“We need to talk,” Harris said. “About what you saw today.”

  Mariel stood in the door, dumbfounded at Harris’s sudden appearance. How had he found out where she lived? Well, the phone book, probably. There was that. But still, what the hell? He couldn’t be here!

  “I…I didn’t see anything,” Mariel lied. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Can you just go?”

  “Yes, you did,” Harris said with insistence, no humor on his face. “Can I come in?”

  “Uh…” Mariel’s eyes darted around nervously, taking in the view of Harris, and then the empty living room behind her. “I…I guess.”

  Of course she’d said yes. If she’d said no, what were the odds that he’d do the same thing to her that he’d done to Brian? He stepped inside, stopping briefly to look at her before proceeding through the foyer and toward the living room.

  “Nice pce,” He commented. “Bigger than mine.”

  “Yeah, it’s nice,” Mariel echoed, fidgeting with her hands. “What are you doing here?”

  “I need to make sure you aren’t going to tell anyone,” Harris said simply. “About, you know, what happened?”

  “What happened?” Mariel asked; Harris tilted his head at her, probably wondering how long she was going to keep up the charade. Finally, she relented, allowing the silence to swallow them up before finally asking the question that had been on her mind all along. “Did you kill him?”

  “No,” Harris said quietly, shaking his head. “I…wanted to.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I guess…I just put him in a coma,” Harris shrugged.

  “How?”

  “I don’t know,” Harris admitted. “I’ve just…always had these powers. I figured it out when I was a kid, and…I mean, I don’t use it to hurt people-”

  “Except for today,” Mariel said carefully. Harris looked at her.

  “Except for today,” He whispered back.

  “Why?”

  The awful question hung in the air between them, the silence of Mariel’s kitchen growing louder as Harris stared at her, contempting the question. His confused expression, furrowed eyebrows and scrunched lower lip showed beyond a doubt that he has never even considered the question. He further cemented this when he shook his head and said: “He deserved it.”

  The line was spoken almost as a whisper, the tone saturated with confusion just as much as absoluteness. Mariel shook her head and took a rigid step back, her eyes boring into Harris.

  “You can’t decide that,” She said softly, her voice cracking.

  “Why?” Harris asked.

  “Because…we can’t just go around hurting people because they hurt us.”

  “Eye for an eye makes the whole world blind?” Harris smirked. “Works great in theory but…”

  “It’s not funny,” Mariel shook her head again.

  “I wasn’t joking,” Harris said. “Besides, did you deserve what he was doing to you?”

  “Of course not,” Mariel said, the moment in the gym came flooding back into her mind all at once. The scent of fresh was on the wooden floor, the light from the high windows, and the coursing feelings of horror as Brian stepped closer to her, the basketball still in hand. “But that doesn’t mean…okay look, can you fix him?”

  “Excuse me?” Harris demanded. “Absolutely not!”

  “Why?” She demanded.

  “Because he doesn’t deserve to live,” Harris spat. “Pieces of shit like him just hurt other people. He hurt you, he’ll hurt someone else.”

  “I’ll tell,” Mariel said suddenly. Harris looked at her, amused.

  “Who's going to believe you?” He snorted. “You going to tell them that some dude came at your friend with supernatural powers? They’ll lock you up.”

  Mariel let out a low sigh and then spped her open palms against the denim that hugged her thighs, suddenly aware of herself again. She gred straight at Harris, shook her head again as her hands formed weak fists. Immediately, she flexed her fingers and walked across the living room and the foyer, pulling the front door open and looking defiantly at Harris. “Get out.”

  “Don’t tell anyone,” Harris said, giving her a serious look as he stepped out the door. Without a word, Mariel smmed the front door in his face and spun around, pressing her back and palms against the wood as she exhaled, inhaled,and exhaled in fast progression. She found herself sliding toward the floor, eventually thudding against the linoleum floor, eyes upward toward the ceiling.

  What the hell had just happened? Brian turning on her, and Harris Keilman…apparently with some kind of superpower to put people into comas?

  “This isn’t possible,” She said, her voice scratchy. “Things like this happen in movies.”

