ONE

 

P R E S E N T   D A Y

 

IT’S THE KIND of situation most people would dread. Starting at a new high school, in the middle of my senior year, in a new town, in a new state. I know no one. No one knows me. That's what I'm counting on.

It's not like it is in the movies. You know - where you walk into the building in slow motion, and cue emo background music as every unfamiliar head suddenly turns in your direction, some internal radar having announced an outsider in their midst. Or maybe the outsiders are more noticeable in other schools- in small towns anyway. I suppose it would have gone like that in my old hometown in northern Florida. Not the part of Florida with Mickey Mouse, or retired grandparents, or even the part with the spring breakers. Or parts with spring breakers. I grew up in the part that could just have easily been in Alabama, or South Carolina. A small, southern town in Baker County where everyone has known everyone since birth, and their parents, and their parents. Linton, Florida is where my father is from, but thankfully not my Mom.

Mom grew up here - Port Woodmere, in Long Island, New York. Not exactly the big city, but thirty miles is close enough, and the three hundred or so in my new senior class certainly cast a beautiful shadow on the fifty two of my former class. Total population of my new high school? One thousand, three hundred and nineteen.

Perfect.

The first thing I notice is the way people are dressed. Back home, my jeans and gray tee shirt would have blended into the rest of the student body like a uniform. My favorite black motorcycle boots in place of sneakers are the only thing that would've stood out, if anything. But here, although the guys are in jeans, they're most definitely not the kind they wear back home, but the three hundred dollar kind. The girls are mostly in skirts, or even dresses, and they look even more expensive. It doesn't bother me though. My outfit was chosen with care for one singular purpose. Not to be in, not to fit in, or to impress the in crowd. I don't want to be "in" anything except invisible. And it appears that I am.

I keep my head down as I navigate my way to the main office, just in case someone does notice me as a new girl. As someone who doesn't belong.

Someone who doesn't belong anywhere anymore, for that matter.

The receptionist is typing away on her keyboard looking disinterested in her task, and doesn't even look up as I approach. I stand there a few moments waiting for some acknowledgment, some can I help you, or even a glance. Nothing. For a second I wonder if I actually am invisible after all, and how awesome would that be? I could forgo this whole school thing altogether. I clear my throat.

I'm rewarded with a raised eyebrow and an impatient glare in response. At least it's an acknowledgment.

"Um, hi," I stammer. I hand her the form I was told to bring today.

"Oh, a transfer," the receptionist, whose name plate reads "Ms. Sussman", mumbles unimpressed. "Aurora Pine," she reads from my form.

"Rory," I murmur automatically, and she gives me a look.

Right. She doesn't care about my preferred nickname. She's an administrator I'm likely never to interact with again. Especially if I plan to remain invisible, at least figuratively.

Ms. Sussman continues to click away at her keyboard until something spits out of the printer behind her. She hands it to me, along with a few other sheets of paper which I realize are a Student Handbook and a map of the school, and wishes me luck.

How big is this school that I need a freaking map? My old school was a box. Two floors, four hallways each, all surrounding a courtyard. Definitely no map necessary.

This building is enormous. The kind you see on television. Red brick, white columns, even a damned bell tower. The one thing both schools have in common, of course, are the athletics fields. Especially the football field. It's naked of its painted white yard lines and numbers since it's February, but it's clear that significant funds have been invested in this part of the grounds.

I was under the impression that high schools up north didn't make the same kind of fuss over football that they do back home. I'd hoped anyway. An electric current of uneasiness surges through me, making me shudder.

Fuck football. I hate it. Hate the sport, hate the people that play the sport, the people that watch it- the people who are convinced it's the most important fucking thing in the world. And fuck this school for being presumably

included in that.

I sigh and open the map, trying to find Hall 6 in Wing B. Could this have been organized any more poorly? I quickly realize that there is an older part of the building - the part with the red brick facade - and a newer part. Clearly the old building wasn't big enough to accommodate the student population and, judging by the unsightly architecture, they must have expanded it sometime in the eighties.. Unfortunately they don't seem to have bothered  taking the layout of the old structure into any kind of account when they drew the plans for the extension. The two parts of the building don't appear to have anything to do with one another, besides the fact that they're attached, of course.

