My name is Tim Tharpe. I am fifteen years old going on thirty-two. Why thirty-two? Because it speaks to me that number. It tells me I live in a beach front house with glass walls, drink strong coffee of the shipped in exclusive type and wear expensive but laid back threads. But I’m not there yet. I’m here, living the good life in Wainscot, a fifteen-year-old computer genius slash blogger, living at home with the family housekeeper, cause my parent are rich assholes.

Now, people who know me usually fuck up pronouncing my name. So, before we begin getting personnel, I want you to get it straight in your head, because I don’t like to think of you messing up my name before you start fondling the pages of my story. I mean, I got standards, one of which, before I invite you jump on in beneath times new roman font twelve with me— it’s not really, it’s Georgia, but who gives a fuck, right? — I want you to at least be able to pronounce my god damn name. So, it’s Tim, easy peasy and, Tharp, like harp but with thhh, stuck at the front. Got it? Good. Now we can cozy on up and get personnel.

I’m a good looking guy— lucky you, wouldn’t be as much fun if I was twenty stone and had a skin condition named, pusszititis, or some shit along those lines now would it?

I have bright blue eyes, the type of colour that catches your attention and holds it. Sun kissed skin, glowing with youth and vitality of course. A strong jaw, and here’s the bummer. Drum roll please. I have a tongue that will never, like ever make sound you want to hear in any lifetime: It’s like a cross between and angry Shrek and wolf boy. No one wants to hear that sound, least of all me, so I keep it to myself and use the flip sign more than any other in my finger language skills. And hell, if I don’t deserve to. I might not have the gift of speech but damn if I’m not a fricking computer genius and what I’m seeing right now in teenage online trends, has me worried. So, here’s what I’m going to do— because I can’t just do nothing right? I have a moral obligation— Yeh I’m mute and I can talk grown up, shock fucking gasp— to do something, cause if your gonna commit suicide, you may as well get a laugh out of the whole process and maybe, just maybe discover life just aint the blog-worthy pile of crap you thought it was after all; Not with people like me to keep you smiling. And then, get this, you don't want to not see tomorrow anymore. Which is making me smile even if you can't see it, cause you just made my day.

Okay, so, as you know if you read my stuff, big hugs to all those who do, I have been writing a book about a two young people, one of who wants to die and one who doesn't but is.

I have just finished that very story and would like your put it up for a few days, as its out on full submission right now, and I'm a nervous wreck and thought this would take my mind off of the whole lay yourself open and wait for the kicks to start reingning down on me. so... here it is. For a few days only, the raw version cause I can't afford an editor right now. sorry, but its is still readable. Honest.

The story is called Walking Up Hills Backwards and I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed writing it. Hankies ready, you'll need them. Enjoy. xx

Clayton Jones is the coolest guy in Westwood High. He's also bi-polar. Two tablets a day and a school therapist who just happens to be nuttier than himself, Bi-Polar. 

Jenny McGuire is dying. She knows the chances of making it past her mid twenties are zero to one. So why is she smiling?

Because Jenny just educated her fellow, therapy group member, Clayton Jones in the possibility of anything. 

Walking up Hills Backwards is a story that explores the poignant and heartbreaking business of mental illness, and that one love you never forget.

Chapter1-3. Enjoy

This manuscript is currenly under consideration with five lovely lit agents, and I currently have no nails left.

Enjoy and keep writing and dreaming. xxxx

Clayton

My name is, Clayton Jones.

My eyes are slanted, my hair is black, I am as muscular as a beanpole, and my skin is a sweet dusky brown.

I bet you thought I was gonna say yellow given my eye shape, or at least pasty white, heck even sallow, but nope. I am as brown as the Mississippi, and my gene pool just as muddy given the indisputable fact that my mama is as white as Jesus himself supposedly was. Oh! And before I forget— I’m a wannabe.

You know, the kid that tries but never quite gets there. That’s me. But not in a, I wanna be skinny, or I wanna be smart or better at fricking singing— actually, I’m quite good at singing, it’s about the one goddamn thing I am good at— I simply have moments when I wanna be dead. Like stone cold, ain't ever gonna wake up again, dead.

Not all the time. Most days I’m the happiest, coolest damn dude you will ever, like ever, say hi too. I am that type of guy; everyone’s god damn fricking friend.

And then there are days when just lifting my head off my pillow is an effort: my dark days I call them, days when I am so lonely I think my heart is just gonna… snap. Days when just the thought of taking another breath is just too freaking painful.

On these days, I am not the coolest guy at all, I am simply a messed-up kid who will try anything to just… make it all go away.

I have tried; drowning myself— impossible to do unless your unconscious or someone is holding you down and, you guessed it, no volunteers there. Starving my useless ass into nothingness— what can I say, I like my food too much. And everyone’s favourite; a good old wrist slash complete with pharmacy wash down— that one got me three days in the ICU, a mama who still can’t look me straight in the eye, and a school psych, who by the way just happens to be nuttier than I am. His name is Frankie Mayhem— no seriously that’s his name— and good old Frankie sports an afro bigger than his damn head and a tattoo that declares to all, his love of weed: I shit you not.

And later this afternoon, I will be meeting with Frankie on the bleachers of the school’s football field, so that the entire contents of West Wood Highs sports infested minds, can see me as I really am; a mixed-race kid in need of some serious freaking help.

If I gave a shit what they thought I would be as far from school today as good old chocolate is from lettuce— now there’s an idea worth exploring, mental note to self; grab a lettuce and some melting chocolate from the store on the way home. But I don’t give a shit, so… I stretch my legs, back, arms, take a good ol’ whiff at my pits, and grimace myself into action just in time for my cell to scream at me. No really, it screams, like a demented ghoul or something… Hey give me a break, it’s an old phone, there are only so many ringtones available to those without jelly bean or whatever platform everyone uses these days.

“What’s up?”

Standard answer numero uno, I may be a wanna be but I’m a cool wanna be.

“Me. I’m fricking up. Jesus man. I’m a sticky mess.”

“Let me guess. You had that dream about Tracey Smith again. Why don’t you just ask her out, dumb ass.”

“Duh? Why didn’t I think of that? Fanny!”

Todd McKenzie is a blonde-haired Adonis, a perfect physical form of the male species apart from one tiny thing. Todd has Tourette’s. And today it seems the word of the day is, Fanny. Yesterday it was, blow me, and a fist- twitch that all but slammed me into the wall on my way to Algebra II.

I massage the still blooming bruise on my arm and make the easy decision to act for my verbally challenged friend.

“OK. You know what, Todd. I’m gonna ask her for you.” I step out of my boxers and turn the shower dial to hot and full.

“Fa… Fa… Fanny! Don’t you d… dare.”

“I need to go man. Showers running and the wardens cooking bacon.” I end call and throw my little antique cell onto the chair. It slides off and lands on my boxers. Great. Now every time I answer my phone today, I’ll get a whiff of my very own jock sweat. “Terrific.”

