Marked, Chapter One *ROUGH*

         The first day of school is always hard. Especially when you’re the new kid trying to stay under the radar; or if you have something to hide. Everyone is looking at you, and as much as you think they don’t care enough to judge you, they do.
         But as much as you try to hide it, no matter what you're trying to hide, someone will always notice.
         I walked into school, my fists clenched tightly, trying to hide my scars. No one could know that I had two giant healed gashes on each palm. I never knew why I was so embarrassed to show my scars; most people are proud of them, showing them off, as if they were battle scars or something.
         I didn’t think so.
         I had no story to tell. There was no story to tell. I never knew how I acquired my strange markings, but for as long as I could remember, I had always had them.
         The halls of Libby High School were crowded--almost too crowded--with clusters of teenagers floating around me, closing in with every step that I took. Though they tried to make the halls brighter, warm and inviting, the school still had a dark, dreary feeling.
         Everyone went through the motions here. I wasn’t like that when I lived here before.
         Ten years ago, I was seven years old, and the Vass family was a happy one; my mother, my father, my old brother Jack and my little sister Kaylin and I.
         But then my father disappeared. He walked outside, and never came back.
         After that, it seemed like the whole family disbanded within the confines of our home. My sister and I stayed very close. We tried to keep each other’s spirits up, but to little avail. Jack sunk into a deep depression and never left his room. It wasn't the normal teenage angst-like depression; it was deeper than that. My mother followed suit, but always tried to put on this translucent mask for us.
         We moved into my grandparents’ home in Texas. That was a little better; my mother’s mood gradually got better, though Jack slipped deeper down. Then one day, as if deja vu had occurred, he vanished as well. This crushed my mother. But this time, she didn’t put on a mask for us; she bucked up and really started living.
         Living a little too much for my taste. From the time I was ten until now, we traveled. We went anywhere the wind would take us, it seemed like. Just Helen, Kaylin and I. I prefered the company over the traveling though; I was never going to be someone who liked to move around. I liked to sit still and let life happen to me, not chase life like a bloodthirsty cheetah.
         But, eventually, I got my wish. We finally settled down in the small town of Libby, Montana. Exactly what I wanted. Until my mother told us that she would not be homeschooling us anymore. I rued the day that I would return to the savage jungle of public school. Kaylin was excited though; new friends to talk to about boys and clothes and girl things that my masculine brain wouldn’t let me understand, so I complied.
         I rushed into my first class, Chemistry, searching frantically for a free seat, trying not to meet the eyes that I knew were on me. I hated when people stared. It felt like they were looking at my scars.
         I was inches from an open seat in the back when I was stopped dead in my tracks by a light hand firmly gripping my shoulder. A tall, slender, young woman was smiling behind me. She had large old-fashioned framed glasses with enthusiastic brown eyes dancing at the sight of a brand new specimen. But she looked at me as if she’d known me my whole life.
         “Everyone look up here,” she was snapping to gather their attention. “This is our new student!”
         She looked at me with kind eyes. “David Vass.”
         She jabbed out her hand for me to shake it, which I did very carefully, as not to reveal my scars to the monsters that were my new classmates. But as she felt the large bump against her palm, she quickly looked up and me, peering with her eyes narrowed and a slight smirk.
         Ms. Rey gestured for me to walk back to the seat I was intending on sitting at and began the class.
         There was no lesson; she just passed out forms for parents to sign and showed off her classroom. Normal first day of school things. I doodled lightly in my notebook when I saw her long finger tap my table.
         She pulled me out into the hallway and I could hear the class hum with chatter as soon as she stepped out.
         “Where are you from, Mr. Vass?” she asked, looking very intrigued.
         “Uh...here. My mother, sister and I moved to Texas awhile ago, but then started traveling. But now we’re back.” I tried to smile.
         “Leonis Silus Vass,” she droned with a reminiscent smile.
         I backed away a little bit upon hearing her say my father’s full name exactly. How could she know his name? Maybe she knew him. But my father wasn’t originally from here.
         She sighed and said, “I’d like to talk to Helen; to have a little conference with her. Catch up. Does that sound fine?” Ms. Rey tilted her head sideways.
         I nodded.
         “You know, I saw you coming. That is to say, I figured that you all would move back.”
