“Things are always at their best in their beginning.”

~ Pascal, Provincial Letters, 1656-57

“Give me my money, Baxter!” A shout followed closely by the sound of something slamming against metal rings through the mostly empty hallway.

A girl whispers in passing to another, “Jake’s angry again.”

“Yeah, what’d Sam do now?” Her friend replies before they both disappear around a corner, leaving the two boys alone.

Sam whimpers as he clutches at Jake’s arm and struggles to remain balanced on his tip toes. His two-toned blond hair—fairly neat just moments ago—is now messy, obscuring his face a bit.

“Well?!” Jake’s brown eyes narrow into slits as he shakes Sam, keeping him off balance.

“I-I—” Sam starts, his voice small in the quiet hallway, “I forgot! I-I swear I don’t have a-any—”

“Bullshit!” Jake uses both hands now to grip the front of Sam’s shirt, lifting him up to his eye level, “That was your bullshit excuse yesterday, nerd! You think I’m fucking stupid?! Huh?!”

Sam opens his mouth to reply—

“Hey!” A shout from one end of the hall draws their attention.

A girl about Sam’s age stands there, dressed plainly in jeans and a blue hoodie. Her hands are on her hips and her brown hair falls neatly past her shoulders. Her eyes—sapphire blue—are narrowed in a glare with her round nose slightly scrunched and the line of her mouth set in a disapproving frown.

Her arrival incites two different reactions.

“Lorain!” Sam cries, a tinge of hope and happiness in his voice, like he’s seen an angel.

Jake, on the other hand, chuckles low in his throat before turning a sneer towards Sam, “Aww, isn’t this precious?” he says, loud enough for only Sam to hear before raising his voice, “Little Princess Sam is such a helpless bitch that only a girl can save him!”

Lorain hears that part as she storms closer to them; her frown growing deeper, “Get away from him, Jake!”

Jake turns his glare back towards Lorain, “Tell your bitch of a boyfriend to cough up my money!”

“I told you to get away from him! And he’s not my boyfriend!”

Jake’s grip around Sam’s shirt is still ironclad and his feet barely touch the ground, “Oh yeah? Why don’t you make me?! Oh, you can’t, cuz you’re just a girl who—”

Jake recovers fairly quickly, cradling his swelling cheek. His face is completely red from a mix of anger and Lorain’s punch, “Ow, what the hell?! You psycho?!”

“Nah, but maybe you should listen next time a girl tells you to do something. And pick on people your own size!”

Lorain only has a few inches of height on Sam, so she’s just as short compared to Jake.

Jake snorts, “Bitch. I oughta report you.”

“Ha! And what are you going to tell them? That you were harassing us freshmen again?” Lorain bites back, hands on her hips as she leans forward.

Jake tenses before glaring at her. Lorain glares right back. Sam remains where he is curled up on the floor, hiding his face in his knees. The standoff finally ends with Jake turning on his heel and stomping off, holding his cheek.

“Whatever. Just stay out of my fucking way,” he says before disappearing around the corner.

The only sounds remaining in the hallway are Sam’s shaking breaths and the sigh Lorain breathes as she relaxes. Her features appear softer as she turns to look at Sam, “Hey.”

Sam doesn’t immediately respond, so she squats down in front of him, her head tilting a bit to the side as she scrutinizes him.

“You okay? He didn’t hurt you, did he?”

At this, Sam shakes his head, lifting his gaze from where he was hiding to look at her through his messy bangs. Lorain’s lips widen into a bright grin, having found whatever answer she was looking for.

Sam only makes an affirmative sound before letting her pull him up. A million thoughts race through his mind, things he should say, but any desire to say them are dying in his throat before he can even open his mouth to try and speak them. Because of that, he frowns and looks down at his feet.

Lorain notices. “What’s up?”

Sam finally finds words again, “S—”

But Lorain holds up a finger to stop him, “What’d we talk about? No apologizing!”

Sam’s cheeks brighten in a blush at having been read so easily and quickly. His hands come together out of embarrassment, pulling and fiddling with the fingers of one of his hands self-consciously, his frown turning into a sheepish smile.

“Don’t thank me either.” Lorain adds, “Anyway, what was he saying about money? What do you owe him? Why do you owe him?”

“Ah—I…He…Last week he—he didn’t have enough money for the vending machine, s-so I…I gave him some of my money,” Sam stutters as he ducks his head while speaking, realizing more and more how ridiculous the reason was, “I—I didn’t think it’d be a problem, b-but then he st—started asking for money all the time and…and I didn’t bring a-any t-today. I—I thought he’d leave me alone.”

Lorain stares at him for a moment before closing her eyes with an exasperated sigh, “Sam, Sam, Sam…” she says with a few shakes of her head, “It’s good to be nice to people, but Jake? If being nice worked on him, we wouldn’t have had so many problems with him since elementary school, yeah?”

