The wheels spun against the dirt road before finding traction. The pickup truck bucked a little with the uneven transition, nearly tossing Kaylyn Barr out the back as the back end came up. Only a quick grab by one of the older boys saved her from a tumble.

A cloud of dust followed behind it. If it was meant to annoy Rain, it didn’t. He turned his back to the worst of the cloud, looking out at the farmland.

“Rain!” Mrs. Sims called out. Some of the smaller students on the road flinched.

Rain looked more her way.

“Get yourself straight to school. Don’t dawdle,” she said.

He could have said something about that. Jay might have. If he hadn’t had the experiences he had, he might even have called her an evil person, said she deserved it. She was an artifact of a prior era, the kind of person who had lived in every small town and rural community he’d known; she was someone who used morality as a stick to beat others with. He could have asked what she was implying, or challenged her.

He didn’t.

“Yes, ma’am,” he said. “Just waiting for the dust to settle so I’m not walking face-first into it.”

Someone else might have made a comment, empathized. Mrs. Sims only said, “Go to school. Be a better example for the little ones.”

He walked.

The people like Mrs. Sims and his aunt were easier to deal with than many of the alternatives. He could understand the people who’d reacted to hurt and loss by becoming harder. He wished he’d been able to do the same, a lot of the time.

Erin emerged from her house as he reached the mailbox staked out in front. He waited while she made her way down, her little brother following.

It was hard not to have his eyes linger on her. She wore a plum colored muscle tank with a cross in black on the front, a black choker with a steel buckle, and black jeans. The jewelry in her ears matched the buckle of the choker, a series of rings in her left ear and a single piece of jewelry in the right, glittering in the sun as she steered her brother along the path.

He’d come to dislike the muscle tops with those oversized armholes on principle, after seeing so many girls he couldn’t stand wearing them as a trashy sort of look. Seeing Erin wear it and look so stunning, he found himself doing a one-eighty on the position on the spot.