The first day of high school for someone like Macon Moutrie wasn’t anything to be excited about. He was still in an awkward phase between manhood and puberty and it seemed like none of his parts had really caught up with one another. He was gangly, awkward— and as a result— terribly shy.

As he wandered the halls of Torrey Pines High School, he tried to keep his eyes down. Everyone seemed so much older than he’d expected. There were tons of guys walking around with full facial hair, tall and expressionless. It made him nervous.

He’d found his locker okay. And to his surprise, the person next to him was someone he knew all too well.

Ever since Norah Pruitt had showed up with her twin brother Josh, Macon hadn’t been able to think of anything else. The three of them had become fast friends after that night, Macon having proven he could be trusted and counted on. There had been a few more nights of the Pruitt kids needing a place to crash. Macon had been all too happy to oblige. Not only because he wanted to be a good friend…But because of Norah.

Everything he ever did for them, was really for her.

“Macon!” Norah said, her smile broad and friendly across her pretty face. “We’re neighbors! Even at school.”

Macon smiled. “Yeah, I suppose we are. Not such a bad deal.”

“It’s nice to have someone familiar next to me,” she said. “I’m a little anxious. This school is so big.”

It was. There were almost 5,000 kids at Torrey Pines High. It was a lot to take in.

“I’m sure you’ll be fine,” Macon said, fidgeting with the strap of his book bag. “What class do you have first?”

“World History,” Norah said, biting her bottom lip as she fumbled with her schedule. “With Mr. Ashby. How about you?”

“Honors English 9,” Macon said. He didn’t need to look at his schedule to know that. He’d memorized it last week. Such was his way.

“Well, that’s too bad,” Norah frowned. “I guess all your classes are honors, huh? You’re so smart, Macon. I wish I could—“

Before she could finish her sentence she was shoved; hard. Her body fell into his, and even with the slight weight of her, it pushed them both into the lockers. That’s how powerfully she’d been jostled.

“Move, slut!” A trio of girls glared at them, all three in short skirts and dark lip liner. They were the scariest girls Macon had ever seen.

Norah was biting her lip again. She ignored the insult but Macon could tell it had shaken her. The girls cackled as they sauntered away, their shrill laughter echoing down the hallway.

“You okay?” he asked. Her body was still pressed against his and he could feel her shaking.

She shook her head. “I’m okay. I was hoping high school might be easier than middle school.” She stood up, her expression back to normal. She’d only been upset for a second. Macon knew she was too proud to let it ruin her day.

“Let me see your schedule,” she said.

“Okay,” Macon unzipped his Jansport and started digging through his binder. Norah laughed.

“Guy are always so disorganized,” Norah said. “Even the smart ones.”

Macon’s heart raced in his chest. A compliment from Norah Pruitt. He could live on that one for a while.

He finally pulled out a rumpled piece of paper. As he handed it to her their fingers touched, sending a jolt through him.

Jesus, he thought. You really need to get a hold of yourself.

Norah scanned the paper, her lips pursed as her eyes moved quickly across the sheet. Macon wondered what it was like to kiss lips like Norah Pruitt’s. They were so pouty and perfect…

“Macon!” she suddenly exclaimed, knocking him out of his thoughts. “We have homeroom together! And gym class!”

Now that was good news.

Macon tried not to give away how thrilled he was about the news that he’d get to spend at least a minimum of two hours in the same room as Norah every day.

“Cool,” he said, nonchalantly. “So I’ll see you after our first class.”

“Yep!” She smiled at him like it was the best news she’d gotten all day. “See you then!”

And with that, she turned to run to class. He did the same, feeling all of a sudden much better how the day was progressing.

* * *

After the night the Pruitt twins had crashed at his trailer, Macon had been allowed into their tiny circle of trust. And being that Macon had been mostly a loner his whole life (a boy who lived in comic books and spent a lot of time memorizing baseball and basketball stats) it felt nice to be included in what felt like an exclusive club.

He’d learned so much about the Pruitts. Little things. Like how Norah still slept with a stuffed dog that Josh had won for her at the Helldorado Days fair when they were ten. Or how Josh needed to have some sort of light streaming into a room when he slept. He didn’t like the dark.

Norah loved peanut butter and pickle sandwiches. Josh liked Jolly Ranchers, and always seemed to have one in his mouth and at least five in each pocket at any time.

Norah wanted to be a writer one day. She had Mead notebooks full of stories and poems. Josh changed his mind almost every week on what he wanted to be when he grew up. One week he’d want to be a police officer. Other times, a lawyer. For about a month he wanted to be a music producer, even though he had never taken any sort of music class in his life and Norah had told Macon that her brother was completely tone deaf.

