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“Miss Minnie?” I lay the ticket on the counter. “It’s nice to meet you but I’m afraid there’s been a—”

“Oh, don’t be afraid, dear. This is going to be the best job you ever had. I guarantee it.” She beams.

Okay, so she’s adorable. Crinkly blue eyes, curly gray hair, cute upturned nose; I bet she was beautiful once, a century ago.

“Well, I don’t—”

“Now, what kind of equipment are we talking about?” Adorable aside, she is all business. “Digital, I assume? You have more than one memory card? And a jump drive? We’ll need to upload everything on the—”

“I, uh—”

“Well, there’s time for that later. It’s Saturday and you’re just meeting the gang. I don’t want to keep you. Monday after school works for me.”

I don’t know what to say so I stare. She gives me a slow encouraging nod like I’ve forgotten my lines in the school play. I say “Thank you?” and she swells with pride at a job well done. I am six years old again.

“No, thank
you
for coming in.” She pulls the ticket across the counter, and I walk out, bewildered.

Bailey and Rachel are alone on the sidewalk, smiling. “When do you start?” Bailey asks.

“Monday after school,” I mumble. “That was the strangest conversation I’ve ever had.”

She throws an arm around my shoulders and laughs. “Now tell me, you aren’t really surprised.”

I scoff. “Well … yeah.”

We retrace our steps and round the corner of the Soda Shoppe. The guys are down the block by the Hickory Stick, a long, narrow store specializing in video games, graphic novels, and beef jerky. We stroll over and Bailey and Duffy start flirting again, the kind where teasing and insults are really foreplay. Or maybe I’m wrong and they hate each other; who can tell?

The Patronus brothers are talking privately and have lost interest in me, so I return the favor. Rachel and I watch the eight-piece band in the park. As they leave the stage, Duffy predicts that Vern Warner, the goofy-looking trombone player clad in mailman shorts and white knee socks, will fall before he reaches the grass.

As if on cue, Vern stumbles on the third step and collapses on top of his instrument. Everybody laughs. Mom would say,
The poor soul should be righted, not ridiculed
, and I would hate myself for laughing. But Mom isn’t here to witness the sheer power of Duffy’s prediction propelling Vern down the steps.

“Aaaand … 
that’s
why the mail is always late,” Duffy says, and then launches a debate as to Vern’s greatest talent, his inability to negotiate gravity or his lack of prowess
as a mail carrier.

The second heartbeat flares up again, and I turn toward the café hoping to get a drink before I start coughing. I smack directly into Michael. He is a brick wall to my spaghetti spine and I bounce back, sputtering an apology and feeling heat color my cheeks.

Michael smiles, his white teeth flashing against tanned skin. We’re so close I can see his eyelashes, black and heavy, weighing down his eyes as he slowly blinks at me. He has a serene beauty that is disarming, and I can’t believe he is the same person who stomped on that poor guy’s throat. I expect he’ll mention last night, but he raises a hand to my head—and I flinch.

I flinch! A horrible, full-fledged, don’t-hit-me flinch!

It’s a silent reflex that speaks volumes, and my scar becomes a neon sign advertising the damaged goods inside.

Michael’s hand is poised above my forehead. His eyes flick to the scar, register understanding, and drift away. He has a far-off melancholy look; and so … he knows. My hope of starting fresh disappears in a blink. Word will spread. Labels will stick. Sophia will retreat.

I expect an interrogation, but Michael’s eyes soften as he gently pulls a leaf from my hair. “There,” he murmurs, and I watch it float to the ground with my dreams. My chest tightens and a lump forms in my throat. I want to appear strong and unaffected, so I raise my chin with a semblance of arrogance. It doesn’t work; my eyes burn with tears.

I can take being a loner. I can take the label. But I can’t take the look of pity in his eyes.

I would give anything not to have that damn scar
.

Chapter 5

And Then Again, Maybe Not

It’s Monday morning and I am staring in the mirror and searching for the scar on my eyebrow. I can’t find it.

“Un-freakin’-believable!”

Half an hour of this and I still can’t find it. It’s gone. Vanished.
Poof
. Just like that, both eyebrows are identical again. Stitching and swelling and tenderness no longer exist. I make a nervous, demented sort of laugh and race downstairs.