It takes me fifteen minutes to find my way to my first class, which is of course my most detested subject, calculus. I got to school early enough to have time to go to the office and still be on time for class, but I didn't exactly account for the hallway maze.

I stand outside the door to room 313 and take deep breaths. Math has always stressed me out - as much as classes ever stressed me out anyway - but mornings are tough for me, so having it at the very start of my day just makes a bad situation worse. My pulse starts to quicken, and I briefly consider just ditching since they're already twenty minutes into the period. I bark out a short ironic laugh. Now that would make a fantastic first impression - cutting class, something I've never done in my life.

Old Rory would never have skipped class. But New Rory... I suppose I don't  know her well enough to even make that determination.

My heart rate races like an out of control freight train and beads of sweat break out on my forehead. I close my eyes and count backwards from ten. Twice. Yes, math has always stressed me out, but the panic attacks - those are relatively new. Usually there are particular stressors that trigger them - ones related to what happened last year. Not something like being late to calculus. I step back from the door and lean against the adjacent row of lockers, pressing my forehead to the cold metal, hating myself for being so damn weak. This isn't me. Or this wasn't me.

I guess now it is me.

The counting isn't helping. I reach around to the front pocket of my backpack and feel for the shape of the pill bottle in the front pocket. I loathe them. I've been trying to depend on them less and less, and sometimes other coping methods, like the counting, really do help. I snort as I think of how proud I was of myself just this morning for not taking a pill to deal with my first day jitters, even though that really is an understatement as to how I was feeling. Nervous, anxious - also understatements. But no panic attacks - not until now.

Somehow just feeling the shape of the bottle, just knowing they're there if I really need them, helps me start to calm. I start counting again, but instead of counting nothing, I count how many pills I think are left in the bottle, knowing how desperately I want the last time I refilled the prescription to be the last time I fill the prescription. Because yes, they help the panic attacks, but they also make me feel completely numb.

For a while, after everything happened, numb was all I wanted to feel. In the aftermath, it felt like things just couldn't stop going wrong.

You know how when parents divorce and they assure their kids - or kid in my case as I'm an only child - that it wasn't their fault? Well my parents said that, too. Well my mom did. Only I know it isn't true.

My parents' divorce, both announced and finalized in the last nine months, was one hundred percent, without question, and undeniably, my fault. Not that my father would deny it if I confronted him, I'm sure. But that will never happen. My father's response when I told him I never wanted to see him again for as long as I lived? "I'm sorry you feel that way."

Not "I'm sorry for betraying you." Not "I'm sorry I hurt you". Because he's not. He still thinks I'm to blame for everything that happened. And that truth is, though I'd never say it out loud, sometimes I still think he's right.

Thank God for Mom - my rock. My protector, my defender. She left her husband, my father, because he wasn't on my side, and uprooted our entire lives to get me away from that damned school. From that goddamned town.

I rub my fingers over the pocket of the backpack again. There were thirty pills in the prescription I filled a week and a half ago. I took one that first day. Two the next day, when I unpacked the box with my old cheerleading uniform before I took scissors to it and threw it in the trash. I took one last Tuesday when the neighbor's creepy son leered at me when he took his trash cans to the curb as I was returning from my run, right before I went to the store to buy more modest running gear.

I took two on Friday when Mom's childhood friend, Karen, came over to welcome us "back", though I've never lived here before, and started asking questions about my dad. That leaves twenty four pills.

I'm still breathing heavily, but my pulse is slowing. Counting pills seems to have staved off the attack.

Just then the door to room 313 bursts open and out saunters a classmate. A sideways glance shows him raising his eyebrows with appraising interest when he notices me leaning up against the wall with my chest heaving. My forehead is still pressed against the locker and I only see him in my peripheral. This is embarrassing as hell. I'm no longer invisible. Damn it.

"Uh, are you okay?" he murmurs, his voice deep, like gravel.

I nod against the lockers but don't turn, hoping he continues off to the restroom or wherever he was headed so I can wait for my panic attack to continue to subside in peace.

"You don't look okay. Can I get you something? Or someone? The nurse maybe?"

