The other students have already lost interest now that the show is over. None of them speak to me as they continue past me down the hallway. They’ll clear a path, dodging out of the way and averting their eyes when they see me coming, but they won’t speak. They never speak.
And neither do I.
I’ll hear them chatting with each other as I round a corner, but they always fall quiet the moment I appear and avoid my gaze. So I spend my days at school surrounded by silence.
Silence so oppressive I could drown in it.
And if Vin Cortland ever gets his way, I will.
Two
I choke down my lunch even though I hate cafeteria food. This is the only meal I’m likely to get between now and the end of the weekend. That is one of the few good things about coming to school, we’re poor enough to qualify for the free lunch program, so at least I’m guaranteed a meal.
Only poor kids from the Gulch eat the food served at school. Everyone else has Paleo-inspired bento boxes packed by bored housekeepers while their society mothers sleep off a late-night liquid dinner. Lunches that wouldn’t look out of place on the covers of culinary magazines and usually get dumped in the trashcan in favor of runs off campus, even though we’re not supposed to leave during the lunch period.
The cafeteria is a hive of movement and noise, one of the few places where the cone of silence surrounding me is lifted. Nobody will talk to me, but I can bathe in the glow of their conversation and pretend for a bit that I’m still part of the real world. Sitting in my corner, alone at a table, people seem to forget that I’m even here.
My head is down as I study my battered copy of Antigone over a cold grilled cheese sandwich and stale fries. We’d been given our choice of Greek tragedies to study for the unit and I’d chosen this one, although I already regretted dressing up. The extra credit had seemed worthwhile at the time, but now I’m walking around with a literal noose around my neck.
Antigone had seemed like an appropriate choice at the time. Better to be the woman who killed herself as a moral statement than a pretty bitch whose only purpose was to have men fight over her. At least, that was what I told myself when I picked the play. It’s always easier to pretend you don’t want the things you know you can’t have.
The lunch period is almost over when someone slips into the seat across from me. I don’t have to look up to know who it is. Only one person in this school is brave enough to sit across from me at lunch.
I look up and cast a steely-eyed gaze over my younger brother, Zion, trying to determine if he got high before coming to school. We don’t speak, but words aren’t necessary between us.
When I raise my eyebrows, the meaning is clear. I’m surprised that the administration let him back on campus after his last suspension. I think it was for drug possession this time. He was selling benzodiazepines, that he swears weren’t stolen from Grandpa’s medication drawer, outside of the gym between first and second period.
Zion grins and taps his watch. His most recent punishment must have ended today. He has spent more days out of school than he has inside the building, whether it’s for fighting or truancy or any number of lesser crimes. Our family name is the only thing that keeps him from getting expelled completely, not that it carries much weight these days.
Deception High is the sort of school where fights break out between every class, weapons of all types are confiscated on a daily basis, and the administration is happy if everyone survives to the end of the day. No one is going to jam Zion up for cutting class and dealing a few prescription pills.
But when Principal Friedman needs to make a show of cleaning up the school, my brother always gets rounded up as one of the usual suspects. Living in the Gulch keeps a target on our backs, and it doesn’t help that the two of us stand out like sore thumbs in a place like this.
Our skin is a few shades past the wrong side of tan, and our hair holds curls that are too tight, crossing the boundary line into kinks. We’re the dark marks on this town’s illustrious history. The Milbournes are a founding family, but the money dried up generations ago, and we look just like the cross-bred mutts everyone says we are.
Some people wonder why the rich families on the Bluffs don’t send their kids to the fancy private school a few towns over or try to have the district lines redrawn so they can go to the much better county-run public school.
But I know the answer to that very stupid question:
It’s better to rule in hell than to serve in heaven.
I can tell from the mischievous look in his eyes that my brother didn’t come find me just to be social. His lunch tray only has a pack of cigarettes and a Dr. Pepper on it, so clearly he isn’t here to eat.
He produces a neatly folded piece of paper and waves it under my nose as I just stare at him. Zion likes to play games, he always has. It’s his way of coping with the devastation of our lives, pretending he doesn’t take any of it seriously.
From Jake, he mouths and tosses the folded paper across the table so it lands on my tray.
I open the note, even though it would be a better idea to throw it away. If this Jake guy had even a bit of sense, he would have already forgotten
