“Girls! Dinner!” Rachel twitched as her mom’s voice shot up the stairs like a bullet from a gun. She looked down at the sheathe of papers she’d been reading – a printout from her st internet search. She’d read over it a thousand times by now but still couldn’t figure out what it meant. Three boys, electrocuted in a tower back in the sixties – maybe it didn’t have anything to do with them. Or maybe it did. She hurriedly shoved the papers beneath her mattress and straightened the sheets before rushing toward her door, nearly running into Viv in the hallway, her hand raised as if she were about to knock.

  “What are you doing out here, creeper?” Rachel said in mock disgust, that was very close to not being sarcasm.

  “Making sure you’re coming downstairs,” Viv countered. “What are you doing in there?”

  “Mind your business,” Rachel snorted. She pushed past Viv and made her way to the staircase, but heard Viv following closely behind.

  “Did you go to the party?”

  “What? Oh, yeah,” Rachel nodded, looking back at her sister. “At the old gravel pit. It was boring.”

  “Meet anyone?”

  “Hm,” Rachel paused at the nding, putting on her best contemptive expression as she considered the question. “Nope.”

  It wasn’t a lie, but she sure as hell wasn’t going to mention everything that happened. She wasn’t going to tell her that the girl, Mariel, had been there, or that she’d felt some kind of presence watching her. She definitely wasn’t going to tell her about the weird presence she felt, staring down at her from some distant hill, and she wasn’t going to tell her how she’d raced into the woods, uphill, past trees, leaping from rocks and vaulting over a wide creek, only to reach the spot and found nothing but a yellow jerky wrapper. She could still remember standing there alone in the moonlight, far from the ughter and shouts of the party goers as she stood there, the yellow wrapper in her hands, the words ‘Merkel’ in block letters spelling out the brand name.

  “Right,” Viv straightened her back and pushed past Rachel, descending the stairs like some kind of royalty leaving Rachel to follow in her wake. Mom was by the table, setting a pot of hamburger helper atop a wooden pot holder at the center. Dad was there too, but lost in the newspaper, as always.

  “How was school, girls?” Mom asked, taking her seat as Dad slowly folded the paper and set it beside his chair. Her hair was pulled back into a loose bun, and the exhaustion on her face spoke of another long day at the hospital.

  “It was weird,” Rachel shrugged. “They want to have an assembly tomorrow. Can I skip?”

  “Skip? Why?” Mom frowned. “What assembly?”

  “For that Brian guy,” Viv offered. “The uh…”

  “Oh, the McCoy boy,” Mom nodded. “It was on the news.”

  “Really?” Rachel asked; Viv raised an eyebrow at her.

  “Yeah,” Mom nodded again. “No one knows what happened.”

  “Are you taking care of him?” Rachel swished the noodles around on her pte, aware that Viv was staring daggers into her soul. Mom, however, simply shook her head.

  “He’s not my patient, and it’s a neuro case anyway.”

  “Neuro?” Rachel pressed further; from the corner of her eye she could see Viv’s knuckles whitening against her fork as she gritted her teeth.

  “Mmm…yeah,” Mom said, seemingly blissfully unaware of the unspoken argument transpiring between Viv and Rachel. “Not my department, not even my floor. Even if it were, though, I couldn’t talk about it. HIPPA and all, you know?”

  “Yeah,” Viv gred at Rachel. “Do you want mom to get fired?”

  “Hey I didn’t say all that,” Rachel turned her head, returning Viv’s gre. “I just don’t want to go to some stupid assembly. Like, is he going to die or something?”

  “Little insensitive Rachel,” Viv took a bite of her food and shook her head as she looked away from Rachel.

  “What’s with you girls?” Dad asked suddenly, breaking the awkward silence before it could thrive. “You fighting over something?”

  “They’re sisters,” Mom offered. “They’re always fighting over something.”

  “Hey, that’s not true!” Rachel argued.

  “It’s usually your fault,” Viv said, rolling her eyes as she took another bite.

  “Whatever, can I skip?” Rachel asked hopefully. “We could spend some quality time together, mom.”

  “Yeah, no,” Mom shook her head. “I have work tomorrow. You’re going to your assembly. Besides, even if you didn’t know it, the McCoy boy is your peer.”

  “Doesn’t mean I want to sit there and listen to some boring lecture,” Rachel muttered.

