MILA Origins 2.0 - The Fire

but I ignored her. I was too busy shaking my hair forward to hide what had to be a brilliant display of red spreading across my cheeks.
    So I was correct—the Dairy Queen boy didn’t go to Annandale. And, in a spectacular display of idiocy equaled only by my booth dive yesterday, I’d just assaulted him with a writing utensil. Well played.
    “Here you go,” he said, in a surprisingly deep voice.
    After accepting the pen and placing it on my desk, I turned around, an apology on my lips. It died as I watched his broad shoulders retreat. Smart choice. All the safer from the weird girl and her incredible flying Bic.
    “Okay, now that’s a voice I could totally wake up to in the morning,” Kaylee whispered, staring unabashedly.
    “Kaylee!” I said, half appalled, half amused. Even though I tried not to follow in her ogling footsteps, my peripheral vision had other ideas. I caught the slump of the boy’s six-foot frame into a chair on the far side of the room, the top of his head level with the bottom of a baby-blue BOOK FAIR! poster. Only fifteen feet of space to escape us, and he’d utilized every available inch.
    Obviously my attempted stabbing hadn’t amused him.
    From across the room, I noted how only four wavy strands of hair actually grazed the top of the olive buttondown that flapped loosely at his sides, jacket style. The same way I wore Dad’s flannel. Once again, his slim-fitting pants—black this time—hinted at skater rather than farmhand. Today’s black-and-yellow Vans—Kaylee would be in heaven—pretty much clinched the nonlocal look. Still, there were all types at our school, even in the middle of rural Minnesota, so he wasn’t completely out of place.
    The bell rang to mark the beginning of the period, a prolonged, discordant groan inciting the usual snickers from students.
    Mrs. Stegmeyer cleared her throat before slapping the attendance file onto her desk and resting her clasped, multiringed fingers on top of it. Four of her rings were the same as always, but I noticed she’d traded the thick silver one on her right index finger for three thin gold bands, stacked one on top of the other.
    Once the chatter ceased, her syrupy voice filled the room, a thick drawl that suggested southern roots. “All right, y’all. Before we move on to roll call, we have a new student to introduce. Hunter, please stand and say a few words about yourself.”
    Hunter scuffed his Vans against the floor. His hunched posture said giving an impromptu monologue was about the last thing he wanted to do. I could relate. I’d had todeliver my own less than a month ago in this very room. Back when everything had been too new and weird and overwhelming.
    Come to think of it, things really hadn’t changed all that much.
    Hunter swiped at a strand of hair that covered one of his eyes, the wavy fall of his bangs making him bear a passing resemblance to the neighbor’s dog, a shaggy briard that kept their horses company in the front yard.
    I’d always thought the briard was cute, too.
    He stuffed his hands into tight pockets and rose to his full height, his gaze skimming past everyone without really sticking. I flashed him a sympathetic smile as it slid over me.
    “Yeah. Hey. I’m Hunter Lowe from San Diego,” he said.
    After one more ineffectual swipe at the dark waves grazing his eyelashes, he slumped back into his chair.
    “Is that all?” Even Mrs. Stegmeyer seemed surprised at the brevity of his speech.
    He shrugged, a loose-limbed, eloquent gesture that almost made words unnecessary.
    Kaylee leaned toward me. “It’s okay—no one expects him to be a genius when he looks like that,” she whispered.
    I remembered back to my introduction—I hadn’t said much either. Was that the assumption then, too? That I was lacking in brain cells?
    I could feel my smile wilt around the edges when Iglanced back over at Hunter. Not that he could tell. He was staring out the window, a view with which I’d become intimately acquainted over the past month. I let my line of sight follow his, wondered if he was doing what I did. If he stared beyond the football field, beyond the slow country street behind it, and wished himself back into another place and time.
    Every so often during homeroom, I’d sneak a peek at Hunter. And each time, his head was turned toward that window.
    When the bell rang, Kaylee jumped out her seat like the sound had triggered an electric shock. Her eyes were glued to the spot under the