Chapter 6

Five more minutes. That’s it. Five minutes and I will have survived first period at Pineview High without causing an international incident.

Ms. Vaughn is walking the class through Scout’s testimony scene, her voice measured and even, drawing answers from raised hands with the practiced rhythm of someone who’s done this a hundred times. She’s good at her job.

The three girls nearby haven’t stopped staring. The one to my left has given up all pretense. Her book is closed on her desk, chin propped on her hand, eyes soft and dreamy like she’s watching a sunset instead of sitting in junior English. The one diagonally forward keeps turning in her seat every thirty seconds, chewing her pen cap into oblivion. The one across the aisle is at least holding her book open, but her eyes haven’t moved from me in ten minutes. I know because I checked. Twice.

Michelle’s thigh presses against mine under our joined desks. I don’t think she’s doing it on purpose. Her knee bounces in this nervous rhythm, tap tap tap, and every third bounce brings warm denim against my cargo pants. She’s been quiet since I shushed her, which based on the five seconds I knew her before that, might be a personal record. But the silence hasn’t stopped her from glancing at me. Quick little flicks of green eyes, like she’s confirming I haven’t evaporated. Each time, the blush creeps back up her neck.

And then there’s the kid in the Megadeth shirt.

He’s not staring at me. He’s staring at them. His head swivels between the three girls, then to Michelle, then to Ms. Vaughn’s death grip on her marker, then back to me, and his expression cycles through the same three emotions on a loop: confusion, disbelief, and something that looks a lot like existential crisis. I can practically hear the gears grinding in his skull. He’s trying to make it make sense, and it’s not making sense, and it’s killing him.

I feel for the guy. I really do. But he’s a problem I’ll have to deal with later.

For now, the game plan holds. Don’t engage. Don’t encourage. Don’t make any decisions. Just be polite, keep your head down, and survive the day.

It could be worse. So much worse. Part of me, the part that couldn’t sleep last night, the part that stared at the crack in my ceiling running scenarios, was genuinely afraid that walking into a classroom would trigger some kind of chain reaction. Thirty teenagers in close proximity, hormones already running on overdrive because that’s what being sixteen is, and then me walking in like a lit match into a room full of gasoline. I pictured it. The soft-eyed stares spreading like a wave, building on each other, feeding into something nobody could control. Clothes coming off. Desks getting shoved aside. Full-blown chaos while Ms. Vaughn tries to remember the number for 911 and I try to explain to the responding officers why an entire English class is in various states of undress.

That didn’t happen.

What happened is staring. Lots and lots of staring.

Which, honestly? Not as fun as I would’ve thought. I always figured being the center of attention would feel like a superpower. Like being a celebrity. You see those guys on TV, swarmed by fans, everyone wanting a piece, and you think must be nice. And yeah, for about the first sixty seconds of class it was a rush. The validation hits your bloodstream like caffeine. Three pretty girls can’t take their eyes off you? Your ego inflates like a balloon.

Then the balloon keeps inflating. And inflating. And you realize it’s not going to stop, and none of them are going to look away, and the teacher is white-knuckling a dry-erase marker because of you, and suddenly you understand why every celebrity interview includes some variation of I just want to be normal. It’s not humble-bragging. It’s exhaustion. The weight of being watched doesn’t lighten. It compounds. Minute by minute, it gets heavier.

I keep my eyes on page seventy-three. Scout is saying something she doesn’t fully mean. I read the paragraph for the fifth time and finally retain it. The subtext is about the gap between what you say and what you know to be true, how you can hold both at once and let the wrong one come out of your mouth because the right one is too dangerous.

Yeah. I get that.

During one of Michelle’s earlier bursts, before I silenced her, she’d rattled off something about doing my homework for me. It came out in the middle of everything else, buried in the avalanche of words like it was no big deal.

I didn’t respond to it then. I’m thinking about it now.

Is it taking advantage if they volunteer? If nobody asks them, nobody pressures them, nobody even hints, if they just offer, unprompted, because something in their brain chemistry is telling them they want to? Where’s the line? Because I could lean into this so easily. Every girl in this building would do my homework, carry my books, write my essays. I wouldn’t have to lift a finger for the rest of junior year.

