The Cure

“So? Did you understand?”

Sola, who had been watching a beetle crawling along the wall, deigned to look at her companion only after he addressed her directly.

“…Could you just be quiet for a while?”

A crease appeared once again on his yellowish forehead, bearing witness to the ill temper of its owner.

“You weren’t even listening!”

With a flick of her wrist, she set the timer on the edge of the table.

"Fine, just get off my back."

Sola moved one of the pawns at random. Then she did it once again, this time under annoying correction. The game, which promised to be a quick one and end at the sound of the bell, continued with monotonous questioning and occasional instruction. The boy simply could not calm down.

“Protect the king. And the queen protects the king better than anyone. She is the strongest piece.”

Sola nodded, while at the same time trying to make him understand that she was not involved in the meaning of his words.

“I am Stupid.”

The rook, clutched in the girl's fingers, stopped in midair. She stared at him indifferently. For a long time.

“I know.”

“How?”

For the first time, Sola had nothing to say in response. The meaningfulness of their dialogue was fading into nothing with each following minute.

“I say my name is Stu Pitt. Stu Pitt.”

Sola didn't understand if it was supposed to be funny or not, as the guy's face took on a serious expression.

"Your parents have a good sense of humor.”

Not too offended, Mister Pitt continued watching the game, which had been paused.

“So, you’re one of those people?”

Even though he didn’t finish his sentence, Sola understood exactly what kind of people he meant.

“Yeah, of course. I just slammed some nerd into a wall.”

His tan ears took on a faint crimson tint. He turned away in embarrassment, hiding them behind a mass of wavy curls. A dark bruise was visible along his jaw, apparently a reminder of the humiliation he’d suffered in the hallway that morning.

“These guys from the sports club are only good at scoring goals, not at socializing with people. Some of them are even on the student council,” he said, then snorted. “Amazing.”

“Yeah, I saw one like that in English class. He was hitting on the teacher. Whatever.”

Stu immediately knew who she was talking about.

“Shawnee? So you’ve got English with Miss Peters? Lucky you! She’s the only teacher everyone here actually likes.”

He was clearly pleased that Sola had finally joined the conversation. And more relaxing, he lowered his voice and whispered.

“He’s just the tip of the iceberg. Since this is the only high school in town, you’ve got both normal people and complete psychos here.”

The piercing clang of the bell jolted every student, pulling them away from whatever they had been focused on. Sola grabbed her backpack, eager to get away from the nosy busybody as quickly as possible.

“Hey, uh…”

Stu glanced away for a split second to grab the jacket hanging over his chair. Its worn fabric had been carefully patched by hand with pieces of different cloth. They looked like decorative stickers people put on their clothes for style. Except these patches were covering holes.

“…you.”

With a sea of unspoken thoughts swirling through his mind, he turned back. But the girl was already gone.

The floor plan didn't help her figure out where the library was.

"Left side... I think."

The wall guide indicated her current location, making it difficult to navigate the numerous directions and paths. Especially for someone who was new to the school. She traced her finger along the long lines, following the descriptions of hallways and classrooms that resembled the burrows of a mole rather than a school plan. All she had to do was ask a passing student.

But the moment she opened her mouth, people who weren’t paying attention to anything around them nearly shoved her aside as they rushed past. She wouldn’t have recognized any of the kids from English by face – even if they’d actually talked. Deciding it was a lost cause, she continued down the hallway, figuring she’d just sit through the next class without her textbook.

Then, through the gap between two open locker doors, she caught sight of a jacket covered in colorful patches, and a voice made her stop. Behind the locker door, the boy was crouched down, speaking quietly into his phone.

“Yeah, Mom, I ate! Yeah, everything’s fine. No, Mom, I’m on my way home. Yeah, I’ll call you when I get there. No, Mom, you don’t need to call me for the sixth time today!”

He hung up and reached back into his locker. Sola cleared her throat to announce her presence.

“Hey. Show me where the library is.”

Leaning back against the wall with her arms crossed, she watched him. Pitt grimaced the moment he saw her and went right back to rummaging through his locker. Deliberately avoiding her gaze, he started rearranging the textbooks inside, hoping she’d eventually leave.

“Why are you digging around in there? You already took everything you need.”

He didn’t answer, turning his head away. Standing at his full height, he was still a couple of inches shorter than she was.

Sola didn’t press the issue. Instead, she calmly stepped closer, closing the distance between them by a couple of paces. She pulled the sheet the principal had given her from the side pocket of her backpack. As she skimmed over the information again, she noticed one surprisingly convenient detail.

