Chapter One
CHAPTER
one
It was a crisp fall day in Lubbock, Texas, and Elliott was in his room making his way through his normal morning routine before heading out to meet his best friend for school.
He gave his reflection a nod of approval as he skimmed over his button-up shirt, navy blue tie, dark jeans, and his best pair of Chuck Taylor’s. His mom, Anne, had given him the tie and shoes for Christmas and he had treasured them ever since he opened the wrapping paper.
Elliott adjusted his black-framed glasses, grabbed his backpack, and pressed his ear up against his bedroom door. When he heard nothing but silence, he knew his dad had left for work and his mom was downstairs.
“Right on time,” he whispered to himself as he snuck toward the staircase.
Elliott stood on the stairs, listening to his mom sip at her coffee in the kitchen. He knew she wouldn’t leave the kitchen for another two or three minutes, so he did what he usually did at this time; he waited.
Out of the corner of his eye, Elliott could see the photos that taunted him every day. His dad, Jim, in his “glory days” when he was on the football team. Elliott rolled his eyes at the voice in his head that said, “If I wouldn’t have torn my meniscus during that final game in college, I would have gone pro.”
He moved down a few more steps and listened to the clinking of the coffee mug as his mom, Anne, placed it in the sink. She hummed to herself as she strolled out of the kitchen and moved down the hallway toward her powder room.
“See ya,” he whispered.
Elliott scurried down the steps and through the front door to stand on the sidewalk and wait for his friends Dan and Lee.
“Hey!” Dan’s voice said from behind him.
Elliott turned to see his best friend walking solo down the fence-lined sidewalk.
“Hey,” Elliott replied. “Where’s Lee?”
“Not sure. She texted and said that she would just meet us at school.”
“Nice to see you got your Star Trek sweatshirt back from your dad.”
Dan’s red hair fell over his freckled-face as he looked down with a smile. “Yeah. I convinced him that today was Star Trek day at school, so he pulled it out of the closet and gave it back to me. I’ll be hiding it in my locker from now on. I’m never gonna lose this baby again!” he said and pulled the sweatshirt up to his lips for an exaggerated kiss.
The two of them began walking their usual path to the middle school and, as always, Dan did most of the talking. He managed to fill the majority of their walk with a very detailed description of the contents from the magazines he found under his older brother’s mattress.
Before Elliott knew what was happening, he was being pushed into the bushes in front of the school.
“What the hell, Dan?” Elliott grumbled. Dan just looked toward the school as he climbed into the bushes behind him. “Oh, great.”
“Yeah,” Dan replied. “It’s game day.”
Both of them let out a hard breath before they shrugged their backpacks off and sat down among the bushes.
“We’re going to have to go our usual route into the school,” Dan said. “No use reliving the last few times we got caught by them. My ribs hurt for days.”
“I hate these clowns. I don’t understand why they feel the need to practice their right-hook on us.”
Dan pointed at the group. “Look, the matching jerseys are all distracted by the cheerleaders. It’s now or beat down.”
They tripped over each other as they made a run out of the bushes and toward the back of the school. Almost out of breath, they reached the door and managed to make it inside to their lockers.
“Is your presentation today or tomorrow?” Dan asked him as he stuffed his text books into his backpack.
“Tomorrow. Hopefully my project is just as good as everyone else’s.”
“Dude, don’t be nervous. They wouldn’t have placed you, a freshman, in the senior science class if you couldn’t handle it. You’re a friggin genius!”
Elliott grinned at Dan, already feeling a little better about himself. “That’s true,” he said sheepishly.
“I’ll catch you after second period. I may just come hang at your place for a while after school today so I don’t have to listen to my sister and her friends blaring N’SYNC over and over. Don’t they know they haven’t been cool for about ten years?”
“Don’t tell my sister that,” Elliott countered. “She will rip your head off.”
The boys bumped fists and headed in opposite directions toward their classes. After taking only a few steps, Elliott took a deep breath and held it for a moment.
“Oh crap,” Elliott mumbled.
He kept his eyes toward the wall and didn’t let them make contact with the eyes of the oncoming foot traffic. The trophies that filled the glass cases in their high school hallways had an annoying resemblance to the ones that his dad had stacked on the mantle in their living room.
Suddenly, Elliott felt like he was tumbling forward and couldn’t catch himself before his books and folders spread across the floor in front of him. Laughter filled the hallway as Elliott looked up. He watched the football team and their ring leader, Levi, go prancing down the hall swapping high fives.
Organizing his things back into his folders, he readjusted his glasses on his face and whispered, “At least all they did was trip me.”
~
Elliott met Dan at their lockers to swap out text books after second period. They both gave each other the up and down and looked over each other’s shoulders.
“She’s not with you?” Dan asked Elliott.
“No, I haven’t seen her all day.” Elliott replied.
The boys exhaled and nodded at each other as they tightened the straps on their backpacks and snuck out the back door to the one place they knew they could find her.
Lee liked to hide under the bleachers next to the field instead of showing up for class. She still managed to get straight A’s in every course, but was told by the guidance counselor that she would fail if she continued to miss school. As the boys got closer to the bleachers, they recognized the plaid backpack and felt a wash of relief running over them.
“Dude, where were you this morning?” Dan asked her as they approached her hiding spot.
Lee held up a finger to quiet them as she finished the paragraph in the book she was reading. She slid the bookmark into place and closed the story, looking up at her best friends.
“I was here,” she said plainly. “I told you I would meet you at school, didn’t I?”
“Well, yeah, but-,”
“And I’m here,” she said, interrupting Dan.
“So, why didn’t you want to walk with us?” Dan asked her.
She stood and brushed the grass from her jeans. As she rolled up the sleeves on her jean jacket, she revealed the four watches that she wore on her wrist. Her strawberry-blonde hair was pulled up in its usual ponytail, showing off her freckled-face. Her ripped jeans were rolled up at the bottoms and the white laces on her Chuck Taylor’s were done up in a fancy pattern that she had been trying to perfect for over a week.
“It’s not that I didn’t want to walk with you. It’s just that I was already here.”
Dan noticed something sticking out of Lee’s backpack and grabbed for it. As he undid the zipper and pulled the blanket into plain view, his eyes met hers with a look of concern.
“You stayed here again, didn’t you?”
She snatched the blanket out of Dan’s hands and stuffed it back into her bag.
“I’ll inform you of my accommodation plans when it’s a necessity for you to know,” she replied.
Dan and Elliott watched her storm past them and head toward the school.
“It’s her mom again,” Dan mumbled.
“Yeah,” Elliott replied. “Or her mom’s king pin boyfriend.”
