Soundtrack: 'Speak' - Jhene Aiko

{Kadee}

Kadee hadn't felt this afraid to go to school since Grade 7, when she had started junior high. She smoothed her hands over her hair, pulled back in a topknot to reveal the lotus flower carved into the brush cut at the nape of her neck. She'd been feeling reckless yesterday, and there were streaks of purple and red shot through her dark strands, with the lotus flower at the back tinted a watercolour wash of purple and pink.

And now here she was, hot new haircut and manicure, afraid to get out of her car in the school parking lot. She gripped her steering wheel tightly, watching the doors to the school open and close as students went in. On the first day of Grade 7, Madison and Sarah and half a dozen other girls from the neighbourhood had closed around her like a shield. They weren't here now and she felt like she had a target painted on her chest. The meme of her in her lingerie wasn't going away anytime soon—it now had thousands of views. Not that she had obsessively checked in every hour before she finally deleted the app off her phone.

When she saw Cary slope through the doors alone, she let out her breath and got out of the car to follow him in, slinging her bag over her shoulder. She'd chosen her outfit like armour: tall grey boots with black jeans and a long blouse and belt today. The mirror told her she looked strong and chic, and she dropped her hand in her bag as she crossed the parking lot, clasping the little mace can in her fingers.

The funny thing was, her mother liked her new look. She had looked her up and down as Kadee had perched on the barstool eating an egg-white omelette for breakfast and given a little head bob. She'd taken tiny steps in her silk slippers and touched the topknot at the top of her head, light as a butterfly. "You look like an 'urban' samurai." She said the word in her heavily accented English, and then switched to Japanese. "What are your classes today?"

And that was all she'd had to say about her daughter's extreme makeover. In retrospect, Kadee thought she should have guessed that a decision to choose more modest clothing was always going to meet with her mother's approval.

Cary was trying to fit his books into his locker, his rangy shoulders making his ordinary grey T-shirt look like it was worth a hundred bucks. Kadee knocked on the locker next to his as if it were the door to his personal space.

He jumped a little, then lifted his eyebrows in his still face. "Hey, Kadee."

She smoothed a hand over her hair and made her signature smile. "Welcome to the first day of classes. Who's super excited to be here?"

He snorted.

She wrapped an arm across her body, keeping her back to the lockers. "What do you have first?" She couldn't deny that she felt safer with him an arm's length away and might even have called it an answer to prayer if they had some classes together.

He pulled out a tattered piece of paper from his pocket, unfolding it to check. "English 23."

She couldn't hold onto all of her smile. Class numbers that ended in a three were for kids who had basically failed the previous year and were waved on. She used to laugh when her friends called the people in those classes the "slow-tards." She was starting to wonder why she had worked so hard to get into the academically challenging classes when there were two sets of Grade 12 exams coming up next year and a room full of snotty kids judging her. "Too bad—I have Social."

She hadn't seen him notice her new haircut, so she turned her head to show him, running her hands over the soft brush of the lotus flower. "What do you think?"

His mouth flattened in what could have been an attempt to smile. "Nice."

She wrapped a stray hair around her finger and pulled it tight, wondering how she could prolong this conversation and stay within arm's reach when all he gave her was one-syllable answers. She took a breath for one more try. "How's Jon doing? Did he come today?"

"No." Cary shut his locker door with more force than seemed necessary.

She hesitated. "Is he okay?"

"Nope." He balled his English novel in his fist and jabbed out a sharp rhythm on the wall of lockers. "Going to the hospital today with Pete." He popped the locker one more time, then slouched away.

She hurried to keep up. "His dad knows now?" she asked, glancing around the hall to make sure no one Jon knew was in earshot.

"Yup." Cary's eyebrows were drawn down low, and his mouth had an unhappy twist in the corner.

She had to take two steps for every one of his, hurrying to stay next to him in the crowded hall. It wasn't until they arrived at the north doors that she realized he wasn't going to class—he was going to smoke. He put an unlit cigarette to his lips and she took a breath, glancing through the greasy glass at the kids clustered on the concrete there. She touched his elbow. "Can I...stick with you? In the breaks and things?"

His dark eyes met hers above the cigarette. She couldn't think what else to do except be completely honest. "My friends kind of...ditched me, and I need a place to be that's safe." Heat went up her neck—it felt like taking her top off for him in the hallway.

His eyebrows twitched up in a tiny, surprised movement, and he didn't answer for a second that went on way too long for her comfort. "Sure, I don't mind." The soft, even way he said it reminded her of Pastor Pete.

He stepped aside, breaking the connection between her fingers and his skin, and pushed out the doors.

Kadee followed, darting glances at the other kids. She'd been intimidated by their appearance before; now she was noting how one of the girls lined her eyes and the chunky boots another wore, planning a shopping trip to adopt that look for herself.

