by L V Chase
I close my locker. As I walk down the hallway, I switch from noticing people’s avoiding me to looking for anyone that could be the one from my memory. Most of the boys here are too thin.
A teacher—a skinny man wearing a white button-down shirt and a black tie—strides down the hallway towards me.
“Hey,” I say, waving at him.
He does a double take before slowing down in front of me. His hands twist the handle of his worn-down briefcase.
“Could you help me?” I ask. “I’m looking for room 211.”
“It’s down the hall, three rooms down,” he says hurriedly, indicating a hall a few yards in front of me.
He moves around me without waiting for me to acknowledge what he said. I follow his directions, finding the room with the numbers 211 written on a silver placard to the left of the door.
Nearly a dozen students are already in the classroom, several of them gathering in small groups. I sit down next to a girl with pale yellow hair tied together in a French braid.
“I like your hair,” I say to her.
She picks up her phone, unwraps the earbuds cord, and shoves the earpieces into her ears. With a discontented sigh, she swipes her screen.
It’s official: I’m the crazy girl that nobody wants to associate with.
I sit up straight. I can focus on my classes. I’ll keep my nose in my books and someone will eventually decide that I’m not a lunatic, and it’s okay to be friends with me.
I take out my planner, carefully looking over my schedule. I pretend to be endlessly fascinated by it—third period biology! lunch at twelve! sixth period gym!—so nobody thinks that I’m bothered by the cold-shoulder treatment.
“Everyone settle down!” a brash woman’s voice calls out.
An older woman with short gray hair steps in front of the rows of desks. Everyone rushes to find a chair.
“When I call your name, state that you are here, and do not speak at any other point. I am stating this now because I am sick and tired of your disrespect. Understood?”
A few murmurs of agreement rumble throughout the room.
“Good,” she says. “Is Sarah Bartram here?”
“Here!” a woman in the far corner calls out.
“Klay Harrington?”
“Here.”
I turn to find the deeper voice. Klay Harrington is a gun—his jawline is forged into sharp edges, his hair and eyes are as dark as my father’s old SIG Sauer pistol, and he exudes the promise of power that’s enough to scare any sensible person. He’s a threat, but for some reason, he feels like an invitation.
“Sadie Blair.”
I spin around, quickly raising my hand. “I’m here.”
Klay’s dark eyes shoot straight through me—two bullets tearing through my chest.
“The psych ward finally kick you out?” he drawls.
Heat rushes into my cheeks as several kids laugh. The teacher ignores the commentary, sitting down at her desk as the school bell goes off. I quickly shove my planner back into my bag. As I stand up, a hand slams down onto my arm, shoving me back into the chair. It doesn’t hurt, at least not on the outside.
“Welcome to Marshall High, Bell Jar,” Klay sneers as he passes by.
Bell Jar. Like The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath. He may be the most literate bully in the world.
I stand up again, making certain that my feet are firmly on the ground before I start walking. I poke my head out of the classroom, making sure that Klay isn’t waiting for me. He’s not, which is relieving and strangely disappointing at the same time.
4
Klay
I saw my first x-ray when I was a toddler. I’ve seen countless x-rays from my father since then, revealing the truth each and every time.
That people are made of skin, bones, and a whole lot of hot air. People are shit, acting like they’re not, and still convinced that they’re genuine. As I walk through the halls of Marshall High, every fucking thing pisses me off.
The freshman scrambling back and forth through the hall, trying to find their classes? Clueless, useless, pointless.
The two girls huddled together, walking slower than death in front of me, giggling the whole time? Natural selection’s got an overdue check to cash.
But what really boils my blood is watching Ethan and Roman act like they couldn’t care less about the way this all ends. Two minutes alone with each of them. That’s all I’d need to slice through their lies and spill the truth.
When Sadie walks in, every muscle in my body tenses. I avoid looking at her, but I can’t resist for long. Compared to her, everyone else is a walking corpse.
She isn’t just skin and bones.
When I first saw her, it was her ass that took all of my attention. The way her ass swayed sent a rush of adrenaline through my body. Her hair was this rustic red, and she had soft hazel eyes, but that ass and those thighs were the hooks that caught me by the mouth like I was a dumb salmon.
As I got to know her—purely by accident—I realized her hair was more of a cinnamon shade, with a mix of a warm brown and sharp red. Her eyes were downright luxurious, and she was the most kind, selfless, courageous, determined, and intelligent person I’d ever met. She forced me to see that I was coasting through life, a comfortable situation, but ultimately not fulfilling.
It’s impossible not to notice her. It’s also impossible not to notice Ethan and Roman, sitting in front of me as they exchange smirks. They’re two hyenas, circling their prey.
I lean back into my chair as Sadie sits down in Cara Hartman’s chair, directly in front of Ethan. If this were under normal circumstances, I’d warn her, but these aren’t normal circumstances. I have to let the hyenas think they’re the apex predator in this territory.
I know she notices me because she keeps turning her head. It’s flattering that, despite everything, she still feels connected to me, but it’s a liability. I can’t have her feeling that way. I’ll need to cut those feelings out of her, quick and clean.
