want me to hook you up?”
“No thanks.” I made a face. “Not my thing.”
“You sure? I know a guy at work…” Wendy sat back down, grinning at me, but Carrie looked mad and poked her friend in the ribs.
“We’re done with that remember?”
Wendy rolled her eyes. “Right.”
I stood. “I gotta book. I’ll see you in the parking lot, Aimee?”
“See ya.” Aimee waved as I grabbed my purse and started out of the cafeteria.
CHAPTER TWO
The halls weren’t crowded because the first bell hadn’t sounded yet. The academy was set up just like high school but it was housed in a building that had once actually been an elementary school. They’d switched out all the little desks for big ones, but the bathrooms were still built for small children, the toilets and sinks so low to the ground the students made jokes about “little people.” Just in the first week, I’d discovered when someone raised their hand and said, “I need to go see the Wizard” it just meant they had to use the bathroom.
In some ways, the academy was turning out to be more like high school than high school had ever been. It was as if the staff figured we’d failed to graduate high school, so they really didn’t believe we were going to reach any semblance of adulthood, and therefore we clearly needed even tighter rules and regulations to follow. It seemed kind of backwards to me, but I wasn’t in charge. I was just trying to make it through to the next thing, which I hoped and prayed wasn’t anywhere near New Jersey.
I made my way down the hall, past rows of freshly painted lockers, the lingering fumes doing nothing for my headache. I went past the boys’ bathrooms, stopping at the drinking fountain, hoping my stolen fries and a little bit of water would get me through until I got home and could raid the fridge. I was always hungry during my last hour.
I ducked into the girls’ bathroom, passing two giggling girls I didn’t recognize, digging for my schedule. There it was—covered with purple eye shadow crumbled into pieces at the bottom of my purse. I wiped my hand on my pants, looking to see where my last hour class was—chemistry, room 514. We’d been doing this for a week and I was still wandering, aimless, not sure which room was where.
I checked my hair in the mirror—nothing exciting, no pink bangs or purple streaks like Carrie and Wendy, no highlights or spiral auburn perm, like Aimee. I couldn’t afford it. Just me, tiny and blonde and blue-eyed and boring. I looked twelve, not eighteen, even in my somewhat fashionable black, suede fringed boots—Salvation Army, two bucks—and my black leggings and oversized pink sweater.
I used one of the tiny toilets and bent down to wash my hands at a little sink before finding my way to 514, down at the very end of the hall. Part of me still couldn’t believe I had to do this. I should have graduated already. I was a year older than everyone else to begin with, because my mother had insisted on keeping me back from kindergarten for a year, judging me “socially unready.” More like my mother didn’t want her only baby venturing into the world before she was ready. But that was before she married the stepbeast.
And it was his fault I had to miss most of my senior year.
The room smelled faintly of Lysol and ammonia. It was better than the formaldehyde we’d used in biology, but not much. I hated math, but science was my nemesis. The only classes I’d ever done really well in were art classes but the academy didn’t offer any extracurriculars. They were all business. I was stuck, just like everyone else, with some version of English, math, science or history all day long.
So I brought my notebook and I drew. All week long I’d doodled or drawn pictures instead of taking notes or paying attention in class, in spite of all my best intentions. I knew I should be focusing on the tasks at hand, but it was like my hands had a mind of their own, like they were out to sabotage me. Or maybe they just knew better than I did what I should really be doing. I took a pencil out of my purse and started working on a sketch I’d been drawing of Tyler Vincent before lunch.
I could draw him from memory because I’d memorized every feature. Some part of me knew it was stupid and childish to hold onto my dreams of meeting Tyler Vincent. When I was a freshman in high school, I’d seen my first Tyler Vincent video on MTV and that had been it. I was hooked. While it had happened that fast, the submersion of my life into all things Tyler Vincent had taken years, collecting albums and posters and articles, going to concerts, seeing all his movies, catching up on everything I’d missed in the years he’d been playing before I found him.
In some strange way, it was as if my discovery had solidified my own existence. Tyler Vincent made me feel like I’d come alive for the first time at the tender age of fourteen, dreaming about meeting a sexy, famous rock star, falling in love and living happily ever after. But as I grew older, my fantasies had matured too. I didn’t want to be a groupie. I didn’t want to be just another girl in a rock star’s stable.
I didn’t just want to meet him. I wanted to change him. I wanted him to change me. I wanted to be essential in his life. All my fantasies centered on that now. Maybe he needed a graphic artist, someone to do all his promotional material? The thought of working with Tyler Vincent’s image all day long and someone paying me for it was like my dream job. Heck, I did that now, for free. At least half my artwork was Tyler Vincent related.
Like a butterfly stuck in a chrysalis, waiting for the perfect moment, I was waiting for the day I could burst forth and fly away and find my home.
To him.
I was crazy. Obsessed. I knew it. I just couldn’t change it.
The bell rang, shrilling loudly. Ten more minutes and the room would flood with students.
