The Fragile Ordinary

“Wow.” Carrie pulled out of his arms and went straight for the coffee machine. She didn’t even look at me. “Diana better bloody love it, then. It’s been a while since I did the hermit thing.”

“Are you happy with it?” Dad asked.

Carrie gave him a sleepy grin over her shoulder. “You know I’m never a hundred percent happy with it. But it’ll do.”

Meaning she thought it was bloody fantastic. Her best work ever!

I grabbed up my book bag. “I better get to school.”

“Oh, Comet.” Carrie flicked a look at me as if she’d just realized I was there. “How is school going?”

The question was asked so she’d feel like she was attempting to care about her child’s life. “It’s the first day of term.”

She shot an amused oops look at Dad. “Really?”

Dad nodded. “Comet’s starting fifth year. Can you believe it?”

If it wasn’t already apparent, Dad was the more involved parent of the two. If you could call his vague interest in my life involved.

“Fifth year?” She yawned. “What age is that again?”

In that moment I wanted to run upstairs to her studio, grab a paintbrush, and smear I’M SIXTEEN, DIPSHIT! all over her newly finished painting.

“It’s sixteen, love,” Dad said gently.

“No.” Carrie frowned at me. “Did you have a sweet sixteenth?”

Wow. Okay. She was in fine form this morning. “Yeah.” I grabbed my house keys and headed for the exit. “I spent it with a biker called Vicious and we made sweet sixteenth love all night.”

I heard my dad’s laughter and Carrie’s confused murmurings as I wandered down the narrow hall to the front door. Outside, the cool morning breeze from the sea blew strands of hair free from my ponytail and I sauntered out of the garden gate onto the esplanade.

“Not saying hello this morning, Comet?” a familiar voice called out.

I stopped and looked over my shoulder into our neighbor’s garden. Only a shallow wall separated our paved, no-fuss outside space from Mrs. Cruickshank’s well-tended front garden with its rows of flowerbeds and tiny stretch of lawn.

Mrs. Cruickshank was on her knees by one of her flowerbeds, wearing her usual uniform of baggy jeans, holey knitted sweater and garden gloves. Her long gray hair was twisted up on top of her head in an old-fashioned bun that I was certain wasn’t even in fashion when she was my age an unknown number of years ago. Thick, bright turquoise glasses were perched on her nose as she peered at me in amusement.

“Lost in your thoughts again, Comet?”

“Sorry, Mrs. Cruickshank. First day of school. I’m daydreaming,” I gave her an apologetic smile.

“First day, eh? Ready for it? Those imbeciles you call parents feed you properly so you have brain energy for the classroom?” she asked, frowning.

I stifled a smile. Not much got past Mrs. Cruickshank. While she would speak to me all day if I had the time, she barely even managed a smile for Kyle and Carrie. Not that they really noticed.

Instead of answering her question, I deflected, “How are the daylilies coming along?” Over the years, despite my disinterest in gardening, I’d learned much from my neighbor about the plants that could survive in a coastal garden. Mrs. Cruickshank had been having trouble with her pink-and-yellow-gold daylilies the last we spoke. It puzzled her, because it was apparently a plant that thrived in most places, and she’d never had problems with them before.

“I replanted them. These new ones are coming along fine. But it’s my lantanas that are looking well, don’t you think?” She nodded to the bright orange, cheery flowers at the bottom of the garden with a smile akin to that of a proud parent.

“They look wonderful, Mrs. Cruickshank,” I spoke truthfully.

She turned that smile on me. “Have a cracking day at school, Comet. I’m baking today. Be sure to nip around before tea and I’ll give you some of whatever I cook up. Just for you, mind.”

This time I did smile. My neighbor was a fantastic baker and generous, too. However, she wasn’t that sold on me sharing her treats with my dad and Carrie. I reckoned it was to do with the fact that Mrs. Cruickshank and her husband hadn’t been able to have children. She’d told me about it a few years ago, and it was the only time I’d seen her get emotional.

“Thanks.” I waved. “See you later.” I walked away, down the esplanade.