         The bell rang shortly after a brief and awkward silence. She waved at me as I walked down the hall to my next class. I kept my hands confined in my pockets, thinking about our short conversation. Suddenly someone was walking very closely to my right. I could feel their presence, and I felt the strange feeling of being stared at. Shocked, I peered to my right to see a dirty blonde haired girl, around my height, walking beside me, smiling and gazing warmly into my eyes.
         “May I see your hand?” she asked, still smiling.
         I couldn’t help but to smile back at her; her smile was infectious. “No, I’m sorry. I don’t think you’d like to see them.”
         She pouted like a three year old denied of candy. “Fine. But if I see you later, I’ll ask you again!”
         “I’ll bet on it,” I replied, waving slighting as she back away into a classroom. This was turning out to be a more eventful first day than I would have thought; a girl talked to me.
         It’s not that I was afraid of girls, or couldn’t talk to them, I just didn’t want to get too close to anyone. I had a weird “everyone is leaving me” complex after Jack left. If anyone I cared about was around me, I never wanted them to leave if I didn’t know that they would return or if I would see them again. It was strange. But it got better; I got better.
         I brushed my fingers through my hair as I walked into my next class, English, knowing it would be the same routine. But thankfully, Mr. Wells just shook my hand and pointed me to a seat on the far left of the classroom.
         English was probably might best subject; reading and writing was my passion. Escaping from this ordinary life and plunging into the life of others. It was therapeutic. Cathartic.
         While Mr. Wells explained what class would be like this year, I stared outside, daydreaming about the strange girl who approached me. I wanted to know why she came up to me. I wasn’t all that interesting; average dark brown hair, average light brown eyes, average teenage skin. I wasn’t ugly, I just wasn’t a ‘perfect specimen’.
         The bell rang, and the two classes after English droned on until lunch. The cafeteria was the meeting place for the animals of this jungle, and I was not going to be subjected to a mob of barely pubescent teenage beasts. After I gathered my food from the lunch line and payed, I strolled inconspicuously to the side of the lunch room to a door leading to some tables staggered on a deck outside.
         My lunch was silent. I wanted to be at home with my mother and my sister. I grew almost irritated at the thought of just sitting there, even outside of the school.
         Lunch ended abruptly and I lagged steadily to French class. Mrs. Dubeaux greeted me with warm blue eyes and her petite frame ushered me to a small cluster of four desks. I sat at the empty one, not even paying attention to who sat at the table with me.
         There, beaming across from me, was the girl from the hallway, bright eyed as any little girl I had ever seen before. I never realized how pretty she was until that moment. Her dirty blonde locks rolled fluidly down her back, her hazel eyes were alive with spirit, her smile too infectious. She had a sweet, childlike beauty.
         “Hey you!” she giggled touching the back of my hand. I retracted slightly.
         I lifted up my free hand for a haphazard wave.
         Her expression calmed and she looked to the boy sitting at her side. He was one of the typical archetypes of the high school hierarchy; tall, muscular, with a charismatic smile and cloaked in a letterman jacket. He had the same dirty blonde hair as the girl, but buzzed into a military style haircut.
         “I,” she started, “am Savannah Rey. This is my brother--excuse me,” she cleared her throat, “my little brother Bobby. I think you have our sister for Chem.”
         Bobby stretched out a large hand, and I obliged his gesture. He was almost identical to his sister, besides being male. His face was too lively, but his eyes had a childlike quality.
         I snorted. “How much littler?” I asked sarcastically. This was an almost full grown man, so it was quite hard to believe that he could be any younger than her.
         “I’m sixteen,” he boomed. His face still strangely enthusiastic. This had to be the family goal for them: be excited at all times.
         “And I am seventeen, eighteen in June.” Savannah’s voice was hardy for a girl, boisterous and full. “June 19th.”
         “Funny,” I smiled, “Mine is June 18th.”
         Mrs. Dubeaux started class, but the two continued, whispering at each other. I couldn’t quite catch the whole conversation betwixt them, it seemed like their mouths were hardly moving at all, but I managed to get a few words. One word was spoken prominently, more often and louder than the others.
         Over and over again they seemed to squeeze in the word “marked” into every facet of their hushed conversation. What did they mean by marked? Did that apply to me? I thought to myself, suddenly becoming very insecure, balling up my fists.
