Chapter One
BY YOUR SIDE
In fifteen seconds the second hand on the black DKNY wristwatch would pass the silvery, embossed 12, making it seven o'clock...Ten seconds now...Five...
"Hello, Eva."
The girl in question, formally known as Evangeline Madden, raised her head with a wide-eyed expression of not so much alarum as amazement. There was Virgilia Aligheri, standing straight and still as a statue, pale hands seemingly relaxed at her sides; her hooded hazel eyes focused on Eva's through small, box-shaped glasses. It never failed to impress Eva how punctual her childhood friend could be.
Eva's bronzed face broke into a wide grin. "Hey, Virgilia." She gave her friend a playful slap on the shoulder. Virgilia's eyes never averted from Eva's to watch her hand, nor did she flinch. "Well, let's get on to Velikovsky High School, shall we?" Eva declared, voice quivering.
Virgilia gave a single nod.
One could go about down the opposite side of the street, see the two girls walking together, and do either of two things: keep going, or stop and really watch them. All of the other Velikovsky students did the former, save for one heavy-set blonde girl with blue eyes and a regal bearing. She made a mental note on these girls — the tan one with the bouncy lope and the raven hair gathered in a ponytail; and the short, pale one with pixie-cut brown hair and a gliding walk, as if on water. That little one must be a figure skater. She's got the body for it. With that, the blonde girl moved on.
"Are you nervous about high school?" Eva queried.
Virgilia shook her head once. She had heard of nervousness. It was one of those emotions that subjected humans to mental lapses. Virgilia couldn't remember a time in her life when she was "nervous."
"You sweat," she observed in her usual monotone alto.
Eva dashed a palm across her brow, and wetness smeared across it. Salty drops of sweat glittered like iridescent jewels in the early sunlight. She realized this was Virgilia's way of saying, "I'm not nervous, but you are." Warm blood rushed to her face.
"Yeah, y'know..." Eva's trilling soprano voice came out louder than she had intended. "First day a high school..."
"You blush," her bespectacled friend added.
The raven-haired girl fell silent and brought her clammy hands to her rosy cheeks. She wished Virgilia hadn't seen her blushing. Forcing her brown eyes to meet her friend's hazel ones, she shrugged, "Just nervous."
Virgilia kept gliding as she turned her head toward Eva, her gaze never averting. After a moment she nodded and faced forward again.
They walked in silence for a few blocks. Eva knew their friendship was a primarily unspoken one — particularly on Virgilia's part — yet she felt that the brunette understood her profoundly. Virgilia was the only person who would listen to her problems without putting in her two bits of judgment. She never verbally offered a solution, but her temperamental ways guided Eva toward it.
They were nearing Velikovsky High School — a monstrous, three-story building — when Eva's hand brushed against Virgilia's in the backswing. The raven-haired girl hastily withdrew it and muttered, "Sorry."
Virgilia blinked in acknowledgment. She was puzzled by her one friend's tendency to apologize for such harmless things. It was something she noticed about most humans, but Eva did it more than others. Now she made the internal observation that her face was once again red. Virgilia decided she would research this "blushing" after school.
Velikovsky towered higher and higher above them the closer they approached, which unnerved Eva. It didn't help that the school was built on a hill. As the only high school in Dustborough, it exuded an air of arrogant obtrusiveness. It had been remodeled several times with the growth of the town's population. The impulsive addition of wings made it look blocky, awkward, and ugly.
The side of Eva's mouth hitched in a grimace. "Jesus H. Christ," she gasped. "No wonder they do registration over the phone."
Virgilia stared at the enormous school wordlessly before murmuring, "It is not as intimidating as it appears."
Eva turned her head toward the brunette, who steadily kept her gaze front. Wiping her palms on her drawstring shorts, she asked, "So, do you have your schedule?"
Virgilia lowered her chin in affirmation.
Eva waited for her taciturn friend to produce her schedule, from her beige backpack or her jeans pocket. When she didn't the raven-haired girl pressed, "May I see it?"
Without a word, the white slip of paper was brought from Virgilia's breastpocket. She held it out to Eva, who accepted it. Eva's quick brown eyes took in both schedules like a cold glass of water, and she grinned in relief. "We're both in 6A lunch."
