The next day, Raven arrived at the local high school, Jump City High. After being admitted, she made her way to her first class. Dressed entirely in black—black T-shirt, black skirt, and black shoes—she was immediately grouped with the Goths. Not that she minded.
"So… what's up?" she asked one pale-faced boy pierced through with shiny metal rods.
"The world, sucks, girl. It always will. Everything's pointless. Want to talk about it?" he replied.
"Um… sure. Maybe later." The strength of his despair overwhelmed her strong feeling of dejá vu. It was at this moment that she noticed a tall sandy-brown-haired boy walking her way. He smiled at her, a smile full of shiny white teeth, and stuck out his hand.
"Hi, I'm Tylan. You must be Raven. Welcome!"
Raven was speechless, firstly because someone had noticed her. Secondly, because she was busy admiring his physique: well muscled, but not overly so. His face was handsome, she admitted to herself with a blush, as she took the proffered hand and said, rather timidly, "Thanks."
He smiled again, and her heart jumped. "I hope we get to talk some more. In the meantime, enjoy your classes," he said, and then turned and walked away.
She watched him go, oblivious to the pale-faced boy's furious glare. The classes before lunch passed rapidly, as she watched Tylan from the back of the rooms. As it turned out, he was in every class she had but one, History of Literature. Raven, a book fanatic, had chosen this class to occupy herself, not realizing that someone else would be occupying a lot of her mind.
Lunchtime came far too quickly, she thought, as she got in line behind the pale-faced boy she had met earlier. When she asked about Tylan, he seemed excited—excited to recount all the reasons he hated him. Tylan was popular, athletic, handsome, smart—in short, everything any high school guy could hope to be, and which Pale Face clearly wasn't. Raven half-listened to Pale Face rant, but with the other half of her mind, she thought about how wonderful this Tylan must be.
As Raven left the lunch line, carrying her plate of mystery meat, she looked around the cafeteria for a place to sit. The Goths had a place open, of course. In fact, the two adjacent tables were empty, an obvious shunning by the general population. She noted Tylan sitting with the basketball and football players, one table over from the cheerleaders and other "preps." With obvious disappointment, she noted that he was already accompanied—by a cheerleader. She turned instead toward the Goth table, where Pale Face was clearly saving a seat for her. Instead, she chose a spot next to a girl with short, spiked black hair with red highlights. Raven got an eyeful of light as the overhead lamps reflected off the mass of metal studs covering the bracelets on her neighbor's wrists. Gertrude, or Trudy, as the girl was called, began a rant about how much school sucked. Everyone at the table agreed halfheartedly, as they had heard the entire speech before.
Raven, however, wasn't paying attention to Trudy. Instead, her focus was across the room, at the prep table. She watched as the cheerleader next to Tylan fawned on him, and he smiled at her in return. Then he said something, and everyone laughed. More words were exchanged, but this time, the girl on his arm wrinkled her nose in distaste and gave a disgusted look. Tylan then grabbed his tray, and got up—she presumed to dispose of his garbage. Instead, he headed for her table… and sat down right next to her!
"Hey everyone." Tylan grinned around at the table's occupants.
Everyone except Trudy and Pale Face ignored him. Pale Face glared, and Trudy would have turned red with anger, except for the mass of white makeup slathered on her pierced face. Instead, she managed a light shade of pink, which dramatically reduced the impact.
Tylan, however, seemed oblivious. "Just wanted to say hi, see how everyone's doing. And to sit by the new student." He beamed at Raven, then turned to face her. "How are you liking it?"
Raven looked around, as if searching for an answer. She spied Pale Face's glare, and realized she was caught between a rock and a hard place. If she responded truthfully, the Goth crowd would shun her. On the other hand, if she played to the audience, she might miss out on the chance to impress him. So, she took the middle ground.
"It's alright, I guess." She shrugged. "Nothing exciting's happened, and it probably won't."
"I see." Rather than being put off by her non-answer, he grinned all the more. Pale Face's glare lessened, but did not disappear. "Well, I hope something exciting happens. Would you care to sit by us, or would you rather I sit here?"
