GREY 

"Dude, come on," I grumbled from behind the two guys plodding down the hallway in front of me. "It's not even twenty minutes out yet."

Cody, the one on the right, was practically skipping along the polished wood floor.

The second guy, Dash, glanced back at me over his shoulder and chuckled aloud. "Well, what'd you expect?" He nodded once in Cody's direction. "You should know by now that nothing comes between Cody Ashford and English Lit."

"Yeah, yeah." I rolled my eyes. "But did we really have to get here so early? I bet the teacher hasn't even showed up yet."

"Shown," Cody snipped from ahead of me. "Hasn't even shown up yet. Past participles, Grey—not past tense."

I rolled my eyes again, this time adding an exasperated sigh.

"Besides," Cody said, "we wanna get good seats."

"Yeah, whatever," I muttered. "I just hope you're bringing this same energy to history later today."

"Dude," Cody scowled. "History can go burn. We all know English Lit's where it's at."

I turned to Dash again. "There's no point in arguing, is there?"

Dash grinned and shook his head.

The guys finally slowed as we arrived outside a door of alabaster wood framed in gold, a black-and-white placard reading English Literature & Composition suspended from the wood.

Cody's hand shot out to grip the handle, twisting it eagerly and swinging the door wide.

I slid my hand inside my pocket, fished out my phone to check the time—7:39 a.m.

"Yes!" Cody roared from inside the classroom. "First ones here, boys!"

I lifted my head from my phone screen, prepared to head inside and grab the chair next to Cody when I spotted a dark shadow gliding past one of the hallway windows.

Huh? I scrunched my eyes, stared toward the clear glass. What was that?

"Grey, you coming?" Dash called.

"Y-yeah," I stammered. "Just gimme a sec. I'll be right back." I strode past the classroom entrance, trekked about twenty feet to the French door situated in the hallway wall that let out to the courtyard.

Glancing left and right and spotting no one, I grabbed the door handle and twisted slowly, inching open the bordered glass to peek outside.

And that's when I saw it—or more accurately, when I saw him.

The balmy light of the sun shimmered against a tall and slender figure, gleaming off his dark and dusky skin. Fuzzy black hair covered his head, his neck arched downward and his eyebrows knitted tightly together. His right hand held a smartphone to his ear, and he spoke with crestfallen eyes as he trudged back and forth in the grass.

Who's that? I thought to myself. Definitely too young to be the new janitor, but—

"I...I really don't know," I heard him mutter into the phone. "That cop guy who took you home—did he say anything else about it?"

Wait. The cops?

Through the break in the door, I couldn't make out what the person on the other end of the line was saying. Only the crackling wisp of the morning air met my ears.

"Figures," the guy spoke up again. "I've gotta give it to him; he really was on top of the whole thing. I felt bad lying to him like that, I just..."

This is beyond weird.

After another moment of silence, he shook his head, shut his eyes. "It's stupid. I shouldn't've frozen up. He was just trying to make sure I was okay. But...still." He exhaled a low, ragged breath.

Man, what's going on with this guy? It sounds like he's—

"Yo, Grey!" A hand clapped firmly on my shoulder, and I jumped as a surge of terror blasted through me.

"Dash!" I yelped. "What the crap, dude? Don't just sneak up on me like that!"

He held up both hands. "My bad, bro. Just wanted to make sure you were okay." He chuckled lightly. "Sheesh, man. You practically flew out of your skin."

I felt my face reddening. "Whatever. Let's just get to class already."

Dash chuckled again, tossed an arm across my shoulder as we plodded toward English Lit. I swiveled my head to the right, cast one final glance back into the courtyard—and into a somber pair of deep brown eyes now staring back at me from beyond the glass door.

****

I should've expected that Cody would take the middle seat on the very front row, leaving me and Dash to flank him on either side. We had a perfect view of the bleachy, magnetic white board that stood six feet by twelve feet on the foremost classroom wall, adorned with the multicolored markers our teacher would use to lavish out her lessons in a rainbow of strokes.

Secured firmly in my seat, I thrummed my hand across the polished metal desk, its glossy white top streaked with silver, a muted marble finish.

It wasn't until about ten minutes before eight that the rest of our class started filing in. Rummaging through my backpack, I fished out the special-issue Goldengate composition book that the administration had so graciously bequeathed us over the Christmas break, along with an encouragement to "write every day!"

After I flipped to the first page, a blank slate of gilded college-ruled lines, I scribbled the date at the top and glanced to my left, where half the pages in Cody's book were already folded over and the imprint markings of dutiful writing samples dented the fresh page he'd chosen for the day.

Laughing lightly, I shook my head. Why'd I sit next to this guy again?

I stared past Cody to where Dash had flipped his composition book open as well—just as unabashedly bare with disuse as mine, although one of the basketball decals our team's coach had given us was secured inside his book's front flap.

Oh yeah—that's why, I thought to myself. 'Cause Dash and Cody are the best pals a guy could ask for. Teammates for life.

The snap-clicking clatter of high heels echoed from the doorway inside the classroom, their owner striding into view as I spied the Roman-numeral clock hanging from the side wall that was calligraphed with Ernest Hemingway quotes—7:56 a.m.

"Good morning," came the sharp yet somehow unimposing voice of our teacher, the crispness of her words seeming to flutter through the air. "I hope you all managed to keep warm over the holidays." As she spoke, she marched to the podium just a few feet ahead of the white board, high heels clacking all the way. "While it's on my mind, Mr. Burgess asked me to give you all his regards. He loved teaching you." She paused, sighed. "It's almost criminal how they only give us sophomore English teachers a single semester. But I suppose those are the 'benefits' of the accelerated Language and Literature curriculum."

I stole a quick glance around the room; not many of the students seemed all that bothered by having a new teacher. In hindsight, I suppose Mr. Burgess hadn't been terrible, though not really anything spectacular either. Not to mention lots of the guys in our class were still a bit salty about the way he'd held us hostage over the break with the promise of extra credit...in exchange for helping fix up a new hotel his brother was opening.

"In any event," our new teacher carried on, "what's done is done, and we'll be making the best of it." She turned to the white board and grabbed an orange marker to print her name. "I'm Regina Cabot, and I'll be teaching you English Literature and Composition—and believe me when I tell you that I take that title seriously. You will be reading, and you will be writing. I am fully aware that Mr. Burgess held you to a high standard of grammatical precision, so rest assured that I will expect nothing less—"

The door to the classroom slid open slightly, a soft undercurrent that seemed to freeze Mrs. Cabot mid-sentence.

When I turned to the door, my jaw dropped wide. It's him!