Jay’s POV
Most normal people leave anonymous notes alone, or throw them in a trash can, or burn them, or turn them into ammo for the next spitball war at school. But fortunately, I’m not normal. When I first pulled the white envelope addressed to none other than myself out of my backpack, I didn’t really think anything about it. Until I opened it…
By now you may know that social status and money are strong motivators for me, or so my genius dad says. So when I opened the envelope and read the words, ‘Meet me behind the football field bleachers at Odyssey High School at 4:55 pm next Monday and we’ll pay you’, I freaked out… literally. My freak out moment consisted of throwing the bag of Cheetos that I was eating on the ground, panicking at what I had just done, then frantically trying to stuff them in my mouth. Oh yeah, and my mom has an unhealthy phobia of germs so when she walked in to me knelt on the floor hurriedly shoving “contaminated” chips in my mouth, she smacked me with the dishrag she was holding.
“Hey! Sorry- sorry!” I scrambled to stand up.
“Jay, what have I told you about not eating things off the ground?!”
“I’ve eaten worse-”
“What?”
“Nothing…”
She marched over to the pantry, extracted a broom and dustpan, and shoved them into my arms.
“Clean them up and don’t eat any more.”
Man, couldn’t be more direct than that.
She left the room without another word. I awkwardly leaned the oversized broom against the wall and sighed. It seemed like the only way for a dude to gain approval was by being popular in sports or having money. I looked over at the open envelope on the counter. Maybe I had finally hit a jackpot...
Buck’s POV
I switched on the basement light as Jason set down the metal paint cans.
“So, you ready to do some painting?” he asked, stretching his back.
I nodded. “Yup.”
“Okay then. Let’s do this.”
Jason poured the thick white paint into the blue, plastic tray. Little air bubbles appeared in the goopy liquid. I picked up the rollers off Mr. Whittaker’s desk and handed one to him.
“How’d you get Katrina to let you paint the basement?” Jason laughed, taking the roller from me.
“Ha! I’ve basically had to beg her to let me do anything ‘strenuous’ for the past month. But she gave way when I reminded her that the doctors said I could start doing stuff again after four weeks.”
“Well, at least she cares.”
“Yeah.”
Jason dipped his roller in the paint, I followed suit and began rolling paint onto the rough concrete wall. No one said anything for a while. Music drifted softly out of Mr. Whittaker’s antique radio.
“How’s school going?” Jason finally asked, cutting off the glorious silence.
“Not bad. I’ve got my ACT in three weeks, so that’s kinda crazy as far as studying goes.”
“Hm, do you feel ready?”
“Not really,” I laughed. “Katrina been trying to help me with practice tests and stuff, and I’ve been studying with Jules.”
“That’s good. You excited for auditions?”
“Oh yeah! That’s gonna a blast. It’s the same weekend as the test though, but I’ll survive. Are you planning on auditioning?”
“I wouldn’t miss it. When I was five, I was supposed to be the kid’s chorus for Music Man, but um, I kept forgetting to wave with my left hand so they cut me from the show,” Jason said, a faraway look in his eyes. “I’m looking at this as my way to redeem my past musical theater failures.”
We both laughed.
“I bet you could get the lead again. You’d be a good Harold Hill.”
“Maybe. I’d rather not get the ‘con man’ part though,” I laughed, redipping my roller in the paint.
“That makes sense. But you probably wouldn’t have a lot of competition if you wanted to.”
“Aside from the fact that Mr. Westcott put flyers for the audition all over town.”
“I guess we’ll see what comes of that. Are Jules and Eugene auditioning?”
“I know Eugene is. I’m not sure about Jules though. I’ll have to ask her when I see her later.”
“Ah,” Jason smirked, “you guys going out?”
“Yeah. I think we’re gonna get Starbucks or something.”
“You’ve given up on our drinks?” he asked in a horrified British accent.
“Uh-”
“I’m kidding. It’s fine.”
