At this point it was clear that today was going to be a nightmare. The first real class of the day had not even begun and already my spirit had been crushed. I stared into my locker and my eyes swam across the spiral bound notebooks and textbooks. What the hell was I even doing at Lucas's school? I am not Lucas. I am not even Aurora. I am nobody.
"Laura?" Chris said after closing his locker beside mine. He had already collected his next class's materials and was giving me a strange look.
"Yeah?" I mumbled.
"Ignore Mark, he's a complete idiot. He will say anything he can to get under someone's skin. You're a much better person than he could ever be," Chris said with a smile. I pushed away from my locker and had the briefest desire to pull him into a hug. I smashed it down. I needed to stop being so weird.
"Thanks," I said, utterly failing to sound upbeat. Chris gave me a parting wave as he headed to his next class.
After taking a deep breath, I tried to focus on the task at hand. The warning bell would go off soon and I needed to get a move on. My biology textbook and the notebooks for my next two classes were still in. The Bio and English classrooms were too far apart to fit in a locker visit between them. I quickly stashed everything in the depths of my backpack and headed in the direction of my first class. I effortlessly found my way to the biology room in the west hall. I handed the teacher my note and sat in Lucas's normal seat. The teacher, a small bookish woman named Mrs. Garza, read the note and then motioned to me.
There was still time before class started so I walked forward to the desk and said, "Yes?"
"Here you go, Laura. I didn't want to forget to give this back to you," she said evenly, handing me the memo from the office.
"Thanks," I replied. The teacher's mouth opened, she hesitated, then she snapped it closed. I paused, wondering if I should wait until she tried again. After a few seconds of awkward silence, I returned to my seat. Mrs. Garza's reaction did not match anything in Lucas's memories, but I was two for two so far on teachers thrown for a loop. Of course, Lucas had not made a habit of handing out life-changing announcements, so I did not have a baseline for how the teachers would respond. Was everyone going to be like this to me today? Was it that easy for them to tell that Lucas was gone forever?
Eventually, the class filled as the final bell sounded. I looked around at the many faces of my peers and again had the weird sensation that I knew all of them despite not knowing their names. My eyes eventually made it back to the teacher and I watched as she looked around the room for specific students. Mrs. Garza always took silent attendance since she prided herself on knowing everyone she taught.
"Who are you?" asked Stephen, the lanky student who sat at the desk to my left. Wait, Stephen! Something had shaken that name loose from Lucas's memories. Perhaps the combination of his face and his voice together helped? I hope his name is actually Stephen. I really need a win right now.
"I am Laura," I said, giving him a smile while his eyes darted across my face. "But you probably know me better by a different name. This is my usual seat."
He started muttering something and I only caught the end of it, "—blue eyes, black hair, but it's so long... no way." I could barely make his words out, but after I pieced together what he was saying I just sighed in resignation. He at least had the manners to look embarrassed when he realized that he had spoken those words aloud.
"Yes, yes. Good job putting all the clues together, Sherlock. I know I am not exactly the person you expected to see today, but can we just keep this simple? I am Laura, okay?" I grumbled despite my best attempts to sound cheery.
"Oh. Uh. Hi, Laura," he stammered. Something must have registered in my face at hearing my name because his expression returned to a pleasant smile.
"Thanks, Stephen." I must have gotten his name right. He did not react at all.
Mrs. Garza finished attendance, and she began drawing a diagram of a cell on the board. Stephen pulled out his notes and our conversation was thankfully cut short as the teacher began to speak. The class had just finished a unit on cell structures and organelle functions with a test earlier last week. I took notes, but this lesson seemed to be some sort of quick recap for common errors, so my mind wandered as my hand kept writing.
Eventually, the class ended and the students around me rapidly packed up. Flipping through my notebook, I scanned the three pages I had covered in labeled diagrams of animal and plant cells, notes about organelles, and two more pages of definitions. Jumping to my notes from the week before, I noticed my handwriting was slightly different from Lucas's.
"This is really unsettling," I muttered to myself. Is this an Aurora thing? Could she even hold a pen? I wondered if Aurora's memories had any recent biology information I could crib from. But even if there was information to be gleaned it might be incredibly out of date given how far back her experiences seemed to stretch.
Wait, why do I keep treating Lucas's memories like they are my own? For school today, I have relied on them to find classrooms by pure instinct. I have been passively pulling from his memories. Does this mean I have also been doing the same with Aurora's? I dug up the events of Saturday within my mind and those memories felt different. Those were my memories, Laura's memories. I was just going to have to train myself to prioritize those.
