School For Troubled Boys

by Lina Langley

  “Shit, I’m going to get in trouble?” I said with mock fear as I sat next to him.

  He laughed but didn’t say anything else.

  I sighed as I sat next to him. “There’s something about him,” I said. “He makes me feel alive. He makes me feel… I don’t know, real. He makes me feel real.”

  Alix looked at me, saying nothing. His lips were a straight line, his eyes wide, but he had yet to say a thing.

  “It’s been a long time since I’ve felt real,” I said, digging my fingers into the wooden boards underneath my fingertips. “Actually, I think I might never have before.”

  “What?”

  “Felt alive, I guess,” I said. “Like I’m, I don’t know, here.”

  “In a good way?”

  “Yeah,” I said, furrowing my brow as I thought about it. “Yeah, in a good way. Like living in my body is okay.”

  He put his hand on top of mine. “I’m glad,” Alix said.

  “It isn’t even what he says to me,” I said. “It’s like… I guess it’s just the way he looks at me. Like I’m this amazing version of myself.”

  “You are,” he said.

  I chuckled, no humor in my voice. “And yet here I am,” I said.

  “I’m glad you are here,” Alix said. “I’m glad you’re my friend. And I’m sorry I was a dick. I was just jealous, okay? Because I’m a child and I have abandonment issues.”

  I smiled at him. “Okay,” I said. “But you know that I love you, right? I’m never going to leave you for anyone. Girl, boy, enby, fae—”

  “He’s a fae, right? Pretty sure he’s a fae,” he said, then nudged me with his shoulder. “You better not. Jerk.”

  I draped my arm his shoulder and squeezed him close. “I wouldn’t.”

  “Good,” he said. “I love you too. Now go and get your man.”

  “He’s not my—”

  “Shush,” Alix said. “God, you’re so good at ruining the moment. Go, dick.”

  I stood up and brushed myself off, steeling myself to talk to David. I wasn’t sure what I was going to say. All I knew was that I really needed to tell him how he made me feel, because I couldn’t just let Alix down after that.

  I walked up to our dorm to find David quietly packing his stuff.

  “What are you doing?” I heard myself ask. “Did your parents—”

  “Stepdad,” he said. “And no. I asked for a dorm change.”

  “You did?”

  He nodded, biting his lower lip. “Yeah,” he replied.

  “And they just gave you one?”

  He grinned at me. “I emphasized how much I wanted us to fuck,” he said. “I described it in excruciating detail. You would have been proud of me. I used the words ‘throbbing loins’.”

  I giggled. “I am proud of you,” I said, then swallowed. “But why? I like it when you’re here.”

  He looked up at me then as he stopped packing. “I don’t want to take away the good things you have here,” he said. “And I’ve only been here for a few weeks, but I’m smart enough to understand they’re precious.”

  I walked over to where he was, kneeling down so that my face was at his level. “You know,” I said. “For someone as observant as you are, you seem to be missing something important.”

  “What?” he replied, his eyes wide.

  “You’re one of those,” I said.

  He cocked his head, furrowing his brow, those bright eyes of his shining. “Huh?”

  “One of the precious things,” I said. “Easily. Top ten.”

  “Top ten?” he replied with mock outrage.

  “Okay, top five. Easily top five.”

  “Top five,” he replied. “Wow, I’m so flattered—”

  I stopped him by pressing my lips against his. He opened his eyes wide for a second and it seemed like he was about to pull away, but then he put his face on my cheek and pressed his face against mine until we were both panting for breath, until it was clear that neither one of us wanted to move away from the other.

  I was the first one to move my face away from him as I tried to catch my breath. “Shouldn’t have asked them to change your dorm.”

  “Shouldn’t have,” he said. “Now where are we going to recreate those incredible romance scenes?”

  “Great minds,” I replied. I was going to say something else, but then he kissed me again, and I was pretty sure that was when I forgot how to talk.

  And right then, for just those few seconds, everything was perfect.

