First Man by Ava Martell Page B

pretend to myself that I still saw Ember as just another student though. Our hours together had become the highlight of my dull days, and I was beginning to see her independent student as a project we were working on together as colleagues instead of merely teacher and student.
    “Hi Mr. Edwards!” Ember stood in my doorway, wrapped in a sweater of thick red wool as protection against the chill that never seemed to leave the halls of this school. She paused pointedly after saying my name, and I realized that calling me Adam hadn’t just been an accidental slip of the tongue.
    For one brief moment, I could hear Laura’s words in my head, warning me away from getting too close to a student. I pushed the thoughts aside.
    “Call me Adam.” I nearly missed the quick quirk of her lips, but I’d grown familiar with her ever-changing expressions over the past month. She’d gotten the answer she wanted then. “In class, I’ll still be Mr. Edwards, but I see no need for that level of formality here.”
    “I agree, Adam,” she said, settling herself in the chair across from me.

    The door still hung open behind her, but for the next hour the world outside it all but disappeared.

IGNITION
    Ember

    “I don’t know why you’re so weird.”
    I glanced up from poking at the limp carrots on my lunch tray to see Angie staring at me. Angie Simmons was my best friend, and the only person that had stuck with me since freshman year. At a diminutive five foot nothing, I towered over her, but Angie always felt larger than life to me. The head of our high school stage crew, she was used to constantly shouting orders to overly dramatic theater kids and fighting the demands of the divas in dance classes, so she could make a stage whisper heard across the cafeteria.
    Angie was wearing her usual uniform of all black with her dark brown hair coiled around her head in a tight braid. “Stage crew needs to be invisible,” she always said, and the outfit had become a habit even on days where she didn’t have rehearsal.
    And for some reason, I was the weird one.
    “Please elaborate, Angie.” I said, pouring salt over the carrots in an effort to make them somewhat palatable.
    “It’s our senior year. The last year before you run off to the city and never set foot back in this. . . what was it you called Portsmouth again? ‘Frozen tundra that saps your lifeblood and replaces it with dirty slush?’”
    “Sounds about right.” I took a bite of the carrots. Nope, still not anything resembling food.
    Angie continued, “Anyway, it’s our senior year, and you decide to do this project that takes every freaking minute of your spare time. For no reason!” The third member of our little group sat down next to Angie, a sad approximation of a taco on his tray. “Brian’s fun and all, but I would like to spend some time with my best friend.”
    “What are we talking about?” Brian Hamilton asked around a mouthful of taco. We’d both stopped being amazed at his ability to stomach the school’s food ages ago. Brian had moved to Portsmouth from Florida the middle of junior year. His tanned, Southern body had not coped well with arriving in the frozen North in the middle of December, and he’d been grumbling about it ever since.
    A bit too lazy to fit in with the nerds, and not nearly athletic enough to fit in with the popular kids, Brian had sat alone with an iPod and a bored expression for a week until we invited him into our little group.
    “Pay attention, Brian,” Angie snapped, only half-joking. “I’m trying to figure out why our dear Ember suddenly decided to become a super nerd when it no longer benefits her.”
    “It still benefits me!” I argued, finally giving up to disgust and pushing away my tray. “It’s good practice for college! And I like Mr. Edwards.”
    Angie smirked. “Oh I bet you like him. I remember you from freshman year.” Angie’s voice rose about three octaves as she imitated me. “’Oh Mr. Edwards, I