I wasn’t normal.
I couldn’t… talk to people.
I didn’t know what to say. I never had. It was as if there were a disconnect between me and everyone else. As if the connection that I needed so badly had been severed before I’d even tried to make one.
I didn’t have the ability to say cool things at random. At best, I could string along enough words to get me through the day. It was lonely. There were only two people I could speak freely and easily with, and my parents had left me, condemning me to live in Port Inlet, forcing me back into my shell, taking away my voice.
I busied myself by studying the classroom as it filled up. There weren’t nearly as many desks in one room as there had been back home. Smaller town meant a much smaller high school. I counted fifteen desks, and soon they were all filled except one.
Mr. Greene greeted the classroom and explained that he would take roll before he moved on to the syllabus. Everything was normal, as normal as first days of school went, until the teacher got to one name on the list.
“Maxell Heathestone?”
Quietness expanded in the room, becoming its own presence.
I frowned, watching the girl beside me glance back at the only empty desk. A few others did the same. The entire room became… off. Fidgety. Uncomfortable.
Something was wrong.
Mr. Greene cleared his throat. “My apologies, class. Let’s move on. Next name on the list is Finn Jackson?”
“Here,” Finn Jackson said, his mouth turned down. He too glanced at the desk beside his, a concerned pinch to his ruddy brows.
Thankfully—not—one name seemed to shift their attention off the missing desk.
“Emmie Tealson?”
Eyes cut to me. They held interest. I shrunk in my seat and lifted my hand. “Here.”
I was hoping Mr. Greene would continue, but of course he didn’t. “Are you new in town?” When I blinked at him, he explained himself with an apologetic smile. “We hardly ever get new students. Same faces since pre-school. Are you related to Londa Tealson by chance?”
My heart dropped swiftly into my stomach at the eyes and attention placed on me. “Uh, yes,” I stammered. “She’s my grandmother.”
He smiled. “That’s great. Welcome to Port Inlet. I hope it treats you well.”
I nodded, glancing down at my desk. “Thanks.”
Thankfully—phew—he moved on down the line, reading one more name. Misty Young.
“Here,” they answered, their voice so high-pitched and nervous it snagged my attention.
It was the girl who’d gotten out of the van earlier. Her glasses made her eyes look big and bright. They were startlingly blue. And strangely kind. She smiled shyly at who I didn’t know, but her smile was the kind of smile that was sweet. The boy behind her, Finn Jackson, smirked at her and poked her in the back with his pencil.
“Here,” he whispered mockingly. Quiet laughter rang out.
Her spine straightened and her sweet smile fell.
Oh, bullies. They were the same no matter where you went. Awful and aggravating. Port Inlet wasn’t immune unfortunately. I bet it made things hard, getting teased by the same people day in and day out. And yet she smiled anyway. If only they knew who the real tough guy was.
Soon, Mr. Greene handed out our syllabus. It was fourteen pages long. It took him most of the class to go over it and by the time he was done, I felt the start of a headache begin to pound at the base of my skull. Algebra was much of the same; there was even an empty chair in the front of the class. Even in gym class, Mrs. Gather made the mistake of calling out that same name from English class.
It drew much of the same reaction, except there was a much longer pause, and a few faces of sadness. I wasn’t sure who this Maxell Heathestone was, but they had left a hole behind.
“You look so confused,” a voice whispered in my ear.
I turned around to find Misty Young standing there. I turned back to the teacher, hearing her next order to get into lines for our warm-up. I wasn’t sure it was legal to make us exercise on the first day of school and hoped the proper authorities were informed.
“Confused about what?” I flinched at the sound of the teacher’s whistle and began flailing around, aka doing jumping jacks. Awful, awful jumping jacks. They weren’t actually useful in the real world. They couldn’t be.
“Maxell Heathestone.”
There was that name again. With it came such… emptiness. I wasn’t sure why I thought that or where the feeling came from, but it hung in the air, like the heavy mist did over the city.
“Who are they?”
