.
Erik is startled by the warm welcome he receives when crossing the threshold of that little grocery store. Both Adriel and Liora David grin at him and ask if he's Edie's son. When he says yes, they just fall into a babble of 'you look just like her' and other bullshit. They don't even say anything about his uncovered arms and the lines running above every planes of his strong muscles. They offer him a coffee or a tea or a hot chocolate and really, anything you want, young man, and he declines it all in order to focus on what they would need.
He would have to make sure everything is well stocked in the shelves and in the backroom, help them with heavy loads, and maybe sometimes cover the cashier if they ever needed to leave early. He even shows them what he can do with his mutation, levitating a whole pallet by its bolts. He agrees to come every day after school and on Saturday for the first week and see how it goes from there, and really, their smiles and open faces would warm his heart a bit if he still had one.
He finally goes back home after buying a few things from the store—and they try to offer them to him, but he refuses—he hasn't escaped the hearty discount, though.
oOo
When he finally goes to bed that night, Erik lies on his mattress, covers drawn back. One of his hands comes to rest on his stomach while the other goes behind his head.
Tomorrow, he thinks, he'll start a new year, in a new school, where nobody knows him or what he's done. He just wants to be left alone.
He concentrates on his breathing, just as he learned.
Breathe in. Hold. Breathe out.
His hand on his abdomen helps him visualize the movement. He repeats it until he feels relaxed enough. Erik closes his eyes, switches the light off with a flick of his mind, and starts counting backward starting from a hundred.
oOo
He wakes up the next morning, feeling rather restless, and immediately starts his day with his usual series of push-ups before taking a shower. He then goes to the kitchen, grabs the coffee pots and a cup and hastily drinks the scalding beverage before packing his lunch and moving to the door with a kiss for his mother.
The walk to the high school is brisk, his jacket barely enough to protect him as it unexpectedly starts to rain, so he turns his collar up and walks faster. It takes him ten more minutes before arriving in front of Roosevelt High School, and even if the rain isn't that hard, he feels the chill on his skin. He hadn't planned to remove his jacket for his meeting with the principal, so he's only wearing a tee-shirt under it. He knows it's not a good idea to keep it. But the notion of removing it and showing to that man the tattoos he has made while not even being an adult yet on his first day of school is probably worse.
He finally arrives before the red brick, two-story building. From what he can see from the entryway, two wings spread themselves at each side, the angle forming an L-shape to follow the roads.
He finds the office rather easily after presenting himself to the reception desk, and knocks at the door. The accepting answer comes rapidly after. He enters the room and closes the door behind him, slowly crossing the few steps to the centre of the room.
"Ah, Mister Lehnsherr. Welcome to Roosevelt. I hope your moving went well?" the man is seated at his desk, thick glasses on his protuberant nose.
"Yes, sir. Thank you." Erik answers.
He sits in one of the two chairs in front of the desk after the principal makes a move with his hand to acknowledge them.
"I am Mister Johnson, as you must already know. Here's your schedule with the majors and minors you picked. As we discussed over the phone before the summer vacation, you'll need to take an appointment with the counsellor to define your objectives for the future. You might want to go to college, don't you, son?"
"Maybe." Erik intently reads his schedule, trying to memorise it rapidly and avoid a lecture about studies and other things he'll never have.
"Okay. I'll let you start your day, then. If you ever need anything, just ask around. I'm sure any student would be glad to help you. By the way, you'll have to get your books from the library, you might have enough time before the first period. Just go back to the ground floor and turn right, it's near the entrance."
"Thank you, sir." Erik jerks his head in salute before rising to his feet, adjusting the bag at his shoulder. "Have a nice day." And with that, he leaves the office.
He has exactly twenty minutes before the start of his first lesson—some English basics that he has to keep in order to graduate. He hopes to avoid the new-kid presentation in front of the entire class, but he's almost sure it'll be compulsory. He hurtles down the stairs and ends up at the front entrance, where a decent flow of students starts to pour inside the building. None of them pay him any attention, as it's their first day of school, and he hears exclamations of reunited friends, heavy shouting from one side of the hall to the other, even some yawns from people he passes by.
