And that was all it took—a simple young adult fantasy reference, a chance encounter, and they’d quickly become close friends, spending their weeks together until it had naturally evolved into something more. It turned out that while Ben wasn’t into school sports, he was passionate about martial arts, and he studied Japanese Shitō-ryū karate three nights a week and Saturday mornings at a dojo in what passed for downtown Falling Rock, Virginia.

Ben, like Sam, was smart, funny, athletic, and incredibly thoughtful. But it was his natural ability to fight that had put the school on notice that while he didn’t fit in with any of the traditional cliques, he was not a boy to be trifled with.

For reasons known only to them, two football players had targeted him when he was a freshman. They apparently hadn’t done their research and didn’t know that Ben had spent the last six years rigorously training in karate and had already obtained his third-degree black belt by the time he was fourteen. Trying to pin him against a locker between periods, the two juniors had thought it would be fun to scatter his belongings across the hallway. It hadn’t gone so well for them.

The altercation had lasted less than ten seconds and ended with a broken nose and a dislocated shoulder, which Ben later felt bad about, as he explained to the principal, “I was only trying to get him off of me. I think I hip-threw him too hard, but he was trying to choke me. I’m sorry.”

And that was it. The two boys were suspended, and the football coach, a man who despised bullies, had spent an entire month reinforcing through pain and practice the notion that bullying had no place on his team. The next time the two boys saw Ben, they were so polite to him that he’d thought maybe he’d inflicted brain damage.

As for Ben, word circulated throughout school like a California wildfire in summer—the friendly freshman was a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Beware. No one had challenged him since, and his reputation had allowed him to wander the halls of high school, effortlessly navigating the factions and cliques.

It was why they were perfect together—two teenagers who didn’t quite fit in but were popular enough that it didn’t matter. But in each other, they saw what others only grasped the edges of: a maturity, wisdom, and soulfulness well beyond their years. Their romance had escalated quickly and naturally, and their parents were surprisingly positive about the match.

But where is he? Sam depressed the button on the Cobra push-to-talk radio. “Ben, are you home? Is everything okay?” she asked, sounding concerned but not desperate like some of her friends did over their boyfriends.

No answer.