Broken Without You

Chapter 1: Quinn

Ring-ring-ring!

The bell had rung, and the class was finally over. Mr. Tauter, also known as Tater Totter, had talked for way too long on the difference between verbs and adverbs. He was my English Teacher and my last class of the day.

I grabbed my notes and shoved them into the pocket of my binder. "That concludes our lesson today. Homework tonight will be chapter 3, pages 5-6," he said as the class started gathering their stuff. "Don't forget it!"

I grabbed my backpack and stood up. Saying bye to my table, I began to walk to the door. I had almost made it to the door when-

"Uh, Quinn! Could I talk to you for a moment?" That was me, unfortunately.

Quinn Claw, the enby who everyone thought was a boy. I guess I was a boy, in a way. My curly black hair was short like a boy. The way I dressed was more masculine, but I wasn't a boy. I wasn't a girl either.

An enby is short for nonbinary, which is what I am.

I turned back to look at Mr. Tauter. Why dis he want to talk to me? Was I in trouble? I knew some of the things I usually did at lunch might raise a few eyebrows, but nothing could get me in trouble. Could it?

I made my way over to Mr. Tauter's desk. "Yes?" I asked, coolly.

"I think there's something you might be interested in."

"Okay..."

"There's this after-school reading club for advanced eighth graders..."

He wanted me to join a book club? What was this, school?

"I'll check it out," I lied.

"Okay," Mr. Tauter said. He handed me a small piece of paper. "They're meeting in room 107."

"Thanks," I said, walking out of the room.

I looked at the paper. It had a list of the books the club was going to be reading. I skimmed through the list. Nothing seemed too interesting, but I could at least check it out. I headed over to the 100s hall and walked down it. 101, 102, 103, Janitor Room, 104, 105, 106, and finally 107.

I grabbed the handle and turned it, entering a small, dimly lit room, identical to every other classroom in the building. The walls were covered in pictures of math equations and formulas. This must be one of the Math rooms. Six chairs in the center of the room were arranged neatly in a circle. Of the six, only three were filled. I also noticed in one of the corners was another desk was the PE teacher, Mr. David. Behind his desk was another door. I walked forward and sat in one of the empty chairs.

I looked over at the three other people sitting in chairs.

One of them, my friend Taylor, was sitting in the chair closest to me. Taylor has blonde hair that is almost always in a fohawk. He has sunken brown eyes. I had known Taylor for a few months now, we met over summer. He was one of those rare nice guys who actually cared about things. He wanted to know my opinion if I was having fun. I had always suspected he had a crush on me, but after he asked about my gender identity, he seemed more distant.

The boy sitting next to him, Brendan, I think his name was. He's in my English class, the one I just came from. I'm not really sure how he managed to stay in that class, because he has the worst scores. But, he might be lacking in smarts, he definitely looked intimidating. With a good build and strong muscles, he was very attractive. His light brown hair looked perfect with his bright blue eyes.

The third chair was taken by a girl with shiny waist length, black hair, and dark green eyes. She looked sort of uneasy like she didn't want to be here. I had never seen this girl around before.

My attention now turned to Mr. David, the PE teacher. Why was he here? Wasn't this supposed to be a reading club? He stood up from his chair and walked over to us. He sat in a chair, leaving only one empty now.

"Okay, welcome," he said. "First of all, I want you all to know that this is not a Book Club."