The question blindsided Raven. Had he just invited her to sit with them? And even if she didn't want to leave the Goths, he had offered to stay and sit with her! Her heart started pounding. Before she could answer, however, Pale Face spoke up.
"Look, man, we don't want you sittin' here. Go back and sit with your little preppy crowd. Are you trying to mock us, or what?" Then he turned on Raven. "And I suppose we're just not good enough for you, huh? Fine, then! Sit by the preps. See if I… we care. Didn't want you anyway."
That solved Raven's dilemma. Much as she hated to hurt their feelings, she knew the Goths would never welcome her at the table again. So she turned to Tylan and said "It's alright. I'll sit by you guys."
Tylan was already grinning, but his smile nearly split his face in half when she said it. "Okay, come on over. Sorry, guys," he said to the rest of the table.
Pale Face said nothing. Trudy was speechless for a change. The rest of the occupants merely mumbled. So Raven gathered her lunch, dumped it in the garbage can, and followed Tylan as he ambled over to his former seat. He made room next to him, and as she sat down, Raven caught a glance that would have melted steel from the cheerleader on the opposite side. Raven got a half-dozen greetings from the members of the football team, all of which eyed her with expressions that were half-fear, half-interest. She wasn't sure which kind of interest it was: morbid curiosity, genuine interest, or mere lust.
The rest of lunch passed rather uneventfully. The rest of the day did as well, unless one could call having class with Tylan eventful. It was difficult attempting to pay attention to two different things, and judging from how often he looked over at her, he was having the same problem.
After school, Raven was walking back toward the downtown area when Tylan sidled up beside her. "Hey. Can I walk you home?"
Raven gave him an odd look. "Why would you want to do that?" she asked.
Tylan shrugged. "Oh, I don't know. Maybe it's nice to have someone to walk and talk with, especially when you're new. Plus, the city can be a dangerous place." He winked at her at this last statement, making it clear he was joking. What was truly funny was his unspoken offer to protect her. Truly ironic, she thought. Here she was, a heroine, a member of the Teen Titans, who protected him and the rest of the city every day and he was offering to protect her. She almost laughed.
Then she realized she had nowhere to go. Except back to the Tower. And she couldn't do that. If he knew what she was, then he'd leave her for sure.
So she lied. "My house is several miles from here. I'm sure you don't want to walk that whole way."
It backfired. "Hm… you're right. Let's take my bike instead. I'll drive you home. Is that ok?"
She thought quickly, but couldn't come up with an excuse, so she said, "Sure." Already her mind was in high gear, trying to figure out a way to get back to the Tower without him seeing her. Nothing came to her, so she followed him back to his "bike." Rather than a plain bicycle, as she had erroneously imagined, his "bike" was a motorcycle, a sleek black model with highly polished chrome, the kind that reckless teenagers bent over in their quest for speed and adrenaline.
He climbed on and threw on a helmet. He turned to her and said, "Sorry I don't have a helmet for you. I honestly wasn't expecting to take anyone home today." Her heart skipped a beat as he grinned, and said, "But don't worry, you can ride behind me."
She personally had no objection, other than that it might be misconstrued by others if she were to be seen riding on the back of his motorcycle, so she climbed up behind him and wrapped her arms around his waist and leaned up against him as she had seen the girls in the movies do. He kicked away the stand, and fired up the engine with a twist of the handle grip, and soon they were virtually flying along the road, the wind grabbing at her hair and clothing.
She directed him down random streets, hoping for a house she could pass off as her own. Finally she had him pull up to an apartment complex. She hopped off the back of the bike, and was about to say goodbye when he stepped off the bike, whipped off his helmet, and set it on the seat of the motorcycle.
"Umm… what are you doing?" She didn't mean it to sound so fearful, but if he walked her up to the apartment, then her plan was shot.
"I'd like to walk you up. Meet your parents. You know, stuff." He beamed, his perpetual happiness almost making her upset. Why did he have to follow her everywhere? She liked being with him and all, but she needed to get back, and as long as he was around, she couldn't do that.
