Quinsey Wolfe's Glass Vault

by Candace Robinson

  Neven’s face is full of hurt as it always is when I lash out at him. For the first two months after I stopped talking to him, he tried every single day to talk to me. Then it turned into every week, then every month, and then he didn’t try anymore, until today.

  He never stopped looking at me in school, though. It’s almost as if he was waiting for me to approach him. That would never happen for as long as I lived on this earth.

  I look up as I always have at his tall hovering form. “Looking at me like that, Nev, isn’t going to do much good. Don’t expect me to feel sorry for you.”

  He has the nerve to smile. I mean, he smiles widely at me. “You called me Nev. Not Neven like you have been.”

  I flex my fingers by my sides. Then bring my fingers to my palms, beginning with my pinky fingers until my fists want to punch him hard, but I don’t.

  “Neven,” I say as harshly as I can, “Leave me alone. I will never forgive you.”

  He is growing frustrated. I can tell because his hands run through his hair and grab it like he wants to rip it out and most likely throw the strands at my face.

  We just stare at each other, until he calmly lowers his hands to his sides. “Damn it, Perrie. How many times do I have to tell you that I have no clue what the hell you have been talking about for the past seven months? Anyone else would have given up already, but you and me,” he points back and forth between us, “we are the real deal, so if I have to wait an eternity for you, I will.” He tips his chin at me and walks off.

  “Well,” Maisie says in awe.

  I look back at her and stare hard. “Well?”

  Maisie moves her head like she has sand or something in her hair and is trying to shake it out. “Oh, yeah. Screw that loser.”

  I sigh at her and shake my head. Summer can’t come soon enough, so I won’t have to see Neven at school anymore.

  The bell rings, and we hurry to class. Maisie is in my first-period class which is English. I absolutely love this class. Our teacher, Mr. Carter, is my favorite teacher. My writing skills are average at best, but he can turn anyone’s work into a masterpiece.

  For the last twenty minutes of class every day, he goes on the computer and draws pictures. I’m not kidding when I say the stuff he creates is beyond amazing. I have tried numerous times at home to draw or even write my name with the mouse, but I gave up after trying to write the letter P. It was completely illegible.

  The rest of my classes before lunch pass way too slowly. During Math, I finish my homework, so I don’t have anything to do besides stare at Mrs. Briggs’ big hair. It isn’t just big hair, it’s crazy huge. She’s stuck in an era that I have no intention of ever visiting myself. My stomach is already growling and has been since I walked into class.

  I watch the second hand on the clock slowly forcing itself to the number I need—and then the bell rings. “Yes!” I think to myself.

  Having already packed up my binder and put everything else away, I grab my backpack and start to stand up. Out of habit, I reach for my cello. Then I remember that I dropped it off after first period in the Orchestra room. As I reach the doorway, I look up and see August already there waiting for me.

  His green eyes meet mine, and instantly a smile tugs at his lips at the same time it does mine. August is wearing his black Converse sneakers with jeans and a three-quarter-sleeve t-shirt. I run up and wrap my arms around him, backing him into a locker. He hugs me back while letting out a deep laugh in my ear.

  August is a little taller than me. When I look at him, I don’t have to look up as far as I had to with Neven. He meets me after this class every day for lunch, since he has first period off and comes to school later. I’m about to speak when I see Neven passing us by in the hallway. He glances at me, and then he turns his hard stare at August, glaring with a promise of true death. They used to talk a little, but not anymore.

  “So, I got you something for your birthday,” August says against the side of my face. His breath brushes my ear, and my skin absorbs the warmth.

  I pull back and look at August. “You didn’t have to get me anything.”

  He lets me go and unzips his backpack, pulling out a tiny box. “Don’t worry. It isn’t an engagement ring.”

  I laugh, take the box from him and open it up. Tucked inside is a silver necklace with a cello bow pendant that is encrusted with sparkling sapphires. I love it.

  “You can also read the back.”

  I turn it over, and engraved on the back in the silver reads: “I’m here.”

  Okay, so I rarely get this choked up over birthday gifts, but I grab him and pull him to me and kiss his cheek. “Thank you.”

  I don’t know what I have been starting to feel for August lately, but I do know that I don’t want to have feelings for anyone. My goal after breaking up with Neven, was to get through high school, do the college thing and see what happens after that.

  August has been making this hard, and we may have just started out as friends, but something is starting to form. I’m choosing to ignore it for as long as humanly possible.

  It’s funny because when August moved here and started his senior year at our school, I completely hated him. There was no real reason, except he waltzed into Orchestra class and took over first chair. Yes, my first chair in Orchestra, and I was pissed.

  Cello was the one thing that I was good at and could get me a scholarship to college. I still got one, but back then I thought everything would be wrecked.

  That first day of senior year, I was happily sitting in my Orchestra seat from the prior year. As class began, our teacher stated the new student, August, had a late audition and first chair would be his.

  I remember looking and glaring at this blond boy with his perfect face and elegance that I wanted to rip apart. He sat down next to me without giving me a single glance, even though I was staring at him.

