Somewhere a mid-2000s pop-punk favorite began to play.

    Guitar riffs greeted the boys upon their entrance into the cafe, a place of pine-paneled walls, cozy wooden furniture, and the smell of coffee and pastries. Suspended above them was a constellation of warm white lights, individual light bulbs that hung by wires of their own, and in the middle of the high ceiling hung a modern chandelier that looked a bit like an oversized, upside-down, modern lamp stand, the light bright and alive against the silhouette of branches upon the walls of the shade. Around them, the cafe was a busy place: almost all tables seemed to be occupied, and the noise from conversations, music, sips, and munches swam in their ears.

    Why they were here, Damien was to blame. The second Sander entered the dorm room, returning from his shower, Damien announced, "I'm hungry. Let's go to the cafe." And it seemed a good idea to them all. Food was a good idea.

    The boys made their way to the counter, walking to the back of a queue. And that's when a thought came to mind.

    "Damien."

    Damien looked behind him, at Sander who called.

    "I've got a question," said Sander, as they moved a step forward. "What were you doing in the fourth formers' bathroom?"

    Damien shrugged. "Just needed to piss," he said.

    "Wouldn't you have used the one on your floor?"

    "I was downstairs," he answered. "My sister was asking for extra cash. She spent a lot on hanging out with her friends over the summer. So I gave her some." He paused, and checked the line, the speed at which they were moving forward. "I was going up the stairs, and when I got to the fourth formers' floor, I needed to piss, so I did." He paused again, glanced at the line before him. "What's up with the rule of having to use the 'respective' bathrooms, anyway? There's no difference. They all look the same to me."

    Sander sniggered, and said no more. Weird coincidence, he thought.

    Waiting didn't take long. A few minutes or so, and they now stood directly before the counter. Captivated, Max went on to stare at the pastries displayed behind the glass below. Sander shifted his eyes over to the board mounted on the wall behind the counter, and skimmed the items on the menu, scanning the lists for something to order.

    At the back of the counter stood a boy who seemed to be in his late teens, nineteen the likely guess, looking more like a college student than the typical employed man. Both Damien and Jack looked up at him. He towered over most people, standing a little over six feet tall; his nose was aquiline in shape, his skin was fair, and his hair was dyed green, dark roots apparent underneath. Pinned to the black apron he wore was a nameplate with the name TJ printed on its surface.

    For a moment, he kept his gaze down, fixing some things behind the counter as quick as he could, grabbing a pen and a pad afterwards, before he said, "Welcome to The Raven's Nest. May I take your order?" Then he looked up, first glancing at Jack, then catching sight of Damien, and his eyes flickered with recognition.

    "'Sup, bruh?" greeted Jack, with a smile.

    Damien gave the green-haired boy a fist bump.

    "Jack. Damien," said the boy TJ. "What's up?"

    "Good. Good, man. Good to be back here," said Damien, and he meant it.

    "So," said TJ. A click from the retractable pen in hand. "Anything I could get for ya?"

    Without hesitation, Damien said, "Yeah. I'm starving. One House Blend Choco with Salted Caramel"—the green-haired boy scribbled the item down onto a sheet of his pad—"and a Club Sandwich."

    "Mm? As for me," said Jack, rubbing his hands together, "an Iced Mocha Latte and—" His sight transferred to the menu on the wall. A pause as he thought. "And a Club for me, too," he decided. He looked over to Sander and Max, who were studying the pastries on display. "You guys want anything?"

    Both boys looked up, at Jack, then to TJ who stood behind the counter. "Yeah. Sure," said Sander, his eyes shifting over to the menu. "I'll have a Grilled Chicken and Cheese Sandwich, and House Blend Iced Tea."

    Max raised a hand. "I'll have a BLT Sandwich and"—he thought for a second—"House Blend Iced Tea."

    TJ nodded. He repeated their orders.