Soon enough, Erik crosses the library's doors as another student exits. The boy's eyes are fixed on the floor, and his face is pale and drawn, dark circles underlining his long, black lashes. But what stands out the most are the red lips that teeth nibble at.
A glance, that's all Erik gets, and wants.
He turns his focus back on his purpose-get his books, his locker number, get to class.
The boy has disappeared.
The textbook matter is handled quickly, and he's got everything he needs to start. He leaves and walks down the corridor just as the bookkeeper has explained, to find his locker. He finds the number 965 just before another set of doors, on the lower half of the row. But the guy from the library is standing in front of it, the upper-half locker opened in front of him.
As he approaches, Erik has time enough to scrutinize him. He's dressed like a British student—crisp white button-down and grey blazer over some dark pants that decidedly don't look like jeans. They look more like a dress uniform than something a student would wear voluntarily.
Erik just crouches down next to him, and the gesture sets the other guy into motion. Quickly, the metallic door slaps shut and the body moves out of Erik's way. Satisfied, he reaches for the lock of his newly acquired locker with his mind and opens it, depositing every books but the one for his English class. He closes the door and gets back on his feet, his left knee creaking in complaint. His heart picks up, and he closes his eyes just for a second— breathe in. Hold. Breathe out.
When he opens them again, he spots two blonde girls watching him from the other end of the hall. One of them is dressed all in white and looks at him haughtily. The second, hair just a bit darker and frame faintly shorter and curvier, has her head slightly cocked to the side, as if intrigued. Oh, she can be intrigued all she wants, Erik thinks. He barely spares them a glance before setting himself into motion towards his first class.
oOo
Everyone in the classroom is well acquainted with the others, and so he is quickly spotted as the black sheep, every gaze turning to him as he strides through the room to an empty desk. He ignores the murmurs floating, getting gradually stronger, from the students wondering who he is. He won't look up. He won't look up and they will never know. He opens his bag, gets his book, his notepad and his pen out, playing with the last item while waiting for the teacher to come in. Surprisingly, or maybe not so much, the guy from the library and the lockers is here too, sitting in the front row by the window. He gazes outside, seemingly lost in his thoughts as his head rests on his hand.
Everybody settles as someone passes the threshold. It's a woman Erik would estimate is in her early thirties. Straight brown hair cut over her shoulders and matching brown eyes over a strict grey suit. She starts the class with a short essay over a book students were asked to read during the summer. They all pass the papers from the front row to the last, and Erik looks at his copy with unease. He hasn't read that book, because he didn't know he had to.
Soon, the only sounds in the room are the rolling of pens over paper. Slowly, the teacher comes to his desk, and he lifts his head to look her in the eye.
"I didn't know—"
"That's alright," she cuts in, gently. "I gave this test to be able to talk to you, as I knew there was someone new. I'm Miss MacTaggert. I teach English, as you may have understood, but also drama." She takes the blank paper on his desk. "You won't have to do that test, but don't expect any treatment of favour during the year, alright? I need you to do your best. And I need you to be here at every class, without exception. Do you understand?" Her tone is firm, but her eyes and her smile are soft. She must have seen his record, then. The scholarly one, that says he didn't show up for the last weeks of the previous year.
After the encounter. That, they don't know about.
His gaze goes to his hands and he stares, hard.
"Yes, ma'am," is all that passes through his gritted teeth.
"But Erik?" she cuts through his spiralling thoughts. He looks at her once again. ""We're here for you, okay?"
They exchange a glance for a fistful of seconds, then she nods and turns around, going back to the headboard. Erik flips his English manual open and rummages through the summary, trying to focus on something, anything.
"Alright everybody, five minutes left!"