  The bell had rung, and the class had emptied except for us. I was waiting on Neven. He was going to meet me at Orchestra since the gym was near my class, but he was running late after basketball.

  Our teacher, Mr. Hamm, was already gone since it was his last period of the day. August was still there which made me even more furious. He finally looked my way, and the look he gave me had zero emotion—and then he turned around.

  My brows lowered, and I thought, He did not just look at me and turn away. I picked up my expensive bow that Dad had saved so much to buy for my Christmas present the previous year. I took the bow and slowly walked up to him. As I came upon him, he was completely oblivious, polishing or maybe tuning his instrument which made me angrier. He looked up from his cello, and I looked him straight in the eye.

  I realized I was standing too close, so I backed up and pointed my bow and tapped him on his hard chest. “So, you think you can just magically come in here like some type of magician and poof your way into first chair?”

  I could tell at that moment he didn’t think of me as just nothing anymore. His lips puckered and his head tilted to the side. “First, have you even heard me play? Not that I’m Mozart or anything.”

  I could tell he wanted to smile, but his words took shape in my head. That was true, I hadn’t even heard him play a single note of music. Everything inside me was driven without real reason. “Well, will you play?”

  He continued to just stand there, so I asked, “Well?” again.

  “How can I play if you have that bow jammed into my chest?”

  He was right. I quickly removed my weapon and was feeling slightly embarrassed but more anxious to hear what would come out of his cello. I patiently waited to hear the notes.

  August began to play. I knew in an instant he was better than me, and not just a little better, but by far an amazing cello player. He played with fluidity; everything about the way his fingers moved and the way the bow went across the strings was magic. I could try and try, and I would never be able to play like he did that day.

  When he finished, I knew he had rightly earned his place. “Congra
tulations on first chair,” I said while turning to pack up my things and leave.

  “And you are?” he asked.

  I had just put my bow back in my case and was starting to walk from my chair. “Perrie Madeline.”

  He nodded his head like he was letting my name sink in thoroughly. “I’m August Hartley.”

  I let out a laugh. “Oh, I know. The second Mr. Hamm said we had a new first chair, I made sure I got the name.”

  Then August smiled a warm and welcoming smile that was real, and I knew I was going to like him. When I looked back at the door, Neven was standing there to meet me, and then I gave August a quick wave goodbye. I walked up to Neven and threw my arms around him and went in for a kiss.

  I shrug off those thoughts, and pull out the necklace from the box. August helps me put it on. Then we head to lunch to meet Maisie.

  Chapter 3

  When August and I get to the cafeteria, the lunch line is already long, but it moves fast. I grab a basket of fries, and August gets his usual variety of pretty much everything.

  We pay, and I spot Maisie by the flash of her eye patch. She has already changed into a different one, as she’s known to do throughout the day.

  This one is red, white, and black. It resembles a deck of playing cards with all the different shapes on it including hearts, spades, clubs, and diamonds.

  “Hey guys!” she practically yells.

  August and I sit down next to each other directly across from her. “Nice patch,” he says to Maisie.

  She brushes her hand across it as if in thought, which I guess she is. “Thanks. This one was getting rather lonely, and the other one was tired of working its shift.”

  “That totally makes sense,” I say while nodding my head and smiling. It kind of does minus the fact that a patch doesn’t have feelings.

  “So, have you guys heard about the other missing person?” August asks.

  I turn my head to look at him while he is shoving a piece of pizza into his mouth. “Yeah, Maisie and I were just talking about that this morning. We don’t know him, but this is getting pretty sketchy with all these disappearances.”

  August sets down his slice of pizza. “His picture looked familiar to me, but I don’t think I have seen him around or anything.”

  I make the mistake of glancing over at Neven’s table where he is sitting with some of the other guys from basketball. His eyes just happen to wander to mine at the same time.

  As soon as our eyes meet, I shift mine downward and don’t look in his direction for the remainder of lunch. It isn’t that I miss us because I have made myself get over that, but I do miss him and his friendship.

  Neven didn’t go to my junior high. On the first day of ninth grade when all the schools came together for our high school years, he was the first person I met that day of school.

  I had no idea where I was going, and I was completely lost. I ran into Neven who offered to help me find my class. He said that when he saw the look on my face that day, he knew I looked like a lost person in a new country.

  Neven had pulled the schedule from my hand, and he noticed that we had first period together. Then he dragged me along and showed me where it was. He already knew some students in our class that were waving him over, but he chose to sit next to me. We became best friends after that. He even got along perfectly with Maisie and her quirkiness.

  The summer before eleventh-grade, things began to change between us. Our friendship grew into something new and different. His dad passed away that summer from a freak accident at work, and I was there every day with him to help him get through it.

  It was July, and I was leaving his house. When he came in to give me a hug, he had given me a peck on my lips. He pulled back quickly, as if he hadn’t meant to do it at all. I just stared at him, and he stared at me. Then he kissed me again, and I let him.

  Neven Lee was my first kiss, and my first everything else to follow. I loved him with all of my heart, until he split it in half. My heart isn’t broken anymore, but I still have the bruises and cracks that were left behind.

