CHAPTER TWO
P anic threatened to drown me in its blackened waters.
West Winsor High School, home of the wolverines, sat before me, untamed and bustling with more chaos than I could cope with. An eternity had passed since I’d last stepped foot in this building, and my palms grew sweaty just from thinking about how to navigate the potential onslaught of questions.
Willa? Where were you? Willa, why were you gone so long? School started ages ago. Why do you write like a preschooler? What’s that scar on your skull?
My fists clenched the steering wheel of the red—now gray—Jeep my dad had bought me.
It’d taken some heavy-duty needling to convince him I was okay to drive.
Of course, if Mom had been home for that conversation, it’d have been a hard no, hands down, but true to her word, she’d been missing in action when I got ready to face my first day of senior year.
“Only two months late to the party, Willa,” I quipped under my breath. “No big deal. It wasn’t like you had friends anyway. I’m sure no one even noticed.”
Out of habit, I slipped my phone from my pocket to check the time, even though the Jeep console had a clock.
The notification bar announced five new messages at the top.
Ha, no one would notice?
Well, that wasn’t entirely true. At least three people would note my return. If I’d hoped to outwait their interest, I would have been sorely disappointed.
Ignoring the new notifications for now, I scrolled down and clicked on Ben.
For a long moment, I stared at the conversation, hating myself for the habit I’d picked up and wrestling with a flagging self-control that eventually died, just like my boyfriend.
My fingers trembled as I typed.
ME: I’m so sorry.
ME: For everything.
ME: I wish you were here.
ME: How can people expect me to go on like normal when you’re gone?
My eyes watered as I gave a half-hearted chuckle that ended in a wounded whine.
ME: If you were still alive, you’d give me a hard time about sending such short messages.
ME: I hope you’re happy about that.
ME: You left your mark on me.
The warning bell rang.
In five minutes, class would start, and I didn’t even know where my first lesson was located.
Silencing my phone, I wiped away my tears, thankful the cold bite in the air meant I had a long-sleeved shirt to help in what would surely be a tear-filled day.
In the rearview mirror, a silhouette sitting in the backseat caught my eye.
I whirled, a scream trapped in my throat, but nothing was there. My pulse raced, the blood pounding through my ears deafening the world around me.
“There’s nothing there,” I gritted out. Turning, I stared into space, my hands shaking on the steering wheel as tears filled my eyes. “There’s nothing there.”
For the longest time after waking up from the coma, I thought… well, it didn’t matter what I thought. It obviously wasn’t true.
In a whisper, I added once more for good measure, “There’s nothing there.”
Brrrrng.
My eyes rounded. The bell!
I rushed out, checking the backseat one last time as I gathered my bag and sprinted for the main entrance, increasing my pace as the sight of the deserted parking lot confirmed my fears.
It was my first day back, and I’d missed the tardy bell.
The secretary, a middle-aged lady with a soft, welcoming smile, took one look at me and scribbled something on a Post-it note.
I blinked. “A note to class? But…”
“Just take it, dear. You’ve been through a lot.”
My eyes burned, but I nodded, pocketing the get-out-of-jail free card without further argument.
“Good. Now…” She tilted her head, studying me. “Do you know where Mr. Watkins’s class is?”
I shook my head in the negative, unable to answer around the tightness clogging my throat.
“I thought not. Don’t worry.” She popped up to peer over the tall desk. “Emmanuel, dear, can you walk Willa to class? She has geography with Mr. Watkins.”
Emmanuel?
A boy—uh, well, boy wasn’t exactly the right term, based on the muscles showing through the skin-tight, black, long-sleeved shirt—closed his math book and approached. He flashed the secretary a crooked smile. “It’s Manuel, Mrs. Handy.”
“You know how I feel about nicknames, Emmanuel. Your mother went through hours of pain and labor birthing and raising you. The least you can do is honor the name she chose.” The secretary, Mrs. Handy, said all this with a smile the teen returned, so it must not have been an issue, maybe even something of a rapport for them.
“Yes, ma’am.” He took the schedule from her—wait, my schedule.
I blinked, jolting from my passive observation. “Hey—”
Mrs. Handy winked and nodded in the direction he’d taken out the door with a quick, “You better hurry before you lose him.”
I readjusted my grip on my backpack and rushed out to catch up.