Throwing my head back into the spray I close my eyes and let the minute’s wash away. And with every minute that washes down that damn drain, a little bit of myself goes with it, the bright bit.

“Get a grip, Clayton.” I slap off the spray and grab a towel.

I need my medicine before the wannabe in me does something stupid.

Ten minutes later, freshly deodorized and smelling just dandy thank you very much, I enter the kitchen. I eat the provided bacon and grits over sunny side toast and wash down the tablets my mama places onto my palm, with a big old glass of water. She doesn't meet my gaze. I don’t blame her. If I had a kid like me, I wouldn’t meet his eyes either.

“You meeting Mr Mayhem this afternoon?” Every morning she asks this over the rim of her coffee mug. And every morning, I nod, scrape back my chair, grab my seriously in need of replacement back pack and throw it over my shoulder. I open my mouth to say something, anything, that might lift this awkwardness between us, but all that comes out is air.

“How’s it going, the talking stuff, I mean?”

I blink back my shock and hoist my satchel a little higher on my back, and then I lie, cause it’s the first time my mama has shown an interest in me in weeks. Like I said I don’t blame her. Having a manic depressive as a son can’t be easy, but then, being that boy ain’t easy either, and a little parental support every now and again would be damn appreciated.

I slam the whining in me down with a frown and a shrug of my shoulders. “Good. It’s…uh, good. I’m in group sessions now,” I say.

“And the kids your mixing with?”

“At the sessions, you mean?”

She nods and for the first time in months, meets my eyes with her own.

“Their nice kid’s, mama. Crazy as hell—,” I smile, hoping to get an answering smile and not disappointed when I don’t— “but real nice.”

“Good. Good.” She stands up and starts to gather up the breakfast things: A cop, still in uniform, tidying up after her bipolar manic-depressive son after a long night protecting the good citizens of West Wood from people just like me.

“I’d better go” I thumb my hand back towards the kitchen door, my feet already moving.

She smiles one small smile that steals my breath away with its rarity and nods. “I’ll be here when you get back, and Clayton— “

“Yeh?”

Her smile wavers. “Nothing. Just, have a nice day son.”

I nod and shoulder my way silently through the screen door into a day that needs shades.

A little bit of the sunshine I just lost back there in the kitchen, returns.

“Yo! Clayton. You gonna stand there all day preening your ass, or what?”

Jeremiah, Paul Rooney— what can I say, his parents are Irish Catholic— sticks his carefully coiffed ginger head out of his shagger mobile, his words not mine. Although, as far as I know, Jebb —we made a promise first day in Kindergarden, sealed it with good old spit, to never call him Jeremiah. We even crossed our hearts and hoped to die if we broke it— is as close to getting laid in high school as I am to sanity.

“Preening asses in this state might just get you arrested dude. Just saying.” I throw my backpack down and slide in front beside him.

He pulls away from the kerb with all the finesse of a fifty-year-old driver.

I shake my head and pinch the bridge of my nose to keep the sigh I know is gonna annoy the hell out of him, from getting out. But even with the best of intentions, I can’t keep that frustrated little breath in. It’s right out there doing its job and getting those tiny little nostrils of Jebb’s flaring.

“You got something to say, Clayton?”

Maybe I should have mentioned that Jebb has all the patience every red headed man of Irish descent has— absolutely none. So, with that in mind, you think that I should just keep my big fat mouth shut, right? No can-do, I was born with a direct link from my brain to my tongue, and if there is a stop sign in there somewhere, I ain’t ever located it. So, I’m laughing, and I’m telling good old Jebb that I could walk faster when the sweetest sight I have ever seen walks right on past us. I mean this girl is like petals blowing in a warm breeze and spreading happy, happy along the way. I let out a low whistle at the same time Jebb forgets what an accelerator is for altogether. And five feet four of petite perfection walks right on past us with milk white curves in all the right places, and auburn hair so dark it’s almost black.

Jebb’s already out of the car, his lanky, freckled arms draped across the roof.

The intention is there with Jebb, it always is but, actually opening his mouth and making verbal contact— I save him before he can embarrass himself further.

“Hey! Miss—.”

She slides glorious green eyes my way with a frown, which is just the sweetest frown I have ever seen and I can’t help it— I flash her the Clayton smile, a smile that has gotten me laid more times than any jock in the history of jocks. Only today that smile must be short-circuiting or something because she shakes her head and walks right on by without so much as a backwards glance.

I look at Jebb. Jebb looks at me. I grin.

“Catch you at school, man.” And with that I’m off, running behind this beautiful girl on like the best damn day in the history of recent days, and it comes to me that I should just inhale the moment and enjoy. I don’t need to talk to this girl, and it’s way obvious that she don’t want to talk to me. I mean if the sneaker was on the opposite foot would I want some tall skinny dark guy chasing me down the sidewalk, grinning like a demented fricking gnome? No siree, I can’t say I would. So I do what every feminist would love me for… I stop, take in the sweet, sweet view, and wait for Jebb to roll on up to a stop behind me.

But Jebb is pissed and keeps right on rolling.

Which is just didly dandy with me, I like it right here anyway.

Clayton

WestWood High’s corridors, are a hive of activity on any god given day, but add to that talk the shocking revelation that the old Freil house now has inhabitants, and you crank the old social mill up a whole new level.

Turns out the girl I admired so much this morning, is Jenny McGuire. And you can bet your Saturday night beers that by the end of today, every girl in school will know that name.

Now some girls here in Westwood will do the right thing and greet the sweet looking Jenny like she deserves to be greeted. Girls like, Hanna Kerby and Rose Tate, whose goodness shines down the corridors of Westwood just as brightly as the small gold crucifixes around their necks do.

Then there are the bad girls, the girls I have shared those beers I won't be betting with, and a little bit more besides. Those girls will be hitting the old social networking buttons, digging away with every letter pressed at that big old hole they intend to bury little Jenny McGuire in. Those are the girl I will be keeping my eyes on because I owe Jenny and her sweet little yellow dress for the best twenty-five minutes of untainted happiness I have experienced in a long, long time.

“Jones!”

I flick the meanest teacher in Westwood the gaze and wait.

And wait. And…

“You with us now?”

“I didn’t know I’d left, Sir.”

The usual titters echo into the void between us.

His eyes narrow, but if he has a comeback he ain't sharing it, and with a dismissive snort he returns back to his Pythagoras nonsense. I mean seriously when the heck am I ever gonna use this crap?

I focus my wavering attention back to the sun-kissed dust motes dancing around me in the stifling classroom air and try real hard to ignore Jebb poking me from behind with a pencil that is one second away of from being lodged in his damn ear.

And then some idiot goes and nudges my arm. What the hell is it with everyone today? Did they just wake up this morning and think, you know what? Today I am gonna annoy the hell out of Clayton Jones. Cause let me tell you, right now, that’s what it feels like.

I redirect my attention away from, Jebb to the newest intruder into my personal zone, and my scowl evaporates the seconds my eyes meet Kitty Monroes. She glances pointedly at the note she’s pushing my way.

