Chapter 1
Early January
Devin
It only took one trip to haul my luggage upstairs—not that I had much to begin with. I claimed the bedroom farthest to the north: a small, unfamiliar space. The gray, worn-out carpet underfoot, the rigid walls, the peaked white ceiling, and the brown-laced curtains framing the window—everything felt foreign. Portraits of the former inhabitants still adorned the walls, relics of a lineage long gone. I couldn't help but wonder if this house held secrets it wasn’t ready to share, if somewhere in these hushed corners, the past still breathed. There was only one modest bathroom on the first floor, one I’d now be sharing with my parents. I used to have one of my own. I already missed it more than I wanted to admit.
Still, I was trying not to dwell on what I’d left behind. The real challenge lay ahead—this “fresh start,” as my father called it. As if change were a sunrise and not an avalanche. Transferring schools in the middle of a semester wasn’t a bold new beginning; it was exile. I had left behind familiarity, routine, people who at least knew my name—even if they rarely used it. Now, I was stepping into someone else’s story mid-chapter, uninvited and poorly introduced. Tomorrow wouldn’t go down in history as the hardest day in history—but try telling that to my nervous system, which had already scheduled a meltdown just in case.
The temptation to blend in was real. Disappear, assimilate, camouflage myself into the wallpaper. But then again, invisibility comes with the minor side effect of being entirely alone. Standing out, on the other hand, paints a target on your back and sends invitations to ridicule. What a delightful buffet of options.
It was a fragile equilibrium I had to navigate. Fitting in with the popular crowd wasn’t on the table. Their world always struck me as hollow, driven by inflated egos and a hunger for attention masked as charisma. I didn’t have the energy to keep up with fake laughs, hormonal power games, or the sheer volume of hair product they seemed to require. Their confidence reeked of something you couldn’t scrub off with soap. Not that I was exactly a paragon of self-esteem.
Once I had shoved my clothes into drawers with all the enthusiasm of a funeral director, I headed downstairs to wash off the journey. The mirror greeted me with the usual dispassion: high cheekbones I never earned, skin paler than honesty, and eyes the color of disappointment with a violet twist. At least there was no acne—a rare win.
My hair was black enough to make me look poetic or tragic, depending on the angle and lighting. The piercings stared back like punctuation marks in a sentence I had never finished—seven of them. Left ear: three. Right ear: one. Nose, eyebrow, tongue: check, check, and unfortunately, check. And across my right shoulder, a raven poised above a ticking clock watched in silence, inked into me like a shadow that always knew the hour. Subtle, I know. You could say I have a brand.
Sports were never in the cards for me. My body was more ‘still-life sketch’ than ‘action figure,’ a walking anatomy study with too much edge and not enough meat. Athletes ran laps. I ran from social situations. By nightfall, the house creaked like it was bracing for something—probably me. My thoughts circled, sharp and ravenous.
Every possible outcome of tomorrow clawed at my gut. Sleep came in fits. When I finally dozed off, it was only to wake choking on a scream I hadn’t meant to let out. Cold sweat. Heart racing like it was trying to escape. Breathing like I had forgotten how.
I rolled out of bed and stared around the room, half-expecting it to explain itself. It didn’t. The silence was less comforting than I had hoped, but at least it was honest. The dark outside the window offered no solace. It just…watched. Eventually, morning tripped over the horizon like it owed me an apology.
The alarm buzzed like it had a vendetta. I silenced it with the grace of someone absolutely not ready to engage with reality. Then I pulled the covers back over my head like they were armor. I knew staying in bed wouldn’t save me. But for a few extra minutes, it made an excellent lie. Of course, my dreams of a quiet, unnoticed morning were swiftly extinguished by my parents' relentless optimism.
My mother's voice wafted up from downstairs, chirping some variation of 'Rise and shine!' like it wasn't the first day of my slow, inevitable social demise. With a sigh that conveyed precisely how thrilled I was to exist, I dragged myself out of bed. Breakfast passed without catastrophe—no sudden confessions, no surprise interventions, just my mother offering cheerful well-wishes like I was off to summer camp instead of emotional purgatory.
