"Ethan Jackman, why are you late for class?"

That was the first reaction I got when I entered Ms. Fox's English class. She wasn't the only one waiting for an answer. A room full of students stared at me attentively. I had never been late before.

"I've been really busy lately with homework, work, student council, and basketball. I think it just got to me and I woke up late today."

My parents always knew when I was lying. They said that I was bad at it. Someone coughed.

"You do look very tired, and your face is all red. Do you want to go see the nurse?"

"I'm fine really. After that long nap I -"

Ms. Fox moved quickly for a stout woman and placed her hand on my forehead.

"You're burning up and your face is flushed."

"I'm fine. What are we learning today?"

She grabbed my wrist to check my pulse.

"…The influence of French aesthetics on contemporary literature. We're also going to look at Romanticism and Mary Shelley's provocative story of obsessive knowledge. It's called Frankenstein."

The whisperings in the classroom grew louder.

"What have you lectured on already?"

She checked her watch, while placing two fingers by my throat.

"I've introduced the Age of Enlightenment and we briefly talked about how it caused writers to think about our natural senses. This was around the time authors began using a variety of techniques to appeal to our aesthetic values."

She placed her hand on my forehead again.

"Such as…?"

"…Dualism, imagery, fantasy, suspense, humor… and other various devices. It's mostly about 'affect', the emotional sense created by the reader."

"Ms Fox, I really am fine. I just-"

"I'm going to call the nurse and don't worry, I'll make you a photocopy of the notes. The Romantics were mostly a bunch of people who had nothing better to do but sit around philosophizing about individual imagination and smoking up opium. Ok, there's more to it than that, but I think you need to see the nurse. This is a school that houses students and prevention is important. We don't want an epidemic."

The stout woman quickly reached the phone by the door and dialed the extension. While she was on the phone, a student sitting on the front made a nerve wrecking comment.

"I've never seen you with those clothes before. They look familiar though, and they're kind of big on you."

I forced a smile as a million reasons formed in my head.

"Ethan," Ms Fox called while placing a hand on the speaker, "I called the nurse. My God, you're face looks like a cherry now."

The infirmary was located on the opposite side of the school from the main office. During the making of the blueprint for the academy the issue of where to place the infirmary was debated. It was decided that it would be placed away from the offices so that students would be more comfortable with seeing the two medical staff members of the school, the nurse and a local doctor that came to the school twice a week.

The infirmary served its major educational purposes during Sex Ed. Coach Decker was uncomfortable talking about the topic so he left it either to the nurse or the doctor. Though pregnancy was not an issue, protection from STD's still had to be taught to its full extent. Many of the staff members were empathetic to the coach. The tutor of Sex Ed had to complete one embarrassing task. There was an artificial penis in the medical room that the tutor would use to place a condom over it. As silly as the exercise may have looked, it was important to acknowledge the fact that a large percentage of teens were sexually inactive.

"So you must be Ethan. My name's Maria and I am the school nurse."

She had greeted me by the door and had a clip board with a sheet that she was filling out.

"How much sleep did you get last night?"

"Seven hours," I lied again.

"Did you eat breakfast this morning?"

My cheeks burned up again.

"Yes."

"Do you smoke?"

"No."

"Do you participate in more than one extracurricular activity?"

"Yes."

"Are you sexually active?"

I froze.

She laughed, "I'm just joking. Have a seat inside."

Maria continued to giggle. Gets them every time, her eyes gleamed.

I sat in the waiting room and made myself comfortable. Nervousness wrecked havoc in my body. I shouldn't be here. I should be in class learning about French aesthetics and analyzing the Romantic philosophies behind Frankenstein. I should have come to school earlier. Dammit.

A Forbes magazine lay on the desk in front of me. The shiny cover of the magazine had familiar looking faces on it. At first I didn't pay attention. I was too worried about my attendance in English class. But when time dragged on I needed something to focus on. I looked at the magazine again. The title read, 'Gas pipeline tycoons'. There were three men on the cover. The one on the left looked strikingly familiar. I flipped through the pages. When I found another picture of the same man, I looked for his name. That last name… There were around 700 billionaires in the world, and his father was one of them. I knew what it meant, and it made me sad to think about it. Why hadn't I seen this coming?

"Ethan? What are you doing here?"

Snowy chased my thoughts away. I closed the magazine and placed it beside me. He held a paper bag on his left hand. I assumed that it was the treatment for his acne. When I thought about his question my face grew as red as his was.