The beach always calmed me. The best thing my dad ever did was buy this house. Between the beach and my bedroom, I had a sanctuary here. I could spend longs hour on the sand, watching people pass by as I wrote my poetry. Houses, flats, bed-and-breakfasts, the Swim Centre, the Espy—a pub and my favorite place to get breakfast—sat along the sand-covered concrete esplanade.

I left early for school so I could stroll along it and enjoy the pleasant breeze of a mid-August morning. The sun was low in the sky, casting light over the sea so that it sparkled and danced as I walked along beside it in companionable silence. The salt air made me feel more at home than my own mother did.

What was new though, right?

There was no point in getting upset about it, because in five months I’d be seventeen, which meant in less than two years I’d leave for a university an ocean away. Upon which I had no intention of ever returning to my parents’ home.

It was a twenty-minute walk to school, and the closer I got to it, the more I fell into step with pupils wearing the same uniform. It was here I became truly anonymous, the bright glitter of gold from my shoes the only spot of difference between me and the girls in front of me.

Suddenly I was at the school gates, staring beyond them at Blair Lochrie High School. It was built a year before my first year at the school, and there were strict rules and regulations about litter and maintenance to keep it looking its best. It was a modern building, all white and gray and glass.

As I stepped inside, I couldn’t wait for the day I’d step out of it for the last time.

* * *

“I’m studying at yours after school,” Vicki said without preamble as she sat down beside me in Spanish, our first class of the day.

“You are?”

She nodded vehemently, the tight corkscrews of hair several inches above her forehead swaying with the movement. “Otherwise, I’ll get locked into watching Steph audition for the school show.”

“They’re auditioning already?” I frowned. “It’s the first day back at school.”

“Surprise auditions. They want raw performances or something. They’re doing Chicago this year.”

“Isn’t some of that a little...I don’t know...adult?”

She shrugged.

“So why are you studying with me and not giving Steph moral support?”

Vicki rolled her hazel eyes. “Babe, you know I love her, but after last night I need a little break.”

This was not unusual for either of us. We did love Steph. Truly. But sometimes when she got lost in her own little world—which was a nice way of saying she became incredibly self-absorbed—it was hard to stay patient with her. The best thing to do, we’d discovered, was to discreetly take a break from her. “What happened at the party?”

Vicki glanced around to make sure no one was listening and then leaned into me. “The guy, the American guy, he wasn’t into her. He was already snogging Heather when we got there. So Steph went after Scott Lister.”

My eyes grew round. “Heather’s ex-boyfriend.”

“Ugh, aye,” Vicki huffed. “Not only did she dump my ass the second we got to that party, but she got into a huge fight with Heather, and then blamed me for not stopping her snogging the face off Lister.”

“I don’t get it. Why was Heather mad at Steph for kissing Scott if she was kissing the new guy?”

“This is Heather we’re talking about. Who knows what’s going on in that twisted mind?”

“And Steph took the whole thing out on you?”

“Yup. She apologized, but I’m still kind of pissed off about it. Totally ruined the last night of summer.” She nudged me with her elbow and grinned. “I bet you had a better night with whatever book you were reading.”

I blushed. My friend knew me so well. Most of the time, like now, it felt as if Vicki just accepted who I was, but there were days that she seemed a little distant and annoyed, like last night, and I worried my hermit-like qualities irritated her.

“Hola, quinto año! Quién esta listo para comenzar español avanzado?” Our teacher Señora Cooper strolled into the room. She shot Vicki a smile my friend easily returned. Because Vicki’s dad was a maths teacher at our school, a lot of the other teachers knew Vicki really well and liked her.

Although, I couldn’t think of anyone who didn’t like Vicki. Maybe Heather. But I didn’t think Heather truly liked any other girl. They were either competition or beneath her notice. Nothing in between.

Señora Cooper’s classroom door opened again, and my breath caught in my throat at the sight of the boy striding through it.

What the ever loving...

It was like he’d walked straight out of the pages of the book I had been reading last night!

Tall—very tall—with an athletic physique, the boy looked around the classroom and then at the teacher. “Spanish, right?”

I froze at his American accent.

This was cute American boy?

Okay.

Cute was entirely the wrong descriptor.

He had close-cropped dark blond hair, and his tan skin suggested he’d spent his life somewhere with lots of sun up until now. Light gray eyes scanned the room as we all looked at him, and he stood there seeming comfortable with the attention, like it didn’t bother him at all. I’d be blushing and squirming if a room filled with strangers were staring at me.