She sighed a heavy puff of air, flailing much like I was. “Not they. Who. He.”
“Okay, so who is he?”
“Probably not the best place to talk about it.” She looked around carefully, like we were talking about an unfair dictator. Her eyes cut to mine. “Wanna hang out at lunch? I’ll tell you all about him.”
I switched from jumping jacks to lunges. Maybe it was the exercise, or the mild curiosity, but I found my head nodding before I could stop myself. “Is it a sad story?”
“Sad,” she agreed. “Yeah, it is.”
“Do I really want to know?” I didn’t want to hear sad things. I had enough sad things in my head as it was.
“You’re the only one in town who doesn’t know.” She shrugged. “You’re at a severe disadvantage.”
I scowled. “It’s advantageous to know this sad story?”
“You’re funny.” She gave me a little smile.
My scowl deepened. “I am?”
“Oh man, newbie, I guess I’ll take you under my wing and tell you all the deep dark secrets of Port Inlet before the rest of them eat you alive.”
It was difficult not to roll my eyes at that. Hard. Like get stuck in the back of my skull hard. “What could possibly be so dark about a place like Port Inlet?” Sure, the sun never came out, but still…
She gave me a sideways glance along with a shake of her head. “You are so new.”
I grunted, attempting to tune her out. Doing burpees helped ebb the conversation some, but she was insistent.
“Where are you from?”
“Florida,” I managed to get out between pushups. Seriously, were these necessary? My future career hadn’t happened yet, but I could pretty much bet it wouldn’t have anything to do with exercise. Give me a book report or an essay—I didn’t have to sweat to do those.
“Wow, cool. I’ve never left Washington.”
“Mmm.” I couldn’t breathe, let alone form complete sentences.
“Did you come here alone or was it like a whole family move?”
Darkness moved through me. “Alone.”
The teacher blew their whistle. “Run a mile, class, so I can get your starting times.”
I nearly collapsed in severe disappointment. I wanted to scream at the top of my lungs that I was a freaking bookworm, and thus physically challenged. I was all right intellectually, but that was just how the world worked. You couldn’t be both, any self-respecting bookworm would undoubtedly agree. Words didn’t make me feel like I was going to collapse in the middle of the track while high school kids trampled me.
I cursed the indoor gym. Maybe if we were outside I’d at least have the hope of rain to rely on. The glass ceiling overhead showed the fat sodden gray clouds. They taunted me with rainfall.
And Misty wasn’t done talking.
“Where’s your mom and dad?” she asked quietly, probably thinking something horrific happened.
She was right.
I glanced at her a second before I could have sworn the teacher played “Call to the Post,” and we took off for our lives. After the run and the subsequent yoga cool-down—what the heck, people; I wanted to have a stern talk with the schoolboard on what they thought to be appropriate school activities—I’d somehow managed to survive my first gym class at PIHS, and Misty’s bombardment of questioning.
The outfit for gym consisted of dark green shorts with
a wolf mascot on the left leg and a gray t-shirt with much of the same in the middle. My shirt was caked in sweat by the time I peeled it off. I didn’t even bother going to my locker, completely uncomfortable changing in front of the rest of the class. No way was that legal.
No way.
Whose bright idea was it to cram a bunch of teenaged girls into one room and make us change in front of each other? Probably a boy’s. A dumb boy. With abs and tattoos and no clue at all the kind of awkwardness they had condemned us to. That or they didn’t care.
Wound up, starving, and on the verge of exhaustion—both physical and mental—I found my way to the cafeteria with one thing on my mind. Food. And lots of it.
I barreled for the lunch line, scouring the options. I imagined I looked like a starving, drooling beast bull-dozing my way through the bodies for the cauldron of slop.
I finally hit the jackpot.
There was food galore. Hot food, cold food, green food, red food—take that Dr. Seuss.
I blew through half the money on my lunch card before I stopped myself. I found a table near the windows, far from most of the others, and began filling the empty, aching parts in me with French fries and cheeseburgers. I picked the lettuce off. I wasn’t that hungry.