I take a deep breath and muster up my composure. This is the absolute last thing I need. To be labeled as the crazy girl with the anxiety issues on day one. He's just one student. I have to cut this off at the head. "I'm really fine, I just needed a minute," I assure him as I turn around and plaster on what must be an obviously fake smile.

Holy shit.

He is a walking trigger for me. Gorgeous. My God is he gorgeous. And gorgeous guys in high school are assholes. Especially jocks. And judging by his physique, that's exactly what he is. He's tall. Built. Six plus feet of lean muscle... athletic. Something I'd have found incredibly attractive a year ago.

Now all I can think is how easy it would be for him to overpower me.

No matter how many self-defense classes I take, I'm still just an average height, slight figured girl. No match against him. No match against any man really.

Suddenly all I register is the desolately empty hallway, the absence of any other souls. The fact that there are over a thousand people in this building, including thirty or so just on the opposite side of the door he just exited, is completely and utterly lost on me.

My pulse races again, ten times worse than before. I gape at him in shocked panic, but can't catch my breath enough to speak. I reach for the front pocket of my backpack again, this time for the zipper, but my hand shakes too much to get a grip on it. My gaze makes its way up this stranger's frighteningly powerful body, up past a chiseled jaw, and lips so full and soft looking they are in total contrast with his masculine jawline. My eyes inexorably continue their path past a straight nose framed by perfectly defined cheek bones, and lock on his eyes.

The sneer I expect is missing. He's not looking at me like I'm some psycho freak - though I'm pretty sure that's what I've become. Instead, he's watching me with genuine concern. His eyes are the deepest blue, like a midnight sky, and his brow is creased with worry.

And the strangest thing happens. As we keep eye contact, I start to calm. I breathe in, and out. In, and out. I am still panicking, but I can breathe, and my fingers stop shaking enough to get a grip on the zipper pull. I look down to unzip the pocket and grab the bottle, but as soon as our eye contact is broken, I can't remember what calmed me in the first place and my chest constricts. My lungs betray me. The bottle tumbles from my trembling fingers and rolls a few feet away. Before I can scramble to pick it up, he does it first.

I freeze, waiting for him to hand me my medication, but he pauses, and reads the label. His brow furrows again in concern, or consternation, and I can feel him judging me as he reluctantly hands me the bottle. But I don't care yet. I can't. I need to calm down. I need a pill. I twist open the lid and look up and down the hall, silently thanking God when I see a water fountain. I force myself the thirty or so feet to it, pop the pill, take a drink, and then lean back against the wall and close my eyes, waiting for the magic to take effect.

Barely minutes later the chemical tranquility starts flowing through my veins, and slowly, the pressure in my chest alleviates. My breathing starts to even out, and though my mind grows somewhat cloudy - the whole reason I want to stop taking the pills in the first place - the attack is passing. A few more moments and I'll be able to open my eyes, maybe even venture into math class.

"Better?"

My eyelids fly open. I hadn't realized he was still here, let alone followed me to the water fountain.

"Fine. Like I said," I mutter ungratefully. He furrows his brow, hesitating, and I wonder why he's even still here. For a split second, even calmed by modern medicine, I worry he might want to hurt me, and I swallow a lump of nerves and hold my breath.

"Why don't I know you, Aurora?" he asks casually, as if he didn't just witness me breaking down in the hallway.

"Rory," I correct, before I realize he just called me by name. "Wait. How do you know my name?" My tone makes me sound paranoid, and the irony is that had I not just ingested anti-anxiety medication, just the idea of this tall, ruggedly beautiful boy knowing something about me I haven't offered him would send me spiraling into another attack. But I took the pill. I caved. So I can come across like a relatively normal person, at least for now.

"It was on your... um... bottle," he replies.

I look down, mortified. Vaguely I wonder if he knows what Alprazolam is prescribed for, even though he obviously just witnessed my attack. I'm thankful the bottle says the generic name, and not just Xanax, which teens generally recognize. Some even take it for fun, which doesn't make sense to me. There is nothing fun about any of it.

"So why don't I know you, Rory?"

"I'm new," I practically whisper.