“Como tu te llamas?” Señora Cooper asked with a raised eyebrow.

He gave her a lopsided smile, all white teeth and boyish charm, and this little unexpected thrill fluttered in my belly. A feeling I got only when reading about swoonworthy book boyfriends.

I swallowed hard, not sure I was enjoying this new development.

“Tobias King. But you can just call me King.”

Tobias King.

Crap.

He even had a book-boyfriend name.

I groaned inwardly as Señora Cooper told him to take a seat after checking her register to make sure he belonged in her class. As he passed me without noticing me, I took in his face and wondered how it was possible for a teenage boy to look like that. Sure we had cute guys at our school, but none of them looked like that. Like...a teen Viking!

He had a strong, chiseled jaw, a slightly too-wide nose—an imperfection that only added to his attractiveness—and a smile that could charm you out of your last Irn-Bru. It occurred to me, as he angled his long body into a seat beside Daniel Pilton, that he looked familiar. He shared more than a passing similarity to a certain star of a dystopian book-to-film franchise I had pinned to my bedroom wall.

I hunched over, hating this sudden awareness of the stranger.

“They don’t grow them like that here,” Vicki whispered, amusement in her words.

I smirked and shot her a look, but I must have been blushing because her eyes widened. Vicki being Vicki, she didn’t push the subject, and Señora Cooper started teaching.

It was difficult to concentrate on that first class, because my imagination ran away from me. I could feel his presence, burning like a fire behind me, and suddenly he was the hero in a dystopian novel and I was the heroine. I was smart and sassy, he was brooding and taciturn. Whilst I didn’t need help to take down a regime that subjugated women, he was my protector all the same. He taught me to fight harder and I taught him to live harder. After one particular battle we had to hide out alone, share sleeping quarters, and things got—

When Vicki nudged me hard, I jerked out of my daydream and was stunned to realize class was over and the bell was ringing for second period. Blushing, I fumbled to put my books in my bag.

“Are you okay?” she asked me, studying me too intently.

“I’m fine,” I nodded.

“Hmm.” She threaded her arm through my elbow and led me out of class. “You get weirder every day, Comet. You know I love that about you, right?”

THE FRAGILE ORDINARYSAMANTHA YOUNG

3

I lost my focus today.

He was the cause.

No ordinary Monday.

’Til it turned out it was.

—CC

Quite without meaning to I found myself thinking about our new student for the rest of the morning and hoping to find him in my other classes. To my disappointment, I didn’t see him in my next class, or during morning break, or in my third class.

Come fourth period I was sitting in Higher English at a desk by myself because Steph had gotten to class before me and bagged the seat beside Vicki. Vicki gave me an apologetic look as I surveyed the room. It was either take the empty desk at the front of the class or take a seat next to Heather. Even if she hadn’t been glaring at me with a clear piss off expression, I would have taken the dreaded front table and sat without a partner.

The teacher, Mr. Stone, was my favorite. I’d had him in first year and again last year. When I saw his name on my curriculum this year, I was so happy. He was one of the few teachers invested in my work, and whatever I wrote, he seemed to get it. He was always encouraging me, and even though I was pretty sure I’d die of mortification if anyone else actually commented on my work, I didn’t mind when he did. It never felt like a criticism, only an effort to make me a better writer. Still, I hadn’t had the courage to show him my poetry. I didn’t have the courage to show anyone my poetry.

He looked up from reading the register, probably counting to see if we were all there, and blinked in recognition when he saw me sitting up front. Mr. Stone smiled. “Comet, it’s nice to have you back in my class.”

I smiled in return and nodded—I hoped in a way that expressed I was glad to be there, too.

“It looks like we’re missing one.” Mr. Stone’s gaze swept around the room. “Tobias King?”

“Oh, he’s new, Mr. Stone,” Heather piped up. “He’s probably just trying to find us. I saved him a seat.”

At that moment, Tobias sauntered casually into the room and my breath caught again.

Seriously. What was that?

That weird fluttering in my belly was back. I’d heard Vicki talk about how Jordan Hall, a college boy on her street, gave her butterflies every time she saw him. And Steph had butterflies over a new boy every three months.

