When they finally pulled up to the house, Kip sighed. He almost showed Zak that all the pimples that had been emptied last night were already full again. They weren’t ready to pop quite yet, but nearly there. Kip didn’t think he’d ever run out, could supply the students with as much as they wanted.
But he didn’t want to argue with Zak. His cousin was only worried about him, only wanted to protect him.
He’s not jealous, Kip. No way. Not Zak. Zak’s different than all the rest. The only one to ever stand up for you.
“You’re right, Zak. My head’s all screwed up, man. I remember enough about last night to know that it felt good. I’ll admit that. Having them begging for me like that felt good. And of course… Jade.”
“Oh yeah. And normally I would be congratulating you, cousin, but she wasn’t herself. She was like a fucking junkie… they all were.”
“I know that. But either way, it was my first time kissing a girl. First time touching one, really, except for in the hallways at school, and that’s just by accident.”
Zak smiled, reached over and squeezed Kip’s shoulder. It felt good.
“God, she practically fucked you right in front of everyone. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.”
“You? How do you think I felt? I’m still not convinced last night was real, you know?”
“Well, it was real. Let’s just hope the kids don’t remember.”
“Yeah… yeah, let’s hope so. I guess…”
They quickly got changed, Zak jumping into the shower. Kip didn’t bother. He didn’t want to wash the oil off, didn’t want to cover up his scent with soap.
His people were waiting for him, he could feel them. They remembered. And they wanted him more than ever.
—10—
Zak couldn’t concentrate. No matter how hard he tried. The images from last night swirled through his mind like rubble in a tornado, and the teacher’s lecture might as well have been complete gibberish.
He looked at the students around him, studied their faces. As far as he could tell, everyone looked normal. Then again, there were only a select few who were at the party. The “popular crowd.”
Shawn sat toward the rear of the class. Zak remembered seeing this kid sucking on Kip’s neck, saw his lips stained red as he slurped up the white, creamy treat. But it looked like he was taking notes. The kid had bags under his eyes, kept yawning every few minutes, but nothing unusual for the day after a party.
“Zak?”
At the sound of his name, Zak flinched, elicited some giggles from the other students, especially the girls. The teacher stared at him, eyebrows high on his forehead, chalk pinched between finger and thumb, holding it out as if he wanted Zak to take it.
“What? I’m sorry… w-what?”
More laughter. The teacher pursed his lips, shook his head.
“Senior Skip Day. What a glorious tradition,” the teacher said. “Now, if you can pull your head out from between your butt cheeks, will you kindly walk to the blackboard and solve this problem?”
Zak forced a smile, nodded. His head was so out of it today, he had nearly forgotten which class he was in. But the problem on the board, looking like a tower of random numbers and letters, let him know he was in his dreaded Algebra class.
“Solve for X, please.”
“Yes, sir.”
The girls looked him up and down as he trudged toward the front of the class and took the chalk from the teacher’s hand with shaking fingers. He faced the blackboard, and felt himself sinking, melting like an ice cube in a frying pan. The problem was complete Greek to him, and no matter how hard he stared, no matter how hard he tried to remember how to do it, nothing came to him. And he just stood there, looking stupid and feeling stupider.
“Sometime during this period would be great,” the teacher said.
“I… uh… I can’t. I don’t know how, sir.”
The teacher shook his head, yanked the chalk from Zak’s hand. Zak started to head back to his seat, but the man stopped him.
“Wait a minute, now. Maybe if you stand closer to the problem as I solve it, it may sink in better, hmm?” The man’s hand worked rapidly, and he spat some equation that Zak was apparently supposed to remember, and just like that, he had an answer. Zak was as lost as ever.
“Just take your seat.”
“Yes, sir.”
Zak caught sight of Shawn, and the boy was still writing furiously, concentrating hard on the paper in front of him. His hand looked white from gripping the pen so hard, sweat beading and trickling over his face. His tongue kept darting from between his lips, sliding across the chapped skin, soaking in the moisture on his upper lip.
Zak took another long look at the students, and recognized one of the girls. She had been one of the three who greeted Zak and Kip just as they had arrived at the party. One of the bridge trolls. She sat in the furthest corner, and she also scribbled like mad on a sheet of paper. Her hair was in tangles, disheveled, and she bared her teeth as she worked her pencil back and forth across the paper. She wasn’t taking any notes, but looked like she was drawing something, or rather etching it in.
The bell rang. Zak stood, started to head toward Shawn and the girl, but was grabbed by his elbow. He turned, expecting to see the teacher there shaking his head and smirking, maybe demanding that Zak try harder or something along those lines.
But instead, he looked into the face of a girl. He had never met this girl, though he had noticed her around here and there. Couldn’t remember her name. Something about her was intoxicating though. Her face was devoid of any makeup, and she wore a simple loose-fitting shirt and jeans.
Zak couldn’t help but smile, and he shot quick glances at Shawn and the girl as they exited the classroom, both looking jittery and sick.
“Hi,” the girl said. “I’m Gwendolyn. You’re Zak, right?”
Zak glared into the hallway, noticed a few of the other partiers passing by, each one looking on edge, ready to tear their hair from their scalps. Zak was suddenly filled with the urgent need to find Kip, make sure he was okay.
“Um… hello? Am I bothering you?”
“God… my head’s all over the place today. Sorry. Yeah… I’m Zak. How’d you know that?”
She blushed, sort of tilted her head and puckered her lips. “Dude… you have to know. Every chick in this school is pretty much drooling over you. The mysterious new guy. Ohhhhh.” She waved her hands like she was telling a ghost story.
“Okay, okay. I might have noticed something like that.”
“Yeah, I bet. Well… also your cousin Kip has mentioned you before. That kid thinks the world of you, you know that?”
“You know Kip? You must be that girl he mentioned.”
“Oh yeah? And what did he say?”
Zak almost said it, but decided to hold his tongue. If this was the girl his cousin was so obsessed over, he didn’t dare embarrass him. “Nothing really. Just said you talked to him. Not many people do, you know.”
“Yeah… I know. He’s a sweet kid. Smart as shit, too.”
“I hear shit’s pretty smart around here.”
She punched him in the arm, hard enough to kind of hurt. “Anyway, I feel bad for him. So I’ll talk with him sometimes. Had to stand up for him when that fuckhead Chuck was giving him shit the other day. If I was a man, I’d ass rape that fucker.”
Zak burst out laughing.
“What?”
“You’ve got an interesting choice in vocabulary, you know that? It’s kind of refreshing to be honest.”
She just shrugged. “Kip may have mentioned that his big, bad, and cool-as-hell cousin was coming to town, to stay with him and his mom. Got into some trouble back home?”
Zak’s smile faded. “I guess you could say that, yeah.”