Looking for Tyler (Joshler)

one hundred and twenty-six days before

"well now it's war!" pete shouted the next morning. i rolled over and looked at the clock: 7:32. my first worthington oaks class, french, started in fifty-eight minutes. i blinked a couple of times and looked up at pete, who was standing between the couch and the COFFEE TABLE, holding well-worn, once-white vans by the laces. for a long time, he just stared at me, and i stared back at him. and then, as if we were moving in slow motion, a grin spread across the blond male's face.

"i've got to hand it to 'em," he said finally. "that was pretty clever."

"what?" i asked, sitting up and rubbing my eyes with the heels of my hands, a yawn falling from my lips.

"last night—before they woke you up, i guess—they pissed in my shoes."

"are you sure?" i said, trying my hardest not to laugh, pressing my lips together in a thin line.

"do you care to smell?" he asked, holding the shoes towards me. "because i smelled them, and yes, i'm absolutely sure. if there's one thing i know, it's when i've stepped in the piss of another man. it's like my mom always says: "ya think you's a-walkin' on water, but it turns out you just got piss in your shoes.' point those guys out to me if you see them today," he added, "becasue we need to figure out why they're so, uh, pissed at me. and then, we're gonna fuck 'em up."

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when i first received the worthington oaks handbook over the summer and noted that the "dress code" section only had two words, casual modesty, it never occurred to me that girls would show up to class looking like they just rolled out of bed, clad in cotton pajama shorts, t-shirts, flip flops, and messy hair. modest, i guess, and casual.

and there was something about girls wearing pajamas (even if modest), which might have made french class at 8:30 in the morning a little bit more bearable, if i only knew what the hell madame pignato was saying. comment dis-tu "oh my god, i don't know enough french to pass french II" en français? my french I class i took back in my old school didn't prepare me for madame pignato, who skipped the "how was your summer" pleasantries and dove directly into something called the passé compose, which is apparently a verb tense. tyler sat directly across from me in the circle of desks, but he didn't look at me once for the entirety of the class, even if i could notice little but him. maybe he could be mean... but the way he talked the first night about the labyrinth—so smart. and the way his mouth curled up on the right side all the time, like he was preparing to show a smirk, like he'd mastered the right half of the mona lisa's famous smile...

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from room 89, the student population seemed manageable, but it overwhelmed me when it came to going to class. the classrooms were all in one long building in between the dorm circle and the fake beach, and it was split into fourteen small rooms facing out towards the lake. kids filled the narrow sidewalk outside of the building, probably checking each other with their elbows to get to where they needed to go. finding my classes wasn't that hard. even with my terrible sense of direction, i could get from precalc in room 9 to french in room 2. still, i felt unsettled all day. i didn't know anyone, aside from pete, tyler, and lynn, and tyler didn't look at me in class and lynn and pete weren't in any classes with me, so i was pretty much left to fend for myself. i couldn't even figure out who i should be trying to get to know and befriend, and the classes were unexpectedly hard, even for the first day. my dad said i'd have to study, and now i believed him. the teachers were serious and smart and a handful of them went by "dr.," and so when the time came for my final class before lunch time, world religions, i felt so much relief. a remnant from when worthington oaks was a christian boys' school, i figured this class, required of every junior and senior, might be an easy class.