The Goodnight Kiss

by Jennifer L. Hart

  “Hey.” A familiar voice startles me from my contemplation.

  I glance up and paste on a smile for Sarah’s devoted fanboy. “Hey, Glen.”

  Glen is what books often refer to as a “late bloomer.” His body is pudgy from hours spent sitting in front of his computer, playing online games and scarfing Doritos and Mountain Dew. His pallor is milky and spotted with acne and his dark hair is always a mess. He has a decadent crop of freckles and an obvious overbite. He’s Sarah’s neighbor and is hopelessly in lust with her. She, in return, occasionally chooses to acknowledge his existence.

  Glen shifts from foot to foot. “Were you guys, uh, out again last night?”

  It’s too soon for reports to come in about Paul Anderson’s disappearance and Glen isn’t exactly looped in to the police bandwidth. Most likely he’s on a fishing expedition about Sarah’s love life. She’d indicated the lie about the French paper was meant for her mother, but I doubt she’d appreciate Glen knowing her business either. “Yeah, big project in French. We pulled an all-nighter.” The wood chipper had, anyway.

  “Okay, well. Good. I guess that’s good. Better that she wasn’t at home.” Glen readjusts the backpack on his shoulder as though it’s giving him discomfort.

  “Joe crawl back into the bottle?” It’s not a guess but a certainty. The piece of human trash is even worse when he’s under the influence.

  He nods. “And I think they got into a fight or something. The police were there.” His puppy dog brown eyes go wide as Sarah emerges from her Japanese chrysalis looking daisy fresh and dressed to kill.

  So to speak.

  “The police were where?” she asks, tugging her mini skirt down over her ass by a whole three inches. The dress code brigade will probably send her home early for that look.

  “Um,” Glen glances over his shoulder, unwilling to make eye contact with his goddess.

  “Spit it out, Penguin Man.” Sarah’s brow furrows as she scowls at him.

  I have no idea the source of this nickname. He looks nothing like a penguin to me. Must be an inside joke, one on Glen instead of with him because he never appears pleased when she rolls it out. Maybe I should ask about its origins, but I don’t particularly care.

  Glen makes a whimpering sound but doesn’t answer.

  “Your house,” I supply. Glen shoots me a grateful look. I’m somebody’s savior, go figure.

  Sarah digests the news then apparently shrugs it off. “Come on, Nic. I need to hit the can before first.”

  Our school, like many of the teachers within, is old, gray and haggard. It sits on a hilltop overlooking a lush country side, an ugly blemish on the face of otherwise pristine landscape. The main building is one sprawling story surrounded by a few scraggly trailers to hold the overflow classes that aren’t considered important enough to warrant a room inside the original structure. Once upon a time it was just meant to be a high school but then the housing market burst, people moved out of the area and the middle school ended up being split, with sixth grade conjoined with the elementary level and seventh and eighth graders stuffed into our building as part of the junior/senior high school.

  The seventh graders are puny compared to the seniors and have developed the survival habit of flattening themselves against lockers or the walls so they aren’t trampled. They all have the look of frightened deer and the upperclassmen smirk at them like cats toying with the mice they plan to eat.

  Sarah’s feigned nonchalance disappears when we reach the lavatory. A seventh-grade girl is washing her hands at the sink. She jumps when the door crashes open.

  “Get. Out.” Sarah’s eyes narrow.

  The girl obeys, leaving with the faucet still running.

  “You okay?” It’s the correct thing to ask even if it’s obvious she isn’t.

  “Peachy.” Sarah stalks into a stall. “God, Nic. Can we just leave this freaking place already?”

  I have no intention of leaving and I’m certain Sarah doesn’t want to go anywhere either. It’s more of a game we play. “Where should we go?”

  She’s silent a minute, except for the typical bathroom sounds. The toilet flushes and then she slides out of the stall, one hand on the door as if it’s holding her up. “California.”

  I lean back between the hand dryers, crossing my arms over my chest. “And what will we do when we get there?”

  “Find a bar. On the beach. Hook up with a couple of surfers.”