  With some effort she managed to stagger to her feet and leave the mud room, walking slowly up the steps toward her room. Once inside she closed the door and sank onto her bed. Her eyes scanned the space, taking in the sight of her room redecorated by Meredith and to an extent, Amanda. Four months ago this room had been very different; while the front wall had been home to her dresser and a small TV, the walls had been retively bare save for a bookshelf that contained video cassettes and a collection of CD’s. To put it lightly, the room had been a mess. Filthy clothes had been strewn about the carpet and the smell of body odor had permeated the space. Food wrappers and stained sheets were the punctuation on a dismal statement. Meredith had looked at the room in disgust many times, turning her nose up as she demanded to know why she hadn’t cleaned up. Mariel had longed for an answer that outshone her go-to of: “I just can’t.” The room had been the first thing that Meredith had fixed – a hard requirement of getting her help with the transition.

  All of that. The realization, the living hell of being trapped in a body that didn’t suit her, the confession to her girlfriend, then to her mother, followed by a whirlwind summer of clothes, makeup, and tears of both kinds. All of that, and now this? It was too much.

  She sank onto the couch, staring straight ahead at a bnk television, contempting the events that had taken pce. After what seemed like just a few moments, she heard the front door open and close.

  “Hey honey,” Her mom said, walking past the couch. “How was your first day?”

  Mariel blinked and looked at the clock on the wall near the television which read: 3:48 PM. Jesus, how long had she sat here?

  “Um…it was…weird,” Mariel admitted, rising from the couch and following her mother into the kitchen. As she walked, she took a mental note of the way her skirt felt as it swished against her nylon-covered legs. It was a strange sensation – one that she’d felt many times before but it never got old. There was a sense of inherent shame and excitement that seemed to go hand in hand. Even as her mind momentarily wandered, her mother looked at her with an expression of concern.

  “When you say weird…”

  “Oh, no, nothing like that,” Mariel shook her head.

  “The other kids? Did they bully you?”

  “No,” Mariel shook her head, deciding to omit the detail about Brian and the basketball. “I mean…there was that whole zero tolerance thing…”

  “It doesn’t always stop people,” Her mother warned. “Kids are cruel and it’s not like it was for you.”

  As if she needed a reminder.

  “I…I know mom. I promise nothing happened-”

  “You know what we talked about during the summer,” Her mother reminded her. “If we’re going to do this, we have to be honest with each other, and that goes double for you.”

  “I know mom-”

  “You remember what we talked about? I told you that I believe you when you say you’re a girl. It honestly wasn’t that far of a jump. But, things are going to be difficult for you, and you have to be honest with me so I can protect you. So, if you lie about anything, I will punish you. Understand?”

  “I get that mom,” Mariel said, exasperated.

  “This isn’t because I’m being mean,” Her mother reminded her. “This is because the world is cruel, and it’s dangerous, especially for a woman.”

  “Well, it was weird because we got let out early,” Mariel expined. “Someone got hurt, I guess.”

  “Really?” Her mother frowned. “School got let out early because someone got hurt? You’d think they’d just call an ambunce.”

  “I guess not,” Mariel shrugged. “I don’t know who it was.”

  “That is weird,” Her mother agreed. “Look, I don’t mean to be hard on you-”

  “I get it,” Mariel said. “You have to protect me, and I…appreciate it.”

  Her mother quickly embraced her, then let go as she looked toward the kitchen isnd.

  “I’m making spaghetti tonight,” Her mother told her. “You’re going to help.”

  Mariel offered her a sheepish grin. “I am?”

  “You know you are,” Her mother said, shaking her head. “Go wash your hands.”

  * * *

  “You can’t just ignore this!” Rachel said angrily and insistently to Viv who had taken a seat at the desk in her room. “We-”

  “I can,” Viv said adamantly. “and I will. See how I’m ignoring it right now?”

  “If she’s an Imperative then we have a chance to go home. We can do what my parents sent us here to do!”

  “Let it go,” Viv said, turning in her chair to look at Rachel. Rachel huffed and sank onto Viv’s bed. “She probably killed the guy.”

  “So maybe we need to stop her,” Rachel said excitedly. “What if she hurts someone else?”

  “Okay look, let’s be honest here,” Viv said, crossing her arms. “She probably used her powers against the guy because he was hurting her. Going from a boy to a girl…I don’t have a lot of experience with it but it looks like she made a lot of enemies. I sympathize, but it’s not our problem.”

  “You always tell me to get more involved,” Rachel pointed out. Viv raised an eyebrow.

  “With humans,” Viv said firmly. “Join an after-school club or something. Or…I don’t know, try basketball.”

  “Not really my thing,” Rachel shrugged. “I could do the swim team.”

  “Absolutely not.”

  “Well there’s…a party tonight,” Rachel suggested. “At the quarry.”

  “The abandoned gravel quarry?” Viv frowned. “Will there be alcohol?”

