Chapter 2: 24 Days Earlier

Hope:

The volume was turned down for Hope Davidson and every muffled thing felt far away. The chair, she knew, was the same height from the floor it had always been. Maybe her legs had shrunk, she mused, as Counselor Weinberg sat across from her with that same expectant face she wore at every one of their sessions. Maybe the old girl had just sat and watched as Hope shrank into herself. Outside, the laughter of confident seniors drifted in, sharp and brash; it pricked at Hope’s face with the stain of some joke at her expense. Something about no meaning yes. She couldn’t really hear them, though. They were far away and the volume was turned down. It had been like this ever since the Incident. 

“We don’t have to talk about it,” Counselor Weinberg reassured probingly. 

Of course they had to talk about it, Hope scoffed internally. That’s why she was here. That was a ‘condition’ for them letting her return to school so soon after. Before things had had any time really to die down. Memories. Feelings. The belief that someone had to pay. Hope scratched the bandage on her arm then welcomed the sting of sensation beneath it. 

“If you don’t—” the counselor went on. 

“—I don’t want to,” Hope replied, cutting across her. 

The counselor lowered her head, picking up the gaze of a box of tissues on the small, laminate table in between them. Hope buried her chin and nose in the neck of her baggy white hoodie; she glared over the top of the fabric, daring the counselor to meet her gaze. 

“Why don’t we talk about something else,” Weinberg offered eventually. 

“Like what?” Hope parried. 

“You’re sixteen, right?” the counselor asked. 

Hope nodded as noncommittally as she could. 

“Why don’t you tell me about something you used to do before you were a teenager.”

“When I was a little girl?” Hope reached. 

“Could be.” Now it was the counselor’s turn to be noncommittal. She waited for Hope to speak and when the girl said nothing, she added, “Something you used to do but you don’t do anymore.”

Hope thought for a moment. It was a safe enough topic. Nothing that could easily lead on to talking about the Incident. 

“I used to climb trees,” Hope replied. 

“Me too,” the counselor admitted, smiling. 

Hope tried not to smile back, but there was something about the image of 200 lbs counselor hitching her skirt up and reaching for the highest branch that just seemed so absurd. The smile just imprinted itself on Hope’s face. Like someone was pulling at threads in the back of her skull and lifting it into place. She fidgeted with her scrunchie and loosened her tight ponytail a little. 

“When did you stop?” the counselor asked before Hope had a chance to bury her face in her hoodie again. 

“Huh?” 

“You said you used to climb trees,” the counselor parroted back. “When did you stop?” 

The question was soft. Non-threatening. Innocent. 

“Around 12, I guess,” Hope replied, finding herself leaning in and scrutinizing the counselor. 

“A lot of things get left behind in 12,” the counselor replied. 

Hope cocked her head at the odd phrasing of it. ‘In’ 12. Not ‘At’ 12. Like 12 was some magical slipper that was bigger on the inside, left behind or thrown away as princesses put on make-up and called it warpaint. 

There was a lot she’d left behind, even before that thing that she definitely did not want to talk about. Pants made room for skirts; loud was swallowed up by shy; hair became this thing to style instead of color with markers. Maybe that's what he’d seen. Her hair was styled, her skirt was short. 

“Why did you stop?” The counselor’s question cut across her and for a moment Hope found herself adrift. “Climbing trees?” Counselor Weinberg added

“I don’t know,” the girl replied, eventually. “I guess my friends all stopped doing it so I did too.”

“For me it was when I started to paint my nails,” Weinberg confided, and she held out her baby-pink fingers for Hope to inspect. They were flawless. Like she’d just come straight out of a nail salon. They were rounded and pointy, not sharp like claws, not grown-out like falsies, painted all the way to the cuticle. 

Hope looked involuntarily at her own nails. They had been pretty once. Before. Now they were bitten down and jagged and the varnish she put on at the weekend — just clear, cheap stuff — was chipped and uneven. 