I thanked her because apparently manners still matter even when your insides feel like a bag of broken glass. My father and I drove in near silence, save for his gentle stream of 'how to act like a functioning member of society' pointers. I nodded at appropriate intervals. The sky was insultingly perfect—blue, cloudless, like the world hadn't heard I was emotionally unwell.
By the time we pulled into the school parking lot, my stomach had tied itself into an origami crane and then promptly lit itself on fire. Dad gave me a hearty pat on the shoulder and some parting wisdom: “Have fun! Make some friends!” Right. I took a breath like a condemned man and stepped into the building.
The principal's office had all the charm of a dentist's waiting room: bland carpet, ticking clock, and chairs that somehow managed to be both too firm and too soft. The man behind the desk—balding, bespectacled, unreasonably chipper—looked up. 'Who are you?'
Solid greeting. I blinked. “Uh… Devin Duvet. I'm new.”
“Of course you are.” He shuffled papers with practiced disinterest. “Here’s your schedule, map, and locker combo. Try not to get lost.”
'Thanks,” I mumbled, already wondering how long it’d take to legally drop out. I wandered through the halls, pretending to memorize the map but mostly just trying to keep my breathing steady. Which is probably why I didn’t see the floor leap up and assault me. One second I was upright; the next, I was intimately acquainted with the linoleum.
I braced for laughter, insults, the usual symphony of teenage derision. But instead—“Oh my God, I’m so sorry! Are you okay?” I looked up, startled. The guy was already scrambling to grab my stuff, his expression a blend of horror and frantic friendliness. He stuck out a hand, hauling me up before I could even process what was happening.
“I… uh…” he fumbled, then offered a lopsided grin. “I’m Jordan. Your new, right? It was so absurdly earnest that for a second, I almost forgot how much I hated this place.
“Uh… yeah,” I said, clasping his hand. “Devin. Nice to meet you.” The bell pierced through the air like a judgment. Jordan offered a quick wave and bolted toward his class with the energy of someone who hadn’t yet learned to be wary of mornings. The classroom I entered was as inspiring as a beige waiting room—average size, average lighting, average smell of dry-erase markers and something vaguely sterile.
What it lacked in personality, it made up for in scrutiny. Every student turned to look at me as if I’d wandered in wearing a traffic cone on my head. Not quite the warm welcome. The teacher introduced me with the obligatory “Help him feel at home.” spiel, then sent me to the back, as if I was being placed in storage.
I kept my gaze locked on the warped wood grain of the desk as if it might whisper back a survival plan. Even from the rear of the room, I could still feel their eyes on me—curious, suspicious, maybe even predatory. When the bell rang again, I stood with the cautious speed of someone dodging invisible landmines. And yet, there he was—Jordan, in all his green-haired, walking-highlighter glory.
“Hey, Devin,” he grinned.
“Hey… um, Jordan, right?” I asked, already knowing but pretending to double-check—like saying it too easily might make me seem too eager.
“Yeah! When’s your next class?”
I glanced at my schedule. “History.”
He perked up. “Same! C’mon—I’ll show you the way!”
“Thanks,” I murmured. The rest of the morning blurred into a mosaic of locker combinations, hallway shortcuts, and Jordan’s enthusiastic commentary. For someone I’d just met, he was oddly determined to keep me tethered to something resembling sanity. Too cheerful by half, but not in a way that felt fake—just… unguarded.
By the time we made it to the cafeteria, I almost believed I wasn’t entirely alone. That illusion shattered the second I saw him. He was nearly hidden at the edge of the crowd, a wild cascade of cream-colored hair shielding most of his face—except for the eyes. Emerald, startling, like spring had taken refuge inside them.
And just like that, the noise of the lunchroom fell away. He wore a pair of faded blue tweeds that had clearly seen better days, their threads clinging to dignity by a handful of stitches. His maroon hoodie, far too large for his wiry frame, hung from his shoulders like a curtain trying not to draw attention.
