by Callie Hart
Jacob feigns shock. “No need to overreact. Just thought you might like to play us a few songs or something. No harm, no foul.”
But there has been harm. There’s been more than one foul on Jacob Weaving’s part. He’s a pig. A psycho. An evil, twisted, disgusting excuse for a human being, and I hate him with every fiber of my seventeen-year-old being. I grab the purple sparkly ballot box Mr. French thrust at me when I arrived at detention thirty minutes ago, swing my bag onto my back, and I get to my feet. A loud screeching sound fills the room as my chair legs scrape the floor, and Jacob sits back, lacing his fingers together, stacking them on top of his stomach as he observes me heading for the door.
“Abandoning detention before you’ve been dismissed? So brave, Parisi. Your courage makes my dick hard.”
I kick at the screwed-up paper littering the floor by French’s desk. Yanking open the door, I pause before I leave, casting a disgusted look back at him over my shoulder. “We both know it isn’t my courage that makes your shriveled-up dick hard, Jake. You prefer it when I’m screaming and afraid, don’t you?”
A cold, detached viciousness settles into the handsome lines of his face. Because Jacob Weaving is handsome. He’s the hottest guy at Raleigh. He’s tall, and he’s ripped, and there was once a time when the sight of him smiling would have made me weak at the knees. Not anymore, though. Now, when he smiles, all I see are the many lies and the secrets, lurking just beneath the surface of his privileged, All-American demi-god charm, and it makes me want to puke. It makes me want to claw my way, broken and bleeding out of my own skin, so that I no longer have to be me anymore.
“Careful, Parisi,” he snarls under his breath. “Your fall from grace has been pretty hard already. Wouldn’t wanna go making things worse for yourself.”
My own smile is a ruined, sour thing. “Worse?” I want to laugh, but I’m afraid to. My body’s been betraying me lately; It can’t be trusted to carry out the simplest of tasks. No matter what emotion I try to project, I end up displaying the exact opposite, and I cannot afford to cry in front of Jake Weaving right now. I draw in a deep breath, stepping out into the empty hallway, and I let the door swing closed behind me. Jake’s eyes remain on me, burning into my skin like twin brands, until the door clicks shut and he’s gone.
I’m going to be in shit for bailing on detention, but I don’t care. Sometimes, it’s as though even the Raleigh faculty are in on this sick, twisted game I’ve found myself caught up in. They know about Jake. They know about our history, and yet they’re still willing to leave us alone, unsupervised in a room together after school hours?
Madness.
Pure and absolute madness.
I check the watch at my wrist, Mickey Mouse on its face, grinning, one arm longer than the other, pointing out the hour and the minutes, and I hiss between my teeth. It’s almost four p.m. which means Mr. French will be coming by to cut us loose any moment. My boots ring out, my footfall echoing loudly off the unending row of scuffed grey lockers that line the hallway, and I fight the urge to run head-on for the exit. This always happens. I’m terrified the corridor will never end. That I’ll find myself striving toward it forever, reaching out to push the chipped pale blue painted door open, but it’s always just out of reach. Or when I get there, it’s locked, and no matter how hard I push, rattle it, or plead with it to open, I’m stuck inside this hellhole of a building for the rest of time.
I do reach the door, though. When I push on it, palms pressed flat against the wood, it inches back quickly, and a jolt of relief makes my body feel momentarily numb. Outside, the late autumnal air smells like freedom. I can taste it. On the other side of the emptied-out parking lot, my old Nova is sitting there, waiting for me to climb inside, start the engine, and get the hell out of here, but—
I can hear voices.
Principle Darhower’s deep baritone voice has been a daily staple of my life for the past four years; it’s easily recognizable. I don’t know the woman’s voice, though—firm and authoritative—nor the male voice, thick with a southern accent, that speaks after her.
“We understand this isn’t an ideal situation. For you or your faculty. If it were up to us, the boy'd already be in for a couple of years over in Swanson County, but the judge ruled he was still classed as a minor.”