Was this...was this that elusive crush?

Don’t get me wrong; I’d had crushes before, but usually on actors and characters in books. They gave me a giddy, girlish ache in my chest. This was different.

This was nausea-inducing fluttering and an all-encompassing feeling of awareness.

Dammit.

This wasn’t supposed to happen to me until college, where I’d miraculously develop some social skills, or find a like-minded guy with an equal lack of social skills.

“Tobias King, I presume,” Mr. Stone greeted him. “I’m Mr. Stone. You get a pass on being late today because you’re new, Mr. King, but tomorrow I expect you to be here on time.”

“Sure thing.”

“Tobias, over here.” Heather waved at him.

I suddenly remembered that Vicki said Tobias and Heather had snogged the faces off each other at her party the night before. Feeling deflated didn’t stop me from studying his face when he saw her. Indecision and wariness seemed to flitter over his features before he cleared his expression and walked over to slide into the seat next to her.

“Right, now that we’re all here, let’s get started.” Mr. Stone walked over to the pile of books on his desk. “This year we’ll be covering one play, one novel and a number of pieces of poetry. First term—” he lifted up one of the books to face us “—we’re studying Hamlet for the critical essay part of this year’s exam.”

There were several groans around the room, and I rolled my eyes. Who groaned at Shakespeare? Uncouth, uncultured, uncivilized barbarians, that’s whom.

Mr. Stone started handing out a book each to us, and I took mine with a smile.

“Have you read it, Comet?”

I nodded. I’d painted the words To Thine Own Self Be True above my headboard in my bedroom.

He smiled back at me and then continued on, handing out the play to everyone.

I flipped open the copy, hoping the lure of Shakespeare would be enough to distract me from the beautiful boy behind me. This was English class. The only place at school I felt at home.

Tobias King wasn’t going to fluster me or divert my attention from Mr. Stone and a class I loved.

* * *

Considering how disturbed I was by the thought of having a crush on a boy at this school, I was almost grateful for what happened next.

It was after lunch and I was heading to history. The wide corridors were filled with students milling around or walking to their next class. As usual I was slipping through the crowds anonymously when I saw him coming toward me.

My heart started racing in my chest.

He really had the most gorgeous smile.

And then I realized who he was smiling at.

Stevie Macdonald. And with Stevie were his crew of borderline delinquents.

Huh.

That surprised me. To be honest it surprised me Stevie was still in school. I’d have bet everything I owned that he would have dropped out as soon as he turned sixteen. His friends, too. But nope. There they were.

What surprised me about Tobias hanging out with Stevie was the fact that Tobias had to have achieved good grades at his old school to have been accepted into my Spanish and English classes. Stevie and his crowd weren’t exactly high achievers.

But there they were, messing around like they’d known each other forever.

As Tobias neared me, my breath once again seized in my throat.

And then it was expelled with force when Stevie shoved Tobias and he clobbered me, nearly knocking me off my feet. Thankfully the new guy had fast reflexes. Almost as soon as he hit me, he turned and grabbed my arms to steady me.

“Sorry,” he apologized, and for a moment our eyes met.

My skin burned beneath my shirt where his fingers gripped me, and I found myself entranced by the flecks of gold and blue in his eyes. They were more blue-gray than light gray like I’d thought.

The heat in my skin traveled all over me, and I knew my face was probably on fire.

Damn my pale skin!

Just like that, he let me go and turned to laugh at whatever Stevie had said. I stumbled a little, turning in shock to watch him stride away as if he’d never even touched me, talked to me.

Tobias King was not book boyfriend material! A book boyfriend did not knock the heroine quite literally off her feet and then walk away once they made eye contact.

“Nice,” I muttered, infuriated.

It had been silly of me to think my intense reaction to Tobias King would be returned. He’d been here a day and was already the most popular boy in school.

This was the wake up I needed to shake me out of my stupid insta-crush.

After all I was just Comet Caldwell.

Great big bloody snowy dirtball.

* * *

“I was thinking we could ‘study’ at yours instead,” I air-quoted as I fell into stride with Vicki.

The end of day bell had rung five minutes ago, and I’d caught sight of my friend weaving through the crowds heading out of school.