And I’d be the biggest asshole on the planet.

Or would I? They’re offering freely. They want to. The desire is real even if the source is...

No. Stop. Not now.

This is exactly the kind of spiral Jess would tell me I do. Overthinking a thing to death instead of just dealing with it. And she’d be right, which is the most annoying part. Now is not the time to build an ethical framework for the responsible use of wasp-venom-induced mind control. Now is the time to sit in this chair, stare at this book, and run out the clock.

I’ll think about it later. When I’m alone. When there isn’t a redhead pressed against my leg and three girls burning holes through me with their eyes and a teacher fighting a war with herself at the front of the room.

The bell screams through the speakers and I’ve never been so grateful for a sound in my life.

I’m up before the ringing stops. Bag off the back of the chair, schedule folded into my back pocket, moving. I slide my desk away from Michelle’s in one quick motion and angle toward the door. Michelle opens her mouth. I can see the torrent building behind her teeth, a dam about to burst. But I’m already past her, weaving between desks and backpacks and the shuffling chaos of thirty kids all standing at once.

“See you tomorrow, Chris,” Ms. Vaughn says from the front.

I push through the door into the hallway and the noise hits me like a wall. Lockers slamming, sneakers squeaking, voices layered into one continuous roar. Kids spill out of every doorway in both directions, flooding the corridor with backpacks and elbows and phone screens.

Room 202. US History. I pull the schedule from my pocket and glance at it. Two-oh-two, that’s got to be upstairs. I saw stairs earlier when I was wandering around lost looking for 112. If I cut back toward...

“Dude.”

The voice is low and urgent, right at my shoulder. I turn and find the Megadeth kid falling into step beside me, his long legs eating up hallway in these loping strides that don’t match his scrawny frame. His backpack hangs off one shoulder and his eyes are wide and slightly unhinged, like a man who’s just witnessed a miracle and needs someone to confirm he’s not having a stroke.

“Dude,” he says again, leaning in. His voice drops to a harsh whisper. “What the fuck.”

I keep walking. “Sorry, gotta go”

He grabs my arm, not hard, just enough to make me slow down. He glances over both shoulders like we’re about to discuss state secrets, then leans in so close I can smell Doritos on his breath. “You have to tell me your secret. Your rizz is off the charts. How are you doing that?”

“Doing what?”

His face scrunches up. “Oh, come on. Dude. I know you know what I’m talking about. The teacher? Ms. Vaughn? She was practically...” He makes a sound that’s half-whisper half-wheeze, like words aren’t sufficient. “And Michelle? Michelle Flaherty has never shut up in her life. Not once. Not ever. I’ve had classes with her since freshman year and she has literally never stopped talking, and you just...” He mimes pressing a finger to his lips. “And she just stopped. Like you hit a power button. And the other three? Just sitting there staring at you like you’re, I don’t even...”

He runs both hands through his messy brown hair, making it worse.

“Look,” he says, dropping his voice even lower. “I’ll pay you. Whatever you want. I’ll do your homework. I’ll do whatever you tell me. Just teach me how to do that.”

My chest tightens. This is exactly what I was afraid of. Some random guy I’ve known for forty-five minutes is already asking questions I don’t have safe answers to. What’s your secret? Oh, you know, got stung by a wasp and now my dick is the size of a small forearm and every woman within twenty feet of me loses the ability to think straight. Want the PowerPoint presentation or the pamphlet?

“It’s, uh...” I scratch the back of my neck. “It’s a hormonal thing. Something I can’t really control. I don’t know how to explain it.”

He squints at me. I can see the skepticism crawling across his face, one eyebrow lifting, mouth twisting to the side, but before he can push harder, a wave of students surges past us and he has to sidestep to avoid getting shoulder-checked.

“A hormonal thing,” he repeats flatly.

“Yeah.” I shift my backpack higher on my shoulder. “Hey, do you know where room 202 is? US History?”

He stares at me for another second. I watch the debate happen in real time: press the issue or accept the deflection. The hallway is thinning out. People are disappearing into classrooms. The clock is ticking toward second period and he knows it as well as I do.

