LAUREL’S SHOES FLIPPED A CHEERFUL RHYTHM THAT defied her dark mood. As she walked through the halls of Del Norte High, people watched her pass with curious eyes.
After double-checking her schedule, Laurel found the biology lab and hurried to claim a seat by the windows. If she had to be indoors, she wanted to at least see outside. The rest of the class filed in slowly. One boy smiled in her direction as he walked to the front of the classroom and she tried to muster one up in return. She hoped he didn’t think it was a grimace.
A tall, thin man introduced himself as Mr. James and began passing out textbooks. The beginning of the book seemed fairly standard—classifications of plants and animals, she knew those—then it started to move into basic human anatomy. Around page eighty, the text started to resemble a foreign language. Laurel grumbled under her breath. This was going to be a long semester.
As Mr. James called out the roll, Laurel recognized a few names from her first two classes that morning, but it was going to be a long time before she matched even half of them to the faces that surrounded her. She felt lost amid the sea of unfamiliar people.
Her mom had assured her that every sophomore would feel the same—after all, it was their first day in high school too—but no one else looked lost or scared. Maybe being lost and scared was something you got used to after years of public school.
Homeschooling had worked just fine for Laurel over the last ten years; she didn’t see any reason for that to change. But her parents were determined to do everything right for their only child. When she was five, that meant being homeschooled in a tiny town. Apparently, now that she was fifteen, it meant public school in a slightly less tiny town.
The room grew quiet and Laurel snapped to attention when the teacher repeated her name. “Laurel Sewell?”
“Here,” she said quickly.
She squirmed as Mr. James studied her over the rim of his glasses and then moved on to the next name.
Laurel released the breath she’d been holding and pulled out her notebook, trying to draw as little attention to herself as possible.
As the teacher explained the semester’s curriculum, her eyes kept straying to the boy who had smiled at her earlier. She had to stifle a grin when she noticed him sneaking glances at her too.
When Mr. James released them for lunch, Laurel gratefully slid her book into her bag.
“Hey.”
She looked up. It was the boy who had been watching her. His eyes caught her attention first. They were a bright blue that contrasted with the olive tone of his skin. The color looked out of place, but not in a bad way. Kind of exotic. His slightly wavy, light-brown hair was on the longish side and slipped across his forehead in a soft arc.
“You’re Laurel, right?” Below the eyes was a warm but casual smile with very straight teeth. Braces probably, Laurel thought as her tongue unconsciously ran over her own teeth, also quite straight. Lucky for her, naturally straight.
“Yeah.” Her voice caught in her throat and she coughed, feeling stupid.
“I’m David. David Lawson. I—I wanted to say hi. And welcome to Crescent City, I guess.”
Laurel forced a small smile. “Thanks,” she said.
“Want to sit with me and my friends for lunch?”
“Where?” Laurel asked.
David looked at her strangely. “In…the cafeteria?”
“Oh,” she said, disappointed. He seemed nice, but she was tired of being cooped up inside. “Actually, I’m going to go find a place outside.” She paused. “Thank you, though.”
“Outside sounds good to me. Want some company?”
“Really?”
“Sure. I’ve got my lunch in my backpack, so I’m all set. Besides,” he said, hefting his bag onto one shoulder, “you shouldn’t sit alone your first day.”
“Thanks,” she said after a tiny hesitation. “I’d like that.”
They walked out to the back lawn together and found a grassy spot that wasn’t too damp. Laurel spread her jacket on the ground and sat on it; David kept his on. “Aren’t you cold?” he asked, looking skeptically at her jean shorts and tank top.
She slipped out of her shoes and dug her toes into the thick grass. “I don’t get cold very often—at least not here. If we go somewhere with snow, I’m miserable. But this weather’s perfect for me.” She smiled awkwardly. “My mom jokes that I’m cold-blooded.”
“Lucky you. I moved here from L.A. about five years ago and I’m still not used to the temperature.”
“It’s not that cold.”
“Sure,” David said with a grin, “but it’s not that warm either. After our first year here, I looked up the weather records; did you know that the difference between the average temperature in July and December is only fourteen degrees? Now that is messed up.”
They fell silent as David ate a sandwich and Laurel poked at a salad with a fork.
“My mom packed me an extra cupcake,” David said, breaking the silence. “Want it?” He held out a pretty cupcake with blue frosting. “It’s homemade.”
“No, thanks.”
