Chapter Six
Avery
“It looks like anaphase,” Ben said, looking into the microscope. He twisted the side nob to adjust the lens. “I think. Wanna look?”
I nodded and accepted the microscope. We were studying the stages of mitosis that Tuesday for a small group project. It wasn’t too hard, so that was good at least. Squinting one eye, I looked into the lens with the other and examined the slide.
Sometimes anaphase and metaphase could be confusing because they were similar in appearance. The difference was a small one, and you had to know what to look for.
“Yep. Anaphase,” I verified before looking back up. After we wrote it on our sheet, I grabbed the next slide and positioned it in the microscope. I recognized the next stage right away. “This one’s definitely telophase.”
I slid the device over so Ben could look.
Telophase was one of the easiest stages to recognize because the chromosomes were divided into two separate shapes, unlike the others that were in various phases of division and could be tricky to identify at times.
As Ben agreed with me and placed the next slide, I scanned the surrounding students.
Each group sat at raised tables in the back of the room, where all of the equipment and sinks were located. For experiments, we shifted back there, instead of using our desks. Which was smart just in case chemicals were spilled or a fire broke out.
During my skim of the room, my gaze settled on Maverick.
He sat two tables over with a blonde haired girl whose name I didn’t know. His broad shoulders filled out his fitted, blue shirt, and his light brown hair was fixed into a sort of fauxhawk. And his neck had that muscled look to it—not the grossly bulging veins like some guys had, but that subtle strength that traveled down to the indents near his collarbone.
However, the smile on his face was what caught my attention most.
When he smiled, it reflected all over his face, reaching his eyes and shining through them like the brightest—and warmest—of lights. I’d never met someone who smiled like that; so genuine and kind.
The girl buried her face in her hands, obviously getting frustrated, and Maverick’s grin widened as he gently patted her shoulder and said something. She peered back up and crinkled her nose before looking into the microscope.
That’s when Maverick’s eyes met mine.
It was as if all the synapses in my body sparked at the same time, causing my heart to pound, my ears to tingle, and zaps to travel to the tips of my fingers. And I felt it—the weird fluttering in my stomach and the coursing of the blood in my veins.
Ages passed as I looked at him, but in reality, it happened in the blink of an eye.
Maverick smiled and gave me an acknowledging nod, which I answered with an awkward wave.
The memory of Saturday night floated through my mind as I focused back on Ben and the assignment.
I’d been sitting by the railroad tracks, just trying to escape for a while, when his car had come speeding across the intersection and nearly crashed. I hadn’t known it was him at first, but I hadn’t hesitated before running over to make sure the person inside was okay.
Then, when I saw him sitting behind the wheel and looking so out of it, my concern had only amplified.
After I searched for signs of a concussion and realized he was fine, I’d sat beside him and we’d just talked. It was probably the weirdest and most unexpected thing that’d happened since I’d moved to Port Haven. Almost as if our run-ins at school were for a reason, to make that moment more than what it would’ve been had we not known each other.
I didn’t believe in fate. Maybe it meant nothing and was only a coincidence. Whatever the answer, it had done something odd to my brain. I couldn’t get him out of my head.
“Prophase,” I said after inspecting the slide.
“Cool.” Ben bounced in his seat a little as he wrote the answer in the correct space.
His red hair lay flat, and his bangs covered most of his forehead, but weren’t long enough to swoop into his eyes. He tended to spike it up sometimes, but the rainy day might’ve influenced his decision to skip fixing it that day. Or maybe he had fixed it, and the heavy rain just washed it all out.
And yeah, I was ninety-nine percent sure I was thinking about his hair so that I wouldn’t let my mind wander to Maverick. Again.
“That means the last one has to be metaphase,” Ben continued. “But we should still look just to be sure. Better to be safe than sorry.”
“Good idea.”
That statement told me a lot about his personality: someone who was overly cautious. Even though the final slide was obvious, he still wanted to double-check it. I could relate to him.
Since we were finished, we spent the remainder of class talking.
