Chapter 4
Chapter Four
Hands shaking, I haul my backpack over my shoulder and stand up. Everything I own is stuffed inside. Two shirts, one spare pair of jeans, the notebook I lifted from my last school, and a paperback I found wedged and forgotten in the back of the Greyhound seat.
The rising sun lightens the empty streets as I step off the bus. A few early workers hustle past the station, collars turned up against the cold. No one pays any attention to me. They never do.
The high school office doesn’t open for another three hours, so I dig through my pockets and scrape together enough money to buy a coffee at the diner near the bus station.
The waitress leaves me alone, glancing at the paper I’ve got spread out across the table as she sets down my coffee.
She probably thinks I’m just another kid doing last minute homework.
But that’s not what it is.
The forgeries are good this time. They have to be after what happened in Portland, where I used the wrong logo and the secretary actually started making calls. I was gone before anyone could verify anything.
I got better after that. School letterheads, transfer forms, medical records—everything is available online if you know where to look.
I figured out which details matter, and which ones no one checks.
A natural progression from forging my mother’s prescriptions years ago.
Doctor’s signatures, date stamps, DEA numbers.
Back then it was about keeping her alive.
Now it’s about keeping myself from disappearing into the cracks forever.
I chose this town because of its size. It has a mid-sized high school, with a steady stream of transfer students from nearby towns.
It’s the kind of place where there’s such a high turnover of students that ticking boxes matters more than chasing details.
A day on a library computer in Seattle was enough to figure that out.
This is my last chance to finish my education before the streets swallow me alive.
The walk to the school takes twenty minutes from where the diner is. I memorized the route last night, studying the town map I’d printed off until my eyes burned. The buildings get older as I move away from the station, worn brick and peeling paint telling stories of better days.
I reach the high school just as the first cars start pulling into the staff lot.
The building squats against the morning sky, three stories of brick and clouded windows.
It looks the same as every other school I’ve been to.
Same tired architecture. Same chain-link fence separating the grounds from the neighborhood beyond.
Same sense that this place has been here forever, and will be here long after everyone inside it has gone.
The main office is empty, other than the secretary. I hand her my paperwork.
“Ronan Oliver. I’m supposed to start today.”
Her fingers tap against her keyboard, her nails painted the same shade of pink as my mother’s pills. A random detail that cuts straight through time. Some memories are like that. They remain sharp enough to make you bleed years later.
She frowns at her screen. “Your previous school records seem to be incomplete.”
“It might be a system error.” The lie comes easily. Practice makes you better at most things, even the things you hate about yourself. “I bet they’re still transferring everything over.”
“And your parents?” Her eyes drop to the top sheet. “Oh … Your paperwork says uncle, but—”
“My parents are dead. My uncle took me in, but he travels a lot for work.” I keep my voice flat. Bored. The tone of a teenager who’s answered the same question a thousand times before, and doesn’t care enough about it anymore to be defensive. “His phone number is in the contact details.”
I found a phone in the bus station restroom before leaving Seattle.
It didn’t have any kind of passcode on it, and the number was stored in its contacts.
I put that in, and changed the voicemail message.
That way if they do call, it’ll sound like a legitimate number. Hopefully, I won’t ever need it though.
She studies the documents again, while I focus on keeping my hands steady and my eyes straight ahead, instead of looking for the exit. Three schools in the past year have taught me everything I need to do. I learned fast that if you look confident, they rarely push for more.
“Okay then.” She slides some papers across the desk. “These emergency contact forms will need to be signed by your uncle. Bring them back tomorrow morning.”
I can forge the signatures once I leave for the day. What’s one more lie to be added to the pile I’ve told so far? She prints out a class schedule and a floor plan, then sends me on my way.
I’d have preferred to finish up in the office before class started and lose myself in the crowds as they moved through the hallways to classrooms, but that’s not the case. The hallways are empty, which means all eyes will be on me when I walk into a room.