“And don’t call me ma’am, young man!” Mrs. Handy’s voice echoed after us.
Manuel chuckled, and I took the time to observe him.
He seemed so familiar, and it bothered me enough to set my brain itching. Manuel seemed tall, but most people did compared to me. Although, his height had nothing on…
I cleared my throat and averted my gaze, fighting the sting in my eyes.
The small noise drew his notice, and he glanced over his shoulder, a thick brow arched. “What?”
“Ah, sorry. I had a tickle.”
After a couple of steps, he shrugged and turned around.
I double-stepped to catch up. Manuel was a man on a mission.
A gold chain sat around his neck, the only spot of color in an all-black ensemble that matched the dark sheen of his Hispanic features—from hair to eyes, even the thick frame of eyelashes.
“So, Willa—”
“You know me?” I blurted out, too relieved to stop myself.
He slowed, glancing at me again with a weighted look that gave nothing away, then he gave another one-shouldered shrug in lieu of any verbal answer.
After we climbed the stairs in total silence, again, I seemed unable to help but keep inserting my foot in my mouth, as if something urged me to do so. “You seem familiar.”
“Do I?” This time, he sounded uninterested. He didn’t even turn to face me.
“Yes—”
“Look,” he cut in, “Mrs. Handy said your name, and it’s on your schedule. See?”
My eyes widened in horror. “What? Where? Let me see!”
He did turn that time, his eyebrows raised to his hairline. “Why?”
“It’s—well, it’s my schedule.”
“Yep.” He really popped the P on that word. “It does have your name on it.”
My cheeks heated even as my eyes narrowed on the limited profile view I had of him while struggling to match his relentless pace. “Yes, you mentioned that.”
His expression gave nothing away, but I still couldn’t help suspecting that he knew where my worry stemmed from.
He nodded at a door we passed. “You’ll be in there for second period.”
I turned to memorize the location as best as I could. “Is it a science class?” I guessed, recalling that junior science had been in the lab adjacent to the one he’d indicated.
“Yep, with Mrs. Reed. You’ll like her.”
“Why?”
“Everyone does.” His steps slowed. “And here we are. Geography with Mr. Watkins.”
He didn’t quite hold out my schedule as he turned to face me head-on. After being ignored most of the time, the full weight of his attention sent me fumbling for a reply.
“Uh, and what about Mr. Watkins? Does everyone like Mr. Watkins?”
He crossed his arms over his chest, my schedule wrinkling in his grip. “Lol. Just, lol.”
Based on his amusement, the answer was probably a resounding no.
My nerves skyrocketed as I faced the small window on the door. “Oh God, he isn’t going to make me stand up and introduce myself, is he?”
Manuel chuckled. “Well, are you a new student?” he asked pointedly.
“Ah, right. Dumb question—stop staring.”
He tilted his head. “I just wanted to make sure you got a good look. You said I seemed familiar.”
My cheeks heated again.
He held my schedule out, and before my eyes could even scour the top of the page for the name, he said, “Enjoy your first day back, Willahelm. German, right?”
Well, that answered that question.
Curse my legal name.
My movements grew a little less polite when I snatched the proffered schedule as my annoyance increased. “I wish I could say it’s been a pleasure, Emmanuel.”
Instead of getting offended, a smile stretched across his face and his dark eyes seemed to twinkle. “See you around—”
A locker, two spaces behind him, clanged open with an echoing crash, making us jump.
His hand lifted to his necklace, which from this angle, I could see bore a cross. “Stupid lockers. This happens all the time.”
My doubtful look said a lot, but it was wasted on his back as he’d already turned, closing the distance to the offending object with quick steps.
It happened all the time? Really?
I could count on one hand how many times I’d seen lockers do that here and still have four extra fingers.
Manuel slammed the locker shut. “When is the school going to invest some money into the building instead of pouring it all into the football team?”
My thoughts caught and snagged on the football team.
Ben.
I rubbed the hole in my chest before clearing my throat. Suddenly, getting inside that classroom became the lesser of two evils when the alternative was breaking down into hysterics in front of this black-wearing, surly, intimidating Manuel.
“Alright, well, see you,” I called, ignoring his, “Hey, wait,” as I rushed into the classroom.
My eyes were still misty as I faced the collective stares of the room at large, including the teacher, Mr. Watkins, who was frowning at me with a dry-erase marker touching the board.