She takes out her pen and a notebook. She doesn’t look particularly happy, but her face is scrunched up the way it always is when she’s determined to ignore the sadness festering inside.
Why is she so damn beautiful today? I force my eyes away.
Ethan and Roman continue to pretend that they don’t see her, arguing about Roman’s plot to get a new car from his parents.
Sadie, however, notices them. She’s cradling her pen in her hand, drawing circles around dates in her planner, but her head is tilted toward them as they talk. I curl my hand into a fist underneath the table.
I could understand an attraction to them. Ethan appears harmless. His dark auburn hair is carelessly swept away from his eyes in a way that could trick a person into thinking he didn’t pour as much money into his hair as his polo shirts.
Roman, on the other hand, didn’t have the common sense to be modest. His light brown hair is spiked up with enough gel to clog a drain, and he’s dressed like a mannequin in a high-end fashion store.
“E, the heart wants what it wants, and my heart wants a sweet baby Bugatti.” Roman leans back in his chair, that dumb smirk still on his face. “It’ll be in my driveway soon. My parents love me, and they’ll go out of their way to prove it.”
Ethan snorts. “That’s…optimistic. Did you wreck your last car? How much money did it cost to drag it out of that lake?”
Roman keels over, his cheek pressing against the lab table as he mockingly grabs his elbow. “My parents almost lost their poor, exhausted son. They won’t take him for granted ever again. If he wants a Bugatti, he’ll get a Bugatti.”
Sadie has circled around September 10th five times, which is meaningless when we’re past the tenth. She’s pretending to not listen to their conversation, but I know they have her full attention. It’s her first day here, and she’s already veering into danger.
She doesn’t even see Cara Hartman walk up.
“Excuse me,” Cara says to Sadie, her high ponytail swin
ging like a whip. “You’re in my spot.”
Sadie scrambles, grabbing her notebook and her pen. “Sorry. I didn’t know there were assigned seats.”
Everyone is staring at Sadie. Her face and neck are a bright red.
Oh, that flushed look…I push away the memory.
“Are you dumb?” Cara sneers. “It’s a lab class. Why the hell wouldn’t we have our own seats?”
“I didn’t know,” Sadie repeats.
She shoves her notebook into her bag and awkwardly stands up in the middle of the room. Cara quickly takes her seat. Sadie looks around the lab, searching for another chair. A few other students bump against her as they try to get by.
“Hey,” Ethan says, leaning back in his chair to get her attention. “Don’t concern yourself with Cara. She’s a narcissistic, dictatorial megalomaniac with delusions of grandeur, but hidden deep inside her, very deep, you’ll see that she’s actually just a royal bitch.”
“Screw you, Ethan,” Cara says, but there’s hardly any venom in her voice.
She’s been in love with him for the last decade, but Ethan’s been raised to only value a certain type of women. Unfortunately for her, she’s a Camry that stole the spot of a Rolls-Royce.
Ethan thrusts his hand in front of Sadie. “I’m Ethan Maxwell.”
“Sadie Blair,” she says. They shake hands.
The damn bastard, touching her like that. What I would give to slit Ethan’s wrist right now.
“Young lady, find your seat,” Mr. Miller says as he strides in. Sadie looks around and realizes she’s the only one still standing. She’s vulnerable in a way that cuts deep under my skin.
“I’m sorry,” Sadie says, her apology tour continuing. “I don’t know where my seat is. I just transferred—”
“There’s only one open seat,” Mr. Miller says. “Find it.”
She glances left and right, then behind her. She realizes that the only empty chair is the one beside me. Her face tightens and her eyes widen—a frightened deer seeing the hunter for the first time. It’s like a masochist’s pain—it hurts, but I need it. I need her to be fleeing so far from me that nothing could get her to come back.
But she walks straight to me, sitting down in the chair to my right. She’s less than five inches away. It would be so easy to reach across and take her hand, reassure her that everything is going to be fine. But I can’t reach over, and I can’t lie.
I turn away, burying the turmoil, the longing, the desire. I try to remind myself that she’s just skin, bone, and hot air, but she’s so much more than that to me.
5
Sadie
I may be in Hell.
I lean away from Klay, but I can’t stop myself from glancing toward him every now and then. He’s straddling the table’s leg, his left knee sticking out into the walkway. He’s tapping his pen against his notebook.
It should make me happy that he doesn’t want to be near me because that means the feeling should be mutual. But every time I look at him, I don’t feel disgust or aversion. Something about him is coaxing me closer to him.
It’d help if he wasn’t so dark, broody, and utterly gorgeous.
Ethan turns around to pass me a packet of worksheets. “So, Sadie, you know anything about sadism?”
I force a laugh. “That’s a new one.”
He’s cute, I’ll give him that. Ethan’s got the type of clean-cut look you bring home to your grandmother. It doesn’t hurt that he’s actually talking to me, unlike everyone else.
The only person left for me to pass the packet of worksheets to is Klay. I slide it over to him. He snatches it from me, ignoring Ethan and me.
“My apologies,” Ethan says. “I hoped you would recognize that as a joke. You’re not easily offended, are you?”
“Definitely not,” I say.