“I’ve never been very girly,” Hope lied, folding her arms as far around her waist as she could, if for no other reason than to avoid fixating on her nails. “Don’t get me wrong,” she went on, suddenly feeling the pall of silence, “I’m not a tomboy. I’m not one of them.”

“One of who?” the counselor asked. 

“I like boys,” Hope clarified. “At least—” but she lost the rest of the sentence in an involuntary throat-clenching sob that she tried (and failed) to hide as a cough. 

“We don’t have to talk about any of that stuff until you’re ready,” the counselor reassured, placing one comforting hand across the back of Hope’s wrist and passing her the box of tissues with the other. A single tear had detached itself from Hope’s best efforts to hold onto it and she turned her face away to wipe her eye. 

“Now hear this—” an authoritative voice buzzed through the room. 

It took Hope a second to realize it was the intercom. The intercom at Sherman High almost never got used. It had been put in when the school was built, in the 1960s Hope had heard, and it sounded about as distant as that forgotten, liberated era. 

“—the school is in partial lockdown. Students and faculty are to remain in classrooms. Hall passes are rescinded.”

The intercom clicked off with an enigmatic finality. 

“What does that mean?” Hope asked the apprehensive counselor. 

Rue:

When the intercom announced the partial lockdown, Rue Camposano was on the verge of utterly crushing his regular debate-sparring partner. The crackle of the speaker into life nudged his thoughts off the tracks a little, while the message it delivered — authoritative, enigmatic, terrifying — threatened to derail him entirely. The effect was so total that his mouth hung open mid-sentence.

“What does it mean, Mr Heineman?” the girl two chairs to Rue’s left inquired, looking up nervously at the battered walnut loudspeaker. Was it Amber? Alison? Rue felt like he ought to know. She’d been in his Government and Politics class all year. 

“Probably nothing to worry about,” Mr Heineman replied, forcing a smile and draining off the last of his coffee (black; strong; smelly). He placed the cup down awkwardly, banging the side of his laptop as he did so. 

“Since we’re all stuck here until whenever,” Mr Heineman went on, “it should give Mr Freeman plenty of time to answer Mr Camposano’s question.”

Heineman insisted on calling his students by their surnames… 

“But—” the girl two chairs across broke in again. 

“We're fine, Alison,” Mr Heineman reassured.

Calling his male students by their surnames anyway. 

“It’s probably just another drill. Now,” Mr Heineman redirected. “Mr Freeman?”

“Well — I think—” Aust Freeman replied, looking back at Rue and playing for time. “I think he never got the chance to finish his question.” 

There were groans and the shaking of heads. Stubbornly sticking to the rules of play was the sign of a weak argument and Rue knew it. 

“No, no,” Mr Heineman ruled, holding his hands up to quiet the groaning of the class. “He’s got the right to hear the question in full.”

“Yeah, Ruben,” Aust gloated at the small victory. “Why don’t cha lemmie hear it again?” 

“You wanna hear it again, Austin?” Rue asked. “Sure. I said: ‘Would every MAGA family still have been stupid enough to vote for Donald Trump if they knew he was going to take away their Medicare’—?”

If the intercom hadn’t interrupted him, Rue was about to add ‘—or was that just your family?’ He decided against it now. 

“I don’t think I like the way he’s phrasing the question,” Aust replied, nodding off towards the class wall, where the Rules for Debating were posted. 

“What? Why?” Rue asked, rolling his eyes. Then added, “You want me to ask it in Spanish?”

A couple of the other kids in the class snickered behind their hands.

“Rhetoric and personal attack,” Aust replied, without skipping a beat. 

“What?!” Rue threw his hands up in defiance. 

“Sustained,” Mr Heineman ruled, also without skipping a beat. Then directed, “Rephrase the question, Mr Camposano.”

“Do you not think—?” Rue began. 

“Leading question,” Mr Heineman pointed out. 

Rue shifted in his chair, his anxiety growing. Like the grin on Aust’s face. 