The classroom was empty, and I was lost in my thoughts again. This was rapidly becoming a theme I needed to quash. I let my legs carry me by muscle memory down the hall to English literature class, glad this weird method of finding my next class even worked. I walked in after the warning bell, which meant I was not late.
Miss Knight was already calling attendance before the start-of-class bell rang so I quickly took my seat. I hoped dearly when my name was called it would not be a repeat of homeroom. The room was filled with another strangely familiar group of students who had little to no overlap with my previous classes. At least in this class the students at the adjacent desks seemed completely disinterested in me despite my choice of seat.
"Loranger!" called Miss Knight.
"Here!" I responded without hesitation. The teacher gave me a confused look and paused calling names.
"Are you in the correct class, young lady?" the teacher asked after looking closely at my face and outfit.
Oh, I had forgotten to give her the note. Trying to push down the panic and embarrassment rushing over me, I pulled the paper out of my biology notebook and walked up to the desk to hand it her. I made sure she was reading it and then quickly walked back to my desk, sat down, and tried not to look at anyone around me.
My plan of not making a scene was being blown apart. At least she did not ask if I was Lucas in front of the entire class. When she finally resumed calling names I relaxed. Then after she completed attendance, Miss Knight walked to the front of the room and cleared her throat. Something was wrong. I started to shiver.
"Class, good morning. I have an important announcement to make. Your classmate, Miss Loranger here," at the mention of my last name it felt like the entire room turned and stared directly at me, but I kept my eyes on the teacher, "would like to be addressed as Laura now. Each of you is expected to respect her wishes. Have I made myself clear?"
After she finished speaking, I glanced uneasily at some of my peers seated near me and each one was staring at me. Should I have done it myself instead, like in homeroom? Should I have just written individual notes to each person and just said nothing? This was so incredibly embarrassing. How in the world would I be able to keep this up for four more classes? One of the classes this semester was gym for frost's sake, and I had a terrible feeling that it was somehow going to be even worse than the rest!
The class's reaction was muted. No one laughed, no one made snide comments, and thankfully no one called me a slur. I did not want to repeat what had happened in homeroom, but it was exhausting to keep pushing forward and doing this same dance again and again. I could only hope that, in a few short hours, this disaster of a day would be over.
As class returned to normal, I was determined to pay attention and distract myself by focusing on the class material. The teacher began handing out stacks of novels. Each of the copies passed to me were very worn and looked like they were all the same edition of the book. I took a closer look at the front of my paperback copy of 1984.
This was the book that Marie picked up used from a bookshop in Detroit after reading a review for it in the newspaper. I—no, Aurora—specifically remembered this book because its title was a number, but that number was written as "Nineteen Eighty-Four" on the bright green dust cover. The printing of the book that I held today featured a red cover with a large eyeball and the title expressed in digits instead. I dug into Aurora's memories of the book as much as I could without losing track of class.
Unfortunately, Aurora had not actually read the book when she was bonded with Marie. Aurora was disinterested in fiction and she tended to go dormant when she got even a little bored. Her duties as a guardian did not extend into the mundane lives of her hosts. I would, unfortunately, need to read the book for this class myself. Maybe one day something else in my strange collection of other people's memories would one day help me in school. Would that count as cheating?
Miss Knight assigned the first several chapters of the novel and gave us some specific things to look out for while we read. Our homework for the next few days would be to do some analysis on the opening section of the book and its writing style. The teacher then briefly covered the period the novel was published in and other works that were written around the same time. I took some notes, but my thoughts kept drifting away.
When the bell finally rang to end class, I found that I had been tightly holding my wrist with my left hand, and I immediately let go. That was a method that Lucas had employed, though only rarely, when he wanted to make sure he would not fall asleep in class. Had I started doing it automatically while thinking about Aurora's habit of going dormant while bored? This, along with Lucas's mild narcolepsy was going to be a bad combination. I took a deep breath. There was still so much more I needed to do today and none of that time could be spent sleeping.
With my burden one paperback heavier, I walked to my locker on the other side of the school. After dumping everything I was carrying, I grabbed the math textbook and my corrected math exam. Thankfully, the math class was close to my locker, so I paused and tried to relax after pushing through the crush of students rushing off to their classes at a furious pace. My locker was at the corner of the hallway which isolated it from the rush of students and made the location feel safe. A few of the other seniors shot glances at me as they walked by. Some of them had smirks, some looked away, and a rare few shot me a smile as they passed. The one time I heard one of my names mentioned the person was using the correct name—Laura. I took that as a good sign.