  I raise a brow. “Just you or am I included in this?”

  “Bitch,” she says playfully.

  “Takes one to know one.”

  The bell rings, the warning one.

  “Fuck,” Sarah runs her fingers through her hair. “I gotta go. If I’m late again, Mrs. Gordon will kill me.”

  “I doubt that.” I say and head off to my own homeroom.

  My first class is Microsoft Word and Excel, a mixed class for sophomores, juniors and seniors. I can’t bother to give a shit about computers, but it was one of the few electives open to me. I’m not an artist nor do I much care about music. Computer work is drudgery, but it’s better than pretending my soul has something to express.

  That’s for my free time.

  There’s someone sitting in my usual spot, facing the desktop, a senior by the size of him. His back is to me, but his shoulders are massive, his back broad.

  We don’t have assigned seats, so I shrug and look around for an open terminal. There’s one directly behind his screen facing him and one at the other end of the room next to Glen. He waves to me, indicating the open spot.

  I quickly circle the row and sit opposite the seat thief. I made the mistake of sitting beside Glen once and all he did was pepper me with questions about Sarah and tell me drawn-out stories about how they would play naked together in a plastic pool when they were toddlers. Back before her mother hooked up with her abusive husband. While he talked, I fantasized about luring Glen out behind the equipment shed, giving him a quick peck then stuffing his lifeless carcass in between the soccer cones and the lacrosse sticks. Temptation is best kept at a distance.

  “Did I take your seat?” A deep masculine bass rumbles the question.

  All the hairs stand on my arms at the sound of that voice. I don’t realize he’s talking to me until there is a tap against my foot. I tilt my head around the monitor so I can see him and freeze.

  Bright green eyes, the color of new spring leaves stare back.

  The wolf. Only he isn’t a wolf any longer.

  A Wolf in Man’s Clothing

  It takes me a moment to realize he’s waiting for an answer. By the time I recall the question—had he taken my seat—the final bell is ringing.

  He flashes me a smile, even white teeth bared for just an instant, then he disappears behind his terminal. The announcements begin over the PA, but I tune them out.

  How did he know that is where I typically sit? Why would he care?

  The announcements end. Our teacher, Mr. Alcott, is a small man with a bald pate, horned rimmed glasses and a push broom mustache. His clothes are always wrinkled, his manner perpetually exhausted. He rises and begins with attendance.

  A foot taps against mine once. I look down and see the large boot belonging to the seat stealing wolf-man encroaching on my space. His legs are long. I have yet to see him standing, but I judge that he’s over six feet tall, at least as a man. His footwear is not sensible hiking boots or even caterpillars. No, his boots are scuffed and black, like military combat boots. The tops disappear beneath well-worn and perfectly faded jeans. He doesn’t move his foot. I can’t tell if the action is deliberate or accidental.

  “Nic Rutherford?” Mr. Alcott says my name in such a way that I know I missed the first call.

  “Here,” I mumble, sliding my foot away from the boot a bit.

  The foot moves, slowly, creeping closer to my side as if in search of contact. Definitely deliberate. I shift away again.

  The teacher proceeds on down the list and then switches to instru
ction mode like some sort of badly dressed robot.

  “Today,” Mr. Alcott drones in his perennially bland voice, forcing me to focus on the screen in front of me instead of the guy whose boot is once again touching mine. “I want you to start exercise three in creating spreadsheets.”

  I think about kicking the seat thief, then decide to just ignore the contact. It’s not like he’s touching me directly, just the material of his foot covering pressing against the material of mine. Even still, it feels...intimate. Much too familiar for a stranger.

  Who is the wolf man? If we had a new student, Mr. Alcott would have introduced him. His face isn’t one I’ve seen before. Not that I pay any particular attention to faces, unless they belong to one of my victims, but it’s a small school. Everyone knows everyone else.

