"Nolan, let's go!"
Nolan grumbled out a sigh and yanked on what were undoubtedly a pair of dirty jeans. Whatever.
He stepped over piles of discarded clothes, picking up the first shirt he spotted and tossing it on. He needed to clean his room. The clothes, the dishes, the video games, the clutter had long been picking at him. But did he care enough to do anything about it? Not particularly.
"Nolan!"
"I'm coming!" he hollered.
His backpack. He needed his backpack.
He found it half under his bed. Empty. Great. Just what he needed.
Most of his school stuff he discovered under his bed—folders, notebooks, stray papers. He stuffed them all into his backpack, pausing just long enough to check that he had his homework before zipping it shut. Everything was there, but...
Where was Hamlet?
"Come on, come on," he muttered. The small paperback that had been nothing but a nuisance for the past two weeks wasn't under any of his clothes. Wasn't on top of his bureau. He threw open his closet door. Nope. Not there either.
He looked up at the cramped closet's single shelf. At their house in Ann Arbor, his closet hadn't been a walk-in, but it had had enough room to comfortably hold all of his filming equipment (which, until his dad had been laid off, had been growing steadily in number) and store other things, like his video game collection and other electronics. But this closet? The shelf could fit his camera bag and a few game cases. That was it. And the rest of his equipment threatened to burst out the door every time he opened it.
It was whatever. He didn't open it often, anyway. His equipment just sat there, collecting dust, because Greg wouldn't let him sell any of it.
"Nolan!"
He closed the closet door and rushed out of his room, into the hall. He needed Hamlet for class today—they were doing an in-class group assignment, which, to his chagrin, would require participation—and he didn't want to have to ask someone to borrow their copy. But if Greg screamed his name one more time...
"Finally," Greg snapped as Nolan dashed into the small kitchen.
"Have you seen my copy of Hamlet?" Nolan asked.
"Are you serious?"
"Living room," Caleb said. He stood by the door, his Spiderman backpack over his shoulders.
"Thanks."
Nolan snatched Hamlet from the coffee table—one of the relics from the old house—and started down the hall. He made a quick stop to the bathroom—just long enough to rake his hand through his tousled brown hair—and returned to the kitchen. No time to brush his teeth. He could chew a piece of gum.
"I'll be lucky if I'm not late for work," Greg said, folding his arms over his chest as Nolan crossed the room.
"Sorry," Nolan muttered. His stomach tightened—with apology, definitely, but also with a spark of irritation. Late for work. Yeah, late for a job he hated, which he wouldn't even need to have if he just let Nolan get a freaking job. For months he'd been asking, and each time Greg refused. Even as the late notices began piling up.
He reached the door and shoved on his Converse. He was about to rush out the door, but a breakfast bar blocked his field of vision before he could reach for the door handle.
His lips pricked into a small smile. "Thanks."
"You're welcome," Caleb said.
He tore the wrapper, took a bite, and dashed out the door.
✝
"Okay, so Andy's playing Hamlet, I'm playing Polonius, Caitlin is playing Gertrude, and Nolan is playing the curtain."
Nolan leaned back in his seat. The dread he'd been feeling for the past fifteen minutes—since Mr. Sison announced it was time to separate into groups, then plan and perform an assigned scene from Hamlet—was fading away. Did he have any interest in any of this? No, but at least he wouldn't have to summon the energy to pretend to be someone else. He barely had energy to be himself.
"Righty-o," Andy said. He wasn't exactly who Nolan would have pictured as Hamlet, with his deep red hair and face full of freckles, but he made up for it with his enthusiasm.
"Righty-o?" Max, the guy playing Polonius, asked. He rose dark brown eyebrows.
"Shut up."
"I still think Max should be playing Hamlet," Caitlin said. "I mean, he at least looks like him. Or Nolan."
Nolan tensed.
"Hamlet can look however he damn well pleases," Andy said. "Am I right?"
"Righty-o," Max mimicked. Andy slapped him lightly upside the head.
Caitlin didn't get her wish, but she was the one who actually cared. They went through the lines, discussed position and movements, and how they would make Gertrude's bed as a prop (apparently, four chairs would do the trick). It took about ten minutes.
They had about five minutes left before performances were to begin. The others talked about summer plans, and Nolan listened without contributing. Max and Andy would occasionally attempt to tug him into the conversation, asking him if he had any plans, but he just shrugged and said, "Not really," and that was that.
"Okay, okay!" Mr. Sison clapped his hands. "Attention, performers."
The room quieted, all five groups coming to attention.
"Let's get group one up here, shall we?" he asked. When a few kids groaned, he rolled his eyes and chuckled. "You're going to have fun. You know why?"
"Why?"
"Because I said so and you don't have a choice in the matter."
That got a few laughs. Nolan didn't join in, but he appreciated the humor. Mr. Sison was one of his favorite teachers—one of the best since the move to Greeley two years ago. He had a laidback air about him that put everyone else at ease, always joking around in an actual funny way instead of the forced way that made kids cringe. He was the kind of guy who counted down the days until Friday so he could wear jeans to school instead of khakis, and sometimes "forgot" and wore jeans on Tuesdays.