    Max waited restlessly, an exhilarated, semi-hyperactive electric current flowing through his veins. The good kind of restless. His foot tapped to the beat of the song playing out the speakers; his eyes wandered round the café, distracted by the chaotic serenity, drinking in the vibe of this small town. His glance transferred from the green-haired boy to the tables and the people, the way they talked and laughed and bonded in conversation. Then his gaze settled upon the door that creaked open that very moment. A pale girl with long raven hair slipped in. He watched her, as her eyes scanned around the place, taking in the ambience, probably looking for a seat or even something mildly interesting. Then she walked on, and continued her search.

    He looked away then, and began searching for a table himself. There was one at the back of the cafe, enough for four people. Max gave Sander a nudge. Sander turned his head to Max's direction.

    "I'm going to find and save us a table," Max informed him. Pointing to the back wall of the cafe, he added, "I see an empty one at the back."

    Sander nodded, and gave him a thumbs-up.

    At the gesture, Max took his steps away from the counter, out the queue, before he heard Sander, standing a few feet behind, call after him: "Max, your payment."

    He halted in his tracks, and found himself smacking a palm against his forehead, in embarrassment. "Idiot," Max muttered to himself.

Lyn descried a vacant table at the far back of the cafe, a small table for two in a corner, and she took her steps towards it. Post-hardcore music blasted through her earbuds, now at a volume that nearly blocked the world out, and better yet drowned the voices out. She pulled a chair out, the one against the wall, and took her seat, without company. Lyn closed her eyes, and breathed in, and breathed out. The voices—their chants and screams and whispers—were barely audible now, but there was still the pain in her chest, a heavy sort of darkness.

    Go away, she pleaded. Pain, pain, go away, she sang in her thoughts. Yet she knew, as experience had proved to her again and again, that her cry for help was futile, silenced by the noise of demon voices in her head. Pain, pain, go away.

    Lyn breathed in once more, and opened her eyes, her glance falling upon the table across where she sat. A tall boy with tousled brown hair appeared then, slid a chair out, took his seat. She watched him as he looked over his shoulder, at the counter a distance away, where three other boys were counting their dollars, readying their payment. The boy turned back to face forward. Without much thought, Lyn transferred her glance over to him.

    Their eyes met—then quickly, almost immediately, looked away.

    Lyn looked down, fixing her eyes on the black bag sitting on her lap. Her fingers went on to fumble with the zipper, opening her bag. In one fluid motion, she slid a hand in, produced a book, zipped her bag closed, and started reading in silence.

    For a while, the boy's eyes wandered around the cafe, before his line of sight returned to the girl at the next table. She would've been cute, Max thought, if only she wasn't so pallid, so washed-out, so . . . dark.

    I miss her, he thought to himself, a sudden intrusion into his train of thought. He missed her, his girl back home—her perfect tan skin, her dark tresses cascading all the way down to her waist in waves, her perfect smile, her wonderful mind. But now she was no longer his, and the memory of them now seemed so distant.

    Yet what choice did he have? He had to leave—she didn't like it, and neither did he. And if that was the case, she said, they were better off apart than together . . .

    Max felt a hand on his shoulder, waking him from his thoughts.

    "Thanks, man," he heard Jack say.

    He looked around him, at the boys who pulled their chairs out, taking their seats.

    Slumped onto the chair beside Max, Damien set their order number on the table, the large, bold, black number 24 staring at him stupidly from a picture frame. He stared back, just as stupidly, and began to play with it, poking at the base, one side to the next, the frame moving in short slides on the wooden surface.

    A little something stupid to get his mind off something else. Like the fact that his girlfriend had been sending him texts over the past few hours, even after he told her he had a little meeting with his own group of friends, even after he said he would be hanging out a bit with his new roommate and his friend Jack and his friend Jack's roommate.

    "Something I didn't see coming," he replied. "Want to spend some time with them. To get to know them better. Gonna be sharing a dorm room with one of them for the next ten months."

