“You're mistaking me for Jehovah again, son. But I do 'preciate the quote.”

Maybe he did sound happy. I tried to picture the old man, years from now—and all I could see was that same frayed blue robe, and the cigarillo, and the constant mutterings of the TV. I'd never gone in for his congregation—which was perhaps the biggest point of contention in our ever-strained relationship—but who was I to begrudge an old man some creature comforts? In my heart of hearts, a part of me looked forward to graduation day, when I'd no longer be beholden to Pastor Bill Sterling. If I lived in Colorado, I wouldn't even have to come home for all the holidays, and spend time in that silent, smelly house with its constant perfume of terrible memories. And if Pop had a lady to make him casseroles and ensure he took his medicine—well, that had to be a good thing. Didn't it?

“Sir, I'm glad you called me. That's truly wonderful news. When are you planning to—when's the ceremony?”

“I figure I've been a patient man all my life, and when a good thing comes I've got to seize it. Don't you think you've got to seize a good thing, son?”

Yeardley slammed his play book shut at last, giving up the ruse. I let the words 'good' and 'thing' bounce around in my head for a beat too long, where they collided with my memory of chasing Doll around the gas station. Her ass, snug in those jeans. Good. Thing. Her hair. I slammed a palm into the concrete wall, suddenly livid at myself. Why couldn't I stop thinking about her? Why?

“Seize away, sir!” I said, a little too loudly. I heard Pop's recliner shift in the background. He'd be preparing for an afternoon nap right about now, if I knew the bastard. And up until this phone call, I could have sworn I did.

“Mmm-hmm. She's a god-fearing congregant. Has the spirit and the vessel. She drew a short straw in this life, but we've found one another. I'm fixing to make my intentions known this evening, and I'd like you to be beside me on the day, everything being equal.” I swallowed. It was remarkably rare for Bill Sterling to demonstrate pride in his famous quarterback son. I had to grab that shit where it came.

“I'm honored, Pop. Truly.” I angled the phone away from Yeardley, so he wouldn't see the moisture dangling off my eyelashes. “Hey. What's her name? The lady?”

The old man cleared his throat. I thought I could actually hear him smile, through time and space and wire.

“Anya Bennett,” he said, lovingly.

Chapter Six

Ash

June 2^nd

I kicked my locker for a fifth time, enjoying the vibration of metal on metal as my steel-toed boot attempted to injure the yellow tin. The late bell had just finished sounding, and yet again my locker was jammed.

And literally jammed—as in, cemented shut with a gooey concoction of jelly, gum, and what appeared to be rubber cement. It's something I still don't get about high schoolers. Like, who has the time to haze the new kid so elaborately? And what disgusting bully spent his afternoon mashing up shit into a paste, and then some of his precious morning targeting me with it? Surely there were better ways to spend that time.

It was just about the end of my tenure at Lee High, and since about day two I'd been playing the victim to everyone. The jam thing was an unpleasant new twist, but I was no stranger to asshole classmates. It would go down like so: the first week in a new city, everyone would try to pin me down. They'd wonder why I was so dark and brooding, and why I wore all black, and why I didn't speak up in class. Then they'd see me get As. Guys would elect to notice the boobs that had been failing at discretion, my whole teenage life. And somewhere in there, some Queen Bee would make an executive decision that Ashleigh Bennett was an uppity slut freak, who thought she was better than everyone else. Rumors would begin to circle. Shit like, “At her last school, she gang-banged her whole lacrosse team.” (Thank you, Des Moines High.) And in the really bad cases, someone's mother would meet mine, and then some of the rumors would begin to contain a grain of truth. Anya, claiming she didn't like to keep secrets, was always unnecessarily candid about her addict past. It was like I moved to places in an attempt to make a fresh start, while she was in the business of testing towns for their “groovy” factor. If they couldn't hack her as she was, it was time to move. Either that, or if one of her boyfriends stole our TV.

“What seems to be the problem, Miss Bennett?” questioned a voice. The slightly sleazy voice of my so-far favorite teacher—Mr. Dempsey. Dempsey had wire rimmed glasses and wore band shirts with jeans, and though I'd never seen him at the front of a classroom, people called him 'Mister' and he was apparently permitted to wander the hallways with a beat-up acoustic guitar in his grip. On my first day at Lee, he'd informed me that he was an AV tech—even though most of the school's audiovisual stuff had gone digital. I liked him immediately.

“Nothing to see here, Demps,” I said, swiveling neatly. It wasn't like I needed the Bio textbook for the lab I'd done four times already, at as many schools across the Bible Belt. In Denver, I'd actually led the lesson plan for our entire class. Sometimes, depending on a school's curriculum, it was like you were repeating grades when you transferred mid-year. Which was why I'd made the decision semesters before to start supplementing high school with GRE Prep and college-level APs at whichever agreeable, nearby college I could find—that was how I'd gotten hooked up with the pre-college classes at UT, and my party girl Melanie. Pending my latest test results, I planned to start as a freshman at UT in the fall. And as I wasn't half bad at taking a test, God-willing it'd be sayonara, high-school suckers! in t-minus two months.

“Don't worry too much,” Mr. Dempsey said, reaching across me to pick at some of the jam oozing from my locker's spine. “Remember: every single one of those fuckers is going to marry too young, take a job they can't stand, and start to look forward to the day they die on their thirtieth birthday.”

“Gosh, Dempsey! That's a bit bleak, don't you think?” But as if on cue, a guy in a basketball jersey—spying me but not the teacher from the end of the hall—threw a lewd gesture my way. I rolled my eyes in the direction of his lolling tongue, but the jock just giggled before scampering off.

“The point is: try not to let it get to you. For the very best people, high school is often the worst part of life.”

We began to lope down the hallway, Dempsey and I—in no particular hurry. I'd already made an enemy of my bio teacher, who seemed somehow miffed with my advanced skill set. Or perhaps I was imagining things. Whatever. I'd learned a while back that it was easier to think of all new people as prospective enemies. This way, one didn't get hurt when they turned on you.

“Did you like high school, Dempsey?” I asked, halting us a few lockers down from the lab door. I could hear Mrs. Letourneau taking attendance inside. Mr. Dempsey regarded me from behind his Rivers Cuomo glasses, then scratched the back of his tight fro. (Jew-fro, he'd called it, during our first hallway run-in, as he helped me gather my books post-clean-out. I'd also never heard the term 'clean-out' before, but had found it instantly endearing that he'd introduced me to two new words in one sentence.)

“You know, I had a pretty good crew in the pits. It wasn't so bad.” The AV teach nodded towards my classroom door, and then he winked. “But you see where I am now.”

“That's grim.”

“Just keep your head down, Ash. College will be great for you.” Then he moseyed away, leaving me to my latecomer's fate.