  “Think of it as practice for adulthood,” Dad suggested. Rachel looked over, bancing her fork between her thumb and index finger as she held it level to her chin. “I go to a lot of meetings that could have been a memo.”

  “You’re not helping,” Rachel gave him a pointed look which he dutifully ignored. She huffed and went back to pushing food around her pte, the metal tongs scraping quietly against ceramic.

  With dinner finished, and none too soon, Rachel and Viv scraped their ptes into the sink, then loaded theirs into the dishwasher. It was Viv’s turn to do the dishes, so Rachel quietly excused herself from the dining room, her mind fixated on the sheath of papers shoved between her mattress and box spring. She ducked into her room, quietly closing the door and lifting up her mattress just enough to squeeze her hand into the crack. Papers in hand, she sat at her desk and spread them out across the keyboard of her ptop. The top paper had a bck and white printed photograph of an old tower situated in Kettering Ohio. Hills and Dales MetroPark, wherever that was supposed to be. The tower was made of stone – salvaged stone, apparently and it resembled a…oh, what was that called? Rachel thought hard, deciding against turning her computer on to search for an answer.

  “Like…the corner of a castle,” She said aloud as she studied the photo. “Like…a…um…” She sighed as she studied the cylindrical tower and then continued to read.

  Sometime in 1967, a boy had been found at the base of the tower, just inside the door, moaning. It was determined, apparently, that the tower had been struck by lightning, injuring the boy…and killing a young girl that he’d been with.

  “Lightning,” She frowned, staring at the grainy bck and white photo. “With all those trees around?”

  She continued reading, moving from page to page, her frown deepening the further she went. There were plenty of ghost stories surrounding the tower, tons of specution, but the one thing that was missing? Any mention of ‘yellow skin’. So why the hell had this website come up when she’d searched for yellow skin?

  “Tower might be worth a visit.”

  * * *

  Mariel’s after-dinner routine was interrupted by a knock at the front door; she paused in front of her mirror, wary about whether she should take the wig off. It hurt like hell, but she damn sure didn’t want to be seen without it. For a moment, she studied herself in the vanity mirror that Meredith had set up for her during the summer. It was made from cheap particle board, the top was peeling, but it was hers. The drawers were filled with all manner of foundation, primers, glittery lip gloss tubes, lipsticks, powders, and sprays. Some of it they'd bought over the summer but a lot of it was from Meredith – cast offs, or so she called them.

  At the back of the vanity, close to the mirror, sat a tube of Meredith’s old lip gloss which she had yet to use, at least in this life. She remembered vividly, watching Meredith ‘get ready’ for dates, or other events, and she remembered sitting there, bursting at the seams as she watched her. The feelings and raw emotions had been too much to process and far too much to describe, even to herself. At best she could have characterized it as longing, attraction, hopelessness, helplessness, and maybe a tinge of jealousy. Overall she felt crushed – crushed that she would never experience the euphoria of putting on lipgloss for a night out, would never feel the silky material of a tunic top, or the swish of material from a skirt. In some ways she even felt angry with Meredith for taking it for granted, but that was silly; to Meredith, it was natural.

  Mariel looked at her reflection in the mirror, hardly believing that it was her standing there. She wore a blonde wig with a ce cut that blended in almost seamlessly with her scalp, hair hanging below her shoulders. She was dressed in a slim blue top with a bck cardigan, supplemented by a knee-length bck skirt. Yeah, she was still ft in the chest, and she would stay that way for some time, but for the very first time, when she looked in the mirror, she could see her, and not the stranger that had inhabited her body for the first fifteen years of her life. In these times, even with how uncomfortable she’d felt at school, and how nervous she was at the prospect of even leaving the house, she could at least smile, knowing that this was her, and that she was finally out where the world could see her.

  “Mariel!” Her mother’s voice shot up the stairs, breaking Mariel from her trance and causing her to shift her attention to the open bedroom door. An open door. That was nice, wasn’t it? “Come down here!”

  “Coming!” She called out, momentary frustration causing her to slip into a decidedly ‘male’ tone of voice, to which she scrunched her face and said ‘dammit’ before heading to the door of her room. She stepped through the threshold and bounded down the stairs, her right hand gripping the banister as she turned the nding and emerged into the living room. Her heart nearly skipped a beat as she saw her mother standing there with a uniformed police officer.

