Her absence greets me first thing in the morning, shaking me awake on a cold bed run through with hot bars of sunlight. I count the wrinkles in the navy blue curtains, six times they dance over the rim of my backpack sitting on the floor.
I contemplate it, I really do, settling into a lifestyle that reigned pre-Montana. My comforter isn't made of the same smothering material I used to yank over my head, shut out the world. I'm on display in a room that hasn't been visited in years, resting on polished glass.
There's no hiding. Not here. Not on my first day back to school in two weeks. Lydia would never hear the end of it.
Condensation hangs on the bathroom window, a used toothbrush balancing on the rim of the sink. I let my curls bleed onto the carpet after a shower and down a cold cup of coffee left on the round dining room table. I hate coffee, love the smell.
I slip on my shoes, twirling a lanyard with useless keys—keys for charred doors, ghost doors, fraudulent doors—around my wrist. Usually, Muffin meets me at the steps, his wet tongue brushing against my ankles, head bobbing for an ounce of attention as my father rushes to answer a phone call from his office. But here, there is just quiet and lots of empty space filled with books and coffee, throw pillows, and a fireplace that never gets used.
I take her directions sent from a text to the sidewalk in front of our yard. The grass glistens with dew but I don't remember it raining. Little red-capped mushrooms spring up from the ground bringing cotton fluff white and yellow blossoms I haven't seen on the west coast before. I take a minute to admire the large flowering dogwood tree planted on either side of the pebble path leading to the front porch...how alive it is. I'm intimidated. Awed.
The greenery is going to take a while to get used to.
My father paid for my jeep to get here by the end of the week so Lydia, like the Samaritan guardian she is, plans on driving me to Helena to pick it up Saturday. But at the present moment, I'm stuck taking the bus, something I've never really done before.
I'm a Californian but I didn't grow up rich. More the suburban lower-middle-class where the best place to eat is a whole-in-the-wall shack serving pan-fried birria in a tinfoil wrap. Saying that here, I might seem crazy. But I'm just lucky to have a car. Eventually, anyway.
At my languid pace, it's a twelve-minute walk to the bus stop at the end of the street, placed in front of a shroud of pine trees that look like they snatch lost souls and leave only bones. A few kids lounge on the misted royal blue bench beneath the coverup, hands stuffed into their pockets, earbuds hanging from hoods. I stand an awkward distance away with my corduroy hood pulled over my head, eyes on everything but the people beside me.
The air smells sweet...rustic even. I notice it's less humid in Whitefish, no briny ocean to make the air stick to my skin.
The high school, Garden Grove, has a population of 1,190 mostly white students (because who wouldn't miss the unparalleled diversity that is the shores of California?) of whom I'm supposed to convince I'm mentally stable by spring's end. It isn't much by old standards but then again I never really grew up with the people I'm about to meet. Their tolerance for my bullshit might be quite low. It isn't a heartwarming thought, knowing I'm given the chance to start over. I'm afraid of failure. Of people poking at or huddling into a husk of what I used to be, expecting warmth.
I don't have to be the ruefully smart wannabe-valedictorian with straight As and a 4.5 GPA. I can slouch, rest my head on my desk, sit outside beneath the shades of a tree, and plot reincarnation as a bird, turning over rocks for a heavenly obolus. I don't have to attend football games, and parties, or stay after class to satisfy my need to get in a word with teachers for recommendations. The hard part is over.
I just have to flow.
Hold myself together.
A feminine voice brings me out of my daze just as the squeaky tires of butter yellow bus roll against the asphalt at the end of the street. "You're Palmer, right?"
The girl stands a foot below me, thick brunette hair tucked into her hooded blazer. She looks up at me with prudent eyes like the sharp copper of a penny, thumb running over a blank phone screen. Her nails are chipped. I don't know how she knows me. I don't want her to.
"Ethan Palmer, actually," I correct.
