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It was almost comical how quickly Michael Gates, a guy in the year above us, agreed to read the part of Hamlet after that.
Mr. Stone relaxed, clearly refusing to allow one kid to ruin the class, and we continued.
“‘Good Hamlet, cast thy nighted color off, and let thine eye...’” I wanted to look over my shoulder and grin at Steph as she read, because she was reading the queen’s part in a fake English accent that was causing a buildup of giggles in the back of my throat.
Michael read as Hamlet with absolutely no inflection or enthusiasm. Poor William must have been rolling in his grave to hear it.
“Stop there, Michael, thank you,” Mr. Stone said. “What do you think is being said here between the queen and Hamlet? Comet?”
I raised my head from the words on the page, feeling everyone stare at me.
Mr. Stone gazed at me encouragingly. “What do you think, Comet?”
It wasn’t that I wasn’t used to answering questions in class. We’d had to do class talks, where we either did a presentation to a group of peers or to the entire class. I’d hated every minute of those, but I’d gotten through them. I guess I was nervous because there was a person in our class who had never heard me talk, and I was passionate about this stuff, while he seemed to think it was all a joke.
Come on, Comet. Like you should care what that Neanderthal thinks of you?
“I think,” I started, “the queen is questioning Hamlet’s continued grief over losing his father. When she says, ‘cast thy nighted color off’ she means his mourning clothes and his mood. And then she asks why, when everyone knows of the inevitability of death, should Hamlet’s father’s death be so unique. It’s almost like she’s questioning whether Hamlet’s grief is real or for show, and Hamlet replies that yes, from his outward behavior it might be easy to think he’s just acting a part, but he insists that his grief is deeper than mere appearance.”
Mr. Stone stared at me a moment and the class seemed to wait with bated breath along with me. A slow smile curled his mouth and he nodded. “Excellent, Comet.”
I flushed, relaxing in my chair, as he asked Michael, who was reading the king’s part, to continue.
Pleased with myself, relieved I really did understand the flowery, beautifully overcomplicated prose of Shakespeare, I settled back in my seat to follow the rest of the scene. But that burning sensation I had on my neck when the class was staring at me, waiting for me to answer, hadn’t gone away. In fact, it felt like my neck was burning hotter.
Giving in to temptation, I glanced over my shoulder, searching for the cause, and froze, breath and all, when I did.
Tobias King was looking at me.
Really looking at me.
Our gazes held for a moment, and my cheeks grew warm as my heart picked up pace.
Tobias frowned and jerked his gaze away.
Flushing harder, I turned back fully in my seat and willed my heart rate to slow.
So what if Tobias King had finally noticed me. He was a bad boy. He was arrogant, cocky, hanging out with guys who were going nowhere in life, and he definitely shouldn’t be in my Higher classes with me. I was not attracted to this boy, and I should not feel a thrill of anticipation, a flutter of butterflies, just because we’d made eye contact.
No.
Nope.
Definitely NOT.
I was Comet Caldwell. I might be many things, and not many other things, but I was above having a crush on a boy who disdained Shakespeare.
* * *
“Uh, Comet.” Mr. Stone approached me after the bell rang.
I looked up from putting my books and jotter away. “Yes?”
My teacher leaned a hand on the desk and lowered his voice as the rest of the class filtered out for their last class of the day. “I was wondering if perhaps your dad might be interested in coming in next term to talk with the class about writing skills.”
An instant flush of irritation rushed through me and then worse...
Self-doubt.
Had Mr. Stone paid attention to me only because of who my dad was?
“I just found out.” He smiled, looking sheepish. “I never put K. L. Caldwell and your dad together. It was Mrs. Bennett that told me yesterday.”
Mrs. Bennett was my third-year English teacher. She’d also tried to get me to ask dad to come speak with the class.
“Um...” I stood up, pulling the strap of my heavy bag onto my shoulder. “Did Mrs. Bennett tell you my dad doesn’t do school talks?”
The light of anticipation died in his eyes as he straightened. “She mentioned it. I was just hoping he might have changed his mind.”
I shook my head. “I’m sorry, Mr. Stone. I really am. But it’s not his thing. He asked me not to ask him again. He doesn’t like being put in the position of having to say no to me,” I lied.
