“You’re not weird enough to be a geek. Not big enough to be a jock. You’re too smart to be a burner. With the way you dress, you’ll never join the FBI” (a David-created acronym standing for Fashion Before Intellect). “You are a unique beast among the herd, and they are bound to see you as a predator or prey.”
Great, Jonathan thought, standing up with his books clutched in his arms. Obviously the herd had decided on prey.
At least his humiliation was complete for the day. The Roid Patrol never struck twice, and his history teacher, Mrs. Locke, was cool—as boring to watch as a snail, but fine. Furthermore, it was Friday. That meant he had two full days to put Westland High out of his head, before he once again had to step into its dangerous halls.
Of course, that meant two days without seeing Emma O’Neil. That would suck, but at least his shoulder would have a chance to heal.
He couldn’t know that certain events would occur over the weekend—events that would change Westland High and his life forever.
Jonathan’s home was an apartment in a vast, flat complex north of town. The single-story buildings sat like a hedge maze on a rise above a rocky, nasty field of scrub grass. The white paint on the apartment’s walls was graying and glum. It had been that way since his father moved the family in four years ago. It needed a fresh coat of white. But the apartment complex management didn’t care, and his father didn’t believe in “putting money into other people’s property.” Truth was, his father didn’t believe in putting money much of anywhere that didn’t include a betting window or a bar. Jonathan gave up on any hope of an allowance when he was ten years old. Instead, he worked odd jobs in the summers until he turned sixteen; then he filled out an application and was hired by Bentley Books in the mall, working a couple of nights a week and Saturdays.
The job wasn’t going to make him rich or even raise his standard of living. He saved his money for the sole purpose of getting out of town once he graduated from Westland High. Oh, he might crack into his account if Emma agreed to go out on a date with him, but likely that would signal the apocalypse or something. Though his meager savings were not likely to pay for four full years of college, it was a start.
Jonathan walked into the apartment. The lights were off, and he wondered if his father forgot to pay the bill again, or if his mother just never got around to turning them on. He tested the light switch. The half-globe fixture in the middle of the living room came on, and he sighed with relief.
In his room he dropped his worn knapsack on the bed and went to his desk. He lifted the phone from its cradle and heard his mother’s voice, thin and distorted, skittering over the line. He could tell by how fast she was talking that his aunt, Judy, was on the other end. His mom was always on the phone with her. Every day. Of course, the length of the call depended on how pissed off with his father she was. When William Barnes did something epically stupid—about once a week these days—Jonathan’s mother could tie up the phone line for hours, which meant he could forget about checking his email or IM-ing with David.
“Splentastic,” he muttered, shaking his head.
Jonathan turned on his computer and waited for the old machine to boot up. The Dell was a hand-me-down. It was his brother Hugh’s computer, left behind when he took a job on a fishing boat in Alaska with a brand-new Mac laptop he’d won in an internet contest. The Dell wasn’t bad, and David had come over one afternoon to install about a thousand bucks’ worth of software. It wasn’t state of the art, but it would do.
Jonathan was used to making do.
From The Book of Adrian, Fri. Oct. 7:
It’s all about fear. Nothing is so frightening as being powerless. In order to feel control, they humiliate and abuse that which they perceive as different. They bolster their own fragile egos, their own worth, by humiliation and attack. It doesn’t matter if the target is as small as an ant, being fried by a magnifying glass, or as fragile as a butterfly whose wings they tear away with the glee of a child opening a gift. I own this, they think. I control this, and in those moments of petty destruction, they affirm their mastery over something, because deep down, way down where the fear of the dark lives, they know they control nothing.
But I do.
And now, I hold the magnifying glass. I grasp their fragile wings between my fingers.
Isn’t that right, Mr. Weaver?
2
The usual weekend crowd gathered at Bentley Books, wandering through the aisles of new releases and guzzling coffee in the café at the back. Near a cart of books that needed to be shelved in the Self Help section, Jonathan and David stood looking at a hottie in tight jeans bent over to retrieve a diet book from the bottom shelf.
“Explain this to me,” David said. “She weighs like five pounds, and she’s going to buy a diet book?”
“Skeletal is still the rage.”
“Which book do you think she’s going to take?”
“I don’t know,” Jonathan said, closely eyeing the denim hugging the girl’s backside. She shifted her weight in a motion that went straight to Jonathan’s head. “But I hope it takes her a long, long time to find it.”
David laughed and swatted Jonathan’s shoulder. “Amen,” he said.
Whereas Jonathan was small of build and thin as a reed, David was a hefty kid with a buzz cut, a round face, wire-framed glasses, and pale blue eyes. They’d been friends for more than three years, and until David’s parents had sent him off to Melling, they were nearly inseparable. After Jonathan was hired by Bentley Books, David applied for a position himself, though he certainly didn’t need the money. David’s dad created software for companies to streamline manufacturing protocols or something like that. David’s college tuition was secured long before his birth.
“It’s kind of hypnotic,” David said, cocking his head to the side as if the motion would give him a new perspective on the girl’s backside. “It’s like a perfect denim buoy, floating in the ocean, and I must reach out and grab it.” To emphasize his point, David extended his hands and clutched at the air like he was testing the firmness of two water balloons. “It’s a matter of life and death. It’s a hormonal imperative.”
“Explain that to the ambulance driver while he’s icing down your crotch, because she will knee you so hard you’ll know what your children would taste like.”
“SAW,” David said with a laugh. SAW was David-speak for sick and wrong.
“We should get back to work,” Jonathan said, but made no move to change his position against the cart.
Even when the girl found the book she was looking for and stood up, he kept looking at her. She was thin. Probably too thin. But Jonathan had to admit she was the kind of girl he dreamed about. She had the same figure as Emma, and he liked that. Next to a girl like her, he wouldn’t look quite as much like a stick figure.
“Come back,” David whispered when the girl disappeared behind a row of shelves. “Must…touch…your…”
“Gentlemen?” Both Jonathan and David turned, startled.
Stewart Houseman, the assistant manager, stood beside them. Stewart was a chubby man in his forties with short graying hair and skin the color of cookie dough. The fat in his face weighed down his features, making him look perpetually tired. His eyes were clear though, sharp, and right now they looked amused.
“Hey, Stewart,” David said. “We were just taking a little break.”