His alarm woke him the next morning, fully refreshed and dreading yet another boring day at school. He was compelled to blink two more times after rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. He rarely even noticed these extra movements that took up most of his day. They had become a part of his life and he only concentrated on remaining conscious enough of them so that no one else noticed. He was almost certain no one knew the extent of it and he planned on keeping it that way forever.
As always, he arrived five minutes early at the bus stop and stared at the ground, all of his compulsions running through his head like a freight train.
Don't step on that crack. Don't breathe in until that car passes you. Don't move your right foot until you see a bird.
The bus pulled up, right on time, and opened its door to permit Cole inside. He had not seen a single bird anywhere around him.
How is this possible? It's the middle of spring and there must be a hundred birds here every morning.
“Come on, Cole,” the bus driver shouted down to him. “What are you waiting for?”
You're being ridiculous. This one isn't even a real agreement. Just go. Nothing will happen.
The bus driver opened his mouth to shout again when Cole caught sight of a single bird fluttering into the branches of a tree across the street. He immediately jogged up the steps of the bus, breathing a low apology, and took his seat in the front row. He hated having to walk down the narrow aisle through the bus, knowing that every kids' eye was on him as they wondered why he was so weird. It was easier to just stay up front. Last one in, first one out.
School that day was as uneventful and uninteresting as it always was, and he spent the majority of the time trying to stay awake while feigning interest. Halfway through the day, his math teacher announced she would be handing back the tests from the previous day.
“The grades on this test were disappointingly low, with few exceptions.” Cole noticed his teacher shoot a quick glance in his direction and then continue. “You need to study more. I won't say it again. I know you are all capable, but this subject is difficult. I expect better results next time.” She then proceeded to walk around the room and hand out the papers face down.
Cole didn't respond or bother to look at his test. He stuffed it in his backpack and looked around at all the other students grumbling to themselves about their test grades or secretly comparing grades with their neighbors.
After the tests were all returned, the students were brought down to the cafeteria for lunch. Cole purchased his food and took up his usual place at the end of the table. He picked up his sandwich, paused, and put it back down. It was not the less than appetizing food that was preventing him from consuming his meal.
I have to do this. I promised myself I would. For my mother's sake. It's just a bunch of dumb kids. How hard can it be?
He lifted his tray and carried it over to the nearest group of kids at his table. They were engaged in some juvenile discussion, the topic of which Cole could not decipher. All he could discern were random words and the exaggerated gestures accompanying them. At the sight of this, Cole almost turned back, but he forced himself to place his tray on the outskirts of the group.
The conversation stopped abruptly as he seated himself beside the nearest kid and every head turned to look in his direction.
Cole tried his best to look nonchalant. “Hey. How's it going?”
No one responded for a second and, despite his apparent disregard for others' opinions of him, he could feel the heat on his face.
A girl across from him who looked familiar, and the only girl of the group, was the first to break the silence. “Hi. You can sit here.”
She got a few looks, but no one argued. She turned to one of the boys, the one who had been making all of the exaggerated gestures, and said, “Then what happened?”
“Um.” He shot a glance at Cole and then turned to the rest of the table. “It was so crazy. Like, you wouldn't believe...” And he was back to the exaggerated gestures.
Cole watched the storyteller, trying to get into the narrative, to care about something he was saying, but the inability to relate to any of it sent him drifting off into his own world.
Whatever, I talked to them and they accepted me. Good enough.
The story that had held the group fascinated came to a dramatic conclusion. A new topic was introduced. Cole continued to eat his lunch in silence, watching the action and absorbing none of it until one word crawled its way into his consciousness: “history.”
Finally! Something I can talk about.
He tuned in to the conversation in time to catch the girl saying, “...not fair. It was really hard.”
Another boy responded, “Couldn't have been as hard as mine. My teacher makes all of her tests too hard. I mean we all fail them.” There was a glance in Cole's direction at this statement. “How am I supposed to remember all those stupid little things that happened?”
“I know,” Cole cut in. “History is the worst. How does she expect me to care about something that happened a hundred years ago?”
There was a slight pause in the conversation. “So true,” someone said.
See, that wasn't so hard. Got involved in the conversation and everything.
“Why do you do stuff like that?”
All of a sudden he noticed the conversation had stopped. Every face was turned towards him and he realized that the question had been directed at him.
Cole froze as a cold hand gripped his throat. “Like what? What do you mean?”
“You just jerked your arm twice and then your neck. Do you know you do that?”
Dammit. Whenever he got nervous or excited he tended to have greater urges for compulsive behavior. He thought he kept it under control, but it apparently had just happened. Has this happened before and I don't know about it? Is this something everyone knows about me?
“Ummm,” Cole's brain was not cooperating and was refusing to supply him with an answer. “I, uh, I have a little twitch. Just happens sometimes. No big deal.”
“Oh,” the boy said.
“That's kind of weird,” another one added.
“Do you know why it happens?” the girl said.
This was not the kind of attention he wanted. “Can we just forget it? It's nothing, really.”
“We just want to know.”
There was a snicker.