“Oh, then don’t, please,” Mr. Stone reassured me. “It was just a thought. You better get to your next class.”
As I was leaving he called my name again. I looked back and he gave me an encouraging smile. “You did well today.”
“Thanks, Mr. Stone.” I smiled back and left his classroom feeling reassured that my favorite teacher liked me as a pupil and not as K. L. Caldwell’s kid. But the lie I’d told him, and not the thing about my dad not enjoying saying no to me, sat heavy on my chest, refusing to shift.
I hated lying.
Yet, I hated the idea of my dad coming into our class and talking about writing and books with us. There was no way I’d let the rest of the world see the strange dynamic between me and my father. Plus, he’d love the whole thing. Educating young minds. Passing on literary wisdom. I didn’t want him to have that.
I didn’t want him to have any part of the one place in my life right now, outside of my beach and bedroom, that fit me.
* * *
“Comet!”
Startled by the interruption, I pulled out my earphones and twisted my neck to find my dad standing behind the bench I was sitting on. The sea wind blew his hair off his forehead and his T-shirt batted around his body like a flag.
I looked out at the sea and frowned to see how rough it was getting out there. The clouds above us were growing steadily dark.
“Carrie made her celebratory chicken curry. Thought you might want some.”
Although when I’d gotten home from school I’d eaten two muffins that Mrs. Cruickshank had baked, I wasn’t going to say no to Carrie’s chicken curry. Grabbing my stuff, I hopped off the bench and followed my dad over the esplanade and into the garden.
He glanced over his shoulder at me. “You’re not even wearing a jacket. It’s cold out here, Comet.”
Goose bumps prickled my skin, but I hadn’t even noticed, I’d been so lost in writing. “Yeah.”
After dumping my notebooks and pens in my bedroom I found my parents sitting at the island in the kitchen eating the only thing Carrie knew how to cook.
A bowl of curry had been left out for me, and I grabbed a water from the fridge before sitting down with them. Every time Carrie finished a commission, she made enough chicken curry to last us days. However, usually it was left to either Dad or me to feed us. I had to give my parents props for that. They had never forgotten to feed me. As far as I was aware.
“Kyle said you were writing. Again,” Carrie commented as I dug into my curry.
I froze and looked at them both through lowered lids.
“Finally going to admit we’ve got another writer in the family?” Dad teased.
“I’m not,” I lied. “It’s homework assignments for English.”
They seemed to accept that. Or at least they pretended to.
“I wish I was writing a bloody homework assignment.” Dad frowned at his dinner. “I wrote fifty words today. Fifty.”
“Honey, it will come.” Carrie wrapped her small hand around the nape of his neck and squeezed him in comfort. “It always does.”
He gave her a pained smile. “I think maybe I need a change of scenery.”
I covered my snort with a cough, but neither of them were looking at me. We lived on a beach! Hello! He had the best view of any writer, ever.
“Well, we could go away.” Carrie flicked a look at me. “Comet’s old enough to stay home alone for a few days.”
Again with the covering of more snorts.
I’d been old enough to stay home alone while they went on a mini-break together since I was thirteen years old. It was just another reason Mrs. Cruickshank didn’t like my parents. They’d left me to take a mini-break to Vienna, and our neighbor hadn’t realized I was home alone until my parents’ return. She’d told me to tell her next time so I could stay with her. I hadn’t ever actually stayed there, but the few times my parents did leave me at home while they traveled, she’d kept an eye on me and cooked dinner for me. To be fair Dad hadn’t seemed all that keen on the idea of leaving me, but Carrie had insisted she’d been left home alone far younger than that and it had never bothered her.
Except, I knew from my confounded curiosity and eavesdropping that the last part wasn’t true. As I’d grown older, stumbling—sometimes deliberately—upon their private conversations, I’d learned there were reasons that Carrie treated me like I was more of a housemate than her daughter. And although I was angry on her behalf, I was still furious on my own behalf, too.
“Why don’t we go to Montpellier for a long weekend? You love it there.”
