Chapter Text
I. Something
Summer does not begin to relent until October, and by then, Andrew has grown itchy with the scorching heat, feeling suffocated by the stale air and the overall lack of change around him. He is not used to being still, not used to being stagnant, yet every day spent living with Nicky and Aaron tastes more like permanence than anything else he has ever had before. Everything in his life has always been temporary, something that shines briefly with over-saturated freshness, only to lose its color quickly and flake at the edges, causing his fingers to twitch with the want to peel it away and be rid of it altogether.
Exy used to soothe the insatiable need for something within him, but his passion had dwindled at some point last year. As coaches and counselors began pestering him about his future, the once preferred means of escape soon turned into a chore; another thing he was being made to do.
On weekends, he would follow Nicky to a local club and pick up shifts washing dishes and cleaning the sticky floors. This worked to curb a fraction of his antsy energy, and the extra cash was a bonus, especially since Nicky often used the excuse of being a "broke, single mother" as an excuse to not pay for Andrew's cigarettes; but really, what appealed to Andrew were the glances thrown his way by the the weekend bartender, which only turned more suggestive after he and Aaron celebrated their eighteenth birthday.
And that was fine at first— exciting, even, his curiosity allowing him to be caught in the wake of a more experienced person. But by the end of November, the cold had begun to settle in Columbia, and in turn, in Andrew, slowing him down enough to realize that the attention given to him by an older man was not the attention he wanted.
By the time December settles, he is back where he started: bored and itching for something he is incapable of naming, yet having no motivation to make the effort to go get it.
Andrew pulls into the student lot, already stuffed full of poorly parked, dented cars. He bypasses them all and slides the car into a spot just off the asphalt, in a small reserve of dead grass that hugs a rusted railing, meant to keep cars from barreling into the trickling creek and woods beyond. It has obviously been victim to many a reckless driver, given the way it bows in its middle and whines sadly when Andrew leans his hip against it. He'd apologize, but his car is currently protecting the pathetic metal from further abuse, so he supposes they're even.
"We're already late," Aaron grumbles as he crawls out of the car, glaring at the cigarette pack Andrew has just fished out of his pocket.
"And whose fault is that?" Andrew asks.
"Literally yours." Aaron ducks back into the car to retrieve his backpack, then stretches across the seat to grab the fast food bag from the driver's seat. "I don't understand why we had to sit in a parking lot until 10:30."
"I wanted fries." He stuffs the pack away and takes the bag from Aaron's offering hand, keeping its top folded tightly as they walk into the main entrance of Columbia High School.
Andrew groans as the harsh light of the front office hits him, squinting as his eyes adjust to the awful yellow that drowns every inch of the room— a vomit of the school's spirit that never fails to give him a headache. He makes sure to scuff his shoe against the cartoonish yellow jacket stamped on the floor's center, the sole of his shoes leaving a black line across its grinning face.
There is a large desk that splits the room in half, a barrier between the outside world and the students held within. Standing guard is a frail woman well past retirement, hunched over the countertop with her glasses perched on the tip of her nose and her pen scribbling diligently across a file. Ms. Sutherland does not bother looking up as the door's chime echoes into silence, nor when Andrew leans over the counter to peek at her work.
"It's nearly 11 o'clock," she says, voice stern and sharp.
"Doctor's appointment," Andrew replies, even though she did not ask.
"And what ailment is it this time?" The quip of her pen continues with its neat strokes, never hesitating.
"The plague."
Ms. Sutherland finally completes her task, staring at Andrew over the rim of her glasses with an exhausted expression. Her eyes flit towards the bag he'd placed on the counter, unimpressed and unamused.
"That is your third tardy this month. I'll have to call home." Her tone is warning, bordering on a threat. When Andrew merely shrugs, she sighs and looks back at her desk, continuing her scribbles. Her pen is the same sickening color as the rest of the room, aside from the black letters embossed across its surface that stated buzz off in curling print. She'd scoffed when Andrew had dropped it on her desk last year, but the worn coloring where it sat naturally in her hand showed her favoritism.