"Ms Fox said I didn't look too good today so she sent me here. I guess that's what happens when you're late once in your life."

He nodded and looked at the clothes I was wearing. I knew the questions that he wanted to ask. But he never asked them.

"I guess you're right."

Snowy always looked troubled. This was different. He stood awkwardly in front of me.

"Snowy, how are you-"

"Ethan," Maria appeared by another doorway, "the doctor wants to see you."

Doctor? My thoughts changed again.

"I'll see you later," Snowy said.

I nodded and headed towards Maria.

"You weren't at the gym today."

It made me turn around. He sounded disappointed. I wanted to say sorry, but he walked away.

I sighed. My first reaction to the new room was familiarity. It reminded me of all the times my mom would come with me to see the family doctor. The doctor of Montega Academy sat in a desk. His back was towards me. Maria handed him a folder with my name on it. Before she left she giggled and the doctor smacked her ass. My eyes became circular. The nurse giggled again and finally left.

The doctor finally turned around. He had those glasses that made his eyes look bigger than they were.

"So what kind of car do you drive?"

I was momentarily confused by the question. He motioned me to take a seat.

"I don't drive."

"Oh that's a shame. Open your mouth. Wider. Good."

He used a Popsicle stick to move my tongue around. He had a name tag. Dr. John Bishop.

"Young people these days are always lusting after imported cars. They don't value the true concept of American taste. I, myself, just recently bought a Corvette. Your tonsils seem to be fine."

He placed the Popsicle stick by the counter beside the sink.

"Everyone underestimated the vehicle when it was first introduced in the lobby of New York's Waldorf-Astoria Hotel on Jan. 16, 1953. I guess no one predicted that the Corvette, named after a small warship made for convoy duty, would be the ultimate sports car over five generations of bodies and powertrain combinations."

I nodded as if I understood the relevance of the information he was giving me. He placed his hands on my face and pulled my right eye open while flashing a light into it.

"Anyway, your eyes seem to be fine. No dilation and your temperature is normal. Do you do drugs?"

I shook my head, "No. I've never even tried them before."

He nodded.

"Did you get any sleep last night?"

My face became a fiery red.

"Oh, I see," he said with smile on his face, "I'll just tell Ms Fox that you were suffering from over exhaustion. That should clear her extraneous concerns. You should wait here till next period so that she doesn't question you any further."

He winked. I cleared my throat.

"Thank you, Dr. Bishop."

"Please call me Dr. John. Dr. Bishop was my father."

I nodded and headed out the door.

"Oh and before you leave," he called out, "Here take some of these."

Dr. John handed me little wrapped packets. Initially I thought they were candy. But after taking a closer look I realized that he was giving me condoms. I almost collapsed from sheer embarrassment.

Waiting for forty minutes wasn't as painful as I thought it would have been. My mind continually shifted from the condoms in my pocket to the Forbes magazine that lay on the table. Some how I managed to pull myself away from these thoughts and began doing some homework for an assignment that was due the following week. After a while I began to see Dr. John's smile at the back of my head. I shook my head and continued with the assignment.

I would have been completely comfortable in my next class if it hadn't been for a certain French boy who happened to be my roommate. With great caution and some determination I entered my math class. Pierre was sitting in his usual spot. His head rested on his palm and his elbow rested on the table. He was staring out the window, playing with a pencil on his other hand. Cumulonimbus clouds hung on the horizon of the infinite blue.

Silently, I took my seat beside him. He turned his head slowly to my direction. His uniquely colored eyes reflected from the light. But before he could form a question from his lips, Mr. Roberts began class. I sighed with relief. Trigonometry began with its slow and daunting pace. The lesson wasn't slow enough and before long we were told to start doing questions from the textbook.

"The Halloween party was pretty good, especially the part where Joe showed Timmy some good communication skills," Pierre laughed.

Yes, let's talk about the Halloween party.

"That's probably a highlight that no one will forget. I really liked the pumpkin stuffing contest. That was interesting."

He flipped the pages of the textbook.

"It was a great idea. I'm glad you came up with the concept and theme this year. It was getting kind of redundant doing the same thing over again."

I wrote down the question.

"I'm just glad we got all that help from everyone. Even the cleanup wasn't that bad."

"Where did you go afterwards? You never came back to the dorm. I was actually getting worried."

I froze.

"I was…"

He dropped his pencil and stared at me with wide eyes.

"You went there, didn't you?"

I nodded.

