“You’ll find a new guy to snag all his leftovers, don’t worry.” We got to the next classroom and headed to the back row to our non-assigned assigned seats.

“More like a new guy to be my wing man.” He puffed up his chest, wedging himself in the desk, shifting the whole thing back a foot before scooting it forward with an ear-splitting screech.

The hallways were filled with a smattering of people after the last bell rang. In the homestretch of the school year, committees for prom, yearbook and other clubs planned their end-of-year projects. For everyone else it meant freedom. For me, it meant the loss of a refuge I’d had to escape to. And if I didn’t get picked up, I’d be another guy at the bar, buried at the bottom of a bottle spewing all about the glory days of high school where I peaked.

The countdown of hours spent within these walls would dwindle to nothing. Throwing my cap in the air wouldn’t only end my time at Greenwood Senior High, it would end my time in Greenwood. Or it would end my sanity, if I didn’t make it out.

* * *

The auditorium doors flew open. Two people came out into the hallway.

Bay was dressed all in black, standing outside the ticket booth only used on the nights of the fall play and spring musical. Her hair fell in waves cascading down her back. She was with a guy. Their intense expressions and close talking pulled something deep and dark out of me, like a body being dragged down basement stairs.

She popped open the door to the booth and disappeared. Her arm shot out with lengths of coiled cables. The guy with her grabbed them, holding them against his chest. Roll after roll appeared until he balanced them in his arms like an overloaded waiter about to lose the whole thing.

I smacked Knox in the chest. “Who’s the guy Bay is talking to?” My chin jutted in their direction.

“Bay?” Knox scanned the few people in the hallway skimming right over her. I knew they didn’t have classes together, but did he seriously not know her name? She’d been here three years.

My jaw clenched. “The New Girl.” The name never sat right with me. If anyone mentioned her, other than teachers, she was The New Girl, even though there had been new arrivals since she’d started. Hadn’t there? Unless it was someone new on the team, I didn’t give a shit. But that nickname prickled something I couldn’t place. Like a dull throb in the back of my mind clouded by time and haze.

“Oh.” Knox looked up like he hadn’t noticed two people less than ten feet away from us. He shrugged. “Jon.” He snapped his fingers like it took manual effort for the synapses in his brain to fire. “That’s Jon…Jon Morgan. Theater nerd. We were in pee wee football together, remember? You laid him out during a scrimmage in fourth grade and he hung up his cleats.”