Copyright © 2016. All Rights Reserved.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO: FRESHMEN YEAR

D A T E : September 2011

✖ initiation ✖

"Skye!"

My hand sluggishly dragged itself over my face. Ugh, drool.

"Skye, honey."

In the haze of the groggy morning, I peered through sleepy eyelids across my bed. I became disoriented at the fact that I had slept upside down—not literally, it was just that my pillows were on the other side of the bed. At some point during the night, Puck had migrated to the floor, and at the mention of my name, I got up, joints creaking, and started for the door.

"Skye?"

Puck clawed at the door moments before the door was nudged open. Through the crack, I saw Mom's face peer in. My entire room was in the kind of morning shadow when the sunlight doesn't come directly through the blinds, mainly because the sunrise occurred on the other side of the house. But me sleeping upside down made it feel weird.

"What time is it?" I groaned, stretching a hand out.

When she realized that I was, in fact, sleeping ten seconds ago, she looked in, stepped back from the door, peered back at me, and then disappeared for a moment to talk to someone. My entire body jerked me up, thinking that there was someone here and there I was, passed out like I was in a drunken mess. Thankfully, she was just on the phone.

"It's almost ten thirty. How long did you stay out last night? I tried waiting up for you, but there's only so many movies I can sit through at once," she told me, bumping the door open completely with her hip, the phone in her hands with one palm covering the speaker. "Someone wants to talk to you."

"Who calls at this ungodly hour?" I moaned, but truthfully, ten thirty wasn't all that terrible. I was just so exhausted.

"Clearly someone who doesn't live in this country," she muttered, the hint almost too obvious to be real.

Now, I wasn't one to curse, but I sure felt like it when I'd been woken up to have a chitchat with the Walton's over the phone. It'd been so long since I had a personalized conversation from one of them, namely Fynn, so the first thought that popped into my head was, "What do I wear?"

Sweatpants, duh. It's over the phone.

Swinging my feet to the ground, I lurched for the phone and snagged it from Mom's grasp. She laughed and informed me she'd make pancakes for this "special occasion". I was so preoccupied with the phone that I didn't realize she meant Homecoming. Right. Homecoming.

Once clearing my throat, I moved the phone to my ear and said, "Hello?"

No one answered for a few dragging seconds, but then the speaker picked up on movement filled with static. Then, "Skye? Goodness sakes I thought I'd have to leave a message with your mum."

For whatever reason, my heart deflated a smidgen when I found that it was Mrs. Walton who'd been waiting on me. It was foolish of me to think it was Fynn, anyhow.

"Hi Mrs. Walton, I haven't heard from you in a while."

She laughed, the kind that hadn't changed at all since they moved. "Don't remind me, it's been on my list of things to do for a long while, trust me. When I heard about your... what's it called? School dance?"

"Homecoming, yeah."

"Right! Right, well, Penny told me all about it. She said you have the prettiest dress and—you're going with group of friends, yes?"

She was getting so worked up about all of it, I half expected her to pull a Grandma Hemming and make a bunch of kissy noises into the phone. I could already picture her pinching my cheeks and asking for pictures.

"Yeah, I, uh, actually have to get ready for it still. I'm getting my hair done so-"

"You aren't cutting it, are you? I can't even picture you with short hair—it's unheard of!" I smiled at that, becoming consciously aware of the fact that my hair was in such a disarray that the stylist would probably have a hernia if I walked in like that.

When I tried to keep the conversation basic, I ended up having to explain everything to her—how we were going out to eat, how many people were going to be there, who I was going with, whether she knew any of them. I caught her up on the life of Joni, and how, despite her dedication to her education, she was willing to get crazy again tonight. Maybe she'd even eat her weight in ice cream afterwards. That was the plan, anyway.

The chat ended just how I thought it would, with a simple reminder to be careful and be mindful of underaged drinking, and also the usual, "Well, I'll let ya go now. Seems like you've got a full day ahead of you. Love you!"