Now Kitty giving me a note is curious enough to warrant me reading, so I fold that little pink note open quickly and read aptly.

Mayhems meeting moved to his office.

Twelve twenty.

I nod and stuff the note into my pocket just as, Jebb pokes again. I remind myself to move that pencil insertion to somewhere more painful and pull my chair out of the jabbing range.

I glance again at Kitty, but she’s studiously ignoring me. Kitty is a regular meeting attendee, not that she has a choice. Truth be told none of us does. We attend group therapy, or the good old educational folks of Texas will ship our sorry little asses to a Recovery school.

For all Westwood's faults, I happen to like where I am thank you very much. In my happy moments, there is no better place to be. And that’s the god honest truth.

But that’s just my opinion, I’m sure Kitty here would say different. Kitty is our local face of cheerleading. A model of athletic brilliance who just happens to spend most of her day in the school toilets throwing up what little she eats, and chewing gum to hide the smell of her little self-loathing sessions. But that’s just between her and me and the rest of the group cause what goes on in our little circle of fucked up individuals, stays there. The truth is, it’s got nowhere else to go.

Lunch eventually rolls around with a clanging bell, a stuffing of book to backpacks, and a mass migration towards anywhere with food. I grab a machine sandwich and water, avoid my very own hall stalker, Felicity Marshall, and discreetly let myself into Mayhems office with its circle of seven perfectly spaced chairs. Only there aren’t seven chairs today. There are eight perfectly spaced little orange chairs, and I know it ain't cause Bryan Mitchell has overdosed on the Twinkies again.

I flump down beside Todd like I have been doing all my life, with a fist bump and a weary smile.

My eyes drift towards the empty chair. “We got a newbie?” I ask with a tilt of my chin towards it.

Todd shrugs and starts tearing into a sub sandwich dripping with mayonnaise.

I look at Kitty, sat directly across from me in our little sharing circle. The girl still can’t meet my gaze. She lowers her bottle of Evian and tries futilely to cover up what she can of her legs with what little material her cheerleading skirt affords.

“Kitty. You heard anything?”

She shakes her head firmly.

I turn my attention to Keith Ramone picking at the fresh bandages on his left wrist. I could ask about what happened but I won’t. It’ll come out sooner or later. It always does, no matter how hard you try to keep it in. Or maybe not. See, Keith isn’t a talker. Not one word in the two months I’ve been coming to this little tete-a tate of ours. I swear the one thing that keeps me coming back here every damn day is the hope that this time, Keith Ramone might actually say something, fuck, anything, I’m not fussed. Just a simple hi and I can leave this room a happy chappy. But today it seems ain’t that day, and I ain't offended, not one little bit. I have been where that kid is and let me tell you, the last thing you want to do is make fucking small talk with the towns one and only mixed race Jock. Not that I get the chance to play much football these days. Beating up Westwoods esteemed swimming coach during school hours, pretty much killed any athletic dreams I may still have harboured.

“Clayton.”

The kid talks! And that little acknowledgement nod. Man! I swear there is a big old lump stuck in my throat and tears in my eyes.

“Keith.” I clear the lump in my throat with a gruff cough that’s small enough to go unnoticed, but big enough to say I’m touched.

“The seats for the new girl.” He says looking straight at empty orange Formica chair, number eight.

I lean forward in my seat, intrigued.

“How’d you know?”

Keith's eyes shift towards the door. “Cause no one in Westwood is brave enough to wear a sunshine yellow dress like that one.”

I follow his gaze and straighten up like someone just shoved a rod up my spine. “It’s pretty though, right?” I mumble conspiratorily.

Keith smiles. Damn this day just keeps getting better and better, and leans forward, James Dean style with elbows on knees, his lavender circled eyes trained on our newest member.

“Prettiest thing I've seen in a long time,” Keith admits.

Frankie and his afro proceed new girl into our little circle, and I got to give it to him, the guy takes the phrase hippie to a whole new level.

Yellow dress follows behind, all downcast eyes and a curtain of hair that swings gently with every step taken.

Frankie waits until little Miss sunshine has taken her seat before addressing the room in his professional, slow drawl.

“OK, who wants to explain to Jenny here, the meaning of the circle we sit within.” He’s looking directly at me while he says it. “Clayton?”

I look at the new girl sitting there all perfect and pretty, purse my lips, and sigh.

“This here collection of chairs is called the circle of thought. This is where we are supposed to describe, elaborate, decide, plan, and act.”

“Do you?” She asks, a small amused smile playing across her lips.

I shake my head, my lips stretching up into one of those goofy grins you never think you are ever gonna perform, and then you do because, this here girl has just derailed me with her response. A response I hadn’t been expectin’ and quite frankly, have no idea how I’m supposed to respond to.

Why the hell does Mayhem do this? Every afternoon he jumps starts one of us with a loaded question, and then he sits back and observes the show, his ferrety little eyes missing nothing and his mouth ready to pounce if the conversation shows signs of stopping.

So, I shouldn’t be surprised… Right? But I am and pissed off big style that today of all days, he just had to go and pick me.

I open my mouth to reply, but like I said earlier, I have no response on hand to offer. Unlike Kitty, who bats little miss sunshine’s question back at her.

“Do you?” Kitty barks.

Jenny looks at Kitty like an amused parent would a naughty child. I got to give it to the girl, she has balls going up against a cheerleader on her first day.

“Yes. No. Sometimes—” Jenny smiles shyly and looks at Kitty like she’s sharing some big universal secret with her—, “never.”

“So, let me get this… fuck!... straight.” Todd jumps in. “You’re just as confused as the rest of us he…here.”

“I don’t know everyone here well enough to answer that one, but speaking for myself— No, I’m not confused. I know exactly what’s wrong with me, where it's heading and, no amount of talking is going to change it or make it better.”

“So, what the fuck are you doing here then if you got it all so damned straight?”

The words are out before I can bite them down, and every eye swings wide to gaze down on my stupid ass.

Now, there are silences in the world that are relaxing, and then there are those that don’t know quite where they fit— like this one.

“Even straight lines have kinks in them,” Jenny states softly. “My kink is that I’m dying.”

The silence becomes a very real thing that knocks the air right out of my lungs.

“How?” asks Keith, the kid who never talks and is now talking about things we never talk about. Not here, not at home, not ever.

“Spinal Tumour.” Rolls softly off her tongue in that odd little accent of hers.

“Can’t they operate?” Mayhem asks stupidly. Stupid because if they could, they would have done it already, twat face.

“I’m dying.” Is all she says. And there is a finality in her words that makes me want to get down on my knees and tear my fucking hair out.

“Shi… Fuck face! Shit.”

“Todd?”

Why the hell doesn’t Mayhem just shut the hell up? I mean, really, just “shut up.” There is a definite warning in my tone, a growl just before the bite, type of warning.