Some students growl and the scratching of pens on paper gets frenzied. The guy from the library has gone back to his first position—gazing at the clouds raiding the sky.
Erik needs to think.
oOo
Erik goes to the shop right after the end of the last double period for his first trial, and walks along the cars parked down the road waiting for students. He recognizes some of them from classes shared during the day.
The boy from the library walks slowly in front of him, flanked at both sides by two taller guys, one blond and one dark-haired with thick glasses. Erik recognizes that one from his advanced physics class. Hank, maybe. He's not sure. He only knows because the boy had lifted his hand to answer every damn question the teacher asked, and it had amused the instructor. The three of them talk animatedly until they reach a sleek black car, and then the boy from the library stops and waves his companions goodbye, smiling.
Another face from this morning is waiting there, leaned on the trunk—the girl that looked at Erik with curiosity before his first class. She wears a jacket the colour of the High School sports team-blue, with white sleeves, a shark on the back. As Erik passes them, he notes the scowl on her face and the suddenly closed-off expression on the boy's. Without a word, she throws the butt of her cigarette to the ground before stomping on it, and they each reach a door and climb inside the car, its engine roaring to life. They leave the curb smoothly and disappear quickly into traffic.
Hank and the other boy have stopped at the juncture near the sports field. The blond one, square-jawed, a dimple in the middle of the chin, smiles openly as he faces the other boy, who is more the blushing, I-like-to-look-at-the-floor type. Erik hears them as he approaches.
"Alright, Bozo, see you tomorrow for the project, thank you for volunteering," exclaims the blond, as he lands a heavy hand on Hank's shoulder, like he's trying to hammer him into the ground with the gesture.
"I have a name, Alex." Hank tries to scowl, too, but it only makes the other laugh and him blush even more. To his shoes, he adds with a low, uncertain voice, "Don't make me regret it so soon."
Alex takes his leave at that. With a loud "See ya!", he walks to the crossing. Hank continues on his way and soon, both of them are gone from Erik's sight.
oOo
When he gets home, his mother is seated on the couch with the old TV on, but she's concentrating over the knitting on her lap.
He drops his schoolbag near the entrance of his room before joining her.
"How was your day, Schatz?" she asks as she looks at him, pausing her movements.
"Fine," he answers. "Got my books and my locker. A few classes that went fine."
She turns her body to him, listening raptly. "Did you meet some fellow students? Made friends?"
Erik sighs. His mother thinks he's still ten.
"No, Mama, you know I don't want to. I want to be left alone and to finish the year and be done with it all. I don't want to make friends."
"Erik…" she sighs, as Erik stands up. "There's some food ready to heat up on the stove!" she tells him over her shoulder as he leaves the tiny living room.
He stops in his tracks. His dear mother, always thinking about his well-being. It's not her fault he screwed everything up. It's not her fault it happened and he didn't save him. It's not her fault he completely messed up for the few years afterwards. He stays a little while longer in the doorway, back still turned to her, knowing fully that she's looking at him. He's staring at the floor, tightening and slacking his jaw repeatedly, his fists tightly clamped at his sides.
"I went to the store after school." He offers it as a peace treaty.
"I know," his mother answers, back to her initial position, speaking louder to be sure he hears her. It's easier this way, not having her grey eyes-the ones he inherited-boring right through his skull. He turns the stove on with a flick of his fingers and lingers in the cramped hall. His voice carries his words to his mother as he leans against the plaster, his head thumping twice before resting there.
"It went well, I think. They seem to be really nice people. I stacked the food and supplies, cleaned the stockroom." Erik goes to the kitchen, stirs the food in the pot. As always, it smells heavenly. One day, he thinks silently. One day, Edie will be able to rest. She won't have to take care of the food after work, she won't have to take care of her troubled son. One day, he will be the one to take care of her. She has suffered enough, all alone with a dangerous child.
He serves his food on a plate and joins her again in the living room. The news on the television busies his mind, the repeated movement on his right soothes him.
His brain is silent.
.