For some weird reason, Vicki looked unsure. “Why?”

I knew the girls liked hanging out at my place because my parents never bothered us and because I was right on the beach. But I was feeling unexplainably prickly toward Carrie today and really didn’t want to breathe the same air as her. “This morning Carrie either pretended to or genuinely forgot that I’m sixteen years old and have been for a while.”

“What?” Vicki wrinkled her nose. “Babe, she gave you a birthday card. With money in it.”

“No, apparently, Kyle gave me a card with money in it and signed Carrie’s name.”

“That’s rubbish. I’m sorry.” She wrapped an arm around my shoulder and gave me a squeeze. “Okay. Come to mine, then. I’m sure Mum won’t mind, because today was her day off.”

Vicki’s mum was a general practitioner at the local doctor’s surgery but ever since Vicki’s younger brother, Ben, was born she’d worked part-time. Ben had been a surprise—a happy one—arriving nine years after his big sister.

“Well, if you’re sure.” I wasn’t going to argue.

Vicki’s house was on the way to mine, about a ten-minute walk from school and just a few blocks from the main street in Portobello.

Portobello, or Porty as it was known locally, sat on the east coast of Edinburgh, about a twenty-five-minute car journey from the city center. It used to be a beach resort with fun fairs and rides, but now it was more about volleyball, kayaking, sunbathing, swimming, dog walking and the arts. Years ago, as part of an art event, a steel tidal octopus sculpture had been installed on the beach. During low tide he was completely visible, but during high tide you could see only a tentacle or two.

We had independent stores, cafés and restaurants in Porty, and a Victorian swimming pool with an original Aerotone and Turkish baths. It was a village with identity and personality, and it had a laid-back vibe with a socioeconomic mix of low-to-mid income and mid-to-high income families. There were people who spoke with a more anglicized Scottish accent, like me and my friends, and those like Stevie who spoke in thick Scots. It was a mishmash, and for the most part I loved that.

But that came with problems. I knew some kids who were bullied for having less money than other kids, and kids like me who were bullied for being posh and a swot—a geek, a brainiac, a nerd. Our school had its “good” kids, its overachievers, and then it had the “bad” kids, the disrespectful kids, the troublemakers and the underachievers. Overall, I didn’t interact much with the “bad” kids, as I wasn’t part of their circles, and I liked living in Porty.

That didn’t mean I didn’t have every intention of getting as far away from here as possible when I went to university. And I meant far. My dream university was in the US of A. The University of Virginia. It was really well-known for writing, for its literary magazines, poetry workshops and for its Pulitzer Prize–winning graduates. If that wasn’t enough, the awesome Tina Fey graduated from there! Yes. If it took my blood, sweat and tears, I would become a proud alumna of UVA and no one, not anyone, was going to get in my way of seeing that dream come true.

“You’re quiet,” Vicki mused as we strolled in silence toward her parents’ house.

I shrugged. “Just first day blues, I guess.”

“Or...” She nudged me and grinned. “I saw you checking out the new guy.”

I blushed crimson and shook my head frantically.

“Fine.” She turned stone-faced. “Keep your secrets.”

Frustration gnawed at me. Vicki took it personally when I kept things to myself, but it wasn’t personal. I just wasn’t a sharer. Not wanting to hurt her feelings, however, I sighed. “Fine. He’s good-looking. That’s a fact. Nothing more.”

“Really?” She beamed at me. “Because I thought I saw your tongue roll out of your mouth when he walked into Spanish.”

“Yeah, well, he ruined any illusions I might have had over his crush-worthiness when he nearly knocked me off my feet in the school corridor and then walked away.”

“He didn’t apologize?”

“Well, yeah, but it was like—” I grabbed her arms to demonstrate. “Sorry,” I said indifferently, let her go and strode away quickly. Stopping I looked back at her. “I may as well have been a traffic cone.”

She burst out laughing at my dry tone and hurried to thread her arm through my elbow. “I bet that’s not true. You’re really pretty, Comet. It’s just this uniform does nothing for you. For any of us.”

“Well you always look amazing.”

“He needs to see you as the real Comet.” She squeezed my arm, grinning at me. “He won’t be able to take his eyes off you then.”