  “Um…” Mariel could barely get her mouth to form words, luckily her mother took over.

  “Mariel, this is Deputy Marsh with, with the police department, he wanted to ask you a few questions, about what happened at school?” Her mother raised an eyebrow; Mariel’s eyes widened. Did she know? Had her mother guessed that there was more to ‘the incident’ than she’d shared? Jesus, what was going on?’

  “Oh, um…hi,” Mariel said, looking back at Deputy Marsh. He was a middle-aged man, round in the face with a graying mustache. He probably wouldn’t have looked imposing if not for the uniform. And the gun.

  “Hi Mariel,” Officer Marsh said, reaching into his breast pocket to pull out a green notepad. “I wanted to talk to you about an incident that happened at school the other day.”

  “You mean the kid that went to the hospital?” Mariel said quickly. “They never said who it was.”

  “Right,” He nodded. “That’s what I’m here to talk about. His name was Brian McCoy, and I heard he was a friend of yours.”

  “He um…he used to be,” Mariel said; she could feel the color draining from her cheeks, which was fortunately the right reaction, even if she was having it for the wrong reason. “We don’t really talk anymore. Not since st summer.”

  “Last summer?” Deputy Marsh asked as he scribbled in his notepad. “Did you two have an argument, or…”

  “I thought you said you wanted to ask her a few questions, Deputy,” her mother interjected quickly, eyebrow raised. “Not interrogate her.”

  “Mrs. Barnes we have reason to believe Brian McCoy was attacked-”

  “Excuse me!” her Mother said, frowning as her expression turned stony. “Unless you have a warrant, I’m going to have to ask you to leave. Now.”

  “Of course, Mrs. Barnes,” Deputy Marsh nodded. “We can’t questions hi- her without parental consent. But, if anything did happen at the school that day, an altercation between her, and Brian McCoy, it would be in her best interest to come forward now.”

  “Deputy,” She said sternly. “Leave, now. If you have any further concerns, you can contact our family wyer. I’ll give you his card.”

  Mariel watched her mother usher Deputy Marsh out the front door, the deputy shooting a look of suspicion back at her just as the door closed shut. Mariel’s mother stood at the door for a second before turning to face her daughter.

  “Did something happen?” mom demanded. She wasn’t angry, definitely not yelling, but Mariel recognized that no-nonsense expression.

  “No, nothing,” Mariel said quietly as a million and one thoughts raced through her mind. What was she supposed to say? Something along the lines of ‘yes mom, I was right there in the gym when this weird kid popped out and just waved his hand and-’; no, that was stupid, obviously. Then again, what if she’d imagined the whole thing. Her mind hazily traveled back to those first few weeks – the weeks when the mask had finally fallen, when she’d finally had to admit to herself and everyone else just who she was. Words like ‘mentally unstable’ and ‘chemical imbance’ had been whispered in the shadows but not so quietly that Mariel couldn’t hear them. Eventually the need for transition was apparent, and she remembered Meredith’s hand in hers as she shakily revealed the truth to her family. After all of that, how easy would it be for them to fall back on familiar phrases like ‘It’s all in your head’ or ‘Are you sure you’re not trying to get attention?’. Phrases that had been taken back, of course, but they stung all the same.

  “Mariel,” Her mother said quietly. “If something happened, I need to know.”

  “Nothing happened,” Mariel said insistently, though she was sure that her expression said something different. “I…I don’t even talk to Brian anymore.”

  A long silence lingered between them, her mother studying her for an uncomfortable amount of time before nodding and saying, “Okay.”

  “Okay?” Mariel gawked. “That’s it?”

  “I have to start trusting you sometime,” Her mother said softly. “But so help me god, if you’re lying, you’re grounded till you’re thirty.”

  * * *

  Morning came far too early for Rachel; she’d spent at least half the night huddled in front of her ptop, the comforter from her bed wrapped around her body like a shaw as she tapped keys and scrolled web pages with two fingers on the track wheel. She must have searched through a hundred pages, searching for anything about the tower in Kettering Ohio, but there was nothing, save for some historical information and ridiculous ghost stories. That, and the eerie tale of the two teenagers trapped in the tower as it was struck by lightning; their images apparently burned into the stone column at the heart of the structure. They were just stories, of course, but the page on Hills and Dales MetroPark came up every time she searched for the symptoms that kid Brian was experiencing. Yellow skin, dead eyes. What the hell did that stupid tower have to do with it?

