Off-Limits Box Set

by Ella James

  “Don’t worry, Em.” I smooth my palm over her blonde hair. “Everybody likes The Empire Strikes Back.”

  “Not me.” She pokes her lower lip out. “I like A New Hope.”

  “That’s just because you love the light sabers.”

  She smiles, nodding, and I sift my fingers through her silky locks.

  “I think he will want a light saber,” she says.

  I smooth the poster down, then stick another push pin in the lower right corner. “Maybe so, but remember what Mom said. We’re going to feel it out before you give it to him. We don’t want him getting here and being overwhelmed the first day. He might be sad.”

  “Like Mommy gets when the hospitalist is on vacation?”

  I laugh at Emmaline’s goofy, wide-eyed look. “Just like that.”

  Both our parents are doctors, so Em’s heard a lot of shop talk at the dinner table, such as last week, when our mom, a pediatric ear, nose, and throat surgeon, expressed frustration that another doctor—the hospitalist—was on vacation.

  “What about Mommy?”

  The bedroom door opens, and our mom’s tired but smiling face appears. I watch as her gaze sweeps the room, moving over the airplane-shaped bookshelf, the Crayola-red dresser, the two twin beds—now outfitted with navy blue spaceship duvets—the leather armchair from my dad’s old home office, and finally the longest wall, where Em and I have hung an Empire Strikes Back poster, a coat rack, and a wall-mounted shelf bearing four fun, electronic kid toys.

  Mom gives us a bright smile. “Nice job, girls.”

  “Evie said I have to wait to give him the light saber,” Em pouts.

  “Just a little while,” my mom tells Emmaline, stepping fully into our new foster brother’s basement digs. “Remember what we talked about,” she says, scooping up Em. “We don’t know how he’ll feel when he gets here. So we want to give him space to settle.”

  Em pokes her lip out again. “Okay.”

  “Don’t be glum, chum.” My mom kisses her cheek. “You two rocked this room out. I can’t believe three weeks ago it was a storage area.”

  I laugh, wiping a strand of hair off my forehead. “I can.”

  My mom winks at me over Em’s head, then wraps my sister closer to her. “I think it’s bedtime for you, my dear.”

  Emmaline reaches for me. “One big hug, and one big kiss.”

  I give her both, and Mom wiggles her eyebrows. “Come on back up soon, Ev.”

  “I will.”

  I’m a perfectionist, though. We’ve had foster siblings from all walks of life, but never one who’s been in as many homes, or had as many bad experiences, as this little boy. He’s only 7—he’ll be in Em’s class at school—and he’s spent time in twelve homes, two of which he was removed from because of inappropriate behavior by the foster parents or siblings. His paperwork says he’s exceptionally bright. Bright enough to maybe go to college early. The agency my parents work with picked them out specifically because they both have several degrees.

  I straighten his duvets one more time and take a final spin back through the bathroom. His papers say that he’s a fan of Harry Potter, so we did the wallpaper in a wand pattern, the shower curtain featuring a scene of Hogwarts.

  I bite my lip, remembering the Polaroid picture Mom and Dad showed us. Wherever he was standing—maybe in a doorway—there was a shadow over half of his face. I couldn’t see his eye color, but his hair looked light brown. His lips were in a straight line, his eyes striking and somber.

  So different than Em.

  The bathroom door creaks, and I jump. “Dad—good Lord! You scared me.”

  For a surgeon who saws bones and re-breaks badly healed fractures, my dad is small and geeky-looking, with freckles on his nose, and round, black glasses. Once when we were at Universal Studios, someone mistook him for Rick Moranis, the dad in that old movie Honey, I Shrunk the Kids.

  Tonight, he’s stripped off his button-down dress shirt and is wearing his white undershirt and pleat-front khakis. Underneath his arm is something round and white: a roll of trash bags, I realize.

  His eyes move around the bathroom. “Y’all did a nice job, Ev. Looks real homey in here.”

  My dad is soft-spoken and ultra nice, maybe a little too nice; that’s what mom says sometimes. He tears a small trash bag off the roll and leans over to put it in the trash can.

  When he straightens up, he gives me a tired smile and ushers me from Landon’s bathroom back into his new room.