  “Probably,” Rachel shrugged.

  “Drugs?”

  “So many.”

  Viv chuckled and shook her head. “Sounds human enough. You should go.”

  Rachel grinned widely as Viv turned back to her desk, returning to a book and a pad of paper she’d had sitting there. Homework, probably. Viv was such a goody two shoes, or whatever the expression was. She rose from the bed and stepped out of the room, walking out into the hallway toward her own room near the end. She passed through her doorway and gnced around. Her room was right across the hall and the door was already open a crack. She pushed through and stepped inside, immediately noticing the contrast between hers and Viv’s space. While Viv kept a clean, almost sterile space, Rachel’s was cluttered, with clothes strewn about the floor and her bed shoddily made. Sometimes she wished that she could be more like her sister in that regard, but not in any other. Today, though, she had more to think about, particurly what had happened to that Brian kid. She immediately took a seat at her desk and pulled open the lid of her Compaq ptop.

  It took some time for it to boot up; she sat there listening to the hard drive whirr and click as the ‘Windows 2000” logo appeared. A few minutes ter, a grey login box popped up; she entered her username and password and tapped the enter button. After a few more minutes, ‘Internet Explorer’ was open, and she pulled up the ‘Alta Vista’ search engine. There were a multitude of search engines to choose from, but she always preferred the ‘Alta Vista’ route, namely because she could phrase her search queries as a question. She’d spent countless hours searching for things like ‘How do I cook pancakes’ or ‘What does grass smell like’. Today, however, she took a breath and gnced around her room before searching: ‘Yellow skin, unconscious’.

  The first ten or so results appeared on a white screen with bold blue links; some were forum posts, others were links to WebMD, all of which suggested cancer or something equally terrifying. Using her mouse, she scrolled through the results, looking for something to catch her eye. Even more results came through for a disease called ‘Jaundice’, but as she clicked on the links and scrolled through the information, none of it seemed to match up with what she knew about Brian’s condition. Frustrated, she clicked through to the next page and found ten more results about Jaundice and after that it started to become ridiculous. Fictional stories, tabloid pages, advertisements for medications, something about singles in her area, and nothing useful at all.

  She drummed her fingers against her desk, turning her head to look out the window for a second before returning her attention to the computer screen.

  “Information highway my ass,” She muttered as she hovered her mouse pointer over the ‘X’ button, ready to close it and walk away. Maybe, just maybe Viv was right. Sure, she didn’t like listening to her older sister, but she couldn’t deny that she was smart. Taking a deep breath, she readied herself to close the window, but then took pause as she noticed a link near the bottom of the page that read: ‘Hills and Dales Metro Park’. She frowned and then took a brief look around her room, once again, as if she expected someone to be there, watching. What would Viv do in this situation? There was no question; Viv would shut off the ptop, close the lid, and never look back. Well no, that wasn’t true – Viv would never have opened the stupid web browser in the first pce.

  Ugh. Viv. A girl trapped on an alien world and all she wanted to do was her stupid homework. She cimed to love the peace and quiet, but how could she? All Rachel wanted to do was find a way home, to join the fight they’d abandoned, but instead they were here, going to school, watching stupid shows on the television, blending in. Whatever the hell that meant.

  Could she do it? Could she really just…pretend life was normal? Py volleyball after school, talk to boys, go to parties? This world was so alien to her and not because it was an alien world, but because everyone was so…carefree. A choice needed to be made here, and now: would she do what Viv wanted? Live a peaceful life here on Earth, or would she try like hell to get back home, where she belonged?

  She clicked the link.

  * * *

  The clock by her bedside read ‘6:30 PM’ when Mariel walked into her room. Immediately, she forced her fingers beneath the estic band of her wig and carefully peeled it back, resisting the urge to yank it from her scalp the moment she was out of sight of her parents. She let out a sigh of relief as the pressure dissipated from around her forehead, and her hand immediately went to a red divot that had formed at the center. Stupid wigs. It hurt like hell and it was only going to get worse, but she had no intention of ditching the wig, not for anything.

