I couldn’t bring myself to even look at the thing. It disgusted me that they had wasted their money on someone they didn’t even want in their group. What were they thinking? Was it amusing to them to have me hanging around? Was I someone they laughed at when I wasn’t there?
And why couldn’t I stop thinking about how affectionately they had touched me? Or the way their eyes looked at me? Over and over again, I saw Luke’s happiness as he daydreamed about the diner in the chapel, of North’s smile after the ride on his bike. I thought of Victor’s purchase of Winter, and Silas holding me to his body, of Gabriel doing my hair, Nathan’s shirt, and Kota’s hands as he held mine.
How naive could I have been? I didn’t catch their annoyances or displeasure. How could I have? They were so nice. They were only pretending. Maybe my mother was right. Being alone and ignoring the outside world was easier to handle.
I dreamed I ran from a stranger I couldn't see and into an abandoned house. I cowered under the windows as he looked inside and sought me out. I wasn't sure if he would hurt me, but I was afraid if he saw me, he would see who I really was. It scared me to death that he might see me. I didn't want him to know.
That night, when the phone finally silenced and the house was still, I drifted in and out of sleep. When the nightmare was over, it was two am. I shook off the dream. It rattled me more than any other I had that week. I stood up from my bed in the dark. I had a precise plan in mind. If they didn’t like this stray dog, I wouldn’t force myself on them. I would never stay where I was unwanted.
I found Nathan’s shirt and dug out the phone and the cord. In the darkness, I tiptoed my way down the back stairs and crept through the house until I was at the side door. I opened it and walked out into the night air.
My heart was beating so rapidly, I felt I needed to sink to the ground in order to breath. I willed myself to continue. I would get rid of these things and it would be over. I could go back to my usual hiding in the shadows, pretending to blend into the wall at school, never having friends and never being normal. I couldn’t face anyone like this and be so humiliated.
I hugged the shirt and phone to me. It was so strange how only hours ago I had loved these things so much. They had meant so much to me. The feel of them in my hands now made my chest heavy. I didn’t look at the messages. They had made things so clear at school. I didn’t want to pretend any more.
I stopped by Kota’s house, first. I stood at the end of his driveway in the dark, thinking of what Kota’s face would look like when he saw the phone on his front step, messages unchecked. It felt so cruel to do but I didn’t really want to hand it to him. I couldn’t face any of them knowing how they felt. I trusted them all with my secrets. Now I was at risk for being ridiculed at school. The girl with no voice. The girl with crazy parents.
I crossed Kota’s driveway. Barking broke through the silence. I paused, having forgotten to mind Max. I hoped he would quiet down again so I waited.
His barking continued for a minute and stopped short. I looked at the front porch, trying to decide if I should leave the phone there and if I could get there without setting off the dog again.
“Sang?”
I nearly jumped out of my skin. From the darkness, Kota appeared, coming around the house from the back yard. His glasses reflected in the moonlight. He was barefoot, in dark pajama pants and a light colored t-shirt. In a way he appeared to be a ghost. I gulped. I took a step backward, ready to flee down the road back to the sanctuary of my house where he couldn’t follow.
“Wait, Sang,” he said, and he broke into a sprint and caught up to me. He had a hand out like he wanted to grab at me but I stepped back again. He held his hands up to show he wasn’t going to reach for me again and stood still. “We’ve been trying to call.”
I turned on him. I should get it over with. “I came to give this back,” I said, unable to keep my voice from shaking. I held out the cell phone to him.
He kept his hands to his sides. “I don’t want that,” he said softly. “Please, Sang. You don’t understand.”
“What’s there to understand?” I said. My thoughts raced. It was amazing to me that I managed to speak at all. My body shook through to my bones, cold and empty. “You guys don’t need me hanging around. I get it. That’s fine. I just wish you would have told me.”
“We didn’t say that,” he said. I couldn’t see his eyes because of the glint in his glasses, but his mouth was frowning. “You misheard us.”
“I’m not a stray dog,” I said, my voice rising. I hugged Nathan’s shirt to me like a shield, and at the same time I was disgusted with it. “If you didn’t want to be friends, all you had to do was say so. I can go home right now. It doesn’t have to be ugly. We’ll just pretend we don’t know each other. I’m pretty comfortable with being ignored.” I held the phone out with one hand away from my body and let go. In that moment, I wanted it to break. I felt broken.
Kota’s hand shot out, catching it in the air. His long fingers wrapped around the pink case.
“Next time, stop being so nice.” I sniffled, unable to hold in my sobbing that I had thought I had dried out on earlier.
“Sang...” His voice was low, barely above a whisper. His lips moved a little but no words came out.
I turned away from him, sprinting toward the road. Why was he doing this to me? Why won’t he just say thanks for bringing the phone back? Thanks for not taking this so personally? Thanks for giving us an out when we were too cowardly to tell you the truth? That you were an unexpected burden?
“Sang!” he called out. I heard his footsteps behind me. I tried to outrun him but he was faster than I was. He reached out, grabbed my arm. I swiveled on my feet, almost falling.