Group one performed their scene—the opening, where Hamlet saw his dead dad. The guy playing the ghost of Hamlet's father had decided to take a dramatic approach, elongating every word.
Maybe it was the fact that Nolan had seen his filming equipment this morning, or maybe it was Caleb's comment in the car, about going to church with Sam on Sunday. But as Hamlet spoke to the dead king, Nolan saw the news broadcaster standing in front of Fletcher's. "...two gunmen threatened the cashier...shots fired..."
He'd been eating a bowl of Cinnamon Toast Crunch at the time, having nabbed the rest of the milk. When the dots had connected, the bowl had slipped from his hands, porcelain shattering, milk and cereal spewing across the hardwood.
He'd raced out of the house before Greg could stop him. He ran all the way to the gas station—a three-minute drive, but a ten-minute run. By the time he rushed through the media, into the parking lot, and fought against the guarding police officers, he was a heaving mess. "My parents!" he'd screamed. "They were in there! I have to get to—"
And then he saw her. She was laying on the floor, in front of the cashier's desk. Blood soaked her shirt, the floor. Her eyes were open.
"Group two!"
He blinked, hard, but his mom's eyes refused to leave him. Thankfully, group two proved to be quite entertaining. They'd been assigned the moment when Hamlet performed a play as a way to get his uncle to confess to murder. There weren't enough people in the group to play all the roles, so each had to play more than one person. It was like when he was younger, when he'd make skits with his toy camera and he'd hop from one side to the other, having full-on conversations with himself.
"Marvelous!" Mr. Sison clapped his hands as group two bowed. "I'll bring you guys some Oscars next week, yeah?"
"We're gonna hold you to that," a girl, Amanda, said.
Mr. Sison chuckled. "Group three."
Nolan stood with the rest of the group, carrying his chair to the front of the room.
"Props! Yes!"
Nolan stationed himself in front of the whiteboard. And there he stood, completely still, watching his classmates as they performed the scene. He didn't muster more than a lip twitch when Andy pretended to stab him with a pencil and Max, hiding behind him, collapsed on the floor with a loud groan.
"Bravo!" Mr. Sison said, clapping along with everyone else once their scene finally came to an end. "Nolan, I must say, you play a stellar curtain."
"Thanks," Nolan said.
Mr. Sison grinned. "Okay then. Well done, guys. Group four!"
✝
Nolan couldn't stand eating in Greeley High's cafeteria. The cacophony, the conversations toppling over one another, was too overwhelming. His first year, he didn't know he had another choice besides sitting at a booth and doing his best to block out the noise with his headphones. But, when he noticed some other kids going outside to eat, lunch time became his favorite part of the day.
He set his tray on his picnic table—one of five placed in the yard just outside the cafeteria—and dropped his bag onto the grass. He sat down, dished out his phone, and unraveled his headphones. The Score blasted in his ears as he picked up his slice of pepperoni pizza. Pizza. One of the only good things in his life nowadays.
A tap on his shoulder made him jump and drop his pizza back onto his tray. He yanked out his headphones and looked to the left. A girl. There was a girl at his table. Why was there a girl at his table?
He recognized her. He didn't see her often in the halls, but she always sat at the picnic table across from his. She was pretty—Filipina, her black hair done up in a side-braid. "Sorry," she said with a smile. "I said hi, but you didn't hear me."
Why was she there? He could ask, but the words didn't leave his mouth. He just stared at her and waited for her to speak.
"Hi," she said. She held out her hand. "I'm Nora."
He shook her hand. "Nolan." He paused. "What's up?"
"Well, I noticed that you've been sitting alone, and I wanted to invite you to sit with me and my friends."
She pointed to her picnic table, where Andy, Max, and a redheaded girl were not-so-discreetly watching. She laughed and shook her head. "They're not as creepy once you get to know them, I promise."
"Mm-hmm."
"Mm-hmm." She grinned. "So, what do you think?"
"Why?" He internally winced. The word came out harder than he intended, an edge set by nerves.
"Oh, okay, this might actually sound a bit crazy, but I go to youth group at my church," she said. He tensed. "This past Friday—that's when youth group is—my youth group leader, Ryan, he told us to reach out to someone. And I've been wanting to invite you to our table for a while, but this, I dunno, it gave me the extra boost I needed."
He cocked an eyebrow.
"Okay, I just heard how that might have sounded, and I just wanna say that I'm not creepy once you get to know me either," she said.
He almost smiled, but he quieted his amusement.
"If I've freaked you out—which I'm pretty sure I have—sorry about that—you can come sit with us another time," she finished.
He bit on the inside of his cheek. She toyed with a cross necklace, earnest eyes on him. "I'm good," he said.
Her expression fell. His stomach twisted. He couldn't understand why. What reason did he have to feel guilty? All he'd done was reject an offer he didn't want.
"Oh, okay then," she said. She smiled politely and stood. "Totally understandable. If you change your mind, you know where to find me."
He nodded. And after giving him a small wave, she returned to her table.
After she sat down with her friends and they delved into their own conversation, Nolan returned to his tray. The awkwardness of the conversation had his stomach in knots, but he picked up his slice of pizza anyway.
Dammit.
His pizza had gone cold.