  Standing in front of the full length mirror, she ran her fingers through brunette hair that had reached finger-length over the summer. It was far better than what it had been, but as Meredith and her mother both liked to tell her, it takes a while to grow out hair, especially from a buzz cut. She stepped away from the mirror and draped the wig over a mannequin head cmped to the side of her desk, taking a moment to spray it with cleaner and conditioner before brushing it out with a wide-tooth wire brush. Satisfied, she set about removing her makeup, watching her features carefully in the mirror as she did so. With each stroke of her hand, another swatch of foundation vanished, revealing the bare skin beneath, and with each one, another wave of dysphoria. The whole of her bare face was gringly male and it stared back mockingly at her from the mirror as she went through the nightly cleansing routine. Yeah, it was annoying, and it was time consuming, but Meredith, Amanda, her mother, and a wealth of other people had warned her that the repetition was far better than the potential resulting acne, so she did it.

  She had barely finished removing her makeup when her bedroom door swung open; she started as Meredith and Amanda strode in as if they owned the pce.

  “What the-” Mariel jolted back, nearly tipping her chair over; Amanda caught the chair and roughly pushed it back into position, Marial jolted again as it thudded against the carpet. “Don’t you knock?”

  “Get your face done back up,” Meredith said, ignoring her almost completely. “Your parents gave us permission to take you out.”

  “Take me out?” Mariel repeated back incredulously. “But-”

  “Your mom listened to reason,” Meredith shrugged. “You can’t be stuffed inside your room all the time.”

  “I like it in here,” Mariel protested. “Especially at night-”

  “Face,” Amanda said, grabbing a bottle of foundation from Mariel’s desk and shoving it in her hand.

  “Christ, Amanda, give her primer at least,” Meredith said.

  “Where are we going?” Mariel frowned as she began to reapply her makeup.

  “Movie,” Meredith replied, walking to Mariel’s closet. “Here, put this on.”

  Meredith had handed her a simple blue dress with a thin belt at the waist; it wasn’t exactly a head-turner, but it also wasn’t something that she’d wear to school. Actually it wasn’t something she wanted to wear anywhere.

  “It’s…a little short,” Mariel fumbled over her words, her knuckles suddenly tightening around the materia. “Can I wear tights underneath?”

  “That would make it a shirt,” Amanda rolled her eyes, but Meredith handed her a pair of bck tights.

  “For now,” There was a hint of warning on Meredith’s voice. “But eventually you’re going to have to wear it right.”

  “You know why I don’t want to wear it without tights,” Mariel nearly snapped at her. “I don’t-”

  “Tuck, you idiot,” Amanda put her hands on her hips. “Did you think being a girl was going to be easy, or something?”

  “No, but-”

  “Shut up and get dressed,” Amanda said. “We’re wasting time.”

  It took about thirty minutes, and then Mariel found herself in the back of a car with two other girls she didn’t know as they sped away from her house. She found that she had nothing to say, and nothing to add to their conversation as they pressed on down a darkened backroad. The one thing she did notice was that they weren’t headed in the direction of the movie theater. As if reading her mind, Meredith turned around from the backseat and met Mariel’s eyes.

  “We’re going to a party,” She expined. Mariel’s stomach dropped.

  “You lied to my parents?” Mariel asked in a panic. The car erupted in ughter.

  “Who are you?” A blonde girl Mariel didn’t know, asked.

  “Chasity, this is Mariel,” Meredith said with a look of warning. “You know that.”

  “Yeah, duh,” Chasity said. “But you’re worried about your parents? You never used to be.”

  “Uh…” Mariel frowned, fumbling for words.

  “You had a reputation,” Meredith reminded Mariel.

  “And it wasn’t for being a goody-two-shoes,” Chasity smirked.

  “It’s just…things are different now,” Mariel mumbled. “I…um…”

  “We’re here,” Amanda announced from the driver’s seat. The car rumbled down a long gravel driveway, eventually emerging into a huge open parking lot filled with cars. They piled out, Mariel stumbling over her short heels and being stabilized by a giggling Chasity as they headed toward a bonfire surrounded by other people their age. Some of them she recognized, well, most of them, but hopefully they wouldn’t recognize her. No that was stupid, of course they would recognize her. Mariel looked at the ground, doing her best to avoid eye contact as they headed toward the bonfire, and Meredith squeezed her arm as if to comfort her.

  The area immediately around the bonfire was a mess; there were teens everywhere in pairs, in groups, some roasting marshmallows, others drinking from red solo cups. Someone had brought a boom box, and it was bring ‘Shakira’ from somewhere out of sight.

  “I…I don’t think I should be here,” Mariel whispered to Meredith who simply brushed her off.

  “Come on, have a drink and calm down,” Meredith dragged her over to a card table that had been set up about ten feet away from the bonfire, grabbing a bottle of vodka and pouring her a drink into one of the red solo cups. “I’m just giving you a shot, I don’t want you wasted.”

