Already Gone

by Bridget E. Baker

  "What'd you say?" Dave turned back to me.

  "I said, thanks for leaving me to carry everything for the whole team." I meant the box. Mostly.

  He dropped his bag and stomped back to where I stood. He tried to yank the box out of my hands, but it was too late now.

  "No way.” I pulled the box against my chest. "Don't do me any favors."

  "Fine, I won't." He turned to walk to the bus, still fuming, presumably over our loss. He'd seen the same score tally I had. My name was all over the card, two sixes for first place, and part of two teams scoring eight points for relays. His was on three times, but only in first once. This wasn't new. Almost every meet I did better than him and he’d sulk a little, but by the next day he'd be back to normal and we'd be mostly fine. It had been like this ever since October when we started dating off and on. I wondered whether he was more jealous of Moby or of me.

  "Wait," Moby said, taking the box from me smoothly. "Who did you say was the jerk?" He smirked and fell into step beside me, walking me out to our bus.

  We didn't make it more than a dozen steps before Dave turned back and saw him. His face flushed and he swore. "What do you think you're doing?"

  Dave jogged back toward Moby, but I stepped out and put my hand on his chest. "He's just being nice.” Like you weren’t, I thought.

  "I don't know how they do things in Brazosport," Moby said, "but in Friendswood, guys don't let beautiful ladies carry huge boxes out to the bus."

  "Just the ugly ones?" I asked.

  Moby looked momentarily confused before he smiled. "We don't let any girls carry big boxes, no matter what they look like. Not if we can help it."

  "Put it down." Dave said. "It's not a heavy box, which I know from carrying it after every meet this year, and my girlfriend doesn't need your help. Neither do I."

  Moby hunched over and used a low voice to mock Dave. "Me man. Me say you no carry big box for my woman." He grunted.

  That pissed Dave off pretty bad, but before he could do anything about it Coach Collins showed up. He held his hands out, palms facing out, and spoke in a loud voice. "Drop it, Dave. You will be civil, and you will carry that box the rest of the way to the bus."

  "You’ve seen him, Coach. He's been all over Hope since we got here, and now he's-"

  "I won't say it again," Coach said. "Take that box and go to the bus."

  Dave scowled, but he yanked the box away from Moby and stomped off toward the bus. He stopped at the steps and looked back at me. "You coming?"

  I nodded my head. "In a minute."

  He sighed with disgust and carried the box up the stairs and through the double doors.

  "Thanks for helping," I said awkwardly, very aware Coach Collins was standing between Moby and me.

  "He's going to be helping us a lot in the future," Coach Collins said.

  "What does that mean?" I asked.

  "It means I'm moving," Moby said with a smile. "My family’s relocating to Surfside beach tomorrow. We're going to be teammates."

  His interest in me and in our team made so much more sense. He’s going to be joining us.

  I broke up with Dave on the bus on the way home, and I didn’t even mention why.

  Chapter Four

  Lacy

  “Tell me about Mason,” Dr. Brasher says. “Why did he change things?”

  “Well, he stood out right away.”

  “How so?”

  “He looked different, for one. Very different.”

  Dr. Brasher raises an eyebrow.

  "This should be easy," I say. "Just think of the hottest guy you've ever seen. Channing Tatum, or you know, you’re old so maybe Brad Pitt. I don't care, take your pick. I promise you, Mason Montcellier is hotter. He's like a supernova. You almost can't look right at him. Black hair and light brown, almost golden eyes. Flawless features, perfect symmetry. A few freckles so you believe he's a real person instead of a cyborg, and sun-kissed skin all over."

  Dr. Brasher sits back in his seat and regards me quietly before he says, "You seem very concerned with his looks. Why do they matter to you so much?"

  I raise my eyebrows. "You're a doctor, so I know you’re smart. This should make sense to you immediately."

  He simply looks at me.

  I sigh. "Didn't you take honors classes when you were in school?”

  He shakes his head. “I actually struggled in High School. I didn’t really buckle down and worry about scholastics until college.”