According to the schedule, my first class is History with Mr. Edwards in room 204. The door creaks when I push it open, and the teacher pauses mid-sentence. He’s an older guy with wire-rimmed glasses, and a sweater with leather patches on the elbows.
“Aha! You must be our new student. Class, this is …”
“Ronan.”
“Welcome to Graystone Hollow High, Ronan.” He picks up a textbook and exercise book off his desk, and holds them out. “Take these. I don’t imagine you’ve had time to get supplies yet.”
“No, sir. Thank you.”
“Go and take a seat.” He gestures to an empty desk near the back, and turns back to the class.
A whisper ripples through the room, and eyes track my movement as I cross the floor to the empty desk in the back corner.
“Another mid-year transfer?” someone mutters. “That’s like three this semester.”
I drop into the seat near the window, and shove my bag under the desk. The girl next to me shifts her chair slightly away. The guy in front keeps glancing back.
Let them look. Let them wonder. They can build whatever story makes them comfortable. I don’t care. I’m not here to make friends. I’m here to stop myself going insane.
Edwards returns to his lecture on the Civil War, specifically Sherman’s March, supply lines, and strategy.
I reach down and take a pencil out of my bag, open the exercise book, and start to write, capturing details that probably bore most other people.
History makes sense to me. Cause and effect.
Action and consequence. Unlike most things in my life, there’s a logic to it, even if that logic is brutal.
He writes key dates on the board. His handwriting is neat, sometimes spilling into cursive. The other students whisper behind their hands whenever he turns his back, passing notes that have nothing to do with Sherman or the war.
Normal teenage things.
When Edwards asks about Sherman’s tactics, no one answers him. They all look down, away, and avoid eye contact. I know the answer. I know it because in some ways I’ve lived it. How sometimes burning everything behind you is the only true way forward. But my hand stays down.
I’ve learned that lesson, too. Don’t volunteer, don’t stand out, and above all, don’t give anyone a reason to remember your name.
The silence builds. Edwards waits, gaze moving over the rows. He stops on me, and I hear myself speak before I can stop it.
“He wasn’t just destroying resources. He was breaking their will to fight. Showing them that nowhere was safe until they surrendered.”
Everyone turns to stare at me. Edwards pauses, almost surprised, considering my words, then nods slowly, a smile spreading across his face.
“Very good. Thank you, Ronan.”
He continues his lecture, and I drop my head to focus on writing, pretending I don’t see him glancing my way between sentences. When the bell rings, he calls my name. I act like I haven’t heard him, up and moving while others are still packing their bags. I’m out of the door before he can stop me.
I slip into the closest restroom and lean back against the door.
Across the room, my reflection stares back at me.
Pale skin, dark circles under my eyes, too-long hair falling over my face.
The bruise on my jaw has almost faded—a reminder of what happens when you lower your guard and trust the wrong people.
Straightening, I look around for something to jam the door shut.
I don’t want anyone to come in while I’m in here.
There’s a trash can in one corner, and I drag it over to wedge it beneath the handle.
Then I cross the floor until I’m in front of the sinks.
Twisting the faucet, I splash water on my face.
When I lick my lips, the water tastes wrong.
It has a metallic aftertaste that’s different from Seattle’s or Portland’s.
Even more so than the rusty pipes back home. Although that’s harder to remember now.
Home.
The word sticks in my throat. It’s been over three years since I walked out of that place, stopped being my mother’s son, and started being no one at all.
Sometimes, late at night, when the hunger and cold gets bad enough to make me stupid, I let myself wonder if she’s still breathing. If she remembers I exist. If she ever would have chosen me over the pills.
But I know better than to reach out and check.
Outside, I can hear students moving through the hallways. Someone tries the door, then bangs on it.
“Open the door!”
I don’t acknowledge them, and after a second or two, they move away, swearing. Normal kids with normal problems. Their biggest worry is passing a test or getting invited to a party. Mine is where I’m sleeping tonight and where the next meal is coming from.
