The Academy - Introductions (25 page)

“This is bad,” Kota said. “No one told them about her,
right?”

There was a chorus of “no”.

Nathan spoke up, “But why don’t we tell them? Why don’t we
tell her?”

“Maybe this wasn’t a good idea,” Kota said. It was the
first time he sounded doubtful. It surprised me. What were they talking about?
It wasn’t a good idea to become my friend?

“How are we going to hide it from her forever?” Gabriel
asked.

“She needs us,” Victor said, his baritone voice dropping an
octave.

“We can’t take in every stray dog we come across,” Nathan
replied.

My hand fell over my heart and from my mouth escaped a
gasp. I slapped a hand over my mouth but it was too late. North turned and
spotted me.

“Sang,” he said, his eyes wide open. He reached out to me
with a hand, his fingers spread out as if he wanted to grab at me.

I shook my head, taking a couple of steps back. It was hard
to breathe or think. The others turned, looking at me, their cheeks all
flushing to the same bright red and they all froze. I turned away from them,
walking to the door.

“Wait, come back!” Kota called behind me.

I opened the door to the main hallway, running blindly
through the crowds of people until I was out in the parking lot.

The unwanted dog.

***

I had to suck it in until my dad drove us home. When we got
there, I locked myself into my room, turning off the light. My pillow quickly
became soaked with tears.

They weren’t friends with me because they wanted me. They
were sorry for me. They saw my weirdness. They got a glimpse of my family. Now
they felt obligated to be nice to me. The conversation they had in the
courtyard I kept replaying in my mind. My heart burned from the humiliation. A
poor dog to feel pity on!

I heard the vibration of the phone in the attic. It was
hard to hear unless I held my breath. Over time, I got familiar with what was a
text message and which was a phone call. From what I could hear, there were no
less than twenty messages and over a dozen attempts to call.

I couldn’t bring myself to even look at the thing. It
disgusted me that they had wasted their money on someone they didn’t even want
in their group. What were they thinking? Was it amusing to them to have me
hanging around? Was I someone they laughed at when I wasn’t there?

And why couldn’t I stop thinking about how affectionately
they had touched me? Or the way their eyes looked at me? Over and over again, I
saw Luke’s happiness as he daydreamed about the diner in the chapel, of North’s
smile after the ride on his bike. I thought of Victor’s purchase of Winter, and
Silas holding me to his body, of Gabriel doing my hair, Nathan’s shirt, and
Kota’s hands as he held mine.

How naive could I have been? I didn’t catch their
annoyances or displeasure. How could I have? They were so nice. They were only
pretending. Maybe my mother was right. Being alone and ignoring the outside
world was easier to handle.

I dreamed I ran from a stranger I couldn't see and into an
abandoned house. I cowered under the windows as he looked inside and sought me
out. I wasn't sure if he would hurt me, but I was afraid if he saw me, he would
see who I really was. It scared me to death that he might see me. I didn't want
him to know.

That night, when the phone finally silenced and the house
was still, I drifted in and out of sleep. When the nightmare was over, it was
two am. I shook off the dream. It rattled me more than any other I had that
week. I stood up from my bed in the dark. I had a precise plan in mind. If they
didn’t like this stray dog, I wouldn’t force myself on them. I would never stay
where I was unwanted.

I found Nathan’s shirt and dug out the phone and the cord.
In the darkness, I tiptoed my way down the back stairs and crept through the
house until I was at the side door. I opened it and walked out into the night
air.

My heart was beating so rapidly, I felt I needed to sink to
the ground in order to breath. I willed myself to continue. I would get rid of
these things and it would be over. I could go back to my usual hiding in the
shadows, pretending to blend into the wall at school, never having friends and
never being normal. I couldn’t face anyone like this and be so humiliated.

I hugged the shirt and phone to me. It was so strange how
only hours ago I had loved these things so much. They had meant so much to me.
The feel of them in my hands now made my chest heavy. I didn’t look at the
messages. They had made things so clear at school. I didn’t want to pretend any
more.

I stopped by Kota’s house, first. I stood at the end of his
driveway in the dark, thinking of what Kota’s face would look like when he saw
the phone on his front step, messages unchecked. It felt so cruel to do but I
didn’t really want to hand it to him. I couldn’t face any of them knowing how
they felt. I trusted them all with my secrets. Now I was at risk for being
ridiculed at school. The girl with no voice. The girl with crazy parents.

I crossed Kota’s driveway. Barking broke through the
silence. I paused, having forgotten to mind Max. I hoped he would quiet down
again so I waited.

His barking continued for a minute and stopped short. I
looked at the front porch, trying to decide if I should leave the phone there
and if I could get there without setting off the dog again.

“Sang?”

I nearly jumped out of my skin. From the darkness, Kota
appeared, coming around the house from the back yard. His glasses reflected in
the moonlight. He was barefoot, in dark pajama pants and a light colored
t-shirt. In a way he appeared to be a ghost. I gulped. I took a step backward,
ready to flee down the road back to the sanctuary of my house where he couldn’t
follow.

“Wait, Sang,” he said, and he broke into a sprint and
caught up to me. He had a hand out like he wanted to grab at me but I stepped
back again. He held his hands up to show he wasn’t going to reach for me again
and stood still. “We’ve been trying to call.”

I turned on him. I should get it over with. “I came to give
this back,” I said, unable to keep my voice from shaking. I held out the cell
phone to him.

He kept his hands to his sides. “I don’t want that,” he said
softly. “Please, Sang. You don’t understand.”

“What’s there to understand?” I said. My thoughts raced. It
was amazing to me that I managed to speak at all. My body shook through to my
bones, cold and empty. “You guys don’t need me hanging around. I get it. That’s
fine. I just wish you would have told me.”

