Chapter 1
I stared at the large brick building, having been dropped off at the curb without a second thought. The words
Parker County High School
, in crisp white letters was the only embellishment on the building.
A small wave of panic tickled my soul. I was left alone to face a crowd of the most judgmental demographic of people on Earth. I pulled out my class schedule and read my assigned classes and their locations for the tenth time.
Avoiding bumping into people while trying to read room numbers was a near impossibility. No one seemed to noticed that I existed, which I was quite content with.
My first class was math, and I found the room without too much trouble. I picked a seat as far back as I could find. After setting my stuff down, I scanned my surroundings and fellow classmates.
One girl appeared as if she was trying to look like an anime character. She wore a pink wig, a lot of eye make-up, making her eyes appear gigantic.
She was videoing herself and poking her cheek with her finger while making a pouty face. Her shirt was cropped short, revealing her flat stomach.
Her skirt was short and black and her long socks ended in the middle of her thigh. She was so skinny I wondered where she kept her organs.
“Hey,” the girl in front of me turned around and smiled. “I’m Brittany.”
“Hi, I'm Casey,” I smiled back. She looked like a typical mean girl from all the high school movies I’d seen, but less 2000’s. She wore high waisted, ripped jeans that looked like a second skin and a green tank top.
Her hair was pulled into a very high ponytail and every hair was perfectly slicked back. Giant hoop earrings hung from her ears and her eye brows were drawn on.
Her face looked perfectly airbrushed and her nose glistened with highlight.
“Are you new? Where you from?”
“I’m from here actually, lived here my whole life.”
“Oh,” her brow furrowed. “But I’ve never seen you at school before.”
“Yeah, it’s my first year.”
“What grade are you?”
“I’m a senior.”
She glanced at her shiny fake nails. “So, were you homeschooled or something?”
“Yeah, I was. But now I’m being forced to go to real school.”
“Oh, yeah, so you won’t be socially weird or something?”
“Yeah, I guess.”
“What’s your snap? I’ll add you.”
“I only have Instagram.”
“Wow, no tiktok even?”
“Nope,” I told her. She must think I’m a total loser weirdo.
“Well at least you have insta. I’m actually an Instagram influencer.”
“Oh, wow. Cool,” I gave her a grin. I didn’t care.
“My handle is dancingqueen24.”
“Okay,” I reluctantly pulled out my phone and pulled up Instagram. She watched me intently until I found and followed her.
“Yay! Now I have 21,451 followers,” she scrolled on her phone.
“Wow, you don’t post a whole lot, Casey.”
“Yeah, not really.”
“And there’s like no selfies. I can give you some insta tips if you want. I can double your follower count in like a week.”
“No thanks, I don’t want random strangers looking at my account.”
“Okay, works for me. I don’t need you as competition anyway.”
“What?”
“Oh, well, you’re really curvy. You have big boobs. They’re bigger than mine.”
I pulled my coat tighter around myself, squirming at her volume more than anything.
“Shhh…” I told her. She laughed.
“Do you have a boyfriend? I could hook you up with someone,” she looked around the room and pointed at a guy in the front row.
“What about him?”
He had a rat’s nest of curly hair hanging into his shockingly gray eyes. His chin was so pointed he would have to check it to fly on a plane.
He wore a hoodie, shredded jeans, and chunky sneakers. He was tall but looked like a stick figure.
“He’s a tiktoker with like ten thousand followers.”
“He’s not my type.” He was everything wrong with the guys of my generation.
“Oh yeah, he’s totally an f-boy,” she scrolled through her phone.
“I’m not looking for a boyfriend. I doubt I would find someone here I like,” I told her. I actually did want a boyfriend, but I knew a high school boyfriend would be a bad idea.
“I’ll find someone for you.”
I sighed internally. And then I saw it. The furry. It’s giant fox body walked into the room sideways. It waved to a few people and squeezed into a desk too close to mine for comfort.
I must have let what I was thinking onto my face because Brittany laugh.
“Oh, yeah, that’s Xander. She’s a furry.”
“Is she allowed to wear that thing in here?”
“Yeah, she like protested or something last year and forced the principle to let her. She said they were discriminating and not letting her be her authentic self,” she took a discreet picture of Xander and posted it with the caption: loser furry is a fox today.
I bit back a smile, trying to make the chills the furry inflicted on me go away.
Then it turned to look at me. I felt the hair on the back of my neck rising and the fight or flight response kicking in. I quickly stared at my phone, hoping it wouldn’t speak to me.
I saw it wave out of the corner of my eye. I continued to stare at my blank screen.
“Hi,” I heard a muffled voice. I stared harder at my phone, gritting my teeth.
It stood up. It walked over and stood right next to me. I couldn’t ignore it anymore.
“Hi, I’m Xander and I like to play with balls in the yard,” the furry did something similar to jazz hands. I snorted louder than I meant to.
“Are you laughing at me?” the furry asked. I figure that a girl with the name Xander must be the type to get offended easily and I wasn’t ready to deal with that.
“Xander, go away,” Brittany said, not taking her eyes off her phone. I wanted to hug her.
“I just want to know who the new person is and what their pronouns are,” the furry said, gesturing unnaturally.
“Oh my gosh,” I muttered. “My name is Casey and I’m a freaking girl.”
I finally looked up and made eye contact…I guess, with the freaky fox face.
“Hi Casey,” the fox waved. “Are you a furry by any chance?”
I just stared in disbelief until I realized she probably asked everyone that.
“No,” was all I could manage. I looked out the window, feeling deflated. The school day hadn’t even started yet and I was already traumatized. None of the high school movies I’d watched had prepared me for this crap.
“Okay, bye.”
Relief washed over me as the furry waddled back to her desk. The teacher came in, looking like her soul had been sucked out of her long ago.
“Hello everyone, I hope everyone is feeling validated and happy today,” she turned to face the board and began writing mathematical equations.
My heart sank. It looked complicated and math was the one subject I was terrible at.
A girl with short, boyish hair walked quickly into the room. She was a little over weight and wore an oversized hoodie, jeans, and sneakers with an anime character on them.
“Caroline, you’re late,” the teacher said, still writing.
“Sorry, Ms. Martin, Raven was fronting this morning and he didn’t want to go to school,” she said. I guessed Raven was her brother and ‘fronting’ was a new word for throwing a fit.
“Okay everyone, we have a new student-” the teacher stopped when a guy strode into the room.
His long black trench coat billowed around him as he swept past me to the back. His hair was brown and trimmed short. His baby face was marred by a scowl that could curdle milk. His jeans, t-shirt, and military boots were also all black. I was a little worried he might pull out an AR and start peppering the room with bullets.
“Sean, you’re late,” the teacher gave him a glare. “And for the third time this week.”
“Yes, mam, I’m so sorry. I know it’s important I get my daily dose of communist propaganda, gender theory, and revisionist history.”
He had a great guy voice even when it was dripping with sarcasm and a hint of distain.
The teacher bristled. “This is a math class, Mr. Moya.”
“Oh, right. I can’t really tell the difference anymore.”
I glanced over my shoulder at him. He made eye contact with me and I noticed he had hazel eyes. Feeling the blood rushing to my face, I turned back to the teacher. Sean Moya was definitely someone I wanted to get to know.
Throughout the rest of the class, I itched to look back at Sean, but I resisted the urge. The interaction with Sean had made the teacher forget to finish introducing me, so he had no idea who I was. Unfortunately, I was too scared to introduce myself and he didn’t seem like the type to introduce himself to random strangers. I could get Brittany to talk to him, but she would just make things awkward and I didn’t want to be too closely associated with an ‘influencer’.
