Frostbitten: The Complete Series (2 page)

The doctors and nurses were trying their best, but they were too few. Only the truly desperate were even considered for attention. It was first come, first serve, and the bleeding Derek was far from first.

My mother arrived at the perfect moment.

Unable to sleep, she decided to go into work—despite the fact she knew she wouldn’t be paid. She arrived in her scrubs, ready to help out.

She was able to pull some strings to get the dying Derek into an emergency operating room.

Derek survived.

Look closely and you’ll see that life is a beautifully choreographed dance. That night, the saying, “everything happens for a reason” couldn’t have been truer.

That was the night I realized that life wasn’t billions of little stories. It was one single complex, incredible story.

I can still remember sitting in that hospital cafeteria and looking around. The man drinking coffee in the corner, the taillight blur of the passing car out the window, the distant glow in the apartment window—every single one of them was an important subplot in the most amazing story.

And I remember looking down at my seat, and thinking of all the lives that would one day pass through this hospital—all of the lives that would sit upon that very seat, and see the same very things I was seeing.

Perhaps they too will see the world as I saw it that night.

Lo, life went on.

I would later come to realize that there was a lot more happening that night than anyone could possibly know—the story wasn’t yet over, and the reason it all happened was yet to be revealed.

A front seat in the greatest story never told.

After that night, I became plagued by an existential crisis—How was I to fit into this tale that unfolding before my eyes? What was my place amidst life’s incredible story?

One day, it hit me.

My role wasn’t going to be as a banker or a doctor. My role wasn’t in the drama, or the conflict.

The more I thought about it, the more I realized that it was my job to tell the story. But I didn’t know how to do that.

So I did the only logical thing—I decided to enrol in that late-night English class.

That’s how I ended up in the back corner of that little room on that cold winter night.

That’s how I found myself in the front seat of life’s great play—a wallflower at the forefront of a fantastic comedy—the most tragic tale.

I had no idea at the time that I was about to witness an incredible series of unbelievable events unfold before my very eyes. The story you are about to read is not my story, but I promise you it all happened—I saw much of it with my own eyes. The other details, I learned through conversations—the conversations that happen in the quiet corners of bars, during the forlorn after hours of weekend parties—the whispers between the most intimate friends.

Before I tell my story, I feel it my obligation to warn you: Every passing blur of traffic, every sullen face on the dark street, and every glow in every apartment window has their tale—Every silent heartbeat is quietly moving life’s great plot in a different direction.

And that brings me back to that silent room, as I sat and waited to witness the next characters to take the stage.

All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players. They have their exits and their entrances, and one man in his time plays many parts.

—WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, AS YOU LIKE IT, ACT II

CHAPTER ONE
FRESH FACES

The first person to enter that little room was a distant-looking young man with messy brown hair. He scanned the room slowly as he walked through the doorway and sat down at a desk near the centre of the room.

The young man was short, but proportionate–albeit kind of on the thin side. He was nicely dressed, with a collared shirt and clean jeans, and he was clean-shaven and fresh faced. He was a reasonably good-looking guy. He looked like the kind of person who could get along with anyone—the kind of person who knew when to step away from a situation to avoid the ensuing drama.

He continued to look around the room–not actually observing the things around him. Instead, he was lost in his own memories, thinking of all of the events that happened in his life to bring him to the small classroom.

It had been a long time since he was last in a classroom.

A
really
long time.

He began to remove his big, heavy coat and his gloves. His nose was particularly red from spending too much time in the cold outside.

The young man’s eyes were red as they sat overtop dark bags—as if he’d drank ten cups of coffee in order to stay awake. It looked as though he hadn’t slept in days.

He was early for class. As he waited for the next person to arrive, he began to zone out, staring at a single unmoving point on a blank wall. His eyes became glazed over as if he was permanently stuck in a recurring daydream.

After a few minutes of absolute silence, the young man began to doze off. His eyes were quickly becoming heavy and gravity was slowly pulling his head down towards his desk.

Just before he completely fell asleep, the door opened, and the young man snapped back to reality.

A young-looking girl walked into the room.

The girl had smooth, dark skin, and her long hair was straight—dyed a light brown colour, which appeared almost blonde against her black skin. Her skin was nearly perfect, with the help of a lot of carefully applied makeup. The loose curls in her long hair were meticulously crafted and painstakingly positioned–perfectly compliment the young woman’s appearance.

She carried herself carefully, with her back straight. The tall heels on her leather boots forced her into a perfect posture–an ostensibly questionable choice of footwear, given the amount of ice on the sidewalks and roads.

But for the young woman, the heels were no issue whatsoever–an everyday extension of her fashion-trendy persona. There was a very good chance the dark-skinned girl didn’t even own a pair of flats.

On her torso, she wore a fitted white coat with thick soft white fur around the big hood. Around her neck–a thick, fashionable white scarf that matched her pair of clean, tight white leather gloves.

She sat down carefully at a desk and took off the fluffy scarf from her neck, and she removed her clean jacket, revealing a low-cut, sweater, which was tight and translucent enough to highlight her red push-up bra and her perky breasts. On her legs, she wore tight black pleather pants. She glanced around the room casually with an innocent, yet guarded smile on her face.

At first glance, you would have thought the fashionista was no older than fifteen or sixteen years of age. You would be surprised to know that she was weeks away from turning twenty.

Upon first glance, the young girl elicited one of two reactions: From most other women–the classic disapproving eye roll. From most other men–horny gawking. As cruel as it may sound, the young student appeared “easy” and “ready to put out”.