“I just want to be someone people look up to and respect,” Josh had confessed to Macon one day while Norah was in the bathroom. “I want people to look at me and think, ‘I want to be like that guy.’ I’m tired of people feeling sorry for me.”

But it was hard not to feel sorry for the Pruitt twins. Their mother was what Norah referred to as “a hot mess.” She didn’t work, or at least she didn’t have a traditional job. Men were always in and out of their trailer and Macon suspected their mother was involved in illicit things, after his own mother told Macon he was never to go inside the Pruitts’ trailer.

“That woman ain’t no good,” she’d told him. “Bless those babies, they have a whore for a mother.”

Macon had cringed at the word whore. He knew what it meant. He wouldn’t have dreamt of saying that in front of his friends, but it made him feel terrible for them, something he knew they would have hated to know. He suspected they’d offered friendship to him because he never acted like he pitied them. And he never would.

Their father had committed suicide about a year before Macon had met them. The tragedy still hung in the air wherever they went. Macon had learned about it from Norah on one of the nights they’d had to sleep over again. Josh was sleeping soundly in Macon’s room but Norah was wide awake with anxiety and had joined Macon out in the living room.

He’d tried his best not to stare at her in her flannel pajama bottoms that sat low on her hips, revealing a flash of her tummy if she moved just right.

“What’s wrong?” he’d asked her. She’d clearly been upset about something. Josh would have never shown any emotion, but Norah was someone who had no poker face. Whatever she felt was always right there in the open.

“One of my mom’s boyfriends tried to get into bed with me tonight,” she said. “It’s why we left. I just keep thinking that if it wasn’t for Josh, who would protect me? My father is supposed to be the one to make sure I’m safe, but he opted out. I wasn’t worth staying around for.”

Macon wasn’t sure what to say. His own father had left them when he was too young to remember.

“I guess I should tell you,” she whispered, leaning toward him. He could smell her shampoo. It was vanilla scented. Intoxicating.

“Our dad killed himself a year ago. Jumped off the MGM parking garage…” her voice trailed off. She said it like she was talking about what was on the lunch menu at school tomorrow. No emotion.

Macon had no idea what to say.

“I’m so sorry,” he finally replied. “That’s really terrible.”

Norah nodded. She was staring out past Macon, out at something only she could see.

“I wish I knew what to say,” Macon added. “I can only think he must have been very sick to do something like that. He wasn’t of sound mind.”

Norah looked at Macon, her eyes tearing up a bit.

“That’s what I tell myself,” Norah said. “He was a veteran. Served in the Gulf War. Mom told us he had something called Gulf War Syndrome. She says it’s what made him do it.” Norah looked down at her toes. Her nails were pink. “But I keep thinking maybe if we’d been better somehow, he would have stuck around. Like maybe I disappointed him too much.”

Without thinking, Macon wrapped his arm around her and pulled her into him. The act of his affection was like opening a flood gate; her tears and sobs started almost instantly.

“Before he died life wasn’t perfect or anything,” she said, her voice slightly muffled by his shoulder. “Far from it. But he was a good man and a good dad. Once he was gone, everything went to shit.”

Macon held her tight, not knowing what else to do.

* * *

After that night, Norah had really leaned on Macon emotionally for almost everything. She looked at him almost like he was some kind of hero to her; like a Steve Rogers type. (Macon had been reading a lot of Captain America comics lately.) But Macon also sadly knew, it wasn’t romantic affection at all. Macon had become like another brother to Norah, someone else she could count on besides Josh. She couldn’t be as open with Josh emotionally like she could with Macon.

Josh Pruitt was too pragmatic for demonstrative sentiment. He didn’t have that luxury now that he was the man of the house.

Macon had hoped maybe high school would be different. That Norah might open her eyes and see Macon as more than just a friend. But he knew it wasn’t likely. Norah was beautiful. Guys stared at her, girls envied her. Macon wasn’t like Josh. He wasn’t effortlessly handsome; at least he didn’t see himself that way.

But a guy could hope.

* * *

Macon could barely concentrate in his first period class knowing that Norah awaited him in homeroom. He stared at the clock as his teacher droned on and on about summer reading.

When the bell mercifully rang, he walked quickly across the hall to homeroom with Mr. Kemp.

When he entered the room he was disappointed to see the three mean girls from earlier, the ones who had shoved Norah, in the back of the room. Norah hadn’t arrived yet, so he took a seat on the right side toward the back and put his book bag in the desk behind him, to save her a spot.

She was the last student to arrive, right before the tardy bell. The mean girls started snickering as soon as she walked in but Norah ignored them, giving Macon a huge smile.

“Thanks for saving me a seat,” she said, sliding her lithe body into her chair. Macon could feel the eyes of everyone on both of them. He knew very well it wasn’t because of him. People stared at Norah all the time. Who could blame them?

