Seeing in Color

Nine

Connor

I am Nobody from Nowhere and I am the Master of Nothing.

Joke. I'm Connor Stoll from Cavern Hills, the loneliest town for at least two hundred miles. I must say so myself: I am a master of several things. Netflix binge-watching, video games, photography - a hobby since practically birth – and lacrosse.

I learned a lot just by taking photos for the team during games. I learned fouls and how to score, each player's weakness and strength. I knew the team would need me the next season. I gave up my nightly video game time to sneak out to the forest behind our house, practicing every night with my brother's equipment and waking up exhausted in the morning. My mother rolled her eyes whenever I'd show up for breakfast with red eyes and a tired expression, thinking I had stayed up shooting my friends, not shooting scores.

Of course, I knew I would have to stop sneaking out soon. I wouldn't be able to focus on school if I was staying up all night while everyone else was asleep, practicing for something I wasn't even a part of.

Yet.

The first day of school changed my mind.

First, it was seeing Miranda. Gosh, she got prettier over the summer. We hadn't talked since the end of freshman year, when she left for Chicago for the school break to visit her grandparents. Then, right after American Literature, when I was shuffling through my locker, taping photos I've taken inside the door, a voice behind me made me jump nearly three feet.

"Hey, Stoll. I heard that Gardiner girl dumped you! How's it feel, being alone again?"

Preston, the meanest bully at school, liked to use me as a ragdoll in front of his friends, tossing me around like a teddy bear and bruising me like a China doll. That all ended a couple years ago, but now I guess he was starting up again.

I clenched my teeth and ignored him.

"Guess he really is a ghost!" One of his buddies said, and I clutched the locker door with my hand so hard my knuckles started turning white.

"Just like di Angelo. I bet the two of them become a thing someday." Preston snickered.

Nico di Angelo, the only openly gay boy at school, had been bullied most of his life. He used to be a friend of mine, until his mom died, and he cut all his friends off, pushing everyone away. Now people were saying the two of us would get together? No way.

"They're both meaningless anyways."

I furiously slammed my door, whipping around and throwing a punch at the boy who spoke, the shorter of Preston's three closest body guards. He yelped as my fist collided with his jawbone, and the others yelled and backed up. Preston just laughed and shoved me backwards, laughing harder as I fell to the floor. I leapt to me feet and charged them, spitting and cussing at them, but the two other jocks just held me back from Preston and the boy I punched. Before a teacher could find us, they dragged me to the double doors leading outside, throwing me out. I guess it helped that my locker was three down from the exit.

Before I could steady myself and rise to my feet, Preston grabbed my hair and slammed my forehead against the metal bars of the stair rails. I cursed and winced, holding my hand to my head, rubbing the injured spot. No one was at this exit, so no one ran to help me up as Preston's gang cackled and walked back inside. I yelled a few more cuss words in their wake, spitting out words that my mother would kill me for saying.

I managed to stand up and clear my head, though it pounded like hell. I remembered that there was a nurse's office on this side of the building. Checking my phone to see what time it was and making sure that it wasn't cracked, I regained my senses and stared at my background for a few seconds, tracing the outline of the tree and the stretching branches reaching for the sky. Being raised around a forest my whole life, I thought I had seen all of them in the area. Then I discovered this huge oak tree with perfect climbing branches. I practically lived in the treehouse my brother and I built, refusing to leave unless bribed with food.