“Do you think Republican voters were deliberately misled into voting away their rights to free medical care by the Trump campaign?” Rue finally asked. 

That was better. The question was formal, precise, the perfect opening to the lengthy debate Rue wanted to have. 

“No,” Aust replied, singly. 

“Why?” Rue followed up, an air of labor to his tone. 

“Well why do you think they do?” Aust redirected. 

Rue was about to hit back with some argument about turkeys and voting for Christmas when a sharp BANG cut him off.

Everyone stopped what they were doing. Alison jumped in her chair. Even Mr Heineman flinched and looked instinctively at the door. Rue found his gaze drawn there too. To the flimsy wooden frame, the thin pane of glass that ran almost the entire height of the door, the ancient lock that could only be turned with the janitor’s key. 

Nobody called them Active Shooter Drills. Not openly, anyway. But everyone knew that’s what they were. Last year, two counties over, some kid had used a modified paintball gun to fire rounds filled with acid at 17 students. It ended like it always ended. Eight hours of terror, police marksmen intervening, thoughts and prayers by the boatload. Nobody called them Active Shooter Drills, but that’s what they were. And that’s what Rue was praying this was. Just a drill.

Nobody spoke. They could hear footsteps outside in the hallway. Heavy. Booted. Running. Another BANG!! — closer this time. More running. 

Now even Mr Heineman looked rattled. He motioned with his hand for students to move away from the glass door. Silently, they unpicked themselves from their chairs and obeyed. The teacher moved deftly to the door and fumbled with the light switch, drowning the room in shadow. These dark January days had to be good for something at least. He pressed himself flat up against the wall by the door and peered through the tiny angle out into the hallway. 

Suddenly, something shot past the door at speed. A figure. Dressed in black. Barrelling down the corridors of Sherman High towards the double doors that led toward the cafeteria. The doors flew open and another loud BANG gripped the room. 

“It’s not FUCKING fair!” the figure cried out as the doors banged back, nearly falling off their hinges. 

It was doors, Rue realized, relaxing his fingers from their white-knuckled grip on the edge of the desk in front of him. Just doors banging open. 

“Was that—?” Alison asked, looking after the disappearing figure in black. 

“Tammy Harrison,” Mr Heineman sighed, his body visibly relaxing. 

“You mean ‘Timmy’ Harrison,” Aust stated matter-of-factly.

“Hey,” Rue objected, rounding on Aust, “gender identity is a protected characteristic, hermano.”

“They’re literally votin’ on that law today,” Aust reminded Rue. “And we both know which way it’s gonna go. Brother.”

“We’re not related,” Rue replied coldly. 

“Amen to that,” Aust said with a slight nod and a grin. 

“Now hear this—” a voice on the intercom broke in, taking the sting out of the moment, “—the partial lockdown has been lifted. Students and faculty can go about the building again.”

That was all they ever got. No explanation. No ‘Sorry for scaring the shit out of you’. Just ‘It’s all over now. Nothing to see here. Go about your business.’

“Mr Heineman?” a student broke in. “I think I have to go to the bathroom.”

It was Alison. She was white, Rue noticed. Even whiter than usual. Her fingers and thumb parsed the split ends of her red curls. 

The teacher hastily signed her a hall pass and let her out. 

“Alright,” Heineman said, drawing the class back together. “Let’s get back on topic: 50% Tariffs and Why They Will Work…”

His edict was met with a universal groan. 

“Wait, we’re not gonna finish the debate?” Rue asked. 

“I think we’ve had enough excitement for one afternoon,” Mr Heineman replied. “You two will just have to settle it after class.”

“Don’t worry,” Aust reassured him. “We will.”

Rue nodded back, his eyes kicking meaningfully at the surety of it. 

Tammy:

Tammy Harrison reclined sideways on the closed toilet lid, letting her heavy boots kick the brick wall of her end-cubicle. It wasn’t fair. None of it. Erica Stevens had been just as full of shit as she had. Plus she’d started it. Why should Tammy get saddled with detention and Erica get to play the victim? Cos she’s less broke than everyone else in this stupid school? Cos she’s white? Cos she’s a ‘real’ girl?