But for the life of her, she couldn't think of anything that would persuade him to stay down here without utterly driving him away, something she swore she would not do. So she said the only thing she could. "Umm… okay." They walked inside and up three flights of stairs before arriving at room 4D8. She suddenly hit upon an idea, digging around in her bag for a key, then groaning in what she hoped sounded like aggravation.
"I can't believe this. I locked my key inside. And it'll be another four hours before my mom gets back from work." Now she was implementing the part of her plan that she hoped and prayed would get him to leave without hurting his feelings.
"Well, I'm sure you don't want to just wait here for another four hours. Why don't you come over to my place." Another plan backfired.
She had no real choice but to say yes, and besides, she was curious to see where he lived and what his family was like. So they returned to his motorcycle, got on, and rode across town to the suburbs.
The sight of an enormous mansion greeted her eyes and took her breath away. The lawn alone was probably six acres, and the house itself took up another two. The long driveway was not concrete, but cut stone worn down into a smooth path as even as glass. The inside of the house was even more impressive than the outside, with mahogany floors and marble staircases. As Tylan walked in the door and took off his shoes, he shouted, "Mom, Dad, I'm home!"
An older man, probably in his fifties, came to the top of the staircase, and looked down at his son and the girl with him. "Oh, I see you've brought company. Well, make yourselves comfortable; your mother and I are going out tonight."
"Ok, dad. Have fun!" Tylan turned to Raven and said, "So, what do you want to do?"
She had homework to do, and so they finished that together, he helping her with some math problems she had trouble comprehending. Silently, she cursed math as her greatest weakness. Science, history, literature, logic, all of those had an elegance, a structure, a purpose. Math had no purpose; it was as if someone had thrown a bunch of symbols together for fun.
After homework, they sat in the living room on the couch talking. The topic turned to reading, and he took her upstairs to the library. The bookshelves contained literally hundreds, maybe thousands of books. Her eyes ran along the spines of the books, some of them familiar, others by authors she knew, some she had never heard of, specifically, the technical journals and DYI books for all kinds of technological things. Clearly, Tylan was not the stereotypical football player.
Finally, he took her down into the basement, where he had his so-called "workshop." Several unrecognizable objects lay in the corner, one stood against the wall with a sheet over it. A jumble of parts stood in the center of the floor.
"That's my newest project!" he said proudly. "I'm going to build myself a jetbike." When she gave him an uncomprehending look, he clarified, "It's like a motorcycle that hovers and runs on jet power. Right now I'm having trouble figuring out the best way to make it hover." His eyebrows furrowed. "I've designed a small, lightweight, and relatively economical jet engine, and it works fine, but I can't use sheer downthrust without consuming too much fuel, and I don't want to use wings because of the issue of space." He sighed. "It'll take me awhile, I'm sure, but hopefully I can get it to work sometime soon. And then we can take a ride on it." His face glowed with excitement at the prospect, and although she had not terribly enjoyed the ride here, she found herself almost looking forward to a ride as well.
They continued talking about things of all kinds. Books dominated the conversation, as it was the common aspect that drew these two opposite people together. Six hours passed without their knowledge, and finally, Tylan looked at the clock.
"Crap! Raven, it's been two hours since your mom's been back! I gotta get you home!" He sprinted to the door, pulled on his shoes, then sprinted to the garage.
"No, it's okay… really." She mumbled to the empty room. She ran up the stars after him, entered the garage, and climbed on the back of the motorcycle. Once again they tore through the night. She was afraid she wouldn't remember the directions to the apartment building, but fortunately, she didn't have to; Tylan, having only been there once, knew the way and arrived there without a single direction.
He dropped her off at the apartment building, and, to her relief, didn't walk her inside again. She mounted the steps to the building, then turned and waved goodbye. He nodded back at her with his helmeted head, and pulled a screeching U-turn before racing off into the darkness. She waited until he was out of sight, then made her way back to the tower.