I don’t want the reminder of who I am. The fate I can’t escape.
Tomorrow madness season begins.
The morning sun bursts into the sky above the treetops, and the air inside the bus is already stifling, boxed in. I can feel the eyes of everyone watching me as I walk down the aisle to the last row of bench seats—a strained stillness in the air, breaths held tightly in lungs, the heartbeats of my classmates racing a little too quickly in their chests. I turn the volume up on my Walkman, Lauryn Hill vibrating through my eardrums.
Still, those seated nearest me can’t help but flick their eyes in my direction, once, twice, too many times. They feel a longing for anyone with the Goode last name, more persistent than it was yesterday.
Lark Goode smells different today,I imagine them thinking, a notion they try to shake but can’t.She looks more… like a girl I could fall in love with.
The microscopic pheromones contained in each bloom are now saturating my skin. Caught in my lungs. Leaving a cloud in my wake.
Like bloodthirsty dogs, they sense it.
Predatory and lovesick.
When the bus finally shrieks to a stop in front of the school, I can’t exit fast enough, scrambling down the steps and nearly tripping over my own feet. I glance to the tall elm tree beside the parking lot, looking for the boy. I need to see him one more time, capture the last details of his face so I can finish the sketch. But it’s more than that: there is also a curiosity inside me—I want toknow, to see—can he look at me again and feel nothing, no strained urge to move closer? What if I walk toward him, will he still be able to turn his head and stride away so easily?
I doubt it. Not with the tulips now in bloom.
But across the parking lot there is no boy beneath the elm tree.
No sign of him.
I keep my head down, moving across the lawn, through the school doors, until I reach my locker in B hall—near the gymnasium, the stench of sweat and sneakers and Clorox clinging to the walls. I shove my bag into the metal rectangle, then grab myHistory of the Worldtextbook for first period.
I turn the volume up on my Walkman, Lauryn Hill singing about the nature of all things: “Everything is everything; what is meant to be, will be.” My eyes are on the linoleum floor when I round the corner into the main hall, and I’m stopped short.
A crowd has gathered outside the doors into the lunchroom, near the drinking fountain that no longer works and the hand-drawn poster for Astronomy Club—WHO NEEDS MATH WHEN YOU CAN COUNT THE STARS, it reads in chunky black Sharpie.
I can’t make out who’s at the center of the crowd, or what’s happening, but I can hear the hum of activity through my headphones. Someone shouts, followed by a rush of voices, and I slip my headphones down around my neck, inching closer to the commotion—careful not to touch anyone, to meet anyone’s eyes. I slide along the row of metal lockers until I can finally stand on tiptoes, peering between two freshmen, to see Tobias Huaman—tall, broad-shouldered—facing his best friend, Mac Williams. Yesterday Mac stopped Tobias from moving toward me during lunch, from getting pulled in by the fabled Goode enchantment, but now they look like they’re about to fight—fists clenching, chests puffed, eyes willful and angry and narrowed.
“You already have a girlfriend!” Mac spits, lifting his chin.
“So do you,” Tobias barks back, taking a large step closer to Mac.
The crowd seems to press in around them, trying to get a better view before the first punch is thrown—a stupor of nervous excitement in the air. They love a good fight, especially between two of the most well-known guys in school, who only yesterday were best friends.
But clearly something has changed.
“You’ve always been an asshole,” Mac counters, and he shoves a hand against Tobias’s sturdy chest.
Someone makes a soft squeal, a tiny shriek, and my eyes swivel—finding the source of the sound. Clementine Morris, who yesterdayhad her fortune read by Jude on the front lawn. Now she stands with her black flute case in her left hand, only a couple of feet away from the two boys about to tackle each other. Her dull brown hair drapes long and flat over her shoulders, a few knots visible at the front, and her soft hazel eyes possess a curious glint. I think of how pretty she is—the kind of girl who will probably thrive in the outside world, in therealworld. She’ll become a famous musician or invent a cure for an old disease. And everyone who attended Cutwater High the year she graduated will try to remember who she was but won’t be able to. Because right now, in the social ladder of high school, only the loud and glittery survive. Here she is unmemorable.
I scan the crowd, trying to understand what’s happening.
Tobias tries to take a step around Mac, a step toward… Clementine?
She looks briefly stunned, a little unsteady on her feet, but also… something else. A subtle twitch of delight pulls at her upper lip.
I feel my mouth tug down, and I catch the faces of those nearest me contorting in the same confused way. Tobias lifts his arm, but not toward Mac, not in a gesture of anger; he lifts it toward Clementine. He reaches for her—softly, caringly—and she touches his hand in return, a coy smile arching her pinked lips, freckled cheeks blushing instantly.
She’s enjoying this.
I hear a gasp from the crowd. The air sucked out of the crammed hallway all at once. I swing my gaze again, as does everyone else—as if we’re watching some Shakespearean play unfold before us, and each new development is more unbelievable than the last—and we findOlive Montagu with a hand to her mouth, eyes wide and stunned, like a fish left to die on the shore. I can see her throat trembling, soft blond hair tucked back behind her ears, blue eyes welling quickly with tears.
Olive is Tobias’s girlfriend.
Since freshman year.