They both know she is not going to call home. Andrew's file— worn from being passed between one too many schools— has a nice, subtle heart stamped in the upper-hand corner of its tab. He noticed it during his junior year, when the school counselor had made a ceremony of whiting out the Doe on his manila folder and scribbling Minyard in its place— grinning at him with a pitying smile as if they were doing him a favor, as if they were literally erasing his past. Andrew did not think much of— at least, not until after the accident with Tilda, when he and Aaron had to sit quietly in the hard, plastic chairs of the office while Nicky donned the hat of guardian. The once hollow heart had been colored in with bright, red ink, and it stood out blaringly against the yellow of the folder, made more blatant by the obvious lack of one on Aaron's.
It took very little prodding to get its meaning out of Nicky: Handle With Care. Or, in other words, this Minyard is damaged; proceed with caution.
It is because of that bloodied stain on his file that he knows Ms. Sutherland is not going to be making an official, documented call home, just like he knows she is going to "forget" to file his tardy. Too many tardies raise too many red flags, and too many concerned calls home from a mandated reporter would risk Andrew getting stuffed back into the system for his last few months of adolescence.
He does not thank her for this unasked-for kindness. He does, however, unroll the top of the bag to pull out a large, red carton, overflowing with stringy fries. He sets it on her desk, careful not to let the greasy cardboard anywhere near her paperwork.
Just as she finishes writing their passes to class, the door behind them chimes to announce the arrival of another. Andrew typically would have gone on his way, taking the offered pass just as Aaron did and getting on with whatever was left of the school day, but the expression on Ms. Sutherland's face gave him pause. She was typically a sharp, unwavering woman when it came to displaying her emotions, so the slight furrow of her eyebrows and the downward twitch of her mouth piqued his curiosity enough to cause him to fidget with the top of his bag, taking his time rolling it back closed and trapping the oily heat inside.
"Can I help you?" She asks, standing up fully.
Andrew peeks as the person steps up to the counter. Surface level, he is unimpressive in every sense of the word, drowning in dull colors from the mousy brown of his hair to the faded black of his clothing. He is a background character, meant to get lost in the crowd and draw attention from anybody.
But Andrew has always been rather attuned to the finer details. Like how Nicky's voice would rise an octave too high when he was on the verge of breaking under the pressure of fatherhood, or how Aaron would bite the skin around his nails when he was itching for that once familiar high. How Tilda's indifference toward her own sons made her incapable of telling them apart, or how Cass's smile would be just a little too strained when Andrew came downstairs, hollow-eyed and quite on some mornings.
The person next to him is full of details so small they feel like secrets aching to be picked apart. The clothes he is wearing are too large, hanging off his lean frame and making him look small and pathetic. He picks at the fabric at the hem of his sleeves, a habit that reads as nervous.
But there is a sharpness to his posture, a purposeful angle in his body as if he is preparing to flee. When he speaks, his voice is sure and confident— a well-practiced script falling from his lips as he plays the role of timidity.
"My mother called last week," he says. His hands come up to the counter and settle on its edge. The action causes the sleeve of his jacket to shift. His knuckles are red and swollen, old scars turned pink from recent abuse. "She faxed the registration paperwork on Monday. I'm meant to start today."
Recognition settles into Ms. Sutherland's expression. "You were meant to start three hours ago," she says with a huff. She bends down to pull a file from her desk, opening it quickly to remove what Andrew immediately recognizes as a schedule card. "Classes begin at 8 o'clock sharp," she scolds as she holds out the schedule. "You'll do well to remember that come Monday."
"I got on the wrong bus, and it took me to the other side of the river. I didn't have enough money for more fare and had to—" He cuts himself off, thinning his lips as if to catch himself from rambling. The rest of his excuse is evident in his appearance— those details, remember? The way his hair darkens and sticks at his neck and temples; the still frantic rise and fall of his chest; the flush of exertion on the eyes of his cheeks. Andrew wonders if he walked or ran across town. A quick calculation in his head says the latter is most likely. "Sorry, ma'am. It won't happen again."
The woman's southern soul softens completely. She reaches down into the tote on the floor and pulls out a bottle of water, offering it up.
"I'm fine," the boy says quickly, his voice taking a sharp edge as he eyes the water distrustingly. "Thank you, though."
If Ms. Sutherland can sense the tension in his body, she chooses to ignore it. Instead, she passes the schedule card over. "You're just in time for third period. Before the day is over, be sure to take some time to introduce yourself to the teachers you missed. Your instructors are aware that you were meant to arrive today, and have a syllabus along with a supply list waiting for you. Do you have any questions?"