It was three class periods into the day and rumors must have already been circulating. I looked down at my dress. Should I have worn something else? It did do a good job of shouting 'I am a girl' as loudly as possible. And it looked great on me. But was it just too much? A wave of dread crossed over me and I checked my back. Thankfully, no kick-me sign lurked there. Only one more class and at least I could relax during lunch with Lucas's friends. I covered my face with my hands, pushed my head into my closed locker door, and waited there until the first bell rang.
After handing Mr. Eckhart my corrected exam and office note, I sat down at my usual desk. From the moment I entered the room, I had resisted looking directly at him, fearing his reaction to my new appearance. I opened the math textbook to the next section and just stared blankly at the pages. It was something to look at and I did not feel safe looking anywhere else. It seemed I had been the last to arrive. After a quick count of the students Eckhart began the next round of trigonometry class.
Lucas had struggled with this subject and even though the class had barely started I already wanted to throw the book across the room and walk out the door. There was some weird barrier in my mind that would not let me focus within the walls of this room. Despite my frustration, I tried my best to take notes in Lucas's notebook. Our notebook? Well, it was mine now.
By the end of the hour, my notes were a total mess despite my many attempts to focus. I was so frustrated that I was about to give up and put my head on my desk, but my implosion was rudely interrupted by the bell ringing to end the class. With my books collected, I trudged towards the door only to be stopped in my tracks by Mr. Eckhart's voice.
"Loranger!"
What now? I was not in the mood for Mr. Eckhart's special brand of concern. The rest of the class had already left, leaving me alone with my chattiest teacher. I was so close to lunch! Only this conversation stood in the way of a half hour of peace.
"Miss Loranger, I'm glad you finally came out of your shell. I'm proud of you for tackling your problems head on," he said.
I was not sure what I was expected to say here so I just replied, "Thanks."
Considering how the conversation about the test went on Friday I thought he was going to bombard me with a bunch of questions, but he was silent. After a pause, I could not help but vent my frustrations a little, "Today has been kind of a lot and I have not even had lunch yet."
"Don't let me keep you then! I briefly looked over your test corrections and they look good. If you need to talk about anything else just let me know. Have a good lunch, Laura." He smiled and returned to the pile of papers on his desk.
Finally free from the dreaded math class, I was looking forward to lunch. I quickly jogged the short distance from the math classroom to my locker, rapidly twisted in the combination, and haphazardly tossed all my books inside. I closed the door, spun, and slammed directly into Dan.
"Wha-," I gasped, jumping backwards and looking up at Dan's face.
"Laura, Aurora, whoever you are. We need to talk," Dan said with a scowl. The halls were already devoid of students. Everyone was either in line to get food or already in their fourth period class. I was alone with Dan. I cautiously spoke up.
"Dan, we already talked about this. Ask Chromos. Aurora is gone. I am just Laura now. I am so sorry about your friend."
"Do you really think I trust Chromos at all? He let Lucas die. Also, he's kind of a pain in the ass. Never listens to anyone or gives a straight answer. And that means I don't trust you. You spirits are all the same." Dan's face grew even more irritated and I began to feel uneasy. I was being backed into a corner of the hall, and I was not sure if he was even doing it on purpose.
"Guardians cannot lie to their hosts. Just ask him. I have Aurora's memories, so I know that much is true," I said, worry creeping into my voice.
"Her memories? So, you are Aurora then?" Dan took a step forward.
"I have Lucas's memories too! Are you going to accuse me of being Lucas next?" I said, exasperated.
"You act nothing like Lucas. People were gossiping today about you wearing a dress to school!"
"So what! I always wear a dress," I said rolling my eyes.
"I rest my case." He crossed his arms and gave me a stern glare.
I stopped. I blinked. Lucas had certainly never worn a dress to school. Why did I say that with so much confidence?
"I also do not sound anything like Aurora. Do you remember how she talked?" I stepped forward, which closed the gap between us. I was doing my best to extract myself from the corner.
"Barely. She only appeared to us for a few minutes," Dan said, his aggressive posture relaxing slightly as he remembered the incident.
"This is close enough to what Aurora said," I began and then tried my best to mimic her, "I cannot lie to my bonded, even as I would speak a falsehood from these false lips, my bonded would hear the truth in their mind." Those words were crystal clear to me because Aurora dutifully recited them to each person she bonded with. It was truth of the form of trust between the guardians and their hosts.
"Yeah, I remember," Dan huffed.
"Is that how I talk?" I pushed down my frustration.
"No," he said with a sigh.
"So, like I said, ask Chromos if he is going to 'take you over' or whatever insane theory you have come up with in your head. He cannot lie to you, not even through trickery or omission!" I moved forward to walk past him, but he did not move. I readied the ice sword summoning spell. "Move."