  The bell rings, knocking me out of my reverie. August grabs my trash and tosses it away. I watch him as he walks to the trash can, and I think that maybe there are different possibilities out there.

  When August comes back, we all leave the cafeteria and walk to class. “See you in last period,” I call.

  “Battle of the cellos, doll face. Me and you!” he calls back.

  Almost every day during our free time in Orchestra, August and I battle it out. Sometimes I win, but I know he lets me.

  The next period creeps by at a sloth’s pace. I mainly watch Maisie drawing some doodle in her notebook. It looks like a masterpiece, while my doodles are just a bunch of repetitive circles drawn together that I continuously retrace.

  My next period flies by, and then it’s on to Orchestra. We have a substitute teacher when I walk in the door which means free time for the rest of the day.

  August isn’t in class yet, so I walk over to the instrument closet and grab my black cello case and then sit down in my chair. As I’m pulling out the instrument, I see a blond head come through the door right as the bell rings. My chest starts to tighten, and I attempt to push the feeling away, but it remains.

  I continue to focus on messing with my cello and check to make sure everything is in tune to ignore the butterflies fluttering about. Then August sits down next to me, the nervousness subsides, and I feel comfortable again.

  The emotions around him are unpredictable, and I’m trying so hard to fight them.

  August begins to pull his cello out of his case; it’s super fancy compared to mine. “What is up with that guy?” he nods in the direction of the teacher.

  I glance over at the substitute teacher. Right off the bat, I know what he is talking about. The guy looks like he just strolled out of the nineteen-twenties. His dark, brown hair is all slicked down and glistens under the light. The suit he is wearing has got to be authentic from the era. How did I not even notice that?

  “I feel like he’s going to whip out one of those old bowler hats,” I giggle. Then I quickly try to cover my mouth because the substitute looks over at us, and his eyes narrow. I turn my head and pretend to stare off somewhere else, which probably just makes me look guilty.

  My cello still doesn’t seem to be in tune when I pluck at the strings. August takes it from me slowly, as he does, his fingers softly brush mine. “Here, let me see what’s going on with it.”

  I can’t tune my cello if I don’t have a tuner with me. I can’t manage to get the sound right by ear like some people can, but with the tuner, I can get it in one second.

  August however, is a master at this. He plucks the string. I watch how he closes his eyes, and the focus on his face, as he listens to each vibration. It has me in complete awe.

  He twists the peg and plucks the string again, and the release is pure magical bliss that hits my soul on point. He hands the cello back to me, pulling me out of my trance. “There.”

  I take my cello and hold onto my baby with its now perfect tune. “Thank you. You are my freaking hero.” I mean it in more ways than one. After what happened with Neven, Maisie and August have been everything.

  The rest of the class we spend bickering back and forth about nothing, until the bell rings.

  Maisie meets us in the classroom as I pack everything up. We all make our way to the large school parking lot that is now mostly empty. I look around for August’s black car, but I don’t see it anywhere.

  I turn around to face August. “Where’s your car?”

  He looks over at us while rubbing his eye. “I woke up with a flat tire this morning, and I didn’t feel like working on it until after school. My parents had already left for work, so I just walked to school.”

  Maisie straightens up, as if she is ready to save the day. “We can give you a ride home.”

  August shrugs his shoulders in nonchalance. “It’s all right. It’s not that far of a wa
lk.”

  I grab his arm and already start pulling him to the car. “Anyway, August—you’re coming with us.” He puts up absolutely no resistance, and we pile into Maisie’s car.

  August doesn’t live that far away from us. It’s only a couple of minutes out of the way, and it isn’t like we have anything else going on today anyway.

  We take Oak Street, which happens to have a ton of trees up and down the road. Each tree seems to be reaching toward each other from across the street, as if wanting to touch its partner’s leaves. For a town called Deer Park, I sure have never seen one single deer here.

  Suddenly, Maisie slams on the brakes and my chest strikes hard against the seat belt, and the only thing I can think is, are my organs still intact? I seriously feel like they are gone, and then I smash back into the seat.

  “What the hell?” August and I say at the exact same time.

  Maisie is staring across the street to the left. “Look,” she exclaims.

  I turn my head to where she is looking. There is an enormous, stone building that is extremely high with large gray, brown, and dark tan rocks along the walls. There are absolutely no windows of any kind. The archway for the door frames one of the tallest wooden doors that I have ever seen.

  “Impossible,” I say.

  “This has never been here before,” August states.

  He’s right. He is beyond right. There’s no way this place was just magically built overnight. Even if it were possible, it looks old, and not like twenty years old either, but over a hundred years old.

  Maisie is starting to get out of the car. “Maybe, we never really noticed it before.”

  I lift both my hands up in the air and point. “Never noticed this mansion?”

  “Perrie has a point, Maisie.” August stares at the building in shock.

  Hesitantly, I get out of the car and August follows. We walk around to stand by Maisie and continue our staring marathon.

  “We might as well take a look?” I ask.

  They nod in agreement, and we walk to the door at a leisurely pace, as if we have all night to see what is going on.