  “Wh…what if my mom finds out?” Mariel asked nervously. “What if-”

  “Then we're both screwed,” Meredith warned her. “So she’s not going to find out, is she?”

  Meredith didn’t wait for an answer before dragging her back toward the bonfire where another group of their cssmates was waiting. Mariel stood there awkwardly, drink in hand as they chatted, occasionally throwing a gnce at the current subject of attention and then quickly looking away before eye contact could be made. No one seemed to be paying much attention to her, and she couldn’t help but remember that at one time, she would have tried to be the life of the party. There hadn’t been that many parties since starting high school two years ago but there had been some, and as Chris, she’d never been shy. If she had been thinking clearly instead of internally panicking every two seconds then she might have realized that Chris was a completely different person, he was someone that had grown up with these people, someone who knew his pce. Mariel was not only out of pce, she was still coming to terms with her own identity and that made it ten times harder to even strike up a conversation. She followed along with the current conversation, doing her best to find a ‘jumping in’ point, but it was useless. She was finding that she had nothing useful or relevant to add.

  Her gaze moved away from the group in front of her for a moment and settled on the flickering fmes of the bonfired just a few feet away, warming her face and causing her to blink out the heat. Before she could look away, her eye caught something, no someone on the other side, watching her. Mariel squinted, trying to see through the fmes, but she immediately recognized the person in question. It was Rachel Lee – a girl she’d known for…probably two years. The girl who’d shown up out of nowhere one day with some weird adoption story. She was pretty, like, really pretty but for some reason, she was just as much of a loner as Mariel was now. Rachel’s gaze was unwavering as their eyes met across the fire, through the dancing fmes, and then, a moment ter, she was gone. Mariel blinked away the weird non-encounter and returned her attention to the group in front of her, her ear suddenly pricking up at the mention of Brian.

  “Did you guys hear what happened to Brian?” A tall jock asked? Josh. The guy’s name was Josh. “He like…just passed out or something.”

  “He’s at the hospital,” Someone else said. “In a coma, I guess. Shawn would know.”

  “Shawn’s not here,” Amanda said. “Fucking weird too.”

  “Hey,” Chasity said, “Can we talk about uh…” As she said it, she pointed a finger at Mariel, who would have turned ten shades of red if she weren’t wearing ten yers of foundation.

  “Chasity!” Meredith hissed.

  “Hey, yo,” Josh said. “We’ve all got questions, you know. Like, can you just do that? Decide to be a girl, or whatevs?”

  The group went silent, each head turned toward Mariel who bit her lip and looked down at the dirt.

  “Mariel,” Meredith said quietly. “You can’t dodge this question forever. People want to know.”

  “There…was a letter,” Mariel said quietly, her voice nearly a squeak. Several of the people present rolled their eyes.

  “We know there was a letter,” Chasity said loudly. “My parents freaked the fuck out about it.”

  “Yeah,” Someone else said, the others muttering and nodding in agreement.

  “Okay,” Meredith said, clearing her throat. “Long story short, she wasn’t happy as a boy, like really unhappy, so she decided to be a girl instead.”

  Really unhappy. Yeah, that was an understatement; Mariel fshed back on the image of her face ft against the cold tiles of her bathroom floor, pills scattered across that same floor, her vision darkening.

  “And his…er…her parents were okay with that?” Chasity spoke as if Mariel weren’t standing there in the circle while staring right at her. Mariel gulped and took a drink of the vodka in her hand, downing the entire ‘shot’. She winced as the liquid burned her esophagus on the way down.

  “Not at first,” Meredith expined. “But…they warmed up to it.”

  “But how does dating work?” Josh asked. “Like who would…want to…I mean, are you into dudes?”

  “I would,” A new voice said; the group suddenly hushed, parting for a guy in an unbuttoned polo shirt and messy brown curtained hair. Mariel struggled to remember his name as Meredith’s eyes widened.

  “Sup, Gary,” Amanda said, raising an eyebrow.

  That’s right, his name was Gary. Gary Luke. That guy with two first names. He didn’t really do anything at school – he wasn’t on any teams, didn’t do any extracurricurs, but still managed to hold his own when it came to popurity. Now he stood in front of Mariel, his face darkened with his back to the rising fmes as his eyes bored into hers. Mariel gulped again, noting that her cup was empty as her legs turned to rubber beneath her.

  “You guys are overthinking it,” Gary said. “She’s a girl, that’s that, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah, but there’s more to it,” Chasity insisted.