“Are you ready?”
I paused mid-bite to look up at the sound of the voice.
Misty sat down across from me and pulled a brown paper bag from her backpack.
“Ready for what?” I asked in confusion, my mouth full.
“The tragic and mysterious story of Maxell Heathestone.”
I chewed and swallowed, taking a drink of chocolate milk. I held my sigh in and shrugged. “Not him again.”
She pulled out a plastic wrapped sandwich from her bag and a smaller baggie of carrots. “Can I have a fry? Mom makes my lunch the same way she makes Samantha’s. Tasteless and carb-less.”
“Who’s Samantha?”
“My perfect, cheerleader older sister.”
I recalled the blonde that had gotten out of the van with her that morning and pushed my fries toward her in an act of sympathy. “Eat up.”
She flashed me a quick smile and then squared her shoulders. “Okay, so Maxell Heathestone.”
I rolled my eyes, already sick of the guy’s name.
“He was popular. Is popular? Perpetually popular? I don’t know. He’ll probably go down in history as one of the most popular people to ever attend Port Inlet High School. Star quarterback. Headed for college, sure to go pro. He dated my sister since they were in middle school. They were the most cliché couple, but they were cute, too, you know?” She gave me a sad smile that made me feel sad. “And then one day, he disappeared.”
I grabbed one of her carrot sticks, trying and failing not to pay attention. “What do you mean by disappeared? Was he abducted or something?” Port Inlet wasn’t Disneyland, things could still happen here, even in a town so small.
She leaned in closer. “The last week of school, there’s a field trip to North Cascades National Park. All four grades can go and blow off some steam in nature and the teachers are always way more relaxed. I’ve never been because I’m super uncool, but I hear it’s awesome.” She paused to snort out a laugh and I joined in.
“Same.”
She pushed her glasses up and nodded. “I know a kindred spirit when I see one. So, anyway, back to the field trip. On the last day, everyone went on a hike. Maxell was the only one who didn’t come back. Search parties spent weeks looking for him. They sent in dogs and the only thing they could find was his backpack. It had fallen down a ravine, snagged on the roots of a tree. That’s where they think his body is, but the fall is so deep, they can’t search it, and even if they could, there wouldn’t be much of him left with all the wildlife. Sam was devastated. The whole school was. His family most of all. It’s still raw, which was why the teacher’s keep calling his name and we keep waiting for him to say he’s here.”
I gaped at her. “That’s so sad. Why would you tell me such a sad story?” I demanded.
She ignored me. “That’s not the saddest part. The saddest part is that Sam swears he’s still alive. She said she can see him at night, and he comes to visit her, but that he doesn’t look the same or act the same. She thinks it’s his ghost. And some kids have even said they’ve seen him in town. Near the park where he used to play football. His older brother isn’t the same either.” She nodded to something over my shoulder. “He looks so… empty.”
I looked over my shoulder, finding a guy sitting all by himself in the corner of the cafeteria. He stared off into space, immune to the stares befalling him. His food remained untouched and his eyes were haunted.
“What’s his name?” I turned back around, unable to look at him for long.
“Daxon. I always thought he was sweet.” She studied him, her cheeks pink.
I held my smile in. “What does he look like?”
“Maxell?”
I nodded. I felt this strange desire to match his sad tale to an actual face.
She held her finger up and took out her phone, powering it on and tapping away on the screen. She laid it down on the tabletop with the screen facing up, and then she slid the phone to me.
It was there, on my first day of high school in a new city, sitting across from a new friend, when I saw Maxell Heathestone for the first time.
CHAPTER TWO
His face was one easily noticeable.
Not for any particular reason, but for all the reasons at once. Something about Maxell’s face made you want to look.
And keep looking.
If not for any other reason than to pinpoint exactly who you were looking at.
And just if it were fair, if only a teensy-weensy bit fair, to be that good-looking, and not live to see your life.
