Fatal Attractions

Chapter Two: The List

It was an hour so early that the only ones awake were the students, their teachers, and the moon, who grinned at the yellow school buses with its all-knowing crescent smile. Holed up in their classrooms, teachers had their hands wrapped around steaming six-dollar cups of coffee; their only line of defense against the October chill. No teacher stood watch in the courtyard. It was ruled by the students.

While waiting for the bell to ring, Juliet's eyes drifted over to where Bryce Colgress sat. He was the closest thing she did have to a friend here. Bryce could best be described as someone who was constantly in the middle of a war with his eyebrows, and was always losing against them tragically. They looked like caterpillars glued above his eyes.

Every time Juliet had seen him, his head was buried deep into a notebook. The notebook was his everything. He wrote in it so frequently and with such zeal, that it became a ritual as spiritual to him as prayer. Every single one of his dreams, hopes, plans, and secrets lived within its pages.

In all honesty, Juliet Harper didn't know much about Bryce Colgress. Not a single word had been exchanged between them. What Juliet did know was that Bryce was an outsider. A misfit. She was a misfit too. The only difference was that Juliet didn't mind her status and purposely avoided her classmates. Bryce had been thrown into the garbage like the unwanted crust of a PB&J.

Despite that difference, the two had drawn together in inexplicable ways. With the meeting of their eyes, they told each other more than words ever could. There was something about him that intrigued Juliet. He was different, but Juliet couldn't quite place her finger on how.

The sun was beginning to rise, turning the gray fog yellow. Cliques of students began to form, filling the courtyard. There was nothing their eyes missed; no face unjudged. Juliet was glad for the fog's protection. She wished the world always wore a veil. Without the student's eyes boring down on her as they usually did, she could relax and let herself breathe.

Juliet finally spotted Bryce. All she could clearly see of him from across the courtyard were his eyes, which were such a sharp color that they pierced straight through the fog. They were glaciers under a summer sun. Every time she gazed at them she shivered. It was a shame no one besides Juliet cared enough to admire them.

A group stomped towards Bryce, led by the baseball captain Chase Lipton. Juliet bristled. There were no teachers outside. No one was there to stop anything from happening, and she could tell the boys wanted to inflict pain. She watched Bryce look up from his notebook, and saw fear register on his face.

"Grab him!" a boy called, and the group leaped into action, swarming Bryce and pushing him to the ground.

"You aren't shit," someone sneered, as they grappled with the boy's arms, pinning them to the concrete.

Juliet watched while Chase ripped the notebook from Bryce's hands and waved his prize proudly in the air.

"Got it!" he announced triumphantly.

The group let go of Bryce, and he pushed himself off the floor, body slumped in defeat. There was no way he could fight them all and recover his treasured notebook.

In that moment, when his notebook was stolen, a memory from Bryce's past aligned with the present. The two became one, and he was transported to the day his first notebook was taken. He was fourteen, still a lanky jack-in-the-box whose arms bounced wildly and body teetered while he walked. Though he was smaller then and hadn't yet intruded on the 6-foot milestone, his crazy eyebrows were the same.

In his memory he was walking home from school, with his hoodie drawn overhead to keep off the rain. His efforts weren't reaping rewards. Water trickled down his face and covered it in a glossy sheen. When Bryce's house loomed into view he began to run, kicking up slush as he tramped through the puddles.