I giggled, and gave her a hug.
“Thank you,” I said into her mess of curls, and gave her a bigger squeeze so she knew how much I really did appreciate it.
She bounced back to the stairwell and turned back to face me, looking older than the fourteen years I knew her to be.
“You’ll be fine.” Ashley looked at me solemnly with her giant blue eyes before skipping up the stairs, her overstuffed backpack bouncing up and down on her hip.
I eyed the emergency fire exit door and considered making a break for it.
“Don’t be stupid, Emma,” I whispered to myself. “Just two more years of high school. It can’t be worse than living with Henry.”
I shoved my notebooks into my locker and slammed the metal door defiantly.
Here we go.
Getting to school a little early was a good plan. My first class was still empty, so I was able to discreetly slip the form the gray lady gave me to my first teacher, Mrs. Urbealis, who greeted me warmly and said, “Sit anywhere.”
She looked sharp and clever. I figured I could ask.
“Anywhere? Come on, where should I really sit?” Back in Keansburg, I always had the third seat in the second row. In every single class. Enough of a breeze if the window was open, and if it was cold out, the first row got the brunt of the chill. Great seat. Sonny, the funniest guy in class, always sat in the front…Cyndi, our class president sat behind him. I stared at the desks, knowing that they had been unofficially assigned since the first week of freshman year.
Mrs. Urbealis broke into a knowing smile.
“Okay, Emma. I would say, take that seat.” She gestured to the last seat in the seventh row. The last seat in the classroom. If this were a chessboard, I’d just be a rook. Appropriate, since I felt like a rookie.
I smiled gratefully and sat down, pulling out my notebook and absentmindedly doodling on the green cover. I usually drew circles or loops…nothing meaningful. I got lost in my doodles, and started daydreaming. Maybe New York wouldn’t be so bad. This is the city that people spend their entire lives trying to get to, right? There were enough distractions…it wouldn’t be like home, where I knew everyone and was still so utterly alone.
I looked down at my green notebook cover and realized I’d just drawn a bunch of eyes. I shuddered at the ominous artwork and flipped the cover open, checking out the other students who had started to file in. They were all a little…glossy. I had wondered where everyone was right before the bell rang, then realized that all the girls must have been polishing their looks in the bathroom. Lips perfectly shiny. Hair brushed and freshly flat-ironed, or arranged in carefully messy curls. I self-consciously reached up to my cowlick, making sure it was behaving and staying in place, relieved to find it in line with the rest of my hair.
Good little soldier, I thought, patting my hair.
The bell rang, and Mrs. Urbealis called the class to attention.
“Okay guys, you know where we left off. Let’s continue with Tammany Hall and the political machine. Please open your books to page 106.”
I ran my hand over my history textbook, then turned the cover back. A large snap rang through the mostly quiet room as I broke the spine on my brand-new book. I could feel the eyes of every student in that room staring at me through my wall of hair, which was doing nothing to protect me.
“Class, we do have a new student. Miss Emma Connor.” She paused.
Please, oh, please, do not make me come up there and tell you a little something about myself.
“Let’s make her feel welcome, shall we? Show her the Vincent Academy way?”
She gave me a warm smile and I felt better, hoping, deep down, that the Vincent Academy way would be a good thing.
It turned out that my next class, math, was in the same room, so I just sat in the same desk, as did the girl in front of me. She turned around with a big smile.
“Hi, I’m Jenn,” she said with a big smile. “Jenn Hynes. How’s your first day?” She seemed friendly enough, the kind of girl I would have hung out with back in Keansburg. All those friends ditched me because they either were afraid of Henry, or were afraid of how it looked to be friends with me, the poster child for tragedy. I stopped getting invited anywhere, since I wasn’t considered fun at parties anymore. When I did bother to show up, I turned into the designated-driving police and was deemed a total buzzkill.
“Oh, it’s okay so far.” I tried to match her bright smile. “So far so good.”
“Where are you from?”
“Philadelphia.” I readied myself to churn out the performance of a lifetime. “My parents—well, my mom, actually—” Why not make it my mom who got the job? Yay, female empowerment! “—got a job transfer. They needed her in Tokyo, and I didn’t want to go, so I moved to live with my aunt Christine.”
Jenn seemed to believe my story, so I continued prattling on.
“Yeah, my family decided to move, but I don’t speak Japanese, and sure, they have schools that are English-speaking, but I—I didn’t really want to go….” I trailed off and realized that she was staring at my necklace.
“Hey, what’s that?” she asked, pointing at the silver charm, which hung on a box-link silver necklace. Round and slightly tarnished, the charm was etched with a medieval-looking crest. It was a little larger than a quarter—a “statement piece,” my aunt had called it once—but I loved it. My hands instinctively went up to the necklace.
“Oh, it’s a charm my brother, Ethan, gave me years ago,” I said, toying with the disc. “He said he thought it would bring me good luck. I just think it looks cool.”
“It is cool,” Jenn agreed. “Different.” She brushed her pin-straight honey-brown hair back, and I noticed the Tiffany necklace glistening at her throat. Of course.
I took that as a cue to compliment her jewelry, which went over really well. Jenn seemed to decide I was acceptable enough, and asked if I wanted to sit with her friends at lunch.
The teacher, Mr. Agneta, called the class to attention, and called on me—a lot. I wasn’t sure where all my aunt’s tuition money was going, but it sure wasn’t into the math program. A lot of this stuff just felt like I had covered it sophomore year. I got every answer right, and felt a little satisfied with myself. Maybe today wouldn’t be so bad after all.
Jenn and I had the next class together—but she disappeared somewhere before I could find out where I was going. I flattened myself against a wall to avoid the crowd of students in the narrow hallway, scrutinizing my schedule and trying to figure out where to go.
“Hey, newbie, need help?” a deep voice to my left asked. I looked up…and up some more…into the blue eyes of an extremely tall blond guy.
“Um, yeah, thanks,” I mumbled. “Do you know where room 201 is?”
“I’m headed there myself. I’ll walk you.” He smoothed out his red tie. “Anything for a beautiful damsel in distress.”
“Uh, thanks?” I tried to keep the confusion out of my voice and failed miserably. Who talks like that? I fell in step beside him as we walked to the staircase.
“I’m Emma, by the way.”
“It’s very nice to meet you, Emma,” he purred, a sly smile on his face. Blondo was attractive in that soap-opera way—tall, blond, definitely built—but something about the way he smiled reminded me of those National Geographic documentaries about animals in the African wild. He looked like a lion about to pounce. I felt very caribou-esque all of a sudden.
“And you