The Academy - First Days (18 page)

The boys around him started laughing. One of them shouted, “Mike,
you scared her.”

Mike earnestly looked up at me from his knee. “Will you?” he
asked. “Please?”

Was he being serious? What would he have done if I said yes? I
knew for the most part he must have been teasing me.

I came back from my disbelief and shook my head. “I’m sorry,” I
said.

“Damn,” Mike said. He jumped up from the ground, releasing my hand
and shrugged. “I’ve gotta find me a wife.” He rushed by me, his friends
following him and laughing.

I stared after him, speculating. I sensed someone behind me and
turned, nearly bumping into Luke. He was close enough I could smell the sugar
and vanilla of his cologne. He grinned and wriggled his eyebrows at me, his
blond locks falling in his eyes.

“What?” I asked him. I hadn’t gone far and he followed me. I
wondered how long he had been standing there. Would they always come after me?

“Never gone on a date and you’ve just been asked to get married,”
he said. “I think that’s a first.” He grabbed my hand, turning to walk back.
“Let’s go before he comes back with a ring.”

My face was on fire when we got back to the others. Luke held on
to my hand as we stood there. He did it so bluntly that my heart was thundering
and I half stood behind him.

“What was that about?” North asked.

“Sang’s had her first marriage proposal,” Luke said, chuckling. He
squeezed my hand.

His laugh was infectious, so I started to relax. “He couldn’t have
been serious,” I said. “He was just teasing me or something.”

Victor’s mouth hung open. Kota pushed his glasses up his nose,
looking confused. Gabriel laughed. Silas and North twisted around, scanning the
courtyard to where the guys had disappeared inside.

“Who was he?” North asked.

“I don’t know,” I said. “I’ve never seen him before. I think it
was random.”

He didn’t look convinced. “What was his name?”

“The guys called him Mike.”

Gabriel was still snickering. “We’re going to have to keep a
closer eye on you.”

North dug into his pockets and pulled out a handful of folded
notes in his pockets. He opened each of them on his lap, flattening the papers
and checking the signatures. “Nope. No Mike.”

“What are those?” Kota asked.

“Notes for Sang,” North said. He crumpled them together and
stuffed them back into his pocket.

My mouth slackened and my head cocked at an angle toward him. “Are
you sure? What do they say?”

North shook his head. “Doesn’t matter. If a guy can’t say it to
your face, he doesn’t get to pass you notes.”

I shared a glance with Luke. Luke smirked at his brother. “You
mean she’s getting notes in class from boys?”

“There’s a particularly persistent one in our history class.”

“Which one?” I asked. It left me uncomfortable that guys were
passing me notes and I didn’t know what was going on. Had North infiltrated all
of those for me and I just now noticed the one in class? Were there others? Was
it that bad to get notes? I wondered if they all said bad things and he was
protecting me from them.

“Doesn’t matter,” North said firmly.

I looked at Victor to see if he had some insight. Victor’s face
was blank, and he only shrugged. “I didn’t see it.”

I wasn’t quite convinced and thought maybe he did know and he
fibbed. Either he didn’t want to get in the middle of this or he agreed with
North. I couldn’t be sure.

“Oy,” Gabriel called out. “You can’t just take her shit. Someone
was giving that to her.”

North tilted his head around until he was eyeing Gabriel. “Excuse
me?”

Gabriel glowered at him. “Sang’s never had notes passed to her in
class and you’re taking her first ones. That’s like a fucking life experience
or something.”

I blushed. How would Gabriel know if I’d never been passed notes
in class? But then it must be obvious. Someone like me wouldn’t get notes.

“Then you write her one,” North said. “No face, no note. That’s
chicken shit. This isn’t first grade where you’re drawing boxes with the whole
‘do you like me, check yes or no’ choices.”

Luke leaned into me, his lips nearly tracing my ear as he
whispered, “I bet the girls checked the no boxes for him when he was in first
grade.”

“I can hear you,” North said, leaning back on his hands to look
up, his intense dark eyes fixing on my face. “Sang, do you want them?”

If it had been moments ago, before North had said anything at all,
I might have said yes. He did have a point though. In a way it was kind of
creepy to get a note passed to me from someone I didn’t know. What would anyone
have to say to me? “I guess not. Just let me know if they say anything like,
‘I’m going to eat your liver’. I might want a heads up.”

He smirked at me. Everyone laughed.

In the middle of Japanese class with Victor, I was bent over a
notebook, practicing some hiragana that we were supposed to be learning when
the door opened.

“Hello Principal Hendricks,” Dr. Green said. “Welcome.”

Principal Hendricks entered the classroom. He smiled, his eyes
swept over the room, singling me out and he gave me a wink before he crossed
the room the short distance toward Dr. Green.

I snapped to attention in my chair, blushing. What now?

Victor’s breath teased the hair at the back of my head. “Are we in
trouble?”

“Maybe.”

Victor grunted.

Principle Hendricks leaned in to Dr. Green to speak, but his voice
was deep enough that we heard it from the back of the class. “I’m sorry to
interrupt, but I wondered if I could borrow Victor Morgan for a moment?”

Dr. Green’s eyes slipped to Victor. I caught that look he shared.
He had that same silent communication ability. Dr. Green didn’t miss a beat. He
turned his head back to Hendricks. “Of course! By all means.”

Victor stood up by his chair. I absentmindedly rubbed at the dip
in my throat as he walked up to the front of the room, standing straight as an
arrow and awaiting instructions.

When Hendricks took a look at him, he frowned. “What?” he chuffed.
“Your face, son. You look terrible.”

Was this about yesterday? Was he going to ask him questions about
why he wasn’t in school? Victor didn’t look too bad. His make-up had held up.
The bandage was still on his cheek.

