PULSE

Chapter One

[ JULY 21 ]

I left the apartment early on the morning of July 21st, heading toward the town center by foot. Despite it being just over four miles from the apartment to the local private high school, neither I nor Candace had any mode of transportation (and I would have never accepted it if she had). So every morning, I woke early and walked the full distance on my own.

This particular morning, I began the walk late, with the back of my skull pulsing against the new stitches in my skin. According to witnesses, when the accident happened, the helmet that I'd been wearing had split open completely, like a cracked watermelon. According to the doctors, my head had done the same. Realistically speaking, the doctors assured me that I shouldn't have survived. Practically impossible, they said.

I touched the stitches lining the back of my skull though my hat.

My headphones, despite being relatively light, were bearing down along the top of my head, and I could feel the pressure along the new opening in my head. Even with my hat to break the contact, I still felt it every time I stepped, as if the back of my skull were going to burst open all over again.

My headphones, however, were one of the few things that I had entirely to my own name. So, despite the weight and the way the bass pounded against my wound, I kept them on, cranking up the volume until I could blast the pain into oblivion. Depending on how loud I played my music, I could do different things to the world around me, but I usually took it in three intervals.

The first put the world on mute.

The second rattled my bones and pounded the world until it shook.

The third blurred the edges of my vision, sucked the feeling from my body, and shattered the world around me until there was nothing but unrelated faces and strangers.

I settled for the first one, as the pulsing in the back of my skull was already enough to blur the edges of my vision on its own.

I stopped halfway up the long concrete staircase that led to the main doors of the high school. I wasn't sure whether the stairs were so long because the school was so private that it needed its own hill, or whether they imagined that it look made the building appear more prestigious. Either way was stupid.

Sliding down toward the ground, I leaned against the place where the stairs met the side of the building, and did my best to avoid the gazes of my various classmates. It had been two weeks since I'd been to school, and there wasn't a doubt in my mind that every living soul had heard about my accident by now. I would receive pitiful glances, for sure—all I could do was try to keep my distance as best I could as I rested on the cold steps, unable to muster the stamina to finish the climb in one go.

I was just beginning to consider taking a nap before class started when a girl moved into my line of sight, squatting down directly in front of me. She placed her hands on her knees, balancing on her toes as she looked me directly in the eyes, smiling. I stared at her incredulously, only taking off my headphones when her lips began moving, but I couldn't make out any sound.

"You go to this school?" she asked, watching me intently. "How is your head?"

I blinked.

"You're the one with the motorcycle, right? I guess you're alright if you're here?" she continued.

I couldn't help glaring at her, in her nosy curiosity. Was she making fun of me?

Without warning, she leaned forward and placed her hands on my knees, smiling despite my shocked distain. "Feel better, then."