Raine Graves had learned a long time ago that there were certain questions you simply did not ask his mother before eight in the morning. Why are you crying? Who were you talking to in the kitchen at three a.m.? Why is there salt underneath my bedroom window again? Why did you throw away the black candles I bought with my own money? And, perhaps most importantly: Why did you write a Bible verse across the bathroom mirror in red lipstick?

That last one had almost gotten him. Raine stood in front of the sink with his toothbrush hanging from the corner of his mouth, staring at the uneven letters smeared across the glass.

FOR HE SHALL GIVE HIS ANGELS CHARGE OVER YOU.

The lipstick had begun to run sometime during the night. Thin streaks of red crawled downward through the words and gathered at the bottom of the mirror. It made the whole thing look considerably less holy. More like someone had been murdered in a church bathroom. Raine spat toothpaste into the sink.

“Subtle.”

His reflection stared back at him. He looked like shit. Not unusual. His black hair had been crushed flat on one side from sleep and stuck out violently on the other. Two stark-white sections framed his face, beginning at the roots near his forehead and falling toward his cheekbones.

The white had appeared naturally years ago. His mother had hated it almost immediately. At first, she accused him of bleaching it. Then she blamed shampoo. Then hormones. Then chemicals in the water. Eventually, she settled on the devil.

That explanation had proven flexible enough to cover most things she disliked about him. Raine pushed one of the white pieces away from his eyes and leaned closer to the mirror. Green. Still green. No horns. No glowing pupils. No secret mark of the Beast appearing overnight. Excellent. At seventeen, he figured if Satan intended to claim him personally, the guy was really taking his time.

He rinsed his toothbrush. Three hours of sleep had apparently done wonders for his complexion if the goal was a Victorian child dying beautifully of consumption. His skin was already pale enough that strangers occasionally asked whether he was feeling all right. Today, the dark circles beneath his eyes made the effect considerably worse. He reached for the shower faucet.

“Raine?”

His hand stopped. There it was. That tone. Quiet. Fragile. Dangerous. Raine closed his eyes for half a second.

“Yeah?”

Bare feet moved against the hardwood outside. Slow. Uneven. He knew those footsteps. There were the footsteps his mother made on good mornings—quick, distracted, usually accompanied by coffee. 

Then there were these. The ones she made after she hadn’t slept. Raine pulled his shirt over his head before she reached the doorway. 

She appeared a few seconds later. Neither of them spoke. His mother had once been beautiful. She technically still was. Sometimes, if Raine caught her at the right angle, he could see the woman from the old photographs tucked away in boxes around the hou—long, dark hair. Bright eyes. A wide smile. A guitar balanced against one hip. There was one particular photograph Raine had always loved.

His mother couldn’t have been much older than he was now. Maybe eighteen or nineteen. She was sitting barefoot on the hood of an old car with an acoustic guitar across her lap, laughing at whoever stood behind the camera. He’d asked once who had taken it. She had ripped the photograph out of his hands so quickly that the corner tore. He never asked again.

This morning, she looked older. Much older. Her hair hung loose and tangled around her shoulders. Dark shadows sat beneath her eyes. A silver cross rested in one hand, wound so tightly through her fingers that the chain had left angry red lines across her skin. Her gaze moved from Raine to the mirror.

“You saw it.”

Raine glanced toward the lipstick.

“Kind of hard not to.”

Her head snapped toward him. Right. Sarcasm. Bad decision.

“Sorry.”

She stepped into the bathroom.

“There is nothing funny about spiritual warfare.”

“I didn’t say there was.”

“You never have to.”

Raine lowered his eyes. There were rules. Rules made things easier. Don’t argue. Don’t correct her. Don’t laugh. Don’t question the verses. Don’t tell her she’s frightening you. Don’t make sudden movements if she’s holding something. And absolutely, under no circumstances— don’t ask about his father.

His mother reached toward him. Raine’s muscles tightened before he could stop them. Her hand froze halfway to his face. For the briefest moment, something lucid flickered across her expression. Hurt. Maybe even guilt. Then it vanished. Her fingers touched one of the white pieces of his hair.

“You should dye these.”

Raine swallowed.

