22. BACK THEN – January #2
Eyes on the fountain, he says, “You walked over here. That was your first mistake.” His gray, lifeless gaze flits to me for a millisecond.
“We aren’t the same, you and me.” He looks to my tattoo, the inked Interpol lyrics peeking from my forearm, like he knows that’s the reason I approached.
He continues, “You could barely string four words together in Spanish class. You have no knowledge of Proust, Rembrandt, or Verdi. You’re inadequate , but your biggest failure is your social ineptitude.
The only mouse that would approach a snake is the one too stupid to realize he’s in a pit of them.
” Sasha flicks his cigarette to the side, and it lands in the snow.
I saw that phrase in the common room, etched on a plaque and hung with other senior quotes.
The only mouse that would approach a snake is the one too daft to realize he’s in a pit of them.
- Richard Connor Cobalt
Sasha gives me one last glance. “Don’t look for friends, mouse. Find an exit.” He pauses and his eyes dip to my fingers. “Enjoy the cigarette.”
He walks off as Gabriel’s speech ends. All the students disperse, and Sasha falls in line among the masses just the same.
Breath caged. My cigarette burns, ash falling to the snow. I don’t know what to feel. I’m more used to the kinds of insults that try to tear me down in a single blow. Pussy! Weak shit!
What Sasha just did was the equivalent of taking a knife and slashing razor-thin cuts all over my skin—and then waiting for me to bleed out. Meticulous. Calculated cruelty.
I bite down and breathe out through my nose.
And what unnerves me the most—is that he knew I blew it in Spanish. He knows that I stumbled over those names in English, Art & Lit, and Music Theory. Yet, I don’t have a single class with him.
It means people are talking about me. Amazing. Just amazing. I’m going to have a great time here.
I feel like utter shit, and there’s only one person I even want to talk to right now.
Slipping out my cell, I walk towards the pond and try to FaceTime. The boarding school campus is an otherworldly atmosphere with frozen, barren waters and skeletal trees. Like I’ve been transported to Victorian England.
My breath smokes in the cold, and I ditch the cigarette in the snow.
The phone clicks, and Willow pops on-screen.
She’s crouched down next to a rack of Inhumans comics.
She pushes her glasses up the bridge of her nose.
“Oh, are you outside? Isn’t it cold?” God.
It’s nice just hearing her voice. My stomach flips, and for a moment, I pretend I’m only a few blocks down the street.
“Yeah, but that’s why I’ve got this…” I tug my hood down further, almost shrouding my eyes.
“Your fingers look purple,” she says, concerned, and then one of the comics falls from its rack. She huffs. “Stupid broken rack.”
“Is that Inhumans ?” I wonder. “I thought Loren didn’t want Inhumans stocked in the store.
Didn’t he call it a mediocre version of X-Men ?
And also a comic book line that’s off-limits to all X-Men purists and if he can help it, off-limits to everyone?
” He made that whole speech during last month’s meeting.
“Yeah,” Willow replies, grabbing tape and fashioning the broken rack back together.
“But yesterday, Lily came in and told us Loren’s bias over certain lines was not going to affect the store—since it’s technically hers.
And that Inhumans is a good series and needed to be stocked.
So here I am…” She realigns the comics and slides them in.
“…but I think there’s a reason she put it on this crappy rack.
Like maybe she subconsciously agrees with him.
” Willow nudges her glasses again and collapses on the ground.
She straightens her phone so that I’m looking at her and not the comics.
“You okay?” I ask.
“Yeah.” She pins her fallen employee nametag back to her shirt. “Honestly, I like Inhumans . And they’re pretty cool on Agents of Shield .”
“I don’t watch it,” I remind her.
She nods, remembering. “ Supernatural is better. It starts again soon.”
“Yeah,” I say, but I’m not even sure I’ll have the time to watch any TV let alone my favorites.
Faust is a big time-suck, and on my free weekends, I’m planning to commute back to Philly for shifts at Superheroes & Scones. So I can at least have an excuse to see Willow. I’m just glad Lily Calloway agreed to let me keep working part-time.
I light a cigarette. If I’d known Sasha Anders was going to be a Grade-A tool-bag, I wouldn’t have bothered pretending I had no smokes. Regret hammers me. And I usually don’t regret social situations that turn sour. That shit flies off my shoulders. But being here—it’s different.
“So…” she says. “How’s the first week been? How’s Faust and your roommates?”
I shrug. “Faust is…” I glance down at my cigarette. “Unusual. And my new roommate is…well, his name is William.” I smile dryly. “Which bugs the shit out of me because every time someone says it, I just think about…”
You.