“I think I'm gonna go,” Cole said, grabbing his tray and getting to his feet. The snicker had spread and now there were smiles on all of their faces. Judgmental closed-minded bastards, he thought as he turned his back on them. He brought his tray over to another group. They all stared at him as he placed his tray on the table.
“Are you sitting here, freak?” one boy said. They all exchanged glances and burst out laughing.
Cole grabbed his tray and leapt to his feet. “You're all assholes.” Without waiting for a reaction, he turned and trudged back to his solitary corner.
I give up. I tried, but I give up. There's a reason I don't associate with them. Assholes and babies, every last one of them.
He jabbed his fork into his food, puncturing a hole in the bottom of the Styrofoam tray. He stuffed the food down his throat, never moving his eyes from his tray and blocking out all the sounds around him.
Let them laugh. At least I'm not the one with a meaningless existence. Wastes of space.
After lunch he stormed back to class, making sure not to catch anyone's eye. He spent the next half hour trembling, staring unseeing at the front of the room, but the longer he stared, the dumber he felt. How did I let them to get to me? Who cares what they think? I don't need them. I don't. I can be happy without them. I wouldn't want a closed-minded bastard as a friend anyway. I'm better off. I really am. Soon enough he had calmed himself down, vowing never to let his peers' opinions affect him again.
At the end of history he jumped up with his backpack to be the first one out.
“Cole.”
Cole stopped and faced Mrs. Taylor.
“I need to speak to you. Don't go anywhere.”
He knew exactly what it was about and he did not want to have this conversation. He lagged against the wall while his class filed out. He noticed more than the usual number of looks as his classmates passed him, but he would not give them the satisfaction of a response. Once they were gone, he walked up to the front of the room. “Yes Mrs. Taylor?”
Mrs. Taylor sat down in the chair at her desk so she could look at Cole at eye level. “I’m sure you have some idea what this is about. I had a talk with your other teachers and they all agree that you perform at a level far above anyone your age. I can talk to you like an adult, which I have never been able to do with any of my students in all of my years here. I want to recommend you for the accelerated program starting next year, but in order to do that you need to raise your history grades. Why do you refuse to try in my class?”
“I don’t know. I just can’t get myself to relate to it, I guess.” He looked down at the floor and squirmed his foot.
“First of all, you should know how important history is. History has a way of repeating itself and we learn from other people’s successes and mistakes.”
“Yeah I know all that,” Cole said.
“Cole, look at me. Good. Okay, I understand if you aren’t interested in the material, but you have to try anyway. You cannot get through school by only doing work in the subjects you like. Sometimes you have to do things you don’t want to. Cole! Look at me. Are we clear?”
“Yes, Mrs. Taylor.” He returned her steady gaze with equal intensity.
“Good. So, I will be expecting better grades on the next exam?”
“Yes ma'am.”
“Good. You can go now.”
Cole turned without another word and strolled out, leaving Mrs. Taylor shaking her head behind him at the biggest mystery that had ever graced her classroom.
As Cole stepped through the front doors, a car sat idling down the block, from which two sets of eyes watched him walk towards his car.
“Not yet,” the boy said to the driver.
The car sped away unnoticed.
3
“Hey, Honey. Did you have a good day?”
“Mom, I told you not to call me that. It was fine.” Cole shut the car door and Meredith drove away.
She looked over at him staring out the window. “So… um.”
Cole snapped out of his trance. “Yeah?”
The car rolled to a stop at a red light. Meredith took a deep breath and began again. “So, no rush or anything, but just wondering, did you, uh, talk to anyone at school today?”
Cole bit his lip, but seeing the growing disappointment on his mother’s face, quickly regained his composure. “Oh, yeah. I talked to a few kids. I’ll probably talk to them again.” His enthusiasm sounded painfully fake to his ears, but Meredith did not seem to notice, or forced herself not to notice.
“Wow that’s great! Do you think you’re going to talk to them again tomor… I’m sorry, I don’t mean to push you.”
“Mom, calm down. It’s fine. Yes, I’m sure I will talk to them again tomorrow.” Great. Now what do I do? Lie to her forever? But seeing the smile on her face, he did not regret the lie. He would figure something out. He focused his attention out the window, hoping to let the conversation die.
“So... what did you talk about?” Meredith said.
Cole closed his eyes, as a sharp pang reverberated through his body. “Oh you know, not much. We agree on hating school. That's an easy topic.”
Meredith chuckled. “Not my favorite subject, but not something that can be helped. What were they like?”
“I don't know, Mom. They're like boys,” Cole said, exasperation edging its way into his voice.
“Sorry, I'll stop. But I want you to know I'm proud of you.”
Back home, Cole curled up in his chair with Les Miserables while Meredith went into the kitchen to make dinner.
This is kinda like history. If I can enjoy this book so much, maybe I can learn to enjoy history too.
He was relaxing in the chair, thinking of the book as a history lesson in a textbook when the thought struck him. Finish this page before your mom calls you.
Oh come on, I was enjoying this book. Why did you have to go and ruin it? Fine. It’s an agreement.