He prodded listlessly at something unrecognizable on his tray with a fork, more sculptor than eater. “Devin,” Jordan said with a grin that never tired, “meet my friend Gage. Gage—this is the new kid I was telling you about.”
Gage flicked his eyes up just long enough to acknowledge my existence, then promptly resumed his abstract deconstruction of cafeteria cuisine. I slipped into the seat beside him. Jordan, ever the diplomat of awkward dynamics, slid into place across from us and launched into a freeform monologue about—well, I stopped tracking after topic three.
Gage hadn’t taken a single bite. His fingers toyed with the frayed edges of his sleeves, knuckles tense, his expression somewhere between absent and mildly inconvenienced by reality. There was a weight in his silence, as if every sound in the room passed through him but failed to touch. I found myself watching him more than listening to Jordan, which probably explains why I startled when Jordan’s voice cut a little too close. “Right?”
“Wait—what?” I blinked, scrambling back to the moment. I felt heat rising in my face, guilt prickling behind my ears.
“I said we’re all going to be great friends, right?” he repeated, not unkindly. I nodded, more out of reflex than conviction. Gage smirked—not with malice, but like someone who’d spotted a glitch in the simulation and was debating whether to report it. I wasn’t sure if I should feel mocked or understood. Maybe both.
The bell rang, its tone sharp enough to fracture the delicate rhythm that had somehow begun to settle. Lunch dissolved. Classes resumed. I didn’t see Gage again until the end of the day. They were standing near the edge of the school building. Or rather—Jordan was standing and talking, full of bouncing limbs and bright-eyed energy.
Gage leaned against the brick in a way that said he’d like to phase into it entirely. When Jordan spotted me, his eyes lit up like a welcome-home sign had just unfurled in his head. “Devin!” he called, waving me over like I wasn’t already walking in that direction. I smirked, rubbed at the back of my neck, and offered a half-cough in lieu of social grace.
Gage responded with that same sly smile—like I was his favorite episode of a strange show he didn’t want to admit he liked. I couldn’t tell if I was being laughed at or invited in. “Do you guys want to hang out at my place?” Jordan asked.
“I can’t; I’ve got to head straight home…” Gage’s voice was softer than I expected—low, almost melodic, as if it didn't want to take up space. It was the first time I’d heard him speak, and somehow it fit him perfectly.
“What about you, Devin?”
“Sure,” I replied. “Beats going home and unpacking.”
“Yeah!” Jordan lit up like someone had just handed him a trophy for basic social success. We set off toward his house. Gage split off halfway, melting into the opposite direction like a ghost that belonged to another story. I won’t lie; part of me had hoped he’d come with us.
Jordan's house was only a few blocks away, and soon we were stepping into a small, lived-in home. He closed the door behind us with the excitement of someone introducing a stray animal to the family. A female voice called out from another room. “Jordan, is that you?” She appeared a second later, her eyes widening at the sight of me. “Jordan, who’s this?”
“This is my friend Devin. He’s new—I met him today!”
I’d never met anyone who radiated such perpetual motion. He clearly hadn’t graduated from childhood—he’d just added a growth spurt and more words. I briefly sent my sympathies to his parents. “This is my sister, Lidia,” he added. Her hair was shoulder-length, dark like mine, but streaked with icy blue.
Her fashion sense seemed to echo my own, down to the layered blacks and heavy boots. Her sage green eyes were a mirror of her brother’s—though hers carried a more calculated glint. “Cute friend,” she said, and I felt her gaze sweep over me like I was on display. I’ll admit, she was attractive—as far as girls go—but she wasn’t my flavor of chaos.
Before I could unpack that thought, a hand clamped around my wrist, and I was halfway up the stairs. Her eyes never left me. “Damn, Jordan,” I muttered, laughing, “chill before you rip my arm off.”
“Sorry!” he said, looking sheepish. His cheeks flared crimson. “Want to see my video games?” He was impossible to dislike—grating, yes, like a sugar rush in human form—but oddly comforting, like having a kid brother you didn’t know you needed. And honestly? For the first time today, this place didn’t feel entirely hostile. Maybe even… tolerable.