  “You girls know how to make a place feel welcoming. You get that from your mama, I guess.”

  “Thanks, Daddy.”

  “Why don’t you come upstairs and head to bed? It’ll be a long day tomorrow.”

  I nod, turn out the light, and walk upstairs alongside him.

  “Do you think he’ll like it here?” I ask Dad in the kitchen.

  My dad looks thoughtful. “I don’t know, green bean. Some do, some don’t. It’s more about them than us. You know that.”

  “I know. I just hope he does.”

  “You have a big heart, Evie. And that’s not a bad thing. The world needs more people who do. When you’re in our position, there’s a bigger obligation. Help the helpless, love the poor.” My dad pats me on the shoulder. “I know that you will. You’ve got a lot of goodness in you.”

  I hug my super cheesy dad, then head upstairs, where I lie awake for a few minutes, feeling nervous for no reason I can think of.

  The next morning, Emmaline is over the moon excited to meet her new, same-age “brother.” She wears her favorite Minnie Mouse dress, sparkly Mary Janes, and a pair of sticker earrings for what she expects will be a schoolyard meet-up. When she climbs into the car with Mom, she’s bouncing with excitement. She squeals her goodbye to me as I walk out of the garage, where my parents park, and around to the circle driveway where my green Ford Focus waits.

  I’m still smiling as I drop into my seat, adjusting the scented oil fan clipped to one of the vents and dropping my backpack in the passenger’s seat before I buckle up and head toward school.

  The day is balmy and humid. September in North Carolina still brings days with highs of 90-something, so for my much-less-exciting day, I’m wearing white shorts with an eyelet lace look; a soft, lilac top; and my favorite pair of gladiator sandals.

  I listen to the radio as I drive from our green, secluded neighborhood in the hills down toward the western edge of Asheville, where my school, Creekside High, sits—near my sister’s elementary school; a nice, big mall; and several leafy, though more urban, neighborhoods.

  My school is on the newer side, made of gray and beige stone. The two-story basketball gymnasium rises up on the right of the building, with the rest of the school sprawled out in one flat-roofed level on the left.

  I park as close to the front doors as I can get—which isn’t very—and lug my leather backpack down the front walk and into the enormous cafeteria/locker corridor that’s just inside. The cafeteria space is a big pit in the middle of several walls of lockers. I stop off at mine, leaving my cell phone and backpack inside, and grabbing my books for homeroom, first, and second periods.

  On the way to homeroom, I pass my friends Makayla and Sunny, headed to their room across the hall from mine.

  “Cute shorts,” Sunny says. “Lookin’ good.”

  “If you get bored,” Makayla calls as we pass each other, “draw me a diagram.”

  “Ha, ha.”

  The three of us have anatomy sixth period, and Makayla thinks it’s funny how good I am at drawing diagrams. We have a running private joke that I should be a dirty diagram drawer when I’m older—like, for penises or sex toys.

  My own homeroom class is pretty boring. There are twenty other kids—none of them my close friends—and mostly we just do our homework and listen to intercom announcements while our handler, the sophomore English teacher, Mrs. Zorn, reads romance novels.

  I take my usual seat on the second row and open my big, blue binder while Mrs. Z
orn reads us announcements. In the binder, there’s a plastic pouch, and in it, there are gel pens. Some that smell, others that sparkle. I prefer the rich colors: eggplant purple, ocean blue, sunset pink, lipstick red. I blow most of my time in homeroom color-coding my day planner like the closet geek I am. That’s what I’m doing when someone knocks on our door.

  Mrs. Zorn looks up from her paperback. “Come in,” she sing-songs.

  The door opens, revealing a short girl with pink hair and teal green glasses; I recognize her as one of the seniors who works in the office in the morning. She’s holding a note.

  “Could you come here?” she whispers loudly, smiling conspiratorially like she has some big news.

  Mrs. Zorn sets her paperback on her desk and disappears into the hallway. When she re-emerges, there’s a tall guy on her heels. She moves aside, and my gel pen pauses mid-word.