“What about juvenile detention?” Principle Darhower says, his tone tight with tension.
I creep back from the exit, allowing the portal to my freedom to fall closed. I’m silent as a church mouse as I tiptoe along the hallway to my left. No one notices me as I peer around the corner, into the hallway that branches off toward Darhower’s office. There, Darhower’s ramrod straight in his trademark stance, arms folded across his chest, head canted to one side, the stark strip lighting overhead bouncing off the small bald patch at the back of his skull that he’s always so diligently trying to hide. Opposite him, a thin, tall woman in a grey pantsuit is leafing through a stack of papers, frowning as she tries to find something. The man next to her is wearing a uniform. The ‘Grays Harbor County Sherriff’s Department’ badge on the sleeve of his dark green bomber jacket tells me everything I need to know about him.
The Deputy sighs, removing his hat and scrubbing the back of his hand against his forehead. He looks stressed. “Juvie’s not an option in this particular case. The facility in Wellson Falls has been shut down. We’d have to transfer him out of state if we really wanted to pursue the charges, and the paperwork alone is just…” He trails off, and Principle Darhower heaves a sigh of his own.
“I don’t need to tell you how disruptive something like this is to our students. The school year might have only just started, but our seniors are already buckling down and prepping for college. We have plenty of our own bad apples. Another trouble maker stalking the halls of Raleigh is only going to make life harder for the good kids.”
“Jim, we know, believe me.” The woman in the grey pantsuit seems to have found what she was looking for. She holds out a green file to Darhower, and I take a look at her face properly for the first time. Mid to late thirties. Dark hair. Dark eyes. I suppose she’s quite pretty. There’s a sad, tiredness to her that makes her look like a kicked puppy, though. I can picture her opening a bottle of wine when she gets home at night, telling herself she deserves a glass after the day she’s had, and then before she knows it, she’s polished off the entire bottle. She’s a social worker, no doubt about it.
She called Darhower by his first name, which means she’s dealt with him before. Darhower grimaces as he takes the file from her, briefly opening it and glancing at the first page, then closing it quickly, as if he can’t face its contents. “I guess I don’t really have a say in the matter then,” Darhower says. “He starts on Monday.”
The social worker and the sheriff’s deputy trade a glance that looks relieved even from where I’m standing. All three of them shift as if some unspoken command has been issued to them, and they head toward the door that leads to the principal’s office. That’s when I realize there’s been a fourth person there the entire time. With Darhower and the deputy standing so close together, blocking my view, I just hadn’t seen the guy sitting on the chair to their right.
He’s young. My age. His dark hair is almost black, shaved close at the sides, longer on top, thick and wavy. He’s both stretched out and slumped in the chair at the same time, artfully arranged into a position of careless boredom, the soles of his booted feet almost reaching the opposite wall of the hallway. His clothes are dark and simple—grey jeans, and a plain black t-shirt. Tattoos stain the skin of his bare arms. To the left of his chair, a black motorcycle helmet sits on the floor, along with a beaten, ratty looking canvas bag, covered in patches. I only see his face in profile. His eyes are closed, his fingers pressing into his brow like he’s nursing a headache. The cut of his jawline is strong, as is the high slope of his cheekbone. His mouth…I can’t really see his mouth.
He’s silent, he’s still—unbelievably still, actually—but th
This stranger, though…
He’s an unknown. An outside threat. There’s nothing about the way he’s sprawled out in that chair that tells me what motivates or drives him. He holds himself with a kind of self-possessed arrogance that makes me want to climb inside my locker and hide there until the end of term. From the sounds of things, he’s up to his neck in trouble, and whatever he did almost landed him in prison.
As if he senses that he’s being watched, the guy slowly opens his eyes, lowering his hand from his face. I suck in a startled breath, kicking myself for lingering so long when I should have slipped away three minutes ago. He doesn’t turn to look at me, though; he only turns his head a little, slightly angling it in my direction. His eyes remain glued to the floor, but I can feel him notice me. The ghost of a smile plays over his mouth, which I can now see is full and perfectly fucking formed.
