I pulled my old Civic into a parking spot and grabbed my duffel from the back seat. I had to hurry. I was running late.
I scurried into Home Room and scooted into my seat, dropping my bag quietly onto the floor. Mrs. Dingle was going over the local news, as she did every morning. She felt it was her duty to keep us informed of what was going on around us, as if we were all so oblivious we wouldn’t find out otherwise. But then I realized something. She was probably right. The only reason I knew what was going on was because I went to sleep with the television on. I couldn’t tolerate silence. Or, better yet, I couldn’t tolerate the places my mind went in the silence. Either way, I heard the news whether I wanted to or not.
The first tidbit she force-fed us was the increase in the number of animal deaths. Farm animals were being mauled and brutally killed all over the area. The Wildlife Officers had neither confirmed nor denied speculation that there might be a pack of wolves or even a mountain lion terrorizing livestock in the region. As an avid animal lover, topics like that disturbed me, even more than those involving the Slayer, which was what Mrs. Dingle moved on to next.
Southmoore was a thriving city that lay just north of our small South Carolina town, Harker. For that reason, citizens and reporters alike had all been closely following the killings there. As a community, we hadn’t been put on lockdown yet, but if things got much worse up north or, heaven forbid, moved down south to us, our freedoms would be quickly and severely curtailed.
As she droned on, I let my mind wander. For some reason, it meandered straight down a path that led to the guy I’d seen at the field the day before. I could picture his face with perfect clarity, as I’d done countless times since yesterday. There was just something about those eyes.
Just then, as if a light tap had sounded on the inside of my skull, I looked up. There, standing in front of the lockers outside my classroom, was the object of my ruminations. He had obviously been walking somewhere. He had stopped, mid-stride, right in front of my Home Room door. He just stood there, staring at me with those hauntingly dark pools of chocolate.
I was immediately captivated. Looking into his eyes was like standing at the edge of a deep pond and gazing down into swirling, hypnotic waters, becoming mesmerized by them, trapped in them. I felt as if I couldn’t look away, not even if I had wanted to.
I have no idea how long we stared at each other that way, but when the bell rang, I jumped, blinking and looking around guiltily. When I looked back out into the hall, I was deflated to see only a row of gray lockers. There was no intriguing stranger standing in front of them anymore. He was gone.
I hopped up out of my desk and hurried to the hall, hoping to catch another glimpse of him, but I wasn’t fast enough. Floods of bustling bodies were already pouring out of all the classrooms. I scanned the sea of faces, but among them, I didn’t see the pale face for which I was searching.
Inordinately disappointed, I slowly made my way down the hall to my locker. I couldn’t help but ask myself why I was so interested in him, why it mattered where he went, why I cared.
With no answers rising to the surface, I put my duffel away and put books into my messenger bag to carry to class. I tried to convince myself that it was just curiosity that made him so noteworthy—normal, healthy curiosity—but in the back of my mind, I kept seeing his eyes. There was just something about those eyes.
The rest of the morning was nothing short of excruciating. The minutes of each class seemed to tick by at a snail’s pace. I caught myself watching the hallways more than the teacher and, between classes, watching every face that I passed, looking for a pair of compelling black-brown eyes. I never did find them, though, and the whole hide-and-seek thing just left me frustrated to the point of a headache.
Lunch was something of a reprieve, thank goodness, but only because I was surrounded by people who required an incredible amount of focus and attentiveness from everyone else around them. They were like solar panels and attention was like the sun. They absorbed it, absorbed us, and trust me, it’s not easy being the sun.
At our table on the covered concrete patio just outside the cafeteria, Drew sat on one side of me and Summer sat on the other.
I saw Trinity lean around Summer to address me. “Are you and Drew going to Caster’s party this weekend?”
The way she was eyeing me said she’d had to repeat herself, something Trinity found intolerable. There were few things that got under her skin more quickly than being ignored. I didn’t do it on purpose, of course. I was just preoccupied. But I knew that in a thousand years, Trinity would never understand how anything could be more interesting than our group discussions at lunchtime. She didn’t ask what I was thinking about and I didn’t volunteer.
“Caster’s party,” she snapped.
“Oh, sorry,” I said.
Trinity always gave the final say on social events, like what the group was doing, when we were doing it and who we were doing it with. She was like the popularity godmother. When she tapped her wand on a particular person or activity, it took on a life of its own. With her approval, the sky was the limit, a reputation could soar into the limelight. But with her disapproval, she could squash a person’s spirit under her heel like it was nothing more than a bothersome ant.
If I weren’t the captain of the cheer squad who happened to be dating the quarterback of the football team, she wouldn’t have given my input a second thought. But I was both of those coveted things, and it was my status—and my status alone— that prompted her to care what my plans were. Besides, she knew that my plans would likely include Drew, which in turn would likely include Devon.
One more year, one more year, one more year, I reminded myself, sick to death of all the high school games and drama.
“I don’t know,” I answered, turning to Drew. “Drew?”
“What?” He hadn’t been paying us the least bit of attention.
“Caster’s party. Wanna go?”
“Maybe,” he shrugged.
I turned back to Trinity. “Maybe.”
Her expression showed frustration and I knew she was reaching her patience threshold.
“How am I supposed to make plans if you two won’t make up your mind?”