Every eye in the room swivels my way. Every eye but one. She looks at her hands folded neatly in her lap and says nothing. Which isn’t right cause she started all this, she opened that can, and now she should eat the wriggling little worms inside and choke on them.

“You want to share what you're feeling right now Clayton?”

“I’m pissed off big time. OK.”

“Like that’s new.” Kitty sneers.

“How're the toilets smelling this morning, Kitty?” I throw back, wanting to wound and disgusted with myself when I do.

Kitty grabs her water and storms from the room on legs that don’t look like they’ll hold her weight for much longer.

I rake my hands through my hair and stare up at our lovely little meeting room’s yellow stained ceiling.

“Was that really necessary, man?” Keith asks on his way out the door, presumably to comfort the offended Kitty.

“You know what?” I drop my gaze back to the room's inhabitants and stare hard at Mayhem. “I’m glad I said it. Someone had to. And you. You should have said something, weeks ago, she’s getting worse, and all you do is paste over it with fucking useless talk.”

“Is it?”

“What?” I hiss.

“Talking. Is it useless? Sonya?”

The little bastard is diffusing with diversion, and I have to give it to him, it’s working.

Sonya Patterson is a dope head who likes to talk, and Mayhem is using her to diffuse what could have easily become a full-on meltdown. I can’t afford another meltdown so, for that. I owe Mayhem, big style.

I sit back, fold my arms across my chest and slink. A slink is the best thing to a hug without the emotional responsibilities of one, and I slink here in this room more than I hug anywhere else.

So here I am, slinking while Sonya talks about her addiction to the green stuff and how she earns the money to pay for it— that brings a few facial grimaces, and a catfight that even Mayhem can’t stop with calming words.

In short, the whole thing ends like it always does; a total fuck up of monumental proportions with the added benefit of distraction. If we’re thinking about what Sonya did to Fellow wanna be, Carly Kirk’s boyfriend, we’re not thinking about ourselves which is the whole point of why we go to therapy in the first place. Right?

OK. Maybe not. But on the bright side, I’m not mad anymore. I’m not mad when the bell signals an end to lunch, I’m not mad that my mamma hates me, and I’m not mad hours later when I bump into, little Miss Yellow dress on the way home. If I were, I would ignore her and let the door swing shut in her face, but I’m not, and the door stays open to let her sweet little self, pass me by.

“So, how was your first day at Westwood?” It’s a safe question, cause today is a safe day and the words are asked casually and friendly.

She smiles and walks, walks and smiles, and even though I try not to, I can’t help but want to bask in her sunshine heat.

“Would you believe me if I said, good?”

“Actually. I would” I narrow my eyes against the sun’s glare and smile a genuine honest to god smile. “But that’s before I heard you had an altercation with Azalea Graham and my not so lovely ex, Bunty Malone.”

“You heard about that huh?”

“It’s all over social media. Congratulations you went viral on the first day.”

“Wow” She grins, and I can’t help but grin crookedly back, and then I remember that she’s dying and I get this bad feeling building within me all over again. My smile flatlines, and I turn my attention to the sidewalk and the passing cars crawling past. Anywhere, but on Little Jenny McGuire.

“It bothers you. Doesn’t it?”

“What?” I ask.

“Death.” She states.

I shake my head and skip a stone ahead with the toe of my converse. “You got it all wrong Jenny McGuire. It’s the living part that bothers me.”

“Why?”

“It’s complicated.”

“Complicated was my best subject back home.” She smiles, that smile that does funny things to my thought processes, so much so, that it takes me a few seconds before I can get my reply up and running again, and even then, the words are lame. Like big style Ferris wheel with flashing lights, lame.

“It was, huh?” Jesus.

She grins, and I can’t help but smile right back.

“Straight A’s in every module.”

Now, Jenny McGuire may be the most fascinating girl I have ever had the pleasure of knowing with her clothes on, but a disclosure of that sort would take the relationship to a whole other level I have no wish to experience. Not with her, not with anyone. So, I do what I do best when under pressure to disclose, I evade.

“And these modules were studied where?”

“Up until we moved Stateside a few years back, Glasgow. Scotland.”

“You're British?”

She looks at me like I just grew two heads, and for the next fifteen minutes educates me in why you should never call anyone Scottish, British, not unless you’re sure they won’t take offence, which she did, but has decided because I’m Texan she’ll forgive me, just this once.

And then it’s time for her to leave me, cause this old nerdy looking man with glasses, and a whole shitload of keys dangling from a big old keychain attached to his belt, is waving her into Angela’s Diner car park, and she’s waving back and asking for a minute.

“I need to go.” She says. “My dad’s treating me to a celebratory dinner that has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that he hasn’t stalked up on groceries yet.”

I don’t want her to go. I want to stay here and talk to me about everything and anything, but she can’t, cause her dad is waiting. And though he looks like the best damn figure of a happy chappy dad, I have ever seen, I’m sure he wouldn’t take kindly to me stealing his daughter away for the rest of the evenin’. So, I do the cool dude thing— cause man, like I said I am just the most sociable dude you will ever meet on a sunshine day— and offer a smile and a hand that says hi in the coolest of ways.

“Did you just wave, at my dad?”

I drop my hand and grin. “Would you prefer I flip him one, cause… I mean,” I open my palm and she snaps it shut with a scented breeze on a summer day laugh.

“You really are a dork. You know that, right?”

“Sure I am, but I’m a dork who just got your dad to wave back. In my books, that’s a future invite to dinner.”

“I really need to go.” She grins and swivels, ready to run.

I scratch my head and do the only thing I can without making myself look like a total dick— I nod.

She nods back. “It was a pleasure educating you, Clayton Jones.”

“The pleasure was all mine, Miss McGuire.” And before I can make a damn fool of myself, and ask her out, I turn and walk away.

“Hey, Clayton.”

I swivel around, still walking backwards. “Yeh?”

“I’ll see you tomorrow?”

And for reasons that evade me, I can’t keep a damn grin from my face. “Sure thing, Jenny McGuire.”

Jenny.

Ok. I’m feeling strange. But in the best possible way. I mean it’s… Heck, I don’t know, and I guess that’s what’s good. Right? The fact that I don’t know. I don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow, or the next day, or the day after that. And I know it’s a strange reason to feel happy, but for me, for this little pocket in time, it’s all the reason in the world, and that’s, what’s so damn good.

“You're smiling.” Dad states

“Am I?” The smile becomes a goofy grin.

“Anything to do with that boy you were talking to?”

I chew another chip and slurp down some more cola before I answer, not because I need to time to think of a reply, which I don’t, but because for the first time in months, I’m hungry.

“When was the last time you saw me, actually enjoying what I ate, Dad?”

He pulls his glasses from the bridge of his bony nose, as I had known he would, and wipes them, again, as I had also known he would.

And just like all those I know’s I have concerning this man who has seen me at my worst and still managed to smile for me, I know he’s worried about that boy, he saw me talking to.

“I’m happy you're enjoying your food again, Jenny. Trust me, there’s no one happier.”

