Sticks & Stones

I wrapped my frozen hands around the straps of my backpack, pulling it tight around my shoulders. I ducked my head beneath the hood of my navy blue sweatshirt and began walking.

I did not know why, but I had a gut feeling that it was not going to be a good day.

I grimaced as, within the first three steps of my walk, the snow began to fall. I could remember a time, long ago, when winter had been my favorite season. As a child, I adored seeing a blanket of snow on the ground and smelling hot chocolate and pine trees no matter where I went. The joy and freedom of sledding down snowy hills, and the bitter cold of snowflakes landing on my tongue were endeavours that I desperately looked forward to each year.

Once I hit the age of sixteen and realized that our family did not have the money to buy me a car, my opinions about the frigid, winter months changed.

My footsteps fell silently on the snow lining the sidewalk, as did my brother’s as he walked alongside me. “It’s freezing out here,” Jack groaned, his voice quivering from the cold air. I glanced at him, seeing only a small fragment of his green-grey eyes beneath the fringe of his long, dark hair. His lips were tinged blue; dry and cracked around the corners.

I turned my gaze to the frozen ground before me, dreading the next five hundred and eighty-two steps it would take to reach the school. I had walked the same route so many times that I memorized the distance in steps, which would sound stupid if it were coming from anyone other than myself. You see, I was the so-called “brain” of the family. And, as accustomed to the lifestyles of such a person, I embraced my intelligence in as many ways as possible. That included calculating my walking distance each morning.

I sighed as the flakes continued to fall from the grey sky, sprinkling the fabric of my thin jacket. They were beginning to melt through to my skin, making the walk even more excruciating.

Although there were a total of five hundred and ninety-four steps from our front door to Wilmington High School, there were only two hundred and thirty-one from our front door to Cooper’s.

I waved at Mrs. Hellman as Cooper ran out the door and into the cold to join me. He had on a thick winter coat, something I seemed to always forget in the mornings. The snow blended in with the white-blond of his hair and thick eyebrows. “Chilly morning, eh?” Coop said with a grin. He was always smiling.

Jack made a groaning noise and I shrugged. “It could be worse,” I said, happy to have someone like Coop to break the awkward silence between my brother and I every morning. He also had the tendency to lighten my mood, even the dull ones that I had been in for nearly a week. Coop immediately began telling me a story, while I listened with open ears, and Jack ignored us as he usually did.

You see, Jack did not talk much. He did not talk to me, or aunt Jane and uncle Micah, or Coop, or anyone for that matter. Not that I ever witnessed, anyway. He hung out behind the school building sometimes with one of those bad-to-the-bone groups that parents warn their children about. No one really knew that Jack and I were related, so no one filtered their words when talking about that Slater kid who just so happened to have the same last name as me.

Every once in awhile, I would eavesdrop on conversation involving his name, mostly because I worried about him. I heard from Barry Haskins that my brother did a lot of drugs. I heard from Melanie Davis that he lost his virginity to a twenty-four year old woman and that he did not even know her name. I heard from Noel Johnson that he was insane, but I kind of suspected that fact a long time ago.

Then again, this was all what I heard. I did not see any of the things I heard about happen, I just suspected that they were true. But I deeply wished otherwise.

I never told Jack all that I supposedly knew about his secret life, mostly because he wouldn’t care. He did not care about much of anything, to be quite honest. I never understood why he chose to live this way, but I did not question him.

He was rather intimidating, in a dark and mysterious kind of way. If Jack had his hair cut short like mine, and our bodies were cropped out of the picture, anyone would believe that we were identical. That is what we were told, of course, that we were identical twins. We looked the same and, by nature, there was a good chance we would think and act the same, as well. But neither the former nor the latter of the situation happened.

Jack grew to be broad and muscular, as I barely grew. His shoulders were wide, and mine barely fit beneath my too-big shirts that were the same size as Jack’s, which hugged his arms in the places that they were supposed to. I am sure there is an appropriate explanation for our difference in structure, but I just learned to accept it.