“Look!” I startle Dad behind his desk, and he looks up annoyed. His new home office is small, dank, and a bit creepy but I don’t care to complain now. “It’s gone! My scar is completely gone!” I thrust my face into the lamplight, but Dad sighs and returns to his scriptures.

“Uh-huh,” he mumbles. He has rebuffed all reminders of the incident and so he doesn’t react when I’ve lost my last souvenir from Psycho Steve. If it was a visual torment for Dad to see my bruised jaw and swollen eye, he hid it well. He hardly said a word except that I should’ve pressed charges.

But I’m healing! Dad should be elated. Dad should pay attention. Dad should be a lot of things.

I withdraw without a word but think,
Here I am showing a Man of God a miracle and all he can say is “Uh-huh,” like I found a potato chip shaped like Mickey Mouse
.

Spite wants me to say,
By the way, your welcoming sermon yesterday was subpar
, but I can’t be that cruel. I’ve always loved Dad’s sermons, well, the ones before Mom died. Dad is a riveting speaker, spellbinding his audiences with hope and purpose. After Mom died, Dad’s light dimmed. It’s understandable, but after two years his sermons still lack enthusiasm and … oomph. And lately they’ve become lifeless and stale. I was hoping this move would spark that fire he’d always had. But it hasn’t, and he won’t explain why.

Why does he shut me out? Why won’t he talk to me—about anything? Why is he getting worse, not better?

I have an overwhelming urge to help him but I don’t know how.

*  *  *

The courthouse bells chime reminding me it’s seven o’clock, time to get moving. Bailey said all seniors meet at the café before school. It’s called a senior privilege; no subordinates allowed.

And so I set out on my first day of school in Haven Hurst. It takes exactly fifteen seconds to drive across the square and three seconds to park. It’s absurd to drive in such a small town and I wouldn’t if I knew where the school was.

I never made it to the café on Saturday due to my public humiliation with Michael, the result of which is now up for debate. The miraculously missing scar changes the playing field. But what if Michael has already spread the word that I’m an abuse victim? Can I undo the humiliation by simply saying,
What scar?
It
is
a promising thought.

The Naughty Nectar Café has a charming country motif with green-and-white-checkered tablecloths and curtains. It seems that Haven Hurst is one of those quintessential towns that attracts tourist who like to steep themselves in nostalgia for a spell. Never mind that it is also one of the richest towns in this part of the state, according to Bailey.

So it’s no surprise that I find the sidewalk tables outside the café crowded with tourists stocking up on a hearty country breakfast before heading out on long scenic walks or rigorous bike trails or antiquing around the square. It’s impossible to see if Bailey and Rachel are inside. I rethink my decision as fear takes its familiar place in my stomach like a cat curling up on a warm windowsill.
What if the seniors aren’t there? What if this is a joke for the newbie? What if it makes me late for class?

“Hey, Sophia.” Duffy is striding up wearing baggy jeans and an oversized hockey jersey with a Burberry golf hat. I think his fashion sense runs rampant like a kid in a candy store. “You comin’?” He holds the door open and tosses his backpack onto a mountain of other bags on the floor. He laughs against my uncertainty. “Hey, you know I was just messing with you on Saturday, right? That’s just how I am.”

Yeah, Duffy parading around and checking my ingredients had been kind of embarrassing. But I give him my best unpretentious smile and step inside. He takes off toward the back, leaving me with the barista behind the counter.

She has hair the color of an Easter egg and looks at me like
I’m
the oddball. I
smile politely and take in the place while she analyzes me and wipes down a plastic menu. It smells appropriately of eggs, bacon, coffee, and people. The front area is for regular customers crowded around tables while the back seems more of a dark lounge area. The walls are redbrick and rustic looking. There are tables, couches, and fat cushy chairs overflowing with my new senior class. It’s humming with chatter.

Although it’s dim in the back room, I can see Michael’s blond hair, guiding the way like a soft light. He is reclined in a chair with his feet propped against an unlit fireplace. While hoping to avoid the scar issue, I would like to ask him about the accident.

I hear my name and see Rachel waving. She and Bailey have a couch to themselves. I decide to say hello before ordering anything so I walk over. As I approach, the pain in my chest flares, jumpstarting the second heartbeat. I hesitate, feeling a sense of déjà vu. Am I
that
nervous? Is it stress or something else?

