The Academy - First Days (12 page)

We got onto my bus. Kota was already in a seat in the middle. I
slid in next to him and Gabriel took the seat across the aisle.

“Good,” Kota said. “You made it. In this mess, I was worried I would
go home alone.” His lips curled up and his green eyes brightened at seeing me.
He didn’t seem one bit fazed that Gabriel was on the bus, too. He appeared used
to getting unexpected visitors.

“Do you know where Nathan is?” I asked Kota.

His smile faltered for a moment but he recovered it quickly. “He’s
at training?” he looked over my shoulder at Gabriel. I turned in time to see
Gabriel expressing something to him but Gabriel changed his face and flashed me
a grin.

I sighed, sitting back with my arms folded over my chest. “What
kind of training is this?”

“Probably jujitsu.” Kota said.

“During the middle of school?”

“Uh...”

“With Victor and Mr. Blackbourne?”

His face turned pale. “Well...”

I pursed my lips and rubbed a palm over my forehead. What kind of
Academy was this school they went to? They would take their students out of
class for surprise jujitsu training? I didn’t need to ask. This was a lie to
mask whatever secret the Academy made them swear to keep. I wasn’t allowed to
know. “Fine,” I said. “You don’t have to tell me.” They both blinked at me in
reply so I went on. “I mean you said it, Kota. There are some things you can’t
tell me. Just tell me that. It’s something you can’t tell me.”

A smile crossed his lips. He leaned in to me so close I could feel
his breath on my ear as he whispered. “It’ll be fine,” he said. “I promise.”

It would have to do for now. There was no way I could make them
tell me. But why did they make it sound so dangerous? Or was it they didn’t
want to put me in the middle in case they got into trouble? Plausible
deniability? A secret school for unusual people. In my mind, the dark mystery
school I envisioned the Academy being was full of ninjas all sparring in
silence.

The bus was warm and as it filled up with students, I started
sweating. There were nearly double the amount of kids from that morning.
Eventually Kota and I moved over to make room for Gabriel. We were sitting with
our thighs pressed against each other. All the students were like that.

“How many students can this bus hold?” I wondered out loud.

“Probably not this many,” Gabriel said, squeezing in closer to me
as another student passed us to get to the back. I wasn’t quite sure, but it
looked like in some seats there were at least four students.

It felt strangely exotic to be so close to the two of them. I
considered them both very good looking and simply being friends with guys who
were so handsome was still amazing to me. When it came to being snuggled
between them, I found it difficult to deal with. The circumstances made it so
we were forced into this but I secretly looked forward to the long bus ride
home and wondered if this would happen every day. I inhaled Kota’s spicy scent
and Gabriel’s musk wood and they mixed together well. Gabriel’s lean hip
pressed against mine. Kota, in an effort to make more room, moved sideways,
putting an arm on the seat over my head. His long fingers hung down over my
shoulder, brushing against the collar of my shirt.

“I’m sorry, guys,” I said. “If it wasn’t for me, maybe you would
be riding with North or in your own cars.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Kota said.

“You worry about me. Isn’t that why you’re here?”

He smiled softly but said nothing.

“We stick together,” Gabriel said. “It’s what we do.” He rubbed a
palm on top of my head, messing up my hair. “You’ve got to get used to that,
Sang. You’re with us now.”

I took in a
deep breath. I’m with them. The only thing I wasn’t totally sure about was what
this was.

P
ainful
S
ecrets

W
e spent nearly forty minutes squished together on the bus, as more
students meant more places to stop and a longer wait as students had to
rearrange themselves to get off. When we got to Sunnyvale Court, the bus driver
stopped in front of Kota’s house. “Everyone on this street, I’ll pick you up
here in the morning,” the driver said.

I shuffled out with Kota and Gabriel. My sister, Danielle and her
brother were behind us.

I stood with Kota and Gabriel in the driveway. “I guess I’ve got
to go. If my sister checks in and I’m not there...”

“Can you get back out?” Gabriel asked.

I glanced at my sister, who was talking to Danielle. “We’ll have
to see how this goes. I might have to negotiate.”

“What does that mean?” Kota asked. He pushed his glasses up his
nose. “You still haven’t told me.”

“It’s too hard to explain right now.”

Gabriel held out his forefinger with his thumb up like his hand
was a gun. He jerked it, taking a shot at me. “Call us,” he said. “Or run back
over if you can.”

I nodded. I started up the road toward the house. Marie soon
followed me.

I walked alongside my sister. It felt strange to be standing next
to her after spending the whole day with the guys. She looked strangely
uncomfortable. I wondered how her first day was. I assumed she didn’t talk to
the principal at every turn.

“So, that was Danielle, wasn’t it?” I asked her.

She scrutinized me, frowning. “How would you know?”

“The guys mentioned her and her brother,” I said.

Her lips screwed up on her face. “Yeah, well, she told me about
those
boys
,” she emphasized as if to suggest they were toddlers rather
than our own age.

“What did Danielle have to say?”

Marie shrugged. “I wouldn’t hang out with them. They’re snobs from
some private school.”

“They’re not snobby,” I said. “They’re nice.”

“They don’t talk to anyone but themselves.”

“They talk to me.”

“Yeah, well, you’re weird so go figure.”

I let out a breath. There wasn’t a point to talking with her. When
she set her mind to how a person was, she pretty much kept that opinion. Still,
I wondered how she managed to make friends as she seemed so negative. We were
never really close but sometimes I wondered what it would have been like if we
tried to get along. It wasn’t that I was mean to her. We didn’t really have a
lot in common and with our parents being the way they were, instead of becoming
closer, we’d grown apart. I partially blamed myself. I let it happen. When I
tried to take an interest, it felt like we ended up fighting. I didn’t know
what to do.