I also learned to accept the struggling fact that Jack hated most of the things that I loved, and likewise. He hated popularity, I craved it. He hated school, I strived to succeed. He hated being noticed, I secretly hoped to stand out.

I, on the other hand, hated my hair hanging in my eyes, but Jack never wanted to cut his. I hated being ignored, Jack enjoyed the time alone. I hated being ridiculed because I didn’t sit in the right part of the cafeteria, Jack sat by himself on purpose. I hated having to explain why my parents weren’t around, Jack laughed about their nonexistence. I hated stress because it made me cry, but I had never once seen him shed a tear.

But that is where the most drastic difference crept into place; Jack hated his life, and I slowly learned how to survive in mine.

“-and then I started laughing even though his jokes always suck, but it’s my dad so I can’t just not laugh, you know?” Coop finished the story that I had accidentally ignored with a grin.

I forced a smile. “Yeah,” I agreed quietly, although I had always thought that Mr. Hellman had great jokes.

Coop looked at me through the corner of his pale blue eyes. He had always been able to read me like a book that had not even been opened yet, and I could never figure out if it was a good or bad trait for a best friend to own. I managed to keep my eyes on the frozen ground until he spoke. “You okay?” he asked lightly, knowing that something was wrong. In fact, there was always something wrong. I was usually better at hiding it.

“I’m just tired,” I said with a sigh. I hated lying to Coop, but I could not seem to put the truth into words. “That’s all.”

Coop nodded slowly, glancing over his shoulder to see if Jack had anything to say.

He never did.

He had plugged his marshmallow ear buds into his ears and managed to drown us out completely. I truly did not understand why Jack never accepted Cooper’s kindness.

My heart sank as Wilmington High School came into view. It was a large, brick building with a giant welcome sign in the front lawn that students vandalized as tradition every year. I had never been a part of it, but I always looked forward to coming to school the Monday after homecoming and seeing spray-paint genitalia on the picture of the tiger mascot.

Popularity, for many reasons, was all I had ever wanted. I had spent seventeen and a half years of my life watching the world go on around me; a world that I so desperately wished to be a part of. I dreamed of being a part of the “cool” group at school nearly every night when I rested my head against my pillow, dreading the following day. I wanted people to notice me. I wanted them to acknowledge me for more than my good grades and the fact that I would do absolutely any popular kids’ homework just to be able to sit with them in the cafeteria for a day. I wanted to be a part of the school-vandalization each year, even though I had never done anything so risky before. But to be a part of the behavior, one had to be a part of the crowd that I had been trying so hard to work my way into.

I sighed at my thoughts as we stepped across the frozen crosswalk. The fresh snow blanketed the lawn and the parking lot that was never empty. I knew that the snow and ice would not be an obstacle to the caravan of vehicles that paraded into the lot every morning, approximately twenty-two steps from the school doors.

I counted in my head. Twenty-four, twenty-three.

I smiled softly as the first honk sounded in my ears, and I glanced over my shoulder to see the most popular kids at school fly into the parking lot at their scheduled time. Coop rolled his eyes at the noise. He hated the morning-parade; mostly because it consisted of the jocks and their beautiful girlfriends.

Coop was technically a jock. He was second-string goalie on the soccer team, but he had never been included in their activities outside of practices and games. He said it was because he was only second-string and a second-year player, but I sometimes wondered if I was the reason.

I ignored the idea and, instead, reminded myself to give Jared Nelson his Chemistry worksheets before first period began. And I quote, “or else.”

We entered the school quickly, ready to unthaw our hands and faces in the heated building. Coop and I wiped our shoes on the rug in the lobby. I shook the snow out of the leg of my jeans. When I turned around, Jack had already disappeared.

I let my backpack drop farther down, slouching my shoulders to match the casual swagger of every other guy at Wilmington. Coop had a natural slump to his own, but then again, he was supposed to be popular. I was not.

Laughter and gossip filled our ears as we made our way down the hallway, dodging the groups that cared about nothing but themselves. The football players were among those groups; large, muscular, and always bumping into people in the halls just because they could.
Coop and I were, most commonly, the targets of their abuse.