Out of the frying pan and into the fire.
I should have thought this through more. With a hasty swipe, I wiped my eyes. “Sorry I’m late.”
The teacher, a stout man with an even stouter mustache, gave a slow blink with heaps of attitude. “And you are?”
Considering I’d been keeping apace of his assignments at home and the fact that the secretary had my schedule on hand—Mrs. Handy sure was handy—Mr. Watkins must have at least received an email to inform him of my arrival.
Right?
“Uh, Willa Walker.” My gaze remained glued to him, because straying meant catching the eyes of my classmates. If that happened, I’d melt into the floor with embarrassment.
As long as they continued to watch in dead silence, I could pretend they didn’t exist.
“Oh,” he sniffed, unimpressed. “Yes. You can sit there.”
He indicated the empty desk right in front of him. The entire front row of desks lacked students, and that added another nail to the coffin of Mr. Watkins’s reputation as a teacher. Manuel’s assessment, it seemed, had been on the nose.
Normally, I’d avoid the front of the classroom, but it served my purposes today, because I could scamper to my seat without even seeing the other students in the class.
Mr. Watkins got in one more verbal punch in our impromptu sparring match when he had to lend me a charger with an aggrieved sigh, because I’d forgotten mine at home, and my computer was still dead from trying to make sure I’d caught up on whatever makeup work any teachers had sent me during my extended absence.
“You’re already starting late in the year.
Get your act together, Miss Walker, because the train’s left without you. ”
That was unfair. With the numerous check-ups and being on a first-name basis with the speech and physical therapist throughout my long road to recovery, I’d still maintained all my assignments.
He seemed the type to have his counterpoints lined up in a row, though, and I didn’t want to actually backtalk a teacher, especially one petty enough to skew things in his favor.
Red-cheeked, I nodded and thanked him while rushing to type notes I couldn’t even hear past the mortification pounding through my veins.
Mostly in recovery now, I was disappointed to learn some things hadn’t changed, and that was my “episodes,” as I’d dubbed them.
Food helped, but asking to eat snacks in this class to avoid having an episode would be the equivalent of willingly signing myself up for a verbal hanging, and that rocketed my worry into another stratosphere.
Don’t have an episode, don’t have an episode…
In between a rat-a-tat symphony of furiously trying to keep up with notes on Hellenistic culture and the Twelve Tables, my eyes slid to the smartwatch on my wrist, scanning the vitals for any spikes in the readings.
Verbal hanging or not, the second my temperature dropped below ninety-seven degrees, I would shove my hand in the air, asking to go to the bathroom.
Braving Mr. Watkins’s scorn still beat trying to keep a stiff upper lip amid one of my psychotic breaks where I grew cold, experienced audial and visual hallucinations, and even blacked out.
The class couldn’t end soon enough, and I visibly sagged in relief when the bell rang.
A shadow fell over my desk as I gathered my belongings.
“Wordsmith,” was all the person said, but it was enough. Only one person called me that.
Kolton Keiser stood beside me, without even three inches of space between his legs and mine as he towered over me.
His mop of blond locks, still sporting lighter, platinum sun-kissed strands from time outdoors—probably football practice—umbrellaed his hazel eyes.
Normally, they were a light blue color, but the thin amber that ringed his pupils expanded with his emotions, darkening them to a more dangerous mossy green.
My mind raced, flooded with too much information and half formed motions, robbing me of the capacity to think of a single reaction or response.
Unfortunately, with my brain having vacated the premises, autopilot would kick in soon enough.
Movement beside Kolton unfroze the hold he’d trapped me in. Two other players from the football team stood to his right, staring between us in confusion.
“Kole, you know her?” one prodded.
Mr. Watkins cut off whatever Kolton had been about to say.
“Move along to your next class. I need to have a word with Miss Walker.”
Miracles did happen. Who knew Mr. Watkins would be my saving grace?
Not me.
When Kolton still hesitated to leave, in an arch tone, Mr. Watkins told him, “Go along, or do I need to send another email to your coach, Mr. Keiser?”
Eventually, Kolton left with a final, “We need to talk, Willa,” that set his friends on him with a flurry of questions the second they were through the open door and swallowed up by the stream of students.
We need to talk.
Right, because that wasn’t ominous at all.