  After creating my spreadsheet, I glance around the room to see if anyone is looking at the new kid, whispering about him. Nothing. Glen is picking his nose, his finger vanishing up the appendage to the second knuckle. The small girl beside him is studiously working on her spreadsheet. The two girls to my immediate right are texting, probably to each other. The boy on the end appears to be asleep. It’s as if the wolf boy has always been here, a part of this class.

  “Is there a problem, Ms. Rutherford?” Mr. Alcott has chosen today of all days to pretend to give a shit if we do the lesson. The textettes swiftly stash their bedazzled phones so they don’t get confiscated.

  “No.” I don’t feel embarrassed. If forced to name the emotion coursing through my body, it would be frustration. Why does no one else acknowledge the green-eyed newcomer?

  Maybe only I can see him. It’s an unsettling thought. Oracles, visionaries, any individuals who see differently from the population at large don’t lead contented lives. Historically speaking, they were typically stoned to death, burned at the stake or locked away in some sort of asylum.

  I have enough secrets already.

  “Then let’s get to work.” With his mantle of feigned authority swathed about him once more, Mr. Alcott wanders back to his desk.

  Throughout the rest of the period I focus on the spreadsheet. Mental discipline is a skill I’ve worked hard to attain. The green-eyed boy taps his foot against mine a few more times, until I tuck them beneath my chair.

  The bell rings. All around me chairs scrape against the floor and out in the hall feet thunder to lockers or restrooms, the sounds of laughter mingles with a few shouts. Mr. Alcott, an unapologetic caffeine addict, beelines for the teacher’s lounge for a hit before the next class. I dither with saving my work, hoping to catch the newcomer alone.

  By the time I rise, the seat across from me is empty.

  I stride over to the teacher’s desk, and thumb through the attendance roll, searching shamelessly for a name I don’t recognize.

  It’s there right on the first page, with a neat check mark next to it to show he was present. Aiden Jager.

  It must be him. I know all the other names listed, have known them for years. If he’s on the list, other people can see him, too. So how come there’s no gossip, no chatter about a new student?

  It’s almost as if he’s been here all along.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Sarah leans in the doorway to shout. “I’m pretty sure Alcott keeps all his meth in his trailer.”

  “Do you know Aiden Jager?” I ask as I join her in the hall.

  She looks at me as though I’m an idiot. “Um, yeah. Don’t you?”

  I shake my head. “He just showed up in my Microsoft class.”

  “So? He probably transferred in.” Sarah shrugs it off.

  “This late in the semester?” I scan the halls to see if I can spot him. He’s down to the left, right outside my civics classroom, talking to Jim Harris. Jim’s a senior and captain of the football team, tall and muscled. This is the first opportunity I’ve had to see Aiden standing and my breathing patterns shift, coming in short, jerky inhales. He’s roughly the same size and weight as Jim, but every part of him is...flawless. Though Jim is more classically handsome, blond hair, blue eyes, all aw-shucks Ma’am, he’s obviously a normal. His nose is too long, and he has a few zits and his posture is horrendous.

  Not Aiden though. There is not one imperfect thing about him. They are laughing and slapping hands in a way that indicates they’ve known each other a long time.

  “How long have you known him? Where does he live?”

  Sarah gives me an odd look. “What’s with the interrogation?” Then her face cracks. “No, wait. Don’t tell me. You’ve finally spotted someone you wanna bone!”

  “It’s not like that.” The words sound hollow, even to me. “There’s something strange about him.”

  Sarah turns to face me, putting one hand on each of my shoulders. “My wittle Nic is growing up. Is it time for the whole birds and bees chat? I’ll put it on my calendar.”

  Sometimes Sarah pushes her luck.

  I have to brush past Aiden to enter the classroom. He doesn’t move at all when I pass. As though he wants the contact, minimal though it may be. I mutter an insincere, “’Scuse me,” and take my usual seat beside Gretchen Hamill.

  Gretchen has the unfortunate distinction of being the largest student in our high school. And one of the worst dressed. Her clothes always seem at least a size too small for her, as though whoever is buying them is trying to shame her into losing weight. She always looks uncomfortable. It must be tough, being obese as a teenager, especially at mealtimes. Insecure losers always hawk what’s on her tray during lunch, as though it somehow affects them. If it’s pizza and cookies, they roll their eyes in an it figures kind of way. If it’s an apple and carrots, they snicker about her waiting too long to start the diet.

