Part One
Chapter One
Riley
14-years-old
As I amble along the path toward the footbridge, I adjust the heavy backpack threatening to leave a permanent indent on my shoulder.
My backpack broke earlier this school year, but my mom stitched the strap back on. It has held up just fine for a while, but today Mom had to work so she couldn’t pick me up from school. That means I have to walk home.
Apparently, all the extra jostling popped the threads, because about a mile ago the darn thing gave out. Now I’m trying to lug this heavy sack of books on just one shoulder and that shoulder isn’t thrilled about it.
Movement ahead startles me and I gasp, clutching the backpack strap instinctively.
Someone is sitting on the footbridge with their feet dangling over the edge, palms braced on the aged wood. They’re looking down into the water, not paying me any mind, so my grip eases up and my racing heart begins to slow down.
Normally, there’s no one else on this path, and I feel uneasy that someone is now. Like they’ve found a place that was supposed to be secret and shown up uninvited.
I guess since I stopped walking—or maybe it was my gasp—I catch the attention of the stranger on the bridge. Only when he turns his head to look at me, I see it’s no stranger at all.
Hunter Maxwell is the intruder sitting on my favorite bridge.
We go to school together, but we’ve never spoken. He’s kind of a popular jerk who comes to school just to hang out with his friends, and I’m kind of a quiet bookworm who actually shows up to learn. I can’t imagine we would have anything to say to one another.
He must agree, because as soon as he recognizes me, he looks away—back down at the rippling water beneath the footbridge.
Something unpleasant turns over in my tummy. It feels like rejection, but that’s silly. I don’t care if Hunter Maxwell dismisses me. I didn’t want to talk to him, anyway.
Lifting my chin and bracing the strap on my shoulder, I set about ignoring him right back. I march across the distance between us, then march right past him.
Before I make it off the bridge and onto the dirt path toward home, his low tone interrupts the mutually held silence. “Don’t tell anyone you saw me today.”
I stop abruptly, frowning as I look back at him. “Excuse me?”
His sigh is impatient, but he repeats himself anyway. “The school thinks I’m out of town. No one normally comes this way.” Now he turns his head to look at me. “You know this is private property, right? Mine. You shouldn’t trespass.”
I’m so surprised, I only really hear the first part. As soon as he turns his head, I get a better look at the side of his face I didn’t see the first time he looked at me.
The skin around his left eye is agitated and swollen. It kinda looks like he got hit in the face.
The distance between us on the social hierarchy falls away and concern for him swells up inside me. I rush forward, dropping my backpack on the footbridge as I sink to my knees and lean in to get a better look. “Oh my gosh, what happened to your eye?”
“Nothing,” he says defensively, swatting my hand away.
My eyebrows rise. “This is definitely not nothing.” My long dark hair falls in my face, so I shove it back behind my ear. “Did somebody hit you?”
“It doesn’t matter. Mind your own business,” he mutters.
“It does matter,” I argue. “It looks terrible. Did you put anything on it? If you ice it, it will help with the swelling.”
“I’m fine,” he informs me. On impulse—I think—he pushes me hard in the chest to get me away from him.
I lose my balance and fall backward on my butt. It’s hardly a far fall so it doesn’t hurt, but I don’t appreciate being shoved to begin with.
“Fine,” I snap, pushing up to my feet and retrieving my bag. “I was only trying to help.”
“I don’t need your help.”
“Good, then I won’t give it to you,” I tell him, hoisting my broken backpack on my shoulder and stomping away from him.
I hear a loud sigh, then the telltale patter of sneakers against wood. “Wait,” he says, his voice less hostile.
“No,” I toss back without stopping. “Don’t follow me.”
“I’m sorry,” he says, all rushed as he catches up to me. “I didn’t mean to shove you. You were just making me mad.”
“There are better ways of expressing anger than shoving people,” I inform him, a bit primly. “Try words sometime.”
The corner of his mouth tugs up and he tucks his hands into the pockets of his jeans. “Thanks for the solid life advice.”
I look over at him with a vague glower still on my face, but I can feel my genuine annoyance melting away now that he’s not being a jerk. “Anytime.”
For a couple minutes, we don’t speak. I certainly didn’t invite him, but he continues to walk next to me along the path through the woods. My stupid backpack threatens to fall again. I try hoisting it, but that snags his attention.
Without a word, he reaches over and takes the backpack from me.
“Hey,” I object, but a second later I sag with the relief of not having the heavy thing on my back.
Hunter frowns when he realizes the strap is broken, but unperturbed, he slings it over his shoulder.
A moment later, I murmur, “Thank you.”
He nods. “This thing weighs a ton. What do you have in here?”
“Rocks.”
He cracks a smile. “Sure feels like it.”
I crack a smile right back. “It’s all my textbooks. Surely yours is just as heavy.”
“Nah. I don’t bring many books home.”
I frown. “How do you do your homework without them?”
“I wing it. I usually read the assigned chapter in class while the teacher is talking, then I only have to answer the questions at home. Only book I have to bring home every day is my math book, and that one’s not heavy.”
“How do you remember the questions if you don’t bring your books? Some of them are really long.”
He digs into his pocket and pulls out a smart phone. “You just take pictures of the assigned questions. Saves you having to haul around a big bag of books all the time.”
“Oh, I see. That’s a good idea, but I don’t have a cell phone,” I inform him.
His eyes widen like I just admitted to being an alien. “What? Who doesn’t have a cell phone?”
“I know,” I agree, rolling my eyes. “My mom insists I don’t need one yet.”
“I’m pretty sure that’s considered child abuse. Blink twice if you need help.”
I shake my head, smiling faintly. “It’s fine. I think she just says that because she can’t afford another line and she doesn’t want to admit it. She had to change jobs recently and I think she makes less at the new one because she went into major budgeting mode. Taking coupons out of that little box at the library, painstaking attention to our grocery list, no more cable. I’m sure she’ll get me a phone when she can afford it.”
“That sucks.”
I shrug. “I don’t watch TV much, anyway. It does suck, though, because right before she switched jobs I started reading this trilogy called Hunger Games. I got books one and two, but I figured I would pick up book three after I finished those, and now we don’t really have the book budget. It really sucks, because book two ended on a massive cliffhanger. I’m on the waitlist for the third book at the library, but I still have a month to go and waiting is the worst. I just want to know what happens and if she and Gale live happily ever after.”