“Hi,” the young man said to the dark-skinned girl with a genuine smile upon his face.

“Hi,” the girl replied.

The man stood up from his chair and reached across the empty desk between himself and the girl. “Andrew,” he said, introducing himself.

The girl gently took his hand. “Brittany.”

“Nice to meet you, Brittany,” Andrew said.

Brittany smiled genuinely.

One would expect a girl like Brittany to be dismissive, or even “bitchy”. But she was far from either–she was surprisingly polite and refreshingly pleasant.

“Excited for English?” Brittany asked.

Andrew laughed. “So excited,” he replied sarcastically.

Click!

The room’s sole door opened and an older, rounder man walked into the room. He was wearing a black sport coat, and a pair of blue jeans. He had a few days worth of stubble over his aged plump cheeks. His chubby cheeks hung low, almost like jowls, giving him an almost bulldog-like appearance.

He slouched as he walked up to the front of the class and started to meticulously unload a series of binders from his bag. He placed each document down with precision, making sure each one was perfectly aligned vertically and horizontally with the dimensions of the desk–and each one was spaced out evenly.

There was no question that this man was going to be the class’ teacher. He didn’t look up at any of us while he carefully prepared his night class. As far as he was concerned, none of us existed until the clock struck eight, and we would cease to exist once the clock struck ten-thirty.

Once his binders were perfectly aligned, he removed his cheap sport coat and carefully placed it on the back of his seat. He made sure that each arm hung in proportion with the other, and that the collar was nicely straightened to avoid wrinkles.

The man removed a whiteboard marker from his bag and turned to the large blank board. He brought the marker up to the board, and then stopped as he noticed a small smudge. The teacher scanned the whiteboard’s pen tray, and then groaned loudly as there was no board eraser.

With a sigh, the stalky teacher used the sleeve of his shirt to remove the practically unnoticeable smudge from the whiteboard.

Then, the man began to write his name upon the board:

“Mr. Wade Fenner”

Mr. Fenner took a seat at his desk and continued to straighten his binders and papers as he waited for the rest of the students to arrive.

Andrew looked over at Brittany, who was staring out the window, watching the heavy snow cascade down from the dark small town sky.

Her mind was mulling over all of the events that brought her to that small, night-time classroom.

“That snow sure is something,” Andrew said, pulling Brittany’s attention away from the window.

Brittany smiled. “Hopefully it lets up soon.”

“Hopefully. This morning, they said it’s only going to get worse.”

“How can it get worse than this?” Brittany asked as she looked back out the window.

It seemed impossible that her circumstances could get any worse.

Five years ago, had you told Brittany that she would be taking night classes to finish her high school degree, she would have died of laughter. She was supposed to be in an Ivy League University. She was supposed to be buried in scholarships.

She still hadn’t fully come to terms with how far she’d fallen away from the life that she once had.

Despite what her audacious and even trampy appearance suggested, Brittany wasn’t stupid. She wasn’t upgrading her English because she failed.

She was upgrading because she never took twelfth grade English to begin with.

And neither did Andrew.

Andrew missed out on most of high school.

He had the unique opportunity when he was a young teenager to go and travel the world with his family.

Andrew’s father, a wealthy real estate investor and a hobbyist sailing instructor, decided to retire when Andrew entered into his first year of high school.

Andrew’s mother, a successful immigration lawyer, retired at the same time as her husband. Andrew’s parents were very liberal, and were not only okay with the idea of Andrew tagging along on their world-travelling retirement expedition—they insisted that Andrew come along.

Four years later, Andrew had been to every single continent, and he’d sailed every single ocean.

He’d been everywhere—From Mongolia to Australia, and Egypt to Argentina. He’d seen the monolithic glaciers in The Antarctic, and the frozen tundra of The Arctic. Andrew could speak phrases in countless different languages.

At nineteen years of age—Andrew had seen more of the Earth than most people would see in an entire lifetime.

The epic memories never faded. Instead, they remained at the forefront of Andrew’s mind. Everything reminded him of something more exciting–more exotic.

Every cheesy motivational poster on the walls of that little classroom were reminders of just how dull life was, stuck in the same old, cold little town.

Click!

The door to the class opened again, and another young girl entered.

The girl’s skin was pale, and her hair was dark, and wavy. Her messy bangs fell over the tops of her dark brown eyes. She wore a big warm coat over top of a thick, oversized sweater. The girl had a cute face with a small ski-jump nose and soft, round features. She shyly sat down in the back corner of the classroom and pushed her dark hair off of her face.

The girl made no eye contact with anyone in the room—not even for a moment.

Brittany looked back at the girl and instantly recognized her. Brittany rolled her eyes as she looked back towards the front of the class—the two girls had history.

Andrew characteristically smiled and nodded at the shy girl.

“Hey,” Andrew said.

“Hi,” the girl replied sheepishly.

There was more than just social anxiety behind the mysterious girl’s silent demeanour. She carried an aura of complexity around with her—A life that couldn’t easily be described in a single sitting.

The girl pulled a binder out from her bag and placed it on the table. Written on the spine of the binder was, “Hanna Wilkinson – English 12”.

Mr. Fenner looked up at the clock. There was only one minute before class began.

He pulled an attendance list out from his bag and looked over it. He silently groaned, as it was just the first class and there were already latecomers.

He looked back up at the clock, waiting for the exact second to start his first lecture.