“Upstairs,” he says finally, jerking his thumb toward the stairwell behind us. “End of the hall.”

“Thanks, man.”

He nods, still looking at me with that half-suspicious, half-awestruck expression, like he’s filing me away for later. Then he peels off toward whatever classroom he’s headed to, glancing back once over his shoulder before the crowd swallows him.

I stand there for a beat, watching him go. Seemed like a decent enough guy, honestly. Not a creep about it, just confused and curious, same way anyone would be. Maybe we could be friends, under different circumstances. Under circumstances where I could actually explain what’s happening without sounding clinically insane.

More to think about later. Everything is later. My whole life right now is a series of things I’ll deal with later, stacking up like dishes in a sink.

I turn toward the stairs and start climbing.

I take the stairs two at a time, weaving through the current of bodies flowing in every direction. Second floor. Green lockers swap back to blue. Numbers climb—204, 206—wrong way. I double back, and there it is. Room 202.

The door’s already open. I step inside and immediately clock the difference from Ms. Vaughn’s classroom. Where she had energy, had presence, had a whiteboard already covered in neat handwriting, this room feels like it’s been holding its breath for years. Fluorescent light buzzes overhead with that faint electrical whine that burrows into the back of your skull. Posters on the walls look sun-faded, corners curling away from tape that lost its will to stick sometime around the Obama administration.

The teacher sits behind his desk like he grew there. Middle-aged, salt-and-pepper hair thinning on top, wearing a suit that looks like it’s been through as many Monday mornings as he has. Jacket wrinkled at the elbows. Tie loosened to a point where it’s more of a suggestion than an accessory. He’s staring at something on his desk, with the glazed expression of a man who stopped caring about first impressions around the same time his hairline started retreating.

He doesn’t look up.

“Hey,” I say, stopping in front of his desk. “I’m new. Just transferred in.”

Nothing. I hold up my printed schedule.

He glances at it. And I mean glances, eyes flick to the paper for maybe a full second before sliding back to wherever they were before.

“Textbooks.” He points one finger toward a bookshelf near the window without lifting his hand off the desk. “Grab one.”

“What about missed work? I’m a week behind.”

“Read the first chapter.”

That’s it. That’s all I get. No welcome speech, no introduction to the class, no offer to go over material after school. Just read the first chapter delivered with the enthusiasm of a man ordering his fourth coffee of the morning.

And honestly? Fine. I’m not a history guy. Never have been. Dates and dead people and wars fought over land that got divided up and fought over again, it all blurs into the same gray soup after a while. If this teacher wants to phone it in, that works for me. One less adult I have to manage today.

I grab a textbook from the shelf, heavy, hardcover, smells like dust and old paper, and scan the room. A few students are already seated, scattered across rows of desks identical to the ones in Ms. Vaughn’s room. More are filtering in through the door behind me, backpacks slung over shoulders, conversations half-finished from the hallway carrying in with them.

Back corner. That’s my spot. Same instinct as last period, put as much distance between me and the front of the room as the architecture allows. I drop into the chair, set the textbook on the desk, and flip it open. Chapter one. Something about colonial foundations and the roots of American governance. Thrilling.

But it’s something to do, and right now something to do beats sitting here while every girl in the room locks onto me like a heat-seeking missile. I keep my eyes on the page. Words. Sentences. Paragraphs about British mercantilism and colonial charters. I read them. I don’t retain much, but I read them, and that’s enough to keep my head down while the room fills.

Students keep trickling in. Chairs scrape. Someone laughs too loud near the door. A girl two rows up turns in her seat and I catch the soft unfocused stare in my peripheral vision, don’t look up, don’t engage, just keep reading about the Stamp Act or whatever this is. The strategy from last period was a disaster. This period, the plan is simple: be invisible. Read the book. Don’t make eye contact with anyone.

It’s working, too. For about ninety seconds.

“Pray, move—thou art in my seat.”

I look up.

A girl stands at the end of my row, staring down at me. But staring isn’t quite right. Most girls today have looked at me like I’m something they want to unwrap. This girl is looking at me like I’m something stuck to the bottom of her combat boot.