by Iyanna Orr
“I’ll take that as a no then,” Rory said then, and Chandler started, looking over. “Just make sure you know before you jump to conclusions, all right?” Rory asked, breaking his gaze from the road for a moment to look at Chandler.
“All right,” he replied as they arrived.
Chandler had asked Rory once how he could know what happened even if the evidence was gone. Rory laughed at his friend and said, “I grew up learning psychology. I saw some of Dad’s cases, mostly the ones that involved abuse. He wanted me to know that anybody could be a victim, no matter what their age. We met when we were kids, and I even saw it then. You can’t hide from me.”
On the first day, everyone saw themselves as someone new. It’s the beginning of the school year, and already, new friends were being made, freshman conforming to the styles and mentality level of the upperclassman and giving into peer pressure. Some even dared to break the social rules of high school.
Rory and Chandler walked into the doors and made their way to the cafeteria. They always waited there until the bell rang to signal the school day. They never actually considered themselves popular, but as they walked, the cheerleaders made their way over to them. Rory slung his arm over a girl’s shoulder that Chandler didn’t recognize. A small arm wrapped around Chandler’s, and he looked down at a girl who’d been a freshman the year before; Layla. She’d been his most avid supporter in his football career, and he gave her a smile.
“Think someone took the table?” Chandler asked Rory as they entered the cafeteria. Rory snorted a laugh.
“I doubt it. Besides, if they have, all you got to do is scare them off.” He snickered. Chandler shoved his shoulder, pushing him closer to the small girl who squealed and darted out of the way. As Chandler strode ahead of Rory, his laughter followed, and Chandler flipped him off over his shoulder.
“Love you, too, sweetheart!” he called out. A few people looked over at the two boys curiously and turned back to their tables.
Of course, Rory was right. Their table hadn’t been taken. As they drew closer, Justin stood from the table and spread his arms wide. “Baby brother,” he called. “How nice it is to finally see you again.”
“Shove it,” Chandler told him and sat down, scooting up against the wall below the numerous windows and swinging his feet up onto the bench. As the rest of the team came to join the table, the other side filled. Layla sat on Chandler’s legs instead of squeezing between whoever was on the far side. Rory, however, had no trouble with it, as he shoved Joey down, knocking Chris off on the other end. He shoved himself in the space and grinned across at Chandler as Chris dragged one of the chairs over and sat at the end of the table.
“So, Chandler, what happened to you this summer?” Joey asked, shooting a brief look at Rory. “Did your very usual disappearing act have anything to do with getting arrested at the party?”
“You don’t even know the story,” Chandler retorted, rolling his eyes. “You weren’t allowed to go because you had three detentions to make up for.”
“Exactly. And we called you to practice, but your mom always said you weren’t home,” Joey replied. He flickered a glance over at the clock that hung over the small stage and podium in the cafeteria. We had a few minutes until the bell rang to let us out. “So?” he inquired. Chandler groaned and rested his head back against the glass, a grim smile on his lips. He could feel the team watching him, so he raised his head and turned a smile to everyone at the table.
“Guys,” Chandler started. “I’m not joining the team this year.” A loud uproar immediately rocked the table, and they had more than enough attention as the sound turned heads in their direction. “Oh, come on.” Chandler tried to raise his voice above theirs. “You guys should have known.”
“Says the man who remained incognito the entire summer,” Chris complained from down the table. “We almost didn’t make it to Nationals last year,” he continued. “And then you joined the team. We need you.”
“No, you don’t. Like you said, you almost didn’t make the championship. This year, you’ll be better, and you will get there without me.”
“Hey, hey, hey, hold up,” Rory interrupted the entire table. “Why didn’t I know this?”
“Because you were busy spying on unsuspecting bikini-clad teenagers.” Chandler laughed. “I told you before you left, but you refused to listen and told me I was joining the team… which I’m not.” Just then the bell rang, and Layla sprung up off his legs. Chandler swung them down and stood, turning back to face the team. “You’ll be fine. See you in class.”
As a sophomore, freshman and even before then, Chandler had been more experimental than social, which was probably why Rory convinced him to join the team junior year. He usually spent my days in class, barely paying attention and drifting through the day. Back in those days, Chandler was pretty sure Rory was starting to get tired of him, but he was only ever looking forward to going home and escaping to the woods. Rory wanted Chandler to be different, more social. He never said it, but Chandler suspected Rory’s dad was worried he was involved in a gang or some other criminal occupation. Chandler told Rory he would join the team, just to make Rory’s dad stop thinking he was a juvenile delinquent. It came as a surprise to Chandler when he enjoyed the company of the garishly enthusiastic team, but at the end of the year, he was pretty convinced he couldn’t keep playing; pretending he was normal. When he was running a play or blocking tackle, he knew he loved the game. It was honestly the most exhilarating thing he’d ever done besides flying and wanted to keep doing it. But Chandler realized he was putting too much of himself into it. He was using too much force; throwing people just a little farther than anybody else or running too fast. Rory never called Chandler out on it because he, along with the rest of them, wanted him to take them all the way to Nationals and beyond. Chandler had done that, and now, he was finished.