I hung up thinking, Forever my English Mother Number 2.

After, I stood in the middle of the room trying to remember what I was supposed to be doing. Was I supposed to be getting ready for my appointment? The hair styling wasn't until two.

During my mental checklist, Kole's name appeared somewhere in the middle, vague and somewhat scribbled in. Did that really happen? Had he actually said all those things, rambled like an idiot, and left at the sound of her voice calling his name? I couldn't be sure, and for that reason, I didn't know if I should go to the ice cream parlor or not.

For all I knew, it was all a figment of my imagination. It sure did sound like it.

On the off chance that he truly had confronted me, something I hadn't expected from him at all, perhaps I should go. It wouldn't hurt anyone if I came, say, ten minutes late--it was enough time to make it seem like I wasn't crazy over him, which was true except for the fact that I couldn't decipher a thing when we were together.

The clock was already ticking towards eleven, so I figured if I'd walk there, I'd have to give myself at least twenty minutes walking time. Swapping my pajamas for more suitable clothing, I got ready for the afternoon and ate breakfast with Mom and Lucas, but since they'd been up for a while, I munched on pancakes while they clicked away on their computers.

Eventually I swallowed down a gulp of orange juice and glanced at Mom. She had her hair pulled back, eyes down at her computer screen, and fingers dancing madly across the keys. Unlike many children my age, I didn't know the specifics of Mom's job until recently, because as it turned out, she jumped around. While in the midst of balancing book after book at a publication company thirty minutes north of here, over the summer she acquired an interest in actually writing one--something that had never occurred to her before. Now there she was, plotting away and not letting me touch a thing of it until it was complete.

Joni thought my mom's job was the coolest thing to ever happen in the whole wide world, which was why, when asked what she wanted to do outside of high school, she told everyone that she wanted to make peoples' dreams possible by editing books before publication.

"Hey Mom," I said, and after a hastily written sentence, she looked up at me. She was wearing absolutely no makeup, and looked, if possible, five years older.

"What is it?"

I fidgeted in my chair, trying to remember what I was going to say, and then it just spilled out without a second thought: "A few friends and I are meeting in downtown. Can I go?"

"Of course, just be back in time for the hair appointment."

After pushing out my chair and moving on to the next daily activity, I took Puck outside and stood on the back porch, arms folded over my chest, and staring past the backyard into the forest where Puck usually did his business. It was chilly, and if possible, even colder than yesterday. With his massive fur coat, it didn't seem like Puck minded at all.

Eventually I slipped on some boots and my winter jacket before telling Mom and Lucas that I'd be back by one.

Time to see what Kole wanted.

If I walked slow enough, I'd be there in half an hour. If I walked fast enough, maybe twenty minutes. I voted for slow walking—it was morning after all—and meandered absently through my neighborhood, through the park on the south end, and down the steep, spiraling drive emptying out onto the main road. I took a brief detour to the Port docks and observed from afar the boat Mr. Walton had entrusted on Lucas. It was a classic fishing boat, with an open back to step into and a two-decker front, the windows dark and freshly polished by Lucas the weekend prior.

I decided to step in and sit for a bit, perhaps to mentally prepare myself for whatever Kole would throw at me this time. The waves rolled in through the bay and bucked the end of the ship, gently, but enough for me to notice. After few minutes of lallygagging, I hopped back out and continued on my way, taking time to pat the boat on it's side as a friendly goodbye.

Through the dock parking lot, I reached the main road again, this time surrounded by stores with window displays decked out in Halloween decorations. On the way up the sidewalk, I noted the ice cream parlor sign where it was mounted against the brick wall. Beneath the neon, I spotted Kole sitting in one of the wire chairs, leant forward so his elbows could rest on his knees, a cup in his hands.

When I approached him, he seemed startled to see me, because he nearly spilled his drink in the process of standing up. "Skye! Hey, I didn't think you were coming."

It was the first thing he said, and it made me feel like a complete bitch for thinking waiting ten minutes was a good idea. When Kole said noon, he really meant noon—not around noon.