“Let’s take the back way,” Coop said quickly, as a linebacker and his friends spotted us. He grabbed the sleeve of my jacket and led me through the doors of the cafeteria.

The smell of microwavable-bacon and burnt pancakes filled my nostrils, the noise even louder in the crowded caf than it was in the dangers of the hallway. “I’m hungry,” Coop said suddenly. He placed his hand over his grumbling stomach. I nodded, following him to the food line.

I filled my plate with the typical, barely-edible cafeteria items, cringing as the lunch lady slapped a spoonful of watery scrambled eggs on the sausage patty that I was actually planning on eating.

And then, I faced the constantly occurring horror of my high school career.

The cafeteria at Wilmington housed twenty-five tables, all of which had room for eight chairs. Out of the twenty-five tables, approximately twenty-one were occupied by groups who were not-so-eager to invite new guests; therefore, Cooper and I always found it difficult to find a seat without facing torture.

We did not fit in with the jocks, we did not fit in with the nerds, we did not fit in with the artists, nor did we fit in with the band kids. We were nobodies, in the truest sense of the word.

I ducked my head and Coop held his high enough to lead the way as we maneuvered through the crowd. We wound up in the back of the crowded room, at the table by the garbage cans that the janitors always “forgot” to change. The smell was rancid, the flies were pesky, but we were far enough away from our tormentors to eat in peace.

“So are you ready for this Government exam?” Coop asked, reaching into his backpack for his flash cards. He had most likely been studying all week. I, on the other-hand, hadn’t studied at all. But I knew I would ace it anyway.

I shrugged, scraping the scrambled eggs from my sausage patty, hoping the watery texture didn’t taint the meat. “It shouldn’t be too hard,” I said quietly, cutting off a piece of the patty. I carefully placed it in my mouth, chewing and swallowing quickly, even though I wasn’t hungry.

Coop glanced at me from the corner of his eye. I knew exactly what he was thinking, Easy for you to say. After all, school was a lot more simple for me than it was for a majority of the student body, including Coop. And even though I didn’t meant to rub it in, I couldn’t help but mischievously gloat about the fact that I succeeded in something that he didn’t.

I was mechanically eating my cold sausage patty, Coop rifling through his flash cards, when I heard the footsteps approaching us.

My head snapped upright, meeting Coop’s worried eyes. I carefully sat my fork on my tray and closed my eyes, preparing for the worst. The sound was all I could hear, echoing through my brain like a nightmare. I quickly evaluated the previous days for something I had done wrong, but remembered nothing of the sort.

I watched Coop’s carton of orange juice rattle as my current nightmare sat in the seat directly beside me.

“Morning, Slater,” Jared Nelson said loudly, his large bicep visible in my peripheral vision, perched on the table in a leisurely way.

My heart was pounding as I turned to him, meeting his frightening gaze. He was a lot bigger than me, but a lot smaller than the rest of the football team; which meant one wrong move would ruin me.

“I have your worksheets in my bag,” I said sheepishly. I quickly reached for my backpack, placed by my feet, but Jared’s meaty hand caught my forearm first.

My whole body shook under his grasp. I could feel Coop shift beside me, prepared to step in if it was needed. Although he wouldn’t be able to do much, he was strong enough to attempt.

“Actually,” Jared drawled, his voice quiet and stern at the same time, “I came here for something else.” His hand loosened on my arm, and I silently prayed that it was only a scare tactic to get me to listen. If only he knew that I would do absolutely anything for a guy three times my size.

Coop shifted in his seat again, relaxed now that I was free from Jared’s grasp.

My voice quivered, but I managed to utter a quick reply to the words that began to sound more and more like a threat. “What?” I asked nervously, as my mind continued to rake for answers.

A smile slowly crept onto Jared’s face, stretching from one sharp jawline to the other. His eyes were so brown that they could have been black; staring at me like a carnivore examining its prey.

I braced myself for the hit that never came. Instead, Jared laughed. I flinched when he reached forward and nudged me on the shoulder, a gentle action that left me entirely confused.

