Work in Progress

Chapter 1

If life is a dance, then I will spend it dancing on the edge of madness. Many people could tell you of this place that is unlike any other. It is liken to a cliff, the edge of which is quite un-steady and could throw you off at any time. A slight misstep or a strong wind, and when you talk to plants, you suddenly get answers. The thing about this cliff or edge is that when you get there once, you have to fight like hell everyday for the rest of your life to avoid going over. If for only one moment you give up, you are already lost. In the end it is easier to give in to the madness and give up on the world, but it is the fight that allows us to keep our humanity for as long as we can. However, I fear that at some point it will all become too much and I will no longer have the strength to hang on.
My story comes in parts and is reliant on many factors. At this moment, I am only nine-teen, yet it strikes me that I have experienced more at my young age than some people experi-ence in their entire lifetime. I have read about people who spend most of their lives as hermits, and of course those who simply avoid living life out of fear people who spend weeks on end in their homes without any thought or desire of leaving to go out into the world. Fear is one of the few things in this world that can completely stop a person from living life. It is a powerful feel-ing, and once you give in, the game is over.

Run…run…run… This simple command seems to be all my brain is capable of telling me. Too bad that’s not much use at the moment. I’m stuck in a situation I can’t really run away from. You see, it’s the first day of my senior year in high school at Delong High School in the incredibly small city of Delong, Maine. As long as I can remember, I’ve always been on the outer fringes of the high school society; and it’s a very simple society really. At the top we have the rich kids and the star athletes. Directly below them are the academics, not so star athletes, and student council and club members. Below them are the average students, they make no trou-ble and get no notice. At the bottom we have the uninvolved, unmotivated and unsophisticated students. In a totally different sphere of humanity you have me. I don’t get to really be a part of any of the aforementioned groups, and believe me – I’ve tried. It just seems that there is some-thing different in the wiring of my brain that leaves me on the outside, an observer but not a par-ticipant of this drama we know as high school.
And yet today there is something different. My instincts are telling me to run but I can’t figure out why. There is no one new that I can see and nothing different about the school itself, so why the internal command? Since there is nothing my brain can find as out of the ordinary (or at least more than usual) I just continue on to first period psychology.

Now to give you a little background on me before this story gets a bit confusing for you. I have always lived in Delong. It’s a town with a population of about seven thousand give or take a hundred depending on the time of year. For those of you in normal parts of the country, if you would like to find my home, start driving north and when the border patrol stops you, you’re probably pretty close. The entire town is Catholic and being as it’s such a small town, if you do not attend church everyone knows it. Here we find problem number one: I’m not Catholic.
The reason I questioned and left the Church is because of my very special gift, which is where this story begins. I can sense intentions. Do not confuse this with mind reading or empathy - it is not quite as easy as that. The best I can do is to know if someone means harm or good in their endeavors, which can tell me the general character of a person in most cases. I have yet to find another with a “special gift” as I have taken to calling them. That does make sense though, I mean, if you found yourself suddenly reading minds or sensing emotions you would probably think you had gone crazy and why would you broadcast that all over town?
Now in this town that hates me I also get to have a family that is not the best. My mother took off on our family years ago so that I don’t really remember much besides what her voice sounded like through the walls as she screamed. My father was naturally devastated by this and became a rather absent parent. Luckily, I’m an only child, and so there were no other children for me to take care of, I only needed to look after myself. (Honestly, I’m just glad I never managed to burn the house down around me.)
However, I did manage to find two friends. Both are outsiders like me who can’t seem to find their place in the strict social structure. Natalie skipped ahead two grades and so hasn’t reached the same developmental level socially or otherwise. Faith happens to be a transfer stu-dent who was never accepted into a group because she came from “away”. We took to spending all of our time together once high school started and people separated into their groups. My house is our hang-out due to the lack of parental units, and as a result, I spend a lot of time clean-ing up spilled popcorn and soda.
Now that you know the basics, back to the problem at hand…