He remained motionless. My frayed nerves got the better of me; I drew on the magic and the sharpened icicle was suddenly at my fingertips. Dan stepped back with a shocked expression across his face.
"Move," I repeated. He backed off further, letting me pass, and I took a few tentative steps. I turned back once I was past him and made sure he made eye contact with me before I said, "I will be there Friday. I am going to help you, and the rest of my friends see this through. I promise."
"You better," Dan said, watching the ice in my hands.
"So, truce?" I offered.
"Fine," Dan said with a shrug of his shoulders.
I let the ice fall to the hard hallway floor. The impact against the tile shattered the spike with a sharp crash and sent hundreds of small ice fragments in every direction.
-*-
Lunch period assignments at TCH were determined by which fourth period class you took. Lucas and his friends had all made sure to pick Mr. Takahata's world history class so they would all end up in the same lunch together. They were given the first lunch which was unpopular since it started at eleven in the morning. Some students would swap their fourth period class just to get the second lunch period. Sarah and Chris were already at the usual table in the cafeteria by the time I had picked up my food. I sat in Lucas's normal spot and the two said their hellos to me between bites.
"Nice dress, Laura," Sarah said with a smirk as I sat down.
"Thanks for picking it out, Sarah," I beamed as I adjusted my posture and fixed the blouse I was wearing over my dress. I had to make sure it looked good. A few moments later Dan arrived and sat across from me.
"Your little stunt made Mr. Eckhart jumpy," Dan said, rolling his eyes at me.
"Sorry, did he hassle you?" I asked apologetically.
"Nah, I said someone threw a block of ice down the hall." Dan shrugged. "He believed me, I guess."
"What really happened?" Sarah asked me with a worried expression.
"I dropped a block of ice on the ground," I said flippantly.
"Did you get that ice where I think you got it?" Chris asked, rubbing his forehead.
"Of course," I said. "Turns out coming out as trans to everyone in your classes is a bit exhausting and I overreacted. Sorry, Dan."
"It's fine," he said with a mouth full of sandwich.
"I know it's a dumb question, but what does trans mean?" Chris asked. He had asked the same question back in homeroom and I still did not feel comfortable answering it.
"Uh, Sarah can you take this one?" I said. Despite being the person who was ostensibly coming out to everyone, I did not want to get the specifics wrong.
"Put most simply, it is when someone changes their gender identity away from the one that they were assigned at birth," Sarah said in a reciting tone. Did she have that exact phrase memorized?
"Thanks. So, yeah. New me, new gender. It seemed like the easiest way to handle this mess considering what happened," I said. "Only ran into a single rude person so far at least. I am not particularly looking forward to the rest of my classes."
"You're referring to what happened in homeroom, right? What Mark said?" Chris asked.
"Yeah," I sighed before returning to my meal.
"Laura, do I need to beat someone up?" Sarah asked with complete sincerity.
"Someone beat you to it actually," I said, brightening. "The girl who sits in front of Chris."
"That's Margaret, right? That would make sense. She's in the GSA club," Dan cut in. I tried to fix the name to the girl's face in my memory. One fewer name for me to awkwardly ask for later.
"How do you know who is in our homeroom period?" I asked.
"I'm partnered with her for chemistry and well, uh, she's a bit of a gossip," Dan admitted.
"So that is where you heard I was wearing a dress today," I said.
"There were other things she mentioned too," Dan added.
"Margaret said I was acting weird?"
"No, I believe her exact words were 'she was like a whole new person' and 'she seems much more cheerful now'," Dan recited while staring me down. The words felt like an accusation.
"Dan, I think that's just her way of saying that Laura is happier, not that she is literally a whole new person," Sarah said dryly.
The conversation slowed for a bit as we all started to eat. I kept my eyes on Dan to gauge his demeanor. The lunch period was only half the length of a normal class, and I had already missed some of it.
"I picked out her dress by the way. Don't you think it looks great?" Sarah beamed as she looked between Chris and Dan. I nodded energetically since my mouth was full.
"It's certainly not something Luc would have worn, Laura," Chris commented.
"See, Chris agrees with me," Dan said looking right at me. I rolled my eyes as a response.
"I wouldn't be so sure about that. I can be very persuasive." Sarah's face broke into a huge grin.
"I bet," Dan laughed.
"You interested?" I giggled.
"I think I'll pass. Doesn't really seem like my style. What about you?" Dan turned to Chris.
"I don't think I have the right, uh, shape. If you know what I mean. I don't think it would look good even if you could find one my size. I'm a bit too tall, I'd look like a flagpole," Chris said with a shrug.
