The Riser Trilogy

Chapter One

The Riser Trilogy

Chapter One 

When I tell people my entire family is dead they usually give me “the look.” You know what I mean- that mixture of pity and horror that so obviously masks the underlying “wow I’m glad I’m not her” look. That look. It’s become such a staple in my life that I don’t even flinch when someones flashes me a pair of watery eyes and a weak smile. I just nod my thanks, shrug my shoulders, and pretend that I’m a little choked up about it. Because I should be, right? 

Well, according to them I should be. 

“You poor thing, you’re all by yourself?” Mrs. Milligan asks, her stout frame wobbling behind her desk. When she’d waggled her finger at me and called me to stay after class, I knew this would be her first question. She pushes herself up from her wheely-chair and crosses to me. For a second I think she’s going to hug me, that I’m going to drown in a mass of magenta polyester and knock-off Chanel. Then she must see the horrified look on my face and rethink that decision. 

“No ma’am, I have Pheonix.” 

She looks at me for a second with her pencil thin eyebrows arched, like she knows so much more about me than I do. Like having a dog as a best friend is the saddest thing in the world. Well she doesn’t know Phoenix, obviously.  Then Mrs. Milligan just crosses her thick arms and tsks at me, one of those pitiful noises that Southern mothers make when they know their kid doesn’t have any friends at school or was bullied out of his lunch money. 

“Ryland,” she starts, “you know we do have an on campus counselor, if that would help.” I just shake my head because it’s the only thing I can do to stop from laughing. For as long as I can remember, every teacher I’ve ever had has pulled me to the side  the first week of school to tell me this fact. Like they were offering me a free ticket to a perfect life, a jewel of information. An on campus counselor. Because for some reason a seventeen year old girl living by herself is a red flag for some sort of mental disorder. Oh, did you hear about that weird looking girl Ryland? She’s got yellow eyes and talks to dogs in her big haunted mansion, all alone. She must be crazy.

Maybe.

“Thank you Mrs. Milligan,” I tell her, turning toward the classroom door and obviously dismissing her. “I’ll look into that.” I can still feel her glossy eyes watching me as I leave, but I don’t look back. My black heels click down the hall loudly, and a few students look up at me. Stare, is more like it. Everyone at Raven High knows about the freaky black-haired girl who wears expensive clothes and doesn’t talk to anyone. Like, ever. I roll my eyes when they slam their lockers and speed off in font of me, doing their best to out-walk my clacking stilettos. Blonde girls with blue headbands and tennis skirts, their cheap crystal bracelets knocking against their bony wrists. I bet she’s had like four pumpkin spice lattes today. She probably sweats nutmeg. And despite the fact that I’ll never be like any of those girls, it doesn’t stop the little flutter my heart gives every time I remember that.