When we got back to the house, I tiptoed through the hallway
toward my mother’s room. Putting my ear to the wall, I held my breath, waiting
for signs of life. I needed to ask her about getting a violin. I knew how the
conversation would go before I even started it, only I had a small hope the
result would be she would call my dad at work and have him pick up a violin on
his way back home.

The drone of the news on the television played and rustling noises
came from the bed. I stepped into the open doorway, peering in.

She was perched on the bed, her arms crossed over her chest. I
treaded forward, purposefully stepping in spots that creaked to get her
attention.

Her head snapped around. Her blue eyes were glossy. It made me
wonder if she’d been crying. “What do
you
want?” she asked. Her tone
erased my previous assumption about her mood.

“I need to bring a violin to school,” I said quietly. “I need to
go get one.”

Her eyebrows scrunched together. “Since when do you play the
violin?”

“One of my classes is violin lessons.”

“Shouldn’t the school provide one if they’re giving you the
lessons?”

“They don’t have one for me.”

She frowned. “We can’t buy a musical instrument every time you
want to piddle with something.”

“I need one for class tomorrow.”

“Did your dad approve of this?”

“He signed the paper for my schedule.” What I’d said was true, he
did sign my paper. What I was implying wasn’t true. He didn’t really know about
my violin lessons because Dr. Green and Mr. Blackbourne changed it after.

She sucked in a breath and slowly released it, scratching at a
spot on her face. Her eyes focused in and out. Maybe the television was hurting
her eyes. “I don’t think you should take this class. You’ll never keep up with
it.”

My heart plunged.
No, please. Don’t do this now.
“But I’m already
signed up,” I said. “I’m sure it wouldn’t be expensive. It can be something
cheap from a pawn shop.”

“If we buy one for you, you’ll just quit.”

“I can’t quit,” I urged. I was losing this. I had to come up with
something. “I’m already signed up. I have to go for the whole year.”

“You shouldn’t have signed up for it. You don’t know anything
about music.”

“Marie has her flute,” I said, feeling terrible about using my
sister for this. I always did my best to keep my sister out of the middle of
any discussion with my parents, even if she didn’t do the same for me. It felt
like a betrayal of trust and I didn’t want to be that type of person. Still, my
argument was weak and I knew what my mother would say before she said it.

“Just go to the front office tomorrow and ask them to drop you.
You don’t have any business in a music class.”

That was it. If I asked any more, she’d punish me for talking
back, or worse, she’d call the school. If she did that, I’d be at the mercy of
her whims. My whole schedule could get reworked if she wanted.

I swallowed and backed up to the door. It was a risk I didn’t want
to take. I plodded down the hallway. I couldn’t stand to be in the house
anymore. I shivered, suppressing the anger at feeling trapped.
What
else could I do? Tomorrow I’d have to admit to Mr. Blackbourne that my parents
wouldn’t allow me to get a violin. I didn’t want to envision his steel eyes
looking at me with pity or with resentment for wasting his time. The only
student he took on the entire year was quitting.

I sucked in a breath and shook off the thoughts. There was nothing
I could do about it. I would do what I had to do and get it over with. Maybe it
was better this way. What did someone like me do to deserve any time and attention
from a talented Academy professor?

I climbed the stairs to the landing. I was about to enter my room
when I noticed Marie’s door was ajar. She never left it open and I edged over
to it to take a peek.

Marie’s bed was unmade. The black ceiling fan was on, the window’s
curtains were open. Clothes cluttered the floor, some spilling out from the
closet. A diary sat haphazardly open on the floor. Papers from the day of
school sat in a pile near her door. No Marie.

I quietly closed her door and backed away from it, thinking. I
padded through the house. Marie wasn’t around. My mom already saw me and
dismissed me so she wouldn’t likely ask for me again. My dad wouldn’t be home
for hours.

I grabbed my bookbag and the cell phone and was out the door
before I could second guess myself. I wasn’t going to waste a moment if I could
get away.

I took a longer route through the woods behind my house, coming
out around Nathan’s house and out into the street. I didn’t want to take the
chance of anyone in my family paying attention and seeing me. It also gave me
time to cool down from my mother’s resounding rejection.

Max, Kota’s golden retriever, padded over to me as I crossed the
yard to Kota’s drive. He panted happily and nosed at my hand. I pushed my
fingers through the fur on his head. He followed me into the garage and sat
next to me when I used the doorbell.

Jessica, Kota’s little sister, answered the door. Her pink rimmed
glasses slid down her nose a little as she looked up at me and smiled. “Hi
Sang.”

“Hi Jessica. Are the boys still here?”

“Yeah,” she said. She opened the door wider for me and I slipped
inside. She unhooked Max’s lead from his collar. Max raced through the house
and disappeared into the living room, sniffing at the air. “They’re up in
Kota’s room.”

“Thanks,” I said. I closed the door behind me. Jessica ran off
back to her bedroom, Max followed behind her.

I opened the door to Kota’s room and suddenly realized I probably
should have knocked. It seemed awkward to simply run up the stairs. Would he even
hear me if I tried knocking?

I opted for calling from the bottom of his stairs. “Kota?” I
called up. “Gabriel?”

Creaking and paper shifting noises drifted to me. Kota and Gabriel
poked their heads out from over the rail barrier.

“Hey!” Gabriel said. He’d removed his dress shirt and tie. He left
on a white ribbed tank shirt that he had worn underneath. While he was lean, he
had some definition to his chest and arms and the look was still stunning. “You
made it. How did you escape?”