"Sorry. I decided to walk here so it took a bit longer than expected," I lied. I'd walked to Port more times than I could count, and clocking it wasn't an issue anymore.

He suggested we go inside and he offered to buy me a chai, but I brought my own money to pay for a drink. While the barista tending to the drinks whipped up my beverage, Kole stood along beside me, one hand in his pocket and the other holding his cup. He drummed his fingers along the styrofoam of it the entire time, seemingly lost between thought and looking at me. I was the same with him.

It was rather chilly outside, so we took a seat on one of the few booths inside the parlor, closest to the window overlooking the street.

"What do you want to talk about?" I decided to ask. All he'd been doing was drumming his fingers on his cup and shaking his leg up and down—I could feel the table quiver slightly when he did that.

He stopped all at once before speaking up again. "I wish I could tell you that all this is is just a catch up—and it is—but I don't... I haven't talked about my 'problems' with anyone else but you." It wasn't necessary for him to say it out loud, because I knew exactly what he meant by 'problems', and I knew where the conversation was going the minute he came up to me at the Homecoming powderpuff game. For whatever reason, I ignorantly denied that he was suffering, and that his anxiety was just a fleeting thing, but it wasn't. It followed him everywhere; in art class, and here as well.

Still, even though we talked about it before both face-to-face and over Facebook, he looked nervous. I imagined it was because we were on hiatus for the entire summer, so I decided to reassure him. "I've never told anyone about it. If you're worried about trusting me-"

"It isn't that, I swear," he broke in instantly. "It's just that up until later in the summer I hadn't seen my therapist at all, and when I finally did she said-"

"Why wouldn't you see her? Kole..." I groaned. My voice was so heavily coated with disappointment that his frown intensified even further.

"I thought I was doing fine. Besides, the sessions are expensive when my dad doesn't even want to deal with it," he reminded me, soto voce with his head down. "After one of the episodes, he sent me in to see her again. She told me to reconnect with old friends if other methods didn't work."

"She probably means friends from Minnesota—I'm not exactly an 'old' friend," I told him, but he was shaking his head before I'd even finished.

"Skye, listen, she didn't mean it like that," he insisted, and the way he said it, so forlorn and depressed, I calmed down. I took a sip from my cup and listened while he spoke. "I wasn't lying when I said you were the only person I've talked to about it since moving here. Ryan knows a little, but I don't expect him to understand it."

"Yeah, I don't know how much help he'd be," I jested, and he let out a soft laugh.

"Right, well, that's the point. My therapist told me I should be completely honest with a friend that I could trust. I haven't exactly been honest with you, Skye." He brushed the pad of his thumb over his upper lip, and I worried for a brief moment that he might breakdown—either screaming or in tears or both—so I reached over and took his hand from his cup, and just held in there in the middle of the table.

"Whatever it is, I'll keep it safe," I told him, and I meant it.

He hesitated for a moment, but kept his hand where I held it while he used the other to tug on the edges of his hat. It was a Port Bergen High School hat, with the ear flaps and all. I complimented him on it, because it probably kept him warmer than those beanies ever did, but he laughed and said it was temporary.

Eventually he drank the rest of his chai and set it aside. "You know, back when we first started hanging out, I told you that my parents were divorced, and that my mom still lived in Minnesota and that was one of the reasons we left."

"Yeah, and your dad got a job offer from my uncle," I added.

"It's all sort of true, but my mom isn't exactly... living in Minnesota, per se." His voice broke up right around then, and it ended with, "She passed away almost four years ago and I couldn't tell you... until now."

His breath was shaky when he let out that massive sigh, and even though I'd never lost a mom, nor had I ever met his mom, I felt strangely broken to hear this news.

It was horribly delayed.

All those times he told me he was going to Minnesota to visit his mom for the weekend, they were lies, and a chance he could have had to tell me the truth. I wondered if the tightness of my throat would have turned into tears had he told me when we were closer friends, but my heart broke nonetheless.

