Secret Lucidity(19)

“I’m scared.”

“I know you are.”

“What if they—”

“What if they what?”

I drop my head before admitting that my scar bothers me. “My face . . .”

He takes my chin and raises it up. “You mean this face? I lie in bed every night and dream about this face. You’re perfect.”

“I’m not.”

“You are to me.”

I look into eyes so sincere they fool me into believing that everything will be okay. They fool me into believing I’m strong enough to make it through today with my head held high. And when we arrive at school, hand in hand, his strength fools me into believing I’ll survive this unharmed.





FAMILIAR FACES.

Familiar voices.

Familiar spaces.

Familiar everything.

So why do I feel like a stranger? As if this is the first time I’ve stepped foot on these grounds with these people.

They’re scattered about, faces happy, hugging and high-fiving friends they haven’t seen since the previous year.

I already resent them, because I should be them. I should be thrilled to start my senior year. I should be excited to run to my friends and compare schedules to see what classes we will share. To see if we have the same lunch hour so we can make plans to drive off campus to eat now that we’re seniors and finally privileged to have an open campus lunch period.

As we near the entrance to the school, I duck my head down, angling it against Kroy’s chest to conceal my scar. People shout Kroy’s name, happy to see him, but when we pass by and they see me tucked against his side, their voices fade to whispers.

Walking down the halls, I feel like I’m the freak on display as people watch and stare, murmuring amongst each other.

“There’s Linze,” Kroy tells me, and when I look up, I see her down the hall with Kyle.

Kroy calls out to get her attention, and when she sees me, her lips lift in an endearing smile.

“I was wondering where the two of you were,” she says before looking down at our connected hands.

“Bro.” Kyle’s voice booms loudly as he raises his hand in the air, and when Kroy releases his hold on me to clap hands with his buddy, Linze pulls me into a hug.

“Are you two back together?” she quietly asks in my ear.

I step back and shake my head.

“Give me your schedule so we can see what classes we have together.”

I reach into my backpack then hand over the piece of paper. She looks over it and her face lights up. “We have English together right before lunch.”

I force a smile and wish I could go back to the days when figuring out who I would be eating lunch with was my main concern. This year, I’d rather eat by myself.

“You have our lunch hour?” Kyle asks when he overhears Linze.

Kroy looks over my shoulder at my schedule, smiling. “That makes four of us.”

Great. My wish for solitude has been forsaken.

The first bell rings, signaling its five-minute warning before classes start. Kroy is still wearing his smile when he takes my hand in his again. “Come on. I’ll walk you to class. What do you have?”

“Anatomy with Mrs. Beasly.”

When he drops me off and leaves to make it to his class, I stand in the doorway and take a deep breath, sending up a silent prayer that I go unnoticed when I walk in.

Another wish forsaken.

The only empty desk remaining is in the front row, and all eyes turn to me as I walk to it and take my seat. Pulling out my notebook and a pen, I keep my eyes downcast and wonder if my scar is lit up like a neon sign with the number of eyes I feel are on me.

“Hey, Cam,” Ming, a girl who’s also on the swim team, says meekly from the desk behind me.

“Hi, Ming.”

“Is everything okay? You missed the two-a-days.”

“Yeah . . . some things came up, so . . .” I shrug off.

“You coming this afternoon?”

“Yep.”

I turn back to face the front of the room after I tell her my lie, but she’s not given a chance to say anything else to me when the morning announcements come on. The principal’s voice welcomes us back to school and then drones on about hallway procedures and something about a shortage of staff in the cafeteria. But it’s not until his closing remarks that I want to crawl into oblivion and disappear.

“In closing, I’d like for all of us to take a moment of silence in remembrance of one of our school’s greatest assets, Coach Hale.”

I close my eyes the way a child would to feign invisibility, but I know better. I know they’re all staring at me with pity. Feeling sorry for the once outgoing, popular student with a pretty face who is now the town’s sliced-up tale of woe.

The tips of my ears burn while the silence stretches far beyond what’s necessary. Mrs. Beasly, who’s standing at the front of the room, looks at me as if I’m some lost puppy shivering in the freezing rain.

And we’re off to a great start.

After fifty minutes of discussing the class syllabus and going over the required dissections, the bell finally rings, freeing me. But freedom is short-lived when the next bell sentences me to another fifty minutes of hellish torture. It’s a small comfort that Kroy’s in my second period class, but by the time third period starts, I regret not bringing my own car so I could ditch the rest of the day.