Aimee kept telling me I was crazy but she was just as crazy about Tyler Vincent as I was. Well, maybe not quite. She hadn’t spent years wallpapering her walls like I had, or named her cats Tyler and Vincent—for the short time my stepfather allowed me to have them—like I had, or entered the last contest to win a trip to L.A. to meet him three-thousand and sixty-seven times, all by postcard, like I had. Although she’d helped me fill out a lot of the cards and she would have been my “1 guest,” but of course we didn’t win. Still, she camped out with me every year to get tickets and went just as crazy at his concerts and when she joined Columbia House, every single cassette she picked was by Tyler Vincent.
She liked him too.
She just didn’t love him.
Not like I did.
Lockers slammed. Shouts and the dull roar of people moving along the hallways echoed softly in the empty room. Students began coming in but I didn’t look up, keeping my face buried in my notebook, trying to daydream and draw my headache away with visions of Tyler Vincent. Those bright, flashing hazel eyes. That perfect, mischievous smile. Those long limbs striding across the stage like he owned it. When he opened his mouth, the rough, honeyed voice of a god that could stir your soul one minute or sing you to sleep the next.
I was lost in my little fantasy when the last bell rang and I heard a sharp rapping. Mr. Woodall was a short, balding man who liked to bang a large pointer on the blackboard to get our attention before he pulled down his chart of the periodic table and started poking at that instead.
“Okay!” he yelled. “Quiet! Quiet!”
He called for it every day but the more he did, the more reluctant students seemed to be to comply. I’d noticed most of the teachers at the academy treated us like little kids—or maybe more like prisoners. We were fed, told where to go, what to do and how to do it like we were clearly too incompetent to think of it ourselves. We hadn’t managed to make it out of high school with a diploma so clearly it meant we were idiots.
There was a lot of grumbling and shuffling as the class took their seats. There were no desks, just tables seating two people at a time, and I’d been at a table all by myself since day one. I wasn’t a leper or anything—there were quite a few empty tables. It was a big room, meant for much larger classes. The biggest classes were the night ones anyway, because a lot of the students worked during the day.
“First of all,” he started, still loud because it hadn’t grown sufficiently quiet. “I want you all to know I’m not happy with the results of your first pop quiz.”
Well what did he expect? A pop quiz the very first week?
“It appears far too many of you haven’t been paying attention in class.”
“I hear he never passes anybody,” a girl at the table next to me said in a low voice to her friend. Inwardly, I sighed, seriously reconsidering this whole completing school business. I clearly wasn’t cut out for it, especially when it came to covalent and noncovalent bonds.
“So from now on, I’m done with the distractions.” He slapped his pointer on a table up front, making all of us jump and the girl at that table actually let out a little yelp. “No talking. No Walkmans, Miss Wagner. Hand it over. And no gum, Mr. Sanchez. Spit it out.”
Walkman collected and gum thrown into an offered garbage can, Mr. Woodall stalked back up to the front of the classroom, yanking down the periodic table and proceeding to abuse it with his pointer, slapping poor helium like it had done something horribly wrong.
“I want eyes up here and ears open.” Bam. Bam. Bam. Now it was iron getting spanked. At least he had what he wanted—everyone in the room paralyzed, staring at him. I don’t think anyone but me noticed the guy who walked into the room through the open hallway door.
“Pay attention. No more distractions. Do you understand me?” Bam. Bam. Bam. Mr. Woodall continued to attack plutonium for emphasis. “No. More. Distractions!”
“Geez, what did that periodic table ever do to you?”
The guy who had slipped into the room unnoticed broke into Mr. Woodall’s monologue, making the whole class titter nervously with laughter. I’d been frozen in my chair since he entered, knowing instantly who he was. Aimee hadn’t been kidding. Wendy wasn’t exaggerating. He looked just like a younger version of Tyler Vincent standing there with his hands in his pockets, dragging his jeans with that studded belt—it did sort of remind me of diamonds—down his slim hips. His black t-shirt had the red and silver Dead Kennedys logo on it.
Mr. Woodall swung around, brandishing his pointer like a sword. “Excuse me?”
“Here.” He held out a pink slip of paper I recognized as a note from the office, looking more amused than threatened by the teacher’s Mr. Miyagi stance with his wooden staff.
Mr. Woodall snatched the note, quickly scanning it. “Well, Mr. Diamond, kindly find yourself a seat so I may resume my class.”
I watched it happen in slow motion. The girls at the table next to me who I hadn’t said more than a few words to were whispering together, giggling and watching Dale Diamond. Everyone was watching Dale Diamond. His presence drew the eye like his namesake, something so stunning and multifaceted and beautiful it was hard to look away. I looked too, my knees up against the edge of the desk, propping my notebook open. I hid behind it and watched him scanning the room, looking for a seat.
I saw his gaze, a quick pause at a couple empty tables, one next to Holly Larson, a girl I’d talked to in my history class who had given a baby up for adoption, but you’d never know it from looking at her. She was tall and stunningly beautiful, the cheerleader type, one of those girls you expect to stay a virgin and keep her football player boyfriend at bay at least until college. Holly brightened when she saw him looking at her, straightening in her seat, even leaning over and putting her hand suggestively on the chair beside her, making it look deliberate and casual all at the same time.
