It was a Tuesday; years later, this detail would stick out in her mind the way that seemingly random, inconsequential details always do when the ones that really matter slip through the cracks. It was a Tuesday, and Evelyn had been whispering behind her back before first period, as if Gillian didn't have the power to make her life exceedingly difficult in retaliation. She had been plotting her revenge—wavering between giving the traitor a taste of her own medicine with some wicked rumors of her own creation and ensuring that Mr. Kessler just happened to be passing through the girl's floor while Evelyn was entertaining one of her many one night stands—when he walked through the door and changed everything.
It was a Tuesday; he knew because his memory had never once betrayed him, even when it was all he wished for in the world, even when his mind raced with horrible recollections that kept him awake at night. It was these demons that had sent him here in the first place, thousands of miles from home to what his parents had hoped would be a fresh start. The ivy-strewn brick of this old world behemoth was a far cry from the weather-worn farmhouse of Plover, and he smoothed his new uniform stiffly to mask his overwhelming nerves. His train had been delayed, and his arrival in the wee hours the night before would have cost him some much needed sleep, had sleep ever come easily in the first place. But even deprived of rest, his mind was sharper than he cared for. Sharp enough to take in every detail of these echoing halls, of the tall oak doors that contained them, and of the girl who's gracefully curved cheeks and haunted eyes caught his attention the moment he entered that first classroom on that brisk Tuesday morning, and changed everything.