Three girls are visually stalking me as I walk over. I glance at Michael but he isn’t looking at me. The second heartbeat speeds up and I’m tempted to rub my chest but opt for not looking like a perv on my first day.

Rachel pulls me down between her and Bailey and we negotiate ourselves until we’re comfy. The pink-haired barista serves me a cup of coffee, and I say, “Oh, I didn’t order,” but she is gone.

“Mollie is a coffee whisperer,” Bailey informs me. “She knows what you’ll like. Try it.”

The cup is the size of a salad bowl and I peer inside. A dollop of cream and chocolate syrup have been artistically shaped into a bunny. It’s so beautiful I hate to ruin it.

“Oh, Mollie is an art student. Plus, she gets bored,” Rachel explains. “Last Friday I got an octopus smoking an Indian pipe.”

I drink, swallow, and smile. “Mmmm, better than Bizzarebucks.” I lick cream from my top lip. The three of us prop our feet onto a beater coffee table and relax. This place is reminiscent of one of those hole-in-the-wall café’s I’ve seen in California, perfect for a poetry slam or a local band.

“Is this the whole senior class?” I count forty-one.

Bailey glances around while texting. “Yeah, just about. J.D. and Holden aren’t here but … yeah, that’s about it.”

Wow. There were over 250 kids in my junior class. A tiny thrill shoots through me; my senior year should be a breeze, academically speaking. And hopes of going to college,
any
college, might be resuscitated.

“Who’s the pretty blonde?” I ask, because the three girls who gave me the eye when I walked in are still staring. Two seem curious and the third looks cold and indifferent.

“Lizzanne,” Rachel answers without needing clarification. “She’s nice.”

Bailey scoffs, “Said no one ever.”

“She’s head cheerleader.”

Bailey unwraps a cherry Blow Pop and dips it in her coffee like a biscotti. She slurps and dips, slurps and dips. “Liz is a poseur à la tag hag.”

I peruse Lizzanne like a fashion magazine. She’s a walking billboard of advertisement, name brand everything: Gucci shoes, vintage Coco Channel handbag, Dussault Apparel Thrashed Denim jeans. Sponsored like a NASCAR driver. FedEx has fewer labels. But with hair like a waterfall and blue diamonds for eyes, I have to admit she is stunning.

“We thought she’d date Michael when the Patronus family moved here,” Rachel says. “Or at least Raph.”

“What happened? I mean, are they dating?”

“Those guys don’t date,” Bailey snipes. “No one here is good enough for the Patronus brothers.”

Rachel leans over me and nearly spills my coffee. “Don’t say it like that, Bail!” she hisses out angrily. “You make ’em sound conceited or something!” She is about as quiet as a freight train.

“Just statin’ a factoid. They don’t go clubbing or hook up.” She shrugs, disappointed. “Oh, they might visually stalk once in a while but nothing indecent, unfortunately.” Her eyes flash with an inappropriate look. “What I wouldn’t give for one night with sugar britches.” We look over at Michael.

“Mmm, mmm, mmm, what Momma don’t know,” Rachel murmurs, and then she and Bailey fall against me laughing. They are infectious so I laugh, too.

When we settle down, I decide to reveal
my
thoughts about Michael Patronus. I tell them about the accident, about seeing Michael and his mother, about the grungy guy with the scars, and how Michael beat the crap out of him for no apparent reason. Of course, I omit the part where my brain malfunctioned and I thought they disappeared.

Even so, the girls look at me like I’m some new kind of stupid.

“First off,” Bailey says, crunching the Blow Pop, “Michael’s mom isn’t a nurse. She’s a horticulturist and pretty famous around here. She grows some amazing food for the school—”

“And Michael is a pacifist,” Rachel cuts in. “He wouldn’t hurt a fly.”

“Besides, he was at the football game on Friday night,” Bailey finishes. “That grungy guy with the scars doesn’t go here. So it couldn’t have been Michael you saw.”

There is a peculiar challenge in her eyes, like she’s willing me to believe her by the sheer force of her stare. I would laugh but she is being serious. Besides, I like Bailey and hope we can be real friends. I don’t want to be that new girl that other girls check out only to find she’s too weird to hang with.

“Oh, okay. My mistake,” I lie through my teeth. It’s obvious they believe their explanations about Michael, but not me. I look at him laughing with the guys and know the truth. He was up to something that night. Something that he and his brothers don’t want me to know about.