  “Yeah?” Gary smirked. “How would knowing that help you?”

  “You two lovers wanna be alone?” Josh smirked. The group snickered, but Gary didn’t waver.

  “Yeah, actually,” Gary said, casting an annoyed gnce at Josh who looked surprised for a second before raising his hands and shaking his head.

  “Hey, no judgement here, man,” He said, almost with a ugh.

  “Like your judgement would affect me,” Gary said quietly. He then looked at Mariel. “Wanna get out of here?”

  Mariel absorbed the words and then looked at Meredith, almost as if for permission. Meredith hesitated for a second, looking between Gary and Mariel as the decision churned in her mind. Finally she nodded, and Mariel’s eyes widened, as if she’d hoped Meredith would say no. She looked pleadingly at Meredith who gave an almost imperceptible shake of her head and mouthed “Go”.

  With only a moment’s hesitation, she walked away, following Gary’s lead until they were far away from the campfire, standing near a gravel pile surrounding the pit, out of sight of the other partiers.

  “You okay?” Gary asked her as she began to breathe heavily. She nodded her head heavily in response; he guided her to a smaller pile of gravel. “Here, sit down.”

  She shied away from his touch as he guided her down, refusing to accept the fact that she almost felt comfortable as his hands rested on her upper arms, stabilizing her as she dropped onto the gravel mound like a ton of bricks.

  “Just breathe,” He advised her. “It’s okay, alright?”

  She nodded her head quickly, wrapping her arms around her upper body and leaning forward, suddenly choking back tears as her breathing quickened.

  “I…” She tried to speak, but her words caught in her throat. After what seemed like an eternity, she managed to look up, nearly swooning at the sight of his sympathetic eyes.

  “What’s Meredith’s deal?” He asked suddenly. “Isn’t she supposed to be helping you?”

  “Sh…she is,” Mariel said, caught off guard by the question. “I…I guess she’s just frustrated with me. We were dating, before…I mean, and then I guess I upset her with…all of this. But she is helping me.”

  “She’s being a bitch,” Gary stated.

  “Aren’t you afraid they’re going to think…something’s going on with us?” Mariel quickly changed the subject, craning her neck to see if they were visible from here. No, they weren’t.

  “That’s their problem,” He said simply. “You looked like you were about to puke.”

  “I think I was,” She admitted. “Sometimes…Meredith just…pushes me to do things I’m not ready for.”

  “And you weren’t ready for a bonfire,” Gary said, nodding. It wasn’t a question, just an affirming statement that made Mariel crack the slightest of smiles.

  “Yeah,” She nodded. “I wasn’t ready for a bonfire.”

  “Maybe I can take you home,” He suggested. Mariel looked up, eyes wide.

  “Can we do that?”

  “I don’t see why not,” Gary shrugged. “We can grab food on the way. You hungry?”

  Mariel suddenly grinned from ear to ear, her feelings of nausea passed.

  “Starving.”

  * * *

  Nearly a mile away, prone on a grassy hilltop, Harris surveyed the gravel pit through a pair of heavy 20x50 binocurs. He panned from left to right, first focusing on the girl he now knew to be Mariel as she walked away from the bonfire. She was with some dirty blonde dude – didn’t know his name. As he watched her, he absently chewed on a piece of beef jerky he’d stored in his coat pocket.

  He made a mental note that she was pretty attractive, not that he hadn’t known that already.

  “Focus, dummy,” He muttered, and focus he did – mostly on the way the blue dress clung to her body, and the awkward way in which she wore it. “So, can I trust you, or not?”

  His question went unanswered of course, and it hung there in the air as he used his right hand to adjust the focus and zoom of the lenses, taking a closer look at her, and of course, the guy she was walking with.

  “Whose this loser?” He muttered, and then checked himself. “God dammit.”

  Yes, she was pretty, but that wasn’t the point of all this, was it? He needed to know if he could trust her – trust the girl he’d just spilled a lifetime’s worth of secrets to. Would she talk? If she did, what would the consequences be? Would anyone believe her?

  He pursed his lips and zoomed out a little.

  “Okay, you’re not so bad either,” He said, looking at the guy. “Dammit, Harris, focus!”

  On a whim, he moved the binocurs up, looking at the bonfire again. There were kids all around, most of them he knew, some of them he didn’t, but something caught his eye. He squinted past the fire then zoomed in, toward the parking lot. There was a girl there with shoulder-length blonde hair. She should have been unremarkable, except she was staring right at him.

  “Shit.”