         Then Savannah looked up and me and gave me that large smile before turning around and engaging in class. Her brother did the same; leaving me there to my thoughts.
         School ended and I began trudging home on the sidewalk. A slightly more eventful for day than I would have thought, although the majority lulled me into a daydream filed stupor.
         Kaylin managed to catch up to me, her face almost as enthused as the siblings from French. Her day seemed to go along great.
         “Did you make some friends, Kay?” I asked, trying to seem invested. I always tried to watch out for her. When my father left and the other half of the family sank into depression, we were there for each other. I never had to ask her a lot, though. We always seemed to know exactly what each other was thinking.
         She nodded frantically, her fifteen year old head almost flying from her neck.
         “Yes! There’s Amanda, she’s a tall brunette. Then Rose, she has red hair, but in the little pixie cut that’s so cute! Then there’s a girl named Hilary. She’s quiet, but she’s really pretty!” She flipped her light brown hair to the side. “How was your day?”
         I shrugged. “I met some people. My teachers are cool, I guess. Especially my Chemistry teacher, Ms. Rey. I have her brother and sister in French with me, Savannah and Bobby.”
         Her eyes grew wide when I mentioned Bobby. Her mind must have flown into a strange flurry. Bobby Rey must have been the “cutest sophomore in the school” kinda guy. The kind of guy that could garner any girl that he wanted to, no matter what age. But he didn’t seem like the womanizer type. If you looked him in the eyes, you would swear he was a small child.
         I continued, “They also kept talking to each other about something being marked.”
         “Hey, maybe they meant our scars!”
         I stopped, petrified. They could not have seen my scars. I almost collapse on the sidewalk.
         I had forgotten, though, that both my sister and I had strange scars. Mine were on each palm, hers were on her knuckles. She showed them off as if they were amazing works of art. I had to admit, they were strangely beautiful. They were the same color as her lightly tanned skin, and squiggled like the aquarius symbol.
         “No, Kaylin, they were not talking about my scars,” I fumed quietly.
         She pursed her lips and looked straight ahead. “Maybe they were, David, you never know. People could talk about anything, you know.”
         That’s exactly what I had feared. But their faces were not scrutinizing. Either they were fascinated or they were making fun, though they didn’t seem like the emotionally abusive type. So I tried let it go, ushering my sister through the sidewalk traffic of middle school kids.
         Whatever Savannah and Bobby were talking about, hopefully it was not about me.
         Kay rushed into the house, leaving the door open for me. She slung her backpack on the couch and ran into the kitchen. My mother was there, starting on dinner. Taco night.
         I walked leisurely into the kitchen and sat at the island, grabbing a large, shiny, red apply from a bowl at the center. I looked around the new kitchen, the walls still smelled of freshly dried paint. We only just moved into this house a few weeks ago, so everything was still brand new. It wasn’t too large, but it fit three people comfortably.
Helen, her smile warm and inviting, was slicing lettice on the other side of the spacious kitchen. “How was the first day of school, you two?” Her voice was calm but filled with life.
         Kaylin was the first to answer, of course. “Great!”
She repeated the story about her newly acquired girlfriends, including the details of their hair and personalities. “Oh, and David’s new friend’s talked about our scars…”
         I cut her off before she could finish, but she said all that she needed to.
         My mom immediately stopped chopping away at vegetables and looked directly into my eyes. I was helpless; nothing was more piercing than my mother’s gaze.
         “It was nothing,” I assured. “All I could hear them say was ‘marked’ over and over again. Meant nothing to me.
         Helen smiled, but her eyes were worried. I could have sworn, while she was turning around, that she murmured, “It should.”
         After dinner, I retired to my room. It, also, was recovering from the freshly dried paint. Also the color; my mother painting my room a rather loud blue. It was too loud for a seventeen year old, but for her it was perfect. She said it showcased my personality perfectly.
         That night, I found it hard to sleep. I tossed and turned in my bed, waking up every forty-five minutes. Finally, out of sheer desperation, I pushed my palms into my eyes.
         A warm, soothing sensation entered my eyes and spread throughout my whole body. I was asleep two minutes later, dreaming about my father who had abandoned us.