Andrew has officially decided that he is bored, and has just snatched his bag and pass when Ms. Sutherland snatches it out of his reach, immediately scratching out the time and adding thirty minutes to his return. "Andrew, would you mind giving our new student a quick tour of the school and escorting him to his first class?"
"Yes, I mind." He leans over the reception counter, feet raised slightly off the ground as he balances forward and searches blindly over the surface of her workspace. When his hand finds the bowl— always coincidentally removed from its proper place on the counter when he happens to be late— he grabs a handful of sugared sweets. As he stuffs them into his pocket, he catches sight of the boys' file closed on Ms. Sutherland's desk. There is a heart drawn in the corner of the folder— this one hollowed, with a question mark inside.
"But because you're the one asking, Effie," he amends, stuffing the butterscotch candy— why is everything so fucking yellow?— into his pocket. He does not finish his offer, simply waves for the new student to follow him, ignoring the glare Ms. Sutherland shoots at him for calling her by her given name.
Andrew wouldn’t even know he was being followed if it weren’t for the slight hesitation in the doors’ scraping close. The sound drags half a second longer than it should, rubber seal catching on metal, as if whoever slipped through them misjudged the timing.
The hallway is loud in that distant, muffled way— voices spilling from classrooms, lockers slamming, the dull hum of fluorescent lights baking everything in that sickly school-yellow glow. Andrew catalogs the noise the way he always does: exits, blind corners, security cameras, the useless teacher stationed by the stairwell pretending to monitor traffic.
Behind him— footsteps. Light. Controlled. Deliberately unremarkable. Andrew lets the silence stretch thin between them. Five steps. Ten. Fifteen. The rhythm stays steady, careful, as if the boy is measuring his stride to match Andrew’s without quite committing to walking beside him.
“I didn’t know any of the routes ran past Broad River this early,” Andrew says at last, voice flat, almost bored. “Thought it cut off three blocks short.”
The reaction is so small it would vanish under anyone else’s notice. A mere hitch. Rubber dragging across waxed tile half a beat late. Not a stumble— no loss of balance— just a miscalculation in timing. Andrew counts it automatically.
“Maybe they changed the schedule,” Andrew adds, as if the thought had just occurred to him. The cadence behind him corrects itself. Andrew glances back lazily, not enough to seem invested.
The boy’s face is composed in that careful, neutral way of someone who has merely practiced composure but never mastered the art: shoulders rounded slightly forward, eyes lowered just enough to read as polite, mouth set in something meant to resemble mild embarrassment.
But his jaw is tight. And his eyes— when they flick up— are not soft. They are sharp. Clear. Assessing. “Haven't been here long enough to learn the schedules."
The apology in his voice is technically present, but it’s thinner now, pulled too taut across the surface of the words.
Andrew hums in acknowledgment of the boy's ignorance, all the while ruminating on the lie that grows thinner by the second.
None of the buses run past Broad River. They never have.
They do not cross the industrial strip, nor do they swing toward the woods behind the school. All routes run in a tight loop along the main artery and back again, like they are afraid to wander too far from supervision. Andrew knows this because he had to listen to Nicky's incessant spiel about how Germany had trains that arrived when they were meant to and buses that ran on something resembling logic instead of pity.
Nicky had ranted for weeks after they first moved into the house in Columbia, pacing the pathetically furnished home as he juggled multiple part-time jobs, complaining about how in Stuttgart he could walk to a bakery at six in the morning and catch a tram to anywhere he pleased. How the cities there had been designed for people, not cars. How you didn’t have to own something expensive and loud just to exist beyond a five-mile radius of your home.
America hates the poor, he’d declared one humid evening, collapsing onto their secondhand couch. You either have money for a car, or you stay exactly where you were born. That’s the design, baby.
Andrew had memorized the bus routes not because he gave a damn about civic infrastructure, but because Nicky had cared enough for all of them. Because he had insisted on keeping the lights on with his own paycheck instead of calling Erik across an ocean and asking for help he would’ve given without hesitation. Because pride, apparently, was another bill that came due every month.
So every Sunday morning, while Nicky spread the newspaper across their tiny kitchen table and circled grocery coupons in red ink, Andrew would flip to the transit page, tracking the routes, the numbers, the times. He’d let the information sink in without effort, the way other people memorized song lyrics. Every hour and stop clung to his brain like gum on the underside of a desk— impossible to scrape free once it settled there.