"Oh I want to hear all the juicy little details. It's not like I haven't heard it from everyone else who's been in your position, but I just didn't think-"

"Pierre!" Mr. Roberts called out, "Be quiet and get back to work."

Our eyes went back to our textbooks. I sighed with another relief. We continued to analyze the sides and angles of the triangles from the assigned pages. I found that the theorems were easy to understand. It was the problem solving that became extremely difficult. I couldn't compensate the relationship between the word equations and the formulas that we learned today. From time to time Pierre's brilliant curious eyes would meet mine, craving for information about the night before. I guess I was only relieved that he didn't pay attention to the difference in my clothing. I brushed the blond strands of hair from my forehead and glanced once again at the questions. Though I could physically see the numbers, letters and symbols, my mind had drifted into parts unknown.

The five minutes before a period ends is usually accompanied by the hustle and bustle routine of packing up. This is the time when conversations from earlier would pick up. I was afraid Pierre would continue to investigate my whereabouts. But he was too concerned with solving the last remaining puzzle of the trigonometric problem. It was the minute before the bell rang that he began probing me for more answers.

"First of all, how did it happen?"

He closed his books.

"What?"

I pretended not to know what he was talking about.

"You know."

Making sure I had everything, I followed the herd of students towards the exit.

"No, I don't know what you're talking about."

"Oh," He said while following me, "You don't want to talk about it."

The hallways were crowded. I remained silent.

"Listen, Ethan. We're both mature young adults. And I thought we were becoming good friends. It's not a big deal, anyway."

I forced a laugh, "I seriously don't know what you're talking about, Pierre."

"Back when we only knew each other for like a few days, I told you about George."

A flashback of his sunglasses and black eye appeared in my head. He got me there. I stopped and turned around to face him. We were in the middle of the hallway.

"You told me when you were ready to tell me. When I'm more comfortable to talk about it, you'll hear it from me first."

He nodded and we continued to walk.

"But can you at least tell me if it was good or not?"

I took a deep breath.

Pierre chuckled, "I'm just joking."

After dropping our books off by our lockers, we headed towards the cafeteria. I was hungry. And to be honest, I was little excited. I browsed through the daily specials and selected a meal. Pierre was already ahead of me and waved me over to the gold member's table. While walking over there I noticed Snowy sitting by his lonesome.

The pimpled face boy stared absent mindedly at a poster by the wall in front of him. He was sipping on a bowl of soup. Headphones were in his ears and his fingers drummed to the tune of a song. That feeling from the pit of my stomach returned again, but quickly disappeared as a tall figure came by to sit with him. However, my assumption of friendly intentions disappeared when I saw the look on Snowy's face. Snowy got up and tried to leave but a forceful hand shoved him back to sit down. The figure laughed at his attempt to leave. Dark hair and hazel eyes barely held back the aggressiveness of his attitude. My legs moved me towards them.

"Hey Snowy, come sit with me."

His twisted facial expressions were trying to communicate something to me.

"Snowy is already comfortable sitting here."

The guy's large hand tightly gripped Snowy's shoulder. I went around the table and sat across from them.

"I don't think we've met. My name-"

"I know who you are. You usually sit in that table over there. You go around pretending to be someone your not, hanging out with third rate losers who think they own everything they touch. You get straight A's in all your classes. You probably have a job outside the school. Your part of the basketball team. You got here through the scholarship program. And you walk around secretly desiring the attention of the captain of the football team, always evading his advances just so you can tell yourself that you're more special than the next person. Yeah, I know who you are."

I nodded silently.

But after a few seconds I replied, "And I know who you are. You're the one who goes around pretending to be someone your not, hanging out with people you think are your friends, but really don't want anything to do with you. You flunk all your classes. You also have a job outside of school, but you only have it because you want to prove to your parents that you don't need them. You don't participate in any school activities. You got here because your parents forced you to. And you walk around with this 'rebel without a clue' act just you can tell yourself that you're different from everyone else here."

We had a staring contest for several seconds.

He broke the silence, "I think I'm going to like you."

I shot a glance at Snowy. He had a surprised look on his face but I could tell that he was still uncomfortable.

"Are you giving my friend a hard time?" I asked him.

His facial features resembled that of amusement.

"He's not bothering me at all, Ethan," Snowy interjected.

Their body language said otherwise, so it was my turn to look surprised.

"Your friend and I were just having a… friendly… conversation. You can go back to your table without feeling guilty."

