Runs in the Blood (Ch. 1)

Middle schoolers are jerks.

I guess we're all jerks, but middle school is the holding pen for people during that awkward time when it's not cutesy anymore, but we haven't figured out how to hide it yet. So it should be no surprise that my story starts in that cliché place where middle schoolers are their coldest and cruelest. The lunchroom.

It was my first day at a new school. The move had been far harder on my little sister than it was on me because she actually had friends that she had to say goodbye to. I'd never been very good at making friends. People don't like it when you say to their faces what everyone else is saying behind their backs. So while she said goodbye to her clique of teary-eyed giggles wrapped in straightened hair and short shorts, I said goodbye to my favorite tree in the backyard. I knew there'd be trees in South Dakota- where we were moving- but I felt like none of them would quite have the character of my favorite tree. The way the trunk curved where it first split always reminded me of a mother balancing a baby on her hip. I know it's cheesy, but I'd always loved climbing up and taking the place of the tree's baby.

As I entered the lunchroom of my new school, I was thinking about how no one ever asks what a person's favorite tree looks like when they first get to know them. No one ever asks about anything interesting at all. I'd been asked questions all morning long, and they'd only ever asked what my name was and maybe where I was from. I got the feeling that no one even cared what my name was. I was sick of the same meaningless questions and empty conversations. I hurried to grab an empty table to sulk alone at. But there weren't enough tables to let me mourn my favorite tree in peace.

When he approached the table, I glared at him. He was tall and his shoulders slumped to apologize for it. He was in desperate need of a hair cut. His grey eyes peaked out from their hiding places behind his bangs. I recognized him from my math class, where I was pretty sure he hadn't said a single word.

“Can I sit here?” he asked, his voice barely audible over the incomprehensible noise shifting around us. The only thing middle schoolers are better at than being jerks is being loud.

“Fine.” I put my headphones on to make it clear that I wasn't interested in anything he had to say.

He sat down and opened his lunch bag. He took out a peanut butter sandwich and a thin book. Of Mice and Men. The color on the cover had scruffed off at several places on the spine, revealing that beloved pale tan papery color. The corners curled up on themselves like wrinkles on jawbones. He ate and read. I sulked and stabbed at my watery broccoli-and-cheese. Cue villainous bully, stage left.

Justin Jopp was efficient and effective. He pushed Arthur's shoulder and carried on his way. It would've looked like an accident to any teachers watching, but the bump made Arthur spill his milk, which sopped across the table and seeped into his paper bag. I grabbed my napkins and started wiping up the milk, trying to stop it from reaching my things. Math was bad enough without a textbook that smelled like old milk.

“Thanks,” he said. He paused, unsure but feeling required by some sort of social etiquette to speak. “Maude, right?”

“Yeah.” I answered as curtly as possible. I didn't give a darn about social etiquette. He left and came back with more napkins.

“Maybe you shouldn't sit here tomorrow.”

I tensed. “Why not? It's as good as any other table.” I didn't like being told what to do. A table was the type of silly thing I'd been willing to go to war over in middle school. Besides, what right did he have to reject me from the table- the kid rejected by every single other kid in our grade?

“Because I'm- You're not going to make friends if you sit here.”

I shrugged, trying to hide my relief. “I'm not very good at making friends anyways.”

He smirked. “Me neither. Obviously.”

I looked to where Justin Jopp had sat down. He had this smug look on his face that twisted my heart into thorns. “You know, if anyone ever messed with me like that, or my sister, I'd punch them.”

“What? I can't do that!”

“Why not? You're tall enough. I'm too short to take him. You're a bit wimpy, but-”

Arthur drew back, shutting down. Any glimpse of comaraderie between us had evaporated. It was like I'd suggested he kill his own mother.“No. You don't understand. I can't.”

“Fine.” I was confused by his forceful reaction. Confusion annoyed me. “Don't solve your problems. Just don't come crying to me when your milk gets spilled. Again.”

I picked up his book to save it from the expanding milk puddle. Honestly, I had more respect for books than people. “What's this about anyways?”

He answered reluctantly. “A guy who does something he doesn't mean to do. But it wasn't his fault.”

“How is it not his fault if he did it?”

Arthur grabbed the book from me, like my suspision might infect the characters inside. “Because it isn't, okay? He didn't mean to!”

“My, you're a grumpy person.”

He didn't reply. Instead, he went to throw away the saturated napkins and grab some more. The bell rang before he got back. I left him to clean up his own mess.