  “Well, let me paint you a little picture then. Brazosport isn’t a huge high school, but it’s pretty big. There are maybe two thousand students in all, but I'm in all Advanced Placement classes, right? College level Calculus, History, English, Spanish and Physics. In those classes there are a lot of bright people, even at crappy B-port high. There are tall kids. There are short kids. You'll see freckled kids, dark kids, pale kids, even a few perfectly tan kids, since some of us live in Surfside. You'll find science geeks, with the Dow plant so close, and kids who read obsessively. There are others who study history in their free time. My classes have kids of almost every race, and almost every shape, but there's one thing you never see. Never. There are no genuinely, naturally attractive kids. Maybe because no one in there focuses much on their appearance, I don’t know.”

  I pause and Dr. Brasher stares at me blankly. I sigh and continue. “You obviously never took speech and debate, because even compared to the AP classes, it’s a microcosm. The people in there care about presentation, but not in the way popular kids do. In fact, most of us are hiding there because we interact better with adults than with other kids. I'm nothing to look at, and I'm Jennifer freaking Lawrence in there."

  Dr. Brasher snorts. "What you’re saying is that when you met Mason for the first time, he stood out."

  "That's an understatement. Anyhow, my first class of the day is speech and debate. They arranged varsity speech and debate first so that it's not such an inconvenience for one of us to step out every morning and miss class to do the school announcements. That someone has been me for the past three years."

  "Do you miss it?" he asks.

  "What? Doing the announcements?" I roll my eyes. "I've missed a great many things since everything went down Dr. Brasher, but doing the school announcements isn't on that list.” I switch into my announcement voice. “Hello, students of Brazosport High. Today is January fifth. First, please stand to say the pledge of allegiance. Now, the Texas pledge. Now, let me tell you all about the dumb awards our basketball team won. And let me close with a message from our school counselor. Drug usage has been on the rise, and we all know how bad drugs are for you. Please make sure if you see anything strange or out of the ordinary, or any suspicious behavior, you report it immediately to a principal."

  Dr. Brasher smiles. "You sound pretty good at that, actually. But, what does that have to do with meeting Mason?"

  “I’m getting there.” I think back to that day. "I finished the school announcements and then I walked two hallways over, up the stairs and down to the far end of the hall. Speech class is banished to the furthest corner of the school."

  I look down at my black Converse sneakers, and I can see it all again in my head just as it happened that morning. My beat up sneakers, my worn jeans, my puffy Adidas bunched under one arm and my suit in a bag, slung over my shoulder. A day like any other until I walked in the door, prepared to lope over to my seat next to Drew and review our game plan for that day's debate tournament.

  "When I came in the classroom was already full, and he was just there, sitting in Drew's seat."

  "Drew?" Dr. Brasher asks.

  "Sorry, her first name is Alice," I say. “But she goes by her middle name. Drew.”

  “He was sitting in Alice Dunmore’s seat?” Dr. Brasher’s eyebrows rise.

  "Right. We’ve been best friends since we were both eleven, and I knew her even before that. Drew’s dad interviewed my mom for the job at Dow Chemical. Mom still works for him."

  Dr. Brasher takes
some notes and then flips through some papers. "And Drew took debate with you, right?"

  "She was my debate partner," I say. "She wasn't very good, but she usually tried really hard. Brazosport's debate team has always sucked. I'm an anomaly, but there just wasn’t much to choose from partner-wise. After an abysmal sophomore year, I convinced Drew to take the class with me and be my partner. She's amazing at research and her writing is decent, but she sucks at speaking, especially in front of people. She freezes up like a mouse facing off with a cobra."

  Dr. Brasher rolls his eyes, which doesn’t seem very shrinky of him. "Where was Drew that day?"

  "I didn't know where she was then, not yet. I just knew someone else was in her seat when I walked into class. But Drew was late a lot, so that didn’t really surprise me. Instead of sitting down, I looked at our Coach, Ms. Harris, and asked her-"

  "She wasn't upset you were late?"

  I exhale heavily. "Dr. Brasher, even for a therapist, you're asking about too many superfluous details. I can't tell you the story if you badger me with pointless questions. Remember, I wasn't late. I'd been at the main office doing announcements and this was our standard deal. Ms. Harris knew that. She didn't think anything of me coming inside after they finished and after everyone else was seated." Dr. Brasher may mean well, but if he wants my side of the story, I'm going to need to give it without interruptions.

