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On the screen is a picture-perfect family of four, but I’d only ever seen three of the faces before—the mom, the dad, the daughter. Above the photograph, the headline reads:NBA to Pay Tribute to Late Texas Teen With an Honorary Draft Pick.
CHAPTERFOUR
Harlow
The bike my mother dragged me “downtown” for yesterday is…fine. The clothes I picked out from the same used goods store arefinetoo. The job I was offered after running into the owner of the skating rink at the aforementioned store is (you’re not going to believe this) alsofine. Everything about this town and the life I’m currently living isfine.
It will do.
For now.
But not forever.
My mom’s still at work, and my dad is halfway across the country, and so I take my own picture to commemorate my first day of senior year. Future me will one day treasure it.
Maybe.
Current me, however, is dreading the day, for many reasons, but here are my top three concerns:
Jace Rivera has told everyone about my insane mother and her useless attempt to beat the shit out of him.
Everyone finds out who my brother is—or was—and
Someone will know someone from back home, and the real reason we moved here will reveal itself.
Right now, I’m unsure which of those three would be the worst. Though, knowing my luck, life will probably throw me a shutout, 3-0, and by the end of the day, everyone will know everything about me.
These are the thoughts running circles in my mind while I ride the stupid bike down the long-ass driveway. It’s already hot as balls, and the sun’s barely up, and I’m distracted so far out of the present that I don’t even realize there’s a car behind me until it honks its horn, scaring the absolute shit out of me. I lose my footing on the pedal, panic, and swerve to the side, into a ditch, and I go ass over tits and eat grass.Deadgrass, to be precise, and boy, am I fucking glad I didn’t opt for any of the clothes I used to wear because with old me—short skirts were a must and underwear was optional.
The vehicle, a creeper van if I’ve ever seen one, hits the brakes and pulls over on the side of the road, flicking loose gravel through the air and directly onto me.Yay. I’m too busy sweeping the dirt off my bare legs, that I don’t even realize who steps out of the van until he says, “Are you good?”
I look up from inspecting my palms and can only maintain eye contact for a second before dropping my gaze. “I’mfine,” I mutter and hope that the warmth on my neck doesn’t spread to my cheeks. As if it wasn’t bad enough that I’m a senior who has to catch the bus to school, or that I have to ride a bicycle to get to the bus stop, but my first day hasn’t even officially begun, and I’ve already made an absolute fool of myself in front of the hottest guy I’d ever laid eyes on.
Too bad he’s looking at me like I just gave him syphilis.
“You sure?” he asks, and I look from my bike to his van and then down to the ground.
“Yeah, I’m sure.”
Seconds pass, neither of us saying a word, and I know what he’s thinking because I’m thinking it too. He should offer me a ride. It’s the polite thing to do, especially considering he’s the reason my bike is on its side right now. Besides, walking into a new school on the first day with at least one person by my side might take away some of my fears. With that thought in mind, I dig deep, finding the courage to look up at him.
His eyes are so brown they’re almost black… and they’re completely void of emotion.
Suddenly, he nods, just once, just like he did when I smiled at him at the skating rink—short, passive, and absent of any real meaning—and then, without another word, he gets in his serial killer van and drives away.
CHAPTERFIVE
Harlow
Knox Heights High School is a consolidated school, meaning it’s formed of students and teachers from multiple districts. While Rowville itself has an elementary school (aliteralhouse on the prairie), the older kids—unless homeschooled—have no other choice than to ride a bus for an hour each way.
My brother, Harley, had he lived long enough, would have graduated with four hundred of his peers.
Four hundred is more than double the entire student body at Knox Heights.
The school itself has seen better days, which is to be expected. The classrooms still use chalk on blackboards, and the classes are a mix of whoever wants to learn similar subjects, regardless of grade level. There’s no proper structure, no timetable, no actual system to keep it all from falling apart, and yet… for the most part, it works. It’s almost as if the students use a homeschool-style curriculum, but they all merge at one central location to do it, and that location has classrooms and teachers and kids and—let’s not forget the most important aspect—sports.
I’ve been at the school for a week now, and even though there are a lot of obvious differences between my old school and new, one thing remains the same: the cliques.