Nothing came out of my mouth, not even a squeak when I opened it to say something. He started talking again to fill in the silence. "Dad and Lily did nothing about it—she didn't even cry at the funeral, some bullshit about putting on a face or something."

"I'm so sorry, Kole," I stammered out. I didn't know what to say. I bet Joni would know what to do; she was good at this kind of stuff.

"You don't have to say that," he told me, lowering his voice even more. He just looked angry now, but at least his eyes weren't rimmed with red and glazed over. "I just wanted to be up front with you about it now."

"Why today though? I mean, Homecoming isn't exactly the type of time that you spring this on," I told him, which made him laugh, an actual laugh that wasn't half-assed like all his other ones today.

"I figured once I got the incentive, I'd go for it before I chickened out," he explained. His eyebrows relaxed, and he leaned farther back into his booth seat, stretching his arm all the way out to keep it clasped in mine. I could've let his hand go, but I kept it there. Maybe it was the only thing keeping him from completely breaking. I heard contact with other people helped ease the emotional pain, like a heartfelt hug.

"Are you, ya know, gonna be okay? I mean, I can't imagine how much it hurt," I managed to say.

"Yeah it hurt—still does sometimes, but... the weird thing is that I can't remember what any of my old school buddies look like. I'm afraid to forget what she looked like, too," he told me, his eyes turned away like he was focusing on the plastic menu slip by the salt and peppers. "I just hate how I'm not able to move past it. Dad and Lily did just fine."

"I'm sure it hurt for them, too. Don't say that." Even when I had nothing of immense value to give Kole, I still wanted to try, but in the aftermath of giving him poor advice, I wished he didn't have to depend on me. I didn't want to be the cause of some epic downfall of his, but now I felt responsible for whatever did happen to him. He trusted me, unlike he did most of his other friends.

"You're right, sorry," he muttered. I took a sip from my cup, nearing the halfway mark of it when he began talking again. "You'll be at the dance, right?"

"Of course. Joni and I are splitting Landon as our date," I said, and he laughed at that. It was pretty comical. "I heard you and Bluebell are going."

That shut him right up. He set his jaw straight, and I could feel the tabletop jiggle just a touch when his leg started jumping again. "That's what she's telling everyone, huh?" he said, and it didn't sound like a question that needed answering, so I didn't say anything. "Can I ask you something, Skye?"

"Sure."

"What was it that you did to piss Bluebell off so much?" I retracted a bit from the question, and in the process tugged my hands away to fold them over my stomach. I didn't know how to answer it at all, but I could only imagine where it came from. She probably babbled to him about something, maybe all the shit she'd done—at camp, in elementary school, when none of it was really relevant now, but it still sparked something.

"I didn't do anything. She's just always hated me," I told him, voice quiet to prevent myself from getting furious and screaming it. "I can't even pinpoint when it started. I'd rather not talk about it anyway."

He dissolved into silence, like he was contemplating whether or not I was serious about dropping the subject, but he picked it right back up with a determined look on his face. "I get that you're not her biggest fan, and I don't expect you to understand any of my... 'feelings' towards her, but I think she's helped a lot."

"You're not her charity case, Kole," I said, and it came out so cold that it looked like I'd punched him in the gut. "She hasn't changed at all."

"That's not what I'm saying," he insisted. "It's easier for me to be normal around her because she's so outgoing, you know? It's not so intimidating anymore, going to parties and everything."

"Is that why you're going to the dance with her?" It was rude of me to be so up front about it, but my voice betrayed my annoyance, to which he responded with a sigh of indifference.

"Maybe, I dunno. At first I thought she was just getting back at Ryan, but he doesn't seem to care. They only dated for a month or two," he told me. When he caught sight of my concerned look, he said, "Don't worry about it. I'll be all right. I wouldn't've gone to the dance if she hadn't insisted."