"Yeah, Ethan, you really don't have to worry about anything. I'll talk to you in gym class."

I was puzzled by their interaction. Who was this guy? What was his relationship to Snowy? And was Snowy asking me to leave?

"Are you sure you want me to leave?"

Before Snowy could nod his head, the guy he was with said, "It's kind of personal."

There was an attractive nature about his attitude. But his high cheekbones couldn't hide my suspicions.

I nodded, "I'll see you later then."

"It was nice to meet you too," the stranger said.

I forced a smile and walked away with my food. Snowy was always a nervous person. But there was something else etched in his brow. It was different from his usual shy self. My thoughts quickly changed again when I reached the table of the school's student council.

The captain of our school's football team sat casually next to Joe. They were laughing about something. My chest was drumming a loud beat that couldn't be ignored. It occurred to me now that I didn't know how to approach the table. I didn't know how to enter and not feel the way I was feeling at this moment. It's a scary thing. The speed of beats within my chest continued to accelerate. Pierre had reserved a spot for me. Unfortunately it was the seat next to Damien.

"Hi, E," he said calmly.

I couldn't tell what his facial expressions were because I had looked away. Boo was chewing on some noodles. Eric and some of his Brown member friends were gossiping about something. Pierre was looking at me strangely.

"Hey," I finally turned to lightly punch the football player in the arm.

He laughed and moved closer to place a hand on my ear.

In a soft but firm whisper, "It's about time you got here, my sexy boy."

All the blood in my body rushed to my face.

"I'm good, Damien. How are you?"

He winked.

"I had the best sleep last night, so there's nothing for me to complain about."

Pierre began laughing hysterically. He had the attention of our table and all the other tables around us. I wanted to leave. After several seconds he calmed down.

"Sorry guys. I just remembered something funny. Anyway, Ethan, we wanted to talk to you about something."

His tone of voice became serious.

"We've heard about a conversation you had with Timmy last night."

I nodded.

Bobby continued, "You guys had a heart-to-heart and now you don't want to go through with the original plan that you initially suggested to us."

Joe crossed his arms, "The plan will crash without you anyway, but it would be nice for you to explain your sudden decision."

Under the table, I felt a large hand squeeze the part of my leg just above my knee caps.

"We're not trying to corner you," Damien said, "We just want an explanation."

I clasped my hands on the table, "He knew what I was trying to do all along."

That was all I said. I guess they had no choice but to agree. It was my idea after all, and I no longer wanted to go through with it.

"That's cool," he squeezed my leg again, "We all know now what Timmy is like. If we keep him as school president, we can at least keep an eye on him."

I knew the only reason why he said that was so that he could defend me. But I wondered if he actually believed in the things that he said. The others had gone back to the things they were doing earlier. And I was stuck thinking about the thin line between compassion and pity. But an electric shock blasted those thoughts away.

I didn't notice it at first. He never took his hand away from my leg. The palm of it lay flat on the fabric of my pants. His long thick fingers kneaded the flesh beneath. He was sharing a joke with Joe. They laughed. I didn't pay attention, until his palm slid further up my pant leg. His fingers lightly gripped my thighs. I almost choked on my food. He began rubbing my inner thigh.

Boo came to sit next to me on the other side, "We need to talk about next week's game."

His eyelashes accentuated his angular face whenever he blinked.

"What about it?"

I couldn't think straight. Damien pressed his palm down and gripped upwards, massaging firmly.

"I wanted to test out a new strategy. I just wanted to make sure you were available sometime this week."

My breathing became heavy so I forced myself to eat more food.

"Since the Halloween event is over I can probably fit my schedule around it."

The hand glided higher.

"Perfect."

The finger tips rested on the fabric of my crotch.

"Are you ok, Ethan?"

I grabbed the hand with my own and placed it on the owner's leg.

"Yeah, I'm just curious about your new strategy."

He grinned, "Oh, you're going to love it."

Boo patted me on the shoulder and left to talk to another teammate.

I turned towards Damien and Joe.

"Guys, I have a question."

"Is it about your first wet dream?" Joe teased.

"Close," I laughed, "Have you guys ever heard of urges?"

*          *          *          *          *          *

The pier was cooler than expected that night. The stars freckled around the harbor. Water rippled beneath the planks and out over the ocean. Small and massive boats floated slowly in motion. The echo of animals blurred against the splashing sounds of economic pressure. This was the trading station of Oahu. The significance of Hawaii's location in-between the South East Asian peninsula and the West Coast of North America was never overlooked. This was the place in-between the cultural divide of east and west, the bridge of dreams.

