"Memorable"

Part One

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After tying his sweatshirt around his waist, Salem looked both ways down a hall at his school, finding a spot through the crowd of students to squeeze his way into. He had a granola bar and a carton of milk from the cafeteria in his hands, which was going to serve as his breakfast once he arrived at his destination.

The days were getting warmer, and that meant the halls at Dyerwood High were getting muggier. He was glad he chose to wear a short-sleeved shirt beneath his sweatshirt that day. The population at what was Salem's new school was around the same as his old one, Whitewick, but what made that challenging was the fact that Dyerwood was noticeably smaller in size. The hallways were always flooded with students, no matter the time of day. Salem had the benefit of standing a little taller than the average peer of his, but it still didn't assist much.

It was April of 2027, late in Salem's senior year. However, he was surrounded by kids younger than him, having lost a year of schooling in his time at FARR. He had turned 19 that January, and he was antsy as all hell to graduate. Though, despite being taller and older than the students around him, there were too many others for him to truly stand out, which was something he surely didn't take for granted.

Salem rounded a corner, bringing him to a place where far less students were gathering. Yet, he continued to walk down the way. Where he was headed was a little deeper into the system of halls.

After another moment, he arrived among a group of peers sitting beneath a staircase. Some he called his friends, some were too much of assholes for him to know them past acquaintanceship. The Dyerwood skater boys.

Salem slid his hefty backpack off his shoulders and dropped it on the ground, announcing his presence to the group. He sat down cross legged next to it, and a few of them exchanged greetings and good mornings. Salem had to block out the overwhelming smell of pot that a lot of them seemed to carry; it was far more potent than usual, though he knew it wasn't beyond most of them to get smoked up right before classes started.

Salem then proceeded to do what he did on most mornings— he let his hair reach down to hold his milk and granola bar out beside him, while he pulled his backpack over and unzipped the back pouch to retrieve his laptop with his then free hands. His abnormality didn't freak the skaters out any more than it purely amazed them. They were some of the only people who didn't give a damn about who he was or who he had been, which made him regret not trying to get in touch with their group (or any group, for that matter) until late in his junior year.

Despite having seen the same spectacle for months, some boys couldn't help but stare watching his hair at work. Many of them, Salem had simply noticed, had never seen an Abnormal use their ability in front of them before they met him.

He sat his laptop in his lap, logging onto his assignment tracker, and checking to see what his agenda would be like for the day. Meanwhile, his hair tore open the granola bar packaging, and held it in front of his mouth for him to eat as he typed.

Every now and then, Salem would glance up at the group, causing the ones staring to immediately look away, or back down at their phones. It made him scoff each time.

Some of the boys started chatting amongst themselves, talking about girls. But, it wasn't the typical kind of girl talk, which Salem was thankful for. Whereas normally, the boys might be describing somewhat sexual encounters, they were then discussing girls who they'd asked to the senior prom, which was coming in hot for quite a few of them.

Salem had no interest in the prom. He wasn't close enough with any of his new Dyerwood friends to want to go with them as such, and he sure didn't have any girls on his mind. Not when he was so focused on maintaining his surprisingly high grades, along with moving on.