Virgilia responded, "I have researched Velikovsky High School and have assimilated that 6A lunch serves the same food as the other lunches. Why do you desire 6A specifically?"
Eva smiled brightly, her teeth glowing in the sun. "Any lunch will do, just as long as I can have it with you." Reapplying herself to the schedules, she crowed, "Aw-right! And we're in physics class together!"
That was another thing about humans Virgilia did not understand: how they put an undue amount of significance in each other. They just dressed each other up in a shroud of meaning that could easily be torn away to reveal their mere beings. Not only did Virgilia's body have no intrinsic value, it contained far less particles than Eva's. What did Eva want her around for, anyway?
They entered Velikovsky to immediately be greeted by the giant emblem of a shaggy-haired pirate with a dagger between his teeth. To the right of them, a sizeable group of girls clustered around the attendance office, screeching in a language Eva was about to take a course in. Across from them a bald security guard pursued two boys, yelling into his walkie-talkie. A crushed plastic bottle laid in the middle of an orange Sunny D burst on the floor. Someone had carved the likeness of a trident on the left wall. In the middle of all this chaos stood a tall man with wide eyes and a squashed-looking nose — the principal, as one could guess by his navy suit and red tie. He leaned back on his heels; if ignorance was bliss, then Mr. Donka was feeling pretty good right now.
Eva blinked her eyes wide. She and Virgilia stood in Velikovsky's lobby, whose ceiling arched cozily to encompass the library entrance, principal's office, and attendance office. Across the lobby stretched a narrow hallway through which countless students milled but even more loitered in. Not as intimidating as it appears, eh? Eva felt tempted to tease Virgilia about this, but she knew she would not get a satisfactory response.
The brunette stared placidly beyond the disorder and hummed, "First period will start in four minutes, fifty-two seconds."
"Shit," Eva growled, fumbling with her schedule. That wasn't nearly enough time to figure out where her class was. The ink was thinly blotted from her sweaty hands. The schedule slipped out of her saturated grasp, but Virgilia's stone-like pale hand darted out to catch it. Eva nodded thanks as she accepted it. "Lessee here...First period, modern world history..." Chestnut eyes focused on the buckled schedule and muttering to herself, Eva began to wander away.
She was not two steps along when a hand caught her tanned shoulder and held her fast. Eva immediately knew it was Virgilia's hand: small, and it felt like glass covered in flesh. She turned around to find her friend standing sturdily, her right hand extended outward to stop Eva.
"Ah," the raven-haired girl gasped. "I just almost left you without saying goodbye. Sorry about that."
Virgilia blinked and shook her head. Her thin lips hardly moved as she corrected, "The B Wing is in the opposite direction. First period starts in three minutes, fifty-nine seconds." She spoke so rapidly and so quietly, yet every word reached Eva's ears loud and clear as a bell.
Eva hesitated, staring at Virgilia curiously. This was her first day of high school, too, so how could she already know Velikovsky's layout?
"Hey, thanks," Eva grinned, grasping Virgilia's elbow fondly. "Do you have a sister or someone who went here already?"
The brunette shook her head.
After parting once more with Virgilia — this time remembering to say goodbye — Eva headed toward modern world history class. Though it would mean she would be tardy on the first day, she fervently hoped her friend was wrong about the B Wing. Virgilia was withdrawn, even anti-social at times, yet her accuracy and intuition could never be evenly matched. Once when they were little Virgilia foresaw a call from Mrs. Madden's dentist just seconds before the phone rang. Eva considered asking Virgilia if she was psychic, but she knew such things didn't exist.
Groaning, Eva looked up at the arched entryway with its bold rufous letters proclaiming it to be the B Wing. Another score for Virgilia.
Eva knew Virgilia was weird and, by most people's standards, not a very good friend. Admittedly, she didn't understand the brunette's dour outlook and her disregard for human life — an "endless cycle of futility," she once called it. She didn't understand how Virgilia could predict the actions of things and not people. Such traits had made Virgilia the focus of bullying throughout the years, and Eva made sure to be there to fend the antagonists off. Why? Because she owed it to the brunette. Virgilia had always been by Eva's side, no matter what. When Eva's soccer team lost the town's Coyote Cup, when Eva's myna bird flew away and never returned. When Eva's father died. Virgilia always stuck around when the going was toughest.