RULES FOR DISAPPEARING
BY WITNESS PROTECTION PRISONER #18A7R04M:
Don’t make eye contact or strike up conversations with random people. This may make you seem interesting and therefore attract the attention of others. And you don’t want that…right?
THERE’S nothing really exciting or different about the area, just the same as our last three placements, until you go a couple of blocks toward the historic district.
The town is cute. Really cute. Everything’s old but in a cool way. Front Street runs right next to a river, and the road is paved with old cobblestones. Driving over them sends vibrations through the wagon. Little restaurants and bars mixed with souvenir shops line the sidewalk. Most buildings are made of old brick and wood, like our cottage, and have second-story balconies trimmed in scrolled black iron. It must be like walking into someone’s home rather than their store.
We cross a narrow bridge, and the shops turn into houses, the rambling kind with big yards, porch swings, and shrubs so thick and full they look like small trees.
We pull up to a school, and I see all the little kids.
“Okay, Teeny, we’re here.” Dad peeks at her in the rearview mirror. The worse Teeny gets, the less Dad deals with her. It’s like he’s not equipped to handle this change.
She’s crouched down in the backseat, her backpack clutched to her chest. I paste the biggest, brightest smile on my face. “Teeny, you’ll do great. I’ll see you after school. No worries.”
She smiles, but it’s forced. She gets out of the car, and Dad and I watch her walk slowly toward the building. Her head hangs low and her shoulders hunch over.
The air is heavy with all of the things we both want to say to each other, but neither of us speaks. I fiddle with the heater vent and Dad scrapes away something nasty from the windshield.
Once Teeny’s out of sight, Dad pulls away from the curb.
At my request, he stops a block away to let me out. He mutters something about being here after school, but I’m out before he finishes.
Going in with The Plan does little to ease the nerves in my stomach. I take my iPod out and put in the earbuds.
It’s easy to blend in with the crowd as everyone heads to the front door of the old school. Stealing glances at the kids shows me there’s money in this area as well—lots of designer clothes and bags, everyone very put together. And I thought I’d blend in with these hideous clothes.
The halls are crowded and filled with the sounds of lockers banging open and shut. By now I thought I’d heard every accent out there, but these voices are so different—definitely Southern, but something else, too.
I spot the office and inch the door open. The woman behind the counter is frantic, shuffling papers around and barking into the phone. Her expression is exhausted even though it’s not even 8 a.m. I take one earbud out. “This is my first day. I need my schedule.”
The woman starts flipping through papers again. “Name.”
“Meg Jones.”
She rustles through another pile. “Have a seat. It’s not in this stack.”
The only vacant seat sandwiches me between two very different-looking guys with the same problem. They both got the crap beat out of them.
The one on my left has a swollen eye and a cut lip. There’s blood covering his varsity jacket, and he’s wiggling what may be a loose tooth. The one to my right has the beginnings of a bruise that covers his entire cheek. It’s mostly red and swollen, rimmed with purple. Even with half his face discolored, he’s cute, in a bad boy sort of way. The sleeve of his camouflage coat is hanging by a thread, and his boots are caked in mud.
The jock looks straight at me. “New girl?”
I blink a few times. “Uh, yeah. First day.”
“Cool—don’t get many transfers. You’ll like it here. One piece of advice—stay away from that son of a bitch sitting on your other side and you’ll be just fine.”
Camo boy leans forward and says to the jock, “Hey, how about you take your advice and shove it up your ass, you stupid prick.”
The jock lunges toward camo boy, and I cover my head with my hands, preparing for impact, when a sharp command stops the boys in midair.
“That’s enough! In my office immediately.” Both freeze with fists cocked back and swivel around to face the man in the doorway. I peek through my fingers. The voice belongs to a very tall, heavyset man dressed in a suit that seems way too nice for someone who works in the public school system.
Camo boy and jock stand up, but it only takes a few seconds before they’re both blaming each other again. The man holds up his hand.
“No one breathes another word until I give you permission to do so. Understood?”
The guys quiet down and follow him into an office marked PRINCIPAL. Just before the jock goes inside, he raises one eyebrow and says quietly, “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
Welcome to Natchitoches High School.
I take two wrong turns and finally find my homeroom after the final bell rings. The teacher looks up from her podium and gives me a quick glance. “You must be Megan. Go find a seat.”
Looking across the room, I see an empty one in the back row. Thank God. Everyone scans me up and down and then dismisses me. The urge to pull my hoodie up over my head is overwhelming. I know what I look like to them—I would have acted the same way if some freak-looking girl showed up at my old school—but it doesn’t make the stares hurt any less.
A loud screech fills the room, and I’m on the floor near my desk before I even realize I fell. The announcements start playing over the intercom, and the room fills with laughter.