    Besides, they'd spent most of their days over the summer in California dating. (He didn't know now whether it was a blessing or a curse that her father and stepmother lived a few blocks from his dad's mansion in Los Angeles.) He thought she'd be sick of his face by now. (Admittedly, he was a little sick of hers, and her voice, and her endless shopping sprees he always paid for.)

    But his girlfriend, as always and as expected, was persistent. His phone didn't stop buzzing in his pocket—a storm of angry (with one glance at the all-capitalized words and exclamation points and fuming emojis that flooded his screen, he knew she was pissed) text messages . . .

    . . . until he decided to turn his phone off. Damien was sure he would be in trouble the next time they see each other. And so, as he played with the order number, pushing it from the base of the frame, side to side across the tabletop, with his forefinger, he pondered over the words he would tell his girlfriend to hopefully make it up to her. A promise of a date this weekend, perhaps.

    Meanwhile, around the four of them—Damien, Jack, Sander, and Max—was noise, but between them was silence, casual and nowhere near awkward . . . until Jack caught sight of a pretty petite blonde girl making her way over to their table. "Hey, guys. Isn't that—"

    "Sander!" the girl called out amidst the noise, her eyes wide with concern.

    By now, she stood before their table, and Sander had risen from his seat.

    "Talya," he said, sliding out the gap between table and chair, taking a few steps closer to her. "Hey. How are—"

    "Are you okay?" asked the blonde girl, before Sander could even finish. "What happened? Did they really hurt you like that? Are you all right?" The concerned look lingered in her blue eyes.

    "I—um—Talya, I'm fine," said Sander, in some effort to calm her down. "I'm okay." A pause as the memory of the incident came to mind, and he asked, "Talya, how did you know about—"

    Talya slid a hand into her pocket. "Someone posted it," she said, pulling a cellphone out. Her fingers flew across the screen for a few seconds, tapping on one icon to the next, and then she showed him. Behind him chairs slid back, as the boys rose from their seats, crowding around him and the phone in Talya's hand. And there before his eyes played a video, a story on Instagram, from the perspective of a bystander in the audience. He watched the short scene repeat itself over and over again in silence—the helpless being himself pinned against the tiled wall, giants in the way of his only exit, one raising and aiming the shower straight at him, all of them brandishing wicked smiles, bursting into cruel laughter, mouthing words of mockery unheard. Captioned across the boomeranged clip were the words

SUCKS TO BE THAT LOSER

in bold white letters.

    A hand rested on Sander's shoulder. "Hey. Don't worry about it," assured a voice to his right. He looked back at Jack, who wore his signature charismatic smile. "Our friend here, Damien," said Jack, placing his other hand on Damien's shoulder, "has got it covered."

    "Really?" asked Talya, both bewildered and skeptical.

    Of course, Sander thought to himself. No one trusts the delinquent. If only he could smack a palm to his face right now. So much for her ideal knight in shining armor, a strong brave man to protect her from the evil dragons and villains of this world.

    "Yeah. Paid those jerks to back off."

    "Really?" queried Talya, surprised. "How much?"

    "A thousand freakin' bucks," announced Jack, without hesitation. Around them, eyes glanced towards their direction.

    Sander thought it would be a good time for Jack to shut up now. In his mind's eye, he saw himself banging his own head against the wall, repeatedly.

    "For the whole year," added Jack, patting Damien's shoulder, his eyes glinting with pride for his friend.

    Sander wanted to disappear now, far away from Talya. Evaporating into thin air would be nice, he thought. The ground swallowing him whole and transporting him into the dorm room seemed a good idea, too.

    "Oh," was all Talya could say. Then she shifted her gaze over to Sander, who said nothing and avoided eye-contact. "What's important is you're okay." She waited for a response, and received nothing but an awkward nod from Sander. "I'll be going now," she went on to say, gesturing to one of the tables a distance away. "We've got planning and preparations to do for the student council campaign. So." A pause. "See you later?"

    "Y-Yeah, see you later," Sander managed to say, without looking, before giving off an awkward chuckle.