“We didn’t say that,” he said. I couldn’t see his eyes
because of the glint in his glasses, but his mouth was frowning. “You misheard
us.”

“I’m not a stray dog,” I said, my voice rising. I hugged
Nathan’s shirt to me like a shield, and at the same time I was disgusted with
it. “If you didn’t want to be friends, all you had to do was say so. I can go
home right now. It doesn’t have to be ugly. We’ll just pretend we don’t know
each other. I’m pretty comfortable with being ignored.” I held the phone out
with one hand away from my body and let go. In that moment, I wanted it to
break. I felt broken.

Kota’s hand shot out, catching it in the air. His long
fingers wrapped around the pink case.

“Next time, stop being so nice.” I sniffled, unable to hold
in my sobbing that I had thought I had dried out on earlier.

“Sang...” His voice was low, barely above a whisper. His
lips moved a little but no words came out.

I turned away from him, sprinting toward the road. Why was
he doing this to me? Why won’t he just say thanks for bringing the phone back?
Thanks for not taking this so personally? Thanks for giving us an out when we
were too cowardly to tell you the truth? That you were an unexpected burden?

“Sang!” he called out. I heard his footsteps behind me. I
tried to outrun him but he was faster than I was. He reached out, grabbed my
arm. I swiveled on my feet, almost falling.

He caught me, his arms circling around my back. He hugged
me close to him, his body warming mine. His fingertips massaged along my spine,
soothing and strong. I was breathless, a mess from sobbing. I lifted a fist,
intending to strike out to him but I stopped. He was hugging me so tightly,
such an intimate touch.

“I’m not letting go,” he said. “Not until you hear me out.”

I’d never felt such a thing before. Not this. Not a true
hug that meant to make me feel better. If I cried in front of my parents, they
told me to go to my room and only come out when I got over myself. I pressed my
head to his chest, and my tears dampened his shirt. I could hear his own heart
beating back as powerful as my own. Wisps from his breath tickled my hair. My
fingers smoothed out over the material of his t-shirt. How could this feel like
he meant it and be a lie at the same time?

We stood silently as he held me for several minutes. I
breathed in that now familiar spicy scent. His fingers stroked at my back,
massaging in small circles against my muscles. I felt his face move and his
breath slipped near my ear, warming the lobe. Kota. The most calm. The leader.
The first one I’d met. A week ago I was a stranger his dog ran over. Here he
was now in this moment doing something my own parents never did.

“Sang,” he whispered softly into my ear. He swallowed and rubbed
a palm against my back. “You trusted us with your own secrets. I only wish we
could tell you ours.”

“Kota...”

He pulled back, moving his hands up slowly until he was
cupping my face and I was looking into his green eyes. His tender gaze held me
with such affection that I felt my breath escape. “You’re amazing, Sang. Ever
since I met you, you never once asked about the strange things you saw with us,
even when I could see it in your eyes that you wanted to ask. The others could
see it, too. You stuck with us. You’re so sweet and considerate. We don’t want
you to leave.”

My lip trembled. “But Nathan...”

“Was quoting Mr. Blackbourne,” he said. “You misheard him.
We once tried to bring another guy into the group but he found us to be too odd
and he left. Mr. Blackbourne warned us that we should be more selective about
who we bring in.” His thumb crossed my cheek, wiping away a tear. “It was Mr.
Blackbourne’s words. Not Nathan’s.”

“But why say it?”

“Nathan was trying to remind us what he would say. He didn’t
mean it against you. It was a warning to us that Mr. Blackbourne wouldn’t be
happy.”

“With me?”

“With bringing you into the group.” He dropped his hands
from my face to my shoulders. “We’re not just friends,” he said. “We’re...
complicated.”

My mind was a complete mess trying to understand him. In my
stressed state, I couldn’t focus on what he was trying to tell me. He confirmed
he knew Mr. Blackbourne. That was a secret before. Why did it need to be? “What
do you mean?”

“We’re not really normal students,” he said. ”We go to a
different school. A private school.” He smiled softly. “Only this year, we’re
attending the public school. We’re on loan from the Academy.”

“What’s the Academy?”

“It’s our school. Well, officially now we’re part of the
public system. But we’ll always belong to the Academy.”

Something of what he was saying clicked in my head. “Dr.
Green and Mr. Blackbourne, too?”

“They're our professors. They’re in charge of us. This year
we’ve set up something different, kind of like an exchange program. They take
us in to the public school. We set an example for other students and observe
and Dr. Green and Mr. Blackbourne takes charge of part of the classrooms to
help change part of the curriculum. It’s to help the school get more funding so
they can improve things. There’s a little more to it but like I said, it’s
complicated. And classified.”

They brought in seven kids and two teachers to a school
with over two thousand students? Why did that need to be a secret? It didn’t
make sense. Still, maybe this was something I didn’t quite understand or that
they didn’t want me to. Maybe when I wasn’t so distraught, it would make sense
to me. I reached with both hands to my face to rub the last of tears away from
my eyes. “You didn’t want to tell me?”

His lips pursed for a moment and his hand lifted up to
brush a strand of hair away from my cheek. “I wanted to tell you,” he said. “We
weren’t really supposed to tell anyone. We’re supposed to blend in but not
really get close to anyone. We didn’t want to risk being overheard or noticed
when we had to do something for the Academy.”

“But then why did you want to be friends? I mean why bring
me into the group now?”

He smiled then, letting go of me and standing back. “Why
would you want to be friends with us? We’re not exactly normal. When I first
met you, I thought you’d assume we were weird and would back off. You stayed.
You didn’t even have to say it. I could see it in your face. You’re such an
open book, Sang. And once the others met you... well... that was it. They all
agreed they wanted to try.”

“You all sounded unsure back at the school.”