“It’s the intercom speaker. It’s busted and sounds horrible when it comes on,” the girl in front of me says. She looks sorry for me, which I hate, but at least she’s not laughing like the others.
I put my earbuds back in and wait for the bell to change classes.
The morning goes by in a haze. New teachers, new classes. All these schools are starting to run together. This one isn’t that big, so I share most classes with a handful of the same people.
I follow the crowd through the double doors into the cafeteria. A few girls I had a class with this morning, including the one from homeroom, signal me to sit with them. My legs itch to walk to their table and drop down in the chair they have pulled out, but before I take the first step, I check myself and remember The Plan. No friends. Grabbing a banana and a bottle of water, I give a half wave in their direction and flee the cafeteria.
Lugging my go-bag, I walk down the hall in search of a quiet place. Deep down there is a twinge of regret for isolating myself like this. I knew it would be hard, but I never believed it would be this hard, and it’s only the first day.
The windows down a side hall overlook a small deserted courtyard, a circular area with several stone tables and benches surrounded by overgrown bushes. It’s the perfect hiding spot, so I decide to brave the elements. January is colder than I thought it would be in Louisiana. I figured the hoodie would be enough, but the temperature is hovering around the freezing mark.
The benches are too cold to sit on, so I plop down on the mossy ground, pulling the hood over my head and sliding my earbuds into place as I crank the music. I take out my journal and write a while before my thoughts start to wander. One month. One month to figure things out. If I fail, I’ll have to start all over in the next placement. The thought of this isolation being permanent makes me almost throw up, but I know I’m stronger than that now. The old me wouldn’t have been able to do this. I shove the banana into my bag along with the journal and use the bag as a pillow. Closing my eyes, I let the music wash over me and try not to think.
A dark shadow passes over. I jerk upright.
It’s camo boy. His lips are moving, but my music is so loud I can’t hear what he’s saying. I take the earbuds out, and he repeats himself.
“Not fitting in so well, huh? Must be pretty bad in there if you decided to freeze your ass off rather than sit inside with everybody else.” He drops down beside me.
“Are you always so blunt?”
“Yep.” He pops open a Coke. “What’s your name?”
“Meg.”
“I’m Ethan Landry. So, Meg. What’s up? Why all alone out here?”
I shrug and lean back against my bag. If I ignore him, maybe he’ll go away. I give him a quick once-over, noticing that the caked-on dirt covering his boots is also on his jeans and jacket. Why is he so dirty at school?
“Did you roll around in the mud or what?” I want to clamp my hand over my mouth the second the words leave my lips. So much for ignoring him.
He lets out a loud, sharp laugh. “I guess you could say that. Had to help my dad this morning.”
“So your dad fell in the mud and you had to get him out?” Quit asking him questions!
He smiles. There’s a dimple on the bruised side that is probably adorable when not discolored. “Something like that. Tractor got stuck and I had to go pull him out.”
I lean over and wrap my arms around my knees. “So you live on a farm?” I ask.
“No, but we have a farm right outside of town.”
His hands are rough and calloused, like they belong to a man more than a boy. I wonder if they feel as rough as they look.
My eyes move quickly back to his face, hoping my brief trip to the gutter doesn’t show.
“Ya know, you’re a pretty good singer,” he says.
What.
A grin breaks out across his face. “I guess you didn’t know you were singing out loud?”
Oh. My. God.
“Uh, no…um, I…” There are no words. I’m humiliated because I know, really know, what a bad singer I am.
My face is on fire and probably looks like a tomato.
Ethan chuckles, then nudges my foot with his. “I didn’t mean to embarrass you, although it’s pretty cute the way your cheeks get all pink like that. So what classes do you have this afternoon?” he asks.
He called me cute. Or at least my red-stained cheeks cute. The excitement this brings is replaced immediately with dread. I’m not doing this. Making friends. No matter how nice (or hot) they are.
“Look, I gotta go.” I stand up, and he grabs my ankle.
“Don’t be mad. Bell won’t ring for another ten minutes.”
God, he’s adorable even with the ugly bruise marking his cheek. And that accent. I want nothing more than to sit back down and spend the next ten minutes flirting with him.
Instead, I shake my leg free.
“You must be pretty desperate to hunt down the new girl, farm boy. If I wanted to hang out with some hick, I’d have stayed in the cafeteria, where it’s warm.” Brutally harsh, but I’ve seen that look before. Interest. Interest in me and who I am, and I can’t handle that. Not again.
He drops his hand, surprised, and squints at me. I swallow down the guilt. I’m really doing him a favor. I put the earbuds back in and walk inside.
I glance over my shoulder to where Ethan is still sitting, and I already regret walking away from him.
There’s no way I’ll make it a month.