Chapter 2

So, I manage to make it to psych class without running for cover in a closet somewhere, but what I found when I walked in was unbelievable. In one class there are two new students!
The girl is named Alyssa and has very fair hair and golden skin. She almost looks like she could be from some Scandinavian country…or California. The Nazis would have thought her perfection personified. Personally, I think a few more pounds would make her look a bit health-ier. She has a haughtiness about her that warns everyone away and makes her seem like she thinks she is better than everyone else in the room. This probably means she will make it into the top group if she has money or right below it if she doesn’t.
The boy is introduced as Jesse, and unlike Alyssa, has a darker complexion as though he has a very deep natural tan and an almost wild look to him. His hair is rumpled as though he just got up (which is entirely possible) and for some reason he is looking daggers at Alyssa. His ap-pearance invites conversation, but his face is guarded like he is hiding something from the world. There is no doubt; he is definitely cute and definitely destined for class number two on the social scale. He looks too good to be any lower.
As the teacher continues to introduce them, we learn that they come from sister cities in a rural area in Montana. Maybe their schools back home were rivals – that would certainly explain the obvious and mutual dislike between them. Just my luck, when Mr. Nadeau assigns seats, I get the one separating the two of them. Sitting between them, my sensors are all going haywire. I sense such a huge amount of nearly murderous intentions all intertwined with kindness and ami-ability towards me that I have to mentally shut it all out. As soon as I do, the impulse to run dis-appears, so I assume that the overload on my receptors is what was causing it to begin with. With that problem solved, I get my book and first day’s reading and move on to the next class.
I don’t get to see them again until lunch. When I walk in with Natalie after French class, they are sitting each alone at opposite corners of the cafeteria. Surprisingly, given their beauty, none of the established groups are willing to take in either of them, and Natalie goes to Alyssa as I sit down across from Jesse.
“Hi, my name is Resa. I sit next to you in Psych now. How do you like our little town so far?” So…lame, but I can’t think of anything more sophisticated on the spot, not when I happen to be facing a cute guy anyway.
“Yeah, I saw you there. I didn’t mean to be rude by not saying hi, but first day, you know? Your town is actually smaller than mine was, which is pretty impossible, but I think I could learn to like it. Especially now that I met you. Everyone else here seems so exclusive, like your family had to be here for a zillion years before you just so you can count for something. Which lends the town character but not friendliness, I gotta say.”
I can’t believe it. At this moment, I’m just staring at him hearing that sentence again, “Especially now that I met you.” So, sure, it was an offhand comment, but I can dream can’t I? Just because I happen to be a total loser and apparently like to display that fact, I decide to tell him exactly what I’m thinking. “Even when you’re family has been here forever, they still don’t always accept you.”
“Oh…I’m sorry.” Suddenly, he is looking at me in a softer way, almost as if he didn’t expect to feel sorry for me, but he did anyway. Definitely not what I was aiming for with that comment – time to lighten up the mood I think.
“Lucky for you we have a group dedicated to those who have no group. Right now mem-bership is at three, but you are welcome to join if you like. We mostly just hang out at my house on the weekends and holidays, but it’s still fun.” Hmm…pretty lame again, I’m going to have to work on that. At least he looks like he’s actually considering my offer instead of treating me like a psych patient who should be in a strait jacket.
“Well, I guess it depends. What are the rules of initiation, and who is the leader of this group?”
Okay…Now I’m sure that there is something different about this guy, but to play along, “I suppose I would be the leader as the founder, but we sort of rule by group consensus. Since we always use my house though I guess I rule by default. As for the rules of initiation, we’ve never initiated anyone before, so we’ll have to think of something, but nothing too terrible of course, just something funny. You wouldn’t even need to do it if you really didn’t want to, we’ll take you no matter what.”
“Ok. I’m in.”
Well that was easy. I wonder how Natalie is coming along with Alyssa over there. Alyssa keeps stealing glances our way as if deciding whether we were offering the same thing to her supposed enemy. After a moment, Natalie walks my way with a smile on her face as obvious as a sign saying, “Mission Accomplished”.
Jesse, following my gaze, turns back and says, “I guess you got two new members today for your group. As the ranks increase, the leadership responsibilities grow, and you may have just bitten off more than you can chew.”

