XGeneration 1: You Don't Know Me by Brad Magnarella Page B

returning home and zonking out until eight or nine o’clock that night. But now that he was home, he found himself incapable of sitting still, much less nodding off. Because with the memory of Janis still swimming through his thoughts, he believed he could do this now, that he could remake himself. That he could belong.
    Now tails, now heads.
    Scott?
    Yes, he had seen her. Better, she’d come and stood beside him before the start of seventh-period English. The flaming cascade of hair that, for so long, he could only watch from a distance, had been right there, at his shoulder. In that first moment, the classroom revolving around him, he’d had to summon almost all of his nerve to compose himself and then the rest to get her name past his stuttering lips. But he had gotten it out. He’d spoken to her, and that seemed a victory in itself—one more monumental than all of the printouts in his hidden box of hacks.
    And she’d spoken his name, too.
    Scott?
    That one word, the texture of it, the breath behind it, were now the most precious things in the world to him. He’d been preparing to ask her how her day was going. It would’ve been a start, something to build on. Hard to screw up. But his throat succumbed to what felt like a seismic tremor, and the words became Larry, Moe, and Curly jammed inside a doorway. Then the teacher jumped out of the closet.
    All of the students spun except for him. He wasn’t able to move his eyes from Janis, from the swirl of her hair and the excited shine of her eyes. When the teacher started in with her seating system, he had to bite back a grin. It was no alphabetical system, which would have doomed the names Graystone and Spruel to distant rows. No, it was something different. Something unique. Scott didn’t understand it entirely, but he stood a chance of sitting next to her—or close to her, anyway.
    “Spruel,” Mrs. Fern said. “A derivative of Spurling, most likely. And not nearly as lowly as it sounds. The name means ‘little sparrow.’” And she proceeded to seat him as far as possible from another student whose name meant “great cat.” That received a healthy tide of laughter and a pretty smile from Janis—teeth and all. Scott returned the smile. It was crooked and brace-faced, he knew, but he didn’t care. Having her smile at him was right up there with hearing her speak his name. He would not be forgetting either for a long time.
    But then something had happened.
    Scott stopped pushing trash into the bag long enough to stand and gaze outside. The cul-de-sac in front of the Graystones’ house stood empty. The Prelude was still gone. He bounced the Glad Bag against his knee.
    When the teacher had gotten to Janis, she talked about a Roman god and doorways—Scott remembered that. And then he watched Janis’s face change, going from open and bright one moment to tense and pale the next. It was as if she had aged—not outwardly but inwardly, as if she’d acquired all of the cares and concerns of an adult in a matter of seconds.
    She ran from the classroom.
    Whispers rose. Necks craned. Scott imagined himself going after her, seeing if she was all right. It’s what Scott Summers of the X-Men would have done. He would have pursued his red-haired love, his Jean Grey. But Scott Spruel was no Cyclops, he found out. That would have required something he didn’t have. Gallantry? Courage? A working spine?
    He just sat there and craned his neck like the others.
    Mrs. Fern appeared unperturbed. “Now, now, settle down,” she said, closing her eyes again. “Our goddess of doorways just needs a little fresh air. A moment to reorient. She’ll return shortly.”
    Janis came back maybe ten minutes later. By then, the final student had been seated and the course syllabus distributed. Janis smiled tightly and said something about becoming lightheaded but that it had passed. She still looked pale to Scott, especially around her eyes. And when she took her seat (two rows from