I forced myself to laugh, too; to laugh off the fact that I had been scared for, what it looked to be, no reason.

Jared gestured toward the table five away from my own, packed with the biggest players on the football team and the cheerleaders that followed them around like puppies. “I was just wondering if you would give a friend of mine a hand,” he said finally.

I followed his gaze, my eyes wandering across the faces, guessing who it might be next. I knew that Kyle Harris was struggling in geometry, but his parents had hired him a tutor. I knew that Brad and Denny Farmer were taking Economics for the second time, hoping for a
passing grade, but a guy I knew was already taking care of that problem.

I glanced back at Jared, raising my eyebrows in the form of a question. The look on his face frightened me more than the last one had, and I waited patiently for the revelation. “Well,” Jared began with a devious grin, “Tyler is eligible for Courtwarming now, but we have one problem…” I swallowed hard, my mind running through the possibilities. “His date isn’t.”

Immediately, my heart fell into my stomach, and the breakfast I had just eaten begged to come back up. From beside me, I heard Cooper whisper, “It’s okay to say no,” but we all knew what would happen if those words were to escape my lips. Jared stifled another laugh as I turned around once more, and found myself staring into the wide, sapphire eyes of Katherine Maxwell.

Her caramel hair fell in gentle waves across her shoulders, framing the emblem of her cheerleading uniform. She was draped in the comfort of Tyler Reed’s strong arm, but her gentle smile was directed toward me. As were Tyler’s narrowed, warning eyes.

I had been helping the popular kids with their grades for almost a year. Whether it was doing their homework, or simply explaining concepts that they didn’t try to understand, my help had only been directed toward the male species. This wasn’t on purpose, of course. It was mainly because girls were more prone to actually doing their work, while the football and basketball and soccer guys didn’t care less until their playing time was affected. However, I was perfectly fine with only helping the guys. Even though they were large in size and had it out for nobodies like myself, I found girls to be much more intimidating. Mostly because the majority of these girls had boyfriends who would find any excuse to get their hands on me. But it was also due to the fact that I had never spoken more than a couple words to a female, other than teachers or my family.

And Coop knew of this fear almost as much as Jared seemed to.

“What’s wrong, Slater?” Jared laughed, nudging me on the arm again; this time, with a little more force. “You scared or something?”

I gulped, taking my eyes off of Katherine Maxwell before I was accused of staring. “Are you sure Tyler is okay with this?”

Jared did not nod. He didn’t say yes, either. Instead, he tilted his head and leaned in so close that I could smell his cologne. “As long as you keep your mind and your hands where they belong,” Jared said softly, “he’ll do the same.” He reached for my backpack, rifling through my books until he found his worksheets. Jared clapped his large hand on my shoulder one last time before leaving, knowing my forced answer without asking.

I still felt the presence of his hand on me after he was gone, the weight of his words and my newest assignment causing the world to slowly crumble on top of me. I knew that tutoring someone as precious as Katherine Maxwell was a dangerous road, but ultimately, I didn’t have a choice.

Coop took slow sips of his orange juice, his foot tapping wildly against the linoleum. He looked at me with pain evident behind the blue of his eyes. He had warned me before that this was bound to happen, and I had shook it off. But now that it was lying in front of me, the idea of spending time with a girl who was the property of a guy who could kill me with his bare hands, I found it hard to breathe without worry.

Coop and I gathered our belongings in silence. We walked past Katherine’s table quickly, and I ignored Tyler’s glare as best as I could.

The hallway was eerily quiet for the beginning of the school day; too quiet for my comfort. I thought I saw Jack peer around the corner, his hair shielding the eyes that watched me from a distance, but when I looked again, he was gone.

I clutched the straps of my backpack so tight that my knuckles turned white as I approached the door to my first hour classroom, knowing that I would soon be alone, without the limited safety of my best friend.

Coop stopped me as my hand lingered on the door handle, his hand finding my arm. He looked at me worryingly before slowly walking away, whispering three words that I desperately needed to remember.

“Be careful, Jesse.”