David looked at her salad doubtfully, then back at the cupcake.
Laurel realized what David was thinking and sighed. Why was that the first conclusion everyone always jumped to? Surely she wasn’t the only person in the world who just really liked vegetables. Laurel tapped one fingernail against her can of Sprite. “It’s not diet.”
“I didn’t mean—”
“I’m vegan,” Laurel interrupted. “Pretty strict, actually.”
“Oh, yeah?”
She nodded, then laughed stiffly. “Can’t have too many veggies, right?”
“I guess not.”
David cleared his throat and asked, “So, when did you move here?”
“In May. I’ve been working for my dad a lot. He owns the bookstore downtown.”
“Really?” David asked. “I went in there last week. It’s a great store. I don’t remember seeing you though.”
“That’s my mom’s fault. She dragged me around shopping for school supplies all week. This is the first year I haven’t been homeschooled, and my mom’s convinced I don’t have enough supplies.”
“Homeschooled?”
“Yeah. They’re forcing me to go public this year.”
He grinned. “Well, I’m glad they did.” He looked down at his cupcake for a few seconds before asking, “Do you miss your old town?”
“Sometimes.” She smiled softly. “But it’s nice here. My old town, Orick, is seriously small. Like five-hundred-people small.”
“Wow.” He chuckled. “L.A.’s just a little bigger than that.”
She laughed and choked on her soda.
David looked like he was ready to ask something else, but the bell sounded and he smiled instead. “Can we do this again tomorrow?” He hesitated for a second, then added, “With my friends, maybe?”
Laurel’s first instinct was to say no, but she’d enjoyed David’s company. Besides, socializing more was yet another reason her mom had insisted on public school this year. “Sure,” she said before she could lose her nerve. “That’d be fun.”
“Awesome.” He stood and offered her his hand. He pulled her to her feet and grinned lopsidedly for a minute. “Well, I’ll…see you around, I guess.”
She watched him walk away. His jacket and loose-fitting jeans looked more or less like everyone else’s, but there was a sureness in his walk that set him apart from the crowd. Laurel was envious of that confident stride.
Maybe someday.
Laurel threw her backpack on the counter and slumped onto a barstool. Her mom, Sarah, glanced up from the bread she was kneading. “How was school?”
“It sucked.”
Her hands stopped. “Language, Laurel.”
“Well, it did. And there’s not a better word to describe it.”
“You have to give it some time, hon.”
“Everyone stares at me like I’m a freak.”
“They stare at you because you’re new.”
“I don’t look like everyone else.”
Her mom grinned. “Would you want to?”
Laurel rolled her eyes, but she had to admit her mother had scored a point. She might be homeschooled and a little sheltered, but she knew she looked a lot like the teens in magazines and on television.
And she liked it.
Adolescence had been kind to her. Her almost translucent white skin hadn’t suffered the effects of acne and her blond hair had never been greasy. She was a small, lithe fifteen-year-old with a perfectly oval face and light green eyes. She’d always been thin, but not too thin, and had even developed some curves in the last few years. Her limbs were long and willowy and she walked with a dancer’s grace, despite having never taken lessons.
“I meant I dress differently.”
“You could dress like everyone else if you wanted to.”
“Yeah, but they all wear clunky shoes and tight jeans and like, three shirts all layered on top of each other.”
“So?”
“I don’t like tight clothes. They’re scratchy and make me feel awkward. And really, who could possibly want to wear clunky shoes? Yuck.”
“So wear what you want. If your clothes are enough to drive would-be friends away, they’re not the kind of friends you want.”
Typical mother advice. Sweet, honest, and completely useless. “It’s loud there.”
Her mom stopped kneading and brushed her bangs out of her face, leaving a floury streak on her brow. “Sweetheart, you can hardly expect an entire high school to be as quiet as the two of us all alone. Be reasonable.”
“I am reasonable. I’m not talking about necessary noise; they run around like wild monkeys. They shriek and laugh and whine at the top of their lungs. And they make out at their lockers.”
Her mom rested her hand on her hip. “Anything else?”
“Yes. The halls are dark.”
“They are not dark,” her mom said, her tone slightly scolding. “I toured that entire school with you last week and all the walls are white.”
“But there are no windows, just those awful fluorescent lights. They’re so fake and they don’t bring any real light to the hallways. They’re just…dark. I miss Orick.”
Her mom began shaping the dough into loaves. “Tell me something good about today. I mean it.”