  I tap on my lip. "What if I write this down for you? It might be faster and easier. Then after you read what I write, all of it, if you still want to know more or you’re confused, we can talk about it."

  Dr. Brasher thinks about it for a moment, tapping his desk with his fingers slowly. Then he leans back in his chair and nods his head. "We can try it. It's unconventional but it could work. It might be cathartic for you to put it all down on paper, too. Easier to say some things that way."

  He stands up and rummages around in his filing cabinet. He pulls out a large yellow pad, long and lined, like the ones the old-timers use when they're judging debate. Instead of flashing, some of them still flow. I groan. "Don't you have a laptop or something from this century?"

  He laughs. "It'll do you some good to get a hand cramp. That's how you know it's time to take a break from writing and reflect on what you’re recounting." He hands me the paper pad and an ink pen. Then he walks back to his desk, pulls out a book and starts reading.

  "What, right here?" I ask. "You want me to write this down here, while you sit there and read, what book is that?" I squint. “The Devil Wears Prada? Are you kidding me?”

  He raises his eyebrows. "Isn't this what you wanted? Tell your story, and how did you say it? Stop badgering me with pointless questions.”

  I frown at him. He might be smarter than I first thought. I look down at the blank paper, so much blank, yellow paper. I guess it is what I wanted. I pick up the pen and begin, well, at the beginning.

  * * *

  Mason Montcellier sat in Drew's seat, but somehow, the second I saw him there, it wasn't Drew's seat anymore. It was Mason's. He's that kind of person, the kind who walks in and just takes over, only it doesn't feel like he's taking over. It feels like he was missing before, and he's right where he's supposed to be, wherever he is. He wore a simple red t-shirt and dark blue jeans. His leather shoulder bag sat next to his chair, instead of a backpack like most kids, and a light jacket was draped across it. I almost couldn't bring myself to walk across the room toward him.

  His eyes immediately met mine, light and curious. They followed me to my seat, and he smiled when I sat next to him. "I'm Mason," he said. "I'm new."

  I sighed in mock relief. "Phew. I'm Lacy," I said. "I was worried. You're in my friend's seat. For a minute, I thought Drew had undergone some major plastic surgery. Welcome to B-port High."

  "Thanks," he said. "Well, was the surgery successful?"

  "Uh, no," I said, "see, she’s not really having surgery. I was making a joke. In fact, Drew’s a girl, so that would be some really major surgery." Geez, he was thick. The gorgeous ones always are.

  “Drew being a girl kind of messes up my joke, but not totally.”

  I was so accustomed to no one getting my sense of humor, that I didn't even realize he was flirting at first. Mason raised his eyebrows in that way that cocky guys do, and I realized this time I was the one who missed his joke. Right then, I knew I was a goner.

  "What are you doing in speech and debate?" I asked, by way of an answer. "You don't really fit in here, what with your surgically enhanced pectoral muscles, or you know, any muscle definition at all."

  "I don't?" Mason looked around the room. My eyes followed his. I see Kelly Willis, a little on the heavy side, with red curlicue hair, plaid skirt, spiked collar, and black combat boots. Taylor Morris grinned at us, his braces gleaming, almost as brightly as the shiny zits all over his cheeks. We were too far for Mason to realize it, but Taylor also had a pretty bad body odor problem. Off to the side from Taylor, Kim Huynh, pronounced like “win", was digging through piles of printouts from Newsweek, updating the Extemp files last minute. His glasses slid down on his nose twice in ten seconds. Pushing them back up had become a permanent nervous tic, and he did it now, even when they hadn’t yet slid down.

  My eyes circled back to Mason's. He shook his head slowly. "My mom's going to be so disappointed if I can't cut it in here. She's the one who made me sign up, you know, back at my old school."

  "I didn't mean you couldn't cut it," I said. "No need to disappoint good old Mommy just yet. I was only pointing out that you don't really look the part."

  "You don’t either,” he pointed out. “Does your friend Drew look the part?"