  The boy standing beside her is the physical equivalent of a secret, and in looking at him, I just heard it whispered straight down to my soul. His face…I recognize it: the stark jawline, the high cheekbones, the thick, romantic lips, those eyes.

  Those eyes.

  They’re slate gray, topped with strong brows, and when they settle on me, they make me feel like he can speak in blinks. He blinks—confirmation!—and my stomach does a slow roll.

  “Students—this is James.”

  A wave of murmured sound rolls down the rows of desks. The boy’s mouth tightens, and I think I see his shoulders tense. They’re really wide, I notice. Almost jocky, but he’s not a jock. I can tell because his face is slightly pale, making his cinnamon hair look more brown than red. There are smudges underneath his eagle eyes, and tautness about his body that says something different than “athletic.”

  He looks like someone just threw a rock at him.

  Standing there, two heads taller than Mrs. Zorn, in a plain white T-shirt and worn jeans, he looks skeptical and annoyed. Like he’s been led into our classroom by mistake. He has the sort of self-possessed, don’t-mess-with-me vibe some teachers have, but on him, it’s coupled with that tight-shouldered, closed-fistedness that makes him seem uncomfortable.

  Mrs. Zorn touches his arm, and his thick brows tighten.

  “Over here…” She points toward the empty desk directly to my left. I watch him move to it with long, quick strides. He fits his big, tall body into it, and I feel mesmerized. He rests one arm atop his desk and blinks at Carly Moore’s blonde ponytail.

  Mrs. Zorn looks from him to me. “Evie, can you share…perhaps a sheet of paper and a pen?”

  It takes me a second to pull my eyes away from his bent head and notice that she’s talking to me. “Sure. No problem.”

  I take a piece of paper from my binder, and then decide he may need more and pull a whole stack out. I put a hunter green gel pen atop the stack and hold it out. Amazement glimmers through me as his bent head lifts. His gray gaze slides to mine.

  Zoing!

  I feel it in my belly, like I just swallowed a moving pinball.

  He takes the pen and papers. I stare at his hand, then I realize I’m staring. My gaze rushes to his face, and then I’m blinking.

  Startled. That’s the way I feel. Like I can’t catch my breath.

  I try a smile. “Hope you like glitter pens.”

  He looks down at the paper. Takes the pen. Finally, he glances my way and says, “Thanks,” in a voice that’s low and rough.

  I smile. I don’t even have the wherewithal to speak.

  Homeroom is mostly over, so I spend the next fifteen minutes pretending to make notes in my planner while I watch him. As he puts a thick arm on his desk and curls it around his papers. As he rubs a fingertip over the top page. As he takes the top off my pen and draws something.

  I feel slightly strained. Like I’m waiting for something, except what would it be? Just when I really start to feel unnerved, the bell rings. He disappears before I even shut my planner.

  I think about him during second period, and third. About the way his eyes made me feel. About the way his…everything—his whole body, demeanor, voice—made me feel…this sense of urgency. Like I needed something, and it was about to slip through my fingers. It’s one of the weirdest things I’ve ever experienced. I’ve almost managed to convince myself I’m inflating things in my memory when I sit by my best friend Makayla at our lunchroom table, and I spot him at a table out in front of me.

  She follows my gaze, and lifts her eyebrows. “Who’s he?”

  “New guy. He was in my homeroom.” I watch his hands come to his ears and realize he’s sliding ear buds in.

  “Who? What?” Our good friend Tia sits across from us, sliding her tray over the faux wood table. Her long, straight black hair swings as she leans over to cram a slice of pizza into her mouth. “I wanna know…”

  I watch the new guy as Makayla points him out to Tia, and she turns to glance at him.

  “That wasn’t obvious.” Makayla rolls her eyes as Tia’s boyfriend, Jake, sits down beside T, and then we have to fill him in. Jake is followed by Pax, Sunny, Luc, and Savannah, the rest of our lunch crew.

  Unlike the new boy, with his pale skin and serious eyes, we’re at the jock table. I’m the least jocky among us—I only play soccer—but these guys have been my friends since grade school. Like me, they’re all from families who’ve lived in Asheville for a while. Our parents know each other. A lot of the kids further down the table fall into that same bracket.