The first period was the only class Chandler was free of any of the team, including Rory, but Layla and a few of the other cheerleaders were there. He could feel them watching him as he took a seat at the lab table with her. She was watching him, too, but at least, she wasn’t outright staring. The teacher, who Chandler’s schedule named Mr. Mullins, wasn’t in the classroom yet, so he sighed heavily and turned to face her.
“Go ahead.”
“Why aren’t you playing this year?” she asked immediately.
“I’m just not really interested anymore, Layla.” Chandler looked down at her and shook his head.
“What?” She laughed and looked down at her hands, which were playing with the pencil resting on top of her books. “We both know that’s a lie,” she said and looked up at him, an uncertain expression on her face. “Right? I mean, last year, I could never get you to shut up about it. When I joined the cheerleaders, you didn’t even know me. But when I asked you to explain the game to me, I knew you loved it. I don’t want to add more rain to whatever pity party you’re throwing, Chandler, but you need to come up with something a lot better than that.”
“All right, listen to this then,” Chandler suggested, and she turned her chair, so she was completely facing him. His elbows rested on his knees, bringing him eye level with her. “Over the summer, I realized that football just might not be my place, you know? I know that whatever I’ll be doing after I’m finished with all this,” he said, gesturing around the room. “It’s not going to be football.”
“Do you want it to be?” she asked.
“If I had any say in it at all, Layla, I think I would want it to be. But I feel like I know my future and football isn’t it. Do you know what I mean?” She watched him closely for the next minute, looking into his eyes and nodding her head absently every few seconds.
“I think I do.”
Before his class with the team came around, Chandler was sure they were ignoring him. Even Rory was reserved, but at least, he made conversation. In class, Chandler took a seat in the back, watching Rory closely as he hesitated before making his way back. Chandler
could feel Justin and the others watching and waiting, but he turned his attention to Rory. He was slumped in his seat, his constant companionable phone glowing under the desk.
“Who are you always texting?” Chandler muttered lowly as the teacher wrote something on the board.
“Unlike you, I socialize,” Rory responded. He tapped the screen of his phone before dumping it into his pocket and looking at Chandler. Rory’s eyes flickered around and then landed back on Chandler cautiously. “You do realize you’re being watched?”
“What are you talking about?” he asked, not looking around the room. Chandler didn’t need to look. He could feel their eyes from the moment I stepped in.
“The entire team is watching you. I’m telling you; it’s freaky.”
“Eyes up front, please,” Mrs. Holland said in her small voice. Chandler turned his head, looking back at the class to see that he and Rory were right. Every eye in the room was trained on them, and something about the way they were looking at Chandler said more than a jilted team should need. Without any idea what he was doing, Chandler’s fingers tightened on the pencil he held. Before it could snap, he released it on the desktop. The teacher’s back was to us, but he could see the frustration rolling off her.
“Guys!” Chandler finally snapped, glaring at them all. Suddenly, the room was quiet, and even Mrs. Holland turned to stare. Only then did he feel the force of the word in his chest and the tingle in his throat. He hadn’t realized how loud it’d been. His fingers were gripping the desk tightly, and he heard a vague crack. The hands loosened but stayed where they were to cover the spider-webbed cracks now carved into the surface. The uneasiness in the room spread, filling every corner, and Chandler wondered what was going on. His entire body felt tight as if he didn’t fit into his skin anymore. Every eye rested on him, then turned to the front.
“Chandler,” Rory whispered from his seat. “You all right?”
“I’m fine.”
But he was far from it.
Chapter 2 – Monster
Before lunch, Chandler avoided Rory, escaping to the restroom as Rory tried to call him. He ducked into the doorway, ignoring the looks he was getting, and slammed the door, locking the deadbolt and backing away from it. Chandler listened close to the stalls to make sure no one else was inside before bolting over to the mirror, staring at his reflection and parting his lips from his teeth. He raised his hands to part them further as his eyes widened.
A change had started on its own, though it hadn’t since the beginning; when he was just nine years old. His teeth had grown out farther than they ever had before. They extended a full knuckle-length out of his gums, and the keen points had torn through the skin in his mouth. Even as he watched it start to heal, the teeth remained, and Chandler groaned desperately as he did his best to make them go back to normal. They shrank but remained oversized.
Chandler gripped the white sink in his fingers and held back the scream of frustration growing inside of him. He’d been dealing with this for years, and not one had he come close to the chance of changing in such close quarters with his friends or even strangers for that matter. Even worse, burning underneath that need to rip out of his skin, Chandler could feel such a violent pulsing that he knew, without a doubt, he could’ve killed every person in the room. Yet, the worst part was that he wanted to.
What kind of monster was he?
Chandler lifted his head and studied my eyes in the mirror. Chandler wanted to be able to tell himself that without his wings and the shifting, he would be perfectly normal, but he couldn’t. Even without those, his strange eyes made him different, an outsider. It made both he and his mother outsiders.