"You really shouldn't underestimate me," Sarah said with a feigned huff.
"So, are we still on for Friday at the creek then?" Dan asked after a short pause.
"I wasn't planning on going," Chris sighed.
"Maybe after we make sure it's safe? Another set of eyes might be helpful," Sarah offered.
"Maybe," Chris looked away from the table. I worried Chris felt excluded because of his lack of a guardian. I really wanted to keep him as a friend especially since he was one of the few who knew the whole truth about me. But it was not exactly safe for him to chase down monsters without some kind of protection.
Hmm.
A thought tugged at my brain, there were three guardians awakened to quell this new threat. Now that Aurora was gone there were only two left. Would a third guardian awaken? I was unsure if I should even mention it to the group; it would put the spotlight back on what happened to Aurora and Lucas.
No. These were my friends, and I was going to help them no matter how uncomfortable it made me.
"Dan, ask your friend if another guardian will show up. There are only... two now," I said, my voice growing weaker as I continued.
Dan's face shifted to a contemplative expression and after about a minute he replied, "He thinks it's possible, but there's a bit of a problem. We don't know where a new guardian might show up, or when. They only appeared to protect us, remember?"
"Didn't Chromos call for Aurora and Corona?" Chris asked with his mouth half full. Dan nearly laughed in reply.
"Yeah, it seemed that way, but he was just asking for their help. All three of them were already there and watching. Chromos was just the first one to reveal himself," Dan said.
"Good, I was worried for a bit that Chromos was their boss or something," Chris chortled.
"Chromos does not control me," Sarah said in a strange tone; likely her guardian was speaking through her. I stifled a laugh, but Dan was actively chuckling.
"He is kind of an asshole," Dan sighed.
"Truly a match made in heaven," I muttered. Dan glared at me.
"Whatever. This entire mess was Sarah's idea, let's not forget that," Dan said referring to the conversation that took place here last Friday. Three days ago, during lunch, the group of friends had agreed—at the insistence of Sarah—to investigate the ghost sightings at Thread Creek.
"Chris was the one who brought it up first," Sarah said defensively.
"I just thought it was a cool ghost story! I must have good survival instincts or something because that place always freaked me out. That's why I didn't want to go by myself," Chris said and waved his hands to ward off the accusation.
"We all agreed to go," I said. Referring to Lucas as if he and I were the same person made me feel strange, but that did not matter right now. I needed to keep the team on track. "We need to figure out who or what is behind this and stop them. Their forces were so numerous. We cannot let whatever this thing is regroup and try again."
"You sounded a bit like Corona there," Sarah commented. I sighed and put my head in my hands.
"I just do not want to play the blame game. We are all friends," I said.
"Laura, we're just having some lighthearted squabbling, relax," Sarah said with a smile. I looked up from my hands to try and get a read on Dan's face. He still looked annoyed. I sighed. There was still pent-up frustration in the group over what happened on Friday, but we had to move on.
"Do we have a test coming up in Mr. Takahata's class?" I was taking a shot in the dark.
"Yeah, I think it's next week though. Don't worry about it," Chris said.
My blood ran cold for a moment. I was still drawing a blank whenever I tried to remember anything Lucas had learned in that class. I almost confessed this to the group, but at the last moment I clamped my mouth shut. I would just need to study for it and review all the material. If nothing else, I still had Lucas's notes. As weird as it was, this was my life now and I had to push through even if it was strange and unfair. I pushed my tray forward a bit and set my head on the table.
"You okay Laura?" Sarah asked, the concern evident in her voice.
"It is just a lot," I said. I did not want to elaborate further.
"That's not a yes," Chris chimed in and I groaned in reply.
"I'm sure you'll do fine," Sarah said cheerfully. "His tests aren't that bad."
"Only three months until finals and we'll be free," Dan mused.
"Nah, next is college," Chris said.
"Except for me," I said and lifted my head off the table.
"Still planning on taking that gap year then?" Dan asked.
"Yeah, it is not like the money situation has changed and my grades are not good enough for an academic scholarship either. I will just take some shifts at the Video Zone," I said. "I still have to tell Uncle Ray about me being transgender, too."
"You'll be fine Laura," Sarah said. "Please at least try to finish your food before lunch ends, you've barely touched it."
I kept bringing the conversation back to myself. Why was I like this? Hopefully my friends did not think I was being too annoying. I resolved to finish my food and let my friends talk amongst themselves. The topic shifted to the sports tryouts that Chris was planning on doing and, before I knew it, the bell rang to signal the end of lunch period.