She smiles and nods slowly, eyes taking in my attire. Clearly not satisfied. "Kaycee Morgan." But the girl tilts her head anyway, enough for me to get the message and follow her onto the bus where we sit side by side mid-row. It isn't really my choice, all the other seats seem to be taken. Despite being in the middle of stealing back my own life, I'm not a thief.
"How...do you know me?"
Only Kaycee is on her phone, typing away to a contact I can't make out. She hits send, turns to me, looking me over once more before offering me a stick of gum. "My friend works on the yearbook team. Our vice principal might have slipped that we were getting a new student and she wanted me to make sure I gave you a good welcome."
"Consider me welcomed," I mumble.
Kaycee smiles and for the first time, it seems genuine. "Not quite yet. It's this whole," she stammers, "huzzah thing, you know?"
I don't.
For the rest of the ride, we talk about SoCal, why I left it behind. She asks me why I prefer Ethan over the name stamped on my birth certificate and I just say, "Because I do."
I am only glad I was able to put in a word to change it beforehand before it caused real damage. My real name is an aftertaste people get after drinking me in; it puckers their lips, eyes widening with shock. Eldritch Ethan Palmer got good grades and had a plan; I'm not him anymore.
Everyone knows Eldritch, what he was like. No one knows Ethan. I don't think anyone really cares.
So, instead, I make myself a work in progress. I lie about my college admissions because the truth isn't for everyone's ears. She tells me she's only riding the bus because her yearbook friend called in sick last minute, so no carpool.
She's easy to talk to in a way that nothing we say really matters much. Kaycee, I realize, is quiet in an awkward kind of way but diligent. When she says she likes my outfit, I believe her. And when she stops talking, so do I.
I follow her off the bus as we pull in and she walks me to the front office, pointing out names and faces to teachers or students she thinks will be useful. I forget almost all of them right away.
It's cooler inside though shocking to see a school not laid bare for all the world to see. West Coast schools are hardly ever indoors. I have to remind myself to keep my face passive as I take in the maroon lockers and follow Kaycee to the small office lined with potted plants and bulletin boards for upcoming events I will likely never attend.
She goes to grab us fruit water from the vending machine while I talk to the older lady at the front desk about a schedule. Most of the classes worth college credits I've already taken which leaves me with mostly electives and a study period I already know will be wasted. I don't know much about Culinary Arts but, as of today, I am officially enrolled in it.
My plan is simple: don't get close to anyone. Don't let anyone in. Be boring. Run. Survive.
The survival part isn't really part of the objective but I have to tack it on at the end for the sake of my parents. I'm following the whole fantasy they had planned for me. The one that ends with me actually living long enough to thank them for it.
"You have class with Mr. Wolfe," Kaycee explains with a look at my schedule. "My friend Isaac is in economics with you so I'll walk you there."
I've never been more grateful to become unnoticed. Back at my old school, I was a well-known face, a feat I'd popularized all myself. People knew me, shared inside jokes with me. Strangers would pat me on the back and I'd smile, back when I feared the atrophy of this existence and the consequences of an unprofitable grimace. Here, I'm Ethan Palmer, the new kid with coffee breath and bags heavy enough to carry his books.
Economics is a large class but hardly anyone exchanges a glance with me long enough to freak me out lest themselves. Kaycee smiles at me from the door and waves at a grinning Isaac—a kid with sandy blond hair and a snub nose that makes his features all the more delicate—and speed walks her way to class before Mr. Wolfe can notice and reprimand her.
Isaac is nice enough to keep his voice down as he whispers to me. We trade our favorite video games and sports teams, agreeing when it comes down to the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Green Bay Packers. I ignore Mr. Wolfe's talk about Ceteris Paribus, marginal benefit, types of efficiency along the production possibilities frontier. It's all stuff I've heard before and aced. When he calls on me I simply paraphrase and repeat back what he says, feeling Isaac jab me in the elbow for lack of confidence.
By the end of the class we trade Gamertags and for Kaycee's sake, he offers to walk me to AP Literature and Composition. And this is the inevitable beginning of everything. This is where I meet Blu Harding.