"I see. Well, welcome to Port Wood. I'm Sam. Sam Caplan."

"Nice to meet you," I breathe, still studying my boots.

"So, can I, like, walk you to the nurse's office or something?"

Now I look up. "No. Like I said, I'm fine. I just need to get to class." I turn and start to walk back toward room 313 when another student comes barreling down the hall. I pause and step back toward the wall, out of his way.

"Cap! What's up? I'm late as fuck!" he announces to explain why he's taking the halls like a bat out of hell. As soon as his eyes skate over me, however, he skids to a stop. "Well, hi there." His eyebrows rise with interest and he rakes my entire body with his gaze, he doesn't even try to hide it.

I take another automatic step back and fold my arms protectively over my middle. I tell myself that he's just flirting. It's harmless. It's normal.

But I'm not normal.

I'm so glad I'm medicated right now.

Sam seems to sense my unease and steps in front of me, practically shielding me from someone who is obviously his friend. His friend's brows draw together as he looks at Sam, clearly confused at his stance, as am I.

"Sorry, Tuck, we're late, too. Gotta get to class," Sam explains as he gently takes my hand and leads me back towards calculus. I'm momentarily stunned by his touch. A strange man taking hold of my hand should have freaked me out, even medicated. But his touch was somehow... comforting.

"Uh, okay. Catch you later, I guess," Tuck calls out and resumes his jog down the hall in the opposite direction.

As soon as he's gone I yank my hand back, ignoring the fact that a part of me doesn't want to.

"Sorry," Sam offers.

I just shrug in response.  

"He's harmless. Tuck. Tucker. He's just a flirt."

"Whatever. It's fine. I'm-"

"You're fine. I got it."

I look up at him. Back into those eyes. Big mistake. I start to feel guilty. It appears that I've grown so accustomed to being the victim that I can't even recognize when someone is trying to help me. Great. Now I'm a bitch. "I'm sorry," I mutter.

"Whatever, it's cool. You in my class? Calc?" he gestures to the door to 313.

I nod.

"Cool, let's go."

"Didn't you... weren't you headed somewhere?" I ask. After all, he must have had somewhere he'd needed to go - before he got sidetracked by the new girl having an episode in the hallway. Sam chuckles and it's a lighthearted, genuinely sweet sound. The kind of laugh that instantly puts you at ease, that intimates sincerity and warmth. I'm surprised by how it affects me.

"Nah. I just get bored in calculus sometimes and ask for a bathroom pass." He shrugs and opens the door for me.

I go in ahead of him and to my surprise, he grabs the form out of my hand and slams it on the teacher's desk. "New student," he murmurs, as if it's the most ordinary thing in the world, and then sits down in the second row.

The teacher barely looks up as he directs me to take a seat, which I do - as far back as I can - and the few students who look up, mostly girls, look only at Sam. Not that I can blame them.

And just like that, I'm back to being invisible.

****

 

When the bell rings everyone rushes to pack up their things and head out the door. Sam turns around and I freeze as he makes eye contact, the corner of his mouth twisting up into a half smile.

"Rory? Is that you?" a girl's voice rips my attention from my strange, hypnotized reaction. I reluctantly pry my eyes away from Sam's and search for its source.

Then I see her. Okay, so I don't know no one. I know one someone.

And it's someone I actually like.

"Carleigh? Holy shit, Carleigh!" I'm so grateful that she's here and that she even remembers me that even as she hugs me, I momentarily forget that I can barely even bear to be touched, and I hug her back hard.

Carleigh Stanger's family lived next door to my Grandma Mimi - my mom's mom - before she passed away. We used to visit her up here twice a year and I would play with Carleigh. Always. She was my best vacation friend. I haven't seen her since we were twelve. I peek over at the front of the room just in time to see Sam smile and walk out of the classroom.

"They call me Carl these days," Carleigh informs me. "What's up? How are you? What are you even doing here?" she asks excitedly. I laugh at her energy. When was the last time I actually laughed?

"Slow down, Carl. I... well, I moved here," I explain.

"So you're here for good? Like you go to school here now? Like for the rest of the year?"

"That's the plan," I confirm, and I'm rewarded with her ear-to-ear grin.