September of 2004, in the aftermath of a school shooting, new student Connie Turner avoids the young man who saved her younger brother's life, while battling with a shameful awareness that she is not the same as before the event.
Meanwhile, Max Nat...
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It started as lame, playful banter at marching band practice then after on the late bus going home. They were both in the drum line their freshman year of high school. Time and again, Max was thankful he'd put his foot down with his mother back in the fourth grade when he said would never take up the clarinet. It was the only instrument they'd had in the house at the time, case dusty in the attic from when his mom was in high school. But there was no way he was going to play it.
Being a band geek those first couple years of high school was hard enough. At least the drums offered some semblance of masculinity. He still endured the jibes from the redneck crowd for his uniform though.
"Watch it!" Roy Abbot, a notorious bully of freshmen, threw a Snapple bottle out the window of a moving pickup truck. The blonde in the passenger seat laughed as it shattered at their feet.
"Asshole," Max muttered, shaking his head.
"Kids like that just make me want to..." his friend didn't finish the sentence as he hitched his drum kit higher in his spindly arms.
"I know. Me too," Max agreed as they walked towards the curb. Jeff refused to come back to the school to drive Max home, especially on a Friday. He had plans with another girl. Yet again. "It's fun to think about it though."
"Yeah," the kid replied wistfully. "You do too?"
"Yeah," Max chuckled. "I'd never admit it out loud though, at least not to anyone else. But you get it, don't you?"
The kid was a couple inches shorter than him. Max had gotten his height over the summer and didn't seem to be stopping anytime soon. Both fourteen-year-old boys were scrawny though, definitely too scrawny to pick a fight with one of the redneck crew.
"I get it. You don't have to explain."
The exchange was innocent enough on the surface. But it was only the beginning. There would be many more conversations over the next two years.
***
The school set up tighter security measures when Max returned to school. There was a strong police presence right after the event, but even more now. Someone let it slip that Max was out of the hospital and had been at home for some time. The Nathan family didn't know who told the press, but now it was out that he was returning to classes that Monday in November.
Max's mom was out for blood, demanding answers into her cell phone all weekend with their lawyers. Even his dad's mild tempered nature couldn't settle his agitated wife. Molly Nathan was the kind of woman who enjoyed control. Everything that had happened was out of her realm of understanding. She had been grappling for weeks, trying to regain her footing.
After much debate, their parents allowed Jeff to drive him to school. With his arm in a sling for another week, Max wouldn't be driving himself until after Thanksgiving break. Max was grateful. The idea of his iron-willed mother facing down reporters was too much to consider. He just wanted to go to class, get his shit done, and go home.