While I agreed that getting out there and having fun was good for Kole, I didn't trust Bluebell or any of her intentions. As soon as he admitted his suspicions, I knew it was true: she started by using him against Ryan—not so much against me, but her ex-boyfriend. It was selfish of me to think that she was using Kole to annoy the crap out of me, and even if she hadn't intended it, it sure did rile me up. I just hoped that Kole's trust in her wouldn't backfire in the end.

. . .

The hour arrived. The hour of my first Homecoming dance. It was a stepping stone to say the least, like an official entry into the life of high school.

I couldn't bear to look at anyone else without feeling like I was just a mere speck on the ground. The line down the hallway was so exceedingly long and filled with girls wearing tight-fitting dresses, heels, and guys fitted in slacks and dress shirts, their hair styled back and girls with their hair styled up.

Our group was so large that I didn't know who exactly to stand with other than Joni and Landon, so I remained where I was, even when Joni pranced off to chat with Olivia and Charlotte, who donned matching cocktail dresses and mirrored hairstyles. She flounced around everywhere, so I pinned myself to Landon's side and refused to let him ditch me.

"God, you're like a nervous chihuahua," he told me, laughing as he looped his arm around mine. Good Lord was he right; I was trembling like an over-agitated minuscule dog with an inferiority complex. Not only that, people kept opening the door behind us and the draft was causing goosebumps to prickle up my legs. Thankfully, my coat kept my upper body warm.

"Sorry, I can't help it. I'm not the greatest dancer you know. What if I elbow someone in the eye?" I rambled, refraining from nibbling on my lip in fear of tearing the skin. "Or what if someone elbows me in the eye? If I lose a contact, I think I might just throw up."

"You'll be fine," he told me, amusement clear in his voice. "Trust me. I'll be your contact guardian, just stick with me."

Landon was so on top of everything. Unlike me, he'd befriended some upperclassmen through a few of his classes and managed to get the lowdown on what exactly this dance was all about, on the side of Joni's mom's warnings. He had each of our tickets ready, and handed them to the lady behind the table up front. Through the balloon-studded archway, we got a peak at dance, which was just starting to rise up into full swing. Our cafeteria had been transformed into the Homecoming floor, and provided clothed tables on the far sides, and an open space in the very middle for all the high schoolers to gather together and dance their hearts out.

Joni was so transfixed by it that she completely ditched us, most likely to hunt down Zach, the poor guy. I couldn't even remember if he'd told us he was going to the dance, but if he did, Joni would hunt him down. All week she'd been pounding her fist onto our lunch table and declaring, "I will dance with someone, dammit! No one's gonna stop me!"

It didn't take long for me to scope out how the mosh pit started, or why it did in the first place. Overall, the dance was a simple diagram of a scatter plot in which everyone was everywhere, but most of all, condensed in the middle. On the outer rim of the cafeteria were the teachers, supervisors, and adults who didn't at all enforce the space-bubble rule where, in the second rim, cutesy couples arranged themselves slow dancing to songs that weren't even meant to slow dance to. Intermingled in that rim were groups of people who came just to gossip, gather together and laugh at the third ring—the freshmen who didn't know what the hell they were doing.

As soon as I realized I was in that ring, I grabbed Landon's hand and steered us both to the fourth ring. Things started to gather here, and while we still had room to throw our hands in the air and shake it like we just didn't care, it involved nudging a few people here and there who were getting too cozy. The fifth ring was a place I never wanted to enter, so Landon and I stuck where we were for the time being.

The music pulsed through the speakers and coursed through my bones in waves. I felt the bass deep in the pit of my stomach, and in the drum of my heart against my chest. Beside me, Landon reached through the crowd and pulled a familiar face towards us: it was Clara. She looked absolutely stunning in her ocean blue dress, and around her neck she had on a thick golden necklace to match her earrings as they swung about.

Laughing like a maniac, she told us she'd danced with some junior fellow and was looking for us ever since. After that I couldn't hear much of her conversation with Landon, other than the specifics on what the guy looked like because she couldn't remember his name. She was sure she'd be able to point him out on any other day of school, but right now, she just wanted to party.