I laughed slightly. “It’s the whole Connie being a vulture thing that gets bothersome.”
“I see… You know, Jules uh- she had a really hard time with you being out of things.”
I looked over at Jason, my roller poised mid-air.
“Have you asked her how she felt?” he asked, an eyebrow raised.
“No.”
“Maybe you should do that. She’d probably feel blessed.”
“Yeah…” I muttered under my breath.
Jules’ POV
I sat across the small, round table from Buck. The warm paper cup of peppermint hot chocolate in my hands. I watched the steam spiraled up from the cup in rhythmic swirls.
“So um, are you planning on auditioning for Music Man?” Buck asked, drumming his fingers on the wooden table.
“I mean, yeah I think so. Are you?”
“Heck yeah!” he laughed. “Jason said he’s going to too.”
“Hm, nice. When’d you see him?”
“Earlier today. I repainted the basement with Jason.”
I eyed his speckled face and hair. “That would explain why you’ve got paint in your hair.”
“Ha yeah, painting is messier than you’d think.”
I watched a tall man in a thick black coat walk through the door.
“Okay, so I um- I wanted to ask you about how it was with me being in the hospital and stuff?”
“What?” I laughed at the sudden change of topic.
“Like- how’d it make you feel?”
“Um, well it was- hard,” I swallowed. “I kept seeing his face every time I’d look at you laying there. It sort of enforced the feeling of hopelessness.”
“That makes sense…”
There was a momentary pause. I glanced out the window to see a squirrel scamper up a dead, snow-covered tree.
“I uh-” Buck turned and looked out the window. “Hey, is that Bethany?” he pointed at a girl running along the sidewalk.
“Um, yeah I think so…”
She blew past the window, eyes on the ground. The yellow and black flannel tied around her waist fell to the ground, she didn’t seem to notice.
“Um, we should probably go take that to her,” Buck said as I watched her run across the street, walked up to a house, and opened the door.
“I guess she lives there?” I muttered.
“I guess. Shall we?” he stood and zipped up his coat.
“Let’s do it.”
I stood up and looked into his eyes. There was something bothering him, but those blue eyes were so hard to read sometimes.
Bethany’s POV
I think it’s safe to say that my trip to Whit’s End was an epic failure. I had walked into that victorian style house when all those painful memories came crashing back into my head. The ones of Aubrey and- well, we’ll get to them later. All I can say is that it was a disaster. I had a full-blown anxiety attack in that three-foot bathroom stall before I was able to calm myself down enough to act my way past my parents and Connie and leave. Fortunately, our house is right next to McAllister Park, so it was only a five-minute run. But then I arrived home only to be attacked by another onslaught of uncontrollable emotions. I ran into my bedroom and slammed the door. My chest heaved. I stared at myself in the mirror above my desk. A cloud covered my blue eyes. A thin stream of tears ran down my face. The monster inside thrashed against my lungs.
Stop feeling! Stop feeling!
“Agh!” I pulled my off black beanie and threw it on the ground.
Blades dug into my heart. Nausea. Always nausea. That was the source of what my parents liked to call an eating disorder. Anxiety attacks were frequent visitors to my room. All because I couldn’t numb my feelings. I looked down at my shaking hands. They had turned white from gripping my chair so hard. My dirty hands, covered in red ink from the pen that I had accidentally snapped in half in one of my recent anxiety attacks. I gulped back the feeling that I was losing control. My therapist had given me multiple exercises to keep the attacks down, but the problem was remembering to do them.
C’mon, five things. Just name five things.
I looked around and began naming different items in my room out loud.
“Bed- clock- lamp-”
Deep breaths.
“Carpet- chair…”
Four things you can touch.