He caught me, his arms circling around my back. He hugged me close to him, his body warming mine. His fingertips massaged along my spine, soothing and strong. I was breathless, a mess from sobbing. I lifted a fist, intending to strike out to him but I stopped. He was hugging me so tightly, such an intimate touch.
“I’m not letting go,” he said. “Not until you hear me out.”
I’d never felt such a thing before. Not this. Not a true hug that meant to make me feel better. If I cried in front of my parents, they told me to go to my room and only come out when I got over myself. I pressed my head to his chest, and my tears dampened his shirt. I could hear his own heart beating back as powerful as my own. Wisps from his breath tickled my hair. My fingers smoothed out over the material of his t-shirt. How could this feel like he meant it and be a lie at the same time?
We stood silently as he held me for several minutes. I breathed in that now familiar spicy scent. His fingers stroked at my back, massaging in small circles against my muscles. I felt his face move and his breath slipped near my ear, warming the lobe. Kota. The most calm. The leader. The first one I’d met. A week ago I was a stranger his dog ran over. Here he was now in this moment doing something my own parents never did.
“Sang,” he whispered softly into my ear. He swallowed and rubbed a palm against my back. “You trusted us with your own secrets. I only wish we could tell you ours.”
“Kota...”
He pulled back, moving his hands up slowly until he was cupping my face and I was looking into his green eyes. His tender gaze held me with such affection that I felt my breath escape. “You’re amazing, Sang. Ever since I met you, you never once asked about the strange things you saw with us, even when I could see it in your eyes that you wanted to ask. The others could see it, too. You stuck with us. You’re so sweet and considerate. We don’t want you to leave.”
My lip trembled. “But Nathan...”
“Was quoting Mr. Blackbourne,” he said. “You misheard him. We once tried to bring another guy into the group but he found us to be too odd and he left. Mr. Blackbourne warned us that we should be more selective about who we bring in.” His thumb crossed my cheek, wiping away a tear. “It was Mr. Blackbourne’s words. Not Nathan’s.”
“But why say
it?”
“Nathan was trying to remind us what he would say. He didn’t mean it against you. It was a warning to us that Mr. Blackbourne wouldn’t be happy.”
“With me?”
“With bringing you into the group.” He dropped his hands from my face to my shoulders. “We’re not just friends,” he said. “We’re... complicated.”
My mind was a complete mess trying to understand him. In my stressed state, I couldn’t focus on what he was trying to tell me. He confirmed he knew Mr. Blackbourne. That was a secret before. Why did it need to be? “What do you mean?”
“We’re not really normal students,” he said. ”We go to a different school. A private school.” He smiled softly. “Only this year, we’re attending the public school. We’re on loan from the Academy.”
“What’s the Academy?”
“It’s our school. Well, officially now we’re part of the public system. But we’ll always belong to the Academy.”
Something of what he was saying clicked in my head. “Dr. Green and Mr. Blackbourne, too?”
“They're our professors. They’re in charge of us. This year we’ve set up something different, kind of like an exchange program. They take us in to the public school. We set an example for other students and observe and Dr. Green and Mr. Blackbourne takes charge of part of the classrooms to help change part of the curriculum. It’s to help the school get more funding so they can improve things. There’s a little more to it but like I said, it’s complicated. And classified.”
They brought in seven kids and two teachers to a school with over two thousand students? Why did that need to be a secret? It didn’t make sense. Still, maybe this was something I didn’t quite understand or that they didn’t want me to. Maybe when I wasn’t so distraught, it would make sense to me. I reached with both hands to my face to rub the last of tears away from my eyes. “You didn’t want to tell me?”
His lips pursed for a moment and his hand lifted up to brush a strand of hair away from my cheek. “I wanted to tell you,” he said. “We weren’t really supposed to tell anyone. We’re supposed to blend in but not really get close to anyone. We didn’t want to risk being overheard or noticed when we had to do something for the Academy.”
“But then why did you want to be friends? I mean why bring me into the group now?”
He smiled then, letting go of me and standing back. “Why would you want to be friends with us? We’re not exactly normal. When I first met you, I thought you’d assume we were weird and would back off. You stayed. You didn’t even have to say it. I could see it in your face. You’re such an open book, Sang. And once the others met you... well... that was it. They all agreed they wanted to try.”
“You all sounded unsure back at the school.”
He nodded, rubbing a hand through his hair. “We can’t tell you everything. We’ve been told to never tell anyone and we didn’t want you to find out. We thought it was unfair to you to be with us when you didn’t know what you were getting in to. It’s not that we wouldn’t trust you not to tell anyone...”
I shook my head. “I wouldn’t.”
“I didn’t think you would,” he said. “But it isn’t just us. The Academy requires strict confidence. Something we might accidentally slip to you, if it got out it could damage the school. If you didn’t know, you couldn’t say anything. We should have trusted you at least to warn you. You should know who you’re mixing in with.” He sucked in a breath and then blew it out between his lips. “I’m sorry about that. I want you with us. The others want you with us. We have to ask you the biggest favor in exchange. We’re required by the Academy to keep some secrets. You can’t ask us to tell you. Could you stay with us even if you knew we were keeping something from you?”