  THE END

  SAMPLE

  BOTTOM OF THE CLASS

  It had been a long summer and I was excited to go back to school. It was my last year before graduation and everything was in motion. Excellent grades, check. Lots of extracurriculars, check. Backstabbing friends, check. Weird home life I really wanted to get away from, check.

  I knew that all I had to do was get through my last year of school, get rid of the bloodsucking ticks that called themselves my friends, and go try my luck in NYC. Even if I didn’t make it the first, second, even third year, I knew I would eventually make it. I would do whatever it took. I would sleep in subway stations during the winter and the park during the summer. My parents were never thrilled with the idea, but they always knew how far I would go to achieve my dreams.

  They had always supported me. As I drove into the school parking lot, I waved at people I hadn’t seen all summer. It felt like the first time in months that everything was going to go back to normal.

  The moment I stepped out of my car, Emily sprinted toward me. “Hey,” she said, her dark blonde hair curling around her perfectly made-up round face. “Did you get my text?”

  “No,” I said, taking my phone out of my pocket. “I haven’t turned it on yet.”

  She rolled her eyes. “You’re still on that shit?”

  “Starting the day with phone contact stresses me out,” I said, shrugging my shoulders. “I’m trying to practice self-care over here.”

  She shook her head, looping a strand of hair behind her ear. “Fine,” she said. “Did you hear about Miss Danback?”

  “No,” I said, frowning at her.

  “She’s having a baby,” Emily said.

  I blinked. “That’s nice,” I said.

  “No, Cal,” Emily replied, getting really close to my face. “She’s not here this year.”

  My eyes widened. She was one of the reasons I had been looking forward to going back to school. I swallowed as my thoughts drifted to the music teacher, Mr. Miller. He was the most logical substitute to head the drama program, but he was a cranky, annoying middle-aged man who didn’t give a shit about anything but band. “Who do you think we have?”

  “No idea. That’s assuming we have someone,” Emily said. “But we need to go sign up now, before first period.”

  I swallowed. The idea that we wouldn’t have a drama program at all hit me like a ton of bricks. This was what I had been working toward for so long and now it felt like it was going to be taken away from me. All that hard work for nothing. All because Miss Danback had decided to have a baby.

  She rolled her eyes again. “I’m sure you’re safe, Cal,” she replied. “Unfortunately, I’m in competition with more people than you.”

  “I’m right behind you,” I said, trying my best not to snap at her. We’d been friends since we were kids, but Emily’s high-strung nature could rub me the wrong way on the best of days. This was not one of those days and I could feel myself getting close to losing my temper.

  Losing everything felt like a real possibility. We walked into the main building until we had reached the auditorium, waving at people who looked like they wanted to stop us.

  Emily turned to look at me over her shoulder. “There’s a sign-up sheet.”

  I closed my eyes, letting out a sigh of relief. “Thank God,” I said. “I wouldn’t have been surprised if they shut off the program.”

  “Same,” Emily said. “Looks like we’re the first people here.”


  I smiled at her. “Good,” I said. “I want to show our new teacher we’re serious.”

  She smiled at me as she took a pen from her ear. She wrote her name, her handwriting perfect, and handed the pen to me. I wrote my name under hers. We were the first two people there, but I knew the sheet would soon get appropriately full. It was one of the only extracurriculars students at our school actually enjoyed. At least the crowd I used to hang out with.

  “Serious about what?” Someone said from behind me. I didn’t recognize the voice. I turned around, ready to tell a freshman to fuck off, when my breath caught in my throat.

  The person in front of me was clearly not a student. He looked like a celebrity, with broad shoulders and big light eyes. His brown hair was styled so it was kept out of his face, his Greek nose above full lips, his cheekbones sharp and dramatic and his features framed by perfectly manicured dark eyebrows.

  I swallowed, opening my mouth to answer him. There were very few times in life I had felt speechless, but as I stared at this person, I found myself unable to form words. It wasn’t just how strikingly beautiful he was, it was the way he was looking at me, with a cross of amusement and curiosity.