Following lunch, I have physics with Natalie. Since it was a lab day, we started talking about our new recruits and trying to figure out why they seem to hate each other so much. Each story became funnier than the last ending with, “They were both abducted by aliens at birth and conditioned to hate each other but always be together as part of a human studies experiment at alien school.” At this point we couldn’t help but laugh, quickly attracting the attention of Mrs. Jones.
“Really, ladies, do you want a detention on the first day? That may not be the best news to bring home to your parents.”
It didn’t take more than a second for us to stop laughing after her little speech. I hate it when teachers are all teach-y like that, who would give any seniors a detention on the first day anyway…that would be totally un-cool. Anyway, she decides to leave us alone and for the rest of class, and we try to focus on the lab. But really, how much focus does it take to observe the ef-fects of dropping two objects of different masses at the same time? Rocket science? I think not.
My next class was English with Faith. Since she didn’t have lunch with us, I fill her in before class starts on our two new members. After she finishes squealing about how she’s not the only one in the town who’s from “away” anymore, we quickly decide to hold an emergency meeting after school complete with soda and snacks to plan an initiation ritual for them and any future inductees. Then class starts and the year is already starting to suck.

Later that night at my house, we came together for our impromptu meeting. First up was figuring out initiation rites. Since we don’t actually want our new friends to think we’re losers, we decide on a simple plan of having them each prepare a meal on one of the nights we all gather at my house. The catch will be that they will have certain ingredients to work with. We decide to give Alyssa chocolate and Jesse gummy worms. Really we just like excuses to pig out and enjoy sugar highs. Besides, they will probably just make candy pizzas or something simple like that. It will be like Iron Chef though, with judging and all.
Once that was settled we turned to the serious topic of gossip. Who was dating who and who got what surgeries over the summer over ruled any thoughts of Jesse and Alyssa for the rest of the night. After a hard core session, we split up to do homework and get our beauty sleep for the next day.

The next day at lunch, Natalie went to go get Alyssa to join Jesse and I so we could tell them about our plans. When I finished explaining I was greeted with incredulous stares. “Well, you don’t have to do it if you don’t want to. We just thought it would be something fun to help you feel like you were part of the group, but it is entirely up to the two of you.” I paused for a moment and then the most marvelous smile broke over Jesse’s face. I immediately I sensed a large amount of hostility from Alyssa. I was not really sure how to interpret that, but I figured we were in for some great food on Saturday afternoon.

Chapter 3

Unbelievably, the next day at school, we had yet another new student. The name Calvin belonged to a boy who was already a man. I mean, this man had achieved an entirely new level of hotness for the high school scale. There was just one hitch to the new cutie - I couldn’t read anything off of him at all. No intentions of any persuasion in any direction. Obviously this wasn’t the first time that had ever happened, but everyone else had been asleep at the time. I wondered if I had just met my first other person with “special gifts” ever. Even though I couldn’t read him psychically, his face was so open and honest like a book there for the reading. All my years of social awkwardness were really paying off now since I spent most of that time studying the people around me. I got good at facial cues a long time ago and this guy wasn’t trying to hide anything anyway. As he walked to his seat he smiled at the entire class like nothing at all was wrong in the world. His face as smile screamed home and comfort to me like nothing else did. I guess it’s because the place where I lived wasn’t really a home so much as a large structure where I kept my bed. Natalie leaned over to me and said, “WOW,” which really summed it all up. “Did you see his smile? It’s like a sunny day on the beach just to look at him.” Sounded to me like someone was missing summer already, but it did give me a clue. What if his gift was to give people the thing that they most wanted at that moment, at least the feeling of that thing. How cool would that be? I wondered if he even knew his affect on people. He must, how would he have made it to this age without figuring out why people responded to him like they did?
Not surprisingly, he spoke French with an astoundingly great accent. Maybe I would ask him to tutor me, not that I really sucked at French, but what a chance to get close to the hotness of him.