“But?” I prompt through a mouthful of mashed chips.

“But… “He sighs and rubs at his hair, ruffling it up even more than it’s already ruffled. “I just think you should keep it simple.”

“And by simple you mean what, exactly?”

“Jenny...” And there it is— that long drawn out sigh that can snap a heart in two.

Shaking my head, I dump my half-eaten chip down with attitude. “I’m not dead yet Dad, so please, please don’t ask me to act like it.”

“That’s not what I was getting at.”

“Can’t you just be happy that for once, I’m actually looking forward to waking up tomorrow.”

The pain in his face is instant. Of all the things, I could have said, and I chose that. Hell. “Dad…I’m s…”

He waves me off. “You have nothing to be sorry for, Jenny. God knows you of all people deserve a little happiness. All I’m saying is, be careful.”

I nod and change the subject. Today is just too bright a day to get bogged down with dark thoughts. “So, aren’t you going to ask me how my first day went?”

“I thought I had” he looks genuinely confused, and I can’t help but laugh. “Okay. Jenny, how did your first-day pan out?

“I attended group therapy.” I smile and pick up my discarded chip.

How was it?”

“Good. The whole therapy thing here isn’t as much of a stigma as it was back at my old school. Clayton, the boy you saw me talking to, was there.”

“I think maybe I should meet this kid.” There’s a new concern in his eyes.

“I think so too. I’ll invite him over for dinner.”

“Why do I get the feeling I was just set up.”

“Probably, because you just were. “I chuckle and am rewarded with a limp piece of salad in my face.

By the time we get home, we need the light on in the old kitchen and the heating on despite the balmy night air outside. I leave dad to unpack the groceries he finally conceded to buying and head upstairs for some much-needed shut-eye. To say I am bone tired would be the understatement of the century.

I flop onto my bed, and it’s lights out before I even get a chance to register what’s happening.

When I open my eyes again, it’s to dad’s voice shouting me downstairs, and sunlight too bright to be anything but painful. A quick perfunctory glance at the clock on my dresser tells me that if I want to change clothes and smell better than I do right now, I’d better do it quick.

“Jenny?”

“You could have woken me, Dad!”

“I did, forty minutes ago, when I came up to shut that wailing alarm of yours off.” The confusion in his voice is palpable, and I make a mental note to try harder to be the daughter he deserves, and not the ogre that just woke up. I may be dying, but I don’t need to be a bitch doing it.

“Sorry dad” I yell out in full on rush mode— you know that feeling, right? Hair’s a mess, breath stinks and clothes? Let’s not even go there. “I’ll be down in ten.”

A soft knock on the wood of my, in need of a serious paint stripping bedroom door, and dad appears with a pile of freshly ironed laundry in hand. “Thought you might need this, Jen’s. Jeans and t-shirt are on top.”

“Thanks, Dad.” I flick him a grateful smile.

He nods, places the clothes on the old rocker by the door, does the perfunctory glass hike up his nose, and leaves, closing the door softly behind him as he goes.

I allow myself a moment to feel grateful and then throw myself frenziedly into the task at hand.

Fifteen minutes later, wet hair dripping a patch of apple scented water down my back, breath smelling a hell of a lot better than it did five minutes ago, and I’m grabbing my backpack from where it was dumped last night and heading for the door.

Dad’s waiting, his eyes crinkled against the sun’s glare. “Careful, Jen’s, you’re going to give yourself…”

“Hiccups.” I finish, folding the rest of the toast into my mouth and ducking into my usual front seat space beside him.

Out of habit, we buckle up and then we’re off, windows down, radio on and warm summer air blowing away all the panic of the morning rush. Then the hiccups start, and we don’t stop laughing in that warm little car until it stops and I climb out with a smile that matches my father’s.

“That the boy you're bringing to dinner?” Dad nods his head behind me and widens his smile in greeting.

“Morning, Mr McGuire.”

“Morning, son. Jenny here was just saying we should invite to dinner. We do a mean limp chips and warm cheese salad if you ever wanted to join us.

“And on that note…Bye, Dad.” I begin to walk, my flats slapping on the pavement next to Clayton’s brand sneakers.

“Okay. Have a nice day, honey.” And then he’s gone, horn honking and pale hand waving as he disappears back the way we just came from.

“Sorry. My dad’s a bit of an acquired taste.” I squint up at the perfectly groomed boy walking beside me. “And those chips he was talking of, aren’t limp until he douses them with half a bottle of vinegar.”

He slides the unfamiliar backpack from my shoulder to his, and stares ahead.

I take eye stock of the boy beside me and quickly ascertain that he would give Louise Hamilton a run for his money in the looks department. Apart from the hair, the hair is—wow, like blot out the sun, wow. It’s a fiery brown ball of frizz that… “Your hair takes up more space than you do. You know that, right?” I can’t help it, the filter that most people have attached to their mouths shrivelled up and died after my third round of chemo.

He turns hazel green eyes my way with a smile whiter than any I have ever seen. “You dishing my hair, Jenny McGuire?”

I meet his gaze head-on. “You blame me, it’s… huge.”

“Hugerer than Mayhem's?” He grins.

“You making up words now. really?”

“Hugerer is now the official word of the day. You have to use it at least five times before the days out.”

“And if I don’t?” I challenge, enjoying the moment.

“Then you pay the forfeit.”

“Which is?”

“Can’t say.”

“I’m not eating worms. Just so you know.”

“Boy’s bathroom?”

“Not a chance.”

“Then say the word.” He steps in front of me and stops.

I lock eye contact with him, meeting the challenge in his head-on and without one eyelash flicker in sight.

“Your hair is hugerer than Mayhems. Hugerer than the sun. Hugerer, than the planet Mars. It’s so damn hugerer than anything I have anything seen. It’s just… hugerer.”

“Forty minutes.”

“What?”

“I waited forty minutes on the off chance that you’d take the same route you took yesterday.”

I stop breathing, and he takes one small step towards me, his breath fanning my face and making my heart skip.

The honking of a passing car horn and, Clayton’s name being whooped out shatters the moment. I step back into my personal space and follow the white, blonde filled, golf with my gaze.

“Friends of yours?”

“More like aquaintances.”

“Makes sense.”

“How so?”

“Where I came from, beautiful people tended to stick together.”

“You calling me beautiful, Jenny?”

“I guess I am.”

“You always do that?”

“What?”

“Say what you think.”

He grips my elbow and guides me away from a bumped head, and a pole I would have seen if I had been looking at anything but him.

“I don’t like regrets, I guess.”

Regrets?” He lets go of my arm.

“You know, when you mull over in your head what you should have said but didn’t, and it goes around and around in your mind until it’s all you can think of; that one thing you should have said, but didn’t.”

“So how do you resolve those regrets?”

“You can’t. That’s why it’s important you don’t make them in the first place.”