He was too much to look at in the sense that I knew I could stare all day and never know if his eyes were the color of mint chocolate chip ice cream or chocolate mint brownies. They were soft brown near his pupil and surrounded in the smoothest shade of mint green I’d ever seen. Hazel eyes on steroids came to mind, but so did Michelangelo’s David, but that was too embarrassing and nonsensical, and I immediately brushed it aside.
The picture was taken on what I assumed to be the beach; there was a large body of water in the background. The sun shone directly onto his face, lighting him in permanent golden hour. His cheeks were flushed, his bone structure carved absolutely into his face to create a plain for his sun-warmed skin, long dark eyelashes, and wild mop of jet-black hair.
He’d taken the picture himself. Smiled at the camera himself, and I found my own self wondering if his smile was real or simply for the picture. If so, that would be a crime. Complete disregard for appreciative minds alike. Smiling a smile that beautiful for no good reason.
Worse, I had to look at his face and know he wasn’t alive anymore. That his end was tragic and too soon. His mint-brownie eyes were no longer vibrant with life. The realization hit me in the guts. I grabbed at my stomach and shoved her phone aside, no longer hungry and no longer curious.
“I don’t feel so good,” I moaned, letting my forehead hit the cool tabletop.
“That’s just like Maxell. Affecting the unaffected even though he isn’t even here. The boy’s magnetic.”
I glared at the tabletop. “Stop talking about him.”
She sighed. “Fine. Let’s talk about you.”
It was clear, perhaps from really early on, that Misty enjoyed talking. About anything and everything.
“I don’t want to talk about me either.” I lifted my head, unable to help myself from looking over my shoulder at Maxell’s brother, Daxon. His haunted, empty eyes stirred something painful in my stomach. I didn’t have siblings, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t relate to his loss.
Sensing me staring, his eyes cut to meet mine. His brow was heavier than his brother’s, shielding the color of his eyes from me. His hair was lighter, a dark brown instead of black, and even his bone structure, th
ough attractive, wasn’t quite like his brother’s. In his own way, Daxon was his very own star. Once bright and alive, and now dark and falling.
I shook off the chills that accompanied that thought and turned back to Misty.
She chewed contemplatively on the end of a fry. “Well, why don’t we talk about your favorite things?”
I sighed, resolving myself. “Long walks in the park, deep intellectual conversations, and eating chocolate in the shape of cute tiny animals.”
She glared at me. “That sounds like a cheesy dating app bio.”
I smirked just as the bell rang overhead, dismissing—or saving me—from anymore conversation.
“What’s your next class?”
“Physics.” I grabbed my lunch tray and she grabbed her empty brown bag, and we dumped them into the garbage can nearby.
“Dang, I already had that class. What’s your fifth and sixth period?”
“US History and then Italian.”
She sighed in disappointment. “How is it possible that we only have two classes together?”
I wasn’t sure why, but her statement made me feel guilty. I wasn’t exactly Maxell Heathestone, and yet she’d made an effort to hang out with me on my first day of school. “It’s a conspiracy to keep the super uncool separate, so we don’t form an army of interesting, self-confident soldiers that completely dismantle their corrupt system of mindlessness and narcissism.”
She paused in the hall to stare at me, her mouth agape. “That should be your dating bio.” And then she walked off, leaving me there with an amused smile on my face.
The remainder of my classes went about the same way they’d gone all day. Missing chair for Maxell, syllabus, and headache. Rinse, wash, and repeat. I was abnormally exhausted by the time the bell rang, and I was finally free. I ached to stash my things in a locker, but they wouldn’t be assigning them until we got our textbooks on Wednesday. Until then I had to lug all my crap home.
As soon as I stepped foot on the stone staircase out front, the sky opened up; huge fat raindrops poured down from overhead.
“Want a ride home?” a familiar voice asked.
I glanced over at Misty. What I wanted was my parents. What I wanted was for them to pull up and save me from myself. What I wanted… didn’t matter, so I nodded. “Thanks. That would be nice.”
Court of Frost and Embers (The Pair Bond Chronicles Book 1) Page 2
