The Maplethorn Initiative (Book 1, The Maplethorn Series)

A Long, Dumb Story

"Where are you?"

Cameron Drexler stared blankly at the words on his phone and the name that preceded them: Prita Lashton. He would never forget the bright and sticky August morning when he first saw her waiting outside the doors to his school. Prita was a slender girl with long dark hair, large expressive eyes, and a slightly flattened nose—all things she'd inherited from her mother. But with a lighter complexion that she got from her father.

Cam spent his freshman year of high school working on the perfect opening line, which never quite came together. That effort was reduced to a simple, "Uh, hi," when their Chemistry teacher paired them up at the start of his sophomore year.

The phone chimed again. "Mr. Fisher said you didn't turn in your half of our assignment." And again. "No one's seen you all day." And again. "There are crazy rumors flying around about you."

"I'm at home," he reluctantly typed. "Sick." Cam's finger hovered over the send button. Telling Prita he didn't feel well wasn't exactly a lie, but it wasn't exactly the truth either. He pressed the delete key and watched the cursor devour the text.

"I saw the bubble that comes up when you're typing," she wrote. "I know you're there."

He pecked out the word "Gulp" and hit send.

"Gulp? What does that even mean?"

"It means I never got to turn in the paper."

The melody of a nearly forgotten ringtone blasted into his ears, and the screen filled with an image of Prita looking cross-eyed into a glass beaker. When she found out Cam was going to be her lab partner, she insisted they trade numbers and snapped a very candid picture of him for her contacts list. She also agreed to pose in return, holding the empty beaker beneath her chin and peering down at its nonexistent contents.

He let the song repeat twice before accepting the call. "Hello?"

"How do you not turn in your homework?" Prita demanded. "Did you forget?"

"Sorry. I've been really busy."

"Busy doing everything but homework?"

"Yeah," he breathed.

There was a pause on the other end of the line. "Okay, you're being super weird, and I want to know why."

Cam studied his reflection in the mirror that hung on his bedroom door. He wished his neck wasn't so thin, and his skin wasn't so pale. He also wished his chestnut-colored hair would stay how he combed it, and his best friend would stop referring to his eyebrows as "the caterpillars." But more than anything, he wished he could take back the last three days.

"Hello?"

"I got kicked out of school this morning." Cam had to force the words from his throat.

Another pause. "Why?"

He slumped against the headboard and tucked his bare feet under the comforter. "It's a long, dumb story."

"Do you want to talk about it?"

"Not really," Cam said quietly. "At least not on the phone."

"Can I come over?"

"Sure." His response was as much a question as an answer.

"Okay, text me your address," she said and hung up.

•  •  •

Cam stood in front of his open closet with a wet towel wrapped around his boney waist. His mop of hair stuck out in spikes that made his head look like a furry, brown flower. He scanned the collection of shirts that hung before him. He'd said "no" to each one twice by the time he heard the doorbell.