Great.
Just…great.
Before I can turn and flee for my life, the social worker reemerges from Darhower’s office and stands in front of the guy with one hand on her hip. She looks down at him with clear and obvious frustration. “All right, Alex. I’m not gonna bother with the talk. We both know there’s no point. You need to be here Monday morning, eight a.m. You need to register for your classes, and then you need to show up for them. Understand?”
The guy’s still frozen in place, his head slightly tilted in my direction. His smile forms properly now, a little lopsided, a little off-center, more than a little sardonic. He slowly turns his face up to look her in the eye. “You got it, Maeve. Monday morning. Loud and clear. Nowhere else I’d rather be.”
He has an accent, but nothing so evident as the deputy’s southern twang. The subtle, faint lilt to his words makes his voice sound almost musical, and the hairs on the back of my neck stand to attention.
We haven’t had a new kid at Raleigh for well over three years. My existence here is a living hell, and has been for some time, but it’s a predictable hell. I’m not safe within the walls of this building, but at least I know what to expect. I know who I need to avoid, and I know which corridors I just can’t walk down. Come Monday morning, a new element will have been introduced to my already complicated, fragile ecosystem of hate, and I already know this Alex person is going to make things harder for me.
The entire football team is going to be on canvasing hard for him. He’s tall, he’s broad, and he looks like he doesn’t take any shit. Jacob will want him on the team, no matter what. Whoever he is, this new guy looks like he could pose a threat to Jacob, and he will not like that. He won’t like that one bit. He’ll want to control him, the way he controls everyone else. Jacob will want this Alex guy inducted into the Raleigh Roughnecks crew quickly, which can mean only one thing: one more person to despise me. Another mindless member, added to their ranks, charged with the task of making my life as unbearable as physically possible.
I pull back, turn, and finally head for the exit, a cold, oily dread settling in my veins. This isn’t good. I can feel it in my bones. I really shouldn’t be all that surprised, though. Just when I thought things can’t get worse…they do.
They always do. That’s just how things at Raleigh go.
2
SILVER
For the most hated girl at school, my home life is surprisingly normal. My parents are still together—increasingly rare—and I have a younger brother, who interferes in my shit twenty-four seven, as little brothers like to do. Mom works at a local accounting firm, and Dad is an architectural engineer. We have some money. Not a lot, but enough. We live in a good neighborhood. Our house is a beautiful old Colonial with a wraparound porch and painted blue shutters. Every Sunday, we visit my grandmother at the Regency Park Retirement Community, and she feeds me baked ziti and tells me stories about ‘The Old Country,’ otherwise known as Italy.
Between the hours of eight in the morning and two thirty in the afternoon, I might be a social pariah, scorned, laughed at, shoved and tripped. But at home, I’m just Sil: much-loved daughter, goofy older sister, and doted on granddaughter. One more year and I’ll be able to get the hell out of Raleigh and start at a college where no one knows my name. I don’t even care which college I end up going to, so long as I don’t know a single fucking soul there.
Saturday morning brings an early acceptance letter that has my mom dancing around the kitchen, singing my praises before we’ve even eaten breakfast. I get back from my morning run, and she’s still in her pinstriped pajamas, her hair all ruffled and sticking up from her pillow, and the smile on her face makes me want to hurl myself up the stairs and lock myself in my bedroom for the rest of time. She doesn’t know. I haven’t told her a thing about what’s been happening with me for the past nine months, and I’m not planning on telling her, either. She has enough on her plate with work and with Max, and I don’t want to add to her troubles.
The signs are all there, though. I used to go out on the weekends. I used to hang out at my friends’ houses. Every now and again, a cute boy used to wait out front for me in a pick-up every morning to take me to school. Now I spend my weekends studying, playing guitar, and reading books. Now, I drive myself to school in the beaten-up old Nova dad bought for me at the beginning of summer. Now, I don’t smile anywhere near as often as I used to.
A part of me is angry that she hasn’t noticed.
