Chapter 5

A few older kids—seniors, probably, the ones who drove themselves—are already climbing out of their cars in the student section, slinging backpacks over one shoulder, drifting toward the main entrance like it’s nothing. Like it’s just another Monday. I watch them through the windshield and my stomach does something between a flip and a free fall.

Mom eases the Kia into an open spot in the faculty section near the side entrance and reaches for the ignition.

“Wait.”

Her hand freezes on the key. Jess twists around in the passenger seat, one eyebrow already climbing.

“I need to test something first.” I lean forward between the seats, keeping my voice steady even though my pulse is doing wind sprints. “What happens when I’m near guys. I have no idea.” I glance between them. “Keep the engine running. If something goes wrong, I need to be able to get back to the car fast.”

Mom’s fingers slowly pull away from the key. She leaves the engine idling, air conditioning humming through the vents.

Jess narrows her eyes. “And what happens in that case? If it goes wrong?”

I shrug one shoulder. “I’ll have to be homeschooled, I guess.”

The words land heavier than I meant them to. For a second the only sound is the engine and the muffled chaos of the parking lot outside—shoes on asphalt, someone laughing too loud, a bus hydraulic hissing as it pulls away from the curb.

Jess opens her mouth—probably to say something unhelpful—but closes it again. Even she can feel the weight of this one.

I take a breath. Hold it. Let it out slow through my teeth, the way I used to before free throws in middle school gym.

I open the back door and step out.

The heat hits first—August in full force, asphalt radiating it back up through my sneakers, the air thick and bright. Then the noise. Hundreds of conversations layered over each other into one big ambient roar, punctuated by car doors slamming and someone’s phone playing music too loud from a cracked window. Groups of kids move in loose clusters toward the main entrance. Backpacks. Phones. Earbuds dangling. A girl with pink streaks in her hair nearly walks into a trash can while texting.

I scan the crowd, heart hammering against the inside of my ribs.

There. A lone kid, maybe my age, shorter than me by a few inches, shuffling along the edge of the student lot with his head down and his backpack straps gripped in both fists like he’s bracing for impact. No friends flanking him, no earbuds in. Just a guy walking to school by himself.

Good enough. First test subject.

I cut across the lot at an angle to intercept him, keeping my stride casual, hands in my pockets. When I’m about ten feet away I call out, “Hey—do you know what time school starts today?”

The kid flinches. Actually flinches, like I threw something at him. His head snaps up and his eyes go wide—not the soft, unfocused look I’ve seen from every woman who’s gotten close to me since Saturday. Something different. He stares at me with this expression I can’t quite parse. Part fear, part confusion, part something that looks almost like the way a smaller dog freezes when a bigger one walks into the yard. Not attraction. More like ... intimidation. Like his brain just decided I’m a threat and it’s running the math on whether to bolt.

He doesn’t answer. Just stands there, blinking at me with his mouth slightly open.

“Sorry, I’m new here,” I add, keeping my voice light. Normal. Friendly. “First day. Just trying to figure out the schedule.”

His throat bobs. “Uh. Eight-thirty,” he says, barely above a mumble. Then he sidesteps me, actually gives me a wide berth, like I’ve got a force field, and hurries toward the entrance with his pace noticeably faster than before.

I watch him go, processing.

Not attraction. Definitely not worship. But not nothing, either. Something shifted in that kid’s face when I got close. Fear? Intimidation? Some instinct telling him I was ... what? Dangerous? Dominant?

Not enough data. One subject doesn’t prove anything.

I turn back toward the flow of students and spot two guys heading my way along the main path from the student section. Both seniors, I can tell by the way they walk, that loose-shouldered confidence that comes from owning the hallways for three years. One’s maybe six feet, lean, with a backwards cap. The other is bigger. Six-two, thick through the shoulders, the kind of build that says he’s either on the football team or wants you to think he is. They’re mid-conversation, laughing about something, not paying any attention to me.

I step into their path with more confidence this time. Square my shoulders. “Hey, quick question. What time does first period start?”

They slow down. The bigger one stops laughing first, his eyes shifting to me with a flat expression. Not hostile, exactly. More like he’s sizing me up the way you’d size up someone who just sat down at your lunch table uninvited. Suspicious. Alert. But not afraid.