Unfortunately, he was an exceptionally slow reader, a skill he had never been able to improve no matter how many books he read, and even though he had read this book countless times, it did not help. He did not want to skip over words for fear of violating some unwritten rule, so his eyes darted over every word at his own top speed. He was on the last word when his mother's voice filled his ears, bringing with it a sinking despair.
“Cole! Dinner!”
Are you serious??!! That was a retarded agreement. Why did I go along with it? And why do all these agreements keep coming up that I have no control over? Did I win? Did that count? That wasn’t fair. I refuse to acknowledge that just happened.
He rose unsteadily from the chair and tried to clear his head.
“Cole? Are you coming?” Meredith appeared in the doorway, wiping her hands on a towel.
“Yeah.” He hoped none of his emotions showed in his voice. “Just finishing the page.” He focused on putting one foot in front of the other across the dirty, dark green rug, not allowing his shaking to become visible.
“You sure you’re all right?” Meredith asked, raising an eyebrow at his strange behavior.
“Yep. What’s for dinner?” He put an extra, unnatural spring in his step and sat down at the table. There was an awkward silence, but Cole didn’t turn around. Dammit, why do I have to be so weird sometimes? It’s just a dumb, meaningless game.
“Baked ziti and broccoli tonight,” came Meredith’s eventual answer.
“Mmmm. Let’s eat.”
The insomnia that plagued him that night was worse than usual.
You’re being paranoid. It’s not a big deal. You win all the time. Who cares if you lose once? All those wins more than outweigh one stupid loss.
Despite his attempts to calm the inner turmoil, he tossed and turned until the first rays of sunlight breached the horizon. The alarm blared for ten minutes, but he couldn't break through sleep’s paralyzing hold.
Meredith appeared in the doorway carrying a rag. “Cole? Come on. You’re gonna be late.”
Cole struggled to open his eyes. “Mmmm.”
“Come on Cole. Why are you so tired? You went to bed at a reasonable time last night.” She pulled the covers off the bed and the sudden shock of cool air forced the sleep away.
“I don’t know,” Cole said, swinging his legs off the bed. “Just restless.”
“Something on your mind?” Meredith asked, urgency turning to concern.
“No, just a bad dream.”
“Oh, well, you better get going,” she said, the urgency back tenfold. “The bus won’t wait and you can’t skip breakfast.”
Cole stood up, stretching and rubbing the sleep from his eyes. “I'll be fine. Be right down.”
“Quickly. You know I don't have time to drive you,” she said and left.
Hot cereal was waiting for him on the table when he got down, covered by a plate to keep in the warmth. He wolfed down his breakfast, but still had to run to catch the bus. He pounded down the street, his backpack making every step awkward. He reached the bus just as it was pulling away and banged on the door. It stopped to let him on and as he climbed, breathless, up the stairs, he heard a shout from somewhere on the bus, “Was Mommy late making you breakfast?” followed by a few snickers. He ignored it and took a seat in the first row. He learned a long time ago - long ago for his age - that the best way to beat a bully is to give him no reaction. Cole knew that bullies thrived on the responses they could provoke from their victims. With no response, there was no fun, and the bully would be forced to give up or choose a new target. Sure enough, as predictable as always, the heckling stopped soon after he took his seat and faced f
orward.
At the beginning of history class that day, Mrs. Taylor shot him a glance. All right, fine. It would probably save me some trouble if I pay attention just a little. He sighed and focused his mind on Mrs. Taylor’s words.
Mrs. Taylor showed a hint of a smile at Cole’s obedience, a welcome breakthrough in his behavior. “Today we are going to finish with the Revolutionary War. Last time I was talking about George Washington and how he defeated the British. Does everyone remember? After that battle…”
Mrs. Taylor went on to describe the meetings that led to the beginning of the new nation. Despite his disinclination, Cole found himself getting lost in the story. The power that these men had. They convinced a whole nation to revolt. I want to do something like that. I can do something like that. All these dumb kids underestimate me. Just wait.
Mrs. Taylor’s words faded into background noise as he drifted into his fantasy. Mrs. Taylor mistook the smile plastered on his face as a sign that he was enjoying the story, which led her to continue more fervently.
“Excuse me. I’m looking for Cole Sicarius?”
The interruption jerked both Mrs. Taylor and Cole out of their trances. An anxious-looking aide from the office was standing in the doorway. Cole looked up at Mrs. Taylor who nodded. “Go with her,” she said.
Cole got up from his desk.
“Might I ask what this is about?” Mrs. Taylor inquired of the aide.
The aide paled. “I’m sorry, I can’t discuss this right now. I just need to take Cole immediately.”
Cole sensed the weight of the situation from the tone of her voice. His heart pounded and his pace quickened as he followed the aide out of the classroom. “What is it?” he said as soon as they were out of earshot of the students.
“I'm not allowed to tell you. The principal can fill you in when we get there.”
“Seriously?”
“Sorry,” the aide mumbled, keeping her gaze straight ahead.
Cole kept pace with the aide, willing her faster, and trying to reassure himself it was nothing.
They arrived in the principal's office a minute later. The principal, a large gentle man, thanked the aide and looked down at Cole.
Dark Mind (The Dark Mind Trilogy Book 1) Page 2
