Chapter 1
It was 4:02 pm. Russ was out front, wiping down his holographic car like he did most afternoons. Aerie pretended not to look, but today, for the first time ever, she actually noticed him; his gold chain, his fresh fade, the way the purple paint shimmered when he leaned over the hood. She’d lived here seven months, and still hadn’t said a single word to him. Her best friend Dracey talked to him all the time. Aerie just watched from the outside. She didn’t know why seeing him today made her feel strange inside. Maybe it was just the day she’d had. Maybe it was something else.
Her mind drifted back to that morning, to the moment she’d begged not to go to school…
It was that feeling of not wanting to do something you have to do anyway… When your stomach rolls over itself and your chest feels heavy, like you swallowed a stone. You drag yourself forward even though every part of you wants to stay still. The tears get tucked away, your breath goes thin and shallow, and you go into autopilot. You’ll live. But it still hurts.
Seven months in, and every day still felt like the first.
Aerie sat in the passenger seat of her mom’s car, crying. She didn’t want to go to school. She knew she’d be back tomorrow no matter what, school was like prison that way, but today she just couldn’t bear it.
“Please… please, I don’t want to go today,” she whispered, head down.
“You have to go. You have to,” her mom said, tired and frustrated. She wasn’t going to cave.
Aerie wiped her face, even though the tears kept slipping out.
“Okay,” she sobbed. “I’m going. I just need a minute. I don’t want anyone to know I was crying.”
She stepped out, shut the door, and lifted her chin. Her throat stayed swollen. Anxiety buzzed under her skin as she walked toward first period.
English blurred past. The teacher acted like every kid was a personal inconvenience, and Aerie sat in the back trying to disappear. She didn’t speak. She didn’t want to be seen. She just wanted the clock to move.
History wasn’t much different. The room felt like the inside of an aluminum can, and the baked‑Bill‑Maher teacher droned through the lesson while Aerie drifted from desk to desk like a ghost.
Math gave her one small flicker of warmth. Roxanne sat beside her, all tight blouse and thin eyebrows, and behind Aerie was a nerdy girl who drew really well. The girl tapped her shoulder and held out a sketch of Mick Delgado in his superhero costume.
“What do you think?” she asked.
“That’s really neat,” Aerie said.
“I got Mick to autograph it,” the girl added proudly.
“That’s really cool.”
For a moment, Aerie felt something gentle, a tiny connection, before the day swallowed her again.
Second Lunch. Aerie sat with Jenny, a girl from drama class. They found a hidden spot behind some bushes, away from everyone else.
“Have you ever tried to kill yourself?” Jenny asked, peeling an orange. She looked soft and bundled, like an eskimo.
Aerie blinked. “Yeah… kind of. Have you?”
“Yes,” Jenny said with a shy smile that made her eyes slant even more. “You know that blue stuff, Downy?”
“The stuff you wash your clothes with?”
“I drank it, thinking it would kill me.”
Aerie’s mouth fell open. “What did it do?”
“Maybe I didn’t drink enough. It just made my stomach hurt. It burned!” Jenny laughed.
“Oh wow,” Aerie laughed.
“How did you try?” Jenny asked, like suicide was a drug you could sample.
“I drank baby oil,” Aerie admitted quietly. “It didn’t do anything. I was really young and thought it would.”
“I’ve thought about cutting myself, but blood makes me faint,” Jenny said, still smiling.
Aerie realized the smile was how Jenny hid her pain.
“Me too. I can’t handle blood.” She paused for a few seconds. “Are you okay?” she asked Jenny.
“Yeah. I don’t think I’d try it again. It was just a bad time.”
“Yeah, me too,” Aerie said.
She liked Jenny. It was their first time hanging out, and for once she felt like she could be herself without judgment.
P.E. was awful. Aerie couldn’t hit the volleyball over the net. Her arms were too skinny, and every time she tried to bump the ball like the other girls, she slapped it sideways. Her skin burned red. Embarrassment stacked on itself until she stopped trying.
Drama was a small relief. Jenny again. Fifty minutes where she didn’t feel completely alone.
The final bell rang and the prisoners were released. Every step off campus reminded her she’d be back tomorrow. “See you in fifteen hours,” the flagpole seemed to say.
Her best friend Dracey walked up wearing her maroon bomber jacket around her elbows. Something Neanderthal clung to Dracey, something tough, something boyish. Her bob‑length noodly hair hung down, with two small front pigtails sticking out like horns.
As they crossed the parking lot, Dracey looked Aerie up and down.
“What are you wearing?” she asked, mouth open. “What are you, five?”
Aerie rolled her eyes and yanked her backpack higher. She was used to comments like that. If her pants were too tight, her jacket outdated, her shoes not brand‑name, Dracey made sure she knew.
They walked nearly two miles through busy streets, railroad tracks, the high school field. They stopped for water at the high school mall.
On the way out, Dracey paused at a mural of 1800s Quakers. The old man in the middle, sitting with his legs wide open, caught her attention.
“He looks like that old guy from Poltergeist,” Dracey said.
“Yeah,” Aerie agreed. “Creepy.”
Dracey pinched her gum off her lip and stuck it between the old man’s legs.
“Wait, hold up,” she said, shaping the gum into something obscene.
Aerie laughed so hard she couldn’t breathe.
“I’ll see ya later,” Dracey said, peeling off toward her apartment once they got home.
Aerie continued up the pathway toward her side of the building. Sunlight wavered through the leaves.
That’s when her steps slowed because she saw Russ outside, wiping down his car. He wore black satin basketball shorts and no shirt. A gold chain hung around his neck. His light brown hair diminished into a blond fade.
He glanced up and smiled, quick, bright, friendly, then went back to polishing the purple holographic paint.
It was too much swag for Aerie to handle. She gave him a tiny, awkward smile, but he was already focused on his wheels.
She didn’t know why she kept looking at him wiping down his car. Russ wasn’t new; she’d seen him around for months, but something about him in the sunlight, focused and unbothered, made her chest feel strange. Maybe it was the way the purple paint shimmered. Maybe it was the way he moved, calm, confident, like nothing in the world bothered him. Maybe it was just that she’d had a long, awful day and he was the first thing that didn’t make her feel small.
Whatever it was, it stuck to her.
She didn’t know this was the summer everything would change. She didn’t know she’d replay this moment in her head later, wondering why it mattered. She only knew she felt something she couldn’t describe.