  The thoughts lingered in her mind as she made her way down a crowded hallway, her dark blue hoodie barely clinging to her shoulders. She’d caked on the foundation today in an effort to hide the darkened bags beneath her eyes, but all the makeup in the world couldn’t cover up how tired she was. She’d managed to get herself dressed at least, in a pair of bck jeans and a faded blue t-shirt with the school logo that hugged her tiny frame. Her brunette hair hung loosely over her shoulders, and under her arm she clung tightly to her trapper keeper. Her thoughts were with the tower, and whatever had happened to Brian, but those thoughts were ripped away when a girl named Cassidy smmed into the locker just in front of her, her books flying from her hands and tumbling against the floor as the girl slid to the floor.

  “Are you okay?” She asked the girl, crouching next to her. Her attention was momentarily drawn to a group of three other girls, giggling as they walked away. Rachel shot them a look of disgust and then returned her attention to Cassidy. “Did they push you?”

  “It’s fine,” Cassidy said, her voice little more than a gasp. She was a smaller girl, probably even smaller than Rachel, which was pushing the ws of physics a bit. She was, in every sense of the word, a geek. Her face was adorned with a pair of thick-framed blue gsses, and she was wearing a white button-up blouse with a rounded colr paired with a pair of bck scks.

  “It didn’t look fine,” Rachel pointed out as she gathered Cassidy’s books and handed her a bck case. Right, the girl was in band, that was her flute…that weird bck wood flute that some of them pyed. Whatever it was called.

  “You gonna tell me to stand up for myself?” Cassidy took the books, scowling as she studied Rachel’s face.

  “Against them?” Rachel gnced at the three girls who were now a good distance down the hall. “They’d eat you alive.”

  Cassidy visibly rexed. “At least you’re realistic.”

  “What do they have against you?” Rachel asked as Cassidy began to walk, books clutched to her chest with one arm, and the ‘flute’ case dangling in her other.

  “Who knows?” Cassidy shrugged. “Who cares?”

  “I think you should care why they’re throwing you into lockers,” Rachel pointed out. She could swear that Cassidy was growing less and less talkative as they made their way down the hallway, through the thinning throng of students.

  “Uh, look,” Cassidy said, pursing her lips as she clutched the books to her chest. “Thanks for…helping me with…the books, but I can really take care of myself, okay?”

  “Yeah, sure, I just-”

  “Thanks,” Cassidy said, pushing past Rachel and disappearing into the crowd. Rachel watched her for a second and then turned her attention to a different hallway. There was something she needed to do.

  She moved past a row of red lockers set into the walls and reached a brown door inset into the wall. On the other side, a brief ‘airlock’ led to another door, and past that she emerged into a room lined with cramped metal shelves, each granting a passage no more than three feet across. It was the A/V room, or whatever they were calling it these days; the school had tried to start calling it the ‘media room’, but it didn’t quite stick. From the smell of moldy paper and the disheveled appearance of the tapes on the shelves, she might have opted for the ‘junk room’.

  She pressed her fingers to the dusty shelves, walking between them cautiously until they ended in an even more haphazard looking space, this one with three old-looking desks, each one filled with loose papers, binders, and various audio-video equipment. Then there was the guy, Mark. He was a student just like her; a grade higher and dressed like he belonged in a news station rather than a high school. He was wearing a brown pid shirt over a white t-shirt and a pair of tan khakis visible beneath the desk he sat at.

  “Help you?” He asked her without looking up from the monitor he’d been focused on since she emerged from the shelves.

  “Mark, right?” She asked, more than a little apprehensively.

  Mark, without taking his attention from the screen, pointed at her and remarked. “You’re good.”

  Sarcasm. Maybe.

  “I…heard you’re good at making stuff,” She said, being as vague as ‘humanly’ possible. Mark gnced up at her, looking her up and down before returning his attention to the screen.

  “Faculty would disagree,” He said. “That’s why they’re repcing me.”

  “Repcing you?” Rachel frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “They don’t like the way I edit the morning announcements,” He shrugged. “Maybe if they’d just stuck to audio…”

  That was right, in the st year the school had switched to that odd video announcement format. Some girl against a fake background delivering the school ‘news’ from a script.