The girls next to me acted like we were all still in grade school. I glanced over at the two of them, faces so heavy with make-up it was more like war paint, hair teased up fashionably high, Spandex leggings skin-tight, shirts casually ripped to the correct Flashdance proportions. Gold dangled from their ears and bangles clinked on their wrists as they put their heads together like co-conspirators, clearly trying to figure out a way to lure the new guy into their trap.
I watched his gaze skip over the Flashdance twins but he was heading straight for them, threading his way slowly, easily, through the maze of tables like a big cat surveying his territory, looking for the best rock to sun himself on while everyone watched him with baited breath. I felt myself sinking in my chair, trying to make myself invisible behind my notebook, keeping only one eye on him, part of me hoping he wouldn’t see me, part of me hoping he would.
He didn’t walk so much as saunter, taking his time. I think he knew everyone was watching, whispering about him behind their hands. Most new kids would have been embarrassed but he seemed unaffected. In fact, he seemed rather used to the sort of attention he attracted, and I guess I couldn’t blame him. Some people were just like that. They had a kind of magnet inside of them that drew people like moths to a flame.
I’d fallen in love with Tyler Vincent in a moment, the first time I saw him on a television screen, even before he opened his mouth and began to sing. I understood that sort of instant fascination, the thrill it gave you just to watch someone walk across a room, filling all the available space, radiating so much energy people found themselves turning toward the source, like the sun. They couldn’t help it.
And I couldn’t help staring at Dale Diamond like that, even though I told myself not to. I was giving myself a very stern lecture in my head. Where was my loyalty? What kind of fan was I, if my head could be turned by some look-alike, just a wannabe, a cheap knock-off, nothing even close to the real thing? My mind was trying hard to reason with my body, but it wasn’t gaining much traction.
My hands, gripping the edges of my notebook to keep them from trembling, were damp and clammy. There weren’t butterflies in my stomach, there were fire-breathing dragons. My belly burned. I felt like I could barely breathe, which was good, because I thought I might just breathe fire, I was so hot. The temperature in the room had risen by about a hundred degrees. I was actually sweating, quivering, sure I was going to melt into a little pile of nothing, and that was before he met my eyes.
He moved toward the table behind the Flashdance twins—it was empty and they were practically dancing in their seats—when he stopped, looking my way for no reason at all, peeking over their Aquanetted hair-dos at me. I swear it was like he felt me or sensed me staring at him, thinking about him, even though I was mostly hidden behind my notebook. His dark hair fell haphazardly over one eye and he flipped it out of his way, like he was trying to get a better look, the expression on his face like an animal spotting its prey.
Then he cocked his head and smiled, and I was done for. He hadn’t even pounced yet—was still in the tall grass watching, tail swishing, while I grazed nervously nearby—but I was already a goner. His smile was instantly captivating. If I thought he’d been as bright as the sun before, his smile doubled the wattage. His smile was perfectly white, perfectly perfect, a dimple appearing high up on one cheek, and it reached the corners of his eyes like a rising tide, finally pooling in them with a warmth that would have buckled my knees if I’d been counting on them to support me at that moment.
And once he saw me, he didn’t stop. He didn’t look away. There was no shyness or hesitation. Part of me hadn’t wanted to be seen,
was afraid of what might happen if he looked my way, afraid of what I would feel, what I might do or say, but another part of me wanted to be seen. Not just seen—chosen. That secret part of me, one I hadn’t even known existed until that very moment—he seemed to bring it out—wanting him to choose me.
Apparently, I wasn’t the only one.
“Sit here, Dale!” One of the Flashdance twins, the one furthest from me but closest to him, clearly felt his energy shift and didn’t like it, not one bit. She tried her best to redirect him, pointing to the empty table behind her, even daring to reach out and tug a handful of his Dead Kennedys t-shirt in her fist to get his attention.
He glanced down at her, annoyed, taking a step back.
“Mr. Diamond, would you please choose a seat?” Mr. Woodall insisted.
The class snickered, all eyes still on Dale, who changed direction, walking in front of the Flashdance twins’ table like they didn’t exist, their longing gazes following him and finally settling on me with so much jealousy I could feel it like an atomic bomb blast.
“Yes, sir.” Dale snapped him a salute, the energy in the room shifting. They were laughing at the teacher instead of Dale now as he approached my table and sat down.
And my body reacted like Tyler Vincent had just dropped into the chair beside me.
CHAPTER THREE
Mr. Woodall resumed his lecture, but I wasn’t listening. I concentrated on staring at the notebook propped on my knees, hair hanging down to cover the flush in my cheeks—I hoped. I couldn’t focus on anything. Sound receded. Woodall was still talking but I could barely hear him, like I was underwater. To me, he sounded like one of the teachers in a Charlie Brown cartoon.
I tried hard not to pay attention to the guy sitting beside me. It was bad enough he looked like Tyler Vincent, which brought up an instant, involuntary response—at least I understood Aimee’s enthusiasm at the lunch table now—but having him just a foot away was beyond distracting. And quite unfairly so, I reasoned. So he was good-looking—so what? So he looked a little like Tyler Vincent—big deal. There were a lot of cute guys at the academy. What made him so special?