Montpellier was my dad’s favorite city in southern France. I waited, dreading him saying yes. We might not spend huge amounts of time together when we were at home, but it was comforting to know they were there when I went to sleep. I hated being alone in the house at night. Whenever they left me, I slept with a baseball bat I’d borrowed from Steph beside my bed. Pride stopped me from slipping over to my neighbor’s house to stay in her guest bed. I didn’t want her to know it bothered me when my parents left me.
Dad turned to me, a plea in his eyes. “How would you feel about it, Comet? I just... I really need a break. Help with the writer’s block.”
I shrugged, like it was no big deal to me. “You guys do what you want.”
“There!” Carrie beamed at me. “We can go.”
He grinned back at her. “When should we leave?”
“I’ll see if I can book us in somewhere this Thursday to Monday.” She tilted her head. “Maybe we should consider making this a monthly thing. Why don’t we look at property while we’re there, get an idea of house prices?”
“I love the idea.” He glanced back at me. “As long as Comet’s okay with that?”
I swallowed a piece of chicken, the food I’d consumed suddenly sloshing around in my stomach. “Sure. Buy a holiday home in the south of France. I’ll just assume I’m not invited to these monthly weekend breaks.”
He gave me a pained look but Carrie scowled. “Comet, we’ve come this far without you turning into a sullen teenager. Don’t start now.”
“That would be a ‘Yes, Comet, you assume correctly.’” I pushed my bowl away, no longer hungry. “Don’t worry about it. I prefer when you’re not here anyway.”
After locking myself in my room, I slumped back on my bed and stared at my ceiling. When we first moved into the house I’d wanted glow in the dark stars all over my ceiling. The problem was the ceiling in my bedroom was higher than one in the average house. Before my bed was moved into the room, my dad had borrowed tall ladders and stuck the stars on the ceiling under my direction.
He and Carrie had argued that night, because she’d been left to unpack so much herself while he “arsed around with bloody stickers on the ceiling.”
A year later, when I asked if I could get fitted bookshelves, Dad hired a guy, didn’t even inspect the work as it was happening, or notice that I’d asked for the added expense of a ladder and rail so I could reach the highest shelves and move across them like Belle in the bookshop scene in Beauty and the Beast. When it was finished, my dad just paid the guy without commentary, without caring.
That was my dad. One minute he cared. The next he didn’t.
Mercurial.
That was one of my favorite words in the English language.
However, I doubted any kid wanted their parent to be mercurial.
I grabbed a pen and opened my notebook to write it all down.
A ball of frustration tightened in my chest. Why did I need that constant reminder? I should just get it by now. I was on my own. I always had been.
Enough of the woe!
I slammed my notebook closed and crossed the room to my bookshelves. It was time for a mood changer. My eyes lit on the first book in a bestselling teen vampire series. The heroine was sassy, kick-ass and she was all those things despite being neglected by her parents. I pulled out the book and curled up with it on the armchair in the corner of my room.
As I fell into my heroine’s adventure, my parents, the house...it all just melted away.
THE FRAGILE ORDINARYSAMANTHA YOUNG
5 (#ud4d4c379-b146-5280-a995-cf6b34f3b9f1)
Hey you, pretty girl with no filter,
Are we friends or are we enemies?
You’re mercurial and slightly off-kilter,
For my safety, I’m labeling us frenemies.
—CC
Much to my disturbance, I discovered that just because you tell yourself you can’t possibly be attracted to a Neanderthal, doesn’t mean you suddenly stop being attracted to a Neanderthal.
It was the only explanation for how hyperaware I seemed to be of Tobias King’s whereabouts. As it turned out we had three classes together. He was in my maths class as well as Spanish and English. All Higher classes, and from the little I’d gleaned over the week—because my ears were hyperaware of him, too, and pricked up anytime I heard someone discussing him—Tobias was in only Higher classes.
If his first week was anything to go by, however, he wouldn’t be there long.
Thursday, we were in maths, and I was sitting next to a girl I didn’t know well, Felicity Dodd. If it was possible, she was even quieter than I was. We hadn’t spoken a word to one another.
We hadn’t gotten that far into class when I became aware of a low hum of noise, and it struck me quite quickly that it was the sound of music blasting out of earphones. Our teacher, Ms. Baker, heard it, too, and stopped to scan the room. I turned to look behind me, my eyes automatically zeroing in on Tobias.