Tearing his jacket from his shoulders, he threw it on the floor, closely followed by his shirt. Agreeing with freedom, his wings immediately flared wide, reflecting at him from all five mirrors behind their respective sink. Chandler looked at them closely, examining every ridge, feather, and curve. They were sensual things, and sometimes he felt as if they controlled him instead of the other way around. When his eyes landed on the scars that had never quite healed, his face went blank as a shudder ran down his spine.
He hadn’t always been okay with the wings. When he was eleven, and they hadn’t been more than a foot long and couldn’t have held him up long enough to fly, he’d tried to remove them. Half out of his mind, he’d attacked them with the serrated kitchen scissors. It was the first time he’d started having the dreams, and he realized that sometimes he could barely make out fantasy from reality. His wings trembled as his mind flashed back to that night, waking in a cold sweat. He didn’t even think he screamed when he realized what he was doing and saw the blood pooling against the hardwood floors in his bedroom. On his back, Chandler’s wings trembled, shaking his skeleton and the fragile bones hidden beneath the feathers.
There was a hard pounding on the door.
“Chandler!” Rory’s voice called demandingly. “For God’s sake, I know you’re in there. Everyone saw you go in. We’ve only got half an hour until lunch is out.”
“Would you just leave me alone?” Chandler called back, but his voice was shaking, and he knew Rory could hear it. When Rory spoke again, his voice was quieter.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“Nothing,” Chandler snapped. He flipped the faucet on and splashed water on his face. The sudden chill shook him awake, and he cleared his throat, bending down to pick up his shirt. “I’ll be out in a second.”
Chandler pressed his wings against his back tightly, pulling his shirt back over his head. He sighed heavily as he looked in the mirror one last time before shrugging into his jacket, unlocking the door and walking out. Rory rested against the wall beside the door, his eyes watching Chandler carefully as he emerged. Chandler watched as Rory shoved his phone back into his pocket and then walked past him.
“Let’s go,” Chandler said. Rory followed him to lunch, but Chandler ignored the line, opting instead to sit down at the table and wait.
“You going to explain any of this to me?” Rory asked as he gripped Chandler’s arm and yanked him toward the food court. Chandler sighed, shaking his arm loose and shoving his hands into his pockets. He cast a disinterested look at the lunch counters.
“There’s nothing to explain,” he replied, picking up an apple and inspecting the large bruise on one side. He dropped it back into the fruit basket. “I really just don’t want to play anymore.”
“I’m not talking about the football thing, Chandler, and you know it,” Rory replied, glancing back at Chandler as he filled his tray with pizza slices. “I’m talking about you.”
“Me?” Chandler asked in surprise. “What about me?”
“You’re different, man,” he said, then he jumped out of line and turned to join the other line teeming with students ready to sit down and eat. Chandler followed slowly but stopped and stared as Rory skipped out of line, avoiding the eyes of the lunch ladies and started making his way to a table. Chandler shook his head, a smirk raising the corners of his mouth, and then walked away from the food court. When he reached the table Rory had settled at, he stood behind one of the chairs, casting a glance toward the table they used to occupy with the team. Chandler looked back at Rory, a brow raised. Rory shrugged and kicked the chair, pushing it from under the table. Before Chandler sat down, he saw Layla hesitate out of the corner of his eye before she went to sit at the table with the others.
“You’re really not going to eat?” Rory asked.
“I’m not hungry,” Chandler mumbled, absently doodling on a torn sheet of paper. The growing resonance of the cafeteria surround them and even in the uproar of sound, his ears were picking up snatched of conversation. Some girl was crying about her boyfriend who’d chosen to go to the army after he graduated. The football team was discussing him; some were being told about Chandler’s outburst during class while others were trying to figure out what was wrong with him. They were planning to ask Rory, who they thought knew all of my secrets wh
en they got him alone. Chandler sighed and dropped his pencil.
He looked up at Rory, who had started texting under the table as the teachers patrolled the cafeteria. Chandler could exactly pinpoint where his back mood was coming from, but if he were admitting the truth to himself, it was because of his mom, him and the secrets he kept. Or maybe, it was because of his birthday next year. He had no idea what would happen, and he was afraid. Once he’d turned seventeen, Chandler had been ready to tell Rory everything. At least, his friend might have had something to say that would keep Chandler from going insane. Of course, he’d written off the idea as soon as it’d come to him. Rory had known him all his life and Chandler was very certain that Rory was perfectly okay with him being human, but something entirely not human? It was probably Chandler’s own irrational fear that kept his mouth shut. But would it be so bad to tell him? If it did, the worst that could happen was Rory ignoring him… maybe. Maybe he wouldn’t even care about what Chandler was physically, but he might care about being lied to for so long. Rory had always been strict about secrets for some reason, and Chandler had known since they were little. And keeping a secret as big as the one he had was sure to hit the wrong nerve.
“Chandler.” Rory’s voice broke his concentration. Chandler blinked and saw that Rory hadn’t even looked up from his phone, but just then, he met Chandler’s eye. He could see annoyance there. “Do you mind?”
“What?”
“You’ve been staring at me for the last five minutes,” he told Chandler.
“Oh. Sorry. I’m just thinking.”