“I didn’t think so,” he says. “You don’t strike me as one of those high maintenance girls who invest an absurd amount of time on appearance. I would wager that you don’t care what other people think.”
I lean forward and rest my head on my fist. “Are you trying to neg me?”
His forehead furrows in confusion. “Neg? Is that an abbreviation for negotiation?”
I shake my head, sitting up straight again. “It sounds like you’re trying to undermine my confidence with subtle insults.”
His eyebrows shoot up. “I would never do that. I meant to imply that you were one of the cool chicks that didn’t care about conforming to society.
“Give up, man,” his lab partner beside him says. “She’s not digging your dumb bullshit.”
I glance briefly at the one who just spoke. He’s dolled up, not the way girls do, but in that casual guy style. Tight fabric stretches across his broad chest and shoulders, and his pants hug his slim waist. He gives off an athletic vibe. If Ethan’s the one you bring home, his lab partner’s the one you find at the club. Loose, rich, a one-time kind of guy.
What am I even thinking?
“It’s not bullshit,” Ethan says, crossing an ‘X’ over his heart.
The teacher’s started talking, but he doesn’t seem bothered by Ethan and his friend’s chatter.
“Hey.” I lean forward again, the table cutting into my stomach. Ethan isn’t flawless, but he’s the first person who hasn’t treated me like a pariah. “Do you know why everybody’s avoiding me? I didn’t do anything to upset them, did I?”
“Why? Did you forget if you upset them?” he says, his tone bordering on mocking.
“I don’t know,” I say. “I just…”
I don’t want everyone to know that I can’t remember the last two years. If they think I’m insane already, a two-year memory gap could change my label from unstable crackpot to insane imbecile.
“I just can’t remember doing anything,” I say. “The way they’re acting…it’s like I did something terribly wrong.”
Ethan shrugs. With his dark hair, brown eyes, and height, he could almost be related to Klay.
“Just ignore them,” Ethan says. “Everyone here is idiotic. If you ever feel the need to socialize, I wouldn’t mind entertaining a beautiful woman.”
He turns around, facing the teacher again. I lean back into my chair. Klay scowls beside me, shaking his head.
“You’re a fool,” he says. His words shouldn’t matter, but they drive a sharp pain into my chest.
“Why do you think that?” I ask.
“He’s using the oldest play in the book to fuck you, and you’re falling for it,” he says. “You’re suffering from a classic case of dumb bitch.”
“Better than suffering from massive asshole disorder,” I reply.
He stands up so abruptly, kicking his chair back, that I nearly jump out of my skin. He grabs his bag and stalks out of the room. The teacher lets him pass by, but continues the lesson like nothing happened.
Ethan raises an eyebrow at me but doesn’t say anything.
Klay doesn’t return by the time the bell rings. Everyone hustles to grab their things. Since I’m at the back of the class, I’m nearly one of the last people out. The teacher—I think it was Mr. Miller—stops me.
“Miss Blair, I can’t have you distracting the class while I’m talking,” he says.
I open my mouth, prepared to point out that I wasn’t the only one talking, but he makes a cutting motion with his hand, slamming it against his palm.
“Your doctors told me about the memory loss,” he continues. “You’re in my class as a favor, but you’ll need to work hard to stay. Prove that you deserve it. We could have easily forced you to do the last two years again. Understand?”
If I had the energy to be honest, or if he was a kinder man, I’d tell him that I’m not certain that I understand anything anymore.
“Yes, Mr. Miller,” I say.
“Good. You can get going.”
I hurry into the hallway. My locker is nearly on the other side of the floor, and I need to return to this side of the school for Algebra II.
When I arrive at my locker, an acrid smell tickles my nose. I ignore it, as I’m already behind and I’ve forgotten my locker combination. I find the combination in my planner, unlock my locker, and jerk open the handle.
I reach down for my Algebra II binder, but before I touch it, I see the fluid sticking to the plastic cover and puddling inside.
I look up at the top section of the locker, where my lunch bag is. I check it, but my water bottle isn’t leaking. I squat down near the bottom of the locker. I pick up the binder. I bring it closer to my nose.
The binder reeks of the same odor that I had first noticed. It’s pale yellow and warm to the touch. I drop the binder.
Someone pissed in my locker.
6
Sadie
Needless to say, asking the janitor to clean out my locker because someone pissed in it is a discussion I never want to have again.
I can’t imagine a girl aiming well enough to do that, although if she’s really motivated, she could have gone to the trouble to pee in a cup first and bring it over. I somehow can’t imagine Cara from biology doing that.
Then, there’s Klay Harrington. I’m starting to suspect that he’s more psychotic than all the folks I met back in the ward. I mean, I knew one guy who kept trying to paint his eyeballs because he thought aliens were using them to spy on him. And Klay makes that guy look like Santa Claus in comparison.
I eat lunch alone. In media arts class, the teacher spends most of the time talking about how his wife is sleeping in the guest bedroom, so if anyone else has any complaints, they’re the lowest priority in his life.
We’re painting self-portraits, and the teacher reassures us that everyone has some artistic talent before telling us that only a few of us will be going on the art show. The whole time he’s gazing at one of the female students like she was the next Picasso.