  Not really, not like the other kids in here anyway. Drew looked a lot like me. Like an endearingly cute regular person, but with a slight gothic vibe. I feel a flash of pre-emptive jealousy, wondering whether Mason will prefer Drew when she finally shows up, but I stamp it down.

  “Drew definitely doesn’t fit in either. She only joined because I badgered her into it. She’s really cute. A little dark and angsty maybe, but she’s not a typical honors kid appearance wise.”

  Neither of us was in Mason’s league, though. No one at Brazosport High that I could think of really was, not by a long shot.

  Before I could ask about where he came from or why he was here, Ms. Harris emerged from her little office on the side of the classroom. I have no idea how she managed to get a classroom with it's own private office, although dodgy theories abounded, but she put it to good use. I doubt she'd survive a day here without it, since she's frequently in there drinking. She told us over and over that her thermos was filled with water and lemon juice, ‘for her throat.’ I may not have had alcohol myself yet, and my mom never drinks, but even I recognize the smell as something stronger than water.

  She didn't look too drunk when she shuffled out in her slippers that morning, but she had her insulated cup of ‘lemon water’ in hand, so it was only a matter of time. That's the other reason we scheduled Varsity speech and debate for first period. It was our best chance of getting something out of good old Ms. Harris before she put her head down on her desk and started snoring. We all made a lot of jokes, but back in her day she swept at state and did well at nationals, too. I kind of feel sorry for her. She hasn’t had an easy life.

  "We have a new student with us today, class. Mr. Mason Montcellier," she slurred. She made Montcellier sound like Mont-chaleer.

  "Actually, it's Mont-sell-ee-ay," Mason said.

  Ms. Harris tried, she really did, but after a few failed attempts, Mason gave up on correcting her. I suppressed a chuckle. He'd learn eventually.

  She smacked her lips a few times and sighed. "Well ya'll, please welcome him in here and make him feel at home." She turned around in her slippers to shuffle back to her office, but I couldn't let her escape quite yet.

  I raised my hand. When she didn’t notice, I shouted. "Ms. Harris, have you heard from Drew or her mom?"

  She looked confused, like she didn't kn
ow who I was talking about. Drew had been in this class for almost two years now, but I still wouldn't put it past her to not be able to pick Drew out of a line-up.

  "Aren't we supposed to leave here in the next few minutes?" I prompted. "She's my partner. I kind of need her or I’ll have to forfeit. It’s happened before, and today I’d really rather not."

  "Oh dear." She put her cup down and patted her enormous, flaming red beehive hair. "If Drew doesn’t come, you'll need a substitute partner, won't you?"

  "Umm, yeah," I said. "Drew might more closely resemble a warm body that occasionally speaks, but I can't do team debate alone." I was the only successful student on our entire debate squad. I managed to pull Drew along with me well enough that we occasionally won. Last year, to everyone's absolute shock, she and I qualified for state. We even won our first two rounds there before going up against the team that eventually won the whole thing. That loss didn't hurt as badly when I saw that Reynolds and Reynolds (yes, you guessed it, a cheesy twin team) took the entire tournament.

  "I'll call her mother," Ms. Harris rasped, before she turned and ducked back into her office. I texted Drew again, but she hadn't responded to my text this morning after breakfast either. I was starting to get worried. Drew’s mom is a surgeon who works bizarre hours and Drew’s a night owl. The combination meant that she was late a lot, but she kept her phone on high volume so messages from me would wake her up. What if she was hurt? I texted her mom and no dots showed up from her either. She was probably in surgery.

  I tried not to panic about Drew since this was hardly strange for her, but this tournament was kind of a big deal to me. Every year the same schools, the ones with competent coaches and lots of smart kids, fill the majority of the slots for the state debate tournament. Last year, the qualifying list included one team from B-port for the first time in a long time, my team.

  I intended to make a repeat appearance, but in order to qualify I needed twelve points in policy debate. I only had six right now for ending in second place at Alief Taylor, and making it to quarters at Clear Lake. First place at the Katy tournament would net me eight points, which would put me over by two. Of course, if Drew doesn't come with me, it won't help me much anyway. We both needed twelve points to qualify. Assuming nothing was wrong, how could she do this to me?