“Jesus, Sil. You didn’t tell us you were applying to Dartmouth.” Mom holds up a torn open envelope and a sheet of paper, waving it in my face. “Can you believe this? I can’t believe this.” She clears her throat. “Dear Ms. Parisi. Upon reviewing your application, we are pleased to announce that we have chosen to confer a ‘likely’ status upon you. Please note, our final acceptance of your application will not be confirmed until March of next year, but you can assume your ‘likely’ status will ensure your entrance to Dartmouth, should you maintain your current record of achievement and personal integrity!”
She speaks normally to begin with but then slips into an English accent part way through. By the end of the statement, she’s talking like Kate Middleton and screaming with excitement. “Silver!” She grabs me by the shoulders, shaking me. “I can’t believe you got a ‘likely’ letter from fucking Dartmouth.”
“Mom! No swearing!” Max’s high, reedy voice calls from the living room.
“Sorry, sweetheart, that is a bad word,” she calls. “I got carried away. Did you know that your sister’s a genius?”
“I did begin to suspect when she walked into that glass door at Olive Garden,” he replies flatly. Little bastard. I’m gonna have to tickle the crap out of him later. For an eleven-year-old, he really does possess a surprisingly accurate understanding of sarcasm.
I take the paper from Mom’s hand, scanning the words there, printed in black and white, plain as day. I wait for the wave of triumph that should wash over me (this is a seriously big deal, after all) but it doesn’t come. Somehow, I feel even emptier than I did before I walked in through the front door.
“Aren’t you happy, Honey?” Mom asks, tucking a rogue strand of hair back behind my ear. “I thought there was going to be more…I don’t know, hysterical jumping around?” She turns, heading for the kitchen counter, where it looks like she was in the process of making pancake batter.
“You shouldn’t have opened it,” I say quietly.
“Hmm?”
“It was addressed to me, right? The letter? You shouldn’t have opened it.”
Her head whips up, and I see her instant guilt. Her eyes are the same color as mine, blue as cornflowers and spring skies. The excitement in them fades, and it’s as if her entire face has clouded over. “God, you’re right. I just went out of my head when I saw the address stamp. I’ve been opening mail for you your entire life. I forget sometimes that you’re almost an adult now. I’m sorry, Sil. I won’t do that again.”
Damn. I feel shitty now. I didn’t mean to make her feel bad. It’s not a big deal, and I wouldn’t have usually even said anything, but the twisted, gnarled knot of anxiety that I woke up with this morning only worsened while I was out on my run, and I feel like I’m edging toward a complete nervous break right now. I don’t say any of this to Mom, naturally. I give her a tight-lipped smile, placing the letter from Dartmouth down on the kitchen counter, and I head for the stairs.
“Where are you off to, sweetheart?”
“I need to shower. I’m covered in sweat.”
“Okay, well hurry up, okay. Dan asked me to finish up on an urgent account. They need their third quarter paperwork first thing on Monday, so I have to head to the office for a couple of hours. I thought we could eat together before I leave.”
“Okay.” I feel numb as I trudge up to the second floor. Luckily, my room has an en-suite, and I get to shower without Max banging on the door, harassing me. Once I’m dressed, I go back down to the kitchen, where the table is heaving under the weight of all the food Mom’s laid out for us.
“Cute outfit,” she says when she sees me. “Overalls were crazy popular when I was your age, too. Are dreads back yet? I always wanted dreads. Didn’t think I could pull them off. I used to sing in a Bob Marley tribute band. D’you know that?” She belts out the first line of ‘Buffalo Soldier,’ and I smile despite myself. I thank my lucky stars that I have her as a parent most days. She could be an uptight, overbearing, maniacal overlord type, but she’s pretty laid back as it goes. She doesn’t try too hard. She’s not watching me like a hawk twenty-four hours a day, firing out orders and telling me what I can and can’t do. She’s also not constantly trying to be my best friend. She’s just her. She’s just Mom, secure in her role, typically fair and reasonable. But yeah. Also weird.
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