You know those defining moments where you look back in time and think, man that's where it all started? Not to sound vain, but I imagine she thinks that about me. Because when I see her in this here and now there isn't anything more than curious intrigue, and yet this curious intrigue sparks everything. She stands out in ways that any unorthodox way of fashion demands to be seen. And by this I mean she's a black rose in a sea of red demanding to be plucked and thrown into the wind. Only in this small town, no one seems to care as if they watched her grow and blossom into grey, colors fading, and thought 'welp, there's always one.'
And she knows it. Everyone knows it. Even me. But fortunately, I don't care enough to say anything about it. It's enough to know that I've seen her. That she's seen me.
The two talk most of the time and I fade in and out of existence before Mrs. Day offers me a pass to collect my books from the library. All of which I've already read through and accidentally set aflame with a lighter underneath the stars back at home. I say accidentally only because there was a period in my life where I was pretty much out of my fucking mind.
Classes pass easier than I imagine they will with only one teacher going above and beyond to crush me into a bone-breaking hug that leaves me wobbling toward my seat while students snicker. A few faces I keep in check, mostly by writing their name and key features on my palm during Art in a faded purple felt pen. A kid named August keeps me chuckling all through the fifty minutes against my will but he has the kind of zeal that I only feel around my old friends. What he is, is a reminder of what I left behind, inciting a bitterness I have to consistently stuff down and swallow. I like him though.
Three hours into school and I have written across my palms:
Kaycee - blazer, rigid, AP Lit & Comp
Isaac - @youvereachedthebean, Economics
August - hella funny, red hair, grape sandwich?? Art
Blu - scary, AP Lit & Comp
River - awkward, agreeable, Culinary Arts (who I've met only in passing)
It's only during my fourth period of the day that things get weird.
And not weird as in I'm the only person of color in my consecutive four classes—that's to be expected.
This is different. Unlike the racial populace here.
I don't have to ask anyone to show me to AP Physics because it's a door down the hall from Art with Mr. Graham. I'm lucky that my locker is a checkpoint between all my classes; there is never any rush to get anywhere. It's almost symbolic.
Regardless, I stand for a second longer to catch my breath and close my eyes. When the anxiety rushes in and my impulses scream to be obeyed I shove it down, down, down. I don't need to recap breaking my fist against my locker, standing in the hallway as I ripped binder paper after binder paper, or breaking down clutching my knees against my chest to the voices of concern I couldn't bear to see.
Whitefish is different.
I'm actively looking at it.
Most of the people I have met so far have introduced me to the next in their group so they are all sitting relatively together when I walk in. Isaac and August are the only ones with enough enthusiasm to stand and wave me over while Kaycee flushes and rolls her eyes.
"I don't doubt he tires of us," Blu mutters with an outward look in my direction. Her boho bangles clack against the desk, freefall blue eyes smothered between thick lines of liner. I'm sure the way she talks is a tactic to annoy but I play along.
"I don't doubt he hears you," I reply. Kaycee and River grin.
She sticks out her pierced tongue and leans back in her chair, feet propped up on the desk as she does a once-over for the second time today; an act of intimidation I imagine. As far as I'm aware Blu is the feral cat someone managed to sneak and feed. I can't fathom how she fits into the cookie-cutter group of average weirdos who laugh at fart jokes and tease each other with old history. She has ESCAPE written across her forehead, the small-town girl eager to escape her small-town life. She knows who she is, wants more, sees what others can't. I feel for her.
I'm so entertained by Blu once again, helplessly dethorning for a stem I can touch, a boot she snagged into a revolving door that is my mind, that I don't notice it until class starts and Mr. Graham is passing out the study guide for a project no one cares about. I don't notice it because it's a slow change like fall leaves growing numerous by the hour.
Not to mention no one makes a move or says anything about it.