The smaller one, backwards cap, answers without hesitation. “Eight-thirty, bro.”

“Cool. Thanks. First day,” I say, gesturing vaguely at the building.

Backwards cap nods once. “Good luck.” He’s already turning back to his friend, conversation resuming like I was a speed bump.

The bigger one holds my gaze for another half-second. Something behind his eyes I can’t name, not the glazed desire I get from women, not the frozen fear from the first kid. Just ... awareness. Like he noticed me in a way he wouldn’t have noticed someone else, but couldn’t tell you why if you asked him. Then he breaks eye contact and follows his friend toward the entrance.

I stand there in the middle of the parking lot while students stream past me on both sides and try to put the pieces together.

There’s an effect. I’m almost sure of it now. The first kid was scared, genuinely intimidated in a way that didn’t match the situation. I asked him what time school started, not for his lunch money. And the two seniors ... the big one registered me. Took note. Kept his guard up without any reason to.

But none of them looked at me the way Mandy did. Or any woman has for that matter.

Whatever the venom does to guys, it’s different. Milder. More like a low hum than a fire alarm.

Mild enough to survive a school day? I think so. I hope so.

I walk back toward the Kia, and I can see Mom watching me through the windshield. Whatever she sees in my posture now must be the right thing, because she reaches over and turns the key. The engine dies. The air conditioning cuts out mid-breath.

I open her door for her.

She steps out, purse over one shoulder, and gives me a small smile. Just acknowledgment, she can tell.

Jess climbs out the passenger side, and comes around the front of the car with her bag slung low on one arm. Her eyes flick across my face and she must find what she’s looking for because the tension in her jaw loosens and her mouth curves into that familiar tilt.

“So I take it this means your anal virginity will still be intact by the end of the day?”

I can’t help it. A laugh breaks out of me, sharp, surprised, real. The knot in my chest loosens by about half an inch.

“Best I can tell,” I say.

Jess grins, enormously pleased with herself, and falls into step beside me.

The three of us cross the parking lot together, weaving between parked cars and knots of students, heading toward the main entrance of Pineview High while the pre-bell noise swells around us like a wave building toward shore.

The hallway inside is cooler than the parking lot but not by much. Air conditioning hums somewhere overhead, fighting a losing battle against August and a few hundred warm bodies. The main corridor stretches ahead of us—lockers lining both walls, fluorescent lights buzzing, scuffed linoleum reflecting everything in dull streaks.

It’s not packed. Not yet. But there are enough people that I notice it immediately.

Every single person we pass reacts to me.

The girls are easier to read. A sophomore with a ponytail and an armful of binders glances up as we walk by and her eyes go soft, unfocused, lips parting slightly before she catches herself and looks away. Two girls leaning against a bank of lockers stop mid-conversation. One of them tracks me with her head turning a full forty-five degrees, her friend elbowing her without taking her own eyes off me. A teacher—maybe late twenties, lanyard swinging—steps out of a classroom door and freezes for a half-second when I pass, her hand still on the doorframe.

Lust. Every one of them. Some subtle, some not. The teacher at least has the presence of mind to look away, but I catch the flush crawling up her neck before I’m past her.

The guys are harder.

A kid at his locker—shorter than me, narrow shoulders—flinches when I get within ten feet. Doesn’t look at me. Presses closer to his locker like he’s trying to melt into it. Another guy, stocky and solid, stops walking and stares with his brow furrowed, mouth slightly open, like he’s trying to remember where he knows me from but can’t place it. Two guys about my height and build pass going the other direction, and one of them gives me a nod. Not friendly, exactly. More like acknowledgment. Like he’s recognizing something he can’t name.

I start cataloging it without meaning to. My brain does this, picks up patterns, runs them against each other, looks for the thread.

And there is one.

The smaller guys, the ones who carry themselves like they’d rather not be noticed, read me as a threat. Intimidation. Fear. The way the shorter kid in the parking lot flinched. The bigger guys, the ones with broad shoulders and weight room builds, don’t seem scared. More confused. Alert. Like something just entered their territory and they haven’t decided what to do about it yet. And the ones closest to my size, my frame? A few of them look at me with something that almost reads as admiration. Respect, maybe. Recognition.

