Redemption Prep - Samuel Miller Page 0,1

the illusion that they were all converging on her. She hid her eyes as a group of instructors passed. Someone tried to wave but she wasn’t paying attention. Evan followed her gaze and noticed a dark-purple-and-yellow jacket, hovering near the woods. By the time his eyes found Emma again, Aiden Mallet had descended on her.

Evan kept moving in a wide path around them, settling on one of the benches in front of the chapel. Aiden was trying to hug her, and she wasn’t hugging back. Her eyes were fixed on the ground. Her arms were around her chest like a protective vest. Her fingers were twitching against the sleeves of her sweater.

Evan held his breath. This was it.

Aiden was a terrible boyfriend. He could barely read and write; he sucked at math, history, science, and philosophy. He could shoot a basketball, but that was a useless skill. He was attractive by American standards, with thick blond hair and broad shoulders, but to Evan he looked like a floppy-haired Hulk. He had one real value, but it was universal and easy to understand: Aiden was rich. His parents owned a chain of grocery stores on the East Coast, and he was their only child, and the heir apparent to their fortune.

None of that would have mattered if not for Emma. If not for Emma, Aiden would have been just another zero-value life filling the void of everywhere else. But he wasn’t. Something about being popular and rich and average at basketball gave him the right to Emma, and everybody went along with it, because it’s high school and that’s how the pattern is supposed to go. And Aiden went along with it, because that’s how the pattern of his life had always been. But Aiden didn’t deserve her, and Emma knew it, and Aiden knew it, and he’d made her life miserable for it.

But Emma had been altering her routine to avoid him. No more Wednesday morning breakfasts. No more walks home from mass. No more looks at him during church. No more invitations to her dorm after curfew. Aiden’s days were numbered, and today, they’d run out.

Evan sat on the edge of the bench, watching the conversation in his reactions, between groups of passing students. First, Aiden was nervous. He knew what was coming. A group of Year Ones stood in the way, so Evan craned his neck around them. Aiden was holding Emma’s shoulders to stop her from speaking. Evan sat up even further on the bench. A seven-foot-tall boy ran in front of them, so he slid left, just in time to see Aiden’s face morph into a smile.

“Hey.”

Evan’s face fell. Aiden was still smiling, bigger, and nodding along.

“Hey!”

Standing over her like a hungry lion, he mouthed one word; a question and an answer, a confirmation and a lifeline; the worst possible word that could come out of his mouth—“Tonight?”

“Hey!”

A large gloved hand grabbed Evan by the shoulder, and he fell backward.

“Can I sit here?”

Peter Novak was six foot three and razor thin, draped in a puffy orange coat, blocking the light from the top of the cross. He nodded to the bench next to Evan and sat without waiting for a response.

“So,” he said, burying his hands in his pockets. “You’re the kid who beat the chess computer?”

Evan nodded.

“Yeah, when my girl told me that, I thought, ‘No, that’s Bobby Fischer.’ You’re not Bobby Fischer, buddy.” Peter was from Eastern Europe, so his vowels were thick with an accent, but he was also on the debate team, so he spoke at two times the normal human speed, spitting as he went. “I guess you could do it too, but . . . that’s gotta suck, right? Being the second guy to invent the wheel? I mean, we kinda only need the one wheel.”

Peter hadn’t looked away from Evan; Evan hadn’t looked back. Silently, he absorbed all the S2—Subtext possible. Condescension was a means for establishing social control.

“What’re you looking at over there? Not much view from this bench, buddy. And I gotta say,” Peter said, inching closer, “I feel like I’m seeing you everywhere. Weird, right? Why do you think that is? Evan? Why d’you think that is?”

He felt his hair rise. Take the S4—Emotion out of it, and S5—Rationale. There was no reason for Peter Novak to know his name, unless Peter was paying attention to him.

“It’s a small—”

“Gotta talk louder than that.”

“It’s a small school.”

Peter tilted his angular nose down, like he was trying to