2. Orion
Orion
The day I met Jordan was one of those sweaty-palmed, knee-knocking days most people erase from their memories, subconsciously rewriting them into something that doesn’t make them seem as pathetic.
The metallic wail of a school bell echoed through a long hallway, rattling my brain hard enough that serious injury felt likely.
Instinct screamed at me to turn and run in the other direction.
I managed not to, but the version of me that existed that day was nothing more than a gulpy, quivery mess dressed as a boy who was trying hard to look cool.
I’d moved schools a bunch by then, so one might think I’d gotten used to being new, but that’s not how anxiety works. At least, it’s not how mine works.
The teacher guiding me to my new homeroom was an unsmiling man by the name of Mr. Whitfield. He looked about as happy as I was to be there, possibly a little less. He nudged my shoulder when I froze in the doorway.
I took a couple of steps into the classroom and stopped again. This time, no subtle nudge could get me moving.
A dusty-blond boy filled my field of vision completely and seeped over the edges.
Instead of sitting like everyone else in the class, he stood on top of his desk, legs in a wide stance, knees slightly bowed.
His hips were thrusting forward obscenely.
It was one of those rare situations where I noticed several things individually before they all converged into a single, powerful image.
My top lip flared and my jaw dropped.
I turned to Mr. Whitfield, whose expression closely matched my own.
The boy on the desk was muscular and significantly less gawky than the average fourteen-year-old.
His shoulders were broad and his hair was swooped off his face in a way that I couldn’t make happen, even with extensive use of overpriced hair products.
His face was striking. A strong brow and a straight nose, gallingly clear skin, and a jawline so sharp and stubborn that I found myself wondering whether he could, or should, be held responsible for his behavior when it was so obviously a product of his genetics more than his choice.
What was even more noteworthy than his face or shoulders was that he was holding his water bottle in both hands directly in front of his groin, squeezing it in time with the rampant thrust of his hips.
Every eye in the class was on him. Kids around him were either screeching with laughter or ducking for cover as he liberally sprayed thin streams of water all over the room.
As far as first impressions go, it was definitely memorable.
Beside me, Mr. Whitfield’s displeasure rippled through the classroom like an icy blast with a catastrophic epicenter.
Smiling mouths snapped shut, eyes widened, and everyone went deathly quiet.
Everyone, that is, except for Jordan. His eyes were closed, and he was so focused on what he was doing that he didn’t hear us come in.
He was still on the desk, his face scrunched into a grimace, as he fully committed to performing his impression of what I could only assume was a life-altering orgasm.
“Jordan Slater!” Mr. Whitfield’s displeasure seeped into the floor and rushed up the walls.
Everyone sat up a little straighter.
I didn’t know Mr. Whitfield well. I’d only met him a few minutes before, but even so, I could tell exactly how he felt about the unfolding scene by how blotchy his face went. He was properly angry.
Jordan sensed the danger he was in. He must have because his hips came to a stop mid-gyration and the stream of water he’d already squeezed from the bottle before Mr. Whitfield spoke dribbled weakly onto his desk.
Mr. Whitfield balled his hands into fists at his sides and poked his chin in Jordan’s direction, a threatening gesture that didn’t seem to affect Jordan in the slightest. Or if it did, he didn’t show it.
He didn’t smile or look pleased with himself, but he didn’t look concerned about what was happening either.
He simply stood calmly on his desk and waited to see what his fate held.
“Get down from there immediately!” Mr. Whitfield boomed, sending spittle flying.
I surreptitiously stepped to the side to avoid the blast. Jordan hopped off the desk, landing in the puddle of water he’d created with a splash. I couldn’t tell whether he did it to rile Mr. Whitfield up more, or if it was a happy accident.
Mr. Whitfield seemed convinced it was the former. His nostrils widened in disdain and his hands flapped at the mess on the floor. “And clean all this up at once!”
A girl sitting nearby quietly handed Jordan a pack of tissues from her bag. Despite the obvious scrutiny he was under, his cheek dipped into a smile and he leaned down so he was eye-to-eye with her.
“Thanks, Mandy,” he said. “I appreciate it.”
I didn’t realize it then, but the way she smiled back at him was a foretelling. A glimpse at the effect he’d one day have on women. At the time, I had no idea what that effect was. Or how it would affect me.