“I like them.”

“They aren’t natural.”

“They literally grew out of my head.”

The second the words left his mouth, he regretted them. Her jaw tightened. Raine looked away. She let his hair slip through her fingers.

“They make you look like him.”

The bathroom seemed to lose several degrees. Raine stared at the cracked grout between the floor tiles. Him. His father. Whoever the fuck that was. Raine’s knowledge of his father could have fit comfortably on the back of a receipt. His mother had loved him. Once. Probably. He had left. Definitely. He was not to be discussed. Ever. There were no photographs of him in the house. No name. No birthday. No stories. No relatives Raine could ask. When he was little, he’d assumed his father was dead. When he was eight, he’d finally asked.

“Did Dad die?”

His mother had gone perfectly still. Then she’d dragged him by the wrist to the little storage closet downstairs. The one that would later become the sin closet. Crosses and Bible verses now cover the walls. He’d spent six hours inside. After that, Raine stopped asking questions. Mostly.

“I have to get ready for school.”

His mother stared at him for several seconds.

“Did you pray last night?”

“Yes.”

Lie.

“Before you slept?”

“Yes.”

Another lie. He hadn’t prayed in years. Not seriously. Sometimes he still went through the motions because habit was difficult to kill. Hands together. Head bowed. Words he didn’t believe. Raine had become extremely good at lying. His mother watched his face. He wondered sometimes whether she knew. If lying was a sin, he was probably fucked anyway. There was surely an entire section of Hell reserved specifically for sarcastic queer trans boys who lied to their mothers and owned too many cropped shirts. 

Eventually, she nodded.

“Good.”

Raine waited. She stepped aside. He grabbed his bag from the counter. As he passed, her hand caught his wrist. Not hard. Not yet. His heart jumped anyway.

“Raine.”

He looked at her. Her eyes were wet. For a moment, she didn’t look angry. She looked afraid.

“Stay away from strange people today.”

Raine frowned.

“What?”

“People you don’t know.”

“That’s generally how strangers work.”

Her grip tightened.

“Raine.”

“Okay.”

He stopped joking.

“Okay. I will.”

She let him go. Raine rubbed his wrist. His mother looked toward the hallway as though she’d heard something. Raine listened. Nothing.

“Mom?”

She whispered something beneath her breath.

“What?”

Her eyes returned to him.

“Stay out of trouble.”

Raine almost laughed.

He didn’t.

“I always do.”

⸻

By the time Raine reached school, he’d already decided the day was beyond saving. His coffee tasted burnt. His earbuds had died halfway through the bus ride. Someone had spilled something sticky across the floor near his locker. His first-period teacher had reminded the entire class that graduation was close enough to “start taking adulthood seriously,” which Raine had personally found threatening. And apparently the administration considered functional air-conditioning an extravagant luxury despite the temperature outside being somewhere between miserable and the surface of the sun.

Senior year was supposed to feel different. That was what everyone kept saying. Last first day. Last homecoming. Last football season. Last everything. Raine mostly felt tired. College applications sat half-finished on his laptop. His mother kept asking increasingly strange questions about whether he intended to move away. Teachers kept asking what he wanted to do with the rest of his life. Raine was seventeen. The rest of his life seemed like an unreasonable amount of time to plan before lunch. He shoved a book into his locker and slammed the door.

“Good morning, sunshine.”

He didn’t turn around.

“Go away.”

Maya appeared beside him anyway.

“You say that like you don’t adore me.”

“I tolerate you in a way that occasionally resembles affection.”

“Exactly. Best friends.”

Raine adjusted the strap of his bag. Maya immediately grabbed the sleeve of his cropped red leather jacket.

“You know it’s almost ninety degrees outside, right?”

Raine slapped her hand away.

“The jacket stays.”

“You’re going to get heatstroke and die.”

“Promise?”

Maya stared. Raine stared back. A beat passed.

“Too far?” he asked.

“A little.”

“Noted.”

It was not noted. Maya sighed. Raine liked Maya. Unfortunately. He generally expressed this by treating her as though she’d been personally created to irritate him. She’d accepted those terms years ago.

“So.”

Raine immediately became suspicious.

