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Thinking about Fizzle and Loren Hale and everything just reminds me of Willow. Can’t see her. Can’t work at Superheroes & Scones. It all blows.
“Gather ’round!” Gabriel calls out from his perch on the fountain. And then the guy starts speaking in Latin.
I can’t with this.
Cold nips at my cheeks, and just as I’m about to bail, I see someone a few yards away. Shaved head and pale skin, he smokes a cigarette between fingerless gloves and leans against a tree. With his sleeves rolled up to his elbows, I distinguish black geometric tattoos on his forearms.
He’s the first person I’ve seen that doesn’t look like he was manufactured from a J.Crew catalogue. I leave William’s side and slowly make my way to the tree.
Relief accompanies each step. No nerves. I’ve never been bad at making friends, and this guy kind of reminds me of ones back home.
He barely acknowledges me as I stop a few feet away, his gaze latched to the fountain. But I can only make out mumbled words from Gabriel’s speech.
“Hey,” I say and nod with my chin. “Could I borrow a smoke?” I eye the cigarette between his fingers.
His eyes finally flash to me. Like I exist. Casually, without even moving off the tree, he sticks the cigarette in his mouth, slides a hand in his blazer, and passes me a spare. Cold whips between us.
“Thanks, man,” I say as he pulls out a lighter. “I’m Garrison.”
“Sasha Anders. And I know who you are.” He clicks the lighter with his thumb, and I lean in. After embers eat the paper, he adds, “No need to thank me.”
I step back, blowing smoke off to the side. Wind chill bites at me more, and I hug my arm to my chest. This guy is wearing less than me, and he doesn’t even have a single fucking goosebump.
He stares off towards the fountain and says, “That’ll probably be your last cigarette at Faust. Enjoy it while you can.”
Goddamn.
I laugh under my breath, bitterness swimming in my gut. “Yeah? What makes you think that?” Maybe he’s just messing with me. He can’t seriously be like everyone else here? An asshole. An elitist prick who feels like he has the inability to lose.
He doesn’t even look at me. Like I haven’t even earned his full attention yet.
Eyes on the fountain, he says, “You walked over here. That was your first mistake.” His gray, lifeless gaze flits to me for a millisecond. “We aren’t the same, you and me.” He looks to my tattoo, the inked Interpol lyrics peeking from my forearm, like he knows that’s the reason I approached. He continues, “You could barely string four words together in Spanish class. You have no knowledge of Proust, Rembrandt, or Verdi. You’re inadequate, but your biggest failure is your social ineptitude. The only mouse that would approach a snake is the one too stupid to realize he’s in a pit of them.” Sasha flicks his cigarette to the side, and it lands in the snow.
I saw that phrase in the common room, etched on a plaque and hung with other senior quotes.
The only mouse that would approach a snake is the one too daft to realize he’s in a pit of them.
- Richard Connor Cobalt
Sasha gives me one last glance. “Don’t look for friends, mouse. Find an exit.” He pauses and his eyes dip to my fingers. “Enjoy the cigarette.”
He walks off as Gabriel’s speech ends. All the students disperse, and Sasha falls in line among the masses just the same.
Breath caged. My cigarette burns, ash falling to the snow. I don’t know what to feel. I’m more used to the kinds of insults that try to tear me down in a single blow. Pussy! Weak shit!
What Sasha just did was the equivalent of taking a knife and slashing razor-thin cuts all over my skin—and then waiting for me to bleed out. Meticulous. Calculated cruelty.
I bite down and breathe out through my nose.
And what unnerves me the most—is that he knew I blew it in Spanish. He knows that I stumbled over those names in English, Art & Lit, and Music Theory. Yet, I don’t have a single class with him.
It means people are talking about me. Amazing. Just amazing. I’m going to have a great time here.
I feel like utter shit, and there’s only one person I even want to talk to right now.
Slipping out my cell, I walk towards the pond and try to FaceTime. The boarding school campus is an otherworldly atmosphere with frozen, barren waters and skeletal trees. Like I’ve been transported to Victorian England.
My breath smokes in the cold, and I ditch the cigarette in the snow.
The phone clicks, and Willow pops on-screen. She’s crouched down next to a rack of Inhumans comics. She pushes her glasses up the bridge of her nose. “Oh, are you outside? Isn’t it cold?” God. It’s nice just hearing her voice. My stomach flips, and for a moment, I pretend I’m only a few blocks down the street.