“I-I guess…” Sam replies softly, his eyes averting to look at the clock behind Lorain’s head, though he doesn’t immediately focus on it.

The banter seems to be helping Sam calm down, his breathing now returning to a normal rhythm.

“Not to give Jake money?”

“Good boy!”

It’s then that Sam finally looks—really looks—at the clock, his eyes widening as the time registers. 10:15AM.

“Um…hey, Lore?” he starts, “There’s a math test today, right?”

“I think so? Why?” Lorain asks as she finishes gathering the rest of their stuff, putting her backpack on first before holding Sam’s out to him.

Sam takes his backpack first before answering, “It’s been 10 minutes since passing time.”

Lorain tenses up in a freeze before snapping her head to confirm the time for herself, “Sh—oot, we need to go! Why is the bell still broken?!”

Sam doesn’t get a chance to answer, barely getting his own backpack on before Lorain grabs his arm and starts pulling him along the hall. He stumbles at first, but rights himself enough to keep up.

****

Later, as the school day ends, Lorain stands leaning against her locker near one of the school’s exits. Her hood is up with the drawstrings extended, making the hood wrap tightly around her head so that only a few strands of hair show. She does this when she wants to drown out the noise.

Unlike earlier the halls are full of other students. Walking, running, pushing, shoving. A few are paired off, the long hours of rules and separation necessitating this period of the day as “sucking face time”. Some of the students are giggling and gossiping—loudly—as they pass Lorain. A few of them also glance over at her before turning back to their friends and whispering before quickly leaving.

Lorain doesn’t give them any attention, frowning down at the phone in her hand instead.

“What’s wrong?”

She looks up at this question to find Sam, thankfully still in one piece.

“E-postcard from the ‘rents,” she answers, turning the phone around to show the screen to Sam.

The bright display shows an animated border of sugar skulls. The words ‘Greetings from the Claires!’ are bolded in a large, garish font at the top with a simple touristy picture underneath it of two adults—Lorain’s parents.

“Cuz God forbid they ever send a real postcard. That’d be too inconvenient,” Lorain swipes the offending image away before shoving her phone back in her hoodie pocket, “Ready to go?”

Sam nods in answer and the two of them shuffle through the door with a few other students, beginning their walk home.

“Mr. Schmidt’s a jerk,” Lorain says.

“Your science teacher?” Sam asks.

“Mhmm. Three weeks since school started, and he still insists on spelling my name wrong! I don’t care what the roster says it’s spelled like, if I say it has one ‘r’ and no ‘e’, it has one ‘r’ and no ‘e’!”

Sam can’t help but laugh softly at her emphatic tone.

“How many times have you told him?”

“Ugh, I don’t know, at least five? Every time I remind him he just goes,” she pauses to scrunch her face into a mockery of an old man’s snooty expression and deepens her voice, “Your parents gave you a beautiful name and you should spell it the way they wanted it spelled!”

Sam covers his mouth, trying to contain his laughter. Lorain continues regardless.

“I don’t care if they wanted it spelled that way, it’s a terrible, feminine spelling and I don’t want it near me.”

“I know, I know,” Sam says in a gentle attempt to calm her down, “Maybe the principal can do something?”

“Doubt it. The administration doesn’t exactly like me, you know.”

“Ah…I guess that’s true.”

“Mm, but at least it’s the weekend and we won’t have to deal with any sexist teachers or Jakes for two whole days! Oh, hey, the party’s still tomorrow, right?”

“I-I don’t think you can really call four people a party…but yeah.”

“Nonsense! A party’s a party when you’re celebrating something! Your birthday’s plenty to celebrate!”

Sam smiles sheepishly as his cheeks grow warm, “I guess so…”

“I’ll be over at noon, okay? Don’t start without me!”

“My parents wouldn’t let us start without you, Lore.”

Lorain laughs, “They better not!”

Rounding the corner of their street, a large house casts a shadow over the sidewalk. Lorain cuts through the grass to bound up to the front door as she takes a key from her pocket. She turns to smile and wave to Sam before opening the door and disappearing inside the dark, gray house. Sam waves then lingers for a moment longer before continuing down the street to his own home several houses down from Lorain’s.

Tomorrow. He’s turning 15 tomorrow. Most teenagers, he thinks, make bigger deals about age than is necessary. His age doesn’t feel all that important to him. Despite that, his chest feels heavy with a weight, like he’s anticipating something, but unsure what it could be. He’s probably just anxious, he thinks. The fight with Jake that morning had set it off and he hadn’t been able to calm down completely until after lunch.

Shaking his head to try and remove the negative thoughts, he instead focuses on what to look forward to tomorrow. Mom’s special cake, Dad not having to work, presents, Lorain coming over, the weekend…

All things considered, it was sure to be a good day. Better than today at least. Still, the anxious feeling as he enters his house grows a little deeper.