He knew which lines ran early enough to get Nicky home from the club before the sun came up and which ones stalled out past nine, leaving him stranded under flickering streetlamps unless Andrew surrendered the car; he knew which routes stopped two blocks short of the diner and forced Nicky to walk the rest of the way in shoes not built for mileage, and which ones crossed the bridge toward the call center only once an hour, as if the city itself had decided that anyone working that far from home did not deserve efficiency. Andrew adjusted himself accordingly, shaving minutes off his own sleep schedule, dragging his feet into school late, convincing Aaron that a jog home after Exy practice was a good idea.
It is because of this— because Andrew has folded those routes into his routine the way other people fold prayers into theirs— that he knows no matter how badly someone misreads a schedule, no matter how new they are to town, no matter how incompetent the transit authority might be on any given day, none of the buses run past Broad River. None of them would have dumped this boy on the other side of town.
Andrew slows by half a step, barely perceptible, enough to force recalibration. He doesn’t turn fully; he tilts his head just enough to catch the boy’s profile in the corner of his vision. The breathing behind him is steady now— too steady for someone who supposedly sprinted half of Columbia because he boarded the wrong bus. The flush on the boy’s cheeks is already fading, sweat clinging at his temples in the thin, drying sheen of adrenaline spent minutes ago, not the fresh shine of someone who has just crossed town in a panic.
Andrew replays the entrance in his mind: the forward pitch of his shoulders, the weight balanced on the balls of his feet as if he’d burst through the office door prepared to pivot; the way his hands hovered instead of resting, fingers flexing subtly as though measuring distance to exits and obstacles; the refusal of water, polite but edged, distrust slipping through the cracks of courtesy like a blade beneath silk.
The truth is in the details. It always is. This boy was not late because of a bus. He had been running—away from something, toward something—and then, at the last possible second, he had either lost his nerve or run out of whatever thin thread of resolve had been dragging him forward.
He had stopped.
And Andrew can tell that the stopping is what unsettles the boy the most, because he understands it. He knows how it feels to hold yourself too tight, as if bracing against an invisible current that threatens to pull you backward; he understands the distrustful way his gaze skims over exits, prepared to dart the second his hackles raise. To stop is to be still, and stillness gives the world time to catch up.
And the world is so very, very cruel.
“It’s easy to get turned around,” Andrew says at last, tone mild enough to pass for indifference. He lets the words float between them like a concession, a small mercy offered without acknowledgment. “Columbia’s built weird.”
The boy doesn’t respond, but something in his shoulders eases a fraction— not trust, not relief, just a recalibration.
“If you’re worried about tardies,” Andrew continues, as though the subject bores him, “there’s a gap in the fence by the track field. Back corner, near the drainage ditch. Cameras don’t reach that far. You cut through there, you can skip the office altogether.” He doesn’t look at him while he speaks. He keeps his eyes forward, as if discussing something as trivial as lunch options.
“Effie’s predictable. ‘Yes, ma’am’ goes far with her. So does coffee if you’re desperate. She pretends she cares about procedure, but she cares more about kids staying put and out of the system than anything else. She favors pen to paper, so a third tardy is only a problem if she writes the first two down.”
“And the only bus that even comes close to the school runs Route 7. It stops two blocks over on Maple. Last trip away is at seven.”
He slows, then reaches back without looking and plucks the schedule card from the boy’s hand with practiced ease. He scans it in a glance— periods, room numbers, teachers, the name printed in capital letters across the top— before the schedule is deftly snatched back.
Andrew uses the boy's suddenly open stance to shove the crumpled fast food bag into his chest, grease stains blooming against the fabric of his too-thin hoodie. Fingers close automatically around the bag, a reflex resulting in a white-knuckled grip. “Lunch is over,” Andrew states flatly, as if it’s nothing more than an observation about weather patterns. "Your next class is that way." The tilt of his chin toward the underclassman wing is subtle but deliberate.
Andrew lifts two fingers in a lazy, mocking salute before twisting around. Andrew doesn’t look to see if the new student is moving towards his class; there is no need. He can feel the weight of the boy's attention pressing against his spine, sharp enough to scratch that incessant itch of boredom beneath his skin.
"Stay out of trouble, Neil," he calls over his shoulder.
The name sits like a lie behind his teeth, sweet with the promise of something.