“That’s some bullshit,” Tammy huffed to herself. 

“Is there someone in there?” a voice called out from further down the row. Was that Alison?

“Mind your own business,” Tammy replied.

“You’re not supposed to be in here,” Alison replied. 

Not this again. 

The sounds of someone hastily pulling up their clothes and flushing couldn’t shout as loud as the silence that followed. Cautious. Measured. Like breathing might give them away to some unseen monster.

“Wash your hands on the way out,” Tammy called out from her cubicle.

“I’m getting someone,” Alison announced. 

Tammy’s head sank. 

She heard the door to the girls’ bathroom open and footsteps moving away from her outside. She could leave, she knew. Walk out now and not be there when whoever Alison brought back got there. 

But why the hell should she?

This was still a free country, right? That’s what those guys in the red hats with the concealed carries said. What those guys in their pickup trucks with the confederate flags and said they’d been fighting for this whole time. Freedom? Justice? The American Way. Tammy stayed put. 

“He’s in there,” Alison announced when the door swung back open. “Far cubicle.”

“Tammy Harrison?” a voice inquired. It was female, with a slight accent to it. Hispanic, unless Tammy was mistaken. That meant it had to be one of the classroom assistants. The only other latinas on Sherman High’s faculty were the lunch ladies and the cleaners. And no way would oh-so-straight-laced Alison Gellar go for them. 

Better get to it then. 

Tammy swung the door open and swaggered out into the bathroom. She looked at the woman Alison had brought. Sure enough. Autumn Hernandez. Classroom assistant. 5’4”. More stocky than fat, but with a beautiful auburn fringe that almost hid the top of her black-rimmed glasses. Tammy made a show of washing her hands and sauntered towards the doorway with the thickly set woman standing in it. 

“This is the girls’ bathroom, Tammy,” Hernandez said informatively. “You want the boys’.”

“Cos I’m a male, right?” Tammy hit back, accusingly.

“Because you’re a biological male, yes,” Miss Hernandez confirmed. 

“And here I thought you were The Man, Ma’am,” Tammy remarked with a tilt of the head and a tone dripping in sarcasm.

She was pretty pleased with that delivery. She timed it so she was right up in Hernandez’s space when she said it. They were nearly eye to eye. It occurred to Tammy that if she hadn’t been skipped years twice, she’d probably be taller than the classroom assistant. 

“What you are is in the girls’ bathroom,” Hernandez pointed out, calmly. Her folded arms made her seem somehow wider by the doorframe. 

She was refusing to play. Okay. Fine. 

“Okay. Fine,” Tammy proclaimed, and took two steps past the twenty-something classroom assistant and out into the hallway. “Happy now?”

“Where’s all this attitude coming from, Tammy?” Hernandez asked. “The school board ruled on birth-sex bathroom use last year. None of this is new to you.”

“No. It ain’t new,” Tammy agreed. “Matter of fact, it’s getting really old.”

Miss Hernandez put her arm across the doorway to the bathroom and leant into Tammy. 

“You can carry a chip on your shoulder about it if you like, Tammy,” Hernandez proclaimed. “But all it’s really hurting is you. Tasha Alvarez is playing ball. Duquon Harris is playing ball.”

The invocation of her friends’ names burned a little in Tammy. But then she wagered it was supposed to.

“Maybe I don’t like sports,” Tammy hit back. Then added, “Or rules. And they ain’t ‘playing ball’. They’re going along with it.”

“They took a look at their options and decided to stop trying to swim upstream,” Hernandez replied. “And this isn’t really about them, is it?”

Tammy bit her lip and looked away. She’d almost forgotten why she’d gone to sulk in the bathroom in the first place.

“She said the lockdown was because of ‘straight patrol’!” Tammy exclaimed finally. “She said they were coming to put me in a camp!”

“Who said?” Hernandez asked. 