  Like the only thing he could see in the world was my face. Nobody had ever looked at me like that before. Certainly not a stranger.

  Emily cleared her throat. “Hi,” she said. “Are you new?”

  “Yes,” he replied, his voice deep. “I am.”

  She met my gaze for a second, as if to question what the fuck was happening, and then she flashed him that easy smile that had made her so popular. “I’m Emily,” she said. “This is Callum.”

  “Nice to meet,” he said, in that thick sweet voice of his. His gaze darted between us, as if he was unsure of where he was supposed to be looking. “I’m Mr. Redford. Your new drama teacher.”

  ***

  I tried to focus on my classes, but I was finding it harder and harder. I was supposed to make senior year my bitch, but meeting Mr. Redford had thrown me for a loop. I knew that there was nothing wrong with having a hot new teacher—except perhaps the fact that there would be more people signing up to drama now than there had been before.

  But the way he had looked at me… it was nothing. I told myself it was nothing, except that when I closed my eyes, my mind would drift back to when he had been looking at me. I could recall exactly what he was wearing, that checkered button-up shirt with red and blue lines, the waistcoat over it, the black slacks. Fashion-wise, I knew it was a bit of a disaster, yet he still managed to pull it off. It felt like everything he wore would have looked amazing.

  I don’t know how many times I told myself to get a grip. I knew better than to crush on a teacher, and even if he had been just another student, I didn’t have time to date. That’s why I had broken up with Dean before the summer, because I was trying to focus on my future. He hadn’t taken it well, but I knew he would get over it quickly.

  I figured I could put my romantic life on hold at least until after graduation. I’d heard too many horror stories of people staying behind because they’d gotten their high school girlfriend pregnant or because their boyfriend had convinced them to stay.

  I never wanted to be one of those people. I knew I was going to be a star and I couldn’t let anyone hold me back. Not even a stupid crush. I told myself that I didn’t have to worry, after all, a crush was just a crush and it wasn’t as if it was going to turn into something else. I knew I would have no chance at all with my teacher.

  Maybe.

  My head was spinning by the time the clock hit three o’clock. I had gone through the motions all day. Now I wanted to go and really see about this teacher. Maybe I was wrong about him. Maybe he hadn’t acted like he was interested in me at all, maybe he was just an intense person.

  I glanced at the sign-up sheet before I entered the auditorium. Just like I had thought, the sheet was completely full. There were many names I recognized, but there were several new ones, people who had never taken any interest in drama who seemed to have had a change of heart. I thought I even saw a couple of cheerleaders. I rolled my eyes, feeling weirdly territorial about all this, and knocked on the door despite the fact that it was wide open.

  I could see him from the corner of my eye, hunched over a table and scribbling something in a notebook. His brow was furrowed and his lips were twisted. I couldn’t really see his expression that well, but there was something about the way he was focusing. He looked busy but peaceful, a contradiction I’d never seen in anyone’s face before.

  I approached him slowly. I tried to be light on my feet, mostly because I didn’t want to disturb him. He lifted up his head and smiled at me. “Hey,” he said. “Callum, right?”

  “Yes,” I replied as I stopped in my tracks. “Hi, Mr. Redford.”

  “Hello,” he said, the smile painted on his face. “How can I help you?”

  I got closer to him. I knew I was going to have to be right next to him when we talked, but something felt dangerous about him. It was probably nothing—and whatever it was, it was probably only something in my mind, in any case. There was something about this situation that felt inherently dangerous, though, so as I approached him, I had to steel myself.

  I knew he wasn’t going to hurt me. He seemed nice—really nice, so good-looking, so expectant. The danger was coming from me, from what I wanted from him. Being that horny around a teacher couldn’t be a good thing, I told myself. I brushed my hands off on my jeans, because they were covered in sweat.

  I couldn’t understand why I was so nervous. I had been around plenty of teachers and I had been around plenty of people I found attractive. They had just never done anything like this to me, they hadn’t left me feeling like I wasn’t able to speak, like I wasn’t even able to move.