She took my hands—hers were oddly cold and clammy. Swinging me back and forth, she jumped around and gathered Landon and I into a dancing circle that brought together a few of the strangers around us. I got so caught up in the dancing that I hardly realize that people were taking turns in the middle and breaking out into their best style. In the midst of it all, I leapt at the touch of someone's hand on my waist, and debated elbowing them in the stomach until I heard his laugh behind me.

"Relax, geez, you're so jumpy today," Kole said, his voice light, but loud in order for me to hear him over the speakers.

He didn't move his hand away at all, but instead let it rest on my back as if using me for support to see over everyone's heads. My attention was too divided to care much about who was in the circle, because it seemed like Kole's hand was burning a hole through the fabric of my dress. I was so damn hot that I became grateful for my up-do because I was pretty sure my neck and armpits were clammy.

By the time everyone converged back into one massive blob of sweaty bodies, Landon and Clara were already peaking out of the corner of their eyes at Kole and I as they snuck away through the crowd, most likely to go hunt down Joni to squeal over "the match made in heaven". Unbelievable.

I couldn't hear much—I was pretty sure the bass burst one of my eardrums—so I wasn't sure if Kole told me he liked my dress or if I wanted to dance. For the sake of being neutral about it, I said, "Yeah, thanks!" I wasn't sure what would be worse, premature slow dancing with Kole or being subjected to premature grinding with Kole. The first and last time I'd ever gotten romantically close to a guy was in third grade when Ryan tried to kiss me and I shoved him so hard into the ground that he sliced his arm open and had to get stitches.

Whatever the case, Joni had assured me that anything that happened at Homecoming, usually stayed at Homecoming, and I sure hoped she was right because I couldn't image a world in which Kole would forever remember my god-awful dancing skills. At first he tried to keep himself behind me, something that a lot of guys were doing with their dates, and while "Party Rock Anthem" had the right beat for it, I didn't want to get that crazy. So instead, I twisted myself around as best I could with the limited space I was given. I was pretty sure a junior girl was unintentionally grinding on me, too, and Kole wasn't any better off.

Upon realizing the situation we were in, he laughed at my appalled expression, and to that I couldn't help myself. I snorted and promptly grabbed his hand with every intention of getting us the hell out of the fifth ring. Of all the rings, that was my least favorite place to go.

We resurfaced on a brighter, less sweaty side of the dance floor where we stumbled directly across a group of Kole's friends with girls I saw frequently throughout the Homecoming festivities. They were juniors I recognized from the powderpuff team, and upon seeing Kole and recognizing him as apart of the basketball team, stole him from me with the help of his friends.

"Guys, really, I-" he tried objecting, but stopped as soon as I gave him an innocent shrug, as if to say, "Sorry, can't help you here!" before walking away. The last thing I wanted was to get roped into dancing with them. Sure, they were all probably great guys but not exactly ideal dancing partners.

An hour and a half later, my feet felt like my legs had turned into lead poles, and were searing holes through my heels. Landon couldn't agree more, and besides, the crowd was thinning and the music was gradually getting less and less entertaining. We left just around the time the DJ brought back the eighties, taking an exhausted Yui and half-passed-out Lizzie with us. We expected her to last longer than us, so it was a surprise when she caught up with us walking down the hall, aching as we slipped our shoes back on.

"Mind if I hitch a ride? I don't think I can dance much longer," Lizzie admitted, walking tenderly on the balls of her feet.

"Sure. My mom's picking us up," Landon told her. "We can drop you off at your house."

She agreed, and together the four of us stepped out into the chilly night and waited patiently for the arrival of Landon's mom. Soon, we saw the headlights of a van pull into the high school parking lot, and without further ado, we all booked it to the backseat, chilled to the bone and pleading for warmth. I entered last, and as I waited for my turn to grab a seat, I turned back to the high school in all it's sturdy brick glory, and felt an emotion akin to relief. I could survive four years of high school. I could do it.