  There’s really no way to win with shits. Except my way. And even I haven’t kissed anyone just for being a garden variety asshole.

  “Hey,” I plop down next to Gretchen as the bell rings. “Do you know Aiden Jager?”

  She nods, her baby fine hair slipping from her ponytail holder. “Yeah, sure. Why?”

  “How do you know him?” I press. When she frowns at me in confusion I clarify, “Where have you seen him before, specifically?”

  She shrugs. “Just around school. Maybe in town a few times.”

  “Where in town? Can you recall a specific event?”

  Gretchen squirms and I’m not sure if it’s because of her skinny jeans that fit like sausage casings or my third degree. “I don’t know. Around. What’s it matter?”

  Aiden, who’s taken a seat diagonally in front of me, turns around and tosses me a wink.

  “Never mind,” I mutter and open my notebook.

  He shows up in every one of my classes for the rest of the day. Health, English, math. In each class I ask the students around me if they know him. Each one does, though they are unable to give specific examples. Not one teacher questions his presence. I’m not at all surprised to see him appear in chemistry, at the same work table.

  I fidget beneath that green gaze, feeling hunted.

  Ms. Delaney looks up briefly when the bell rings. “Do the series of experiments on page 198 of your textbooks. Take notes after each trial. Remember to wear your safety goggles.”

  “I hear you’ve been asking about me,” Aiden says as he settles on the stool opposite me. His scent hits me like someone left a window open. Cedar, sage and wildness. Breathing it in gives me a rush, like I want to strip off my clothes and run naked through the woods.

  With effort, I ignore his question and my own reaction, flipping through the text to the instructions and materials list. Bunsen burner, three flasks, tongs, ethanol, water and three strips of paper. I go to the cabinet to collect the materials needed. Already the room smells of gas from the burners.

  I return to the table, where Aiden lounges, a predator playing at rest.

  “You can ask me anything,” he offers. “I promise I’ll tell you the truth.”

  I raise an eyebrow at that, then put my safety goggles on. “I know enoug
h already.”

  “Like what?” Again, those white teeth flash with the challenge.

  I look around the room. The table full of jocks has managed to light their text on fire. Ms. Delaney arrives with a fire extinguisher at the ready, a resigned expression on her haggard face. Across the room there’s a crash as someone knocks a beaker to the floor. No one is paying attention to us. Even so, I lower my voice.

  “I know that you aren’t what you appear to be.”

  The corner of his mouth twitches, the movement playful “And you are?”

  I bite off the urge to ask what he knows about me. It won’t do to look guilty. Instead, I refocus on the experiment.

  One piece of paper goes into a beaker full of water, another into a beaker full of ethanol, and the third into a mixture of both.

  I draw a chart in my notebook, labeling trial 1, trial 2 and trial 3. Aiden hasn’t touched the green five star he carries. I have yet to see him open it in any class. For an odd moment I wonder if it’s a prop, something visual to help him blend in as a student. The way my bait clothes help me blend in at a club or a rave.

  The first piece of paper, the one soaked in water, doesn’t burn. Shocker. The second one, the one immersed in pure ethanol ignites.

  “Imagine that,” Aiden drawls. “Alcohol is flammable.”

  Not bothering to answer, I use my tongs to retrieve the third piece of paper, the one soaked in the mixture of water and ethanol and hold it to the open flame. For a moment nothing happens, then a quick flare as the fire ignites the alcohol.

  “Watch it!” Aiden barks.

  Startled, I drop the paper. The water protects it, but my sleeve, which has gotten too close to the burner, alights.

  I jump up, a scream working its way out of me, but before I can do anything, Aiden has a hold of my arm. There’s a searing pain as though the fire has reached my skin, but it dulls to a warm glow of contact.

  “You okay?” His hand falls away just as I’m getting used to the rare sensation of being touched.