Jordan used those tissues, and a pack another girl gave him, to mop up as much of the water as he could. He crouched on his haunches as he cleaned, his movements deliberate and thoroughly unhurried.
As he worked, attention drifted from him to me.
Eyes that had been fixed on him or Mr. Whitfield gradually found me and settled.
I remember being dimly aware of the weight of my bag digging into my shoulder, and acutely aware of the terror-inducing loss of the one thing I craved more than anything else at the time: invisibility.
The moment dragged on for eons. More eyes landed on me and unspoken whispers formed question marks that floated up and popped all around me.
I tried for a laid-back smile, but my bottom lip did this weird twitchy thing, so I quickly aborted the mission and resorted to furious blushing instead.
With every second that passed, I became more painfully aware of my physical failings.
When I looked down, my legs seemed to stretch out for miles, way too long and skinny in my jeans, and my feet were absurdly big in my Docs.
The faded band T-shirt I was wearing had seemed like a good idea when I left home.
But as I stood in front of the class, an ode to awkwardness itself, I started to panic that someone would raise their hand and demand I rattle off a list of Guns N Roses songs as some kind of tariff for wearing the branded shirt.
Don’t get me wrong, I liked the band. My mom and I listened to them all the time on road trips.
It’s just that, right then, I couldn’t think of a single song by them.
Not one. There were a ton of other things I could have been worrying about.
Believe me, I knew that. It was just that my stupid brain decided to get stuck on that issue.
“Highway to Hell?” I thought frantically.
No. That was AC/DC
“Enter Sandman?” Jesus, no. That’s Metallica.
When Jordan took his seat at last, Mr. Whitfield became aware of my existence again, though he didn’t seem terribly excited about it. “Class, this is Orion Brent,” he droned. “He transferred here from New York. Make him feel welcome.”
No one reacted except to eye me a little more suspiciously than they already were.
My discomfort swelled to the point of oozing hotly out of my pores.
Eventually, Mr. Whitfield fixed his gaze on Jordan and smiled thinly. “Tell you what. Why don’t you show him around, Jordan?”
The way he said it made it clear it wasn’t a suggestion. It was a punishment, not a privilege.
Like everything else that has failed to faze Jordan since I met him, this “punishment” didn’t bother him either. He sauntered toward me, raising his chin and flashing a bright-white grin.
“Hey, bud. I’m Jordan,” he said, as if his antics hadn’t established that already.
Having attended four schools in three different states before our move to Maine, I was all too familiar with the ins and outs of first-day school tours.
In my experience, they played out in exactly two ways.
They were quick to the point of being a complete waste of time—this tended to be the case when the poor asshole tasked with conducting the tour wanted nothing more than to get back to his friends as fast as possible.
Or, if the tour guide was lacking in the friend department, they were overly long and overly personal, leading to a tangled web of unwelcome alliance that could take weeks, if not months, to extract oneself from.
It was hard to say which option I dreaded more.
Based on the brief interaction I’d had with Jordan, I was confident the tour would be the shortest one I’d had yet.
It was clear he was popular, so I knew the last thing he wanted was to be saddled with me for any longer than necessary.
His lack of obvious displeasure when he was chosen to give me the tour was something of a mystery.
I suspected it had more to do with him not wanting to give Mr. Whitfield the satisfaction than it had to do with me.
My shoes squeaked on vinyl tile as I scurried down the empty hallway, trying to keep up with Jordan’s much-longer strides.
Within minutes, it became clear that this tour was nothing like any other school tour I’d had.
For one thing, Jordan had a lot to say, and none of it had to do with showing me where the gym was.
“The seniors aren’t bad this year, but there’s this one guy, Trip Osborne, who’s a massive dick.
Red hair, red face. You’ll know him when you see him.
Avoid him, but don’t worry, the rest of them are pretty cool.
The senior girls are really nice, so if you run into any trouble, chill with them ’til I find you. ”
Find me? Why was he planning on finding me?
He gestured to a few concrete benches at the far end of the quad we were passing through. “This is where we sit before school starts, so come here until the bell rings. That reminds me, are you going to the hangout at Tara’s house this weekend?”