“Erica Stevens,” Tammy conceded, looking away and exhaling sharply like the huff of it might push her clear of the girl and her phobic comments. 

“Straight patrol?” Hernandez asked, unbarring her arm from the bathroom door. 

It sounded stupid now she said it out loud, Tammy realized, finally allowing herself to deflate a little. But this wasn’t about Erica Stevens. Or Tasha or Duquon or any of the others who were ‘going along’. It was about where they were all going to. And what they left behind. 

“There’s no such thing as straight patrol,” Hernandez stated bluntly. 

“No such thing as rainbows and unicorns either,” Tammy replied passively. 

“I’m pretty sure they still have rainbows,” the classroom assistant replied, allowing a smile to form on her face. 

She had a point. 

“What I mean is that LGBT kids in this school are everyone’s last thought,” Tammy protested.

“Look Tammy,” Hernandez replied, drawing herself up to her full 5’4” height, “there’s a couple of things you need to get clear in your head. Things have changed now. That place with the rainbows and the unicorns. They paved it over last November and put up a tollgate. And it’s not just this school. Members of our— members of the LGBTQ community—” she quickly corrected herself, “— they need to tone it down a little. Rein it in. Cos there’s one thing that’s certain. When salmon are done swimming upstream, they die.”

“Only Pacific salmon,” Tammy replied. It was true. She’d read it in National Geographic. 

“So don’t be a Pacific salmon,” Hernandez replied, looking Tammy up and down. Her thick boots, her jeans ripped at the knees and along most of the legs, her black leather jacket with ‘Sisters Before Misters’ emblazoned across the back of it in trans colors. 

“It’s a different world now,” Hernandez explained. “And people like usneed to fit in.”

“I’m done fitting in” Tammy rejected coolly, catching sight of herself in the mirrors as she did. “I'm gonna stand out. When I’m finished with this place they’ll wish they let me pee in peace!”

Tammy stepped out away from the classroom assistant, leaving her looking at the space she left behind.

Aust:

Aust stepped out of the school entrance and looked around. No sign of that pussy Mexican Rue Camposano or any of his friends. He wasn’t worried anyway. He told himself as much as he gripped the top of his metallic water bottle with his fist and strutted across the parking lot to the idling black SUV. Aust’s cousin Jerry was waiting there, just like he’d promised. It made sense that he had the windows down. Even in winter. What use was a show of strength if no one could see it? As if in response, Aust dived into his bag and pulled out his battered red hat. The white lettering had browned a little but the message was as clear as the day Jerry had given it to him. He hadn’t had the chance to vote in November. But that didn’t matter. He was going to make America great in his own way. 

“There he is!” one of the guys called out from the backseat of the SUV when Aust drew close. 

“You alright?” his cousin asked him. 

“Yeah,” Aust replied a little sheepishly. Jerry had brought three guys with him — big guys — the kind of guys who exercise their second amendment rights like they’re a muscle. Can’t let that shit atrophy. No sir. Not me. Gotta keep it toned. When he’d texted Jerry, he’d been afraid. No, not afraid. Cautious. 

“You get any trouble from them Mexicans?” one of the guys in the back asked him. His name was Xan. He used to go to Sherman High. Before he got kicked out. 

“Those pussies?” Aust replied, and he adjusted the cap on his head. He relaxed the grip on his water bottle and stowed it in the side pocket of his bag. 

“Get in,” Jerry ordered and Aust opened up the passenger side door. 

“You sure about this?” Jerry asked after they’d been driving for a minute or two. 

“Yeah,” Aust replied. “I mean, I think I am. Yeah. I am. I’m sure.”

“You’re not going all Dem on us are you, Austin?” Xan asked.

“You don’t gotta worry about me,” Aust replied, scratching his red stubble. “You cut me open and I bleed Republican.”

“Yeah. Not like them Mexicans,” one of the other guys, Wade, joked. “You cut them open and hot sauce pours out.”

“Yeah,” Xan jeered, “or salsa picante!”