    Talya nodded, and smiled meekly, and turned away, heading over to the table where her fellow student council candidates held their meeting.

    The boys returned to their seats, Sander slumping down onto his. He looked over at Talya's table, and, for a moment, watched her as she joined her companions, her lips curving into a smile, her bright beautiful smile. He found himself smiling, too: yes, they were friends, but for her to care, that sparked a cozy little flame within him, and seeing her smile was itself a delightful feeling. Talya laughed and talked and then, without warning, stole a glance at their table, at him.

    In a second of a heartbeat, Sander looked away and bowed his head low, placing his head in his hands.

    "Dude, you all right?" asked Max, drawing Damien and Jack's attention to the bespectacled blond boy.

    "Tell me when she's no longer looking here," whispered Sander. "Be discreet."

    A puzzled expression washed over Max's face. He turned his head to the side, craning his neck, eyes in fervent search of someone in the crowd. "Who?" he asked.

    "What part of discreet do you not understand?" hissed Sander.

    "Oops. Sorry," said Max, laughing. And when he laughed, he had a laugh, loud and animated.

    Sander took off his glasses, and smacked a palm to his face.

    Damien raised a hand, impeding Max's view. "Let me do it," he said. So Max looked away, and from the corner of his eye, Damien peered at Talya's table. "She isn't looking here," informed Damien. "She's talking with her friends."

    "You mean the other candidates," corrected Sander.

    Damien shrugged. "Same thing."

    Sander let out a breath, and placed his glasses back on. Then he dropped his hands onto the table, allowing his forearms to rest on the wooden surface.

    "Damn, son," exclaimed Jack, an amused smile dancing at the corners of his lips.

    Damien chuckled. "Boy's got it bad."

    "Can't screw up on that one," added Jack.

    Sander chose to ignore them both, saying nothing, his eyes fixed upon the table.

    Max still held that perplexed look on his face. Then he asked, "Who?"

    "Talya," replied Damien.

    Max folded his arms on the table, then leaned a bit forward, as if to keep the conversation between themselves. "That girl?" clarified Max, a finger subtly pointing towards her tables away. "The girl a while back?"

    "That's her," said Jack, beaming.

    Max nodded in approval. "She seems nice. Cute, too, if I may say so myself."

    "She is," said Damien, smiling a mischievous smile. "She's kind, cute, smart, popular—the perfect model student."

    "But we must never forget, my friends," interjected Jack, "that she is and will forever be—drumroll, please!" His hands whipped up invisible drum sticks, and began to strike them quickly against the tabletop.

    "She's Headmaster McKenna's daughter," Sander resigned, still refusing to look at Damien and Jack.

    Jack draped an arm over Sander's shoulders. "That's my boy," he said, in mock pride, patting Sander's mess of dark blond hair.

    "So you're telling me," said Max, "that Sander has a crush on the principal's—"

    "Headmaster," chorused the three.

    "Right—headmaster's daughter?"

    Damien gave him a thumbs-up. Jack nodded.

    A couple seconds' silence between them, then Max's face scrunched up, unable to suppress it any longer, and he burst into laughter, resonating a loud youthful laugh.

    Around them, eyes glanced over to their company once more—some curious, some startled, some annoyed.

    "Max!" cried Sander. "Max, stop. Stop!" He looked around, at the eyes that stared right at them. "You're drawing too much attention."

    "I'm sorry, I'm sorry," said Max, in between laughs. "I'm sorry," he said once more, his laughter dying down now. He let out a wheezing breath, his laughter finally coming to an end. "Dude." He shook his head. "Dude, you've really got it that bad, don't you?"

    "Seems so," said a figure appearing that very moment, his large shadow stretching out across the table. A huge hand laid down a plate onto the wooden surface, the steaming sandwich on it diffusing an appetizing aroma. "Sorry. Couldn't help but listen to your conversation while cleaning a couple tables nearby, especially with that guy laughing like a maniac," said TJ, throwing a glance at Max, laying down another plate of sandwich. "So you were the dude in their Instagram and Facebook stories, huh? Tortured in the shower and all? Been hearing about it for the past hour."