I reached over and picked up a marker that was lying on my desk. That wonderful feeling of the cold plastic in my sweaty palm brought relief. I began touching different items and naming them out loud. Soon that horrible tightness in my chest loosened and I was able to take steady breaths. And then the doorbell rang…
Buck’s POV
We stood outside the white brick house. I pressed the little black button on the doorbell. A loud ring sounded through the inside of the house. A shadow appeared on the other side of the glass. The door opened. Bethany stood there; her eyes were puffy. I noticed cardboard packing boxes strewn about the poorly furnished living room.
“Hey Bethany, um- you dropped this,” I handed her the shirt.
“Thanks… Where’d you find it?” she asked, eyebrows furrowed.
“On the sidewalk in front of Starbucks,” Jules said.
“And you knew it was mine?” Bethany twisted her hands together.
“We saw you drop it.”
“...What?”
She had a vacant look in her eyes.
I looked over at Jules. She shrugged.
“Bethany, are you okay?” I asked slowly.
She blinked. “Um, yeah… Thanks for bringing it back. Bye.”
The door shut.
“Okay then… What now?” Jules asked, her hands in her coat pockets.
There was something about Bethany’s eyes, a reflected trauma of sorts. I had seen that same look in my own eyes too many times. Something wasn’t right.
“Jules, what do you think about inviting her to go on a hike with us next week?”
“Seriously?”
“Yeah.”
“I mean- I guess. Why not.”
I rang the doorbell again. We waited for around two minutes before the door opened again.
“Do you need anything else?”
“Actually yeah. You wanna go on a hike with us next week?” I smiled.
“Um… I- maybe. When?”
“Next Sunday.”
“Okay maybe. I need to ask my- yeah okay, I’ll think about it.”
“Okay, great!”
“So um, I’ll text you later I guess…”
“Sounds good,” Jules nodded.
Bethany fake-smiled and closed the door.
I think the stress that she radiated had caught up with me. I let out a tight breath.
Jay’s POV
Monday afternoon was a fancy day for me. I whistled as I pushed through the mass of kids gathered outside Odyssey High School. The nice thing about being smaller than everyone else is that no one really notices you, so you can get around relatively easily, but you also get kicked a lot. When I finally got to the football bleachers, I noticed a man in a black leather jacket, gray skinny jeans with a chain hanging from the pocket. He looked pretty swanky.
“Are you Jay?” He asked, readjusting his Ray-Ban sunglasses.
“Mhm,” I said, leaning against the light pole nonchalantly, trying to match his ‘I’m cool’ vibes.
“Good.”
“So, uh, what do I have to do to get the money?”
“First, I have a question…”
“Okay?”
“Do you know this person?” he showed me his phone.
“Yeah, that’s Buck. You’ve never heard of him?”
“Kinda.”
I laughed. “Everyone’s heard of Buck. He’s kind of famous.”
“How so?”
“Buck Meltsner! The con artist turned star football player-”
“Meltsner? I thought his last name was Oliver?”
“Well yeah, it was. But Eugene and Katrina decided to adopt him or something.”
“I see… Listen, I need you to meet me here in two days. Same time. Got it?”
“Yeah, yeah, sure. Do I get the money then?”
“We’ll see… Wait- here,” he pulled a wad of one-dollar bills out of his pocket, “ten bucks upfront for your troubles.”
“Sweet!”
Unknown’s POV
“Sir,” the young man in front of me dropped the report on my desk, “his last name is Meltsner, not Oliver…”
“And how, may I ask, did you come by this information?” I asked, picking up the stack of papers.
“A boy; Jay Smouse.”
“You’ve resigned yourself to using a fifteen-year-old child who has no experience?” I looked up from the page, “That’s pathetic.”
“...Sir, this- boy,” he swallowed, “he can help us. I’ve been watching him. He knows everyone, he listens well, he’s quick to learn, and he knows his way around. And in all honesty, he’s lone-”
“Honesty is what I expect.”
“Right, sorry. Like I was saying, he’s lonely, desperate for acknowledgment even. So if I play him, I think he could be useful.”
“Hm… Okay then, you have my permission.”
“Thank you, sir…”