Ben was an only child and had been adopted when we was five by a couple who couldn’t have children. He barely remembered life before then, which I thought was probably for the best. I’d never been in foster care, but I’d heard bad stories about kids who’d been in it.
There were good stories too, but good deeds rarely got as much attention as the bad ones.
At lunch Ben and I sat together again, and I was realizing I might actually have a friend in him. More than just a group partner. He seemed to enjoy being around me and not just pretend like he was interested.
An explosion of laughter made me jump, and I turned to see all of the jocks at Maverick’s table. God only knows what they were talking about. Probably some hookup gone wrong or something else immature. Some dude with short blond hair slapped Maverick on the back, and Maverick grinned, shaking his head.
I focused back on my tray of food, uninterested in them.
“Wouldn’t it be nice to be part of that?” Ben asked, staring at them with longing in his brown eyes.
I shrugged. “Depends.”
“On what?” Ben’s curiosity was genuine.
“Well, most of the time, those kinda friends aren’t the ones who last,” I answered. “In school, the popular kids gravitate toward other popular kids, and the only thing most have in common is said popularity. When they graduate, I doubt any of them will keep in touch. So yeah, they might be surrounded by a crap load of people, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t lonely. If that makes sense.”
Ben smiled before saying, “Yeah it does. When put that way, it makes me look at it differently.”
“I’m not an expert on having friends by any means,” I said, feeling my face heat at the admission. “But I’d rather have one or two great friends, than a crowd of fake ones.”
As the day went on, I thought a lot about what I told Ben.
High school life wasn’t like being in the real world. Far from it. Whether you sat at the cool kids table or in the corner with the outcasts; none of that mattered. Strength of character, grades, work ethic, and things like that were what got you future jobs. Not whether you were the hottest guy or chick in school.
Later, the bus dropped Declan and I off, and we started toward home. Fortunately for us, the rain had stopped, but the gray sky loomed above us with the threat of spilling any moment.
He chirped in my ear about some girl he was interested in, and I listened.
“She’s really hot, ya know? Like super freaking hot,” he said, walking beside me in the grass. Only certain areas had an actual sidewalk. The rest was just a lot of walking on the road, or in people’s yards. “But then there’s this other girl. And her tits are like—”
“Nope. Hard pass,” I said, putting an end to that line of conversation. “I don’t wanna hear about some girl’s boobs.”
“You’re no fun,” Declan scoffed, bumping my shoulder with his. “How am I supposed to work out my problem if I can’t get your feedback on tit sizes?”
I knew he was mostly joking. Mom raised us to respect women—respect all people, actually. She might’ve been a stripper, but she was a lady of class in my book, and anyone who said differently would be met with my fist to their jaw.
“What about you?”
“What do you mean?” I asked, raising a brow.
His eyes looked darker that day, and his brown hair blew a bit around his face.
Out of the two of us, he looked more like our dad: same set of eyes and overall face shape. It’d taken me a while to stop the bile from rising in my throat as he started maturing. Memories had surfaced of our dad beating me and doing the same to Mom. But one look into D’s eyes, and all of that had stopped.
He was too kind-hearted, and it showed.
I took after Mom, appearing a bit more feminine than I’d like, with a softer face shape and eyes that looked a bit too big for my face.
“Is there a girl you’re into?” he clarified, shoving his hands into his hoodie pocket.
Even though I’d questioned my sexuality, I’d never said any of it out loud. Not out of fear of rejection—I mean, if I wanted to fit in, I’d stop wearing black eyeliner and convert to normality. It was more that I just didn’t know, and I didn’t see a point in voicing any of it until I knew for sure.
“Nope. Not a girl,” I answered, not realizing until the words left my lips that the way I said it sort of implied that there was maybe a boy.
Declan looked at me. Like really looked at me, as if he was searching for something—looking past my outward appearance and trying to see inside. His eyes were narrowed, but lacked judgment, and his mouth was set in a firm line.
I sensed he was about to ask me something, but before he did, he dropped his gaze and focused ahead, saying, “I’m glad the rain stopped.”
“Me too.”
Lesson taken from this? When in doubt, talk about the weather.