Here In The Afterglow

Chapter 1.2

December weather crawls over the hills of Post Falls like a glum beast, stumbling over itself and coming to rest firmly. It envelopes them in a bubble of whipping wind and occasional snowfall that sticks to the tips of the pines and dusts the hilltops. Gone are the clear days. When the air is crisp now, it's because of the bitter wind and the dark clouds that hang ominous, hovering on the outskirts of town like a warning.

Even so far away from San Francisco, Louis feels the backlash to Milk's success in every corner of his life, even right up the tip-top of Idaho. At home on the radio, in the local paper, in school. It seems that everyone has to have their say. Maybe that's just politics. Louis doesn't understand it much. What he does know, though, is that despite the miracle that is Milk's election, he's never felt more out of touch.

"My dad reckons he'll be out on his ass so quick, you know," Jimmy is saying, commanding the attention of the whole table. His hair is long and sandy blonde, eyes slits of dark blue and his teeth as square as his jaw. "And my dad, he knows his shit about politics 'n all that. It's bogue, I tell you, fuckin' wrong, my dad says."

The soccer field has frosted over, the fresh grass prickled with tufts of blueish ice. Most of the outdoor teams have finished up their seasons for the term, and there's a restless buzz that surrounds them all. They're trapped in until the springtime kicks in and melts the frost away. Personally, Louis just feels trapped sitting anywhere with them, these friends of his.

"They'll have to kick him out," Ben clicks his fingers and leans in close. He's chewing on a bite of his apple noisily. "Fucker cheated the polls, didn't you know?"

"Did he actually?" There's a chuckled gasp from around their table.

"Well, of course he did, how else would a fag get into office, huh?" Ben grins, sticky and malicious. The boys around him hoot, leaning back in their chairs to laugh and whack at each other's backs.

Beside him, Stan nudges into his shoulder as he laughs, and Louis smiles, allows himself to chuckle, despite how totally dead he feels inside.

They rattle on, way too raucous for the lunchtime cafeteria, but he supposes that's the idea.

Outside, past the foggy glass windows, the students standing together in the smoking bay are just a huddled smudge, pressed together for warmth. Louis can see the orange tips of their butts, the flicker of smoke. Most of them are the seniors, allowed to go out during school hours without parental permission.

He can see one of the art students, Zayn, among the group of teenagers, wrapped up in leather and wispy smoke. He's talking to Perrie Edwards, a doll of a girl with non-school-regulated pastel hair and a remarkable voice. They're a little bit of a duo, Louis assumes, because he's never had the guts to talk to either of them.

Nobody does really, despite how up themselves the sports teams in their year level gets, nobody seems game enough to fuck with Zayn or anyone he's associated with, especially not the juniors. Zayn is littered with tattoos that he has to cover up. So now he wears his leather jacket everywhere, and when the teachers complain, he simply rolls up his sleeves and goes on his way. He's always flicking a tiny pocket knife between his hands, too, and no matter how much Jimmy talks himself up, he steers clear of Zayn and his group.

"Hey, darlin'," Jimmy calls out across the room, leaning back in his chair past the line of boys to gesture for one of the girls in their year, Cass, to come over.

"Hey, Jim," she says shyly, cocking her hip. He pulls his closer and whispers into her ear, the other boys whistling low and flashing their brows.

When Louis looks back outside, the students are pressing out their cigarettes into the icy ground and shuffling inside, flipping their collars up. Zayn glances inside briefly before he swivels down the corridor, twirling his knife in his hand.