There's this oak tree on the front lawn—Montana is full of them, yes, I'm aware—but this...this doesn't just happen. The murder begins as one, a crow circling from the sky. It finds a branch to land on, cocks its beady black eyes toward our class just outside the window and then—another one. Then two. Five. Ten. Nineteen. At least thirty-five, a congregation of oil slick feathers stark against the brightened sky, caws deafening through thick layers of glass. The branches lean toward the earth, the oak sagging against the weight of many.
Bam! A crack splits the glass—it's so small you could fit the tip of a pencil against it. The bird falls, an injury sustained. I flinch but the masses keep coming. Into the grass, the canopies, flanking the skies. A few hit the windows. They fall and keep falling.
And all the while time slows, like a scene in a space documentary of two stars before a collision. Right before time returns and the crash floods in full force. Reality pulls back like a rubber band and lets go before I can catch my breath.
Suddenly I can hear the squeals of laughter as August does something to Kaycee's hair and the awkward chuckle of River who, I bet my entire academic career, has a crush on her. No one looks at the living oak on the front lawn, the crack in the window, the crows like black rain.
And they aren't fazed by it, this unnatural occurrence.
Mr. Graham goes on about cloud chambers and radioactive decay, adjusting his glasses every time he clears his throat like either correlate.
"What just happened?" I ask. I don't care if it's out loud.
There are flames in my ears that roar louder.
Like a dog having heard a command, Isaac looks around first, eyes settling on the scenery outside. A brightness takes over his face, a light I've only ever seen when Mr. Wolfe ended classes five minutes early to pee.
"The Bourgeois are here." He slaps River on the back. River is a lanky, average Indian kid sporting fine brown hair and a pointed face; he has the attitude of a chihuahua. He smiles at the mention of the french term in equal trepidation and leans forward to gaze out at the campus lawn. At the mention of the Bourgeois heads lift and eyes venture.
As if the murder of fucking crows wasn't spectacular enough.
I see them then: four students, two boys, two girls, walking across the grass, sunlight on their heels, laughing into the wind as if they haven't missed the entire first half of school. There's a frenzy of attention in the classroom that certainly hadn't existed when I walked in before.
I'm pretty sure no one actually knows what that term means—Bourgeois—because they're certainly not middle class. It's the girl's cadence, one with fair skin and small flushed features, that has to have ultimately inspired the French mockery. Her hair is crepe pink, flask in hand. The others are hardly forgettable but they're gone just as quickly as they come.
Crows take to the skies at their every step, the murder flying toward the sun. Bird by bird until the oak tree whistles empty. It's left swaying, the crack spreads, and they're suddenly gone.
But of course, there's this one kid shouldering the window on the other side of the classroom, a black marker—a shade darker than his hair—between his slim fingers. He's drawing faces, making an eye of the crack in the glass from where he sits—a mustache, a top hat. He mocks them, those kids outside–inside–laughs to himself (you could hardly tell by the way his hand comes up to grace his mouth), and drops the marker where it rolls to the very edge of the black countertop.
A crow sweeps by and it doesn't bother to spare him a glance, nor does any other student as they struggle to innocently crowd around the windows. But he's the only one that seems worth looking at, the only one that seems real.
Because he's unfazed. A stupid teenage boy with crow hair and green chipped nails, scribbling a poorly drawn face on the glass and laughing about it as if it's the funniest shit in the world.
And he has me rapt.
"Welcome to Whitefish. Where our brightest superstars are four pairs of students average Garden Grove kids happily lose their shits over," Blu whistles, her dark magenta lips pursed. She meets my confused stare and squints.
We're the only ones left at the table.
"You're different because?"
She looks at me for a long time before saying simply, "I can see past it." Okay, Allison Reynolds.
I watch everyone feign working and even worse outright slighting Mr. Graham for short glimpses at the window, some reluctantly walking back to their seats. Even the kids I've managed to befriend, all except Blu Harding of course.
"The huzzah," Kaycee whispers to me, eyes sparkling as she takes her seat. "Welcome to the Grove."
I can't help but think this school is full of shit.