  “Yeah, it was uh…” Rachel started to say, but stopped as Mark raised an eyebrow, looking up at her. “Look, I’m not here about that, I-”

  “Then why are you here?” He asked abruptly. “No one comes back here unless they want something.”

  “I heard you could make things, like…notes, and stuff,” Rachel said, trepidation in her voice.

  “Got a bad grade?” He asked, returning his attention to the monitor.

  “Nothing like that,” Rachel shook her head. “I need a permission slip.”

  “Well that’s a tough one,” Mark chuckled. “Wanna get out for a weekend? You want me to tell your parents you’re going to the museum or some shit?”

  “Something like that,” Rachel said quietly. “Can you do it?”

  Mark silently grabbed a remote control next to him and pointed it at the monitor, pressing the ‘pause’ button before looking up at Rachel. He folded his hands on the desk, studying her.

  “You’re not one of my usual customers,” He said, tilting his head slightly. “How did you even know to come back here?”

  “What are you?” Rachel joked, a slight chuckle in her voice. “Some kind of mob boss?”

  “Someone who doesn’t want to get expelled,” He said, his tone suddenly very serious. “If you want my help, you’d better start talking.”

  Rachel straightened her back, her eyes suddenly resolute as she tried to gain composure and the upper hand in the situation. “It’s like you said,” She said evenly, firmly. “I just want to get away for a weekend.”

  “A permission slip doesn’t get you away for a weekend,” He retorted. “A few hours at best. It’s for skipping css.”

  “Yeah but I-”

  “I’m afraid,” Mark said, turning his attention back to the monitor. “That I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “What?” Rachel frowned. “But-”

  “I don’t forge stuff, you idiot,” He said, shaking his head. “Do you think I want to get expelled?”

  “No, I just-” Rachel began to speak, absolutely baffled.

  “You should leave,” Mark said. “And don’t come back here.”

  * * *

  Mariel spotted Gary from down the hall; he was waiting, apparently. She pushed her way through a crowd of students, purple canvas backpack slung over one shoulder throwing her slightly off bance as she tried to navigate the hall in the clunky Mary-Janes that Meredith had gifted to her. Meredith was off somewhere, doing something, and Amanda was nowhere to be see, though that was becoming normal. Luckily for Mariel, school was starting to feel less threatening even though it had only been a few days. Before, as in, before school had started, the idea of walking through those doors as a girl, dressed as a girl, gave her incredible amounts of anxiety. The idea of everyone pointing and ughing, giggling, whispering, it gave her a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach. Well, she couldn’t say that it had gone smoothly, but coming here, like this, was like ripping off a bandaid. Yeah, it felt weird, it was embarrassing, and she felt more vulnerable than ever, but she was starting to feel comfortable, and that was unexpected.

  “Hi,” Gary said as she approached. “Can I uh…carry that for you?”

  “My backpack?” Mariel frowned. “Why?”

  “I…well…” Gary frowned back, seemingly deep in thought. “It just seems…I mean…you look like you’re having trouble carrying it and…”

  “That obvious?” Mariel smiled sheepishly. “It’s the shoes.”

  “Hard to walk in?” Gary asked. Mariel smiled again.

  “It’s all part of the experience,” She tried to force a ugh, which came out as more of a squeak. “Meredith gave them to me.”

  “Speaking of which,” Gary said. “Where are your bodyguards?”

  Mariel burst out into nervous ughter which quickly devolved into a series of squeaks as she hugged her arms tight across her chest. Gary smirked and began to walk alongside her, toward the ‘small gym’ at the other end of the hallway. They walked in silence for a moment until reaching the doors; Mariel rested her back against the cinderblock wall and let out an exaggerated sigh.

  “So,” Gary said. Mariel cringed. “Can I ask you a question?”

  “It um…depends what it is,” Mariel said, bracing herself. “I don’t really feel comfortable talking about…um…”

  “Oh, no, nothing like that,” Gary shook his head. “Hey, are you okay? You’re shaking…”

  “I…get asked weird questions sometimes,” Mariel admitted. “Like, about my transition and…you know…”

  “I have the internet,” He shrugged. “If I want to know something…”

  “Yeah, the internet doesn’t have a whole lot on it,” Mariel shrugged. “You’ll probably just find a bunch of weird stories about women forcing men to wear dresses.”