Clayton frowns— the action wrinkles his nose attractively— and reaching down he wraps his hand around my own. “I’m bipolar, Jenny. Diagnosed three years ago, after I walked into the schools swimming pool and didn't come back up until coach Granger forced me to. For his efforts in saving my sorry ass, I gave him a black eye and two cracked ribs.” He pulls me to a stop, his gaze analysing my every facial twitch. “You scared?” he asks.

“Of you?”

He nods, his gaze unflinching and devoid of even the tiniest flicker of hope, and for the first time in a long time, I pray for more time so that I can get to know Clayton Jones better.

“No. I’m not scared of you Clayton. I’m just a girl enjoying the possibility of anything.”

“I like that.” He smiles.

“I have more.”

“You can tell me over lunch.” We’re entering the student flow now, a steady stream that leads to only one place, School.

“You flirting with me, Mr Jones?” I grin, enjoying being teased by a boy for the first time in forever.

We turn left as one, up onto the path that winds between grassy bankings that even this time in the morning, are littered with pockets of lounging teens catching some early morning rays. Some raise hands in greeting and shout, Clayton’s way.

He smiles back, calls out a few greetings and pulls me with him up the school’s, too numerous to count, front steps. “One thing you should know about me Jenny McGuire— I am the flirt master in these parts. No one better in a hundred miles.”

“Okaaay.” We enter the hallway, and he drops my hand to hike his own backpack higher up his shoulder.

Then he stops. “Ok?” He looks down at me, his gaze one of open amusement. “You doubting me, Jenny McGuire?”

The first bell rings, calling students to class.

“I wouldn’t dare and on that note… I should…” I hitch a thumb over my shoulder towards Biology, or at least I hope it is. “Biology.” I grimace.

“I’ll see you at lunch?”

“Sure will. Hey, Todd.” I nod in greeting at the athletic-looking blonde boy slapping Claytons' shoulder and make my escape before I do or say something stupid to jeopardise my lunch date.

<p>Chapter 1

Mr. Jonas Fletcher, recently deceased and much missed by me, was an art teacher.

He was the only teacher I ever liked, and the only one to have taught me anything worth knowing.

Jonas Fletcher was also an honest-to-God born good guy. Eccentric with age and smelly by choice, but hey, we all have our bad points.

Mine is my frequent inability to get anywhere on time. Speaking of which…

I glance over at the petal metal clock that has forever decorated that place on my wall.

Nearly time. I count it down in full-on mocking mode.

“Five, four, three, two, one.”

“If you’re not out of that bed in five seconds, Patience McCormick, I swear I will drag you to school in whatever you’re wearing. Even if that something is nothing!”

I smile at the familiarity of it all. Another year and it will all be gone. Three-hundred-miles-away gone. I will be in college. And Mom? Well, she will still be issuing her threats of naked retribution—only not to me.

“Patience? I better not have to come up there!”

“I’m up. I’m up! Jesus!”

“Yeah, and I’m George Washington!” Robbie, my pimple-faced dweeb of a stepbrother, shouts from the hallway.

“Shut it, Dum-Dum!” I swear I could wring his nerdy dweeb neck and not feel one ounce—not one—of remorse.

“Seriously! A nickname like Pippins and you’re calling me out?” he hollers.

I snort my annoyance and listen on as Robbie the dweeb’s dribble trickles down the stairs with him.

Then, with a kick Bruce Lee would have been proud of, I offload my covers, flip out onto a floor littered with my essential yet currently discarded stuff, and wait for my body to adjust itself to movement mode. Suppleness now returned, I begin the ageless task of getting myself ready for school—a meticulous ceremony involving overamplified grunts, groans, and whines. To this essential yet laborious procedure, I bring with me a bucket full of self-importance, excessive spurts of deodorant, and a vocabulary worthy of the devil himself. Then I grumble my daily path of destruction toward the bathroom where I brush, rinse, and spit. With oral hygiene now completed, I decide my face needs nothing other than black kohl liner and toffee-apple lip balm. Then last, but by no means least, I finger my short black hair into its don’t mess with me style.

School face now on, I turn my ever-diverse attention to the griping of having nothing decent to wear, yet still manage to throw on a look that not one single wannabe in school could manage without professional help.

Then I breathe. Like, really breathe. Deep.

I check my reflection one last time, studiously ignoring the birthmark on my neck that I can do absolutely nothing about, and quickly depart my chamber with attitude.

The bedroom door vibrates in protest at the force with which I announce to all downstairs my imminent arrival in the kitchen.

Once there, I drop Dum-Dum the look, sidestep my ever hovering mom and exit with a hand flick, toast, and water.

“Wait up, young lady! I made you maple porridge.”

Mom’s exhausted tones bullet into my back, and I deflect with a quick over-the-shoulder apology.

“Sorry, Mom. Ride’s here. Put it in the fridge for later! I like it cold anyway!”

Family time over, I half run, half skip down our drive, place my bag with care into the back seat of Sammi’s (with an i) classic aquamarine 1929 Duesenberg, and smile. Just being near this car gives me shivers of excitement. And in full schoolgirl delight, I slide in beside Sammi.

Sammi Yates, Carnival Queen and can-do-no-wrong daughter of North Carolina’s only ever Mayoress—there is a story there, but I am too much of a lady to divulge in such smuttiness—removes a licorice stick from her blackened lips and smirks.

“Still making you porridge, huh?” She chuckles.

“Ha-ha. Very funny. Just drive already,” I mutter.

She pushes the car into first and grins.

In all the years we have known each other, and it has been many, I have never liked that grin of hers. No reason for not liking it, really. I just don’t. And on that note…

“You do know your teeth are black from all that junk you been chewin’ on, right?”

I know, it’s childish of me, but heck, she started it, and I am damned if I’m gonna let her be the one to finish it.

“Darn!” For a moment—or five—she forgets the road and focuses on her reflection, one cotton-covered wrist on standby to rub any telltale teeth stains away.

I bite back a smile, and then yelp as gemstone-decorated knuckles pound my tender thigh purple.

“You really are a bitch, Patience McCormick. You nearly had me wettin’ ma sleeve for nothin’. Licorice stains, my ass. My mama would have been ticked off big time if I had gotten this here new top stained, seein’ as how expensive it was.” She throws me a sideways glance at the expensive part.

I ignore her. Two minutes in her company and she’s already beginning to annoy the heck out of me with her I’m-richer-than-you shit.

Biting back a sarcastic retort, I rotate away from her, rest my chin on the warm skin of my arm, and watch tarmac blur past in one continuous line of white. My thigh’s beginning to thump with the promise of bruised flesh, but I smile through it. I can smile through anything just to ride in this car.

Languorously, I ask her the same question I have been askin’ her since forever.

“You are goin’ to leave me this here car in your will. Right?”

“Of course I am, honey. Going to leave you my kidneys, too.” She winks and takes a sharp left toward the old canyon.

Highlands’ one and only high school is three miles in the opposite direction. My love of this car begins to fade with every mile traveled in the wrong direction.

