Midnight Kisses| ✓

Chapter 2

The houses, the neatly carved out lawn trees hiding people's secrets efficiently, the library where Emily and I used to work fly by and finally the brown and red building I wish I could be the farthest place from comes into view. Even my counselor's office is a welcome compared to this.

A lot of people are looking at our car as dad pulls up to the main entrance. Maybe coming here in this car was a really bad idea. I already have bad press and the next thing I know news will be floating around that Kris Corvalho showed up with her sugar daddy.

"Kiddo you'll be okay right?" My dad asks.

"Yeah dad. This school is so lame, like I am here every day. How worse do you think it can get?" He is silent for a while and then finally says; "I'll see you later. Take care kiddo."

I pull up my hoodie, hiding my face completely, as I start towards my lockers. Once I am inside with the crowd, the stares are less. Everybody is in a hurry to get to his or her classes. I am not important, for the moment.

Brad Hampton and his girlfriend, Trisha, are making out at her locker, which is just two down from mine. Brad almost jumps when he sees me walk through, like he's afraid of catching something contagious. His baby blue eyes go wide. It's like he has seen the living embodiment of syphilis, which come to think of it, ironically, he probably has.

"Laters babe," he plants a sloppy kiss on Trisha's cheek and jogs away but not before throwing an uncomfortable glance at me.

I pull my Calculus and Physics book out of my locker and slam it shut. Trisha is looking at me intently for some reason but I turn and walk away not giving her the chance to say anything. Anything that comes out of a cheerleader's mouth can't be good, if those teen movies are to be trusted.

On my way to Miss Calico's bio class, a familiar mop of curly hair comes across my vision.

Novahk McAllister.

I stop dead in my tracks, even though my brain screams DON'T STOP. He's with his usual group of friends DaveTrivers, Hunter Reid and Caleb Walden. And when he passes me, he smiles. I look at him in confusion.

His friends', noticing what he has done, acknowledged the pariah, stare between him and I dumbfounded. Nobody, and I mean nobody, talks to the pariah and I am not the only one at the school. There's Seth Devgan and there's Aria Maines. Nobody talks to them either. And you would have thought there would be some sort of unity between us, but we pretty much ignore each other.

You talk to the pariah or even acknowledge him/her, rules dictates that you shalleth fall from Grace. Even Caleb Walden who is a serial prankster does not prank me, so I guess there is a limit. And it stops at the word freak. But then I guess rules don't apply for Novahk McAllister. Even now as I duck inside Advanced Bio, I can see people gathering around him, stopping to talk to him, with that awe in their eyes. I hope that's not what I looked like last night.

The only person who doesn't judge me at school is Mr. Weinburger, our janitor. It's with him that I have lunch most days, when he's not off duty. He's really old and the folds of his skins are wrinkled so much that you can trace lines on a paper with them, and he squints a lot.

And he calls me Kistna. I have told him a hundred times that it's actually pronounced KR-ISH-NA (emphasis on middle) but the old man just shrugs and says. "I'll call you anything I want, laddie."

Yeah, he actually calls me that. Like he's come out of some Texas cowboy movie, the black and white ones. All he needs is a whip rope, cowboy hat and boots then he's good to go.

I share my homemade lettuce sandwich with him while he hands me a Snicker bar in return.

We eat in silence; the only sound is the distant hum of the crowd and the chattering as the students stampede in the too crowded cafeteria.