Sarah
First Day of School
“Have you heard anything, anything strange lately?” Sarah asked her best friend, Alicia. Alicia raised a brow while thumbing through her phone. “Maybe, anything from Duck Face?”
“What? I don’t think I’ve ever heard his voice. He just sits there in music class.”
Sarah spun the locker combination. “Anything about Bri?”
“Your sister?”
She struggled with the combination and checked her schedule sheet, where she had written it down. All she wanted was to put her gym clothes in there.
“Haven’t heard anything about either of them. Anything I should know?”
“Nah,” Sarah walked down the hall. “See you at lunch.”
Sarah bit her thumb. Shit. Duck Face was pissing her off. The least popular boy in the world knew something. Something about her and her sister. But he hasn’t said anything yet. Duck Face hasn’t tried to talk to her, either. He stares at her in the utmost awkward ways a serial killer would find it unsettling. Sarah is used to being crushed on, lots of glances, especially when walking down the school hall. But Duck Face, he could never help himself. Blackmail? She hoped he’d only ask for nudes.
First period was Calculus 1. And her boyfriend, Liam, waited by the door for her. He hasn’t worn his letterman jacket since school ended before summer, and now he’s back to playing the part. He nodded towards the door, and he followed her in. The math teacher, Mr. Witman, kept telling each student their assigned seating as they walked in. She found her spot listed, Sarah Carr, in the second row from the back near the far corner, furthest from Liam. Makes sense. Being Mr. Witman’s son, Liam knew how distracted he’d be.
She turned to the last aisle and spotted Duck Face leaning on one hand at his assigned seat. The seat behind hers. And without fail, he noticed her. The elevator eyes mixed with his bucked teeth crawled over her skin. But he didn’t say anything. Nothing. He did look away, off to the side, at a blank area of the wall.
She sat down, expecting a tap on the shoulder. But, nothing. Not a tap on the shoulder, greeting, or whisper. He just stared off at the wall, his heavy breathing the only noise she heard. Following along with her boyfriend’s dad's lesson, perhaps a future father-in-law, Mr. Witman wrote a formula down and asked Timothy to come up and solve it. Kinda a strange thing to do, Sarah thought. But as Timothy approached and started on the formula, it all looked natural to him. That stare he gave and the silence he sent didn’t align with how easily the marker sped across the board, as it all looked so natural to him.
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Then he lifted an arm to his face and bolted out of the room.
“The heck?” Someone said.
“He waddled out of here,” Liam said.
Mr. Witman snapped at his son. “Watch it.” The teacher sighed. “Will anyone go and check on him?”
No one volunteered. She thought about getting alone with him and asking him if he’d say anything. But she decided to keep her hand down.
Gym came up for the second period, but nothing. Timothy didn’t approach her. He got pushed around a lot during dodgeball, not just by Liam but others. Sarah always lasted during games. Mostly because boys were being friendly, boys she’d never spoken to in her life would hand her a ball to use to throw and block. She watched Timothy approach for a throw, and it was terrible. The ball went over a group of girls, but he managed several dodges.
Not bad, Timothy was in the air, arching and twisting to make a dodge. As soon as she thought, Nice, Liam moved an arm out, pushing him into the ball, and knocking him over.
Christ, Sarah thought. Boys get physical. Her pragmatic approach to Timothy is getting overwritten with physical warfare. It got hard to approach him as he stormed off to the side during the laughter.
After Liam’s team won, he hollered. “Check this out!” And he dunked the dodgeball in the basketball hoop.
After gym, in English, she listened to Timothy’s answer for one of their required summer book reads. Huck Finn. He spoke well, and he actually speaks when a teacher calls on him. Unafraid to respond in front of the entire class if it involves a lesson. His answer seemed well thought out, and he answered it right when she called on him as if he knew the question ahead of time.
She didn’t see him for the rest of the first day of school. Not in the hallways or parking lot. Liam jumped into her passenger seat.
“My parents aren’t going to be home for a while.” Liam pulled out his phone and started scrolling.
“Slow down,” Liam said. Sarah did but didn’t notice why. A boy riding a bike on the shoulder. “Duck Face!” Liam yelled out the window. As they drove by him, Liam stuck half his body out the window and shoved him on his bike.
Gaped, she yelled, “What the Hell?”
“What? I always do that to him.”
Checking her rearview mirror, she saw him stand up and start brushing himself off. She let out a breath of relief. “Jesus.” She would have braked to help, but the cars her peers were driving behind her caught up when she slowed down, and they weren't stopping either.
“Should I say fuck face next time?”
She got perturbed. “You know he has some dirt on us. He hasn’t said anything yet, but he might now.”
Liam rolled his eyes. A sign on the side of a building, Carr Ware zipped by. “Is your dad’s car in the lot? We should trade and drive it around.”
“No,” she drove past the modern office, juxtaposed against the ranch opposite the side of the road. “And are you listening? He might say something.”
“You’re no fun.”
Liam ignored her, so she went on the tangent he wanted to discuss. “Unlike you, I have to show up for all my classes and do homework. We’re not driving my dad’s car.”
“Alright, fine,” Liam said. “And you know, my mom might let you skip the entire year. Wish my dad would let me, though.”
She looked over to him to give a firm response, but he was back on his phone. “”
“Whatever, my parents won’t be home.”
“Sorry, that time for me.”
Liam sighed, kicked his knee up against the armrest, and continued scrolling on his phone.