Victor’s eyes fixed on me for only the briefest moment, the fire
lighting up, before turning back to him. “How can I help you, sir?” he asked in
the smoothest way I’ve heard him speak yet.

Hendricks nodded his head toward the door and Victor followed.
After they left, I caught Dr. Green’s eyes. We exchanged bewildered looks. It
didn’t seem like any of us knew what this was about.

Victor was gone for the entire class. When the bell rang, I
grabbed his bag, too. Dr. Green held up his hand as I came forward in class
toward the door.

“Miss Sang,” he said. “Can you stay for a minute?”

I sucked in a breath. His kind eyes were begging me without asking
out loud.

I shuffled the book bags and the case in my hands as the others
left the room. Dr. Green crossed his arms and leaned against the front desk. I
liked his green striped tie and noticed his lean muscles as his forearms
pressed his white collared shirt to his body, promising a fit body underneath.
“How often have you seen Mr. Hendricks in the last week?”

I blinked at him and counted off the top of my head. “Maybe four
or five times?”

“Is that normal for you? Does that happen around you often?”

I wasn’t sure exactly what he was meaning. “I don’t think so.”

“I didn’t think so, either.”

The door swung open and Victor entered the classroom. His cheeks
flushed as he looked at us standing together.

“Victor,” Dr. Green said. “What happened?”

“He had me interviewed by some journalist for the newspaper,”
Victor said. “Victor Morgan now attends Ashley Waters. The press loves it.” He
crossed the room, taking his book bag from my hands. “But we don’t have time
right now. We’ve got to get to class. Come on, Sang.”

I looked back at Dr. Green but he only smiled softly and nodded,
flipping his hands at me as if I should hurry and follow.

I hurried so I could walk alongside Victor. He was frowning,
pushing his hair away from his face as he walked.

“What did the reporter want?” I asked. I walked close to him in
case he wanted to be quiet.

“They were doing a special report about the new kids in school in
a ‘special program’.” He heaved a sigh. “It’s bad, Sang. We weren’t supposed to
be caught out like this.”

“Should we go talk to Mr. Blackbourne?”

“I’m going to go do that,” he said. “I’m getting you to class
first.”

“I can go myself,” I offered, “if you need to hurry and go talk to
him?”

His fire eyes flickered at me. He grasped for my hand, tugging me
along. “It’s on the way.”

T
ooth
A
nd
N
ail

G
abriel and I were separated for all of gym class as we were
instructed on where to sit in separate groups from boys and girls. The guys and
girls were both taken to their designated locker rooms to try out our locker
combinations. Since we didn’t have anything else to do, the girl’s coach had us
wait in the locker room until the end of class.

I really couldn’t focus on the conversation with the other girls.
I sat away from them, my knees pulled up to my chest, drifting off. Victor was
interviewed by the newspaper. Would there be an article about him tomorrow in
the paper? Would all the boys be interviewed? Would Mr. Blackbourne allow it? I
didn’t understand what it meant, but if they needed to be a secret, wouldn’t
that be the worst? Victor had said it was a bad thing. I rubbed at my forehead,
wanting desperately to learn these secrets. How my world turned over in a
couple of days, I didn’t understand. It was one thing to have brand new friends
and a new school. It was another to have friends with secrets from an elite
Academy no one was allowed to talk about. Further still was the fact that at
nearly every turn, the boys were at risk and I was caught in the middle.

What else could I do? Go back to being no one again? Sitting in
the shadows? I knew other students weren’t worrying about the things I was
worrying about. How far did I want to take this? Inside of me, I knew that
answer. I blamed my insatiable curiosity and my desire to please Kota and the
others. I was hooked on their faces, their smells, and their touches, and the
possibility of belonging with them. They’d said before I was one of them now.
Was I really? Why didn’t I feel like I was? This felt like something bigger
than the friendships I saw around myself with other students. Academy friends
were stronger. Was it better?

When class was over, I wasn’t sure if I should wait for Gabriel or
walk on to the bus without him. I waited alone in the front hallway close to
the gym doors and the entry way to the boys’ locker room, searching out
Gabriel. I didn’t want to leave him behind just in case he was trying to get to
me.

Minutes passed. I was about to give up and head to the bus by
myself because I was afraid I would miss it. Shouting echoed from around the
corner, near the boys’ locker room.

“Hey, faggot,” a loud voice vibrated through the air. “Where are
you going in a hurry?”

I turned the corner. There were a handful of guys standing around
the far wall of the hallway, surrounding someone. I’d seen something like that
a few times at my old school when fights were about to start. My first instinct
was to run. Ducking your head is what everyone did. If it wasn’t your business,
you didn’t get involved. What propelled me to remain and look, I didn’t know. I
searched the faces of the ten or so boys.

Gabriel was at the heart of the group, against the wall, pressed
by a large guy who had forearms as big as his neck.

My fingers pressed into my palms. My heart stopped.

Gabriel murmured something to the guy holding him and I couldn’t
hear it.

“Shut the fuck up,” the guy holding him by the shoulder pulled
Gabriel away from the wall, only to slam him back into it. Gabriel’s head
rolled loosely, his eyes going up to the ceiling but he did nothing to stop it.

“Gabriel!” My lips moved and my voice called to him before I could
stop myself.

Gabriel’s crystal blue eyes flashed at me, focusing from across
the hallway. Despite his silent pleading warning me otherwise, I dropped my
things by the wall, striding forward. I wasn’t going to leave him.

The guy and his friends holding Gabriel turned and saw me coming.
“Hey there,” the guy holding Gabriel said. “Where’d you come from, sexy?” His
short cropped, curly brown hair looked greasy. Random pimples splattered his
face.