  He kept staring at me. He wasn’t saying anything. I managed to wonder if he was as nervous as I was, but there was no reason for him to be nervous at all. He was just doing his job, I told myself.

  “Hi,” I said.

  He cocked his head, furrowing his brow. A little line appeared on his forehead. I wondered how old he was. He didn’t even look like he was thirty, but I knew it would have been inappropriate to ask him how old he was. “Sit down, Callum,” he said. He pulled up a chair so it was near him, not quite next to him, but close enough that I thought I could have reached out and touched him.

  Not that I was going to. I sat down next to him, feeling a little shaky.

  “How can I help you?” he repeated, his voice thick.

  I looked up at him. From where I was, I could see the little wrinkles on his face, the ridges of his lips. I blinked, telling myself to get a grip. That wasn’t what I was there for. I was there to ascertain my position as top of the drama club, to make sure that Mr. Redford wasn’t going to interfere with my future. “I just, uh, came here because I’m part of the drama club,” I said. “And I wanted to introduce myself, you know, properly.”

  He cocked his head, not saying anything. “You’re Callum George?”

  “Yes,” I said. “That’s me.”

  He smiled, straightening up slightly. “Everyone speaks very highly of you, Callum,” he said. “And actually, I managed to see last year’s production of The Breakfast Club.”

  “You did?” I replied, my heart beating hard in my chest. I had never cared that much about someone finding my acting good before, not even a casting director. It suddenly became very important that Mr. Redford’s opinion of me was high.

  “Yes,” he said. “Your interpretation of Andrew Clark was great. Much more vulnerable than the movie, which made it so much better.”

  I smiled at him as I tried to swallow down the lump in my throat. “Thank you,” I said. “I appreciate that.”

  “I wouldn’t have cast you as Clark, though,” he said.

  “Oh?”

  “Not to question Miss Danback’s judgment, but I think you would have been a great Bender,” he said, looking right at my face. “Grow your hair out, out
silver studs in your ears. I bet you could look the part.”

  I swallowed again. I thought I could hear an inflection, something close to a lisp. I told myself to stop being ridiculous. Regardless of how much I was searching for signs of queerness, I could see the silver crucifix hanging from his neck and the Jesus fish tattoo he had tried to cover up with his sleeve. Even if he was into other men—and I doubted it—he would never be into me. I was his student. All he had done was be polite.

  I needed to stop reading into this person. I took a deep breath and told myself to get a grip. “Thank you,” I said. “I appreciate that. She gave the role to Jamie West.”

  “I know,” Mr. Redford said. “He was good. I just think you could have been better.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind when I audition next,” I said. “Depending on what you’re doing this year.”

  “We’ll have to do something popular,” Mr. Redford said. “I see Miss Danback was hardly breaking even and the drama department really does need a cash infusion.”

  I cocked my head, set my gaze on him and narrowed my eyes slightly. “So we sell out?”

  “Yes,” he said. “But only so we can keep the program going. Surely that’s an acceptable reason to sell out.”

  “Yeah,” I replied, looking at my lap. I didn’t like the idea that the program wasn’t going to put on quality plays, but I also knew that wasn’t entirely the case. Miss Danback’s casting choices might have been dubious, but she cared very much about producing high-quality work. It was the kind of work that had gotten me noticed, especially around the community theater circuit.

  “Don’t worry,” Mr. Redford said. I looked up to meet his gaze. “We’re just going to try and get a show done this season so the program can keep going. That way, you can end the year with a bang.”

  I smiled at him. “Thank you,” I said. “I appreciate that.”

  “Of course,” he said. “And I appreciate you coming here and introducing yourself. I’m sorry Miss Danback isn’t going to be the one to finish your high school experience with you, but I’m hoping I can breathe some new life into the program.”

  “The program does need it,” I said. “I mean, if you need any help, I’m here for that.”