It doesn’t always line up perfectly. One tall kid with long arms gives me a wide-eyed look that belongs on someone half his height. A shorter guy with an undercut walks past without seeming to register me at all. But the trend is there. Physical stature predicts the response. The further you are from me in either direction, the more extreme the reaction, just in different flavors.

I file it. Add it to the growing list of things I don’t fully understand but can at least predict.

We round a corner and I spot the administrative office through a set of glass panels. The door’s propped open. Inside, I can see a woman behind the front desk, mid-thirties, reddish hair pulled up in a bun, floral print blouse that’s seen better days. She’s sitting with her chin propped on one hand, staring at her computer screen with the glazed expression of someone who checked out about forty-five minutes ago. The kind of boredom that’s practically visible, like heat shimmer off asphalt.

I stop walking. Mom and Jess stop with me.

“Let me do the talking,” I say quietly, angling toward Mom.

She looks at me. Doesn’t question it. Just gives a small nod.

I take a breath. Hold it. Let it out slow through my nose.

The anxiety isn’t gone. It’s sitting right behind my sternum like a fist. But I can work around it. I’ve been doing that all morning.

I step through the door.

The woman looks up from her screen and perks up like someone plugged her in. Her posture straightens. Her hand drops from her chin. Her eyes find me and something shifts in them, the same soft unfocused heat I’ve been watching bloom in every woman within ten feet of me since Saturday.

“Well, hi there.” Her voice drops half a register, and there’s a tilt to it that doesn’t belong in an administrative office on a Monday morning. “What can I help you with?”

Testing. That’s what this is. A test.

Not of her. Of me.

I keep my shoulders square. I don’t smile. I don’t lean in. I match her gaze with something steady and direct, not cold but not warm either. Just clear.

“My sister and I just transferred here,” I say, and I keep my voice even, confident, the kind of tone that doesn’t leave room for flirtation to take root. “We’ve got paperwork to fill out. Our mom,” I gesture back toward Mom without looking, “needs to get to work, so if we could get this handled quickly, that’d be great.”

I watch it land.

For a second, I’m worried I pushed too hard. That the assertiveness is going to read as rude and she’s going to get that pinched look people get when a teenager tells them to hurry up. But it doesn’t happen. Instead, something almost imperceptible shifts behind her eyes, the softness doesn’t leave, exactly, but it reorganizes.

“Oh, yes, absolutely. Of course.” She’s already reaching for a folder on her desk, pulling it forward, flipping it open with efficiency that wasn’t there ten seconds ago. “Swanson, right? Christopher and Jessica?”

“That’s us.”

“Great. Your class schedules are all set, I processed those last week when the transfer came through.” She pulls two printed sheets from the folder and sets them aside, then turns to Mom with a professional smile that’s warmer than it should be but at least aimed in the right direction. “Mrs. Swanson, I just need a few signatures on these forms. Standard enrollment authorization, emergency contacts, medical consent.”

Mom steps forward and takes the pen Grace offers, pulling the stack of papers toward her. She starts reading. Not skimming, reading. Line by line, the way she reads everything. Mom doesn’t sign things without understanding them.

While Mom works through the paperwork, Grace turns to her computer and starts printing. The printer behind her desk whirs and clicks, spitting out two sheets that she pulls free and checks against something on her screen.

“These are your schedules,” she says, holding them up. “Room numbers, teacher names, period breakdown. Lunch is fourth period for both of you.”

I take them. Glance at mine. A grid of room numbers and names that don’t mean anything yet.

“Quick question,” I say, looking back up at her. “We missed the first week. Is that going to cause any problems? Grades, makeup work, anything like that?”

Grace shakes her head immediately, like I’ve asked whether the building has a roof. “Shouldn’t be an issue at all. Most teachers spend the first week going over syllabi and classroom expectations anyway, you haven’t missed any real content yet.” She pauses. Then she reaches for a pad of sticky notes on her desk and pulls a pen from a cup holder. She writes something down, quick, deliberate strokes, and peels the note free. “But if there are any problems,” she says, holding it out to me, “you come straight to me. Okay?”