“Oh, c’mon, Sam! You know I can’t afford to do this. I need that scholarship.” And the maddening thing is, she knows I need it.

“I can’t do this, Sam! You know I can’t!” she mimics, ditching the licorice out of her mouth. “I’m doing you a favor, ya know. Y’all spend too much time with your face buried in those silly art books o’ yours.”

“Take me back, Sams. I mean it.”

She does the eyebrow arch thing I hate and presses her designer-clad foot harder to the accelerator.

I now have two choices. Jump—which, at fifty miles an hour, I’m sure is suicidal—or the sensible option, wait till the car stops. I opt for the latter. And in the interval between that happening and now, I slide lower into my seat, cross my arms stiffly across my chest, and expose good old Sams to the icy side of me.

“You’ll come around,” she purrs, ignoring my sullen silence with a flick of her artificially highlighted hair.

The canyon takes ten minutes more to reach. And by the look of things, half of Highlands’ student body has had the same idea as Sammi. Or Sammi has arranged for them to have the same idea.

No one, and I mean no one, who wants to matter to anyone within our not-so-perfect little town would dare to ignore Sammi’s sugar-coated requests. Not without dire consequences to their social life, anyway.

Luckily for me, I’m not one of them.

“Congratulations, Sammi. You’ve really outdone yourself this time. Why didn’t you just go the full hog and get Mommy to shut down the whole friggin’ school for the day? ’Cause it sure as heck don’t look like there’s anyone there anyway!”

She throws me one of her looks, the type that has the ability to freeze a lake on a sunny day. Then she slowly unwinds her perfectly tanned legs from the car.

When she cottons on that I ain’t following, and I don’t intend to, she sighs heavily and dramatically.

“Oh, for God’s sake, Pippins! Give it a rest. I’m doing this for you, honey. You need some color in those dusty gray cheeks o’ yours. Education ain’t everythin’, sweetie.”

“Like you would friggin know, Miss Southern Perfection with your stupid, lazy drawl and slothful little brain,” I mutter angrily.

I mean, really, who else but little Miss Perfect here would have come up with Pippins for my nickname? A name I have, unfortunately, been tagged with for as long as I can remember. Something to do with my freckles and hair before makeup and straighteners, I think, but that aside! The accent I can hide in my readiness for the world beyond willows, humidity, and Civil bloody War reenactments. But Pippins? Seriously?

Snatching up my backpack, I hitch it over my shoulder in angered silence, and—

“Hey, Pippins! Sammi! Over here,” yells Jeff Sanders over the heads of Stephanie Rice, cheerleader airhead, William “Past Tense” Rockun, and the one guy I never thought I would see in Sammi Yates’s company, Luce Mitchell.

My heart flips like a tossed coin, which it shouldn’t because I don’t even know him. I mean, I’ve seen him. Who in the quaint little town of Highlands hasn’t? But actually talking to him? Well, that’s a whole other kettle o’ fish.

He is the guy every blooming belle in our sleepy little town would hitch up her micro denim and balconette bra her chest to attract.

And here he is, smiling and carefree and just within reach, and looking in my direction with those strange lavender-blue eyes of his and I’m… Well, I am deflating my bra and ducking out.

“Sorry, Sammi, but like I said earlier, I can’t be here.”

I start tracking back toward town, excuses for my tardiness already forming in my head.

I leave behind me a friendship that I have just served with divorce papers, and Sammi Yates knows it.

“You’re a wimp, Pippins. A friggin’ nerdy wimp,” she yells at my retreating back.

I tune out Sammi’s rising tones of indignation with a flip of my middle finger and keep right on walking. I don’t look back. I can’t afford to.

Sammi’s got it all. Money. Popularity. Looks. And a mommy who will pay her daughter’s way into any university that still accepts good old cash. Heck, everyone knows she’s already got a room with her name on it at the best sorority house in Harvard. And me? Well, let’s just say I’ll be lucky to make it through my first financial year alone, even with a scholarship.

Life sucks. Even more so when the one constant in my life has just dire-mouthed me so readily and publicly.

Squaring shoulders stiff with tension, I deflate my nostrils and keep right on walking. It’s about time I try out a solo act anyway. Couldn’t be any worse than the duo of late, which is beginning to give me serious tension issues.

“Hey! Wait up!”

“Get lost, William.”

“I’ll ignore the fact that you think I sound like him if you wait up.”

“Give me one good reason why I should.” I keep walking.

“Because I’m heading back to school, too, and some company on the way would be better than listening to my sneakers scuff dirt,” he replies.

I give in and wait for him to catch up with me. He has a point about the silence thing. After a while, the thinking sets in. Any company is better than thinking right now.

Several seconds later, Luce Mitchell is at my side. And I have never been more aware of a person in my entire life than I am of him at this precise second, minute, however long it takes to get back to school. But I am damned to hell and back if I’m gonna let him know it.

I try to sound indifferent to him, might actually get away with it, too, as long as I don’t look at him.

“Didn’t take you for the social suicide type,” I mutter.

“What type did you take me for?” He grins lazily.

“Honestly?” I look him straight in the eye. “I thought you were bent as a hairpin, given how many of my friends you have politely declined to spend an evenin’ with of late.”

“And if I tell you they weren’t my type?” He laughs softly.

“Exactly my point.” I smirk.

He draws me to a stop, his fingers soft but firm against my wrist, and despite my best intentions not to, my gaze slides from his perfect face to his rocking bod.

God, I am so shallow.

“I’m sorry,” I murmur, because I am. Luce Mitchell's sexual preference has nothing to do with me. Nothing at all. “I had no right to say—”

He cuts across me with an easy smile and a twinkle in his lavender-blue eyes. “Do you have any idea how many times over the past few weeks I have tried to talk to you, Patience McCormick? And in every instance, you have run off like the devil himself is on your tail. You really are one hard girl to pin down.”

Gawd! He really is a genuine say-it-as-it-is guy. Go figure. I clear the lump in my throat with a gruff cough and “Sorry” spills out.

He frowns, flipping a pebble ahead of us with his scuffed, faded Converse. “Apology accepted.”

For a moment or two, there is comfortable silence between us. Then—

“So, Patience. Apart from running away from me at every given opportunity, what’s the deal with you?”

“What do ya mean? The deal with me.”

“Well, for starters, why do the kids back there all call you ice queen? Apart from your obvious aversion to company, of course.”

I drop my gaze to my feet, disconcerted by his stark comment.

Luce exhales loudly. “You didn’t know, did you?”

I watch the dust swirl around our feet as we walk, and shake my head. “No.”

Luce lowers his gaze back to his Converse and kicks a stone hard enough to skip it. “Patience, I’m sorry.”

I nod, and we walk on in silence. Ten minutes in and the sun’s glare bastes my head with sweat which, of course, attracts a small army of mosquitoes that are buzzing in waiting ambush not two feet away.

Twisting out of my hoodie, I throw it over my head and sprint through the nasty little bloodsuckers until I’m out of biting range. Then, I retie it back around my hips and rake fingers through hair that smelled a hell of a lot better in my room.