  “Oh, yeah, definitely found that,” Gary chuckled. “Not really my thing.” Mariel raised an eyebrow.

  “Hold up, you’ve been researching…trans stuff?” She frowned and then looked quickly to her left, scanning the crowd of students still milling around. Some were at their lockers while others stood around in groups conversing. She turned and lowered her voice to almost a whisper. “Why?”

  “Why wouldn’t I?” It was his turn to frown. His forehead creased and eyes squinted as he studied her. Mariel felt a sudden chill down her spine as his gray eyes met hers. She felt that usual compulsion to look away but there was something about the way he was looking at her; it was like he was seeing her, like he was interacting with her and not just ‘what she was’. It was something that was difficult for her to find in her own house, let alone outside – someone who could see her. Of course she was imagining it, it was something that she’d convinced herself she wanted and now she was looking for it in random strangers. Pitiful. “You’re here at my school, shouldn’t I want to know more about you?”

  “None of them researched it,” Mariel gestured toward the crowd of students.

  “How do you know?” Gary’s frown deepened as he shook his head briefly from side to side. “Did you ask them? Or did you just assume that they hate you?”

  “They do hate me,” Mariel said quickly. “You’ve seen how they-”

  “Yeah, I’ve been in csses with you,” He said, cutting her off. “A lot of them are mean, but some of them stand up for you. Can I give you some advice?”

  “What?” Mariel asked, bracing herself for the worst.

  “Listen,” He said simply.

  “Listen?”

  “Listen to what people are saying and don’t assume they hate you. Yeah there are definitely some people you’ll want to avoid, but I bet if you look hard, you’ll find some friends.”

  “Um, are you hitting on me?” Mariel folded her arms, and then shrank back a bit. Had she really just asked that? What the hell?

  “I…how does any of that equate to hitting on you?” Gary asked incredulously. “You…well, yes, actually, but no.”

  Mariel’s face fell suddenly in reaction to the decidedly mixed response. What the hell had he meant by that? But wait, why had Mariel asked that in the first pce? Did she even like guys?

  “Mariel,” Meredith’s voice suddenly cut through the newly manifested awkward silence, both she and Gary broke eye contact and looked to their left where Meredith and Amanda were standing. “Why didn’t you wait for me?”

  “I just…wanted to talk to Gary,” She gestured to Gary as her face flushed. “I mean, I just-”

  “We were just talking,” Gary smirked. “Don’t worry so much.”

  He was already moving away, toward the crowd; Mariel watched his back as he went, her lips slightly parted as she tried to reconcile the feeling that had manifested inside her – a lightness in her chest, and a tightening feeling all the same as her heartbeat increased. What had just happened? She shouldn’t care, but the way he’d looked at her! It was…something that she’d experienced very rarely before the transition even with friends, even at home. The idea of someone seeing her-

  “I thought you didn’t like guys?” Meredith said almost accusingly as Amanda smirked and looked on.

  “I…I don’t,” Mariel shuddered, tearing her gaze away from “The other night at the bonfire-”

  “Yeah what did you guys do after you left?” Amanda’s tone was just as accusatory as Meredith’s. “You weren’t supposed to leave.”

  Well, Amanda wasn’t wrong; she and Gary had sort of snuck off and shared a less than intimate moment at a nearby Steak n’ Shake. She’d had a mint shake and they’d shared a pte of chili cheese fries. Not exactly romantic, more like a friend thing.

  “We just…went to Steak n’ Shake,” Mariel admitted.

  “Like on a date?” Meredith’s eyes widened. “Jesus christ, your mom said-”

  “My mom said you could take me to a movie,” Mariel snapped. “You took me to a rave.”

  “You think that was a rave?” Amanda suddenly ughed.

  Before Mariel could respond to the amused and questioning looks of her friends, the bell sounded overhead – a monotone ‘beep’ that sted for five seconds, causing the students to freeze in pce. Mariel looked to Meredith for guidance – there was an assembly today, right? Were they supposed to go to css? As if in direct response to her thoughts, and probably the thoughts of every single person in the hallway, the overhead intercom screeched and the sound of Vice Principal Mather’s voice echoed through the hall.

  “Attention all students, please go to the ‘Big Gym’ for today’s assembly.”

