“Oh, makes sense.”
“You said that Hannah talked about me a lot?”
“Yeah.” He laughs like he told a joke with himself. “She’d tell me stories about you two all the time, the trouble you’d get into.”
I don’t particularly remember getting into a lot of trouble with Hannah. Most of my memories of her involve loud music, slammed doors, yelling. Sometimes at Mom and Dad, sometimes at me, but okay I guess.
I want to ask Thomas if Hannah ever mentioned coming back for me, or even wanting to come back for me, but that feels like an inappropriate question for the brother-in-law you really just met.
My classes are almost exactly the same as they were at Wayne High: English 4, Chemistry Honors, Calculus Honors. The only difference is Art 4. I don’t really know what that is though. In Goldsboro we just had normal art classes.
North Wake has different lunch times too. They’re scheduled closer to actual lunch instead of being spread between ten and eleven thirty in the morning.
“You can just wait here for Nathan, I’m sure he’ll be here soon,” Kev the secretary tells me. I wonder if his name is actually Kev, or if it’s just short for Kevin, or maybe something else? I take the same seat I had yesterday, still wishing that I had a phone to kill time with. Hannah promised me we’d go get a replacement this weekend.
For now, I’ll just have to settle for staring at the clock, awkwardly smiling at anyone walking into the office who I happen to lock eyes with, until Nathan finally gets here.
“There he is.”
He.
I try my best not to let my face show anything, because this is something I need to get used to. I wanted this. It’s simpler. And I can’t be mad at him for it.
Nathan claps his hands eagerly. “You ready for the grand tour?”
“Yeah,” I say, grabbing my backpack. Another Hannah purchase.
“Got your schedule yet?”
I hand him the folded piece of blue paper and listen to him read off the classes. “Nice, we have the same homeroom, and the same Chem class, so we’ll be in the same lunch period too!”
“Oh, nice.”
“Let’s start with English.” Nathan leads me down this sterile white hallway, with lockers against the walls that alternate between dark blue and a dull gold. “You’ve got Mrs. Williams. I had her last year and she’s tough, but if you do your best and need some extra credit at the end of the year, she’s usually good for it.” He points to the empty classroom, filled with desks; hopefully I won’t have trouble remembering which classroom is which.
There isn’t much to distinguish it from the others, save the “Room 303” marker above the door. I repeat the number in my head. 303, 303, 303.
“Calculus?” Nathan asks. Clearly I’ve missed his question.
“Huh?” I shake myself out my trance. “Sorry.”
He smiles again. “You’re in Honors Calculus? Pretty advanced stuff.”
“Oh. I like math,” I say.
“Really? I have to say in all my seventeen years, that’s a first.” He grins.
“Well, I don’t like it really,” I correct myself. “But I’m good at it.”
“You’ll have to be more than just ‘good’ for honors classes here, even with the transfer.” He adds, “We don’t get too many new kids, so you’re going to be a hot commodity around here.”
“Really?” Great. Just what I need.
“No worries. As long as you keep your head down around the rough and tough football team, you should be good.”
I don’t know what to say next, so I keep quiet.
“Oh, and stay away from the bathrooms near the music room, the band kids aren’t afraid of PDA.” He shivers a little. “Some things you’ll never unsee.”
“Hmm,” I hum, hoping he’ll take that as an answer.
We stay mostly quiet as he leads me to Chemistry. “The thing about Chemistry is that it’s at the back of the school, so you really have to run to the cafeteria if you want the edible stuff. Mr. W’s pretty cool though, he’ll let us out early sometimes.” Nathan reads over my schedule again. “Do you know him? I saw you two in the office yesterday.”
“He’s my brother-in-law.”
“Oh, wow. I’m surprised they let you into his class.” I don’t mention it, but I have a feeling Thomas orchestrated that. Nathan knocks on Thomas’s open classroom door. “Morning, Mr. Waller.”
Thomas is sitting at his desk in the far corner of the room. “Morning, Nathan, still showing Ben around?” he asks, scribbling something down.
“Yeah.” Nathan leans over the long counter at the front of the room, balancing one knee on a stool.
“Is he as good of a tour guide as he claims, Ben?” Thomas marks something on one of his papers before spinning his chair to face us, hands propped up on the armrests like some sort of supervillain.
“Yeah.” I gaze into this small aquarium situated on the counter at the front of the room, where I watch the biggest tadpoles I’ve ever seen swim around in the murky water.
“He’s not a talkative one,” Nathan adds.
“No, Ben isn’t.” He sighs. “You two better move along, you don’t have much longer.”
“Right. Guess we’ll see ya in a few, Mr. W.” Nathan waves, leading me back into the hallway. We walk toward the cafeteria next. I’m seriously doubting I’ll ever bother coming here; I never did in Goldsboro. “So, do you have any questions? Concerns? Thoughts or opinions? Complaints? You haven’t really said much.”
I can’t think of any off the top of my head. Of course, my brain is so rattled right now. Last night I passed out around midnight, but woke up about two hours later, unable to fall back asleep. So far this doesn’t seem that much different from my old school. But with the way Nathan is looking at me, I feel like I need to ask something. “Are you a senior too?”
His face sort of twists, like the question surprises him, but he just laughs it off with a grin and the shake of his head. “Well, I meant about the school.” He tucks his hands into the pockets of his hoodie. “But yeah. I am.”
“Oh.”
“So, what do you do in your free time? You’re in Art 4, so I’m guessing you like to draw?”
“Sometimes.”
“Oh, nice, you’ll like your teacher. Everyone loves Mrs. Liu. I’ll show you your Calc class next.” We cut across this walkway outside. From here I can see the parking lot already filling up. “Don’t you want to ask me another question?”
“Is that what we’re doing?” I ask.
“If you want to. It’s only fair, Benjamin …” He unfolds my schedule again. “De Backer?” He reads off my last name. And he gets it right on the first try. “How about that? A question for a question, answer for an answer?”
“Okay,” I say.
“Is that last name German?”
“Belgian. I think.” Mom and I actually spent a good amount of time tracing our last name. She was really into that genealogy sort of stuff, so when Hannah and Dad were having one of their huge arguments, she’d take me to the library, and we’d sit and read all the books they had about our family. After a few visits, we ran dry though and just started finding names and making up backstories about them and what they were doing now.