So, I’ll do what I have to do. I’ll show up. I’ll stay quiet. I’ll do the work. And maybe this time, I’ll find a way to be more than just another ghost haunting someone else’s halls.
Maybe this time will be different.
Maybe if I say it enough times, I’ll believe it.
The warning bell rings, pulling me back to the present. I push away from the sink, drag the trash can back to its corner, and head to my next class.
English is next. The teacher announces we’re starting ‘The Grapes of Wrath,’ and something inside me comes to life.
Steinbeck understood what it means to have nothing.
To move from place to place with everything you own on your back, and watch the world grind people down until there’s nothing left but the will to keep moving.
I’ve read it before, in a library in Portland, sitting in a corner where the heating vent kept me warm for a few hours. The story stuck with me in ways most things don’t. Maybe because it was about people like me. People the world would rather forget exist.
When lunch time arrives, I don’t go to the cafeteria. There’s little point. I don’t have any money or a packed lunch to eat. Instead, I find my way to the library.
The head librarian sits at a desk, stamping returned books. The sound is almost soothing. Most libraries have gone digital, but this one still uses the old method of checking in and out. She glances up when I walk in, offers me a little smile, then goes back to her work.
I find a corner near the reference section, far from the windows and close to the radiator. The table is scarred with years of carved initials and bored doodles. I spread my notebook open, pull out the emergency contact forms, and start signing them.
Around me, the library breathes with quiet sounds. Footsteps on the wooden floor. The soft click of a computer mouse. Everyday sounds that relax the tension in my spine and let me breathe a little easier.
I finish the forms and tuck them back into my bag, then pull out the history book, and read through the next chapter. If I’m going to survive here, I need to stay ahead. I need to prove I belong in these classrooms, even if everything else about me screams outsider.
The afternoon passes with more classes. Math, where equations make more sense than anything else in my life.
Biology, where I take a seat at the back and keep my head down.
By the time the final bell rings, my head is pounding.
I haven’t slept more than a few hours at a time in weeks, and last night on a bench at the bus station didn’t help.
I need to find somewhere warmer than a bench to sleep tonight. A place where I won’t be noticed by other students, or moved along by cops doing their rounds. In a town like this, all it will take is one person seeing me sleeping rough, and the entire place will know about it.
Three blocks past the high school, I spot a chain-link fence that’s half-collapsed.
Beyond it is an old, abandoned factory. I climb through the gap, keeping to the shadows and circle the building.
There’s nothing but broken glass and weeds growing through the cracks in the ground.
All signs that no one has been here in a long time.
The door around the back opens with a hard shove and a screech of rusty hinges, and I make my way inside. The interior smells like rust and rot, but it’s a shelter from the weather outside.
I find a room on the second floor that might have been an office.
It’s far enough from the entrance to keep me protected, and close enough that I’ll hear footsteps long before anyone finds me, if anyone decides to explore.
There’s a window I can escape out of if I need to, and the drainpipe looks strong enough to hold my weight.
I open my backpack and take out the blanket I stole from the back of a store before I left Seattle.
Spreading it out, I prop my bag against the wall like a pillow, and pull out the paperback I found on the bus.
The light is already fading, and cold seeps up through the concrete despite the blanket.
I open the book, hoping to lose myself in a fictional world for a while, but the words blur.
My mind keeps circling back to Edwards, and the way he looked at me when I answered his question.
I can’t draw his attention again. Being seen is too dangerous.
My stomach rumbles, my mouth is dry, and my head aches. I need to figure out where I can find food, but right now, all I want to do is sleep.
I set the book aside and close my eyes, tipping my head back against the wall. Tomorrow, I’ll do all the things I need to survive in this town. I’ll go back to school. I’ll keep my head down. I’ll remember that this is temporary.
But tonight, just for tonight, I let myself hope that maybe this time things will be different.