Scholarly Work - Chapter 1

1

         Rhys mounted each step with a patient diligence.  He kept his hips aligned and his eyes cast downwards.  The silent surprise of the other boys, their eyes on his face, prompted a closed smile to flicker across his lips.
         To the boys of Longethorne Academy, he was a ghost.  His white blonde hair, spilling past his shoulders, hid his features like a shroud.  His cream sweater was the same shade as his skin. 
                And they had all thought Rhys was dead.
         The older boys had seen the photographs; they'd been run in the school paper, the local paper.  There had been complaints about the graphic images.  Mothers clucking about emotional responsibility, fathers canceling tuition checks.  In rasterized black-and-white, there had been thousands of Rhyses pinned and dangling, seemingly halved by twisted car steel.  "Local Boy In Critical Condition," headlines recounted, "Reckless Driving, Winter Weather: A Deadly Combination."
         No one, though, had been to his funeral.  At least no one who spoke of it.
         No one had been told what happened after they tore him away from the metal splinters that held his two halves together.
         Now he was there, walking slowly upstairs to the senior dorms, and they were careful not to touch him, or to speak.  He might have vanished, then; he might have shaken their hands with a bloodless grip.
         Upstairs, Wolfbite was sitting on his bed, unpacked and ready for the start of term.  He admired his own reflection in the full length mirror and flipped his dark hair out of his face.  He faced away from the door, and waited for it to open.  A new roommate would appear reflected in the mirror, and maybe call him by his real name and ask what nights he might bring his girlfriend over and unpack in a silence that was awkward and terrible. It would be a silence that Wolfbite would be reluctant to end for weeks.
         He had roomed with Rhys since they had first enrolled.  He was unused to waiting for a stranger.
         When the doorknob rattled, he ran a hand over the lapel of his navy jacket, and once again tossed his hair.  He applied his smile.  In the mirror, though, a familiar smudge of white appeared behind his own dark reflection.  His eyes fixed on the reflected gray gaze that looked at his back, the straight, cold line of a mouth that did not twitch into a smile as he might have hoped it would if he had gotten to hoping that Rhys would appear.
         "Wolfbite?" Rhys said to his roommate's back.  He would not look at his face in the mirror.
         Wolfbite slid off the bed, always keeping his eyes on Rhys' reflection.  He pivoted slowly, as if he was afraid to leave the image behind.  But when he turned around, Rhys was still there.  The same straight nose and straight back and straight blonde hair.  Perhaps he was thinner beneath his sweater, and his hair was certainly longer and ragged at the ends, but all in all, very much the same Rhys.  The boy who he knew had not died, but had not chosen to come back to his life, either.
         Wolfbite had called, and called until Rhys' mother had told him shortly that he should have realized that Rhys wouldn't come to the phone.  Even though Wolfbite had seen Rhys wake, gasp and tighten with pain, spit blood and drop into sleep again, silence had taken him away months ago.  Perhaps, Wolfbite thought, Rhys had died.  Perhaps he had not gotten out of bed.  In any case, Wolfbite had not felt compelled to quiet the rumors of Rhys' death.  He had snarled at the mention of his name and strewn his own belongings across Rhys’ empty bed.
         And he greeted Rhys "You never returned my calls."  His voice was small, coming from a dry spot in his throat.  Wolfbite was a tall boy with broad shoulders and a trim body; he did not speak with rasps or silences.
         Rhys' lip curled.  His eyes narrowed and he took a step into the room.
         "How are you?" Wolfbite murmured.
         "Okay."  Rhys' voice was quiet and solid.  "Sorry."  He took another step towards Wolfbite.  His walk was very careful.  Wolfbite thought, perhaps painful.  Rhys moved to hide the swivel that had set into his walk.
         Wolfbite nodded.  He swallowed.
         Rhys closed the door and they both exhaled.  "Wolfbite, please," Rhys began.  He had never spoken much.
         Wolfbite finally took a step towards him.  His hands fluttered to Rhys' hips.  He bit his pale lip, and Wolfbite noted that one of his hands rested higher then the other.  His fingertips skated gingerly over the bones, looking for inconsistencies, like the cracks might be there, still, on the surface.
         "I'm glad you're back."  Wolfbite meant it, though having a miracle in his room was unnerving.  Only Rhys' perfect calm, the placidity and symmetry of his thin face, kept Wolfbite from shouting, from gaping.  If he was a ghost, he was a very familiar one, and solid enough.
         "Are you afraid of it?" Rhys asked.
         Wolfbite was not afraid of "it."  He could accept the twisted waist, and the scars it implied.  That, at least, was concrete.  What he felt beneath his hands was real to him.  So he embraced Rhys, who whispered "Thank you," with Wolfbite's hair sticking to his lips and his hands clinging to his shoulders. 
         Rhys had to vanish then, or become, once more, Wolfbite's roommate.