I look at Luce ambling through the buzzing black cloud in angry disbelief. “How did you do that? I only need to breathe, and they zone in on me,” I gripe.

“Hey!” He lifts his hands, palms out. “Not my fault they don’t find me appetizing. Pheromones,” he explains. “They only go for females. Here, let me.”

He bends my head toward his face and examines my hair with long, soft fingers. “You’re clean. Nothing in there except air,” he teases.

“Oh, so genuine! That the best you can come up with?”

He pushes my head playfully. “I got better. How about why you left the party back there?”

I shrug and kick the dust. “Not my scene.” It’s not an out-and-out lie. Partying with the in crowd has always been a chore, not a pleasure. But the truth is Old Fletcher’s death has me rattled more than I like to admit. Even to myself.

Luce is talking again. I tune back into the here and now and close the lid on my sorrow.

“The in crowd stuff or playing hooky?” He asks.

“Both,” I answer honestly.

“I’m confused a little here. Everything about you screams in crowd with attitude, from your hair down to that wicked symbol tat on your neck. Yet you’re telling me you don’t like to stand out or break the rules?”

“It’s not a tat.”

“Sorry?” He pulls me to a stop again like he has some God-given right to.

I reclaim my arm with attitude. “It’s not a tattoo. It’s a stupid birthmark, okay? And I dress like this to hide the fact that it’s a birthmark. As for not wanting to play hooky with those idiots back there, that’s none of your darn business.”

I march angrily away from him. Really, who the hell is this guy? I’ve known him verbally for all of five minutes, and he thinks he knows it all. I stomp ahead.

“Patience! Please, I’m sorry! Again!”

“That makes two of us!” I yell back.

“I mean it, honestly. I’m just a loud-mouthed idiot who knows absolutely nothing. Please…”

I stop, kick the dirt, and for better or worse, I turn, snorting out a laugh as I do.

Luce is on his knees in the dirt shuffling toward me, his hands raised in prayer, his features pulled down into the best puppy face I have ever witnessed. Like, ever.

“You’re gonna ruin your jeans, you know that, right?”

He grins and extends his hand toward me. “Does that mean I’m forgiven?”

“Nope. It means you’re on probation.” I take his hand and pull him back to his feet.

“I can live with that.” He smiles. And so casually I don’t even realize it’s happened until it’s done, he throws his arm around my shoulders.

I shake my head and, with a smile, duck out from under its weight. “Like I’m giving you a choice, pretty boy.”

I check my watch. Ten minutes to first bell. I’m never gonna make it back in time. “How’s your stamina?”

“Sorry?”

I ease into a fast jog, and he falls in at my side, his cheeks flushed red in what I presume is embarrassment.

“I thought you meant…” He leaves the sentence hanging.

“Sorry to burst your bubble, but I’m not that type of girl, Casanova. We have ten, uh, nine minutes to first bell, and no time left to get there, so… Think you can keep up with me?”

He looks at me, grins like that fat old Cheshire cat from Alice in Wonderland, and keeps right on looking.

No one stares at anyone in this town. “Your mama ever tell you that it’s rude to stare, Mitchell?”

“I’m not staring, I’m” he smiles and squints—“taking in the view.”

“I didn’t realize I was real estate,” I gripe and push myself into a sprint.

God, why am I being so nasty? Oh, yeah! Maybe my best friend trying to ruin my chances of getting into college might have something to do with it. But he ain’t my best friend, and I shouldn’t be taking it out on him.

“Dang it.” I stop for breath, and drop my satchel dejectedly. “Luce, I’m sorry. I know I’m bein’ mean, an—”

I frown, aware for the first time today of my traitorous accent. I try again, this time concentrating real hard on the words forming in my brain before they leave my mouth.

“I am not like this. Honestly. Ask anyone. Despite the scary look, I’m actually a really nice person. First to help and all that.”

“I know.” He retrieves my bag, fires it over his shoulder, and surprisingly, shockingly for me, I let him.

“I wouldn’t have run after you otherwise,” he concludes matter-of-factly.

“Why, though? I mean it’s not like we even know each other or anything.”

“I know you like peanut butter without jelly sandwiches. You cover your mouth when you eat, and you like to walk in the rain, but no wind. Wind is a deal-breaker bus day. I know all about you, P.”

I frown, lost for words yet again. I am totally befuddled by this boy. He is nothing like the person I thought he would be. Although what I thought he would be like, I have no idea, either.

He smirks at my stupefied expression but doesn’t expand on his comment. A comment that is beginning to annoy the hell out of me. I mean, he’s taking friggin’ cryptic to the extremes, and I don’t like it. Not one little bit.

“We better get a move on if we’re gonna make it in time for roll call. C’mon.” He pulls at my sleeve and eases into a run, grinning as he moves easily ahead of me.

“You’re strange,” I call after him.

“Yeah? I’ve heard that a lot, too.”

* * * *

We make it back to the last drill of the bell echoing through newly emptied corridors.

I fold in oxygen-depletion mode, hands on knees, and attempt to reflate my lungs. I can’t believe we actually made it back in time. A few seconds late, but hey! We made it.

Breathing back to normal again, I chance speaking without my words hitching.

“What you got first?” I ask.

“French. And you’re in English,” he states without a hint of breathlessness anywhere in his perfect little self. Well, not so little, just a term of my annoyance with him at this precise moment in time. Annoyance that he knows more about me than I do about him.

“English lit, actually,” I mumble. “Speaking of which…”

Miss Collins, or little Hitler as she is more commonly known to those who have ever taken her class, is marching her fat little legs in our direction.

“I better get in there before she does.”

“I’ll catch you later then?”

“Sure thing.”

And so quickly I don’t know it’s even happening until it’s over, he kisses my cheek with butterfly softness. Then he smiles, an I-know-something-you-don’t smile again before disappearing in the opposite direction.

My heart stutters and the yellow matte wall he disappeared around holds my eye longer than it should. And I have no idea why.

</p>

<p></p>I can't sleep. I can't... Jesus! What the hell is happening here??? Dad's boarded the windows up, mums still in bed vomiting for Wisconsin and me? I'm writing stupid frigging words on stupid frigging paper listening to noises filtering through from a world I'm being locked away from; helicopter blades, commanding shouts, gunshots... the occasional scream. The army officer who just left us, said to hold tight, stay indoors, they got it under control. It don't sound like to me like they got shit under control from what I'm hearing. But then, what do I know? I'm just a girl, sitting hunched against her living room wall writing in a damn diary. Someone they don't need to tell shit, 'cause what? I'm just a kid?

Promise to self, the next time someone says that to me— punch them. Hard.

I can hear mum vomiting again. Dad don't look to good either and Stacey Williams says her parents are the same, but that was five hours ago and my phone is dead along with the electricity. I'm writing this by good old battery powered flashlight. Dad's signalling me over to him, there are two guns by his side, one revolver and one rifle. Now, I'm scared.