“Oh. Our lockers are next to each other.”

She remarked on it casually, without any intention of giving the words a negative undertone. But Stu suddenly slammed his locker shut and finally acknowledged her existence.

“Walk out of the school and turn right to the other building. Go in from outside and ask the security guard where the library is.”

Sola gave him a playful little bow and turned to leave.

“You’re going now? Most people head straight home if they get the chance instead of picking up books.”

“Home? I’ve got, like, math.”

She held out the schedule, invading the space between them. Stu looked at her, then hesitantly took the sheet she was offering.

“You’ve got math on the second floor. So do I. The teacher’s at an off-campus seminar, so she won’t be here today. Everyone who doesn’t have any after-school activities gets to go home.”

Sola nodded, already ready to bolt for the exit, mowing down anyone in her way. One of her backpack straps caught on Pitt’s locker and snagged. When she jerked forward, the other strap slipped off her shoulder, and the open backpack tumbled to the floor. Its meager contents spilled out: a chewed-up pen, her journal, and a broken digital camera. They both reached down at the same time to gather the scattered items and bumped their foreheads together.

“Ouch.”

“Sorry.”

Sola rubbed the spot where they’d bumped heads while Stu examined one of her belongings.

“That’s cool!” he said with genuine admiration, turning the scratched camera over in his hands and peering through its dirty lens.

“But it’s broken.”

“Give it to me. I’ll fix it.”

Sola picked up her backpack, now stuffed once again with everything that mattered. Stu’s offer wasn’t nearly as appealing to her as he seemed to think it was. She wasn’t about to trust a find like that to someone she’d just met. Then again, if it really was broken, she didn’t want to spend money repairing something that wasn’t even hers.

“I don’t know anything about cameras, but even I can tell it’s practically new. You’ll just keep it and never give it back.”

“You really think that of me?” He pursed his lips, this time visibly offended.

“I don’t think anything about you. I don’t know you.”

She snatched the camera out of his hands and tossed it into the half-open backpack. Sola started to walk away, but Stu tagged along behind her like a lost puppy.

“So, what’s your name?”

“Sola,” she muttered reluctantly.

Under his expectant stare, she realized what he was really asking.

“My last name’s De Angelis.”

“I don’t know anyone around here with that last name…”

Sola let out a snort, realizing there was no escaping his relentless curiosity now.

“Oh, sure. It's like you know everything.”

This remark turned out to be somewhat inappropriate. After all, as it turned out, Stu was indeed an "encyclopedic-man." The short walk was filled with one long monologue about awkward incidents and amusing stories – ones that liked not the listener, but the storyteller himself. It felt like someone was following her around, reading the school newspaper aloud, covering every little thing that had happened on campus. The kind of newspaper only the people who wrote it actually bothered to read.

But what set Stu apart from other chatterboxes was his favorite habit: finding hidden meanings where there weren’t any. Every other sentence ended with some far-fetched conclusion based entirely on his own theories. Usually, it was something like:

“…but I think that flood in the bathroom was deliberate. The school administration staged the whole thing to punish the students for that prank in the gym.”

Every time he came out with another “That didn’t happen for no reason” or “There’s more to it than that,” Sola made a point of rolling her eyes.

“I think Mr. Freeman has a twin brother. But the brother’s mentally disabled – and a danger to society. I’m telling you, it’s true! Every Saturday, Mr. Freeman goes out for an early morning run. Never misses it. But one Saturday, after sunrise, I saw him just standing outside his house. He wasn’t moving. Just standing there… staring at me.”

Sola slowed her pace, finally deciding to say something after letting him carry the conversation by himself the entire time. He was the only one who’d seemed interested in it, anyway.

“You don’t have any friends, do you?”

“No…”

“That wasn’t a question.”

As they stepped outside, Sola was about to head in the opposite direction.

“So… what are we gonna do about the camera?”

“We?”

Clinging to the chance to keep around the one person who’d managed to tolerate a few minutes of his company, Stu said,

“How about we go to my home? I’ll take a look at it while you’re there. Maybe I can fix it. It’d be a shame for something that expensive to just sit around.”

At first, Sola couldn’t believe what she’d heard. The help wouldn’t hurt, and at the very least, it’d give her something to do.

Go home with someone you’d known for less than a few hours? No matter how harmless he looked, she could almost hear her grandmother’s warning echo in the back of her mind:

Don’t trust anyone.

After giving it all careful consideration, Sola delivered her final verdict.

“Eh… sure.”