Mr. Kemp was running late, showing up almost five minutes after homeroom was supposed to have started.

He rushed in, his hair disheveled, his bow tie askew. He was a doughy, older man with a beaky nose.

“Sorry, I’m late,” he said, dropping a stack of papers on his desk. “Not that there’s much to discuss. This is homeroom. You’ll use this for study hall or leisure reading. I will use it for grading. Any questions?”

No one answered and as Mr. Kemp started going through his paperwork, the rest of the class mumbled and whispered amongst themselves.

Macon turned to look at Norah. She’d piled her long brown hair on top of her head and placed a pencil through it to hold it up.

“How was World History?” Macon asked.

“Ugh. It was okay. Josh is in that class with me, but of course he ignores me when he’s around his ‘bros’,” Norah said. “Which I understand. He wants high school to be different. And joining the football team has given him a huge confidence boost.”

Macon nodded. When he’d found out Josh was joining the football team he’d worried he might lose his friend to the siren song of high school jock popularity.

“But I don’t know. Friends come so easy for him, but not for me,” she said in almost a whisper. “Like those girls back there. Why do they hate me so much already? They barely know me. Or they only think they know me. I guess it’s hard to shake off first impressions. And I’m a girl from a trailer park, so to them I’ll always be trash.”

Macon winced inwardly. He was sensitive too about where they lived. He tried not to think about it most of the time. But Norah was right- people had ideas about kids like them. And it was hard to shake off those judgements.

As they were talking, a teacher’s aide walked in and handed a note to Mr. Kemp.

“Norah Pruitt?” he said out loud, looking down at the piece of paper in his hand. “The office needs you. You have a phone call from your father.”

Macon and Norah both froze.

“Excuse me?” she asked, her voice shaking. Macon could have sworn he heard laughter coming from the mean girls’ corner of the room.

“You’re Norah? It says here your father wants you to call him, that he couldn’t reach your cell. Something about the MGM? The receptionist’s handwriting isn’t legible.”

Macon wanted to throw up.

Now it was clear the Bitch Brigade was in on the sick joke, if that’s what this was. They weren’t hiding their laughter at all now.

Norah stood up. Her head held high she walked over to Mr. Kemp and retrieved the note from him.

“Thank you, sir. If I may be excused, I’ll call him now,” she said, her voice never wavering. Macon had never been more proud of someone in his entire life.

He’d also never wanted to hurt someone as much as he wanted to hurt the girls who had done this to her. It was the cruelest joke he’d ever witnessed. Boys could be bullies. But girls could be a whole other level of vicious.

“Mr. Kemp,” Macon suddenly said, standing up. “If it’s okay, I need to run to the restroom.”

Mr. Kemp waved his hand. “Fine.”

Norah and Macon stepped out the door together. As soon as they were out of earshot, Norah started to cry. Macon’s heart broke at the sound of her anguish and for the first time, the meek Macon wanted to hurt someone or something to release the rage in his core.

“If this is any indication what high school is going to be like, I might as well drop out now,” she sobbed, putting her forehead against a locker. “Josh gets to escape through sports. But what about me? I mean, if they’re willing to make fun of a dead man, what limits do they have? I mean, Jesus.”

Macon couldn’t disagree with that.

“They did this last year too,” she said. “Except it was over the P.A. system. They called me down to the office to take a call from my dad. It was devastating. Why is that funny? I wouldn’t play a prank like that on anyone, even if I hated them.”

“They’re just bitches, Norah,” Macon said. “And I’m not one to refer to girls as bitches, but that’s the nicest word I can come up with for them. Anyone who is capable of that has no soul. They’re jealous, Norah. Of your spirit, of your beauty, of everything you have going for you that they never will. You won’t always be a trailer park kid. You’ll escape, but they can never escape being assholes. I guarantee you in ten years you won’t remember them. They’ll be these faceless monsters that once had the nerve to make a joke out of your tragedy. Wait until tragedy hits them and see how they feel about what they did.”

He’d probably said too much, but it needed to be said. Macon couldn’t have Norah walking away without knowing where she stood in the spectrum of humanity.

“My beauty?” she suddenly said, looking at him, a smile in her eyes. “You think I’m beautiful?”

Macon opened his mouth and then closed it. What could he say?

“Everyone thinks you’re beautiful, Norah,” he finally said. “Especially me.”

Her large eyes once filled with tears were suddenly close, her mouth an inch from his own.

“No one has ever told me that,” she whispered.

Before he could even think, he leaned in and pressed his mouth to hers, kissing her pain away and finding out the answer to the question he’d asked himself earlier that morning.

Her lips were even more delicious than he’d imagined.