I had told Sophie about what I've learned. The investigation was never really over. We try to forget things we know so that we could protect ourselves from the truth. But when we do try to search for that truth, we find out that there really wasn't much to know. Sometimes when I lie in bed I don't think about the past. When I wake up I would remember and then feel guilty for even trying to ignore it. There were marks on Kyle's body that suggested a struggle before he fell off the balcony of his bedroom window. The head trauma killed him. But it was the traces of a drug found in his body that puzzled the investigators. His murder wasn't by accident. It was planned.

Lysergic Acid Diethylamide, known as acid on the streets and LSD in the classroom, is a powerful semisynthetic psychedelic drug. It changes the way one sees the world by intensifying and altering the human perceptions. Your senses, feelings, memories and self-awareness take a back seat to the colorful crazy world of a warped reality. It is colorless, odorless and if used with an absorbent, tasteless. It was introduced to the world of medicine as a therapeutic agent. However, the widespread recreational use of the drug resulted in the banning of the substance. The popularity of LSD has caused the continuation of its production under the supervision of the black market. It is the youth culture that has absorbed the need to use such drugs as part of the social network.

One social outlet is the all-night dance event where DJs and other performers play electronic dance music in the distance and secrecy of the mainstream club scene. Raves. This is the most logical place one would find 'acid'. And in Montega Academy, a group of students, standing outside conventional popularity, have started their own deviant venue of entertainment. They call it urges.

I stood outside the warehouse not knowing what the hell I was doing there. Sophie had assured me that she would look into it. When I gave her the information about this place she made it seem like my work was good and that it was over. There was just something nagging in the back of my neck. There was something that I needed to do. My hands were in my pocket.

My mother had picked out my clothes on the first party I attended on my own. She even ironed my pants. My hair was fine, but she kept fixing it. It was as if she were more nervous about it than I was. I was too young and too short to understand. She even drove me there. It was two blocks away. Before I left the vehicle that would ultimately kill her, she gave me a kiss on the cheek that I quickly wiped away. Nothing can protect you from watching someone grow up and not need you. If only she knew.

Lights flashed from inside. I saw boys I've never seen at the school leave. They were together, but isolated in their confusion. One of them looked at me and made a comment. His speech was slurred. He shrugged and limped away. In the shadows, on the darker side of the building, I saw a couple making out. Hands were everywhere and the breaths were deep. I ignored them and passed by. There was a tall person standing by the doorway of the entrance. His large arms were crossed. It wasn't until he looked at me directly under the dimness of the light overhead that he recognized me.

"You?"

There was something ironic in this situation, but I had no time to figure out what it was.

"Yeah, I just want to know if I can get in."

He was the guy I met from the lunchroom today. Snowy didn't introduce us, but it didn't take me long to find out that his name was Kari. He was laughing right now.

"This is a joke, right?"

I shook my head.

"I just wanted to know if I could get in. It's not private, is it?"

He stepped closer.

"This isn't a place for someone like you. Didn't your friends tell you? We made an agreement with the gold members. This is our space and the school is theirs. You think they own everything. But they only got the academy on a leash. We have an entire community outside the school."

There was a strong firm look on his face. It was fixed there. I wonder what lied underneath it all.

"They don't know I'm here."

A sinister smile crept on his face.

"Well I guess that changes everything."

There are several truths in the world. Everyday we learn one of them. The most perplexing truth is that truth in and of itself is limited. Simply put, someone can say the truth but leave out the more important details of it. Does it make them a liar?

Kari was bouncer and lookout for tonight. He led me inside through a pair of thick doors. Electronic dance music blasted into my ears. Lights and smoke splashed in a color frenzy chaos as a mass of sweaty moving bodies blindly jived and grinded against each other. It wasn't until I found a clearing that I could observe the area. It looked as if there were two floors and this was only the first. The sophistication of it all surprised me. There was a bar set up along the other side of the room and leather couches were found surrounding what looked to be a dance floor.

I had the overwhelming need to take a piss. Making my way to one of the corners I found a door. After opening the door I realized that it wasn't the restroom. It was small and had mirrors surrounding it. There was a leather couch and a much older man standing with his hand grasping the bleach blond hair of a younger man on his knees. Max turned his head with more than a dazed expression riddled on his face.

"Ethan? What are you doing here?"


On to Chapter Fifteen

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