We stood in the street together. My eyes drifted to the quiet houses, where people were sleeping. I could see Nathan’s home not far away, a light still on somewhere. Kota’s looked so silent, too. How odd I felt about it now. I wanted to belong to this place. I wanted to fit in. How I longed to be normal and here I was with guys who I thought were exactly that, only to learn that I was completely wrong. In my mind, I tried to think back about what he would consider weird. Was it that their personalities were so different and yet they still hung out with each other? Was it that secret way they communicated? Was it how coordinated they were when it came to everything? I didn’t dislike it. What possible secret could a school ask a bunch of teenagers to keep. Why did Kota make it sound so dangerous?
“Will you stay?” Kota asked softly.
What else could I do? This was where I lived. The boys, despite the confusion, had been so nice to me. They weren’t normal. They weren’t what I was expecting. Why did it just seem like such a natural thing to be around them? Flashes went through my mind of their touches, their smiles and the way they talked to me. Maybe they had secrets. Didn’t I have a few? Could I turn them away for being different when I was asking them the same?
A soft smile touched my lips. Why did this feel different than when he had originally asked me to be his friend? Somehow this felt like just the beginning and I didn't fully understand it. I wanted to try, though. I wanted to know. “I’ll stay,” I said. “As long as I’m wanted.”
His lips curled into a gentle smile. “Always.”
“Kota?” a voice called from up the road. We turned to see Nathan jogging up to us. He was barefoot and no shirt, just a pair of shorts. He slowed when he saw me. “Sang?”
How did he know we were out here? I started shaking again. I’d ignored them all evening. They must be upset.
Nathan closed the space between us and I thought he was going to say something. Instead, he reached his arms around me and brought me close to him, as Kota had done, in a big hug. I smiled, feeling his strong arms around me. Friends hug, I thought. Get used to it.
He lifted me up off the ground until my toes dangled. “I’m sorry, Sang,” he said. “I didn’t mean it.”
“I know,” I breathed out, unable to get a full amount of air in my lungs as he was squeezing me so tight. “Kota explained it. It’s okay.”
“I’m just really sorry,” he said. His body shuddered and he put me down. His serious face locked on mine. “Don’t be mad.”
I looked at Kota, pleading with my eyes for help explaining.
Kota smiled at me, knowing exactly what I needed. “Let’s go inside,” he said. “Sang, will you spend the night again?”
Nathan’s mouth fell open. “What? She spent the night with you?”
An hour later, I was wearing a pair of Kota’s pajama pants and Nathan's shirt, lying awake in Kota's room, in his bed. Nathan was in the roll-away bed and Kota was in a sleeping bag on the floor. Kota had sent a quick text to the group letting the others know where I was and that everything was okay.
The replies back were numerous but Kota told them all to come by in the morning.
“We have a lot to talk about,” Kota said to me as he relaxed on his side on the floor. “I’m sure you have questions. I can’t promise I can answer them all.”
I did have a lot to ask. The Academy made them keep secrets. They were best friends. If I wanted to be a part of it, to get them to trust me, I had to earn it. I wanted to know their secrets. I wanted to be accepted as one of them.
It could wait though.
I had friends that wanted me. For now, it was enough.
~A~
Update Report:
Silas Korba: Enrolled
Lucian Taylor: Enrolled
North Taylor: Enrolled
Dakota Lee: Enrolled
Victor Morgan: Enrolled
Gabriel Coleman: Enrolled
Nathan Griffin: Enrolled
Notes from Green
Enrolled without a hitch! Principal Hendricks again thanked us for our participation. Cameras are set up securely in various classrooms, in the hallways and within the inner offices. Still trying to insert one with Mr. McCoy’s office.
Further note: I’ll be taking
on an additional student to my experimental Japanese class for the school. Have the secretary prepare a dossier for a Miss Sang Sorenson.
Notes from Blackbourne
Please have the secretary send a copy of the search results of Sang Sorenson to me. Nothing further to report.
THE END
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Books by C. L. Stone
The Academy Series:
Introductions
First Days
Friends vs. Family (Coming Soon!)
Other C. L. Stone Books:
Spice God
Smoking Gun
Turn the Page for a Sneak Peek of Book Two in The Academy Series, First Days.
READ AN EXCERPT FROM THE NEXT BOOK IN THE ACADEMY SERIES
T he A cademy
First Days
Year One
Book Two
by C. L. Stone
FOLLOWING tHE LEADER
Monday morning in August in South Carolina was uncomfortably scorching. I was grateful for the shade of the front porch and the sweet coolness of the concrete on my bare legs. I stared down the mailbox, urging the postman to hurry.
It was the day before the beginning of school. I had an unusual affinity for classrooms and homework and being among other people my own age. It meant I could watch how they interacted and try to understand reality, normalcy.