“That literally means hot sauce in Spanish,” Wade replied. “You literally said the same things as me.”

“Man, whatever,” Xan dismissed. 

Aust sat in the front and scratched his stubble nervously. 

“You alright?” Jerry asked him again. 

“Yeah man,” Aust replied. “Why’s everybody keep askin’ me that?”

“You seem a little spooked,”’Jerry returned. “You ain’t blacking out are you?”

They used to wordplay as kids. The usual one-upmanship. Who could say the grossest thing? Or brag the dirtiest, filthiest story about some girl they swore they’d been with. It had been pretty much honors-even back then. Lately, the words had turned sour like bad milk, and like bad milk they stank; Aust let Jerry win most times these days. 

“I ain’t backing out,” Aust replied. “My head is in the game, that’s all.”

“It better be,” Jerry said, “we’re here.”

“Alright, drop me off here,” Aust said, looking down the road at the imposing glass-fronted building. 

“Alright,” Jerry capitulated, “but you’d better go through with it this time.”

“I ain’t a kid no more, Jer,” Aust replied. “I been 18 three days now. Ain’t gonna be like last time.”

“What happened last time?” Xan asked. 

“Boy shit his pants when they told him no,” Jerry announced to the SUV. 

“There might be some folks gullible enough to believe that,” Aust said and, picking up his bag, exited the car. Laughter ricocheted behind him.

Aust strode the thirty yards or so to the glass-fronted building by himself. He could feel the others all boring their eyes into his back from behind the tinted windows, hear the nascent expectation. They’d all done theirs. The last time he tried it hadn’t worked out. But this time would be different. This time nobody was going to tell him, ‘No!’. 

Aust pushed the door and marched up to the main desk. The girl behind it was cute. A little too cute. And she couldn’t be more than a couple of years older than he was. 

“And how can I help you today?” she asked, flashing him a perfect smile. 

Aust reached into his pocket and fumbled to get something out. The girl was looking at him. Only she wasn’t looking at his eyes. She was looking at his hand. In his pocket. Rummaging around like he was some common kind of pervert.

Finally, he pulled it out and slammed it triumphantly on the desk. It was his ID. 

“I am here to enrol in the Young Republican National Federation!” he declared, puffing out his chest with pride. 

“Well God bless you,” the young woman replied and handed him the forms. 

It only took a few minutes to fill them out and — when he had — Aust asked if he could take a copy. To show his buddies. The woman smiled again and hurried over to the xerox machine, which gave Aust time to check his socials. When she handed them back to him, there was something written on the back. It was a phone number. Aust smiled. Fighting for a cause ought to have its perks. 

“You call that any time between 9 and 9 and someone from the office will answer it,” she informed him. 

“Oh. Right. Yeah,” he replied. “I might just do that.”

Aust made his excuses and almost left the xerox on the table as he exited the Republican chapter house. He was still shaking with the adrenaline of it all when he got back to the car. 

“You got in?” Xan asked. He almost seemed disappointed. 

“I got more than that,” Aust bragged, holding up the handwritten phone number. “Man you shoulda seen the girl who gave me this!”

“No way!” Wade exclaimed. “She gave you her number?”

“Matter of fact we’re going out next Friday night,” Aust informed them all. 

“You’re a fast mover,” Xan joked. Then added, “Girls love a guy in a red hat.”

“Hey Aust,” Jerry said as his cousin sat down in the passenger side again. “Whaddya make of this?” 

He passed Aust his phone. It was showing the school’s Instagram page. Sherman High. It was a post about how the town mayor was coming to visit next month and the whole school was basking in their own magnificence over it.

It took him a second to see it. It wasn’t the post. It was in the comments underneath. Someone called ‘truthbats’ had posted a comment. It read, ‘There’s a vermin problem at Sherman High and I’m coming to EXTERMINATE them all!’

“Ah, it’s probably just some prank,” Aust conceded, passed the phone back to his cousin and stared in silent contemplation out of the moving vehicle’s window.