  * * *

  Unlike the ‘Little Gym’, the big gym actually had bleachers (more than two rows anyway) and it could seat at least four hundred people, supposedly. The back end, nearest the doors, was a row of permanent wooden bleachers bolted into concrete seats, each side fnked with a set of concrete stairs, and one going right up the center. From her seat on the heavily cquered wooden bench, Rachel spotted Viv across the auditorium, sitting with some girl she didn’t know. They locked eyes for a moment, and then Rachel looked away, toward the front of the gym. Across a concrete regution-size basketball court, there was a wooden stage complete with curtains, but it stood wide open and devoid of any equipment. Instead, there was simply a microphone standing in the center of the court and an amplifier not too far away from that.

  Just as she settled in, she felt a presence beside her and looked to her right just in time to see Harris Keilman settle in beside her. He wasn’t the most hygenic looking guy, actually he looked kind of disgusting with the acne and the barely-combed hair. He was wearing that stupid army jacket and cargo pants as always. Rachel looked at him for a split second and then looked away.

  “Hey, it’s Rachel, right?” Harris said to her. Rachel turned to look at him.

  “Um…yeah,” She said, frowning in confusion. “And…um…Harris, right?”

  “Yeah,” He said, nodding. “How uh…are you doing?”

  “What do you want, Harris Keilman?” Rachel asked, cutting straight through the looming small talk.

  “Just wanted to say hi, since I’m sitting next to you,” He said, shrugging. “There a problem with that?”

  “You never talk to anyone,” Rachel spoke as to what she’d observed in the st two years. To her knowledge, Harris was not only a loner, but a loner with a bad reputation. He’d been locked up at least once for spray painting a billboard across from the Upper Valley Mall. Shit, his fingerprints were probably on file at the police station or something.

  “Neither do you,” Harris shot back. “I don’t bite.”

  “I do,” Amanda’s response was conveyed in a light hearted tone but with an iron stare that said ‘Leave me the fuck alone’.

  The assembly began with Vice Principal Mathers stepping out onto the auditorium floor and tapping the microphone. A moment ter he called for their attention and it only took twice for the conversation in the bleachers to fall to a hush.

  “Today’s assembly is to address the incident that happened on Tuesday in the gymnasium,” He began, stopping to clear his throat. “As most of you know, a student colpsed and was taken to the hospital. We kept the name quiet out of respect for the family, but we’ve decided that the student body should be made aware. Brian McCoy-” There was a low gasp as the name was said, followed by some murmuring that quickly hushed. “Colpsed here and was taken to Community Hospital where he-”

  “Wait, is he okay?” A girl demanded.

  “What happened?” Someone else asked.

  “Please hold your questions until after the assembly,” Vice Principle Mathers ordered. “We can’t tell you a lot about his condition, just that the family isn’t accepting visitors and…”

  The speech went on and on. That kid, Brian, had supposedly passed out and students were encouraged to sign a ‘Get well soon’ card that they could find in the main office. There was no mention of yellow skin, or of a girl running away from the ‘scene of the crime’. As Vice Principal Mathers continued to speak, Rachel searched the bleachers in front of her for that girl, Mariel. She found her sitting near the front with that other girl, Meredith. Mariel definitely looked like a girl; you could tell of course that she’d been born male but her wig looked natural enough and she was practiced with makeup, so much so that Rachel was having trouble remembering what she’d looked like as…oh what was her name before? Chris. Right.

  “What do you think about all this?” Harris whispered from beside her. His voice caused her to start – she’d almost forgotten he was there and her gre probably reflected that as well.

  “Think about what?” Rachel demanded. “Why are you talking to me?”

  “Do you have someone else to talk to?” He raised an eyebrow. “Why so aggressive?”

  “Look,” she whispered back. “No offense, but leave me the fuck alone.”

  Harris watched her for a second before shrugging and looking toward the Vice Principal who was still talking, something about the guidance counselor being avaible all week. Rachel allowed herself to listen for a moment but found herself completely disinterested. They were lying of course; or rather omitting the truth and the whole spiel was pretty predictable. Instead, she watched Mariel from afar. Now that was someone she wanted to talk to. Mariel Barnes; the boy who wasn’t. Not only did Mariel have experience with struggling to belong, she was one of them – an idea that excited Rachel to her very core. Now she just had to figure out a way to approach her.

  Audrissa