“No.”

“You don’t even know what I was going to say.”

“You made the face.”

“What face?”

“The one where you’re about to tell me something I don’t care about.”

“That could describe most of our conversations.”

“Exactly.”

She grabbed his arm and started walking.

“There’s a new guy.”

“No.”

“Oh my God.”

“I’m not interested.”

“You haven’t seen him.”

“And yet my position remains unchanged.”

“He’s hot.”

“Congratulations to him.”

“Like annoyingly hot.”

“Thoughts and prayers.”

“Blond.”

“Tragic.”

“Blue eyes.”

“Genetic.”

“Tall.”

“Everyone is tall to me.”

Maya snorted. At five-foot-two, Raine had accepted long ago that the world had been constructed by people with a personal vendetta against him. Top shelves were discriminatory. Concert crowds were discriminatory. Kitchen cabinets were discriminatory. Pants manufacturers were discriminatory. And any tall person who put things on top of the refrigerator deserved prison.

“He’s a senior too,” Maya continued. “Transferred in this morning.”

Raine gave her a look.

“It’s September.”

“I know.”

“Who transfers senior year?”

“Maybe his family moved?”

“Gross. Imagine having to start over eight months before graduation.”

“Maybe he murdered somebody at his old school.”

“Okay, now I’m interested.”

Maya laughed.

“Apparently he’s eighteen.”

“That tends to happen to seniors.”

“And half Puerto Rican.”

Raine finally looked at her.

“And?”

“And nothing.”

“Then why did you say it like you’re reading off his character stats?”

“I’m giving you information.”

“I didn’t request information.”

“You’re exhausting.”

“So I’ve been told.”

They rounded the corner. Raine saw him immediately. Mostly because Maya had, unfortunately, not exaggerated. The new guy stood outside the main office talking to one of the counselors. Tall. Not ridiculously tall. Probably five-ten. His skin was deeply tanned, warm and golden-brown, like he spent more time outdoors in a week than Raine voluntarily did in a year. His blond hair fell in loose waves around his forehead. Not yellow-blond. Sun-bleached. It somehow made the tan worse.

He wore a cream linen shirt with the sleeves rolled casually above his elbows, light-colored pants, worn bracelets around one wrist, and a necklace tucked partly beneath his open collar. Beach. The guy looked like someone had taken an entire fucking beach and turned it into a person. Raine hated him immediately. Nobody had the right to look that much like summer before nine in the morning.

Maya leaned closer.

“See?”

“He’s fine.”

She recoiled.

“Fine?”

“Objectively.”

“You’ve been staring at him for ten seconds.”

“I’m collecting data.”

“About his ass?”

Raine slowly turned toward her.

“Maya.”

“I’m asking for science.”

“I’m gay, not rabid.”

“Debatable.”

Raine opened his mouth. Across the hallway, the blond boy looked up. Straight at him. Raine froze. It was stupid. People looked at other people all the time. That was generally what eyes were for. But something about the way this guy looked at him felt— wrong. Not threatening. Not exactly. The blond boy’s expression shifted. His eyebrows drew together. Confusion. Recognition? No. Not recognition. He looked like Raine was a question he hadn’t expected to be asked. Raine glanced behind himself. Nobody. When he looked back, Blond Beach Boy was still staring.

Maya whispered, “Oh my God.”

“Shut up.”

“He likes you.”

“He literally doesn’t know me.”

“Never stopped anybody before.”

Raine rolled his eyes and turned away. Something cold brushed his ankle. He stopped. Looked down. His shadow stretched across the hallway floor. Nothing unusual about having a shadow. Raine was fairly certain that was standard. Except the fluorescent lights were directly overhead. His shadow shouldn’t have stretched three feet sideways. He frowned. For one impossible second— the darkness rippled. Like black water disturbed by a falling raindrop.

Raine blinked. A student walked between him and the nearest window. The shadow returned to normal.

“Raine?”

He looked up. Maya was several steps ahead.

“You coming?”

“Yeah.”

He glanced down again. Nothing. Still. Normal. Three hours of sleep. That was all. He followed Maya. Behind them, the new kid watched him disappear around the corner.