Before I have time to sort through the voices, a herd of elephants pounds the steps, shaking the walls. I'm surprised when I look over and there're only the three of them-Ryan, Lauren, and Jace. Maybe their combined force exceeds their mass. Ryan stops abruptly and the other two slam into his back.
"Nice warning, vape-head," Jace says, pulling his thick jet-black hair out of his face. I've never met anyone with hair so black it almost shimmers. And his eyes are almost as dark, practically exotic, although this morning in the dim light I can see they're puffy from lack of sleep and probably lack of coffee. Jace is the only boy I know who drinks coffee at lunch hour, always a mug in his hand, a thermos in his backpack. I doubt it's the real stuff-just synth. The cost of plowing through that much real coffee a day would be exorbitant.
Lauren, with her mousy brown hair and mousy face-she even has a slight overbite that lends toward a cute rodent appearance-separates herself from the guys and retreats to the back wall. I'm thinking she's always had a gravitational resistance around other humans. Shy, quiet-voiced. And I don't mean to imply she's ugly. In fact, she really has a pretty face, but rallies zero confidence. From her occasional participation in problem-solving during our Chem Club meetings, I'm guessing her IQ makes mine pale in comparison. She can do equations in her head like nobody can, even multiply triple digits and-I'm not kidding-figure out square roots without a calculator. But her brilliance is her best-kept secret, and I know why. No one likes a smarty-pants girl. That's where she and I are well met. I can count on one hand the boys who would dare to date someone smart. It's like brainy girls have a sort of contagious disease and no matter how normal we try to be, the smarts leak out and scare them all away. She's a sophomore, but I wonder why she doesn't fast-track and graduate already; she's got to be as bored with school as I am. But, I don't know anything about her family or her goals. Like I said, she's pretty quiet, but she can be a lot of fun, and she's was there for me when Avery called it quits.
I glance at Jace. He brings out some kind of nurturing instinct in me; maybe it's because he draws back whenever I try to talk to him. I think he's suspicious of my gesture of friendship, or maybe he's intimidated by confident girls with ambition. There's something strangely compelling about him though, as if he goes deep in a different way than Dylan does. His face can be intense, yet radiates some inner strength, a kind of serenity in the midst of chaos. He sits in the back of many of my classes, doodling, tapping his feet, nodding off. Mostly nodding off. I can tell school bores him, but he's not one to complain or cop an attitude. My guess is he comes to school too exhausted to concentrate.