The names Willow and William are too similar to not be jarred by it. It fucking sucks.
Her cheeks ashen a little, and she glances down at her shoes.
“How’s everything there?” I wonder, worried. “How’s Dalton?” My friends? Are they jerks to you while I’m gone?
She shrugs now. “It’s the same.”
“The same?” I frown.
“I mean, not the same. You’re not here,” she says hurriedly. “It’s really just boring and nothing goes on. Which is better than the alternative. More tampons in the locker would be rough.”
“Yeah, definitely,” I say. “Boring is better than tampon pranks.” But I still feel badly that she’s alone at Dalton. At least she’s not completely alone. She has Loren and Lily, and she lives with Maya—who is pretty cool even if she hates my lack of comics knowledge.
“You’d tell me if something happened right?” I ask. “I know I can’t really do anything being out here, but I’d want to know.”
“Of course, I’d tell you.” She pauses. “You’d tell me if something happened there, right?”
“Of course.” Sasha Anders doesn’t count. He technically didn’t do anything to me, except call me a mouse. In the grand scheme of things, it was nothing. Really, it was kind of stupid. I’ve been through worse.
Silence eats at us for a second before she says, “Garrison.”
“Yeah?”
“Can you go inside? I can see your fingers again and they look really purple.”
“Yeah, okay.” She cares about me. I think she does. I mean, that definitely means she does. Right? Someone on this planet actually cares about my well-being. That thought and feeling settles in my body like falling snow.
I drop my cigarette and turn towards the buildings. An employee distracts Willow for a second, asking if she’ll swap workdays. I head inside and feel the rush of warmth. Classes in session, no one struts up and down the hallways.
Empty.
I lean my shoulder against a staircase banister. Staying on the first floor, I realize I might be missing political science right now, but I don’t care.
I focus on my phone and watch Willow return her attention to me. “So everyone loves Connor here,” I tell her.
She smiles. “You need to tell me stories.”
“I’d rather hear yours right now,” I say honestly. “My whole day has been centered on Connor Cobalt, and I need a distraction. What’s going on with you?”
“The media is getting kind of crazy,” she says. “More so than usual. But luckily they’re more focused on Ryke’s surgery and Rose’s new hair color than little ole me right now.”
Ryke’s liver transplant was heavily documented online. He gave a part of his liver to his dad, and I remember seeing the shaky video of Ryke being wheeled out of the hospital a few days ago.
I frown, thinking about something else. “I thought the media stopped hounding you when the novelty of you being Loren’s cousin wore off. What’s made them come back?”
“I think maybe Connor and Rose?” She shakes her head, not knowing either.
“Paparazzi have been asking me why the two of them are suddenly so ‘PDA-heavy’ in public. I’m like the lowest person on the list of people connected to them, so they think I’ll have looser lips or something.
Even if I knew something though, I wouldn’t say anything. ”
That, I know.
Willow has always been really careful around me when it comes to Loren Hale and his family.
She won’t talk about anything that isn’t already public knowledge, and even then, I can tell she’d still rather be discussing something else.
It’s not new for her anymore, but it’s still uncharted territory that she’s trying to navigate by herself.
It’s understandable.
She quickly changes the subject. “Make any new friends?”
“Nope. You?”
“Nope.”
Good.
No, that’s shitty of me to think. Really, I don’t know how I fucking feel about her making friends, okay? Depends who they are, I guess.
The quiet weighs on us for a second, and then I say, “Hey, you know any Latin?”
“Um…just what’s on the back of a dollar bill.” Her eyes drop to my hand as I light a new cigarette. “Your fingers have returned to a normal color.”
“A miracle.” I blow out smoke.
Someone passes the abandoned hall and shakes their head at me. “No smoking inside, man.”
I think he’s just warning me, but then he stops a foot away and unfurls a small booklet. “I’m going to have to write you up.”
“What?” I frown. What the fuck?
“It’s against code of conduct rules.”
“Are you like a hall monitor or something?” I say, confused. Aren’t those only in movies?
“That’s exactly what I am.”
Fuck me.
Willow grimaces as I look back to the phone. “I’ll let you go,” she says quickly. “See you Saturday?”
“Saturday,” I say into a nod and we hang up.
I wait while the hall monitor scribbles on the notepad, and Sasha Ander’s words hound me. Find an exit.
It sounds like an easy task, but I’ve been searching for an exit my entire life and have yet to find it. Someone point the way. Anyone?
Please.
I’m waiting.