  I keep stealing glances between Tia and Jake’s heads, watching James as he bends slightly over the table. From where I’m sitting, it looks like his hands are under it, one of them maybe drumming on his knee. I think he’s moving slightly, too—maybe to some beat.

  I feel a pang as I look around his table. The kids over there are mostly outcasts, either because they’re jerks or because they seem…unusual. CeCe, a pigtailed girl a few seats down from James, was my partner last year on an English project. She’s super nice, but also painfully shy. She really only likes to talk about the works of Chaucer. Which is fine, but makes her no one’s number one pick for conversation.

  “That’s my shirt!” Pax’s shout cuts through my thoughts. He’s on the other side of Makayla, but he’s so much taller than her that I can see his angry face as he half-stands, pointing across the room. “That fucker’s got my shirt on. I can see the dye stain!”

  “What?”

  Pax is up and moving before I understand what’s going on. Around the end of our table, past two others, coming at the new guy from behind. I want to scream, but all I can think is he’s wearing headphones. James is wearing headphones.

  He doesn’t see Pax before Pax’s hand is on his shoulder. They’re too far away for me to hear what’s said, but James looks up, and even from back here, I can see his mouth tighten. Pax says something angrily, and then holds out his hand.

  “Oh my God,” Makayla says.

  More heads start to turn their way, and James stands up. Pax’s arms are out. James’s are at his sides. Then Pax shoves him in between his pecs. My stomach drops.

  Pax says something, waving his arms.

  I see James shaking his head.

  Pax grabs James’s collar, and that’s when time jumps forward. James moves so fast, I can’t even track the movement. I see him shove Pax, hard, and Pax goes sprawling backwards. He crashes into a table—someone’s plate goes flying and a girl jumps up, screaming—and then I can’t see. Everyone in the lunch room is on their feet. I peek between heads and shoulders, so I see James standing above Pax, who is crouching on the floor.

  James steps back, wide shoulders pumping, arms still partway out, and then Pax grabs him by his legs, and they’re both on the floor. Two security guards in red shirts hop into the pit and, shortly after, Pax and James are led off with their arms behind their backs. My heart’s still pounding as my friends and I look, wide-eyed, at each other.

  “That was his shirt!” Tia says, her mouth agape. “I could see the dye, too. I dyed Pax’s hair bl
ue for powder puff last year, remember? He was wearing a white undershirt, and blue got in this spot—” she motions with her own hands, “near the armpit of the shirt.”

  Ever the most logical among us, Makayla sits back down; we follow.

  “You think he could see that from back here?” Makayla asks.

  “Fucking Pax,” Jake says. “That was dumb as hell. He’ll be benched the first game or two; I know coach won’t take that shit from him again.”

  Luc, another football player, groans. “Somebody’s gotta get that brother off the ’roids.”

  Sunny slaps her boyfriend on the arm. “I hope you’re kidding. Y’all aren’t really taking steroids…?”

  “God, no.” He rolls his eyes. “This is high school, Sunny, not the NFL.”

  “I’m pretty sure they test for those,” Makayla says, eating a french fry.

  I’m surprised when, soon, the bell rings.

  “That went fast,” I say to Makayla as we grab our books.

  “The entertainment.” She wags her eyebrows, but her face looks unhappy. “I hope he doesn’t get suspended.”

  Pax and Makayla have this…thing together. I’m not sure what it is. Not friends with benefits; it’s more like cat fights and kisses.

  “Do you think it’s really his shirt?”

  She shrugs. “Not worth college admission over, though, or football for that matter.”

  “Preach it, sistah.”

  Stupid Pax.

  As Makayla and I part ways and I walk toward my next class, I wonder how or why the new guy might have had his shirt. I’m thinking so hard about it that when I reach the door to my pre-calculus class, I groan. I’m holding my morning books—my calculus textbook not among them. I was so distracted I forgot to swing by my locker after lunchtime.

  Crap.

  I turn and take off down the hall, moving back in the direction of the cafeteria, gym, and office. I’m passing by one of the computer labs when the office door ahead opens, and someone steps into the hall. One blink and— white T-shirt! My stomach does a barrel roll, because it’s him. He just came out of the office.