    "Yep, that's me," confirmed Sander, unamused.

    "Sad life," muttered TJ, shaking his head, setting down another plate. "But, hey, pay no mind to those jerks. Trust me, those guys have got some serious attitude problems, even back when I was still in Ravenwood. Plus they've been here, I've served them, I know." He paused, setting down the last plate on Sander's table space. "And I don't want to elaborate."

    "Thanks, TJ," said Sander.

    "No prob," he said, setting down a coaster before each boy. "I've got a question for you guys, though." He placed a glass of iced mocha latte on Jack's coaster.

    "What question?" asked Damien.

    All in a few seconds, TJ's eyes flitted from Damien to Jack, to Sander, to Max, whilst the last glass of house blend iced tea halted in midair, in TJ's huge right hand. He placed the glass before Max, then he said, "When did you guys start hanging out?"

    "Why curious?" asked Damien, his mouth curving into a mocking smile.

"Well, first off, you and Jack are usually with your own group of friends, and if not on a date with a girl," replied TJ, wiping a hand on the fabric of his black apron, the other clutching a big black tray. "It's odd to see you both suddenly hanging out together and with other people—new people, that is. Besides, I'll be honest, your table's been sticking out like a sore thumb for the past twenty minutes, all your noise and all your gestures—wasn't hard to notice. And by my observations, seems like you've all gone from acquaintances in a day to automatic bros, if you get what I mean."

Damien shrugged. "True."

    "Damien and I started hanging out last week," said Jack, "the last few days of summer."

    "You met at some party or something?"

    "Something," said Jack. "More like met downtown."

    "You don't want to know, man," said Damien, the memory coming to mind, something he now found both terrifying and comical.

    "Yeah. You don't want to know," repeated Jack, exchanging knowing looks with Damien.

    "What about these two?" asked TJ, a finger pointing first to Sander, then to Max. Then he paused, his finger coming to a halt, pointing at nothing in particular. A puzzled expression appeared on his face, and he said, "I don't think we've introduced ourselves yet," looking first at Sander, then at Max.

    "I'm Sander, Christopher Alexander. I'm Damien's roommate," said Sander. "Got to transfer after the incident. And I eat here, a lot."

    "Oh, man, I'm so sorry," said TJ, a palm sliding down his face in embarrassment. "Yeah, I've seen you around. I know you—like, by face. I didn't know your name, though."

    "It's all right," said Sander, accepting the apology.

    Max raised a hand. "And I'm Max. Jack's roommate."

    "My homie," pronounced Jack.

    "Yeah, boy. You're my homie," said Max, hand raised, stretching his arm forward. Jack's hand collided with his, producing a satisfying smack.

    "I thought I was your homie," said Damien, feigning jealousy.

    "You're my homie, too, bruh." A pause, as Jack draped his arm over Sander's shoulders once more, then he said, "And this boy," giving Sander's right shoulder a series of slow rhythmic pats. "This boy's our homie, too."

    Sander nodded, awkwardly. "Thanks, Jack."

    Max and Damien burst into laughter.

    "Losers," chuckled a low female voice.

    "Hey, Damien."

    The boys fell quiet then, and looked over to the table nearest theirs, a table for two in a corner, and there sat a thin pale girl, her long dark hair tied in a messy ponytail. Tim Burton's long lost daughter, thought Max. In her hand was a copy of "The Tell-Tale Heart and Other Writings", and on the table space lay her phone, earbuds plugged in, a mess of tangled wires on the wooden surface. Printed on the white long-sleeve she wore was a monochrome portrait of Sylvia Plath.

    Her eyes settled on Damien, then. He stared back—his out of confusion, hers in unspoken greeting. The girl smiled a wry smile, amused he still had no idea who she was.

    Damien's mouth curved into a lopsided grin, then, recognition dawning upon him. It took a while: she had changed so much in two years.

    "Adelina."