Cary didn't join the other kids, instead lighting up and crossing to an open spot against the brick at the corner of the building. She followed, hugging her arms against herself, thinking about the classes she would have to sit through before she was free to leave. She wondered whether Madison would talk to her if she got her alone, if there was a way to find out how long her friends were going to cut her out and when she could get things back to normal.

Cary smoked quickly and stubbed the cigarette, half-finished, on the brick. "If you want me to walk you to class, we should head now. I can't be late."

The five-minute bell rang as he finished speaking, and she straightened, flipping her bang off her face. "I'll be fine. I'll find you after—here or your locker, right?"

He checked her face. "Yup." 

{Cary}

Cary watched her as she crossed the concrete, swaggering her hips with her head held high. Kadee found reasons to touch him a lot. Her fingers brushing his skin made his body tighten and all his hairs stand up in a way that was uncomfortable. Was she aware she was doing that? Was that what girls did when they wanted to get with a guy?

The last thing he wanted to do was take his clothes off with a girl like her, with all his messed-up scars—or have her touch him more than she did already. He was fine to keep assholes like Todd off her back, but other than that, he planned to stay well away. He was figuring out girls could make him hurt way worse than taking a punch from a guy. He couldn't even tell where his hurt was coming from since his mother had left him at Ginos, or how to stop the bleeding—he would rather ice a broken face.

Cary moved through his classes on autopilot, mostly succeeding in bringing the right books and appearing to pay attention. His eyes kept wandering to the clock on the wall, and he found himself thinking for the first time in weeks about what his father might be doing now, if he was back at teaching university.

He went to the library at lunch hour and logged onto a computer, punching his questions about his family into the search box like he was poking a bruise. He jotted the answers in his sketchbook before he could decide what to feel about them.

Conall Douglas' impressive bio came up in the staff section of the university website, but Cary couldn't find a single class that included his name as the professor. He closed the browser, shoving back from the desk unsatisfied. He knew where his father wasn't right now—in front of a classroom of university students—but that didn't answer his question.

After a moment, he pulled up to the desk again, trying to recall the spelling of his mother's name before she was married. The woman with the flame-red hair was in his mind as he clicked through the search results, trying to match the meagre online information with his equally meagre memories. There was little to jot down in his sketchbook—but he took down what he could. Then he buried himself in the stacks at the back of the library, working until his pencil was worn to a nub and his need for a smoke was too itchy to ignore any longer.

Kadee was at the north doors, in the same spot they'd been that morning. She had a leg stretched out in front of her and her binder spread in her lap, a couture lunch bag and water bottle lined up neatly beside her. He joined her silently, leaning his shoulders against the brick and lighting up. Out of habit, he checked the side of her face to gauge her mood, then paused. Her eyes were red and her lip was trembling as she glared at her notes. He was still figuring out when people wanted to be asked if they were okay. He never did.

"How was the morning?" he tried.

"Fine," she said shortly. She slumped back and put her hands over her eyes. "Horrible. I need new friends."

He ran his eyes over her arms and neck to check for bruises, then looked aside, saying nothing. It was probably true. He didn't know much about having friends.

She sniffed and wiped her nose on the back of her hand like a child. "How was your morning?"

He shrugged. "Fine." He was an arm's length away from his emotions, and it felt like there might be a lot there if he got any closer. He wasn't going there at school.

She attempted a smile. "Thought I might see you here sooner."

"Working in the library. Whites don't have a computer." He didn't add that he had been avoiding humans on purpose.

There was a burst of laughter from the kids across the pavement and the rhythmic, rice-y thunk of a kid kicking a hacky sack. She tucked her hair behind her ear, the purple making a loud stripe of colour against the black of her hair. "Is this a normal day for you? Just—by yourself?"

"Yeah, I guess," Cary said.

"Do you like it like that? Or did friends ditch you too?"

He made a dry noise. "Didn't have friends before. Too many secrets."

She gathered up her binder and lunch bag, fitting them back into her voluminous tote. When she stood, her head only came up to the middle of his bicep. "And now?"

He felt the reality of the day draw a little closer, with Jon and Pete and the trial starting tomorrow. "I got enough to worry about without someone else needing something from me." It came out a little rough, and he caught the wounded expression on her face before she dropped her eyes and smoothed a stray hair back into her topknot.

"You're fine—you're Jon's friend," Cary said. "But I don't want more."

"I don't want more," she said quickly. "God, the last guy I was with had his hands all over me. In case you didn't notice—I'm done with that whole scene. I knew you weren't into girls when I started hanging out with you and that's...that's good for me." She turned away from him, fiddling with her bag.

Cary rubbed his knuckles over his jaw, noticing the curve of her spine and the shape of her hips in her jeans. It didn't feel true that he wasn't "into" girls, just that he didn't have time for them right now. He dropped his eyes and smudged his cigarette out with his toe. If it kept Kadee's hands off him, it probably wouldn't hurt for her to think that, though.