Laurel wandered over to the fridge.
“No,” her mom said, putting up one hand to stop her. “Something good first.”
“Um…I met a nice guy,” she said, stepping around her mom’s arm and grabbing a soda. “David…David something.”
It was her mom’s turn to roll her eyes. “Of course. We move to a new town and I start you in a brand-new school and the first person you latch on to is a guy.”
“It’s not like that.”
“I’m kidding.”
Laurel stood silently, listening to the slap of bread dough on the counter.
“Mom?”
“Yeah?”
Laurel drew in a deep breath. “Do I really have to keep going?”
Her mom rubbed her temples. “Laurel, we’ve been through this already.”
“But—”
“No. We’re not going to argue about it again.” She leaned on the counter, her face close to Laurel’s. “I don’t feel qualified to homeschool you anymore. Truth be told, I probably should have put you in middle school. It was just such a long drive from Orick and your dad was commuting already and…anyway. It’s time.”
“But you could order one of those homeschooling programs. I looked them up online,” Laurel said hurriedly when her mom opened her mouth. “You don’t actually have to do the teaching. The material covers everything.”
“And how much does it cost?” her mom asked, her voice quiet, one eyebrow raised pointedly.
Laurel was silent.
“Listen,” her mom said, after a pause, “in a few months, that’s something we can consider if you still hate school. But until our property in Orick sells, we don’t have the money for anything extra. You know that.”
Laurel looked down at the counter, her shoulders slumped.
The main reason they’d moved to Crescent City in the first place was because her dad had bought a bookstore down on Washington Street. Early in the year, he’d been driving through and saw a For Sale sign on a bookstore that was going out of business. Laurel remembered listening to her parents talk for weeks about what they could do to buy the store—a shared dream since they’d first gotten married—but the numbers never added up.
Then, in late April, a guy named Jeremiah Barnes approached Laurel’s dad at his job in Eureka and expressed interest in their property in Orick. Her dad had come home practically bouncing with excitement. The rest happened in such a whirlwind Laurel could hardly remember what had come first. Her parents spent several days at the bank in Brookings and by early May, the bookstore was theirs and they were moving from their small cabin in Orick to an even smaller house in Crescent City.
But the months crept by and still things weren’t finalized with Mr. Barnes. Until they were, money was tight, her dad worked long hours at the store, and Laurel was stuck in high school.
Her mom laid one hand over hers, warm and comforting. “Laurel, aside from the cost, you also need to learn to conquer new things. This will be so good for you. Next year you can take AP classes and you could join a team or a club. Those all look really good on college applications.”
“I know. But—”
“I’m the mom,” she said with a grin that softened her firm tone. “And I say school.”
Laurel humphed and began tracing her finger along the grout between the tiles on the countertop.
The clock ticked loudly as her mom slid the pans into the oven and set the timer.
“Mom, do we have any of your canned peaches? I’m hungry.”
Her mom stared at Laurel. “You’re hungry?”
Laurel traced swirls through the condensation on the soda can with her finger, avoiding her mom’s gaze. “I got hungry this afternoon. In last period.”
Her mom was trying not to make a big deal of this, but they both knew it was out of the ordinary. Laurel rarely felt hungry. Her parents had bugged Laurel about her weird eating habits for years. She ate at each meal to satisfy them, but it wasn’t something she felt she needed, much less enjoyed.
That’s why her mom finally agreed to keep the fridge stocked with Sprite. She railed against the as-yet-undocumented detriments of carbonation, but she couldn’t argue with the 140 calories per can. That was 140 more than water. At least this way she knew Laurel was getting more calories in her system, even if they were “empty.”
Her mom hurried to the pantry to grab a jar of peaches, probably afraid Laurel would change her mind. The unfamiliar twisting in Laurel’s stomach had begun during Spanish class, twenty minutes before the last bell. It had faded a little on the walk home but hadn’t gone away.
“Here you go,” she said, setting a bowl in front of Laurel. Then she turned her back, giving Laurel a modicum of privacy. Laurel looked down at the dish. Her mom had played it safe—one peach half and about half a cup of juice.
She ate the peach in small bites, staring at her mother’s back, waiting for her to turn around and peek. But her mom busied herself with the dishes and didn’t look once. Still, Laurel felt like she’d lost some imaginary battle, so when she was finished, she slid her backpack from the counter and tiptoed out of the kitchen before her mom could turn around.